MY Blog

So Lady Bug has been a member of the Sato family for 2 weeks now.  I’ve put over 900 miles on her.  And her size is totally deceiving.

In preparation for my org’s upcoming golf event, I made a trip to Costco for snacks for our golfers.  Behold the overflowing Costco cart:

Behold the empty Ms. Lady Bug:

10 minutes or so later:

and:

I could have fit more, but that would have meant fussing with the car seat, and I hate doing that.

In more relevant knitting news, I’m working on Nestle (rav link).  I’m using the called for Scottish Tweed Aran in an oatmeal color.  My goal is to finish this puppy in time for the golf outing (which is Oct. 7).  I’m not sure if I’ll get that done.  I’m finished with the back and two fronts, but still have two arms, a hood, and the huge front bands to do up.  At least it’s on size 9s, so it goes quickly.

that reproduces well.  Kristen’s sib Alyssa (who sometimes you may find hanging out at the store), takes the cake when it comes to producing adorable babies.

Meet Alyssa’s Thing 1.  Like my Thing 1, A’sT1 is also a Christmas Baby.

Unlike my Thing 1, A’sT1 has a knitting grandmother.  Who made this lovely sweater (I’m guessing out of Manos) for A’sT1. So not only is Kristen’s sister talented, her mother is too.   And lovely A’sT1 has a talented pop as well.  He cleverly created this:

The talent apple does not fall far from Kristen’s tree!

and in Kristen’s fashion mags, there are cowls.  Cowls cowls everywhere.  Personally, I heart cowls because I hate having a cold neck. That and the fact that I must have been traumatized by a vampire in a previous life makes me always want to cover my neck.

Anyway, these fashion cowls (scroll down a bit) are all drapey and chunky and huge.  Some look more like huge yarn necklaces, because they don’t even come close to wrapping around the neck, but rather hang mid-chest. And some are just too spendy for words. (yes, that’s right.  $225 for a cowl.  Holy cowl!)

But I have been coveting the chunky cowl look.  So I thought I’d design my own.  And I did, and now she’s done.  And she didn’t come even close to costing $225 (thank goodness)!

(forgive the lack of styling.  I was on my way to work).

This cowl is called the Too Cool Cowl.  The pattern’s available at Modern Yarn and is free with the yarn purchase.  I used three skeins of Rowan Cocoon in the light gray colorway ($48 for the yarn).  I think it would equally as good in the Natura (but potentially 4 skeins there).  The Too Cool Cowl can double as the Wicked Good Hood (tee-hee).

If you find cables intimidating, you’re in luck. In October, I’ll be teaching how to cable using this as the project.

Ok Mother Nature (or Dracula), hit me with your best shot!

I had thought re-opening Modern Yarn was my version of my mid-life crisis.  Obviously not.

Meet Lady Bug.  My new mini. 

There’s a long story here (isn’t there always?).  Let’s suffice it to say that in 2003 when I was forced into settling for we bought our mazda mini van, I had lobbied long and hard for the mini cooper.  Obviously I lost, which wasn’t such a bad thing, since the advent of the mini van allowed us room for Thing 3. But, for the past seven years I’ve been muttering “zoom zoom” to myself whenever I got left in the dust at a stop light, couldn’t finesse my way through the crowd at the Union toll, or had to fill up the tank yet again because of its awesome 18 mpg.

I’m not quite sure what turned the tide.  Several weeks ago DH suggested we (finally!) replace the burned-to-a-crisp-two-years-ago corolla.  Earlier this year, we did test drive lots of small cars–the Yaris, the Scion XD.  All summer, whenever we had to rent a car, we tested something small–Hyundais, Nissans, etc.  But the lynchpin: two weeks ago we were in Princeton for Japanese school, and we stopped by the Honda dealership, and were dutifully impressed with both the Fit and Insight. We almost didn’t make it to the Mini dealership. On a whim, we went.  And never looked back.

Unfortunately, the dealership in Princeton didn’t have the one we wanted.  The dealership in Mahwah had the car we wanted but was not so friendly.  Then the dealership in Princeton found one to our specs, we put down a deposit, and whoosh, it was sold out from under us.  (yes, you can read that again.  we put down a deposit, and the car was sold to someone else after that.  really). That saddened me, and I spent an entire evening calling mini dealerships up and down the east coast (as far away as Maryland and CT) to find what we wanted.  It just didn’t exist.  But the dealership in White Plains came close.  And the car was on the lot.  And we put down a deposit and amazingly, the car didn’t get sold to someone else!

So now we have a car that our entire family cannot fit into.  And unlike the Fit which had 10 cup holders, Lady Bug has 10 speakers.  And an iPod connection.  And excellent gas mileage.  It may be a mini, but there’s plenty of room for yarn!

The Things are now firmly ensconced in school.  Here’s the first day of school photo, now a family tradition.  Thing 3 refused her brush, explaining that she had a “hand claw.”  When I mentioned that on FB and in an email to my parents, both my good friend and then my dad mentioned that they thought Thing 1 looked like he used the “hand claw.”  I’ll chalk this up to that I’m better at scheduling dentist appointments.  Haircuts fall through the cracks.

I should mention that the smile on Thing 3’s face totally disappeared by the time we got to school.  It was upside down when I picked her up at 3.  Let’s just say she’s not a fan (and she’s only in kindergarten).  I hate to tell her that it only gets worse.

To brighten their respective days.  I whipped up some treats:

This is the batter for (drum roll, please after a 20+ year hiatus):

WHOOPIE PIES!  Yes, I know they’ve grown in popularity her in the Garden State of late, but they do hail from the grand ole state of Maine, and during our vacation, we were  inundated with them.  After god knows how many, Thing 1 finally said to me: Why don’t you ever make these at home; they’re sooooo good.

I actually haven’t made them at home for a few reasons:
1.  I tend to eat all the sweet things in our house after everyone has just one.

2. The summer of 1978 I burned out on whoopie pies.  I vaguely remember my neighbor friends and I making whoppie pies every day for an entire summer.  Between the group of us, there were like 10 hungry brothers, so we’d bake a batch, frost them, and they’d disappear.  I think our plans were to sell them, but we never got any out of the kitchen.  I think I’m still scraping the marshmellow fluff off my hands.

The whoopie pies went over well on (whoopie!) the first day of school! Whoopie!

or not.  Seems like I’ve crossed the line yet again.

Tomorrow, i’ve been warned, I’m going to be spoken to about my outfit. And it’s inappropriateness at a bored board meeting.

sigh.

exhaustion.  it’s been a tough week (because of details way too boring to recount).  thank goodness for the 3 day holiday coming up.

It’s hard to believe a week ago we were relaxing in Maine.  When we go to Maine, I tend to stay inland.  It’s more my speed.  And the weather tends to be better.  So when the forecast was calling for a week of rain, I just crossed my fingers and forged ahead.  While it may have stormed along the coast (Maine has a coast, people, not a shore), inland it was 80s and sunny!  Just one daytime storm to contend with.

This was our home for a week.  The red cabin (a “camp” in Maine parlance) on the right is ours.  There are others nearby, but not so near to be on top of each other. The camp is known as Sadulsky’s and it’s on East Pond in the Belgrade (pronounced with the long a) Lakes region of central Maine.  Many lakes in Maine are called “ponds.”  I guess with the ocean as comparison, nobody wanted to be accused of exaggeration.  East Pond is a lovely lake.  The water temp was an unheard of 82 degrees.

East Pond is also home to many loons. And reading Things.  Amazing what the lack of an internet connection will cause you to do.

Without the internet, many games of Monopoly were played.

Our monopoly was missing its housing.  We subbed tokens and coins.  Notice all the splotches on the board.  No, not the fault of a craptastic photo–those are the bugs.  Maine is not without bugs.  Maine is for the truly hearty.  There’s a saying, “if you can’t take the winter, you don’t deserve the summer.”  Same thing goes with the bugs.  (if you can’t take the little bugs, you don’t deserve the bigger?)

As for the monopoly, sadly I lost.  And I was a poor sport.  (note to self: do not show this ugly side of self to Things ever again!).  We won’t be playing monopoly much in the future though.  I conveniently left it behind in the cabin, to join all the other “forgotten things” from over the years.

I did get a lot of knitting done!

This is the back to Jasmine (from Kim Hargreaves).  Big heart.  But it’s been placed on hold temporarily.  Because it’s being knit on tiny size 3s, and if I even hope to come close to finish that stupid excellent knit 12 sweaters this year KAL, then I’ve got to move on.  But, I am enjoying this knit, and I’m using koigu in a semi-solid.  However, after knitting the back, I realized it wasn’t really the sweater I wanted, it was the shiny belt.

After finishing this back, I moved along to finishing up a UFO, my argyle vest.  And, ta-dah, after 10 months, it’s done!

There’s a surprise on the back:

stripes!  I wasn’t interested in continuing the argyle pattern, so I just improvised.  V. pleased.  And done just in time for the slight chill in the air!

Anyway, back to vacation.  In the middle of the week, we traveled to SoPo (South Portland).  I visited a best friend and former co-worker who’s just had two very Job-like years.  She’s due for something good.  I love visiting her house though, because she’s got this amazing birch tree in her front yard.  Everytime I’m there, we put our respective Things in front of it for some pix.

Prior to the tree shot, we did make it to Freeport and the best store in the world (even if it’s getting a big to big for its britches) LL Bean. Thing 1 needed some shoes.

Thing 1 is leaving boy-hood behind in a big way.  In June, he was a size 6 shoe and 73 lbs.  At his dr. check up the week before Maine, he weighed in a 93 lbs! (and about 3 inches taller).  He was still wearing the size 6 shoes, but I was thinking, “hmmm, we ought to go to Beans and measure his feet–i’ll bet he’s in adult sizes now.”

Here’s his new shoes.  Not really, but he is a men’s 9!  Ouch.  I feel like the chinese foot-binding mom.  ouch again!

So we’re refreshed, ready for school (with new big shoes), and ready for Fall!  Woo-hoo!