I'm It

Cate tagged me for this meme. Here are the Ye-Shall-Not-Break-Me Rules (that I copied right from her blog, too!):

*link to the person who tagged you

*post the rules

*name 8 things others don't know about you

*link to 8 (give or take a few) other bloggers

1. I hate hate HATE (did I mention hate?) pet hair/fur and freak out about having it on things but I LOVE animals and love having pets-it is a problem, a huge problem.

2. I am extremely sensitive to smells and cannot function in what I consider a bad smelling situation. Inversely, I really love smelling good smells. The more I type "smell" the weirder this is getting to me.

3. Without my glasses/contacts, I am well beyond legally blind. (this works well with #1)

4. I am very VERY afraid of the dark (yes, STILL. There COULD be something or someone under my bed...you don't know)

5. I like to please people and if I think I have not or I have upset them, I will think about it obsessively until I can figure out something to DO about it-I cannot just let it go. This can also be a wee problem at times.

6. I do not like exercise for the sake of exercise, even though I want and try to like it. That right there is the first time I have openly admitted my true disdain for exercise and fearing I will offend someone or seem like a lazy fatso, I am obsessively contemplating deleting it (see #5).

7. I NEED to be creative, and along with this goes my NEED to look at and touch beautiful things. If I do not do something creative for a while, I get really cranky and feel "oppressed" a bit. This does not mean my created things always turn out well and when they do not, I get even more cranky and am not nice to be around.

8. I will often get random words or names stuck in my head for days on end and cannot get them out and no one else seems to have this same problem-songs, yes, words/names, not so much. It IS an oddity I suppose.

So there ya have it-8 random things about me! This was good timing because I just feel blogged out-nothing I want or need or desire or feel like writing about. I'm cruising right along with Christmas gifts, although I have replaced a few handknits with, gasp!, store bought gifts. I'm alright with it.

I will leave you with a picture of our Thanksgiving crowd (minus a few sleeping children)-my sister and I made dinner for our 2 families, my mom, and a bunch of Indian guys here for grad school. It was totally different than any other year and it was fantastic! They were so nice and friendly and just so enamored with all the food and the kids-it was so cool to see it from the perspective of a non-American! What a blessing-I am so thankful that nearby Virgina Tech brings the world to us right here in little old Blacksburg.

By the way, Kimberly, Leslie, Lynne, Miranda, and Laura--you're it!!

Holidays Are For Knitting

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

If a Child Barfs in the Forest and Mom is Too Tired to Care Anymore, Does That Make Her a Bad Mom?

Well, we have come out of the rubble of barf-covered laundry and we have been victorious. It wasn't pretty and raised some serious questions aimed at Murphy and his ridiculous Law--why did this spectre of vomitousness decide to reveal itself when the Husband was out of town? why did this illness occur on the ONE nite I let Thing 2 have RED fruit punch in the last 6 months? why do they only throw up on the things that are hardest to cram in the washer and dryer like comforters and pillows? The Husband escaped unharmed and I think I did, too-but I did have a little tummy tornado this weekend that could have possibly been food poisoning-and I only threw up once, a major feat as all of my girls hit all-time record numbers of throw ups. Anyway, these are not the pretty things of which I made reference in my last entry so without further ado, here are some of the things I've gotten done recently:

2-Needle Norwegian Mittens, adapted from this pattern. I changed the cuff to corrugated ribbing and the thumb pattern and decreased the overall size by removing part of the chart. In hindsight, I thought it would be easier and faster to do them on 2 needles rather than DPNs, but purling in stranded colorwork left a bit to be desired and slowed me down way more than I intended. The second mitten is just past the halfway mark so it will definitely be ready to give the Thing 1's teacher for Christmas before their break in 3 weeks.

This is a picture (before I had all the ends woven in) of my rapid-fire, bias knit Hokie Scarf knit in 3 hours because 1. I needed one for the game, and 2. I needed a break from the stupid purling of the stupid Norwegian Mitten (did I mention I am not so much with the fair isle purling love right now???) It is made with Lion Brand Thick and Quick which, despite it's acrylic content, I LOVE because it is super squooshy, has beautiful colors, is not at all plastic-y due to it's wool blended in, and it is machine washable-perfection in a yarn that will be worn to the football stadium which is a wee teensy bit on the nasty side in the cleanliness department.

Finally, here are some pictures of what appeared on my deck a few days ago-completely uninvited. I am not ready for this kind of stuff yet. The good thing about living in Blacksburg is that I don't have to be-yesterday and today were in the mid 60s!! However, it is rumored we may have a re-enactment of this silliness in the next couple of days. I suppose if it is to be crazy cold, it may as well snow so it is a least a little prettier, ya know? I hate the cold, even if it does give me a reason to knit, but the snow is OK-it is pretty to look at and if I am going to be miserable and freezing to death, I might as well enjoy the view from behind my scarf.

Hibernation

I will come out of my hibernation soon, I think. I have several knittyish things finished-a Hokie scarf and a Norwegian mitten and a half. However, all 3 Things had a nasty stomach flu, nicely spaced out with each one getting it within 24 hours of the last one, so that it has been an endless week of laundry, bleaching, lysoling, and no sleeping. I have blog things in my head but for a little bit that is where they will stay because I am too tired to do much of anything. And I do not want to short out the keyboard when I fall face down on it, asleep and drooling-that would be bad. Hope you are all doing ok and are germ free-I'll post pictures of pretty things soon!

Traditions

Here are some of the Christmas things I am working on:

A pair of 2 needle Norwegian mittens, a vintage pattern found on the internet and adapted to things the way I wanted it. I added a corrugated ribbing cuff because it looked a lot nicer than the cuff the pattern called for which was all stripey, and not in a good way. They are a Christmas gift for Thing 1's teacher. I think she deserves something nice as this is her first year and she is doing a great job. So, I decided to look for a mitten pattern that would not be boring and would take me a little more effort. In my knitter mind, this shows more love and care because I'm not just whipping out any old simple thing. However, in my knitter reality, this usually turns into me getting angry and ending up in tears and wanting to throw the item across the house and my husband saying, "You could just buy her something" which then makes me upset at his insensitivity and misunderstanding of my knitter's pride and then I am in a huff. Ahh, the true spirit of Christmas....it's our little family tradition. However, these mittens will not defeat me-so far they are nice balance of not boring and mostly easy, even though they are a little slow to knit for me because of following a chart that is really old and grainy due to its vintageyness.

Next up, mass produced Sunday School teacher gifts:

Standard Salt Dough ornaments, made with the Things, which will be painted and made pretty some time before Christmas. Of course, this follows our next holiday tradition which consists of mom (aka ME!) finding a nice ornament that she can make together with her daughters, making memories and lovely gifts all at the same time. This then leads to it being WAY more complicated than any instructions could ever possibly tell you, mom doing most if not all of the work, the kids getting up and leaving because they are bored with the project after 5 minutes, and a colossal mess for mom to clean up and mom being all tired, sweaty and again, in a huff (a theme here??). But memories are being made, I tell you!!!! The recipe makes a HUGE batch of dough, I still have half of it left. So, tomorrow, we (read: I, while the kids are at school) will make 50 million more ornaments. These will be to replace the ones we caught on fire yesterday when trying the "bake them in the microwave" directions. Do not try it!! It is a farce! We caught the skirt of an angel on fire-smoke everywhere-NOT a pretty sight...or smell. You know that will be what the girls remember-damn memories. They get you every time.

What special Christmas memories (or "shouldbeforgottens") do YOU have? Share them in the comments!