Bring on the Week

The end of the school year has officially hit. From now until Memorial Day, the days are PACKED with places to be, things to plan for, activities to enjoy. It's rather like the 4 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but hopefully with better weather!

Before I launch into all that's going on, I've brewed a cup of Pomegranate birthday tea (from Brad) in my new Zentangle mug (designed for me by my friend, Melissa.) Yum.

The crazy of this week involves Brynn's Developmental Evaluation, a visit to the Endodontist (which, thankfully, did not end in having to plan a surgery), 2 IEP (Individualized Education Program) meetings with Brynn's current school and then her new Kindergarten IEP team, an end-of-year dinner with the Girl Scout Service Unit Team, finishing the Scarborough Elementary 12-page May newsletter, a haircut, and pulling off May Day baskets.

But then on Friday at 4pm, I get to leave for a weekend with friends at a lake house in Missouri, where we will do NOTHING but knit, talk, eat, sleep, relax. YES. (But Brad's parents are coming to help him over the weekend, so add clean the house, wash the bedding, and stock the fridge to the list of chores to squeeze in this week.) But damn, this is some good tea!

Being gone all weekend also means I have to prepare for next week a bit early. Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week, and since I am the sole Room Parent for Rowan's class, I'm coordinating a group gift, as well as a few other goodies for Rowan's teacher. I also prepared 26 gifts of "Thanks-a-Lot" Girl Scout cookies to give all of Rowan's teachers, Brynn's teachers, Brynn's therapists, Brynn's bus drivers and aides. I curled a lot of ribbon in my bathrobe this morning.

Monday I will hit the ground running with our usual weekly session of OT/Speech therapy for Brynn, followed by an afternoon heading downtown to the Children's Hospital to meet with her Behavioral Psychologist.  Then an evening Mother/Daughter Girl Scout picnic with our Service Unit. Seriously. How do people that work full time do this?

Then on Tuesday Brad leaves for the rest of the week to Detroit. We will have our final Girl Scout meeting (I still need to figure out an end-of-year gift for them - sadly, I did not get anything knitted in time!) and I will attend the 4th grade "Mother's Day Tea" and concert. Then Brad returns, TA week is over, and it's Mother's Day weekend. I will not want to move.

This morning I baked cookies (selfishly, I wanted them for the lake this weekend) using a recipe in my recipe folder that I stashed there at some point but have no idea who gave it to me, or if they were really all that good!  Oh, but they are. And the dough...dude. They are basically an oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that also has pecans and coconut. Snarf.

It is a dreary, drizzly day in Olathe. (Thus, the tea.) I am thankful the tornadoes that stormed there way across the lower Midwest this weekend missed us. Love spring, hate tornado weather.  With all the rain and rain and rain, the ground is soggy and muddy, so the flowers we picked for our garden are still hiding under the edge of the deck until we can get them in the ground. (Thank you, Merfy, for my Lowe's birthday gift certificate!)

For Easter this year, I filled Rowan's basket with "Fairy Garden" decor, in hopes that she'd get inspired to spend more time outside and in the garden. It worked! She was excited to pick out some tiny, low growing flowers (purple and white Alyssium) and plans to create a Fairy Garden under and behind our smaller Clematis, along the north side of the back deck. Here's a "before" picture of the space she plans to use. Can't wait to see what she creates!

In other gardening news, our Azaleas are starting to bloom! Darn rain is making them soggy, but here's a photo anyway.

I have also, for the first time, remembered to actually check on and train the climbing Clematis as they grow their way up the trellises! Normally, I lose track of them for a couple of days and then they are a twisted mass of vines clinging to themselves. We replaced the small trellis for our bit Clematis with two that are wider, which means an entire corner to grow and spread out. They are doing great in their early growth!  By the end of May they will have grown all the way to the top of the deck, and I'll have to start training them down the stair edge and deck wall.  Can't wait for their giant purple blooms!

With all the rain and weather, I am glad we left some color on the windows from last summer's crafting. Our origami stars help cut through the gloom. (Note, these pictures were taken before things got green!)

Have a great week, everyone!

Spring Has Sprung

Earth Day came and went, and it is GREEN around here!  All the delicate little bits of first color that showed up in April have made way for leaves, rich grass, and bigger splashes of color in the garden.  The crocus, hyacinth, and daffodils have come and gone, and now we have tulips, phlox, and grape hyacinth taking their day in the sun.  Yesterday's rain washed down most of the snowy petals on all our neighbor's ornamental trees, and the silly bird who thought she could build a nest in the crook of our drainpipe left a mess of twigs and grasses dumped on my front steps after the rain.

Apparently, I was too busy in March (and most of April) to Blog. I spent today sanding, wiping down, and retouching trim throughout the house, putting the last coat of oil paint on the banisters, and touching up all the little dings in our kitchen cabinets. My fingernails are quite spotted with paint!  I have not showered yet, and have a little over an hour until the girls get home, so here's my spring catchup....

Many more knitted afghan blocks have been finished since I last posted. I also managed a trip to the Yarn Barn in Lawrence with a friend, where I bought 3 new skeins of wool to add to the mix.  Here's what I've got to show for it:

I've got a few other finished ones I need to block out, but the pile is getting bigger! When I was in Iowa over spring break, Mom and I laid all our blocks out on the floor for fun - it's going to be quite a job getting them sewn together when it's all said and done!

Craftiness had to step aside this spring to make time for organization and trip planning. I took my 13 Girl Scouts on a weekend adventure to western Kansas, which took quite a few hours of effort and planning. We had a BLAST, despite the torrential storms that beat down on us the entire drive home.  We stopped first in Lawrence for a 2 hour workshop with SAFE, a program that teaches young girls about self empowerment, healthy relationships, bullying, etc. 

In the photo, they are working on positive image profiles. We drew each girl's profile on a black piece of paper, and they filled the shape of their profile with positive words they felt described them, which they cut out of magazines. They turned out great! Here's a closeup of Rowan's:

After our workshop we had some park playtime in Topeka, KS at Gage Park. It was HOT but the girls had a blast.

From Topeka, we drove through the Flint Hills and into Salina, KS, where the girl chose an Asian dinner.  We arrived at the Rolling Hills Zoo, west of Salina, around 6:45pm, where we were treated to a fabulous program that involved outdoor games, an Asian themed presentation including some live animals, and then painting dragon masks.

The girls then got to battle over the Great Wall of china (with spatulas and ping pong balls), then surprised me with a birthday cake, ice cream, and gifts! We spent the next few hours doing a flashlight tour of the wildlife museum and a night hike through the zoo. We started the movie Mulan around 11pm, but I think most moms and girls were asleep before midnight! (And I discovered my stupid air mattress had a leak - wahhh!) The next morning we were served a pancake breakfast and given a tram ride around the zoo.  We hiked back around the zoo loop again to see the animals more closely before heading to lunch and back to Topeka for some shopping. TORRENTIAL rain - it was quite the adventure!

And suddenly I am planning the final Girl Scout meeting of the school year, but of course looking ahead to several badge workshops this summer, camping, etc.  Never a dull moment!

In other spring news...Rowan and Brad earned their Black Belts in Taekwondo. Studs.

Rowan took it upon herself to patch up Bun-Buns jammies, and she also learned how to do the Purl stitch, which has launched her into an animal knitting project!

 We had our final Girl Scout bake sale in April, and Rowan made key lime cupcakes with darling marshmallow flowers on top. They sold FAST.

We spent last Saturday at the Kansas City Kite Club's annual festival.  It was awesome to see the giant, professional kites up close, but Rowan's favorite part was flying her own kite. :)

 Brynn loved wandering in the flag maze - check out her new, short hair!!

We had a wonderful Easter, with time at home hunting for eggs and finishing cinnamon rolls, then a day at the Parker's filled with food, egg dying, cookie decorating, birthday celebrating, egg hunt, outdoor play, etc.  

Happy, happy April!

Last Day of February

The month of love is on it's way out. It's time to walk through the house and put away the heart paintings, the window clings, and the little bits of red that decorate here and there. And finally put away the Christmas wreath - oops.  Time to think GREEN thoughts!

My hyacinth, daffodils, and tulips have already nudged their little green tops out of the garden soil - I guess they don't know about the polar vortex arriving this weekend. :P

On this last day of February, I hung my final hearts on the girls' doors. Man, I love those people!

I took Brynn to Kindergarten roundup yesterday and filled out a ton of paperwork. She played in the classroom happily the entire time, requesting songs and wanting to dance and hear music.  I hope they will love her. I hope she will be happy. I hope she will find friends, acceptance, and compassion. I will try not to worry. :)

I finished another set of blocks using more of the blue Malabrigo of Mom's, and some pink I may have inherited from a friend? Can't remember.  They are soft, and hopefully not too "babyish" in color!

I'm going to attempt some embroidery on the next block, so stay tuned!

Tomorrow I am headed to an all-day Girl Scout Expo in Topeka, where I will hopefully add some resources and creative ideas to my leadership tool belt. I don't relish the thought of sitting around in uncomfortable chairs all day, and I probably shouldn't show up in yoga pants. :P  I had my leader hat on this afternoon for awhile too, filling my car to the brim with cases and cases of Girl Scout cookies. Can't wait to deliver in the snow - gack! Please, oh please, polar vortex - go North!

And on that note, I am going to take advantage of my free time, make some tea, knit for awhile, and catch up on some Jimmy Fallon. Happy last day of February, everyone!

I Love My Mom

Imagine, if you will, that a crafty knitter decides to organize a knitted afghan with her knitting group to be donated to Warm Up America. Said knitter mentions this fabulous plan to her knitting mentor (aka, Mom), who then offers to knit a block or two for the afghan. Awesome.

But then, said knitter and mentor mom get addicted to knitting blocks and are cranking them out daily, using all the fun patterns they've never gotten to try in their shared library of fabulous knitting books. Pictures are exchanged daily, and it is decided that these two addicts will knit their own afghan to donate, apart from the knitting group. Messages of excitement and praise are exchanged, and the knitting bond grows deeper. 

And then one night the knitter climbs into bed, worrying about her mom's upcoming gallbladder surgery, and starts to think about mortality.  One day...hopefully not for years and years and years...but eventually, one day, Mom won't be around anymore.  And the beautiful, amazing afghan that they knitted together with such joy and fulfillment is also gone. Gone to a stranger who may be grateful, but who won't be able to cherish it the same way the crafty knitter would. This amazing heirloom afghan that could be passed down, talked about, and enjoyed through generations of mothers and daughters...is gone.  

So, the knitter has a good cry and tries to decide if she's being selfish and un-giving, seeing as how this afghan wasn't meant for her. She struggles - does she continue to let her mom happily knit away, not knowing that a secret plot has been hatched and is steadily growing stronger?

Then, a couple days later, Mom sends a picture with the message, "Just for fun I took this pic of my 19 squares!! Man, this is so fun. Getting awfully attached!!!" 

It's a done deal. There is no way this afghan is being donated. The knitter's heart would hurt forever if she let it go.  When the knitter emails her mom back and explains how she's feeling and asks if it would be ok if they made this blanket for her to keep and then make another one to donate, Mom's single world reply is..."Yes!!!"

Thanks, Mom.  I will cherish our blanket forever, just as I cherish you - all that you've given, all that you've taught, all the amazing things you are.

(Kleenex break.)

So now we have the fun of finishing a ton of block options which we can piece together the next time we visit - hopefully at the end of March. I'm happy to return to my knitting with a light heart!

In recent block news, I hit a bit of a bump with an entrelac block I had hoped to include.  I cast on 35, as I am doing with most of the other blocks, but I didn't calculate all the 'extra sideways width business' (ESWB - technical term) and so ended up with a block that is twice as long as it should be. Not sure what I'll do with it. :P And the variegated yarn I used was super lumpy bumpy chunky (LBC) and not the best for entrelac, so I will be finding a different yarn to attempt a repeat at some point.

Sticking with the same yarn scheme, I created two new blocks.  Love the icord heart, but am on the fence about the cabled icord hashtag thingy. Not nearly as cute as I'd hoped.

But I love the next block duo to bits! Using Malabrigo again, here's my "buttoned up" and "squared lamb's tail" blocks... 

Just realized I still need to block and dry the lamb's tail - oops! And with that, off I go. :)

Lebanon

What a dreary, blah day. :P  Brad is travelling, and the girls are both at school this afternoon so I've been preparing for our Girl Scout "World Thinking Day" event tomorrow evening.

Area troops are gathering to celebrate Girl Scouts being worldwide.  Each troop was assigned a country to present and we will rotate around the room 'visiting' different countries.  Our troop was assigned Lebanon, and 10 of my scouts gathered a few weeks ago to put together our board.

They did a GREAT job, and are really proud of the information they chose to display.  It was suggested that troops bring SWAPs to hand out, but I TOTALLY forgot to have my minions work on that when they were here, so the job was left to me. I decided to stick to a simple flag SWAP, with information on the back of each one to tell the flag's history. I just put 80 wee flags on safety pins, and can cross that off my list!

Rowan's Junior vest was also in need of a few patches, so I tacked them on this morning and she's all set to represent.

And now...more afghan blocks!

I got excited about trying a "frame" and some bobbles in my next two blocks.  I had to re-adjust both patterns for less width, but they turned out pretty well!  (Btw, the awesome book I am using for the majority of these blocks is called "Knitting Block by Block" by Nicki Epstein.) I used leftover Cascade 220 yarn from way back when I knitted my girls' Christmas stockings, and from a time when I was making striped sweater vests for kids in Afghanistan.

The next two blocks took some simple lacework and cabling - using some lovely, soft yarn from my mom's stash. The cable doesn't quite want to stay where I blocked it, but should stretch a bit wider when sewn into an afghan.

The last two I'll share today were fun to make, albeit a bit scratchy.  The basket weave is a bit wobbly (I still struggle with tension issues when I switch from knit to purl stitches) and I couple of those cables look a couple rows too long, but oh well!  The yarn used was from my mom's stash, and if I remember correctly, it was a leftover bit from some yarn a friend brought her home from Ireland. A bit scratchy, but that's ok - it's authentic Irish wool!  I literally had about 3 inches of yarn left when I finished these. How about THAT for using up stash!

Tonight I will host my monthly knit night, which is always an evening I look forward to. Friends, food, wine, knitting, and awesome conversation.  Love my Knotty Knitters - see you tonight, ladies!!

Love

I love my girls.  I will love them even more when they go back to school tomorrow!  Out of 11 school days so far in February, Brynn has attended 2. Between snow days, teacher professional days, school conferences, and the stomach flu, she has been home 9 of those days. S.t.i.r. C.r.a.z.y.

I have tried to squeeze some fun into our February, and despite a cranky 5-year-old, we have gotten some crafting done. :)

Starting on February 1st, I surprised the girls with a heart on their bedroom door that says "I love you because..." and each day of February I am adding another heart and another reason why I love them.  Brynn is fairly unaware of what's going on, but Rowan thanked me right away and within a couple days I found these on my bedroom door...

Yep, made me cry. Then a few days later Brad was having a tough work day and I mentioned to Rowan that she might want to be extra sweet to her Dad that day.  As soon as she finished her lunch, she made these for his office door...

Yep, he cried.

We kicked our month off right by having my mom come for a long weekend visit, so Grandma got to post some door hearts as well.  Rowan also taught us the technique of Imposto (sp?) painting, which she learned at school.  We picked up some sale canvas at Michael's and got to work. Mom's is my favorite, but she took hers home so I can't share it.  Here's Rowan's and mine:

I also bought myself a set of semi-decent paintbrushes, because I discovered after a night with friends at "Grapes & Paints" in Overland Park, that I totally dig painting!  You bring wine and snacks to share, and the instructor walks you through the steps of painting a sample they have chosen for the night. It was really neat to see how different the paintings were - even with the same color palette and design. Here's how mine turned out - I gotta say - I rocked it, dude.

(You'd think I could hold the camera straight to take a dang picture of it, though! Sheesh.)

But most of my crafting this month has been in the form of knitting 7" x 9" blocks for an afghan my Knotty Knitter group is putting together for Warm Up America. I am on FIRE! I have been pouring over books and designs and having the most fun pulling yarn from my stash to create a serious of individual works of art. It might be more than a little hard to give them away.  It is a walk down a knitted memory lane for me, remembering where the yarn came from.  It feels good to use up the bits of stash that have been sitting dormant in a drawer.

I kicked the project off using leftover yarn from a scarf I made my brother-in-law years ago. I was in the mood to cable, and chose these to start with.

Next, I used leftover wool from one of the first bags I felted about 8 years ago. I remember how much I loved the color, and how tangled and frustrating it was to attempt Intarsia for the first time!  So far, these are two of my favorites blocks. And now I can say that I've knitted a tree.

The next set (and I did these in sets of two so that there would be at least some coordinating colors in the patchwork afghan) uses leftover Malabrigo wool (heaven!) from both my mom's stash and mine.  We made a bunch of striped scarves last winter and ended up with a bag full of little bitty leftovers. Kinda funky, but it will add some pizazz! 

And I will leave it at that for today (I'm such a tease), although there are 8 more blocks to share another day. There's a little person in the next room who is NOT happy I'm within sight but out of reach.  Time to go squeeze a little girl. :)

I'm Back

Happy Valentine's Day!  It's been almost 2 years since my last post - life does have its phases, doesn't it?  I took time off blogging in order to "write" and got very little writing actually accomplished. :P  Oh well, it was a crazy 2 years!

Since I can't catch you up on all the missed crafting, I will just launch in with current projects and let you see for yourself what we've been up to...

My Girl Scouts (now 4th grade Juniors) would have received these crocheted hearts from me at our meeting before Valentine's Day, but alas, a snow day was called and our meeting cancelled.  And then I was going to bring them to school and hand them out the day of the Valentine party, but stomach flu hit my 5 year old, and home I stayed.  You can still give out heart-shaped gifts after Valentine's Day, right?

We had a little family exchange after heart-shaped pancakes this morning, and I gave each of my girls a knitted bag filled with chocolate treats and a new movie. (We'll be watching Despicable Me 2 tonight!) I only had one cabling goof-up on the purple bag, but Rowan doesn't care. She tends to always want the misfits anyway, so it works out. :)

Speaking of Despicable Me, our valentines this year to all of Brynn and Rowan's school friends were awesome, thanks to a Pinterest genius.  Valentine, you are one in a Minion! (Rowan hand drew a Minion on every single tag.)

Rowan also finished her first knitting project this month - a snake! Here she is attaching her crocheted tongue and sewing on the button eyes

I will leave you with that for today.  We are so thankful this Valentines' Day to be healthy, cozy, and warm and spending our day together as a family.  The world is white with snow, but the sun is finally peeking out and promising temps into the 60s later this week.  Spring is most welcome!