Jaywalkers v5.5

Well. Jaywalkers. AGAIN.

This time I'm trying a completely different yarn, which will hopefully lift the curse on this pattern. I cast on 76 sts on US2 DPNs and I've decided to knit both socks at the same time. Maybe that will avoid the dreaded Second Sock Syndrome.

I'm really crossing my fingers that this works because this is the last time I'm attempting the pattern!

Twinkle toes

A recent newborn session. I *love* those baby feet....this little one has the cutest jelly bean toes!

Mail call!

Dontcha lurrrve eBay?? I do! I especially like being able to buy stuff from the UK....like these 8 balls of Cashsoft from Rowan. I"m going to use them for this free pattern from Elann.

And the seller threw in this little Rowan mag...isn't that sweet?

Not sure when I'm going to start this particular pullover, but I had to have the yarn since it was at least $2 a ball cheaper than the price at any of the local LYS (if I could find enough in my colors). I normally like to support LYS- all of them!- but it was hard to find this particular color of Cashsoft. One LYS actually had the right color, but not enough balls of it.

I'm giving the Jayalkers one more try in a different sock yarn. Maybe I'll start on this pullover when I'm done.

My Birthday...

Your Birthdate: February 11

Spiritual and thoughtful, you tend to take a step back from the world. You're very sensitive to what's going on around you, yet you remain calm. Although you are brilliant, it may take you a while to find your niche. Your creativity is supreme, but it sometimes makes it hard for you to get things done. Your strength: Your inner peace Your weakness: You get stuck in the clouds Your power color: Emerald Your power symbol: Leaf Your power month: November

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

What's bliss?

Coming home to an *empty* house. I had a shoot today and my babysitter normally only stays till 2pm. That usually means that I barely have time to finish my session and run home. But today she's staying till 3pm so she took the boys to the park and the house was beautifully quiet when I walked in the door.

I actually got to eat my lunch and read the newspaper by myself for the first time in probably a year! Woot!

What else is bliss? How about starting another project? I have been eyeing Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style for a long time (check out this beauty!). One of the talented knitters from LPK showed up wearing a LE that she'd knit in Noro and it was absolutely gorgeous. She said it took about 10 balls of Noro Silk Garden to complete the stole.

I counted out my Noro stash and I have 6 balls of Silk Garden in colorway 84. Plus I a tank top that I knitted previously and want to rip- that has 5 balls in it. So if I rip the top, I should have enough to knit Lady Eleanor with some left over.

Last night I met with blogless Joyce at the Sheared Sheep, and we went thru the whole entralac instructions together. I'd tried it before and always got all bolluxed up, but with Joyce's help I was able to finally make sense of the pattern. I'll probably be casting on for LE right after I get done with this entry (and before the boys come home!).

Aran? I can't even finish those darned Jaywalkers!

My Jaywalkers are cursed, cursed! I tell ya true. They are coming upon their fifth and probably last frogging. Like the &#@$ Silk Corset, this may just be a pattern that I will forever lust after but not be able to complete. Here is the sad evidence.

The heel flap is completed and the heel has been turned. I'd finally been able to get my foot thru the sock's cuff, so I thought I was home free.

Haha! The knitting gods laugh at my overconfidence. What happens when I try on the sock to make sure the heel is deep enough? I broke one of my DPNs.

SNAPOLA. Bye bye Brittney US2 DPN.

And the worst part is that I like to knit my socks using 5 DPNs....four for the sock and one to work with. So now I have a set of 4 DPNs that I probably won't use again. Well...maybe for a child's sock.

Right now the Jaywalker is in timeout in my knitting basket while I decide whether or not it's worth it to rip back the heel and maybe turn this into a pair of fingerless mitts or something. I"m so bummed because I *really* like this pattern (despite everyone in blogland knitting it). I may try again with some Socks That Rock- at least that will give me an excuse to buy more sock yarn!

On a happier note, check this out:

One of my Waving Lace socks is done. And it FITS! Woot! I'm probably going to cast on for the other one tonight.

(let's not speak of the awful Kitchner stitch toe)
And did you see? IK's new Spring Preview is up....I *really* like a couple of the projects. This is a pretty sweater


And these socks look like a lot of fun!



But before I go on to any other new projects, I should mention that I'm seriously thinking of knitting an Aran or fisherman's sweater. Not sure why, since I love in So. Cal and there's no reason to wear such a thick, warm knitted item. I've been haunting eBay, looking at old Aran patterns. I think it would be fun to do all those cables and twisted stitches in an aran weight yarn.

Heebeejeebees

*No knitting content, so skip it if that's what you're looking for*

I'll let you all in on a little secret: I'm a photo hound. Meaning I take photographs of just about anything that will stay still long enough for me to get my camera out. And it's not just because of my portrait work....I've always been a visual person who learns best by seeing and doing. So photography was a natural hobby for me.

BC (Before Children), I had so many pictures of my dogs, my house, cars, and random objects that there were easily 10 or 12 boxes of photos and negatives stored up under my desk. The clerks at the local Costco photo center knew me by name. I was also a total film snob.

"You ain't gonna get me to go with one of them new-fangled digital cameras, no way no how. Yous gonna have to pry my film SLR out of my cold, dead hands!"

Then Little Man came along and I took so many photos of him in the first month that we were going broke with developing costs. The Dearest being a techno geek and all, he brought home a new point and shoot digicam for me to use. I must have shot over a thousand images with that little camera before the Dearest surprised me with a *real* digital SLR. It only took a few weeks of shooting with my new camera and realizing how much power I had over my images with Photoshop before I was listing my trusty old film camera on eBay. And I haven't looked back. I'm purely digital now....all my professional sessions are shot with a dSLR, all the post processing is done by yours truly, and the digital files are uploaded to my lab for printing.

Another little secret? The only thing I like better than taking photos is sharing them. I love me my Flickr! It's so cool that I can upload pics of the boys and everyone in my family can see them. What I'd forgotten is that *everyone* on the wide world of the 'net can see them too.

The other day I got a message from Flickr that I'd been added as someone's new contact. Meaning someone saw my images and added me to their list of people to watch for. So I go over to this new person's profile and start taking a peek at their photo sets. I recognize a couple of my photos- all of socks or Little Man's feet in socks....then I notice that *all* of the shots are of feet or socks.

Ummm...ok. I'm not skeeved yet. Some photogs I know will pick a certain item (body part, flower, fender) and explore it visually by taking as many different photos of it as they can. I'm thinking: maybe that's what this guy is doing.

Then I go down further on his/her (profile lists them as "other") photo set and more and more of the images are fetish-ish in nature. As in: feet tucked under a naked bum. As in: f33t being licked. As in: f33t wrapped in rope.

Oh. My. Gawd.

I have *nothing* against this person's fetish. In fact, as far as I'm concerned whatever consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is their business. Lick each other's f33t? Fine. Rub each other in salsa? No problem. Tie each other up and use up a whole Costco brick of D batteries up? Go to it!

But I really get my Momma Bear instincts up in a big way when images of my child's feet are two photos over from an image of a woman's peds being licked. Now, to be fair, this person may have had absolutely no sexual interest in children's feet....there were plenty of old feet, young feet, baby feet and shapely women's feet in the photo set. I actually didn't block this person from my Flickr account right off, partially because I thought I might be over-reacting. I know several bloggers who never show their kids' faces in pictures on the 'net because they are worried about pediphiles, sexual predators, etc. And I've always thought that was over-reacting because your kid gets seen by probably a 100 people a day....unless you want to wrap them up like MJ, there's no protecting them from strangers' eyes.

So I let the whole situtation ferment for a day or so. I thought on it now & again....and finally decided that I just wasn't comfortable with the whole idea. I blocked this person from my Flickr account and have actually placed most of my photos of the boys into a pool that is only available to friends and family. Momma Bear instinct was just too strong to do otherwise, and sometimes it's best to listen to instinct.

I'll still post pics of the boys here on my blog, along with plenty of knitting. Cuz after all, I'm a photo hound!

Is there a Socks Addicts Annonymous?

I've been eyeing the Waving Lace Pattern from IK for quite a while, but couldn't find the right yarn to use. If you haven't noticed, I'm not a solid colored yarn kinda gal. If it's not varigated I'm probably not intererested. This especially goes for sock yarns. But the Waving Lace socks looked like they would be much prettier with a solid color than with a painted yarn so I've been putting the pattern off till I found the right yarn.

Looking thru the stash last night, I pulled out this gorgeous Highland Silk from elann with the Waving Lace socks in mind. Then I realized that I would have to do some *shudder* MATH, since the pattern calls for sock weight yarn and the Highland Silk is DK weight. After some swatching, I went with:
-reducing the stitch count from 64 to 56
-using US2 DPNs instead of the called for US1
-cutting out one full pattern repeat

So far so good I think. It won't be as 'lacey' as the picture shows, but I've already tried the sock on and it looks pretty cool.

First time for everything

homejewel tagged me....

4 Jobs You Have Had in Your Life:
-counter clerk at a dry cleaning store
-secretary
-Workers' Compensation hearing rep
-location scout for a cell-phone company (I looked for property which they'd use to build cell sites)

4 Movies You Could Watch Over and Over:
-Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring
-LOTR, The Two Towers
-LOTR, The Return of the King
-The original Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

4 Places You Have Lived:
Iran
Germany
Vietnam
California

4 TV Shows You Love to Watch:
Discovery Channel
Project Runway
Battlestar Galactica (the new one on SciFi Channel)
Farscape

4 Places You Have Been on Vacation:
San Francisco
Ireland
Las Vegas
France

4 websites you visit daily:
Two Peas
knittersreview.com
Bloglines
shoutcast

4 of your favorite foods:

sushi
shabu shabu
anything chocolate
Starbucks' pumpkin spice lattes

4 places you would rather be right now:
Sleeping
Anywhere Knitting
Scuba diving in Fiji
Horseback riding in Ireland

4 Bloggers You are Tagging:

Jan
Leigh
Elspeth
Karyn

New socks

Toddler and baby socks are like crack for sock knitters IMO. They take very little yarn and can be whipped up in mere hours. I love them!

These are knit with yarn left over from Little Man's Shawl Collared Sweater. It's handpaintedyarn.com/Malabrigo's worsted weight merino. Soooo soft! Little Man says they are 'very warm'.

Stats: Malabrigo worsted weight merino, less than 200yds in "Rich Earth" (purchased over a year ago, when they still sold their yarn on their website).

Size 3 DPNs.

My own basic sock pattern. CO 36sts, work in 1x1 rib for a cuff and then do stockinette for the body. Slipstitch heel.

I tried using the sock chimney method to close the toe, but it didn't work at all well. Maybe because these socks are very small?

another view

IMG_8381
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Little Man the photographer

LM asked me if he could play with my little point and shoot camera today. That was fine with me, as long as he took pictures of things that he really liked. Here's one of the pics he shot...more can be found here.

Park Day

IMG_8338
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

We went to a local park today, thinking that there would be other moms from our Mom's group, but we were the only ones who showed up. There were plenty of other kids & moms hanging out, so Little Man got to play a lot. He finally found someone just his size to make this teeter totter work.

Rock wall

IMG_8337
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Little Man was very proud to finally climb this rock wall all by himself.

New BSG!

*geek alert*

Ok, so what did I do tonight after I put the boys to bed? I settled down on the couch with a ball of Malabrigo worsted merino and one half of a completed sock for Little Man. Trusty Tivo had the newest Battlestar Galactica taped so I got to watch it with no commercials.

The worst thing about BSG?

It's too damn short! I wish it was 2 hours instead of just one!

Seaming hell

Chelle's blanket
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Blogless Joyce and I decided that it would be nice to knit some squares for a baby blanket for Chelle. I had a big bag of leftover Shine in multiple colors, so we each took a couple of ball and started knitting 4x4 squares. Several other Wednesday night knitters at LPK also volunteered to knit some squares.

Then we threw a little party for Chelle last Wednesday where we put all the squares together. Of course everyone was volunteering to knit squares, but the whole seaming thing? Not so much.

Joyce ended up taking half the blanket home and I took the other half. Today we met at the Sheared Sheep and Joyce had already seamed her half so she handed it over to me. I'm going to attempt seaming the rest of my squares, then put the two halves together. Hopefully we'll have enough of the cream yarn to knit an edging around the whole thing.

And hopefully this will get done before the new baby is a toddler!

Little Man taste tests a cupcake

Yum
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Cupcakes for the party

Cupcakes
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Little Man helped me decorate these. We used real buttercream frosting on top of both chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. The chocolate ones tasted like Oreos. Yum!

How I really look

When I worked full time, I was always very conscious of how others viewed me. I worked in a field where I wore suits almost every day. My clients and the people I worked with expected it, tho I have never been much of a clotheshorse and really hate wearing suits.

My sister usually came shopping with me because my taste in clothing leans towards overalls and jeans. Sis has *excellent* taste and can really put an outfit together. She gets that from my mom, but I guess that gene skipped me.

When I was on college and high school I pretty much didn't care how people looked at me. My 'uniform' at the time consisted of Birkenstocks, long flowy skirts and lots of flower prints. I was BoHo before BoHo was cool.

Anyways, I went from hippie chick to corporate suit when I started working. Then I got PG with Little Man. My new style was born along with him: jeans and a T-shirt every day, to be mixed with jean shorts and a T-shirt when it was hot. That's the mommy uniform.

The other day I was complaining to a friend that I was tired of wearing the same old thing every day, and you could tell just by looking at me that I was a mom. My T-shirts always have the ghosts of stains on them even when they are clean because little boys usually have sticky paws they want to put all over you. All the jeans in my drawers have smudges of who-knows-what that won't wash out. I wear the same old pair of beat up white sneakers 365 days a year.

Sometimes I'll be out with the boys and see another mom (usually with older kids), who's much more put together than I am. They're usually wearing cute tops and heeled shoes. Their hair is nicely styled and they actually have lipstick on. I always feel like other people see me and think "SAHM".

When you spend all day with little kids, you don't get much feedback on how stylish you're looking. It can be quite difficult to feel good about how the world views you.

But then something like this happens: I'm doing dishes and Little Man walks up to me with a piece of paper.

"Look Momma," he hands me the paper. "I drew you!" He's beaming with pride and so am I. I think it's a pretty good representation of me. And I realize that it's not so much about how the world views me, as it is about how the people I love see me.

Whose feet are these?

Inspired by Cara:

Little Man spins.

Pretties

name it
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Winding off

Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Remember that BFL that blogless Karen brought me from Black Sheep? I *finally* spun it all up. It only took me six months!

The whole batch is currently in the sink, relaxing in some Eucelan. I'll count up the yardage when it's dry.

The Sheared Book, er Sheep

I had a little free time coming to me today, as the Greatest was taking down the Christmas tree with the boys. So I decided to head over to the Sheared Sheep, a new yarn shop that I'd heard about.

It was a lot closer than I thought- only about 15 minutes away- and pretty easy to find. Funnily enough, the owner Lisa was once part of the same knitting group that I attended at Yarn Lady. So we recognized each other right away and had some fun catching up on each others' lives.

The shop is nice and cozy and they have a Wednesday knit night which I may just have to attend occasionlly since I know a couple of other knitters who go there. It was nice to have a good selection of patterns; she carries some really fun Knitwits and Stitch Diva patterns.

The Kid Seta was calling my name, but since I have a quite a bit of Kidsilk Haze already stashed, I went with a book purchase instead.

So The New Knitting Stitch Library is now mine. I was little frustrated that the book didn't lay flat when I was looking at the charts inside and had an "ah ha" moment. On the way home I stopped at the local Kinkos copy shop and had them cut the spine off and apply a coiled binding.

The cover looks a little chopped, but everything inside is fine. And now the book lies perfectly flat. Woot!

Closeup of the spiral binding.

You can choose to have a clear cover put on if you wish, but I decided that the existing cover was durable enough as is. This only cost about $6 and makes the book so much more functional.

Baaaaa baaaaa (like a sheep)

Yes, I have joined in with the rest of blogworld to knit Grumperina's Jaywalker Socks. Fun pattern- just enough thinking involved to keep me from falling asleep while knitting, but not so much thinking that I can't carry on a chat.

Good things? It's quick and easy and I don't need the pattern to keep track of where I am.

Bad things? This afternoon I was knitting away quite happily when I realized that I somehow dropped a stitch several rows down. Ok, no problem. Just unravel on down to that dropped stitch, pick everything up and keep on knitting.

Nice plan, but the execution was lacking. First off, Little Man decided to use me a trampoline while I was trying to pick up the stitches. And y'all know how much fun it is to pick up fingering weight stitches with US1 needles. Then I was off on my stitch count and had to do a bunch of M1s and K2togs before everything was put right.

So I put the boys to bed and am sitting on the sofa happily knitting and watching the Twilight Zone Marathon when I attempt to try on the sock for the first time.

It doesn't fit.

DAMMIT

I had made the smaller size of the pattern, casting on 76 sts, which is my normal amount of stitches for a fingering weight sock. I guess I forgot all about the pulling in effect of the Jaywalker pattern.

So.

Here is my Jaywalker pre-frogpond.

I re-cast on and this time I'm using US2 needles and doing the larger size. If these are too big for me, I'll give them to my sister who wears a size larger shoe.

NYE 2005

Progressive dinner in our neighborhood:

Three houses in three hours.

Running thru the rain to cross the street for appetizers.

Main dishes at our house. Fourteen adults and ten kids (!) for tacos, taquitos and PB&Js.

36 taco shells.

Four pounds of ground beef.

Six packages of goldfish crackers crushed into the floor in the living room.

One very happy doggie-vac who had her own NYE celebration eating all the stuff on the floor.

Dessert at another neighbor's house.

Massive amounts of fun was had by all!

The Dearest and I retired to the sofa by 9pm to watch a Tivo'd hockey game and knit (well, at least *I* knit).

I think it was a great New Year's Eve. Wishing you all a happy and safe 2006.

The Shawl Addiction

.

Man o man, I forgot how addicting shawls are!

LPK had Blue Sky Alpaca's Sportweight Alpaca on sale at 30% off and I had to have it for *something*. Turns out that "something" is the Kimono Shawl from Folk Shawls.

I've been working pretty much nonstop on this since I started. Shawls are just so addicting to me because I'm doing something different all the time. Not just miles and miles of stockinette stitch.

Lately I've noticed that I've been picking up lots of orange yarns. Hmmm....I never really liked orange before but I just keep seeing all these beautiful shades of mustard yellow and orange that call out to me. So my Kimono Shawl will be in a gorgeous rusty orange color- hopefully I'll be able to find something to wear with it!

Yarn P0rn ahead....

Yes, that's more yarn. I don't know what happened, but something sucked me into Elann's site the other day and next thing I know, there was yarn at my door.

This is three balls each of orange, admiral blue and saffron Highland Silk. I shot this photo with my little point and shoot so the flash washed out the colors- they are much more vibrant and silky-shiny than it shows here.

I'm planning on using this to make socks, but I might have to add more to the stash since it's seriously lovely stuff. Quite soft for Elann's house yarn with a nice silk sheen.

Randomness

-Lately Little Man has been addicted to a children's show called The Magic Schoolbus. This is suppposedly an educational animated show wherein the teacher (Ms. Frizzle, voiced by Lily Tomlin) drives a magic bus that can transform/shrink/grow into anything she wants. Ms. Frizzle is constantly taking her class on 'magic field trips' to such interesting and educational places as the digestive system, puddles of pickle juice and so on.

Umm...Yah. I can see where it's educational...but the whole digestive system show was Bad. And I meant to use that capital B. First the class boarded the Magic Bus and shrank so small that they were able to enter someone's mouth. They slid down the esophagus and ended up in the stomach, which was full of stomach acid as well as various remnants of their host's lunch. The show didn't end there, however. Let me just say that they *did* visit the large AND small intestines...and beyond. But don't worry, they didn't exit thru the poop chute- I think they managed to work their way up to the throat again and get coughed out.

Thank gawd.

And then there's the Microbe Gang episode. Which starts out with someone's prize winning cucumber ("I love my cucumber!") being replaced by a pickle. Ms. Frizzle then appears from a closet with a rather large, phallic looking object in her hand and announces that "My secret is out, I had hankering for a good pickle!".

Can you say 'double entendre'? (well, I can't, but you know what I mean!)

Anyways I spent the first 10 minutes of that particular epi with my mind in the gutter. Little Man was oblivious of course- he just loves the show!

-Our neighbors have replaced their regular shower light with a red bulb. How do I know this? Cuz the other nite I came back into our room from nursing Monkey Boy at 3 am and the light from said neighbors' bathroom window was shining rather ominously into our masterbedroom. It gave me the major creeps. Can anyone say "Redrum"? Or maybe "Amityville'?

- I started a pair of the Jaywalker socks. What a fun pattern- so easy to memorize and it's moving along quite quickly even on size 1 DPNs. I'm using some handpainted yarn from LaPetiteKnitterie's own collection; it's similar to Koigu KPPPM. Pictures tomorrow I promise...

-The Dearest has hijacked my laptop while his laptop is being worked on by the IBM gnomes. Evidently something got fried in his 'puter so he had so send it back to the factory. I forgot how difficult it is to check emails and blog when I am tied to the desktop in our office. There's no way Monkey Boy can be allowed into the office; last time he was in here, he tried to turn off the server. (As an aside, when Little Man was around 1yr, he came into the office with me and turned the server on and off SEVEN times. Needless to say, the Greatest was NOT a happy camper when he discovered what had happened. LOL)

-Big Trouble in Little China was on tonight. The letterboxed edition. Sweet.


-And a pic of Da Boyz with their new toy.....

Fun with selective coloring

CRW_8202fix
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

I'm not normally a fan of BW with selective coloring, but this image of Monkey Boy playing with the Christmas lights seemed to really call for it.

He was 'helping' the Dearest and Little Man put up the lights and was just fascinated by the bulbs.

Last year at this time....

I was sitting on the couch with my midwife and my mother in law, watching Collateral Damage while we waited for my contractions to pick up. I'd had four sleepless nights of contractions 10 minutes apart, and finally called my midwife on December 28th around 6ish because my contractions actually got close to 5 minutes apart.

Of course the moment she showed up with all her gear, those darned contractions spread out again. It was pouring rain and storming pretty darned hard so we decided that she would stay the night and 'see what happens'. We put in a movie and Sue (the midwife) and my MIL watched it while I knitted and jumped off the couch every 10 minutes to squat thru contractions.....


My first birth had gone really fast, so this prolonged pre-labor was quite frustrating and foreign to me. Luckily Sue was there to make me chill out! We had popcorn and sandwiches around 10pm because I was getting hungry. By then it didn't look like I was going to have a baby any time soon, so Sue sent me off to take a bath and maybe get some sleep.

Well the bath did the trick, because that finally got my labor going really well and I started getting contractions really close together. That's when the Dearest came upstairs, took one look at my face and called Sue. She didn't even bother to check me- she immediately called for the assistant midwife and the Dearest started filling up the birthing tub.


The only time I ever really felt like I couldn't do a homebirth was while I was waiting for that damned tub to fill. LOL I was so pissed off that I was laboring on the bed! Everyone was running around, getting stuff ready but I was more focused on making it thru transition. Luckily Wendy (the apprentice midwife/doula) arrived and was able to talk me into a calmer state of mind. I swear she should make hypnosis tapes- she has such a soothing voice.

Once I was in the tub, things moved fast and Monkey Boy made his entrance into the world at 3.27am on Dec. 29th. He was born underwater in the tub and Sue never even touched him- she told me to sit back right after he came out and my hands lifted him out of the water and onto my chest. It was a awesome experience: giving birth in the water and in the familiarity of our own home. From this: (about 5 seconds old!)
To this:
(12 hours short of being 1 yr old).

At 1yr old Monkey Boy does the following:
Walks all over the place
Has eight teeth
Tries to eat everything big brother eats
Has an unhealthy fascination with water bottles (empty or full)
Says "dadada" when he sees the Dearest
Gets so excited he trips on his own feet when he hears the garage door opening (cuz he knows the Dearest is home)
Throws temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way
Drinks out of a straw pretty successfully
Laughs and laughs when you tickle his back
Likes to give his big brother hugs
Uses sign language for "more", "nurse", "eat", and "bathtime"
Still nurses 4-5x a day
Lights up every single one of my days with his smiles and crazy pre-speech chatter.

Happy Birthday Little One!

My New Crumpler!!

CRW_8411fix
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

I had told the Dearest that I wanted a new camera bag for Christmas. I had a realllly old beat up camera bag that was actually too small for all my gear. Plus when I went on shoots I had to carry my laptop in a separate bag.

I showed him Crumpler's cool website and we talked about all the really fun and functional bags they had there. But I kept telling him to just get me something smaller and less expensive. Plus Crumpler didn't have any local distributors and I wanted to see the bags in person before I bought one.

Well the Dearest was at the local big camera store and the salesman told him that they *just* started carrying Crumplers! AND they had two of the backpack styles I was lusting over.

So Christmas morning I ran into the our home office to grab my camera off the desk where it usually is. Couldn't find the darned camera and yelled for the Dearest, "Honey, where's my camera???"

Then I looked down and saw the new bag, which the Dearest had switched out for my old one. Woohoo!!! I was excited!!!
Can I just say that I love this bag??? It has plenty of useful pockets and can hold ALL my gear + a laptop with no problems.

The inside of the bag...

CRW_8407fix
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

The cool thing is that Crumpler bags open up 'backwards'. In other words when you open the bag up, the front of the backpack lays down so you don't get the straps and the part that touches you dirty. Look how empty my bag is!!! I need to fill it up!

Where's the cookie?

Where's the cookie?
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Little Man helps make Xmas cookies

Little Man helps make Xmas cookies
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Are we having fun yet?

Are we having fun yet?
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Little Man and I made Christmas cookies for the neighbors. What that really means is that Little Man put about 15 cups of flour on the counter, covered himself in said flour, tracked flour all over the kitchen and living room, put flour on his brother's head...Oh, and he did roll out one or two cookies! LOL

An actual knitted item

What's this???
That's right, actual knitted gifts!!! My mom likes to wear socks to bed and complains about how they always leave marks around her ankles. So I decided to knit her a pair of socks with non-binding cuffs- and I actually got them done in time for Christmas! These are made out of Wildefoot sock yarn. I cast on 2x the number of required stitches, knit a couple of rows and then did a row of k1, k2tog till I was down to 1/2 the sts. After that it was just a regular ol' sock pattern. I think she was pleased!

We celebrate Christmas with my mom on Christmas Eve (my parents have been long divorced) and this year we wanted to have something besides the typical ham for dinner. The Dearest suggested lobster tails, so that's what we had! Steamed lobster tails, balsamic roasted asparagus and pesto pasta. YUM

The funny thing is, right after Christmas Eve dinner I got busy making our Christmas Day turkey. I learned turkey cooking from my Dad, who is one of the original Kentucky hillbillies. Remember the Beverly Hillbillies?
That could've been my dad's side of the family. They live in Appalachia, which is practically a third world country. Most of the males in Dad's generation were killed in real-life feuds with other hillbillies. Really. Some of his relatives still live on farms with no 'city water' (aka running water- they have wells) and have outhouses.

Anyhew, Dad's recipe for well-cooked turkey:
1- 12-15lb turkey (don't forget to take the buckshot out when gutting)
1- jar of mayo
1- paper grocery sack
stuffing (if so inclined)

Wash and dry turkey. Place in roasting pan. Open jar of mayo and proceed to slather the entire jar over the outside of the turkey. Stuff with whatever rocks your boat.

Place turkey inside the paper sack and put the whole pan into a 350 degree oven. Cook till finished.

Remove paper sack before carving!

Voila....
One perfectly cooked, moist turkey. No basting required! I love this recipe and everyone I talk to thinks it's the weirdest thing ever. "Doesn't the bag burn?" "Mayo????" Yup, mayo! And no, the bag doesn't burn because the turkey kinda steams inside the bag. Plus 325degrees isn't quite hot enough to catch the bag on fire.

Next year the Dearest wants to try a deep fried turkey. I told him it would be a go only if we increased our homeowners' insurance first.

Merry Christmas!!!

Our Christmas card...

Well, that's ONE way to handle an argument

But I doubt it's the 'recommended' method....
Stupid

Little Man's New Sweater

I have been knitting here and there; recently I finished the Shawl Collared Sweater from Debbie Bliss' Baby Knits for Beginners book. I started this sweater LAST Christmas, using some Malabrigo worsted from my stash. This was back when handpaintedyarn actually sold their worsted weight merino on the website.
Here's the sweater in action....We took Little Man to the Spectrum to check out their outdoor ice rink. LM and the Dearest went ice skating while Monkey Boy and I did some last minute Christmas shopping.
A couple more in B&W....
(And No, I didn't knit the mittens! LOL Those are straight from the shelf at The Children's Place)

Wow, a real live POST

Can you believe it?

I know I've been a very bad blogger (smack me with a wet noodle)...but here I am and I promise to post more faithfully now that the holiday rush is over!

I've to sooo much to talk about, but let's just start with this:
.This is my final SP6 package! My SP is absolutely wonderful- look at all the fun stuff she sent. PLUS she thoughtfully sent Da Boyz a couple of coloring books. Little Man was super excited to have a 'secret present' in the mail.
In case you can't tell, here's what all was in the box....2 coloring books for the munchkins, a package of Yankee Candle Fresh Roses candles/lotion (yum), a mernio lace kit with needles, some bath bubbly powder, a Chibi with the bent needles (needed that!), cute stitch markers, note cards & two cute monkeys! Little Man already stole the dark brown monkey!

OMG I have to go....Monkey Boy is getting into trouble....I'll be back to post again later tonight!