So Much For That

Soooooo, I remember saying that I would try to blog more often. And then I disappeared, apparently. Truth is, I got the flu or something that knocked me out for about a week (while Mr. T was out of town, so I was still doing all the mom stuff on my own). I've been playing catch up, and now I can sit down and fill you all in.

In the midst of my ick, I did manage to work in my Moses Not-So-Hoodie. In fact, I just now bound off the last stitch. Here it is, in pieces, because I didn't want to wait any longer to blog:


Now I have to do all the seaming, the neck treatment, and the little button loops, and this is all the yarn I have left:


I think I will rip out my swatch and use that yarn for seaming and try to use this yarn for the neckband/button loops. The sweater, the swatches, and the little yarn ball total three skeins of Wollmeise. I have another skein of this yarn, but I have a sock pattern I want to use it for, so I'm hoping to squeak this sweater out without breaking into it. Wish me luck.

Even though I swatched, washed, measured, calculated and recalculated, I'm still worried about whether this sweater will fit properly. The sleeves look long, among other things, but I find that a lot of sweater patterns lately are a bit long, sleeve-wise.

To take a break from knitting a sweater on size 2 US needles, I'm going to knit a pair of socks on size 1.5 (I think). For these socks, the Dark Isle socks, I'm going to use black and Dornroschen, a pink/red mix:


I originally planned to use this combination, but then I thought I'd use the black with a blue yarn. After spending all this time knitting a blue sweater, however, I'd like to look at another color for a while.

I will also be working on the second Aestlight shawl, done in Sanguine Gryphon's Eidos yarn. I started this one back in August while we were on vacation, but I've been working almost exclusively on the Moses sweater since then.

Now that the weather is getting brisker (yay!), I want another sweater, too. I have two options for a nice warm sweater that I need to think about for a little while. Once is a beautiful dark green/blue merino/cashmere yarn from Squoosh:


(not a good photo, color-wise) Option two is some big, fluffy Eco-wool type stuff that I got at Fibre Space. Time will tell.

In news from the rest of my world, both boys are settling into their respective grades fairly well, as far as I can tell. Reports from Mrs. Meanie are that Jr. Jr. "wants to answer every question I ask and sometimes gets frustrated when I don't call on him. I love his enthusiasm."

Jr. Jr. is playing soccer this Fall, after years of refusing to play. I think he could be a pretty good soccer player. He's quick on his feet and pretty nimble, but he hasn't had the years of play that other kids have had. Nonetheless, he seems to be doing pretty well. His team, apparently, stinks. They've had one game, they were blown out, but Jr. Jr. was the only one who almost scored. Too bad almost doesn't count :)



Sr. Jr. is doing the Saturday afternoon tennis round robin, and he's still bike racing, of course. On Sunday, he took second place in the 10-14 race at the Ed Sanders Memorial Cyclocross race. (For fun: if you Google "Ed Sanders Cyclocross" you can see video of some of the races, including helmet cam video. I believe Mr. T is in some of those.)



Jr. Jr. did the Little Belgians race at Ed Sanders this weekend, but apparently was hobbled by an inferior bike, a circumstance that I'm sure Mr. T is already plotting to rectify.

And so, barring anymore unforeseen illnesses or calamities, I do plan to blog more often...

I'm Alive. Really

I'm here. I'm alive. I need to get back into the routine of posting here or I'll never get back into it.

The end of the summer was nice, with golf camp and hanging out. Jr. Jr. got the teacher with the worst reputation in the school in terms of homework and hard-assedness, so we'll see how that goes. So far, so good. She's very nice in person, but he likes to talk a lot, so I hope he doesn't spend a lot of time getting yelled at. This is kind of a funny picture of him, looking apprehensive as he waits for the bus on the first day of school:


Sr. Jr. seems to be doing fine, too. Seventh grade is old news. He's used to the whole middle school scene now. He will be trying out for the tennis team tomorrow afternoon, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for him. He'll also be playing in the local Fall tennis league here in Arlington. Jr. Jr. will have soccer three days a week, too, so it'll be a task to coordinate.

I've been rapt, watching the matches at the US Open. Great tennis this year, and great stories -- Kim Clijsters? Love it! Since we saw Del Potro play here in Washington over the summer, we feel a personal connection with the finals this year.

I just finished a wonderful book, A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore. She is one of my favorite writers, someone who can layer theme upon theme, meaning upon meaning, and make silly yet deep puns while doing it. The book has a big gut-punch in it, too, which I won't discuss in case Sharon hasn't gotten there yet.

But one of the parts that really stuck with me (and I'm not discussing much of the plot here) was when Tassie discovered that her boyfriend was not at all who she thought he was. She said to him something to the effect of "All of your rage and all of your anger... the world is so much smaller than you think it is, and so much bigger than you think it is." That's so very true, no matter what the source of your anger or sadness or worry, isn't it? I won't get all philosophical on you, since Sr. Jr. is on his way home.

Now that school has started again, I'm trying to get back into the exercise routine and the knitting routine. Doing one, however, means doing less of the other. But I'm happy to get my butt moving again.

This morning Mr. T consented to stay home and get the kids ready for school so I could get out early. I left the house at about 6:45 and enjoyed a nice, long and hilly walk. About a mile from home I saw two foxes frolicking with each other, just playing and tumbling along. Very cute. At the end of the walk, coming up to cross Lee Highway (a very busy main street), I saw a guy riding a unicyle up the street in the middle of rush hour traffic. Never dull.

The knitting is going. I've finished the back and front of my non-hoodie sweater, and have started the sleeve. Here's the front (before it was finished):


And here's the sleeve:


The sad thing is that I actually do have a lot to say, just not enough time to say it in, you know? Maybe when things settle into their routine I'll post more substantive crap.

Summer Slowdown

I know I haven't been blogging as much this summer. There's a lot going on and nothing going on, and I often feel like I have nothing interesting to share. Vacations are good, but there are only so many vacation pictures I can put up! Knitting slows down a lot in summer, too. Once school starts, I bet I'll have more things to post about and more time to post, too.

One part of our vacation that I didn't talk about in the series of vacation posts was our family kayaking trip. We didn't bring our camera along, for fear it would get wet, so it didn't go into the picture-heavy post. We went out with a guide and several other kayaks full of people. Mr. T and Jr. Jr. went in one kayak (therefore, Mr. T did all the paddling), and Sr. Jr. and I were in another. It was a lot of fun, but got even better when a pod of dolphins decided to hang out with us. We saw 3 and sometimes even 5 dolphins. They played with us for about half of our trip. They'd surface near us -- sometimes it felt like they were close enough to touch -- and then swim a little bit away for us to follow. It was really magical :)

Now we are home. I'm watering the new plantings and taking the kids to golf camp. The transplanted veggies are doing pretty well. I planted more broccoli, pea, and lettuce seeds, and they're all popping up quite nicely. The Roma and grape tomatoes and pole beans are producing yummies for salads:


Absolutely delicious. I think we're spoiled for supermarket tomatoes now. When we were on vacation, we got a pack of grape tomatoes from the supermarket and Sr. Jr. complained about how tasteless they were compared to the ones from our garden. Very true.

In knitting, I've finished the back of the Moses non-hoodie sweater and started the front. Knitting on size 2 needles is pretty slow, but I'm cooking along now. I did a lot of the re-designing and tweaking on the fly while I was knitting the back, but now that all the details are worked out, the front should go quickly. When I get a chance to knit, that is:


Here's a close-up of the diamond pattern:


I used all that driving time to work on the Gothsocks. I finished the first and started the second, which now awaits a short-row heel:


Last, and apparently least, I did get a little bit done on the second Aestlight Shawl:


I can't wait for school to start again, so I can do more complicated projects. On the other hand, I have a lot of things that I've been putting off doing over the summer, like dentist's appointments, eye appointments, and so on, so who knows?

Hilton Head, Part 3, with Sharks!

Friday of our trip was Sr. Jr.'s 12th birthday, so his present was a fishing trip with his father and brother (I bowed out of this one). Here's the birthday boy with the bait fish:



Little brother, psyched to go fishing again:




The first catch, a Bonnet head shark:


Jr. Jr. caught one, too.







Dad got in on the shark-catching action, too.



Jr. Jr. caught the big one of the day. It was almost as tall as he is. He as a bit scared of it, apparently.



Everyone had a great time. All sharks were thrown back to live another day.

The drive home was pretty long and painful, with traffic in North Carolina and the usual black hole of driving between Richmond and Fredericksburg. But we were welcomed home with a rainbow :)


Glad to be home, but the usual grind awaits.

Coming soon -- actual knitting and new landscaping! No more white trash yard.

Hilton Head, Part 2

Here we are at the fireworks that are held every Tuesday evening. Straight from the beach, so no makeup, still with the sunscreen, hair up, looking very au naturel:


Golf action shots! Here's Sr. Jr., chipping onto the green:

This is my favorite, a golf-mag worthy action shot of Jr. Jr. hitting out of the sand:

The obligatory wildlife photos:


These are the Baynard ruins, the remains of a plantation that was destroyed during the Civil War. We biked up there and poked around. It was interesting, and strange to think of all that must have happened on that spot over the years:


This is the pool at the house we were staying at:


These are a bunch of pics from our evening walk on the beach when the tide was up waaay high and very wild, perhaps from Hurricane Bill way out in the ocean:










Stay tuned for part 3, which has sharks!

Hilton Head, Part 1

I have a ton of pictures to post from our Hilton Head trip, so I'm going to break this up into several different posts. This one covers the first couple of days of the trip. Not all of the pictures will have captions.

Here's an early golf trip, with Jr. Jr. addressing the ball:




Gator!


This is where our house was, according to the GPS in the car -- you can see how close to the beach we were:




An early morning bike ride on the beach. The sand is very hard-packed, so riding on the beach is easy and fun.


Boogie boards!


Golf can be tiring, apparently.


Always a goofball :)