What She Shovels

Two hours of sleep oughta be enough for any adult, right?

We went to a talk by Robert J. MacKenzie Ed.D. (author of Setting Limits (and SL for the Strong Willed Child and SL in the Classroom). His basic premise is stating the boundary, stating the consequence and following through. That’s all well and good, but when it comes down to implementing these strategies, I still don’t know what the “logical consequence” is for not getting out the door and to the car. Get carried like he wants? How does that accomplish anything? As he was speaking tonight, I found myself thinking how great it sounded and how as soon as possible I was going to follow the steps, just as he’d outlined.

Gosling’s teacher happened to be sitting behind us and we ended up talking about a lot of it during the Q&A and afterward and she brought up a lot of relevant criticisms. One of the parents in the crowd questioned if some of the particulars were beneficial for long term development.

I left feeling like I had more questions than answers, more doubt than confidence and more confused than clarified. I try to remember that they’ll likely turn out all right as long as they’re loved and respected and we can only do our best. There are hundreds of thousands of books and nearly as many theories, but we know our kids better than anyone else. They didn’t come with user manuals, so we’re doing our best to figure it out along the way.

Tonight’s presentation and subsequent discussion really drove home how important it is to constantly evaluate what’s working and what isn’t and to keep focused on what is truly important. Different methods will work with varying degrees of success at different stages of their lives. I have to remember to keep thinking and not buy into one methodology or another because nothing is going to be 100% for everyone.

Many thoughts, probably not so coherent. Off to go to sleep listening to the pitter patter of rain on the gutters.

I’m a sucker for pomp and circumstance. I love a good ceremony, steeped in tradition, brimming with meaning and 1001 details that are all ironed out in the wings. Today’s inauguration of President Obama filled all those and more. I watched some and listened on the radio and there are so many people who have said it better than I could. I will only say I am hopeful and excited, as with any new change. I wouldn’t wish his problems on anyone, but I hope he manages to continue to be graceful, eloquent and honorable as he seeks to help us make this country the best it can be.

Enjoying the unseasonably great weather we’ve been having lately, we spent the entire morning at the park yesterday and decided to head out again today. Today, though, we opted to head out on bikes. This is monumental for a few reasons: I haven’t ridden a bike in at least 8 months, and probably not for well over a year. My physical therapist approved my riding, so the husband got everything lubed and inflated (that sounds… wrong) and we packed up to go to a local park. Secondly, until recently Tweety was too young to ride in the bike trailer, so this was her maiden voyage out in the great red beast.  We had a great time, and as long as my seat was high enough, it wasn’t painful. We even saw Ashley on our way home, but I’m not sure she saw us. Now to work up the stamina and courage to ride to Gosling’s school.

Tweety and Gosling, ready to go already, mom!

Before we left, however, Tweety decided she really needed a snack. Some parents, upon discovering their child had dug out a guacamole container from the trash, might remove the container from said child’s possession. Not this one, no siree. I grabbed my camera.

Tweety and guacamole

I started socks for Gosling quite some time ago. I finished them for St Nicholas Day in December, and he found them in the morning with his brand new bright green Crocs (another story worth telling). I had intended to make matching ones for his sister in time, but it didn’t happen. I did cast on and start them, but got as far as the first heel before I needed to consult Sensational Knitted Socks, and never seemed to have the book and the sock in the same place at the same time.

Last Tuesday, I ducked out of the house for knitting and didn’t have time to come up with a project, but grabbed the bag with the sock project in it. I remembered in time to also get SKS and headed out. With all the chit chat of knit night, I didn’t get a whole lot done, but I did turn the heel.

I picked it back up again on Friday and finished the leg of the sock. These aren’t monumental feats, given the sock fits a 1 year old’s foot, but it’s more than I’ve managed in a while.

With the 3 year old version of the socks, the bind off wasn’t stretchy enough. I keep hearing “bind off using a larger needle” but that wasn’t cutting it. The socks go on, but not easily, and the 1 year old wouldn’t stand still for it and it wasn’t satisfying for me, either. I needed something that would be easy to do on the go, didn’t require extra notions, and would solve the stretch problem. I found 
Peggy’s Stretchy Bind-off for Toe-Up Socks and it worked like a charm. It’s so easy, too!

If you are knitting a K1, P1 ribbing, on the row before the bind-off row: K1, M1 (“make one” by making a half-hitch loop, not by picking up the in-between thread), pull the M1 tight, P1.

Repeat around. Bind off row (go up a needle size or two): K1, slip the M1, pass the K1 over the slipped M1, P1, pass the slipped M1 over the P1, K1, pass the P1 over, etc. as for a regular bind off.

If you are knitting a K2, P2 ribbing, on the row before the bind-off row: K2, M1, P2, M1.

Repeat around. Do a regular bind off, as above, remembering to slip the M1 rather than knitting it. The M1 is never actually knit, so it doesn’t make a stitch which will add bulk to the top of your cuff; it simply creates an extra loop in your chain bind off.

I also found Weebleknits’ run down of various stretchy bind offs. Maybe I’ll try some more, but I’m pretty sold on the one I used.

Having finished the 3rd sock, I only had a smidgen of yarn left. I had some scraps that may have been enough to eek out a 4th small sock, but I remembered Ruth had offered some from her stash when I was working on the first sock. A quick email and some fresh baked cookies to bribe her with, and I was off. I cast on the 4th sock last night and finished it this afternoon. Whoo! [insert sfx huffing nails]

So now I have a new problem to attack. What do I do with 1 3/4 skeins of Moda Dea Sassy Stripes in Crayon?

Oh, and pictures to come when I have two awake models.

Bonus 2 posts in one day!

A meme circulating around some friends’ blogs:

The rules are as follows:

Go to your picture files
Go to your 6th folder.
Go to your 6th picture.
Tell us about it.
Tag 6 friends to do the same.

And here’s the photo:

I have no idea why it looks like the kids are staring at a nuclear explosion. I also have NO idea WHY THESE PICTURES WON’T ROTATE. I saved it rotated, uploaded, it’s crooked. I rotated it, saved it, didn’t change a thing. ARGH.

Amy interviewed me:
1)  What is your favorite guilty pleasure?
I’ve had to think harder about this one than I should, but I think I’ll give 2: a Starbucks drink (grande decaf peppermint mocha or a venti iced decaf caramel latte) or a new project to work on (plants for the house, yarn for a project, new fabric, etc).

2)  Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
This one changes a lot. I like to see us still in the same house in the same town, with fewer house project pending. I’d like to be working in a soils job somewhere local, but be able to work an earlier shift to be home when the kids come home from school. Then again, I’ve considered going to nursing school or law school or pursuing more education in a whole slew of things, so maybe I’ll just be a perpetual student.

3)  If you found a $10 bill in your purse, what would you do with it?
Probably nothing special, just remember it the next time I needed cash. But maybe I should change my thinking!

4) What is one thing you want to be sure your children know before they leave your home?
I want them to be self-sufficient, responsible people. I want them to know how to cook, clean, take care of themselves, prioritize and take responsibility for their actions and realize and understand how their actions affect other people. That’s probably more than one thing, though.

5)  If you could meet one person – who’s alive today – who would it be and why?
Ina Garten AKA Cooking Amy I really respect her self-taught culinary skills, her self-made business, and her recipes rock! I’d love to know if she’s really fun and nice in person or if it’s all a show. On the other hand, maybe not knowing for sure is better.

For those of you who might want to be interviewed, here are the directions:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions).
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

From today:

“Gosling, I really need you to lay still and be quiet. I’m grumpy and need to rest.”

2 hours later, after everyone had slept, the first words out of his mouth:

“Are you still grumpy? We all rested!”

(Ed. note: I was, in fact, less grumpy. Shame on me for staying up late.)

I have a slight addiction. A slight cookie addiction. Warm, soft, chewy, delicious. Mmmm! Oatmeal, chocolate chip, chocolate toffee, yum yum.

The perfect chocolate chip cookies have eluded me for years, but I’m slowly chipping away at it, and I’m pretty darn close now. They need to be chewy, flavorful, not cakey, not flat and not greasy.

The Cookie Company has some darn fine cookies (the [chocolate] and [ginger] crinkles are divine), but their chocolate chip don’t do it for me. There’s no crunchy exterior, and all too often, the middles are just too far south of done to be perfect. Nugget’s are the only grocery store cookies I’ll consider eating, but they don’t have that… something… that makes a cookie perfect to me.

I’ve had some problems with batches I’ve cooked up recently, and due to some recent testing I’ve determined the butter I was using was different than what I’d used in the past and its higher water content gave me some problems with flatter than usual cookies. It did cross my mind to do a side-by-side comparison to determine exactly how much water each had, but then somebody took something from someone else and reality came biting back.

It started with Alton Brown and an episode on Good Eats, Three Chips for Martha. Then I realized the cookies of my youth were different than anything I’d made because of differences in butter:shortening, cooking times and chilling.

I’ve tinkered with the bag recipe, used some of his hints, taken some from Cook’s Illustrated, and lots of experience, and I’m getting there.

It’s a darn good thing my physical therapist cleared me this morning to ride my bike again. I see more testing in my future!