What, I have a blog?

Man, it was like I just remembered yesterday that I have a blog- well, not really, but you know how it goes. Take a case o' the blahs and stick it with my inherent laziness and you get no posts for two weeks. Aack! To be fair (and to let myself off the hook a bit), the universe has been doing its part to work against me. First, Aidan got suspended from school. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you heard right. My five year old kindergartener got suspended from school. I was, and still am, beside myself. So we had to do meetings with teachers and principals and counselors just so we could insist that he will not be taking any kind of medication unless his doctor says so. That is the school's answer to behavior issues. Medicate! Well, some kids do need it, but I will not have it forced upon my child just because the teacher is too inexperienced and stressed out to handle problems that arise in her classroom. Whew, that was a good vent.

We also had Abbey's birthday. Yay!!! She is now the big F-O-U-R, and she knows it too. If that girl gets any more sass, I don't know what we'll do. She was so happy because we actually got to buy her clothes in the "big girl" section at Old Navy. Of course, she swims in everything, but she was happy. (After we got home with her loot, she pronounced that "Old Navy is lame". Okay, but you're still wearing the stuff we bought kid.)

Then there was the whole Harry Potter engrossment. I got the paperback box set of HP1-5 for my b-day and started on HP1 around my last post (1/13). Well, by Wednesday 1/25 I had them all done. I tried really hard to resist buying #6 but broke down at the grocery on Friday 1/27 and finished it on Saturday. They were great. What imagination!!! It's the crack of teen fiction and I'm addicted. I can't wait until the last one comes out. I just hope I don't shake too much from the withdrawal.

You might say, with all that reading, there can't have been any knitting. Well, there hasn't been much, but there has been some. I'm venturing into fair isle/intarsia and it's kinda fun. I started a baby sweater on tiny little needles in Dale of Norway Baby Ull. Mine is red and white. If you read the Harlot, then it will look familiar. Hers was so cute I had to start my own. Mine is not nearly as pretty so I'll spare your eyeballs the pain. I also got a hold of Rowan #38 and started the vest on the front. Of course, no one around here carries Rowan yarns and I didn't have $80 to buy the kit for it so I'm using different yarns. We carry Tahki yarns at my work and I just happened to have a gift card for $100, so I opted for Donegal Tweed in black, silver, rose and denim. I've got the back done and I'm working on the front right now. Once I decided To teach myself how to read and knit at the same time, it went fast. I figured we readd patterns while we knit all the time, if I'm doing stockinette, it won't be much different. The problem is finding a book that change the page and stay open on its own- my hands are kinda busy! I think this might be something that I will actually wear. But, let's not jump to conclusions. That would mean that I actually have to finish it first.

The Blah-blah-blah-blah-blahs...

Warning!!! Very rambling post about age, clothing that doesn't fit and not a lot of knitting.

I've got 'em. And a mighty bad case too. I'm not in the mood to knit, not in the mood to sew, not in the mood to read. I'm blaaaahhhhh. The only thing I want to do is go shopping and spend my mortgage money on clothes from Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch. I'm crazy. Maybe I'm trying to feel young??? I dunno. Cause I really didn't like anything they had, well, maybe a few things. But they are made for tiny little skeleton girls and cost $58 for a t-shirt!!! And have ya been in there lately? They pump this cologne through the air vents and blast this music on the stereo--- oh, my, I am getting old. Seriously, though, I think those kids will have a pretty good disability case when they can no longer hear what their teachers are saying. And the pain and suffering settlement they'll get because they can no longer smell when they need a bath so they will be ridiculed for the rest their lives! I can only imagine! Ha! And the jeans they wear today, oy! Talk about painted on. Did you know that there has been a rise in sciatic nerve problems in young adults because, I am NOT making this up!, they wear their jeans a size too small? Aaack. And I had to endure the "what's that old lady doing in here?" look. Three days after my birthday I got myself a pair of jeans from American Eagle. No time to try them on, so I grabbed my size and decided I'd try them once I got home. When did the proportion of the average woman change? The waist on these was HUGE while the thighs were itty-bitty.(FYI, I am built like a tree trunk. No small waists here.) So I went back to the store to exchange the jeans for a different cut. I wasn't sure how the cuts work, so I asked the salesfetus, I mean, salesgirl.
Me: "These jeans are big on my waist, but tight on my thighs. Do you have any with a wider cut leg?"
Fetus: "Maybe if you went up a size..."
Me "I can't. They are very big on my waist. What about the _____ cut jeans? Are they wider in the legs?"
Fetus: "Those are what we call 'mommy cut' jeans. They are higer on your waist. Maybe you would like them better."
Me: "Oh. Okay."
I didn't go any further with her because, 1) she didn't tell me anything about the cut of the leg and 2) she obviously thinks I need "mommy cut" jeans. Isn't that some sort of insult? Man, talk about mourning my youth...

So I did find a pair of jeans that fit and that I like. They are all beat up and stuff. We would have called them "ripped" but now they are called "destroyed". And, the legs are not tight. Yay!!! And I didn't have to go up a size, which I hate doing. I was trying to explain to The Man that I won't shop at certain places if I have to wear a size bigger that what I want to wear. Of course he didn't understand, he's a man. He says, "if store A sells you a pair of pants that fit in size 4, and store B sells you a pair in a size 6, but they both use the same amount of fabric, which ones will you buy?" The size 4, of course. I don't care if they theoretically have the same amount of fabric, one is smaller than the other! It says so on the label!!! Am I alone here, or do other people think the same way? They have to, otherwise companies wouldn't do that, would they? The little voice of reason says that he is right, but the little voice that was told to wear mommy jeans says "buy the 4!!!"

More signs that I am in a transition... I was at the neighbors' the other day when their 16 year old son and his friend were listening to music on the internet. I said "oh, you guys are in to The Cure?" Blank looks. "The Cure," I said expectantly. "Never heard of 'em" he replied. I said, "well that's them, right there." His reply, "well they must've cut it up and put it on a hip-hop album." No, no, no. They stole it. There was no cutting involved. It was like they were just playing the track right off the original CD without any changes at all!!! I was trying to be smooth though so I said, "I don't blame them, The Cure is pretty groovy." Ugghhh. Not the right words to say to a 16 year old boy. I got that same "what's that old lady doing in here" look I got at the mall. Man, I can't wait til my kids are teenagers-not. I'm sure I will be about 20 times dorkier by then.

Well, if anyone needs me, I'll be surfing the Abercrombie & Fitch website looking at the hot models, jamming out to my "Black-Eyed Peas" CD and wishing it was 1999.

It's over...

...my twenties that is. I have officially witnessed the death of my youth.* And what did I give myself for my birthday(Jan.3)? Brain damage. Actually, the brain damage was form New Year's, but I didn't feel normal until yesterday. Don't ask me what I was thinking because apparently, I wasn't. I am not normally a drinker, but I was at the "drunken irishman's" house next door and, I swear, I only had one (neverending) glass the entire night. Let's just say that if there had been a lampshade, I woulda been wearing it.

Because of the brain damage, there has been very little knitting progress. I have this ugly hat knit with the beautiful yarn from Insubordiknit that just keeps screaming to be frogged. I might just crank out the old ball winder and have a croak later today. It was one of those things that just, somehow, went terribly wrong. (proof that maybe I had brain damage before, since this seems to happen a lot) I am also working on "anniversary" socks for The Man. I did start these before our anniversary, but do you know how much longer man socks take than woman socks? I've finished the heel gusset and am starting on the instep of sock #1. At this rate, they might be done for our eleventh.

I do have a few resolutions to share-
1. Clean my house.
2. Keep house clean enough that I'm not embarrassed to have company.
3. Finish the majority of things that I start. (hey, I'll be happy with 51%, right now my average is about 13.4%)
4. Be better at life.

Okay, done with that. I have some sock pictures of the socks I knit for my Holiday Sox pal, but I want to get some pictures of the great socks I got from pal. Right now, though I need to get my butt in gear and go see my new nephew! He was born yesterday (Jan.5) around 7:30 and weighs 7 lbs., 4 oz. His name is Griffin. I can't wait.



*As much as I moan and groan about being thirty, it's really not a big deal. It's just one of those things baby, time keeps marching on. But that is not very dramatic. Having a funeral for my youth is.