Kiss My Knits!

Second day of Spring break here. Knitting’s going slowly, as you might expect when you have a little girl at home all day who wants to play make believe that her Barbie doll is exploring the Amazon.

Yesterday, Em and I went over to the Girl Scout store to pick up badges which the girls have earned, as they’re eager to gussy up their uniforms. While I was there, I looked at the other “fun patches” they had available. These are patches the girls get for doing activities that don’t qualify as badges, but which are still fun enough that they want to commemorate them. My girls love collecting things, so they’re all over anything that gets them a patch or a badge.

Specifically, I was looking to see what they had available that might be good for them to have to commemorate the visit of my friend the vet. She’s agreed to talk to the troop, and I’ve got a few fun ideas planned for that visit that I’m running past her. This will actually count toward both our “animals” try-it and our “careers” try-it, both of which we’ve half completed. But hey, Dr. Laura deserves a fun patch in her honor.


Looking around at all the other patches made me think about other people in my life I can use encourage to help the women of tomorrow.

Now whom I do I know who I can try to sucker in who might like to help…

Let me think…

Starts with I, ends with lliane…

Hmmm…

What did I do yesterday instead of knitting? First, I joined Facebook. Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!

Next, I tried something new with my husband. No, not like that, you weirdos. A new role playing game. No, not like… oh, I give up. See, when we cleaned up for my daughter’s birthday party a while back, we also went over the bookshelves in a way we hadn’t done in a while. Steve uncovered his old D&D red box. It still had old character sheets from high school in it.

D&D and board game ‘Runebound’ under the cut.

Today I developed cracks on my fingertips on my left index finger, in exactly the spot I use to push my needletip, and my right thumb, in exactly the spot the yarn hits when I’m moving my stitches.

Hmm… it’s almost as if my body were trying to tell me something…

I’m all band-aided up, but there’ll be no knitting tonight.

Powering through the list!

Examples of the”swaps” my Brownie troop will be making today. The top campfire is triangles of felt glue-sticked to a barrette back. We may add logs in the form of twigs which the girls scavenge, weather permitting.

The bottom s’more is craft foam glue-sticked together, with a face drawn on the foam marshmallow. They’ll be attached to pin backs which already have adhesive on them. I found these craft ideas at the link from yesterday.

I find it’s a good idea to make one example ahead of time so they have a point of reference. They’ll naturally jump off and do their own thing, which is good, but it’s handy to see what you’re jumping off from.

So yesterday my mother…um… I’m going to go with “encouraged” me to get to bed at a reasonable hour. We made a deal wherein I promised to go to bed by 10 if she promised to not gallivant all over town but to REST that day. You may recall that she just had surgery. Nothing slows this woman down.

True story about my mom: After she gave birth to me, her doctor walked into her hospital room and found her standing up with her palms flat on the floor. “I just wanted to see if I could still do it,” she said. Her idea of recovery time is different than the rest of us mere mortals’.

However, she is nothing if not a woman of her word, and so she e-mailed me this morning to tell me she’d lived up to her part of the bargain, how’d I do?

I was in bed by 10, as promised. Then the cat, who is on a diet, started begging for food at 3am. And my daughter got up at 5:30. But I was in bed by 10!

Even though my sleep was broken up into little chunks, I really do feel better. Leave it to Mom to know what’s best for her girl.

At right: Emily and her grandparents at a school function, 2006.

New Joss Whedon musical? With Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion? I’m there, baby!

I have a dentist appointment tomorrow morning, which wouldn’t be an issue except that I also have a Girl Scout meeting tomorrow afternoon which I don’t have supplies for. Frankly, I’m really, really tired today, even though I got to bed at a semi-reasonable hour last night. Sleep deprivation from the time change has finally caught up with me. The appointment couldn’t be rescheduled without a fee, so I’m going anyway, and I’ll make do with the scouts.

Some of our girls are going to an overnight camp in April, and they’re required to learn a song to share with the other campers and also to make some swaps to trade with the other girls. Six girls are going (including little sisters of some scouts), four girls aren’t, so it’s kind of weird to be running a meeting to take care of the needs of half the girls. A half which doesn’t include my daughter, who elected not to go after she found out just how much her nighttime routine would be disrupted at camp. Oh well. There’s a daytime camp coming up, so I think I can sell it as something they’ll still use in the future. And I found a page with some swaps I think my girls can make that won’t require too much in the way of supplies.

Although Emily doesn’t want to sleep under the stars, she has expanded her astronaut interest to include the constellations. It’s a pretty natural fit for her. She’s already interested in space, and she loves sets of things. When she goes to bed at night, she likes for us to lie in the dark for a few minutes and point out imaginary constellations on her ceiling we see. Well, the constellations are actual constellations, it’s just that obviously they are not on her ceiling. Maybe I should invest in one of those little planetarium orbs like my dad got for my mom when I was a kid. I’m sure it couldn’t cost that much for a kid-friendly version of one. (ETA: Sky Turtle? Wow.)

Em keeps asking me to tell her a new constellation I haven’t told her before. I’m having to really reach at this point, for more obscure things like Saggita the Arrow. As a result, now she knows unusual things for a 9-year-old girl, like that Gemini contains Castor and Pollux. I’m having to brush up myself, too, so that I can recognize more constellation in the night sky. So this is good for both of us.

It also gives me something quick to put on her lunchbag in the morning – provided I can remember what the various constellations actually look like. This might also be a good intro into the Greek myths. Hmmm, maybe it’s time to check out the D’Aulaires again…

For my own reference, a few constellation links:
http://www.abc.net.au/children/space/games/skypictures/default.htm
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/st6starfinder/st6starfinder.shtml
http://stardate.org/nightsky/constellations/
http://www.kids.union.edu/fsnCannedConstellations.htm (if you know anyone who still has film canisters)

Possible books:
H.A. Rey’s “Find the Constellations”
Michael Driscoll’s “A Child’s Introduction to the Night Sky” (includes glow in the dark star chart)
D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths (may be a little advanced)

I’ve been knitting like a fiend this weekend. When I say I’ve been working on Jayne hat orders that came in on Jan 6-7, understand that ten orders came in on Jan 6-7. It’s not a one to one ratio, where I always get one order a day. Some days, several will come in. Some days, none will. That just happened to be a busy period because it was the tail end of the Donors Choose challenge.

Busy or not, though, earlier this week I had to set aside Jaynes for just one night. I was over at Turtlegirl76’s the other night, and the knitters there were working on her favorite charity, Hats for Alex. They were all making itty bitty Jayne hats. SQUEEEE!! Too adorable. Busy or not, naturally I wanted to put my own work aside and throw my Jayne hat into the ring. So here it is, a creditable baby Jayne. It’s in Vanna’s Choice acrylic kindly loaned to me by YeaIKnit. Size 8 needles. You could probably go up to size 9, I’m just a loose knitter. No ties on the earflaps to get tangled. The orange is kind of brown, but really, the colors aren’t a bad match considering it’s for a baby hat. The yellow isn’t as lemony as it appears here. This is very inexpensive, machine-washable yarn. It’s acrylic, of course, but it gets the job done. I’d say this would fit a 3 month old. I always prefer to knit big, though, since kids don’t exactly get any smaller. I reckon I can post the pattern if there’s interest and if I can figure out where to put it.

Many thanks to Turtlegirl76’s cat Ripple for modeling. Also, for being slow enough to catch. He may be the old man of the house, but that doesn’t mean we can’t rob him of his dignity from time to time.

Speaking of that Donors Choose challenge, I was dropping Emily off at school last week and the music teacher was on car duty, shepherding kids into the building. She was literally jumping up and down with excitement as she told me the xylophones are being delivered this week. Considering that a few weeks ago the playground was torched, that’s a very positive event.

For those concerned, the burned sections of the playground have been removed and the playground reopened, so apparently it wasn’t a total loss. I don’t know about repairs, but at least the kids can play on it again. Sorry for the blurry quality of the pic, I took it this morning as I was dropping Em off at school, and frankly, it looks weird to take photographs of the school while it’s in session. I always think the teachers are going to call the cops or something.

Emily’s Clara Barton obsession continues. Here she is dressed as Clara Barton, jumping out of a tree with two trash bags (old baby blankets) as parachutes. Naughty, naughty Clara Barton.

Here’s a more modern nursing tale that would have Clara Barton beaming with pride. I guess medical personnel have always been daredevils, whether they’re jumping out of trees or running into gunfire. Great to see folks making women’s history this Women’s History Month.

I’m off to rustle up breakfast and knit some more. Hope y’all have a great day!

I had been doing so well at getting to bed on time, then Daylight Savings Time screwed me up. So very tired. Gotta get back on schedule.

So in lieu of an actual post, pics and links.

First, another ad from that 1943 Better Homes and Gardens. Get off the phone, kid, there’s a big steel order coming through. You can click on the larger ad behind the link and get bigger text, although it’s still a little faint. Sorry. No time to clean up internet pictures when we’re at war.

Interestingly, the same kind of baby bottles that this kid probably used are making a comeback.

Other links:
Pot helps memory in Alzheimer’s patients?
It’s like an urban Burmese tiger trap.
Stand back! He’s got a joy buzzer!
Maybe I can duct-tape my laptop to my treadmill. Hmm…
Delicious, delicious new fire alarm.
Nice bear… nice bear…
Just gearing up for the rain of toads
And finally, if you are so inclined, click to grow my minicity population.

Now, to quote Al Gore, “Peace Out!”