Quote for the Day

"Being a parent is not transactional. We do not get what we give. It is the ultimate pay-it-forward endeavor: We are good parents not so they will be loving enough to stay with us but so they will be strong enough to leave us."  Anna Quindlen

Mr. Carson

Last week was a tough one for me.  I had to put my corgi, Carson, down.  He has been slowing down this past year, but suddenly started getting weaker last weekend and then just stopped eating on Sunday.  I knew where it was going, so finally steeled myself to take him to the vet on Tuesday and found out he probably had cancer.  He had lost 7 pounds, which is a lot.  He was so furry you didn't really see how much he had thinned out.  Anyway, the vet said it was time for him to go visit the other dogs at the Rainbow Bridge.  He was such a crazy, neurotic little dog.  He came to us very abused and never totally got over the abuse, but he was a loving little dog that just wanted to be with you.  He lived with us for 11 years.  Rest in peace, Mr. Carson.

~Jane

Gimpy Knees

I finally made a visit to my doctor last week.  I have been limping around with really painful knees for months (years) now.  I wanted to know exactly what was wrong with them and what my options were.  Turns out I have moderately severe arthritis in both knees and I'm bone-on-bone in both knees.  No wonder it hurts so much!

The doctor gave me some prescription meds that he thinks will help with the inflammation, some exercises to do to strengthen my quads and hamstrings so that when I do get a knee replacement, my recovery will be quicker, and some stretches to help with the tightness in my calves.  Apparently though they don't do knee replacements until you are 60, so I have a few years to wait.  He has a plan to get me through till then.  I guess we'll see.

Meanwhile, I have been really watching what I'm eating to see if I can lower my blood sugar further.  I've been doing pretty well, but you can always do better.  Losing a few pounds would help both issues.  It's hard to do either of these, lower your blood sugar and lose weight, when you can't really exercise, and yet exercise is what you really need.  A sad situation.

Hopefully in about a month I'll be able to report that everything is working well and I can move around a little easier.

~Jane

Can You Say A Little Crazy?

 Finally, the Legislature is done for the year! Yeah. Now life can get back on an even keel. I have been working on three knitting projects. One for me, one for my little guy, and one for the new baby. It's fun rotating between them. Basically, I'm doing a section on one, and then moving to the next one. I finished a skein of yarn on the sweater for me, so I moved to the sweater for the new baby. I picked up stitches for the sleeve. Then I couldn't figure out if I had the right needles at work, so moved back to my sweater since it's just mindless knitting. The seed stitch band at the bottom keeps folding up, hopefully blocking will take care of that.

I wanted to make myself a sweater.  I've attempted to do this at least twice and never succeeded.  I wanted it to have some cables, but not be too complicated.  This sweater will have cables up the fronts and down the sleeves, but the back is  plain.  I hope it turns out!  I love the hollyberry color.

 

 This is a sweater for the new baby.  It's supposed to be a six months size, but I'm not sure.  It looks a little big, but I guess he can grow into it.  I love the peapods all around the front edge.

The brown sweater is for Malachi to replace the teal one that shrunk.  It isn't turning out quite as nice as the first sweater, but he won't mind.  :)  He'll just like the fact that Grandma made it for him.

Last is a picture of the diapers I'm sewing.  I've finished four new large ones and have these five left to finish.  Then I'm cutting out seven more from plain white.  That will give them 18 larges.  Hopefully that will be enough.



~Jane



End of March Summary

March has been a busy month, first with work, and now with family events. We had the little guy's cowboy birthday, so I was busy making pennant banners for it and then a stick horse. Every cowboy has to have a horse.  The little guy and I made cookies for favors to send home with people, cutouts in the shape of boots and hats and some cowboy cookies with everything in them.

 

Grandma thought her little cowboy was really cute, especially in his hat, boots, and western shirt.  The little guy ended up spending a couple nights before the party with me because he had a cold and there was out-of-town company visiting his family.  There was a lot of running around and the little guy needed his sleep, so he came to Grandma's. 

I commented to my daughter about how many disposable diapers she was using, since normally she uses cloth diapers.  I was informed that the little guy has outgrown his medium diapers.  I guess Grandma needs to get busy sewing the larges.  Now I see why I had so much diaper supplies left over.  I forgot I had bought ahead for the next size and then didn't sew them.  This week has been a riot of sewing monkey and owl print diapers.  Next week I'll work on the plain white ones.  It is amazing how much money you can save with the cloth diapers. 

My other sewing project for the month was a pair of pajama bottoms for my husband.  My mom gave me tons of guy print flannel some years back and I'm trying to use it up.  The pea pod sweater is progressing for the new baby and I ordered yarn for a sweater for myself.  I've never knit a sweater for myself before.  I've attempted a couple but never finished, but I am determined this time to do it.  That's it for March!

~Jane

Spring!

Regular Session is over, but unfortunately we went right into Special Session, since they can't decide on a budget.  Mainly the way Special Session affects me is that we aren't allowed to take time off, so that kind of limits life right now.  On a positive note though, I've finished one of the two strings of bandana pennants I'm making for the Little Guy's birthday and the pennants just need to be added to the hanging tape at the top on the second string.  Bias tape from my mother's stash is coming in handy here.  I used two navy and two red packages.  :)

It suddenly hit me last week that soon I'll have two little guys to knit for.  I immediately cast on a sweater for the new baby.  I fell in love with this little Sweet Pea Cardigan from 60 Quick Baby Knits.  I'm knitting it in Peapod Green Comfy Worsted cotton from Knitpicks.  I'm making the hem and edges without the picots since I want it to look a little more boyish and leaving off the ribbon trim and squiggles on the hood.  It is working up really cute.  I absolutely love the peapods knit into the design. 


 I have very poor circulation in my feet and I've been trying to keep my feet nice and warm.  This is the first winter I've noticed cold really hurting my feet.  At night, I have a rice bag that I warm up and tuck into the foot of the bed, but it doesn't seem to hold the heat for very long.  I read a book by Rachael Herron that talked about "hotties."  Basically hot water bottles with a cover.  I got rather inspired.  I started looking for hot water bottles to buy and couldn't really find any around town.  Looking online, I found lots of negative comments about the most available ones that are made in China.  Not really wanting one of these with their questionable materials and odors, I finally located some sold by the Vermont Country Store that are made in Germany with brass fittings in the neck to prevent leaks.  I've ordered two.  I've also knit a hot water bottle cover from some stash - Rachael's ISBN Cabled Hot Water Bottle Cozy by Yarnagogo, and I bought some Cascade 220 to knit one more.

Since I also have the Little Guy's second hoodie sweater on the needles, to replace the one that shrunk, I have lots of projects to work on.  The pictures here are from Ravelry.  I'll post pictures of my finished projects when I get them done.

~Jane

Facebook Game Fast and Spencerian Penmanship

I made it through the end of February without playing any Facebook games.  I'm not sure, but I think it contributed to the stress I was feeling, no stress-busting outlet!  :)  But I did read a lot of books and spent a lot less time on the computer.  I came back to the games just to find out that Facebook now has Angry Birds!  :)  I am now locked in a competition with a co-worker to see who can beat the other.  Oh, well.  It was good while it lasted, I've weaned myself off of a lot of the games and I doubt I'll play as often.  I have lots of projects to work on. 

When we were homeschooling....one of the things we attempted for a while was Spencerian Handwriting.  One of my co-workers commented on my nice handwriting the other day and I thought that perhaps that could be one of my interim projects.  After session, our days are not as busy and there is time once in a while to read or knit at my desk.  I'm thinking practicing my penmanship would be a fun thing to do.  I dug through the bookshelves tonight to locate the instruction books.  I'm not going to use pen and ink, but it's the shape of the letters I love, so I'm going to practice and see what I can incorporate into my regular handwriting.  I've always loved penmanship.  When I was little my mother bought me more than one copy of handwriting practice workbooks, the ones you could get at the dime store.  I would spend hours writing paragraphs to get my handwriting just so. 

In seventh grade, penmanship practice was part of our English curriculum.  Nowadays I doubt anyone cares with texting and computers.

So, I'll let you know how things go.  I think it will be fun.  I may have to buy a new fountain pen.

~Jane