Kiss My Knits!

Last night, Emily was a little sniffly. She had some trouble sleeping last night, and even overslept this morning. Since she normally has to restrain herself from getting us up at 5am, that’s a big deal.

She says she’s too sick to go to school, and that her throat hurts. The thermometer doesn’t detect a fever, but my patented MomHands ™ say she may have a slight one. When told that staying home from school meant she’d have to stay home from occupational therapy, which she loves, she protested at first. When told it was an all or none proposition, she actually said she’d stay home from both, although she was sad about it.

She has a best friend at school named Tania. Best line of the morning: “Tania will miss me at school.”

It was a close call, but she’s staying home. Right now she’s lying on the couch under a blanket watching her current favorite video, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Thanks for recording this for us, Dad, it’s been a huge hit. It’s nice for her to have something comforting, since I think the photo to the left best illustrates just how Emily’s last couple of days have gone.

Good thing she got that perfect attendance ribbon yesterday at school, because she wouldn’t be getting it if the writing celebration really were next week.


Orders for: CA, CA, and CA.

While getting ready for bed tonight:

Emily: “Mommy, why didn’t you come to lunch today?”

I flash on that note that came home yesterday saying that there was a writing celebration on Wednesday, where the kids can have lunch with their parents and then go back to the classroom to show what they’ve written. Since the note said it was a Thanksgiving celebration, I had mentally filed it away as being NEXT Wednesday. Of course, now I realize it couldn’t be, since there is no school next Wednesday.

Me: “I didn’t know that was today, sweetie. I’m sorry.”

Emily: “Some of the other mommies came.”

Me: “I know. I’m sorry, sweetie, I didn’t realize. Would you like me to come and have lunch with you some other day?”

Emily: “Yes.”

Me: “Okay, sweetie, I’ll definitely do that.”

What was that I said about other people letting my baby down? Ugh.

On the up side, it’s pretty remarkable that she was able to express a sentiment like “some of the other mommies came.” And we spent a LOT of time together this afternoon, just hanging out by the swing out back, then later, playing like crazy.

Yeah, I still feel like crap.

My daughter’s troop has had exactly one girl scout meeting. The next two meetings were cancelled. One was the morning of the meeting for no reason I ever heard, and the second that evening when we showed up and saw a sign on the door saying that the leader had strep. I and a couple of other mothers left e-mails and called her at work and on her cell (she did give us those numbers) to see if there was a meeting tonight. No response on any front. I decided that based on history, there probably wouldn’t be a meeting, so I didn’t go. I didn’t think Emily would mind.

Wrong. I told her earlier that I didn’t think there was a meeting tonight because the leader might still be sick (which I am assuming is the case) and she wasn’t thrilled, but she accepted it. Fast forward to 6pm, when she asks again about Girl Scouts and really, really wants to go. The meeting starts at 6 and is a good 10 minutes away in rush hour traffic. Grr. So we had our own little Girl Scout meeting at home, with a song and a snack and such.

I’m really losing confidence in this woman. I get that things happen, and being sick is out of her control, but there are eight to fifteen little girls and their families relying on her, and the communication is not what it should be.

The parents of these girls have a fair amount invested here. My mother and I have spent money and time on materials, and I spent an entire Saturday taking training on Girl Scouts and the Brownie age level. Some of the mothers, myself included, have offered to help. The leader needs to either take that help, get it together, or drop out.

I’m sure the frustration will pass and I’ll feel more charitable again later. I just get angry when other people let my daughter down.

Monitoring treasure distribution in Dragonrealms, I see a player find a goblet of Dalesian white wine on a low-level creature.

[Tvini] How did an entire goblet of Dalesian white wine survive a battle intact to be found full on the ground?
[Arnimas] Those Dalesians are reknowned for their durable glass-blowing methods?
[Adera] The critter used to be a waiter?
[Tvini] Hee! Both good answers.

Personally, I like the idea that our goblins moonlight as busboys at the Viper’s Nest Bar. Great visual image.

Off to get the kiddo from school.

I got a call back from my local yarn store, Charlotte Yarn, who had placed the order for the orange cones for me. Apparently there was a mixup with the order. When I ordered the orange, the store ordered the orange with the mill, and they have a written record of that, but the mill wrote down yellow. So when I got two big cones of yellow a couple of weeks ago, I assumed that since it was my correct yellow shade, it was from an earlier order, and the orange would still be forthcoming.

Wrong! The mill shipped the incorrect color, and – here’s the kicker – they won’t be spinning more of the orange for three months. Cue anguished screaming here.

Well, God bless Remy at Charlotte Yarn, after we talked about how I had 25 orders in line and the four skeins I was picking up in Davidson was just not going to cut it, she got back on the horn to the mill. They’re shipping 16 skeins and pricing them at the same level as they would for a mondo cone. Yay!

A terrible misunderstanding, but thanks to Remy’s persistence and the mill’s willingness to fix their mistake, things are back on track. I’d still rather have the cones, but under the circumstances, I’m happy with the resolution. I went from “crap, I’m going to have to start turning orders away, and doing a lot of legwork to fill the ones I’ve got” to “yay! Jayne hats for everyone!” in the space of about a half hour this morning.

Unfortunately, this all happened at the same time as a meeting with a potential new speech therapist for my daughter, and it drove thoughts of that meeting right out of my head. I’ve left a very apologetic message for the lady. I have a feeling I’m going to be on my cell phone a lot today.

But you know what? I like crisis mode. I really function well with the extra adrenalin. I miss that about TV. I don’t like drama in my personal life, but a little crisis now and then keeps the old blood pumping.

And NOW it’s time to head up to Davidson!

This morning I logged into Dragonrealms to document a new kind of flower that had been added, and got to poking around Theren. I hadn’t been to Gealeranendae College before, so I hadn’t seen the blackboard with the notes on how to create a gerbil launcher. I love finding those little touches that you really have to look for.

On the Jayne hat front, I would have sworn that I had two more large cones of orange yarn, but I do not. I’ve put a call in to my supplier to find out when my next order will arrive. It’s always tough to tell, since basically I have to wait for the mill to spin more of that color, and they only do that every six weeks or so. I have enough to fill my kit orders, but nonetheless, I’m probably going to be trekking up to Davidson to snag a couple of individual skeins as a safety net. It’s not an issue with finished hats right now, since I’ve got a few non-Jayne hat orders currently at #1 in the queue.

When I started this, I never thought I’d be in a position where I’d get nervous if I was down to less than a thousand yards of any given color left, but by my rough estimate I’ve used about 70,000 yards of yarn on the Jaynes, or about 40 miles if you want to think about it that way. Atsa lotta naked sheep.

I’m off to eat breakfast and hit the road!

Dear husband,

Today after my shower, I found myself covered with tiny little bristly hairs. It was itchy and unattractive.

In the future, please do not accumulate a week’s worth of beard, shave it off, then use MY TOWEL to wipe/dry your face.

Thank you for your consideration.

Love,

Your wife

The clip from Shall We Dance that cracked me up a couple of nights ago. It’s just over two minutes long.

I’m feeling rather proud of myself for actually getting this to upload, even if I did have to get it onto the computer using the husband’s Windows machine and then bring it to the Mac to edit it down. It’s such a long way around the barn to get this done. I think it’s my outdated DVD drive that won’t read DVDs that’s causing the problem. The frame rate on this is only 15 frames per second, but I figured that since it’s not a very action-intensive clip, that’d be good enough. YouTube uploaders are welcome to pass along any tips.

While poking around, I accidentally discovered Les Loken‘s videos. Les is a 94 year old WWII vet who’s telling his stories on YouTube. Cool stuff!

Side note: what jerk took “Tvini” as a name on YouTube? ARGH!

Today was the 50th anniversary celebration for Park Road Shopping Center, which was marked by a little carnival in the parking lot with free games, snacks, music, and attractions. Since it was less than two miles from our house, of course we went. It also gave me a good background to photograph a roll brim beanie that a client requested for a six-year-old girl. I just happen to have a seven-year-old girl to model, so that worked right out.

The kid’s roll brim beanie on wearwithstyle is in a colorway of Noro Silk Garden that has been discontinued, which breaks my heart because it was GREAT for kid knits. My daughter loves hers and chooses it whenever I ask her to put on a hat.

Speaking of hats, there are now enough dinosaur hats in the queue to make it more cost-effective to purchase an entire cone of Christmas Green yarn.

Eiffel Tower for scale.*
The spines on the dino hats are a little tedious to do, but the result is so worth it. People order a wide range of sizes in this, from toddler to adult. Nothing says “I’m having fun and I don’t give a flying flip what you think” like a vivid green hat with orange spines running down the back.

I’ve been on a Fred Astaire kick lately, having watched The Gay Divorcee, Swing Time, andShall We Dance this week. The latter had a sequence in it that made me laugh so hard that I literally had to stop the movie to catch my breath and get a drink of water. I’m trying to see if I can’t dig up the sequence, or maybe even make a YouTube out of it. Holy moly, it cracked me up. I’m marking down Eric Blore and Edward Everett Horton as two of my new favorite character actors. By the way, check out the last paragraph of Eric Blore’s wikipedia entry. I think that fits the definition of “ironic.”

Up next on the needles: CA, CA, and CA.

*Note: Eiffel Tower statuette may be smaller than actual Eiffel Tower.

As cribbed from and , I present the following:

http://www.likebetter.com/doyouknow/Tvini

Wherein you look at pics and try to decide which I would have picked. I can’t vouch for the reliability of this. Based on my preferences, the site guessed that I was a teenage male, astrological sign Leo, who liked to get up early and spent no time with his family. Maybe I’ve got a split personality. Hm, I’d better find a mirror…