Oooo.. A Mid-Week Post!!!

Don't get too excited. It's just a meme. I've received this one a few times, but have never taken time to actually write it. This was harder than I expected. Here we go:

100 Random Things About Me:

1. I used to have six pairs of Chuck Taylor sneakers.

2. I gave them to Goodwill when I graduated from undergrad because I thought I was too “grown up” for them.

3. Ten years later, I still regret getting rid of them.

4. I have a significant anxiety problem.

5. I am afraid of almost everything that is not in my normal routine.

6. People often mistake my extreme shyness for being snobbish or uninterested.

7. In fact, I am usually very interested in talking to other people; I'm just afraid to do so.

8. I do not drink alcohol. Ever.

9. I often believe that people do not really like me and are just being nice.

10. I talk to myself.

10. I pray all the time.

11. I have a terrible memory.

12. I am convinced my bad memory is from having babies.

13. I have two little sisters.

14. I have a cousin who is only 10 months older than me.

15. I call that cousin my big sister, even though she is quite a small person.

16. I do not easily trust people.

17. I love chocolate, peanut butter and spaghetti (but not all together).

18. I only wash my jeans when they start falling off me because they are so stretched out.

19. I make sure my family eats dinner together every night.

20. I cook from scratch as often as possible.

21. I make all of my baby's food from scratch.

22. I spend a lot of time in my kitchen.

23. Although I was raised in a somewhat religious family, my road to Christ was a long and tough one.

24. I was not baptized until I was 24 years old.

25. I annoy my husband by singing small snippets of irritating songs over & over & over without realizing that I'm doing it.

26. I hate to talk on the phone because it inflames my anxiety.

27. I was robbed at gunpoint when I was 19 years old.

28. That event totally messed me up for about 6 years.

29. I am still afraid to go out after dark.

30. I am a behaviorist and am sometimes not popular with other music therapists.

31. I do not like dogs, even though we have two of them.

32. We have the two dumbest, most irritating dogs on the planet.

33. Mostly they irritate me because they shed hair everywhere & always seem to be underfoot.

34. I secretly love our dogs and will be very sad when they are gone.

35. I am becoming desperate to lose the weight I gained during my two pregnancies.

36. I love Pepsi, which is one of the reasons the baby weight is still hanging on.

37. There is only one person in my life who has ever given me a knick name, and I used that knick name in the title of my blog.

38. I lack self discipline.

39. I am a conservative, but not a republican.

40. In my family, deer season is a two week holiday

42. I love to freeze my ass off while sitting in a tree with my rifle in the middle of nowhere on the off chance that a deer will walk by.

43. I have two rifles that my Dad completely refurbished and customized especially for me.

44. I am very close to my Dad.

45. I am sad to know that my big sister will never live in the same state as me.

46. I do not like to be stuck in traffic on a bridge.

47. I drive across a bridge on my way to work every day.

48. I “rewrite” the ends of sad movies by stopping them before things get sad and pretending that the ending is a happy one.

49. This annoys my husband.

50. I fear failure.

51. I fear success.

52. I love the fall and the spring because temperatures are mild and the weather is unpredictable.

53. I am looking forward to being completely off work and doing the “stay at home” thing with my boys this summer.

54. I am secretly afraid that I will dislike or fail at the “stay at home” thing.

55. I do not drink coffee (blech), and only drink hot tea when I am sick.

56. I am consistently surprised when people compliment me on my singing voice.

57. I feel uncomfortable when people compliment me on my singing voice.

58. I did not choose or create my singing voice; God did.

59. I have been with the same man for 15.5 years.

60. I met my husband while we both worked at Six Flags.

61. I love to laugh.

62. I am not as embarrassed about my ugly stretch marks as you might think; I believe they are a small price to pay for such beautiful children.

63. I am utterly overwhelmed by the blessings God has placed in my life.

64. I do not think I am an attractive, pretty or cute person.

65. The best thing I have done just for me was to get braces and fix my teeth.

66. I had braces for over three years, and still forget that I don't have to be embarrassed about my smile anymore.

67. I wear retainers 24/7, unless I'm eating or brushing my teeth.

68. I enjoy a good political or current event debate with someone who is respectful of my views.

69. My next door neighbors are liberals and atheists; we have very nice debates.

70. I listen to audiobooks or conservative talk radio when I'm in my car.

71. I often feel inferior to other people.

72. I have a tattoo of the Hand of God on my left forearm.

73. I was 32 years old and visiting my big sister in Maryland when I got that tattoo.

74. I got tattoo'd for me – It's a symbol of my surrender to God's Will for my life.

75. I sometimes fail to follow where God is trying to lead me.

76. My life is much, much easier when I just go where I am lead.

77. I love cookies and hate vegetables.

78. I used to race mustangs in autocross.

79. The farthest from home I have ever been is to Vancouver, British Columbia.

80. I love inspiring, meaningful songs.

81. I feel guilty whenever I spend time doing anything I enjoy.

82. Later, I will feel guilty for taking time to write this.

83. I feel guilty when I go to the gym, even though I know that this will keep me healthy so I can spend many happy years with my family.

84. I taught both of my children to use sign language long before they could speak.

85. I can speak some Spanish, but only what I learned in 8th grade.

86. My 8th grade Spanish teacher would be surprised to discover that I remember anything from her class, since I failed 8th grade Spanish.

87. I love to knit, and get cranky when I don't get a little knitting time each day.

88. I am a music therapist.

89. I am an applied behavior analyst.

90. I like the music therapy part a lot better.

91. My favorite color is purple.

92. I am easily embarrassed.

93. I have been called a prude, but I am not bothered by this.

94. I am freakishly talented at identifying people's voices after hearing them only a few times, but am terrible at remembering people's names, even after hearing them several times.

95. I think I might be a good wife and mother.

96. I never think my house is clean enough.

97. I love to read mysteries and political/cultural books.

98. I have a certified, autographed copy of “The Christmas Sweater” by Glenn Beck.

99. I function best on 8.5 hours of sleep, but never get that much.

100. I am a perfectionist when it comes to my behavior, but not when it comes to the behavior of other people.

Snow!!! ... And a Knitting Tragedy.

First, let me just say that life can be so difficult when one is small in size & lacks the ability to think through the consequences of one's choices and behaviors:
Riley managed to extricate himself from the music table. There was some fussing involved, but he eventually figured it out.

Now, on to the knitting! My friends found out on Thursday that they are going to have a little baby girl! Needless to say, I wasted no time in purchasing the yarn & casting on. I'm doing another Trinity baby blanket. The first one was quite a lot of fun, and the family loved it so much, I just had to make another. This time, I'm using larger needles for a more lacy, open look. Oh, and I finally get to do a baby knit with lots of pink in it.
I have also continued to work on Riley's new blanket. So far I am not sick of making these hexagons. They go pretty quickly; I can knit one in just about an hour & a half or two hours, depending on what's going on around me. I have seven pieces so far, and I have a whole lot more to go, but I'm hoping it's not going to take too long. I haven't yet figured out yet how I'm gong to arrange them, but I'm thinking about doing stripes. I've only got two colors, so my options are limited. Any other ideas are welcome. Just leave a comment.
ALERT!!! This is a Knitting tragedy alert from the Knational Knitting Service.
Yesterday, while cruising around Michael's in his stroller, Riley managed to gnaw a hole in the Sweet Pea Blanket. We all remember this blanket. It has been a cramp in my ass since I first cast on. There was the issue with the foam donught. There was the issue with the yarn being so splitty. There was the issue with it getting snagged on everything. There was the issue with the tails and ends unraveling right before my eyes. Yesterday, I made the executive decision that I will repair Sweet Pea's Blanket (if I can figure out how), will then hand wash it, and will put it up in his closet. He can have it back in a year or so, when I'm more confident that he will not eat it.
It has just been such a labor of love (despite it's many problems) and while I expected that it would be well-worn from lots of love, I didn't think that part would happen for a couple of years.

On to happier news... I love a good buy. Seriously. And yesterday I got this book, which has a couple of cute knits in it, and was originally priced at $27.99...
...for 50% off this price:
And I found it at my local supermarket. Yay!

So, I promised some snow photos. We awoke on Wednesday morning to this:
I took the boys out to play in the snow.
Rather than making a snowman, Tyson really wanted to make a snowbunny. I have no idea why. It was a good, wet snow & very sticky, so we managed to get something that sort of resmbles a rabbit.
Unfortunately, Riley wasn't able to enjoy the snow as much as Tyson. Life is rough when you can only crawl. But, he was definitely fascinated by it.
We had a really fun day!

It has been a wild & crazy week! The week started out on a terrible note. On Monday morning, I learned that a coworker, someone I have always been quite fond of, had passed away over the weekend. She had been ill last spring, but I thought she was going to be okay... I guess God had other plans for her. I'm still sad and I will miss her quite a lot, but I'm relieved that she is now free of her illness.

This, thank goodness, was followed by two consecutive snow days. I really needed a couple of days to just chill out and enjoy my children. It's amazing how healing children can be. And the beautiful snow didn't hurt, either. I've got a few photos, but I'll share them later.

I also did something else that I know most of my readers will understand: I spent a good deal of time knitting. It is my therapy, and it helped. I got several additional hexagons finished, and also pulled the stuff needed to make a new hat for Tyson.


It was an interesting food week around here, as well. Tyson learned to eat with chopsticks:
sort of...

...and Riley made a huge leap toward the transition to real people food. I know it looks like he is not enjoying this nectarine, but, I swear, he kept signing "more." He has also experienced the joys of pizza, grilled cheese and chicken nuggets this week!

And, in another huge leap, Riley transitioned out of his baby carrier/car seat, and into a rear-facing big kid car seat. He hates this one a lot less. The baby carrier would have held him for another 3 pounds, but the whole thing with him in it was getting way too heavy for me. I've already had a hernia, thank you very much.

I should mention a HUGE THANK YOU to my husband, who spent a good hour and a half fighting to assemble and install two stubborn car seats in subzero temperatures.

Tyson has been learning to ice skate. He insists that he wear his hockey helmet (he could wear his bike helmet... better visibility) and hockey gloves, even though it is just a skating class and there are no sticks or pucks. He seems to enjoy it.
And I finished what has now become one of my two favorite books. ever. I mean, ever. I highly recommend it, though I won't tell you anything about it because even a small bit of info could give away the whole thing. I don't have more than ten-fifteen minutes to read each day, so it usually takes me several weeks to a month to read an entire book. I read this one in 6 days.
Have a blessed day!

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Ribbit, Ribbit...

This week began with some major frogging. Remember this project?

It now looks like this:

This was a project that I started months ago. I thought it might be a relatively quick knit, but it just seemed to drag on and on and on. I was beginning to believe that little elves were messing with my progress in the middle of the night. I got to the openwork panel, and switched to my CC2 color... knitted half of that and... decided I hated it. I intended to rip that back and use the CC1 instead, but as I was struggling to pick up all those seed stitches & get them back on the needles... I realized that I actually cannot stand this project. So, I ripped it out. It wasn't a total loss. I got a new washcloth out of what was supposed to have been the bottom of the bag!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With that train wreck off the needles, I decided to work on a few smallish projects for now. I have friends who will find out the gender of their baby later this month, and I'll want to start a gift for them. I don't want to get into something too lengthy, so I decided to start a new blanket for Riley. I know, a blanket is not exactly a small project, but I'm making a hexagon blanket, so it's lots of little pieces. Here's my first one (pre-blocking, of course).

It looks like a sand dollar. I'm also going to be working on finishing up a sweater vest that I hope to shrink into by next fall, and making a few more quick washcloths.

I wanted to share a picture of my new knitting bag. It was a Christmas gift from my (new) sister in law. In a ddition to being a knitter, Marci is also a magician with a needle and thread. She made this for me! She makes really good knitting bags. This one has plety of inside pockets for needles and notions, and she made a matching small-project bag It's the perfect size for socks!

The big news in St. Louis this week was the weather. The local meteorologists called it "unseasonably cold." I called it "freakin' cold." We had high temperatures in the single digits, and the wind was a freezing, gusting force that felt like it was trying to cut you into a million pieces. The wind chill didn't get over -1 for two days. Thursday morning we awoke to this:

The whole day was frigid, and made me wish I was not an itinerant therapist going to several different buildings in one day. I rarely wish that I had a job where I could go to one office in the morning and stay there until quitting time, but that's exactly what I was dreaming about on Thursday.
That afternoon after getting Tyson off the bus, we hauled out the hot cocoa maker. It makes the yummiest hot cocoa with this wonderful layer of fluff on top. Mmmmm.

It was even so cold that our local ponds and lakes froze solid. Although we usually have cold winters in St. Louis, we have such variability in the temperatures (and enough warmish days) that the major bodies of water don't often freeze. Ty's picture of the week (in the right gutter) was taken by Matt. Tyson is standing on Walker Lake in Kirkwood. He was impressed by the fact that he was standing on top of the lake, and by the amount of ice floating in the nearby river.

Today has been a lazy day. I had a touch of insomnia last night and ended up cleaning my house until 4am, so I'm pretty tired today. We watched "Kung Fu Panda," and Tyson and I made Patriotic Pretzels!

Although we are a decidedly Conservative family, we will still be discussing, watching and celebrating this week's Presidential Inauguration. It's an important event, and we have already been teaching Tyson about it's significance.

Have a happy week!

The Worst Week Ever

Well, it has been a rough week for our family. I should have known it was gonna be a zinger when I looked out our back window on Sunday and saw this:
When I initially looked out, there were at least twice this many birds, but by the time I got the camera & sneaked back up to the window, half of them had flown off. I mean, seriously.. I'm not usually superstitious, but having this Alfred Hitchcock moment had to have been some kind of sign, right?
I managed to snap this photo when the neighbor's dog came running out and scared the whole flock away:
So, why was the week a rough one? Let me just tell you... it seemed to be one thing after another.

Monday: It was Tyson's first day back to school; Matt's first day back to work; and Riley's first day back to day care. We all took a nice, long Christmas vacation together, and the first morning back to real life was insane. The only saving grace to that morning was that my district didn't start back until Tuesday, so I only needed to focus on getting everyone else dressed, fed & out the door.

Also on Monday, Riley gave himself his first shiner. He is now pulling up on furniture, people, walls, etc., and often trying to do so while holding toys in his hands. Well, he attempted to pull up on one of the rocking chairs at day care and slipped, catching the chair with his face.
They said he cried & cried, but ultimately he was okay... except for the very dark bruise on his eyelid and brow bone.

Tuesday: The day was mostly okay, except that our evening shcedule was thrown off a bit because Tyson's piano lesson was cancelled. I changed dinner plans to include macaroni and cheese. I thought that Riley might like some pureed macaroni & cheese. What kid doesn't like macaroni & cheese, right? Well, despite being watered down quite a bit, the texture was a little more substantial than what Riley is used to and he choked on the second bite. Thank goodness I didn't have to intervene. He ended up throwing up & clearing his airway on his own. He then refused to eat any more, which was maybe a good thing, because Wednesday was even worse.

Wednesday: Riley started the morning by spitting up half of his bottle. We thought he'd done this because a little had gone down the wrong way, so we cleaned him up and then gave him the rest of the bottle. He seemed fine, until his day care called me at work to tell me that he had projectile-vomited his lunch and needed to be picked up. When I got there they informed me that they had already sent home three other babies because of stomach issues. Once home, he continued to vomit... and then it started shooting out the other end. Fun.

Thursday: Matt stayed home with Riley while I went to work. I was so tired all day, I couldn't believe it. My tummy started to gurgle right around dinner time, so I skipped dinner altogether. As it turned out, this was an excellent choice on my part, because I spent the entire night in the bathroom. Seriously. I ended up putting a sheet and old pillow on the floor in there; I'm pretty sure I have never been so sick in my life. I may have actually thrown up something I ate in the third grade.

Friday: By Friday morning I was able to go to bed, but still felt awful. Matt again stayed home to take care of Riley (who was stille xperiencing ECS - Exploding Colon Syndrome) and me (I was pretty sure I might actually be dying). Then Tyson's school called. He said he'd thrown up. When Matt got there to pick him up, they determined that he probably had actually not thrown up, but Matt brought him home anyway. Wouldn't you know it, two hours later, Tyson threw up. Friday night Matt's tummy started to gurgle. He spent the better part of last night visiting the bathroom as well. This thing swept through our family like the ocean at high tide. We were powerless to stop it, despite hauling out all the bleach, CLorox wipes and Germ-X we own.

Saturday: So far today we are all doing a little better. I think I had it the absolute worst. I still haven't eaten anything solid, and I'm still wondering if Matt might have beaten me with a stick when I wasn't looking. Riley still has an exploding colon (fun to try to contain in a baby who never sits still. Tyson hasn't had any other symptoms since yesterday. Matt seems to be feeling better so far today. Let's hope this trend continues. I'm planning on eating a little soup and a couple of crackers and then (hopefully) I'll spend the rest of the day disinfecting and sterilizing my home and everything/everyone in it.

.. And praying that next week goes better than this one.

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted. I've recently had a revelation. It's not that I haven't wanted to post. It's that I haven't been able to make much time to do things I enjoy. See, having two kids is a lot more challenging than I thought. Don't get me wrong. The boys are a blessing beyond my wildest dreams. I would not trade them for all the chocolate in the world. They keep me busy and I love every minute of it! It's just that I thought having another baby would be like just adding one. It hasn't quite been like that.

For one thing, I now know that people with only one child should not believe that, just because their only child is turning out okay (so far), that they know what they're doing. Matt & I felt that we've been doing a good job so far, and that we've pretty well got this parenting thing figured out.

Um, yeah.

See, the thing about that is this: God has an incredible sense of humor. And He enjoys zinging a few curveballs at us every now & then. So with somethiing like parenting, just when you think you know what you're doing, He is more than happy to send you a big ball of Heavenly Knock-You-On-Your-Ass Equalizer. And He's laughing while you bumble your way through the whole thing. Surprisingly enough, Matt & I are laughing the whole time, too.

Tyson was such a quiet, mild, still baby. He was perfectly happy to go along with pretty much anything, as long as you had a binky in your pocket and his Wooby (or a reasonable facsimile) to cover his eyes should he need a nap. He never crawled. He was just about through his fourteenth month before he walked. I could put him down on the floor and walk away and know with utter certainty that he would still be there, exactly where I left him, when I returned.

Riley is... a daredevil/Houdini/Magellan. He is go-go-go all the time. If he's not sleeping, he's going. Or eating. I'm not kidding. This kid does not slow down. He learned to crawl the week before Thanksgiving. He learned to pull up to standing the week of Thanksgiving. He learned to move the gates that are strategically placed around our house last week. He figured out how to climb the stairs this week. Non-tension gates are being replaced with tension gates; the dogs have been sequestered in the stairwell; everything that could be potentially dangerous (even things that are permanently located outside the "baby-safe-zone") have been moved to waist high... just in case Riley manages to escape.

I'm exhausted.

One of my [too] many New Year's Resolutions is to make more time to do the things that I enjoy. I'm going to spend one hour each day engaged in some activity simply because I enjoy it. It could be a bubble bath, knitting, spinning, watching paint dry... whatever I feel like doing. As long as it's not for someone else, and it's not something I consider to be work. So, will I be blogging every day? Probably not. Will I be blogging every week. I hope so.

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Anyway, I do have a little knitting going on.

This is the bag that will never. freaking. end. I thought it would be a relatively quick knit. I was wrong. I'm actually much farther into it than this picture shows. I completed the second contrasting solor stripe, and am almost half way through the openwork panel. Of course, I don't like the colorway I chose for said openwork panel, so I'm frogging it tomorrow.

I did start a quick scarf today. I think I may actually finish it tomorrow. It's a gift for someone. I'll post more on that later.

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So, how was your holiday? Our's was fantastic! Matt & I kicked off the season with his brother's annual Ugly Sweater Party. It benefits the Salvation Army's Toys for Tots program.

My sweater weighs approximately 7 pounds from all the beadwork. It is very ugly. You can't actually appreciate it's fabulous ugliness because the person who took this picture apparently cut off the bottom half of it. Matt's was very homey... it needs some extra bling. It's not sparkly at all. I think I'll have to do something about that before next year.

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Christmas morning was fun! Riley really got into tearing the paper. Of course, his goal in tearing the paper was less about getting to the gift inside and more about getting a piece of paper he could then put into his mouth, but, hey... it was a start. Tyson really enjoyed openeing his presents from Santa. His favorite: NHL '09 for the X-box. That Santa is one cool dude.

We celebrated with my family at my dad's house on Christmas Eve, and had Matt's family over for Christmas Day. It was a lot of fun. I received some very nice gifts this year. Matt got me a new crock pot & set of pots-n-pans; My Dad gave me an autographed copy of "The Christmas Sweater" by Glenn Beck (my hero); Tyson gave me alovely necklace that he picked out himself; and I received a couple of gift certificates to Knitorious (an awesome LYS).

For New Year's Eve we stayed in. We're pretty boring. Matt's parents came over & we all watched "An American Carol" and then played Rock Band before celebrating at midnight:
This was the first year that Tyson actually stayed up until midnight. To celebrate we all had sparkling berry grapjuice and lit big-ass sparklers.

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We've had a lot of stuff going on around here. In addition to his recent explorations around the house, Riley is learning sign language. We are using a combination of traditional operant conditioning and "Baby Sing & Sign" (by Anne Meeker Miller, a music therapist in Kansas City).

This is a picture of Riley asking for "more" mashed bananas. We had been working on "more" for a long time, but he just wasn't getting it. I think he was having a little trouble getting his hands to midline. Then I bought the "Baby Sing & Sign" books and he learned it pretty quickly. He loves the songs we've learned so far! He's aways very proud of himself when he learns a new sign. Yay! He has an expressive vocabulary of 4 words, and a receptive vocabulary of three additional words.

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Tyson has been trying his hand at science. Santa brought him his first chemistry set. It's called "Fun, Fizzy, Foamy Science."

He really enjoyed this. It's right up his alley... and his Dad did a very good job of explaining the experiments they did.

Tonight Tyson & I tried making recycled shrinky dinks. I read that you can use #6 plastic, like they use to make take out food containers to make them, so we tried it. Here's what we started with.

Here's what we ended up with.Clearly, not all of the plastic we tried was #6. See, some of it was labelled, but some of it wasn't. I tried to guess based on weight, texture and the sound it made. I missed on a few. The two at the top were ones that I knew were #6, and they turned out great!!! They shrank up perfectly. They got thicker, and stayed clear.
The others just curled up and turned white. Bummer.

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Well, that's all I have for now. That's a lot. Thanks to those readers who made it all the way to the end of this marathon post. Check back again soon. This was fun; blogging is definitely going on my "Me Time" list of things to do.