I’ve got way too much on my plate at the moment. Â I need to take a break from the ol’ blog for 10 days or so. Â When I return, I need to update my blog design (but come on, how cute is that big, fat snowman?) and then I’ve got some posts lined up for you.
So until then, have a blessed Holy Week and a joyous Easter!
I first encountered the phrase “seasons of life” a few years ago. Before then it just wasn’t something used by the people I knew. Maybe it’s a regional thing. But once I heard it, I liked how nicely it fit with so many things.
In many ways, it gave me permission to prioritize my life in a way that would best suit my family. For example, I have been a Girl Scout leader for three straight years. Pumpkin Girl really likes me being a leader and I like it, too. But now, in this season of my life, I need a break. I need to focus on other things. It is OK for me not to be a GS leader (I say to myself) because what Pumpkin needs from me right now is to be a ballet mom. (That’s like a soccer mom, but you know, with miniature ballerinas with buns and pink tights in the back of the minivan, not sweaty soccer players.)
Sometimes life seasons are long, other seasons are short.
Funny enough, blogging seems to be seasonal for me, too. I’d love to be one of those bloggers who blog daily (or more!), but that never seems to work out for me. I don’t know where my time goes every day – it’s like I wake up, eat lunch, then go to bed. The days fly by. It just hasn’t been a season for blogging lately. I haven’t even gotten around to changing my blog header to one more…seasonally appropriate.
But the good news is, I feel a change of seasons coming on…
Well, I guess it’s time. Time to change my picture that appears in my sidebar. Afterall, the old picture is 5 years old and I’m approaching a Major Milestone Birthday this month.
I like the old picture. You can read the story behind it here: The Haircut. But I guess it’s time to let it go.
So I had a little photo session with myself in the bathroom mirror and behold…the me that is me today.
Hmm? What? Oh, hello. What are you doing here? Waiting for me to remember that I have a blog?
Sorry, I got completely overwhelmed by many things, some are moving related, some are personal, then we had house guests again and Pumpkin Girl made her First Communion. But I’ve got it all straightened out now, mostly, so I’m ready to tell you the highlights. Tomorrow though, because it’s 9:30 PM and our bed just broke. Of course it did.
I love getting comments on my blog, but I find myself in a conundrum of how to handle them. If someone asks a question, should I reply in the comments or through email or both? All comments to my blog arrive to me through email and I’m supposed to be able to hit reply and it goes right to the commenter. But I don’t think it’s working right. I wrote out this nice lengthy reply to someone and right as I hit “send” I saw that it was going to my blog’s inbox. So I have no idea if my replies are even getting through.
So I’m going to answer some questions here.
Tami asked why she wasn’t able to make smilies appear in her comments anymore. It’s because you need to leave a space between the sentence punctuation and the punctuation for the smiley.
Nancy wanted to know which colorway of Noro Silk Garden I’m using for my scarf. It’s number 87, which is mostly jewel tones. The scarf I’m making calls for 4 skeins. By the way, the pattern I’m using is free. I think it’s well written and is a good way to learn entrelac. You can find it here: Entrelac Scarf.
Janice was wondering if it’s all one skein of yarn. Yes, it is! It’s handpainted varigated yarn. I have seen other people’s entrelac projects where they used 2 different skeins to get a very specific set of color changes, but that’s a lot of work and I like the way the yarn does all that work for me.
JennG was wondering if I learned all these fun knitting techniques from books or from other people. A little of both, but mostly I’m self taught. I learn best from reading (what kind of learner does that make me?), so I can usually muddle along well enough to get by. Part of the fun of knitting, for me at least, is trying something new. I’ve managed to infect several people in my neighborhood with the knitting bug and having all these new and quickly learning knitting friends has inspired me to try all the fun things I’ve seen others do.
Angoraknitter (a fellow Army wife who just moved to our area) mentioned that she can hardly wait until her yarn arrives (I’m assuming in her household goods). Angora – can I call you Ang? – you don’t have to wait! There’s a fun knitting store in Old Town Alexandria. Head north on Hwy 1, after you pass the Beltway, turn right. It doesn’t matter which street, but I turn at the gas station. When you get to Washington, turn left. When you pass the statue in the middle of an intersection, Knit Happens will be on your right. I think the cross street is King.
She also asked me about my ottoman and chairs seen in my messy living room. They are indeed from IKEA. Both have removable, washable slip covers – a must in a house with children! We put sliders under the ottoman feet so we could move it around the living room easily, but that was a mistake. Pushing the ottoman around caused the knobs under the lid to break off, so the lid slides off when bumped into. That was our fault, though, since it was designed to really stay in one place. The chairs are comfy and have enough room under them to store a basket full of Wii paraphenalia under one and the WiiFit board under another. I had to wash one of the slip covers during our last round of stomach virus and it washed up wonderfully. No fading and the wrinkles disappeared once the slip cover was back in place. I spot clean the ottoman at least weekly and it’s holding up well, too.
OK, I think I got all the recent questions. Now I’m off to try to figure out how to get my emailed replies sent to the commenter.
I’ve been meaning to tell you all that I updated my blog to a winter scape. If you’re reading through a feed reader or through email, come on over and admire my handiwork.
Also, I put up 2 posts at The Homeschool Classroom on quick and easy crafts to make. Even though Christmas is quickly approaching and you probably have all your gifts all figured out, these two projects make nice gifts from your children to their various teachers, coaches, and family members.
The first one is a God’s Eye ornament, which our Catholic home school group made for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They were such a hit that Philip had his Cub Scouts make them and then I had my Girl Scouts make them, too.
The second craft is a candle made from a recycled jar. This one is also very fast to make. Pumpkin Girl made a similar one as a school art project last year. Philip needed another fast project for his scouts, so they made these, too.
November 11th is the feast of St. Martin of Tours, also known as Martinmas. To read more about St. Martin, some of the traditions associated with Martinmas, including a tutorial on how to make Martinmas lanterns, visit me at the Homeschool Classroom: Celebrating Martinmas.
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…
Well, those may be some of Maria Von Trapp’s favorite things, but for a list of my favorite home school things, come read my post at The Homeschool Classroom here: My Favorite Things.
And speaking of The Homeschool Classroom, we’re looking for some guest writers. If you’d like to write one or more posts about homeschooling, please visit this post for more information: Have You Ever Wished You Could Be a Guest Writer?
Boo was born in a Houston hospital while we were living in Sugar Land, TX. Even though it’s going to get slammed by Hurricane Ike, Sugar Land is not under mandatory evacuation. Apparantly their hurricane plan is to “hunker down.” I’m glad we’re not stationed there right now.
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Why are girls so complicated? What’s with all the drama? Why can’t they just grunt and nod at each other like boys?
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Prejudice hurts.
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Why are all my pregnant friends and family having boys? I have so many patterns for cute baby girl hats and I don’t get to use any of them!
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Pumpkin Girl’s ballet shoes cost me $25 this year. She’d better not outgrow them before the recital in June! The owner of her dance studio fit her himself and he recommended the slightly bigger size, then tightened them up for her. He’s been doing this for 25 years, so hopefully he knows what he’s doing.
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I made zucchini bread today. The recipe was for 2 loaves, but I only have one loaf pan. So I poured the whole batter into one square baking pan and made zucchini bread cake. We’ve already eaten 3/4 of it.
I kicked a smurf because I think I need some serious help.
Before you start staging an intervention and send me off to Smurf Kickers Anonymous or making jokes about me being the size of a smurf, let me explain.
I found this silliness over at Many Little Blessings and it cracked me up so much that I had to share it. So tell me, what’s your sentence?
Pick the month you were born:
January——-I kicked
February——I loved
March——–I karate chopped
April———-I licked
May———-I jumped on
June———-I smelled
July———–I did the Macarena with
August——–I had lunch with
September—-I danced with
October——-I sang to
November—–I yelled at
December—–I ran over
Pick the date (number) you were born on:
1——-a birdbath
2——-a monster
3——-a phone
4——-a fork
5——-a snowman
6——-a gangster
7——-my mobile phone
8——-my dog
9——-my best friends’ boyfriend
10——-my neighbor
11——-my science teacher
12——-a banana
13——-a fireman
14——-a stuffed animal
15——-a goat
16——-a pickle
17——-your mom
18——-a spoon
19—— – a smurf
20——-a baseball bat
21——-a ninja
22——-Chuck Norris
23——-a noodle
24——-a squirrel
25——-a football player
26——-my sister
27——-my brother
28——-an ipod
29——-a surfer
30——-a llama
31——-A homeless guy
Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White———because I’m cool like that.
Black———because that’s how I roll.
Pink———–because I’m crazy.
Red———–because the voices told me to.
Blue———–because I’m sexy and I do what I want.
Green———because I think I need some serious help.
Purple———because I’m AWESOME!
Gray———-because Big Bird said to and he’s my leader.
Yellow——–because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars.
Orange——–because my family thinks I’m stupid anyway.
Brown———because I can.
Other———-because I’m a Ninja!
None———-because I can’t control myself!
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