Yarn Along

Joining Small Thing's Yarn Along again this week!

I forced myself to attempt to be social with the moms in my mom's group outside of playdates this past week.  That's really not a normal thing for me... I HATE leaving my little guy at home.. even when I know he's just having fun playing with daddy and barely missing me!  Anyway, I chose to go to a crafting and coupon swap.  I got a LOT of work done on one of my projects... mostly because I was so anxious I barely spoke and just concentrated on what I was doing and speaking when spoken to.  I finished the body of the large gnome I started last week.  

The giant gnome came out "ok".. I think I like the smaller ones better.  He still needs arms and unfortunately I need longer needles to manage the hat..  A mom at the craft night said she has some circular needles that were willed to her that she was planning on donating since she already has too many.  She said she would bring to the next craft night for me.  I was so surprised by her generosity and am very thankful to her.  I wonder if she knows she's fueling my knitting addiction :-)  It will be so nice to be able to finish projects that I don't have the right size/length needle for!  My mom also mentioned my aunt sent her old straight needles that she used to make socks for her late husband with that she no longer needs...  At this rate I'm going to have more needles than yarn!  

I had another nice surprise when I went to organize my remaining yarn.  I was pleasantly surprised by 2 (and a partial) skeins of cotton yarn. I'm down to about 1 and a half at this point.  I love cotton yarn!!!  I started knitting up some more child wash cloths for my etsy shop (no, I haven't listed anything yet.. hoping to by the end of next week!)  The first two came out quite well.. I don't remember liking this yarn as much when I made things for Knit for Japan but I really like the way it came out this time.  I love aqua and green/blues. 

I don't even know where my book got to... Between the craft night, company, mall walking with a new friend and a couple of "THOSE" days with my little guy and our one dog having (spiteful) "accidents".. I've barely had a chance to keep on top of my laundry (it didn't help with Pip relieving himself on a big stack of clean laundry.)  Yet somehow I find time to knit...... hmm..  My priorities are a little backwards sometimes. 

For those of you following my weight updates...  I'm about equal with last week.. maybe a pound down but since weight fluctuates so much during one day.. I don't really consider that a loss.  I went on my first mall walk with a friend today (and we're planning on going a few times a week) to get in some exercise with free AC and I have started swimming a few days a week.  Diet is still about the same.. though I'm pretty sure I went a little over my goal a few different days.  Why do cashews have to be so addictive (and high in calorie)???!  I also made vegetarian taco salad ... darn cheese and sour cream!  Since we nearly always eat vegan I know it's just a once-in-a-while meal but it's still guilt inducing (and delicious!)

Feeling Stressed Out

I feel like my mind is in a permanent state of panic and anxiety.  Panic over money, panic over the future, panic over the stability of our family, panic over the thoughts of going back to work and saying goodbye to the days of being at home with my son....  Panic panic panic.

Eventually the panic gives way to full on shut down of my brain.  Someone... please lead me to my bed.  I would like to just crawl in and hibernate for a few years until our problems are all solved or we are living on the street.  Ok, so we'd never really wind up on the street... but sometimes the thought of having to ask to live with one of our parents sounds worse than sleeping on a park bench somewhere. 

I've spent a ton of time in the past few weeks reading job requirements (yes, there is actually work here) and coming to the same depressing reality that I'm not qualified for them or they pay so little I wouldn't be able to afford an accredited daycare/preschool.  The night jobs are all heavy lifting jobs meant for big strapping young men and aren't near by (nor are they in a terrific area to work late at night.)  I finally found a work at home job that had great reviews and was very flexible and had a great pay scale.  Great, right?  Why yes, yes it is... for all the people who applied and were hired.  I found a post by a woman in my mom's group with a few links to openings, but by the time I clicked the links the positions were filled! 

People keep suggesting nannying or an in-home daycare...  I tried that once.. and maybe it was the extenuating circumstances in my life... or maybe I just wasn't the best match for the little one I was working with... but it was a disaster.  Lets not even bother to mention I was only charging $7 or $9 an hour... and what was supposed to be in my home turned into me dealing with rush hour traffic first thing in the morning and took close to an hour to get to for only a couple hours of pay.  The few people I know that I would gladly baby-sit for when they need it... I wouldn't want to take money from.  I have a horrible time taking money from anyone even when I earn it. 

I keep coming back to my etsy shop and keep making attempts to make things for it.  I have a stack of beaded bracelets, several pairs of earnings and some baby wash cloths ready to list... I don't know what it is but I'm having trouble getting myself to list them.  I don't know if it's fear of failure... fear that I don't realize how much my products suck (I really do try to have high standards for what I make) and people are going to be disappointed... who the heck knows.

If my shop fails (or in addition to it if we need additional income as I know sales can be slow) I'll probably wind up posting my info on my mom's group for people who need some house work done and who are willing to deal with a crazy and constantly changing schedule (due to hubby's schedule) and occasional flakeyness when we will all undoubtedly get sick. 

Yarn Along

Joining Small Thing's Yarn Along again this week!

Sorry for the sideway photos... I took them right off my camera unable to change them.  I'm knitting gnomes this week.  So much for not knitting so much.. this heat is killing me!  Plus, they knit up so quickly!  I found the pattern from another yarn along-er's blog Plain and Joyful Living, here is a  link for anyone who is interested.  I've never really been able to follow a pattern so the fact that mine came together ok was a real motivator for me to keep playing with the pattern.  I made a plain "doll" form by changing some of the stitches, making some increases and decreases here and there.  In the second picture that's the beginning of a giant gnome.  I'm not positive what I'm going to do with them all yet... Alex has already claimed the lavender and small green one as his but I think the big gnome may be a big sister gift for a friend who is having a baby and maybe two little ones for the younger "big" siblings. 

Still reading the same book as last week.  I actually really enjoy it because it's more like a book of short stories.  It was actually written from Carl Sagan's writings after he passed away so some of the chapters seem like they're just short copies of his musings on different subjects.  My husband thinks I will especially enjoy the chapter written by his wife.

For those of you who read my post last week and are interested in a weight update, I am DOWN from last week.  Wiifit makes it difficult to tell exactly how much since it goes up and down (or maybe that's just me and not understanding completely how it works.) but I think I'm down somewhere between 6-8 lbs.  It's progress :-)

Yarn Along

Joining Small Thing's Yarn Along again this week.

First off I'd like to apologize yet again for my terrible pictures... I really need to convince one of the cameras in our home that it likes to take close up pictures in doors with terrible lighting......

*gasp!*  Could it be?!  A book?!?!  Why yes, yes it is.  I recently picked out the book Billions & Billions  Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium by Carl Sagan from my husband's "library".  The fact that it was sitting  next to The Faynman Lectures on Physics that my husband reads just for fun made me assume that it would be way over my head.  However, so far it is not... there's even a little cartoon drawing on page 8 to breakdown the idea of  having to count to three hundred seventy eight billion and two.... I've enjoyed what I've read but I'm reading it very slowly... Every time I'm interrupted (which is quite often) I go back and read what I had just finished reading so that I'm not losing any of what is said.

 I've done about as much knitting and crocheting this week as I normally would have done in a "normal" day.  I finished a washcloth that was more than half way done and casted on the one in the first picture.  I'm trying to concentrate my me time to things that are physically more important than my sanity (which is what my crafting maintains.)  Anyone that knows BMIs and can see what those numbers are knows that I'm in trouble.  I live on a relatively strict diet and try to consume no more than 1.500 calories in a given day.  The max number given to me by my diabetic health nurse when I took a course on diabetes nutrition was 1,650 calories per day.  I try (and fail horribly) not to beat myself up over numbers (pounds) when it comes to my weight and I try to focus on my blood sugar and how I physically feel when it comes to my energy.  If I maintain good energy and a healthy blood sugar level I have the ability to loose additional weight.  If I loose 20 lbs and still feel like garbage I'm going to spend a lot of time sitting around doing nothing and slowly the weight will just come back.  It's hard though to not get excited when I see -2.4 pounds... My mind automatically goes to hey if I lose 5 lbs a month I can loose over 50 lbs in a year and be skinny in 2 years!  Then I gain a pound, cry (even though I know weight fluctuates more than that in a day) and spend the day mopeing around.... and no, that's not me being sarcastic that 1 lousy pound destroys my self esteem... I had a melt down over 1 pound just last week.

That all being said I may not be getting very much knitting done for the rest of the summer..  I don't handle heat well due to some health issues I have and with 100+ degree weather I'm staying inside where it's hard to find quiet exercises that wont bother my downstairs neighbors.   I've been pulling some very late nights (or does 5 AM make it a painfully early morning??) when it's semi-cool in here, trying to be active (our home has never been cleaner.)  I am so looking forward to fall when it cools down and I can go walking outside.  We live feet from a lake and two parks and a mile from a very nice library.  It kills me that I can't deal with the heat long enough to take my son all of those places.  I went to take the dogs out around 1PM the other day and felt like my entire body hit a wall half way down the 3 flights of stairs... it was so hot I felt like I was going to pass out.  In normal weather I can take those stairs full speed up and down with out losing my breath..... Oh how I wish we had moved north instead of south!

Yarn Along

Joining in on Small Thing's Yarn Along again this week.

Since last week the never ending blanket has received a few more rows and I'm now ready to move onto the next stripe of color.  I know I would loose count after about 2 minutes if I ever tried, but I'd like to know how many stitches are in each row.  I get so sick of seeing the same color over and over again that I'm always relieved to go to the next stripe color.  I realized on about the last row of this past stripe that I must have some how purchased the wrong yarn and did nearly an entire stripe with the wrong yarn!  Considering that stripe took me about 3 months to get through with all the other things I had going.... it's going to stay incorrect.  This blanket was the first crocheted thing I ever started so I know the beginning is all wonky anyway.  It's a blanket... that has already started showing the signs of being in a house full of dogs and a little boy (how did finger paint make it to the carpet and the blanket????).  My husband warns me that he plans to sit wrapped in it while he studies and eats and he plans to make a horrible mess of it... so I'm not stressing how perfect it is and trying not to think about how much yarn (money) and time have gone into this darn thing.  Some days I'm ready to fasten it off and give it to my husband to start abusing.  He says he'd happily wrap it around himself like a mummy (it's current shape and size would be similar to a giant scarf.)

I knitted up a few trial baby wash cloths in attempts of making a "perfect" one so that I could make a set of matching baby wash cloths and create a little bath set for a gift.  So many "friends" are currently expecting and I would like to have something to give them.  So far out of the 3 I've made they're all different.. I keep buggering up the edges.  I'll accidentally do too many knit row on one edge and too few on the next.  I fear I'll never get out of the basic stockinette or knit projects... no fancy edges... just lucky if I manage to get the edges even.  I'm somewhat jealous of other people's posts about "nap time knitting" or knitting after their child goes to bed.  On the other hand I kind of like that he's always awake and here with me.  If he was sleeping a lot, I'd be alone with my thoughts more. My little guy sleeps very little (no naps and we're lucky for him to sleep 8 hours through the night) so all of my knitting is with him racing around and sometimes physically pulling my work out of my hands so he can climb into my lap (or onto my head.. which ever he's feeling like doing.)  I've been pulling some very late nights to get ontop of my house work and some other crafting projects other than knitting... some days I feel like I can barely see straight... no surprise that my knitting isn't perfect.  The adults in this home are extremely stressed... extremely.  I wont bore you with the details

Spot bot and potty in the background... Thankfully the spot bot is only out because of a dog getting sick.. Alex hasn't had an accident in quite a while!!

No major reading again this week unless you count the hours of children's books reading and pulling out my anatomy books to help my husband with something for one of his classes.  It's rare that I'm able to help him with something.  For the most part, I've been too concentrated on what I've been doing around the apartment to do any real reading.  I did happen to watch a documentary during some of my alone time that I HIGHLY recommend.  It's called My Flesh and Blood (it's on netflix) and it follows single mom who raises 9 (?) special needs children that she has adopted for a year.  It's a tear jerker for sure.  I've always wanted to adopt and have considered adopting a special needs child, so to me it was very interesting. It is extremely sad... but worth watching in my opinion.  I got so into it that I barely got any knitting done. It reminded me of the six years I spent working in an alternative school program.. not necessarily in a good way, but it's always nice (in a way) to be reminded of how good I have it and how lucky I am.