Spend It, But Don't Waste It

As I may have mentioned before, the Relatively Normals are Jewish. This means that instead of taking the Elder to catechism, I take her to Hebrew school, and that I get what are to me random days off when there is a Jewish holiday. It also means that around Christmas time they need a sitter for their kids, as they don't celebrate the season the same way my family does.

All this to say, today and tomorrow I planned to work from 8-6 so that the parental units could work while the kids enjoyed Hannukah break at home. Unfortunately, the Father caught some sort of 24-hour flu that has been going around his family - first the Younger, then the Mother. I got a call at 7 this morning telling me for God's sake to please stay home and don't breathe around anyone who might be sick, because they would certainly need me tomorrow. I told them to call me if they needed me to shove anything through the mail slot.

But it gives me an unexpected day, for which I am grateful beyond belief. I intend to buy cat food because the term "scraping the bottom of the barrel" became thoroughly clear to me this morning, and to take my student assistant papers to the SJSU HR department so that I can work in the slide room next semester. After that, my duties will be done and I can watch Smallville for the rest of the day.

Perfect.

A Clean Bill of Health

Yesterday was my last day of work at the Sanitarium. Bella was really, really upset - even though she knew beforehand - but it went as well as it could have under the circumstances.

I'm sincerely looking forward to my new job with the as-yet-nicknameless family. This afternoon I'm heading over to say hello and meet the outgoing nanny, with whom I will be working/training all next week. The family just returned from a trip to Israel, and coincidentally enough from the same kibbutz in Israel that I visited with my father back in 1993, so looking at the pictures should be a treat.

I'm also looking forward to having my evenings free, cooking my own food again, and regular hours with a brother/sister pair of siblings. Something about having siblings makes children easier to deal with somehow - they have a built-in play group, and seem to learn interpersonal communication much more quickly than only children. I also very much like the parents, and I'm quite exited about having a new, more stable direction to head in.

Girl's Weekend, Part 1

This weekend my stepfather was away from home and I had very few plans, so on Friday morning I hopped a train up to my mom's house for a weekend with just the two of us. We haven't done anything like this since I-don't-know-when, and it was just the perfect amount of time to spend together before we got on each other's nerves. On Thursday night, I had a crisis figuring out what crafty stuff to take, and ended up taking pretty much everything: 

For those keeping track at home, that's (counter clockwise) the completed-but-not-blocked-or-seamed Theodora Sweater, yarn with which to seam said sweater, the BSJ and book, the also-completed-but-not-blocked-or-seamed Ribbi Cardi, Veteran's yarn, and the Baby Mama Shawl. In the middle are sundry cables and needles for transforming Veteran's yarn into Veteran's Hats. That, my friends, is enough project to last for MUCH more than the 48 hours I ended up spending with my mom. 

But train knitting is good for the soul. 

I knitted on the platform and played with my fancy camera,

I knitted on the train and made it through several inches of the Baby Mama Shawl, but no pictures as of yet. Mom and I also stopped at her local fabric store, which had just moved into a bigger location. Much of the fabric that used to be in the back room is now on display, and I succumbed to the siren call of $2/yard cotton:

Much of which became this later in the evening:

These will eventually work their way into a bathmat, but it's still marinating as to how. I don't think this counts toward yarn buying, but I'm not certain, so to hedge my bets I'm giving Aija the chunky weight Wool-Ease I mentioned the other day. The next day we hit up my mom's LYS:

This is the place I bought the Silky Tweed for the ill-fated Tangled Yoke Cardi, and I was lucky enough to pick up the last two skeins of the dyelot I originally bought, along with 2 skeins of  deep chocolate brown. This definitely falls under project scope, as I now have 13 skeins of Silky Tweed with which to begin the Road to Avalon hoodie from the newest Knitscene (also in my possession). Shop owner Allison is a lovely woman. She's a bit brusque at first, but there is no malice or attitude behind it - that's simply how she is, and while I was a little put off by her abruptness originally, I value her opinion more every time I go to her store. Plus, she carries a variety of things that my LYS doesn't, so I can support two shops guilt-free. Anyway, Allison and I worked out a way to make sure I have complete control over the new sweater, but it will take some mathematical gymnastics to get there. 

I have to pause here and head to work. This is my last week with Bella; her father has asked me to continue with her once/week, but I asked for some time with my new family to think about it and to get used to the new schedule. Given the amount of stress the Crazy Family puts on my life, I'm thinking I'll say no. Soon, I hope to be as relaxed as this fellow:

Served.

A couple of weeks ago, I had an interview with A Lovely Family. I adored them at first sight; they are uniformly bright, fun, and seem refreshingly sane. Apparently they feel the same way about me, so they offered me a job. This position will differ significantly from my current work at The Sanitarium:

The hours end at 6:30pm or when a parent comes home, whichever comes first. 

My job is not to raise someone else's children, but to be home when the kids (there are two) get off the bus, to make sure they eat, do homework and get to their activities. 

The parents are lovely, and the mom knits (yay!).

And perhaps most tellingly for a family whom I don't know very well yet, they kept their last nanny for 10 years - in contrast to the 9 month record at my current job. 

Today I'm giving The Crazy Family my 3-week notice. Think good thoughts for me -  despite my glee at finding a new family to work with, my heart tugs at the thought of Bella, who has been consistently abandoned by everyone around her. Poor darling, it's not her fault, and yet she is the one who will suffer.

The Siren Song of Television

So lately I've been avoiding the knitting. Like Jas, I've been on a spinning jag, which is good considering that I just acquired a significant portion of my body weight in unspun fiber. But avoiding or not, Elizabeth's wedding is a week from yesterday and I need to finish her shawl before the bocce ball reception on Sunday morning. So I did what any self-respecting knitter with sass would do: I started a new project. 

I wanted to start the Persephone scarf from MimKnits, but both the Perplexed yarn and the pattern thwarted me. So instead, I whipped out the Black Magic yarn and the Forest Canopy Shawl pattern and went to town. It called for sock weight and size 8 needles; I'm using roughly DK+ weight and 8's. It'll be larger than originally intended, but I'm okay with that - in fact, I'm looking forward to it. 

Pictures? Okay. But just this once. 

I put a couple more repeats into it last night after Elizabeth's bachelorette party. We lingered deep into the wee sma's over a bottle of delicious port and talk of video games - the perfect end to a lovely day.

Forest Canopy Shawl from I'm Knitting As Fast As I Can

Black Magic handspun, ~383 yds.

I had an interview with a family today, and the mom wants me to come back to speak with her when her children are away so that we can have a conversation that's not punctuated by offerings to see the playroom/backyard/favorite stuffed animal. That's a good sign, right? They live nearby, which would save me a not insignificant sum in gas money every month, so we'll see. I'm cautiously optimistic, about both the job and the mojo.

And now, Tim Gunn, popcorn and the Sonata are singing a sweet tune of spinning and fashion madness. Au revoir, ma cheries. 

P.S. - the Mint Crisp M&M's are secretly filled with crack. Don't buy them, and for god's sake don't eat them. Consider yourself warned.

That's It, I Swear!

It's time. On Tuesday, I sent my resume to a local nanny agency after Bella's dad cut my hours again. He's so excited lately to have re-discovered how much he loves being a father, which I think is utterly wonderful, and I wish him the best of luck, but with summer coming on, 15 hours/week won't cut it. Especially if I want to do things like pay rent and pay off my car, not to mention going to SOAR or really anywhere ever. Yesterday I met with the nanny agency and the lovely lady there said she would begin sending my resume to families in her database, so I might hear something back as early as Monday.

I'm trying to get over my feelings of guilt about leaving Bella. We were just beginning to get used to each other and pound out a rough set of guidelines, and the drama was cooling down considerably (despite the occasional Bella Family Crazy Dance(TM)). I feel like a strange mix of mercenary and Mary Poppins - leaving because the money will be better elsewhere, and leaving because the family is beginning to heal. However, another position would probably suit me better and cause less stress in my life, not to mention that with gas at $4/gallon here, driving ~50 miles every day is getting damned expensive!

Anyway, here's some pretty fiber!

Crazy Monkey:

4 oz. SW Merino in White Peaches

4 oz. merino/soysilk in Golden Summer
(These two are destined to be plied together and maybe form a Bee Fields Shawl)

Dragonfibers:

4 oz. BFL in Blackberry Truffle

4 oz. BFL in Rosehip

4 oz. BFL in Innocent
(The Rosehip and Innocent will also intertwine their as-yet-undetermined destinies)

I haven't bought anything since last week's fall from grace at the Fiber Festival; everything listed above was ordered before hand. You see, May is one of my 3-paycheck months, so I splurged in April (hey, any reason is better than none!). Yesterday I spent most of the day with Jasmin and Chloe just hanging out and watching Auntie Mame. Better Than Yarn tried out this fiber and wasn't feelin' it, so I became the beneficiary of Jasmin 2008's "Less is More" philosophy:

4.1 oz. merino/soysilk in Easter Egg from A Girl on the Rocks

~4 oz. merino/soysilk in Mystery Colorway from A Girl on the Rocks


(I like it!)

But before I began that new project, I finished one. See how I'm getting better?

233 yds. 3-ply, SW Merino in Buffalo Soldier from Crown Mountain Farms

I'm quite proud of this spinning. It's the first 3-ply I've done that I could call a true sport/light worsted, which means that I could actually make a pair of socks out of this and have enough to graft the toes together. But maybe I'll do them toe-up just in case. It also puts me within spitting distance of completing Mile 3 of the 12-Mile Quest.

I haven't had many knitting finishes lately, so the yardage isn't adding up very quickly, but there are several things on the needles that are nearing completion. I've definitely been in more of a spinning place than a knitting place; the Tangled Yoke is still in the Time Out Corner, and the Stutter Regia and Wussy Wolverine socks are on hold as Public Knitting until the Juno Regina wedding shawl I'm working on is finished (June 13 deadline). Maybe things will pick up in the knitting department soon, but I think it'll be after the shawl is delivered and the two pairs of Stutter Socks are done. Deadline knitting is kind of the anathema of multiple-project progress.

I'm off to write papers - or maybe play video games. Here's a kitty.

Sock Madness and A Tale of Woe

Bella and I are getting along better now. We've established some ground rules and she's more comfortable now that she knows what they are. She's never had rules before - something I've been told over and over isn't good for a child. She's largely stopped crying about little things like being told to sit up and eat her dinner and started crying about the things that really hurt her bruised little heart.

A few days ago, we arrived at her house and I sent her to do her homework. She sat down at her desk for a few moments, then I came into the room.

"Bella, come here," I said, pointing to the spot directly in front of me. She came over slowly and stood on the spot (progress! Obedience without questioning!), looking up at me curiously. "WHERE," I demanded, "is my big hug for the day??" She smiled and jumped into my arms - all 38.5 pounds of her, the tiny thing - and koala'd me.
"You didn't remind me!" she laughingly accused when she was done with her hug.
"I have to remind you now? You don't want to hug me on your own?" I wailed. She laughed and tickled me, and we giggled together. Then: "Bella!" I cried in mock sadness, with big grin on my face, "don't you loooove me anymore?"
"Of course I do!" she yelled, and buried her face in my neck.
"I love you too, button," I chuckled. Then I realized she hadn't moved her face, and that her little frame was shaking. "Baby, what's wrong?"
"You - you - you thought I didn't loooooove you!!" she sobbed. I was shocked. Somewhere my brain was chiding me for not remembering her utter and total lack of a sense of humor, but the rest of me went into instant Big Sister mode. I kicked off my shoes and carried her to the bed, letting her curl up against my chest and sob.
"Sweetheart," I explained, "I'm so sorry. I was making a bad joke, but I didn't think it would hurt your feelings! I know you love me, baby, and I love you too. Shhhh." And then it struck me. "Bella, honey, do you sometimes feel like people lie to you when they say they love you?"
She looked up at me with huge, watery brown eyes and nodded, still sobbing. "Who?" I asked. Seconds ticked by while she tried to call up a feeling she doesn't examine very often.
"My mommy - sniffle - my mommy never comes home even if she's not working, and she never does what she says."

I have never been kicked in the gut, but I can tell you exactly what it feels like. I think I stopped breathing for a moment. My family's not perfect, and we've had our altercations, but there has never in my whole life been a single second that I seriously considered that my family - all 12 of them - didn't love me. The idea that a little girl could have reason to question the very foundation of the word "family" breaks my heart. 

Poor little dear. Thank god it's Friday.

*****

I woke up early yesterday so I could print out the first pattern for Sock Madness, but it wasn't out yet. Another reason in my long list never to get up early if I can help it! It wasn't a big deal - I had no knitting time in those classes anyway. I swung by the school print shop between classes 2 and 3 to get the pattern. By the time class 3 was over, I had the ribbing and a few rows of the pattern done.

Originally I kicked myself for forgetting a set of smaller needles, but since the pattern grows organically out of the ribbing, it worked out okay. Last night I finished just over 1/2 of the first heel flap stitches and went to bed - probably good, since I have to look up my HPSS3 pal's foot size. The Zombie pattern is wicked stretchy, so I'm not too worried about the leg. Here it is so far:

Zombie Socks by Sheryl Ball

It also just occurred to me that this is the first time in awhile I've had any knitting pictures to show off. Sleeve 1 of the Tangled Yoke Cardi continues apace. As Brie hoped, my length gauge and I found each other; I've got about an inch or 2 of plain knitting to go and the sleeve will be done. Then only one more to go and Tangled Yoke becomes at-home knitting, as it'll be too unwieldy to carry around to classes.

I think it's time for more tea and some Angel, season 4. And some Zombies.

I (provisionally) Heart Fridays

This last week has been brought to me courtesy of the Conduit to Hell. I am apparently paying for my cosmic meltdown at Stitches West in spades. Five tests and three papers. Bella had her first kicking-and-screaming temper tantrum, lost her reading textbook, and revealed to me that one of her once-a-month assignments was due on Feb 14th. She's a lovely, sweet child 99.9% of the time, but when she melts down, hooo boy. Watch out!

In other news, I'm out of Garter Rib Hell and into the Land of Peaceful Stockinette. I'm sticking to my single project at the moment, but since I need size 4 dpn's for the sleeves - which I don't have - I may begin something else if I finish the sweater body soon. The color is a lovely russet red-brown, and I am in mad love with the feel of the yarn. 

Tangled Yoke Cardigan as of 2/27/08

Closeup - I like how the slight mottling covers up my slightly uneven stockinette

Sock Madness begins in the middle of March, and I'm fairly certain I have all the required sock yarn (hahahhahah!!). I don't know if I'll get very far in the competition, but it'll be fun anyway. I'm not yet sure about working solely from my stash for a year. Certainly the job insecurity means I won't be buying yarn or roving any time soon, and I definitely have enough in the stash to cover me until such time as I win the lottery, but I've set the last date I bought yarn as 2/24/08. We'll just see how it goes.

ManCandy's old friend Erin is coming in tonight and will be around for the weekend. On Sunday, I've classically over-scheduled myself by promising to help move a bookstore and take Erin and her bf to San Francisco. Fabulous.

Panza doesn't care as long as the squirrels don't taunt him and he gets his kibble.

Faina: 2, Me: 0

I found Faina tucked into a backpack (don't ask) and knitted away diligently. I knitted during class and during Angel season 3; I knitted while Bella did her homework and while I waited for her to finish her dinner - always a lengthy affair given that she had been allowed to skip the vegetables on her plate in favor of dessert until I arrived on the scene (again, don't ask). Anyway, I worked hard and I was proud of it.

The scarf has two tapering end charts and a body chart that gets worked 4 times. Here I am, three pattern rows from beginning the last end repeat:

Here's how much I have to go:

And here is how much yarn I have left:

Kitty paw added for, uh... scale.

Sigh. So after talking to my mom, I'm going to rip back the 4th repeat and just work the end chart. Hopefully that will give me enough yarn left over for the fringe, since "it just won't look right without fringe!" And I must say, I agree.

In other news, I actually DID finish some things!

Egyptian Jungle Cardigan (sans buttons)

Smooshy and Bare, 203 yards

Cargo Pants

Classy, 158 yards

The Egyptian Jungle Cardigan is waiting on the buttons I left in Nadia's car the other day. Ironically, I also bought a little Forget-me-not plant to put on my windowsill... and forgot them. Ahem.

This weekend - or rather, today - I'm headed up to Squaw Valley with my dad and Little Brother. They're going to ski and I'm going to sit at home drinking hot tea, fixing the damn Faina scarf, and doing my reading for school. Oh, and taking pretty pictures of the snow!

Until then, Señor Sancho Panza, Esquire, would like you to know that he's watching you.

Why, yes, I am slightly cross-eyed. ¿Por que me pregunta?

Icicle Toes

I have finally figured out why I'm so cold all the time. Or at least since winter came and I moved my desk. The cat door that leads onto the porch is about 2 feet from my toes, and baby, it's been very not-warm here in sunny CA.

Now, I'm from Alaska. I know cold, and I'd like to make one thing quite clear. This weather? Not cold. But also, not warm. It's brisk and breezy and rainy, which makes my 1970's apartment complete with single-paned windows (and lots of 'em, thanks to being an end unit for which I am eternally grateful but also) not especially cozy. Ahh, I love a mystery solved. I knew it wasn't the over-indulgence in caffeine. Whew! And can I just point out that for an area that gets rain for a good 2-3 months out of the year (cry me a river), these South Bay-ers are NOT PREPARED for a little dew? The freeways are flooded and no one seems to know how to drive when they have to use the wipers, their lights and steer at the same time. Bah!

Several things have happened in the last week or so. I started another baby sweater and ripped the Seed Stitch Shoes, which will appear again in another incarnation, probably smaller. The baby sweater, affectionately dubbed the Egyptian Jungle Cardigan, has 4/5 of the pieces knitted and will be sewn, blocked and buttoned by the end of the weekend. Next up? Some sort of matching hat and booties. Perhaps the Cat Bordhi socks?

School started. Hooo, boy. This semester will be a test to see how well organized I am. Six classes, five of which are upper division? I'm a little nervous. Tomorrow I'm going out to buy what books I can from the SJSU bookstore, and ordering the rest from Powells. I'd order them all from Powells just on principle, but apparently textbooks ship from the "you pay shipping no matter what" warehouse. So there's that.

I also plied the Flor de Loto singles from a yarn cake, a la Miss Violet's suggestion. It worked like a charm!

Flor de Loto, 3.5 oz, 233 yards

I even remembered to set up the ball winder 6 feet away from the bobbin like Father Amos says to even out the twist in the singles. The plying did a great job hiding the inconsistencies in my yarn.

I got my grant money check from the school and promptly fell down in my 12-Mile Quest. A skein of honey-colored Trenna and some SeaSilk leapt into my cart before I could blink at Little Knits - that's 1686 yards of yarn on their way, so I need to get done with 3372 yards (2325 more than I have currently...) before I order anything else. That's gonna be a challenge, but isn't that the point? I DID have a metric crapton of fiber in my cart at Paradise Fibers, but walked away with only new bobbins and a tensioned Lazy Kate, which go under the heading of supplies - a heroic effort, I might add. I also got a 2-year Flickr membership, so now I'm "pro." Essentially that means the Disneyland photos are up and that I organized many of my photos into understandable groups.

Lastly, an interesting thing has happened on Fridays at Bella's ballet class. The first day I was there, no one said anything to me so I simply sat and knitted. The next week, one of the moms started talking to me about knitting and went to the car to grab hers. This week, there were two other women knitting with me and chatting, and one elderly Dutch lady who is utterly delightful offered me all her old patterns from "during the war" because she can't knit anymore due to arthritis. It's been fun and entertaining. Bella even got re-interested in her knitting this evening, and did two whole rows before her mother arrived to take her somewhere.

And now? I'm off to sit in a heated room and finish the cardigan. Ahhh, stockinette, where would we be without you?

What Was New is New Again

Let's make one thing quite clear: I am a shambles at Christmas knitting. Worse, I may be the knitting equivalent of the random detritus found on the floor after cleaning up a shambles. It's that bad, people.

I began my new job as a nanny on Monday afternoon. My little girl picked out a nickname for herself among several choices; she is now and forever more Little Bella. Her father has a touch of the harmlessly crazy due to consistent alcohol consumption and her mother works out of town for a month or two on end; I feel like I'm in The Nanny Diaries a little bit. Bella is a precocious child (I can spell 'phenomenal!') and has a Schedule. It's not completely packed like some of my kids at The Tutor Place used to be - third grade children who have "activities" from 6am until they fall into bed at midnight, only to rinse and repeat 5 days/week - and it's manageable. Or it will be once I get my new car and am not freaked about highway driving in the poor Saturn. I feel like a coach at a hospital's Terminal Ward: "Three more weeks, baby. Just stay with me for three more weeks, you know you can do it!" So far, the last two days have been fun. Her dad gave us permission to blow off Tae Kwon Do last evening, so we went to downtown Los Altos where we met up with Nadia and Cat and drank hot chocolate and coffee. Then we skipped - literally - over to Uncommon Threads and plopped down at their table, where Bella asked me to teach her to knit. Whether I had an ulterior motive for taking her to the yarn shop, I shall never divulge. Cashmere/alpaca couldn't drag it out of me.

So we sat down after oooing and aaaahing over all the lovely colors. And in less time than it takes me to write this, the little imp had mastered and was repeating "in through the front, around the tip, under the front, and off!" Within another 3 minutes, the only part I still had in the process is wrapping the yarn around the needle (Tomorrow will you teach me to do it myself? I like to be self-sufficient.) Then we bought her some Plymouth Worsted and some size 8 needles (The numbers must be how big they are. See, the 5's are smaller than the 8's!) and headed home, where her dad made us omelettes and told her there are "more useful things in the world than knitting!" I countered that knitting would be good for her math skills and her dexterity, so we'll see how that little battle turns out. Friday she's promised to help me pick out a Christmas tree since ManCandy is leaving for an early home Christmas tomorrow morning.

And back to the Christmas knitting shambles detritus that is my knitting basket. I have about 95% of one Dashing done, one Charade sock that according to the recipient needs more ribbing at the cuff of a cuff-down sock - dammit! - so will soon be zero Charade socks, and almost half of a Faina shawl. That's two boys and Mother Ship down; I think the rest will have to wait. I'm working with a lack of knitting mojo right now because school ended yesterday and I'm pretty spent in terms of Things I'd Like To Do. Maybe I'll drive up and meet Nadia in Tahoe tomorrow instead of work. A couple of days with nothing to do but knit by a fire sounds just about like heaven.