How to tell if you're an idiot...take this simple test.

Now the problem, as I see it, with making something named I-cord (that's short for idiot cord) is this - how big of a loser do you feel like if you mess it up? Let me tell you, you feel kind of like... well, an idiot.

I know you showed me how Samantha, I guess I just had a momentary brain lapse. I was looking at the book and reading their directions while trying to knit the cord, and at the same time thinking about how you had shown me and the two methods were not jiving in my brain, nor in my fingers apparently. The resulting cord was coming out flat, not cord-ish at all. "Oh, dear," thought I, "I can't even make idiot cord, what does that make me?"

Not to worry though, all was well as soon as I stopped trying to follow the book's instructions and just thought about how you had shown me.


















(why is there only one bootie in the pic? read on)

Another fantastic little tidbit that I think you shared with me Samantha was not to weave in your ends until you were done and satisfied with your project. This is brilliant advice, and imagine how bright I would feel if only I had followed it. Although in my defense, I have to say that I had thought I was done, then when the mattress stitch to join my second bootie turned out so much better then the first one I realized that I would have to take the first apart and re-do it. Somehow, while trying to find my (well-woven in )ends, I managed to take apart some of my actual cast-on edge and now the first bootie is a real mess. I have tried to re-do it several times but each time looks worse. I think I will have to bring it to our knitting guru on Wednesday and plead for mercy. Although the booties are wool so if worse comes to worst, I could always felt them - my favorite method for hiding mistakes.

A few distractions...

I have finished knitting the main part of the Lion Suede backpack and now I have to knit ... wait for it ... 55 inches of I-cord! Yikes, I started it and after a few inches I put it down. The Suede is not the easiest yarn to knit with at the best of times, but the I-cord is a bit of a struggle and this project is “on hold” at the moment!


Over the weekend, I knitted a dishcloth and a half with some turquoise cotton that Samantha gave me. I used different stitch patterns from a library book just for fun (more interesting than rows of garter stitch). I also made some stitch markers using some 24 gauge wire and some glass beads that I bought a few months ago from Michaels for making earrings. The thing with earrings is that you want (ideally) to have two of everything to make a matching pair. With stitch markers, there is no such challenge, so it’s a great way to use up the odd beads in the box. I think my favourite is the green one in the top right of the picture - it makes me think of a little alien or a blob of Flubber (as in the movie of the same name)!


On Saturday, Zellers had a Buy One, Get One Free deal on ALL their yarn, so I bought yarn for a Baby Surprise Jacket and a Pi Shawl (both Elizabeth Zimmermann inventions). If the shawl comes out well, I’ll send it to my mum (it’s her birthday this month - no, I know it won’t be ready in time, but it’s the thought that counts!). The baby jacket will probably be put away until the summer, when a friend becomes a grandmother for the first time.


And finally, I bought a two inch wooden wheel from Michaels, to which R added a dowel and hook, and I now have.....a spindle! I have ordered some organically grown naturally coloured cotton from here which I intend to spin into wonderful knittable yarn (cross fingers). I'll let the boys try it too (S tried his hand at spinning at a homeschool "field trip" not long ago). I ordered the fibre last night via email, received a call from Colleen at Wild Rose Fibres this morning for my credit card number, and the package is already on its way. How efficient....and exciting!!!

That's enough change to buy some yarn!

After hearing from Nicola about all of the lint that R found in the back of their dryer when he took it apart, I was thinking that I had better clean ours out too. After all, we have had it for about 14 years and never taken the back off to clean it, I had never thought about it really, as we do clean the lint trap whenever we use the dryer. However I didn't want to take a chance on somehow having a fire start in there.

So yesterday, when S took both boys to the rockclimbing gym I thought I might as well take it apart and have a look. This is, actually, my chosen technique for taking things apart, I wait 'til S is gone and then start tearing things apart, this way if he has any doubts of my being able to get things back together ( which, admittedly is a reasonable concern - he does have previous cause for these feelings) it is too late for him to voice those doubts and dampen my enthusiasm because by the time he gets home it is far too late. He has, on past occasions, even come home to a bathtub and toilet in the driveway. (long story and yes, long-suffering husband)

Anyway, I was rather surprised by the amount of lint I found in the back of the dryer because we don't use the dryer a whole lot and, as I said, we do clean the trap often. The lint was packed in tightly - a compost bucket worth, but thankfully no dehydrated little mice corpses.(another long story, one which had me feeling a little nervous yesterday as I was reaching in and around the inside of the dryer by feel, grabbing clumps of, what I hoped were, lint). Some of the lint that was packed in around a penny had a burned appearance to it, which to me is a cause for concern. At any rate the dryer is cleaned up, put back together and in its proper place and I am richer by 38 dimes and 36 pennies. Not bad payback for a little bit of work. I wonder that the manufacturers don't recommend doing this, or maybe they do and I am just not aware, but I think it is well worth doing every five years or so.

Myths

We're immersed in the Odyssey at the moment, which we sort of fell into when I came across a couple of Mary Pope Osborne's Tales of the Odyssey at the library. There are 6 books in the series and we'll be reading the last one tonight.

I have also picked up books on other Greek myths, including Jason and the Argonauts, and one on the Iliad.

This isn't part of any sort of "curriculum", not being the type of people to stick to any such thing for any length of time, but the boys are enjoying being read to and they even made a Lego raft last night with a Lego Odysseus and Telemachus (his son)!

All this talk about Greek myths reminded me of a point I wished to make. I notice that when we, in our culture, talk about the beliefs of other cultures, we refer to their stories as "myths". Let's take the creation story as one example. I found this website just now - www.magictails.com - which lists links to about 40 creation stories from different peoples around the world.

Why is it that most people don't refer to the creation story in Genesis as a "myth"? When I see the diversity of beliefs of how we all came to be on this planet, I think that we can see that all the stories are our attempt to figure out where we came from - but as we don't really know, then we can't say OUR belief is the only TRUE one and the others are just stories that someone made up.

Just my 2 cents worth!

What the kids get up to when you're not looking!

This is what two of my children do when my back is turned! See that big yellow exercise ball in the background? My husband and I bought that for ourselves - but it has become one of the favourite toys for my 11 and 8 year olds. They balance on it and bounce off it and now........do stunts off it onto my bed. They got hold of our digital camera, set it to "action shots" and hey presto....impressive, eh! Unfortunately, it makes a hell of a mess of my bed.

Kinda Like Chocolate

You know how sometimes when you have a nice, big new chocolate bar - let's say a Green & Black's dark chocolate mint, just for example- and you know that you should savor it, just eat a piece or two a day, but before you know it you've gone and gobbled it all up? No? Maybe that's just me then.....

Um, anyway, that is very much like what has happened with the Horrible Histories CDs, they're just too good to be savored. Obviously my boys have inherited my tendency to want to enjoy the "good stuff" now rather than savor later .

We spent almost all of yesterday listening to them while the boys drew pictures( E drew a Trojan horse that he is quite pleased with) and sorted Lego and I started knitting a new pair of socks. S listened to one when he got home and also enjoyed it.

Imagine history lessons in the manner of Monty Python and you've got a good idea of how funny these are. My favourite was Terrible Tudors(which happens to be the section we are on in SOTW ) , W's favourite was The Savage Stone Age and E's was the Groovy Greeks. The author, Terry Deary, is in the CDs and he is hilarious - he must be a John Cleese fan. These CDs are great, think along the lines of Monty Python and the Holy Grail 's Black Knight scene ( remove any foul language) and there you have it....a fantastic way to interest people of all ages in all the details of history, and oh, so funny.

Mmmmm, ice cream...good.....

So this morning as we were eating our breakfast of ice cream....

Yes, that's right, ice cream for breakfast, that's the way we do things around here.

All right then, not really ice cream, more of a deliciously lovely blend of soymilk, frozen fruit and vanilla. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Sounds like a pretty nice way to start the day, doesn't it? See, even now I am trying to justify spending so much on a blender.

******Warning: those of you who know me will be shocked and, possibly, saddened by the following story - please don't think I have gone over to the dark side of rampant consumerism. Although you know me to be cheap frugal penny-pinching thrifty a descendent of a very Scottish grandma consciously aware of what we are really spending when we spend money, I finally gave in to temptation and bought this. ******

{please ignore the way our kitchen currently looks - we hope to remedy this with a(nother) trip to Ikea soon and I hope to remedy the backsplash by getting S to agree to found rocks as a backsplash}

For years I have wanted a Vita-mix, but could never justify spending so much money on one. I made do with an hand-me-down blender ( I think it was my in-laws from when they got married) and used it for our daily smoothies and all my other blending needs. Meanwhile I longed for a vita-mix, able to not only actually smooth smoothies, but also grind grains, churn nuts into nut butter, make nut and soy milks, and turn frozen fruit and milk into ice cream in a minute. When my folks asked me what they could give me for a gift this year I said (as usual) that I didn't need anything, and so they gave me some $ to put towards a vita-mix fund. Still, I dithered. Finally, after many searches for a second hand one, I phoned the company about an advertised special deal but when I was told the special was not available to Canadians I decided to wait. Well sometimes it really pays to wait. Yesterday Katherine emailed me to say that the Vita-mix was at our local Costco for a price that was $80 less than the one on the Vita-mix website, so I phoned S and he went and picked one up for me. And yay...ice cream for dessert last night and brekkie this morn. I also hear they make excellent margaritas ladies, so next movie night at my house. Thanks so much, Katherine.