Trucking On Down The Road

April 28th to May 3rd, I'll be in Iowa visiting family. My big sis is graduating college and her ceremony is in Iowa, so we are making a family event of it.

I'm really excited about seeing my Grandma Bea, cousins, aunts, uncles, my DAD! and of course, my sister, Janne.

I texted her and gave her hell about driving, since she is driving from Texas to Iowa with my Dad.

Janne does not do well driving. She's not the road warrior I am. She fusses like Grandma. Haha! I'm just sticking that out there to lure her. *tosses the bait*

Part of my visiting will include finding out family names 6 generations back. A family friend sent me a 6 generation chart to fill out and I was able to fill out my mom's side back 6 generations. My dads side was not good. I got to Grandma and Grandpa and that was it. Even had to pull out the wedding album to get dates and full names for them.

So, if it is quiet around here, it is because I'm sitting in a outdoor stadium in the middle of Iowa somewhere getting soaked.

Hope your week goes well. If I am able to blog, I will. Otherwise, catch you on the flip side. I love to travel!

His Own Drums

"MOMMY! Today is picture day! I want to wear this."

His good suit. The one he wore at a funeral a year ago and at Christmas time for the 4 minutes it took to take his picture.

Do kids wear three piece suits and ties to school on picture day?

My inner wall flower was screaming at me "He's gonna stand out. People are going to notice. KIDS are going to notice.". It worried me that kids would make fun of him. Kids can be mean. Different is the perfect opportunity for them to be mean.

Odd and quirky are good for me, but this suit represented the possibility of James being seen as different. It took some inner wrangling with myself and I had to remind myself that I had worn yellow pants and a green and purple shirt to school with no lasting effects. James could own this suit just fine.

"All the other kids are going to be wearing these."

"No, buddy, you'll probably be the only one."

"That's okay. Ms. Franz said to look nice and this is nice."

And off I sent him looking spic and span with his hair slicked down and his 3 piece suit. The shoes make the outfit, dontcha think?

Aging

Blah blah blah. Anyway, as I've aged, I've become more opinionated. I know. I know. It is hard to believe. Jeesh. If you know me in real life, then this is a good reason to run for the hills.

I mentioned last week I'm categorizing things, taking stock of things in my life and thinking.

Maybe I didn't mention I've been thinking, but I have. *WHIRL WHIRL WHIRL* goes my head.

I'm at a place where I'm pretty content, but I know something is niggling at me because I find I have very little patience for whining.

Big people whining. I'm such a problem solver that it rarely occurs to me to be befuddled and wallow in a problem. Maybe my lack of patience is a cross contamination from my lack of patience with children whining.

It isn't the people whining that is the problem, the problem lies within me. I'm discontented with something, I'm just not quite sure what. So, I've burrowed down in my wee little hole and I'm gonna find the issue.

In the meantime, I'm aging every day. This is the conversation my son had with me last night.

James: Do you like Sprite, Mommy?
Me: No, I prefer Coke.
James: Why?
Me: I just do.
James: Did you drink Sprite when you were little like me?
Me: No, we didn't have money to buy Sprite.
James: Did you have feathers in your pens?
Me: What?!
James: You were little before they made money, right?

*facepalm*

I told my sister he probably thinks she was little when rocks were square.

Pretty soon he's gonna ask me if I've seen a dinosaur.

So, pretty ladies, exfoliate that face and neck. Stay young at heart because there will always be a little one to keep it real.

Hope your week is going well. Jesse and I are off to Iowa in two days. I packed capris and open toe shoes then checked the forecast and now I'm gonna knit myself a wool capelet.

Edited: Apparently God reads my blog because I read this (The disease called "Perfection"). It reminded me that when I'm feeling snarky and mean that the true problem lies within me. I believe I am as "real" as I am able. Now, I need to temper my need to be real with the peace and grace my late friend Mary Lou taught me.

So Glad Easter Is Over

Dear God, She knows not what she does. It is truly just an innocent gesture. It's her momma that finds this hysterical. Please forgive her.

Have ya seen enough Easter eggs to last a year? Yeah, me too. Know how many ways there are to use boiled eggs? One. Peeled, yellow part removed and white part eaten.

This looks comfortable, child. Your contortions come from your Daddy.

Your faces do, too. Easter was relaxing, good food and clean house. Not much more I could ask for. I even knitted two baby dresses...er, tunics. How do you say tunic? TOON-ICK?

My child. Lord love her cause I sure do.

The Hertz

I gave her an encouraging nod right before the heavy soundproofing door closed with a solid "Thump". Then I sat there watching while two audiologists tested and retested Jesse's hearing.

Mommy intution had been niggling hard at me and watching the test unfold, I knew the answer.

The testing concluded and the audiologist looked at me and said, "Do you understand these hearing charts?" I nodded. She turns the clipboard and gestures to the chart and says, "This gray area is normal hearing. Jesse is down here."

My heart kept beating. Jesse continued to riffle through the sticker box. But the outlook of my childs future altered in a significant way.

My child was partially deaf.

I'm partially deaf.

I'm not sure why but hearing Jesse's prognosis broke my heart.

I called my sister and she said, "Well, it is hereditary.". The swallowed vowels in her words mark her as having hearing loss.

I rarely notice, but today I heard it in Janne's voice the childhood we encountered among children who could hear.

Now, though, we move forward. More testing, a visit to the ENT, possibly speech therapy and the hardest, hearing aids for Jesse.

God has a plan. He gave me a son who speaks LOUD and a daughter who cannot hear. These two...what a pair.

Child in the Garage

I mentioned earlier this week about Child Woodworking. The kids have been out in the garage insisting Daddy cut them shapes to make animals. So far we are up a tiger, whale, kitty, water tank truck, a road and a wind-up man with a top hat.

Today, though, we got a new skill set being learned....Welding.

The title maybe should read Child Welding, but welding with children involves many levels of safety, that I cannot in good conscious say we let James weld by himself.

We didn't. Jon did.

Didn't James do an excellent job on his weld?

Werkin werkin werkin

That's what I've been doing.

I am also taking stock of things in my life. I like categories and I realized this while organizing my closet.

Did you know organizing your closet will bring deep profound thoughts?

Anyway, my closet is organized by clothes type and they apply to the type of people in my life. I'm a lucky girl if a friend, relative or acquaintance crosses between the categories.

The work clothes=the work acquaintances. I'm not sure why after 9 years I'm still calling these people acquaintances, but it may be due to the fact that I've never had one of them in my home.

The casual dressy t-shirts=friends I visit a couple times a year. Love these people to pieces but I couldn't tell you anything about their day to day life. The most I could tell you is that they are good people.

The dressy shirts=friends, relatives and acquaintances. These are the people I attend special events with and we celebrate life happenings together.

The t-shirts=nobody sees these. This is my comfort collection and I wear these every weekend. If you are lucky and are my neighbor you may see me wearing this as I dash out to my car or mailbox.

The dress jackets=strangers. These are worn for job interviews. I've not been on a job interview since 2004. Guess I don't have many strangers in my life. I do tend to find out information about people. I'm nosy.

Then there is a category of friends that have never "seen" me. They don't see anything I wear. They live in my computer. I value them. I value you readers. Thank you for being amazing.

Child Woodworking

Here is what happens when you give two kids free rein in a garage full of tools, wood, and paint. James creation is a tiger. I cannot say how much is does my heart proud that he did this without prompting, help or encouragement. He found random pieces of wood in Jon's scrap wood pile, some glue, Jesse supplied her paints and voila! a tiger was born. I'm gonna let you guess what this is. :) This is Jesse's creation. Girlfriend has an eye for the abstract. Hope your weekend went well. We had an amazingly, relaxing Sunday. Actually, Saturday and Sunday were pretty awesome. I love my kids. They make this parenting gig easy sometimes.

There's A Blog For That

Sometimes I wish I lived in a small town. Wait. I do. Really small town. I just choose not to stick my toe out of my home unless it is Absolutely Necessary. Need milk? Send Jon. Want ice cream? Send Jon. Want to rent the movie, The Tourist, from Redbox? Send Jon.

Jon is my buffer between me and my little village of wonderful, spectacular, magnanimous people.

Case in point. I ran into a fellow whovillien at Goodwill in the neighboring town. Waved at her and got promptly ignored. I swallowed it. "Maybe she didn't see me." #Iwastheonlypersonthere#

Then her man circled around the store and WALKED right BY me. She followed and WALKED RIGHT BY ME. Like within inches. We were face to face and she very carefully kept her eyes averted.

So, I posted it on FB. It made the evening news. But there is a town I visit several times a year and I'm forced to interact with the village people. It is a little/big town in Kentucky. The Clooneys have ties there.

Anyway, yesterday I was there. I got up at 4am, made the 2 hour drive to the job site, worked 5 hours and then went to lunch. Lunch at 12PM may seem normal, but no food since my coffee at 4AM and by noon I was a little bug-eyed, frazzled and spaced.

Perfect condition to stop at Rite Aid and purchase a romance novel. The cashier asked me, "How are you?".

The question sent my mind into a spin. HOW THE HELL AM I?!

While I tried to formulate a cohesive answer, I glanced over his shoulder and saw a display case full of liquor. "I'm in Kentucky." I replied to his question. He looked askance at me and replied very slowly, "Yes, you are." "You have liquor." I replied. "There is liquor in a Rite Aid. Why have I never seen this before?" I said. "I believe there are three states that allow liquor to be sold in the store. West Virginia, Tennessee and here." he said. Then he takes a long look at me. "We have bigger bottles in the back if you need them." he said.

This was the day the village met the village drunk named Sara.

Fishing Poles, Tooth and Dog

When I got to work this morning, my coworker frantically gestured to me. Which was weird and I knew something was up. She seemed upset and I caught sight of the purple dress behind her. See, she bought the two baby dresses yesterday. The pretty matching ones I blogged about a few days ago. Took them home. Set them on the table. The CAT knocked one of them off the table (why couldn't he have knocked the smaller one off?) and the DOG ate the dress. My coworker was seriously upset. I looked at her and said, "I can't fix this."

What I can do is make her two more matching ones. So this afternoon, I mixed up some more dye and going to try this again. I decided I'd make her two more because she wanted matching and I'd frog the eaten one and I sold the smaller one to another coworker. Crisis averted, friends happy and I get to do more of what I love. She is more than happy to cover the cost of the yarn, too.

Jon called me a genius not 30 minutes ago. See, I wander out to the garage. Okay, honestly, I scooped poop in the rabbit room and was carrying the bag out to the trash can. It sounds better if I'm just randomly wandering through my house, doesn't it?

He was holding a piece of PVC pipe and needed to only cut a small section out of one side. He told me as much and said he could't figure out how to do it. I said, "Well, don't use the table saw.". To which his eyes lit up and he said, "You're a GENIUS!". He lowered the blade, so it only cut the bottom part of the PVC pipe.

He is making a contraption to carry the fishing poles on top of the Blazer. He spent an evening a few days ago with his brother, who welded this frame for him. Not quite sure how it is all going to work, but I'll post pics of the jerry-rigging when it happens.

And finally, the tooth. I told ya'll that James lost his tooth and promptly swallowed it. This morning, before I had coffee, mind you, James hollared from the bathroom, "Come see, Mommy! It's right there on the last part that came out!" Aren't you glad I didn't picture blog that for you?

Today Is Better

Sorry for the ranty post yesterday. I try to find the humor in stuff that aggravates me.

For example, a friend was venting because she felt her brother had sided against her with a mutual acquaintance of theirs. She just didn't get why her brother didn't get what she was saying. Instead the brother just raved about how great a guy the acquaintance was/is and "Isn't he just SWELL?!". Now, my friend and I have reached a verdict on swell and he ain't swell. That is when I pointed out to my friend she was the victim of "bros before hos". Her reply? "OH! Well, that explains everything.".

And that my friends is the source of a lot of my aggravation. The "uterus's have no place here" mentality I run into quite frequently.

It is my own fault. I got a degree, took a job at the first place that would hire me and stayed for 7, 8, 9 years. Finally finding my niche in my current position. But, my gosh, the men. Sometimes, they get it. Then I run into steroid heads or meth heads or stupid heads and my blood pressure boils.

And that is all I'm going to say about that.

Last night my friend, Beth, stopped by to drop off my Tupperware order. (I had no clue what I ordered and still don't. It's plastic and stores stuff.) Anyway, I also bought her a replacement piece to the one she left at my house and I never returned.

I was on the toilet when she stopped by. Which is fine, my kids waved at her through the window and came and got me. (YAY! for kids that don't open the door!) So, I scrambled to get my pants up and belt buckled and answered the door.

Beth has an enthusiasm that just hits you in the face when you see her. Her whole face lights up when she smiles. And she was smiling when I answered the door. Then she explains she was in town attending Zumba. As soon as she said "Zumba", I almost said, "OH! I wanna do that!". Then I shook my ears out and realized she said, "ZumBa", not Zuma.

I had flashed to a real life version of my current favorite game of ball shooting frog being played out at my local gym and wanted in on that action.

I need to stop playing that game.

Monday Rant

You know what drives me up a wall? People who say, "I have blank blank blank years experience."

Whooptee effing doo.

It can run the gamut from a job to a hobby, but people who have X amount of years experience seem to think they have the top position on the totem pole.

Experience counts for a lot, I will grant you that boon.

Where it bugs me is people who mark time, gain the X number of years and their experience amounts to maybe one year of my lifetime in experience.

If you don't do the time, get in the trenches, get muddy, cry a little, piss somebody off, then ya ain't doing it right.

Know how many people I piss off? Pretty much at some time or another, I will piss somebody off. I'll hurt their feelings. I'll critique their work.

When it comes to knitting and crochet, I'm pretty stoked about anything and everything. I feel I have unlimited amount of enthusiasm for anything and everything related to fiber arts.

Mainly, I've gotten lots of love for the things I do. But ya'll should've called me on the carpet for this bag. It is ugly.

The Easter Dress

First things first. James lost his first tooth last night. He took a bite out of his club sandwich and POOF it was gone. Down the pipe. We hunted high and low, but the boy had indeed eaten it. No worries. We put the 411 out to the Tooth Fairy and James got a dollar coin for the missing tooth.

Last year I made Jesse an Easter dress. This year, I've done the same.

This is Debbie Bliss Como, a cashmere/wool bulky weight yarn. OH so soft and gorgeous. Surprise! I used the same baby jumper pattern as the last half dozen dresses I've made.

The criss cross straps are ideal for her size because her arms don't bend like a baby's arms. My baby is no longer completely Rubbermaid.

It tickles my heart everytime I take a picture of Jesse and Whiz together. Their hair is the exact same shade.

I'll dress this dress up a bit for Easter, but this is a great dress to pair with jeans and a tank or a frilly top and leggins. Love this little dress!

Another One!

You'd think I'd be tired of these baby dresses by now. I've never in my life done more than 2 projects of the same type. Heck, you'd think I'd stop when all my friends ultrasounds came up boys.

But no! People keep buying these.

This one is another hand dyed by me Knit Picks Swish Bulky Superwash. It is a kettle dye job. Only, the dye struck the yarn hard and fast. Thus resulting in those really dark purple areas. Which if I'd been after a more uniform color, this would have bothered me and I'd dyed more yarn. But I like the variegated. Like really really like it.

Weekend is just zooming by. I'm off to take a nap since it is a rainy day in Ohio.

Night Shift

The week is a blur. I have no clue what happened to my week. Night shift does that to me. Add the fact that I got hit by a mack truck head cold mid-week and my week is just gone. With no recollection of where it went. I know I did my job. I made phone calls. I paid bills. I paid taxes.

Do you pay income tax? This is the one tax that reminds me of Monopoly without the opportunity to win the money back. It is 1% of our income that is POOF, gone. It sucks.

James informs me that I can't pack sugar in his lunch. It makes his head crazy.

Jesse felt me up and tried to french kiss me today. Is it the weekend yet?

Bag was knit with one skein of Lambs Pride Bulky hand dyed by me. Jesse is gonna use it for her Zhu Zhu pets.

More Baby Dresses!!!

I mentioned a few blogs ago that my friend asked me to make two baby dresses, size baby and size 2/3. I am selling these for $20 each and a little more for the larger sizes. Which is a really good deal.

I dyed up the yarn a week or so ago, started knitting and voila! Two dresses.

These are cute, they work up quick. And each one has been my very own hand dyed Lambs Pride Bulky.

Except these two. These are Knit Picks Swish Bulky hand dyed by me. Swish Bulky is superwash wool. Which means machine washable. Great marriage for babies, mommas and a happy knitter like me.

Love these dresses!

Textured Stenciling

Have you seen the product? It is a stencil paint that is textured. As in raised off the wall, in your face, lovely depth stenciling? It is oooohhhh so fun to put on. Then life happens, the daughter whose room you stenciled doesn't use the room.

Then the son decides he wants the room.

You let it go for about 5 years, painting over the stupid textured rose stenciling.

Then one rainy Monday you decide it is time. Painting time.

The stencils have to go.

Your husband hands you his rusty old chisel. Because that is the only kind you are allowed to use. Who knew chisels aren't supposed to be used as screwdrivers?! It is completely defensible to say, "I didn't know." while he weeps over his no longer sharp chisel.

Then you want to text the sister who helped you stencil these roses and say, "Why the hell didn't you stop me from doing this?!".

Then you get done removing the stencils and now you are watching spackling dry and blogging.

This is just another manic Monday in my life. Learn from my mistakes. Don't use textured stencils.