Homegrown Texan

Born and raised in Texas, I've found the home of my heart and soul in the Pacific Northwest. I love trees, cool weather, and rain. I'm a back to basics kind of gal just trying to raise my family and find a bit of time to slow down in this hectic life.

The *one* day the kids sleep in, I wake up at *6:30* and can't go back to sleep!

On a good note, I got to spend a good 2 hours knitting.  All by myself.  With no interruptions.  It's amazing how quickly and mistake-free the knitting went!

On another note, I hope they're not sick.  Especially Michael...he *never* sleeps in.



Yesterday I decided I wanted to make winter hats for my boys.  Well, I've known I wanted to for a while, but I finally finished up my project I was working on for my friend Molly's birthday.  Yeah, her birthday was 11/9.  Let's just say the scarf I made her took just a *bit* longer than I expected.  Oh, well..she sews, so she understands.

Anyway, I can do the hats on circular needles alone (as opposed to starting out on double pointed needles (DPNs), my preferred method), but it requires using the "magic loop" method, which I loathe, particularly on small circles.  I'll go ahead and start the first one this way, because I'm a "gotta have it now" kind of girl, but I ordered a full set of DPNs off of eBay so that I won't run into this problem in the future (specifically, on the second hat).

At least, I *thought* I ordered DPNs. Shortly after I made the bid, I checked the auction and DAMN IT if I hadn't ordered the wrong thing.  I can't blame the seller...everything was clearly labeled with proper pictures.  I just had too many tabs open in Firefox and bid from the wrong one.  I don't meet the eBay requirements to retract the bid, and given that there were only a few hours left and I had to leave, I didn't feel it was right to ask the seller to cancel my bid (if this is even possible). I  decided to just wait, hope I lost the auction, and go from there.

Naturally I won the auction.  I wrote the seller, explained what I had done, and asked if she would mind substituting what I *intended* to buy (she sells loads of these, so I didn't figure inventory would be a problem).  I made it clear that I realized this was my mistake and that I was prepared to purchase the needles I ordered if I had to.  Realistically, i would probably have used and enjoyed them, but since I have a set of Denise interchangeable needles, I don't really *need* them.  Thankfully, she was happy to accomodate me, and didn't even charge me extra (I believe the two sets are of similar value, but since I got them off of a lower bid price rather than a higher "buy it now" price,  I wasn't sure what she would do).

Anyway, my set of 10" DPNs size 1-13 are shipping out this morning (they are like these, for my fellow knitting friends).  I can't wait!  I'm so excited, in a totally knitting-geeky kind of way.

I finally finished my first Clapotis (and my largest project to date) last night.  I'm so excited...so much so that I had to take pictures before I washed/blocked it.

I did it in Bamboo by Southwest Trading Company.  The color is "electric blue" and looks a bit more electric than any of the pictures show.  I used the size needles the pattern suggested; I have no idea if it is to gauge or not, and I don't care.  It's a reasonable size, and I think that's all that matters.

Unfortunately, this is for my friend's birthday, which was 11/9, so it's late.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

On to the pictures.

Here's (almost) the whole scarf.  It's a bit wider at the right end.  I don't think it's because my gauge got off, but because the bottom right corner was the final end of the work, and I could tell the weight of it was stretching it out of shape as I neared the end.  Since I took the pictures I have it blocking on my bed, and it evened out nicely (whew!  I was a bit worried!)


Close up of stitch detail (with flash)...this one is a little closer to the true color, but the flash kind of washed it out.


Close up w/o flash.  This shows the stitches better, but the color is off

On the twelfth day of Christmas, PoledraDog sent to me...
Twelve fantasy novels drumming
Eleven kids lunches sewing
Ten austin texas a-breastfeeding
Nine kids anti-smoking
Eight movies a-knitting
Seven babies a-scrapbooking
Six mountains a-geocaching
Five alte-e-e-ernative fuels
Four lazy weekends
Three earth homes
Two gun rights
...and a tex-mex in a coffee.
Get your own Twelve Days:

You Are a Snowflake
You live for the winter - blizzards, cold nights, snowball fights! The holidays are just a bonus!

This is serious stuff, folks. If you can't or don't want to watch the video, you can read more information here: http://healthfreedomusa.org













Nutricide - Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs
"Nutricide - Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs" on Google Video
The Codex Alimentarius is a threat to the freedom of people to choose natural healing and alternative medicine and nutrition. Ratified by the World Health Organization, and going into Law in the United States in 2009, the threat to health freedom has never been greater.

This is the first part of a series of talks by Dr. Rima Laibow MD, available on DVD from the Natural Solutions Foundation, an non-profit organization dedicated to educating people about how to stop Codex Alimentarius from taking away our right to freely choose nutritional health.

Michael sometimes has this great belly laugh.  He's almost 6 years old, so he doesn't sound like a baby anymore by any means, but this laugh is the kind of unrestrained laugh that a baby has when you get one really going about something.  It actually reminds me of Bart Simpson's laugh, but not in an evil way.  It is just pure, unadulterated joy.  Anyway, I heard him laughing like that, and wanted to preserve the memory for myself here.  Some day I will look back on this and remember what he sounded like.

And for those of you reading this, don't forget to take joy in those little things about the ones you love.