A Bit of Fun on a Monday....

I borrowed this from another blog... I guess I'm really not too surprised by the results. I'm actually quite traditional at heart.

95 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

And I make no apologies for that.

Independence Day

Happy Fourth of July Everyone!!!!!

I would like to give a special thank you to the soldiers who are currently serving here:
This is COB Speicher, an airbase that is located in Northern Iraq. Our family has "adopted" a soldier (whom I am not allowed to name in my blog... privacy & all that) who is stationed there now. I hope you guys get a little time to celebrate the holiday today.

Let's all remember that we wouldn't have this wonderful holiday to celebrate were it not for the bravery of the men & women in our armed forces.


I would also like to say Happy Fourth! to all our family & friends who are spread all over this great nation. We love you and we miss you guys!!!

A New Toy

Yay! Mommy just put a new toy in my hand. (I'm so glad I've begun to discover that I have hands...)
Hmmm... Now what can I do with this thing?
I wonder what it tastes like. Hmmm. Not bad!
Oh, what the heck. I can eat it!!!!!
Ty: Mom, Riley's doing it wrong. He' not supposed to eat his toys!

Mom: Well, actually, Ty, that's what babies do with their toys. They're like puppies. They
chew and slobber all over pretty much everything they can get their hands on.

Ty: (shaking his head) That's so silly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm so painfully close to finishing Sweet Pea's blanket. I have 11 more rows and 2 bind off's to go... and I ran out of yarn. Again. Darn that foam doughnut!!!!!!

I also unearthed Veste Evereste to see how much more I have to do. I couldn't remember because I put it down a year ago. I have decided to finish it for the UFOlympics, and I was afraid I had too much to knit in order to finish it during the Olympics. Turns out, it's not so bad. I've got the front finished & almost half of the back done. AND, even better, I actually wrote down exactly which row I left off on. So, maybe I will be able to get it finished!!! Yay for me!!!

I'm also pretty close to finishing the body of a felted purse. I'm waiting to see how much yarn is left before I decide whether to knit miles of i-cord or to use something else, like a ribbon or something for the handles.

It's been months since I finished anything! I need to get something off the needles! Waa! The problem is that my knitting time is spread too thin. I'm knitting & knitting, and making small amounts of progress on lots of projects. I read the blogs of knitter who have 3,4,7,10 UFO's and I honestly don't know how they do it. They are stronger knitters than I. Ugh. This is why I am a 1-project-knitter. I'm in over my knitterly head.

Matt & Tyson went fishing last weekend, and Ty continued what has become an annual tradition. Notice how completely baffled he appears to be?
If he had one of those cartoon bubbles above his head, I believe it would say, "uhhh... that's not a fish..."
And he would be right. It's not a fish. It's a 10-15 pound snapping turtle. It just wouldn't be fishing season if Ty didn't catch a turtle!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Well, at the moment, it grows... just barely.

After 4 years, I have finally figured out how to keep the rabbits from eating my garden before it has a chance to grow. I have tried bird nets, fences, moth balls... And this year I got this:
And it works. I have had no damage from rabbits whatsoever! Unfortunately, the stuff stinks to high Heaven when you first spray it, and it's terribly difficult to wash the odor off skin. (I do now smell fresh as a daisy, though I had to scrub my hands till they were raw.)

Now I just have to keep the dogs out of the garden. Roscoe dug up most of my peppers, some of my peas & carrots and all of my spinach. Enos trampled some of the corn and all of the tomatoes. Most of it has been re-planted, and I can now only hope that they will grow fast enough for a harvest before the first freeze in October/November.

Hmm... so, this is what I've got (from top to bottom): a half-row of peppers and a half-row of spinach; some little cucumber pants; and my green beans (of the bush-bean variety).
And here we have: Corn (on the left), and from the top down: tomatoes, peas and carrots.
Here is my first attempt at onions:
They will be the green variety, if they can grow in a pot. I planted 2 big pots of them, so we'll see. My asparagus up and died on me already. *Sigh. I'll have to try that again next year.

I do so love growing my own produce. With the rising price of food, it's nice to know that (although I'm putting in more time) I'm saving the family money. Ty enjoys helping me out there, too, so it's a great "quality time" activity. I also like that I know exactly how my produce was grown. I do not (for the most part) use pesticides. The rabbit-repel is sprayed in a big circle around that area of the yard... far from the plants. I have occasionally had to use a pesticide to save the green beans from bean bugs, but I try not to.

And, for the most part I don't use fertilizer. I don't have a good compost station yet, but I do keep a small bucket (with a lid) in my refrigerator. In it I put compost material and when it gets full I spread it among the plants.

Speaking of plants, I have the nicest looking pot of clover...

I know it seems odd, since most people consider this to be a weed. It is "volunteer" clover, and I almost pulled it out of the pot, but I have to tell you that it looks really nice all mounded up like that. And it's getting buds on it, so soon it will have small delicate flowers growing among the little heart shaped leaves. Again, I have to ask: who decided that all flowers not intentionally planted are weeds? And furthermore, why should they be removed? If they're pretty (like the clover) and not taking nutrients & water from other plants (like the clover), why mot leave them (like the clover!!)?

We had a really pretty sky yesterday and today. Between periods of rain, we had beautiful blue skies with big, puffy clouds.

Have a happy Monday!!!

WWKIP Day

Last Saturday was WWKIP Day. Did you get to KIP?? I did, though it wasn't anything different from my usual Saturday knitting. I knitted a little in the parking lot of our local supermarket while waiting for Matt to pick up a few things. Not exactly out in the open, since I was in the car, but the windows were down, and the woman who parked her car next to ours looked at me like I had knitting needles growing out of my head.

I also knit in the club house of the tennis club where Ty does this every Saturday:
Look at the concentration on his face. He hits the ball pretty well when he looks at it. (amazing how one's performance can improve when one actually pays attention...) Could this be the next Andre Agassi? Maybe. Who knows?

I spent the rest of the day in the kitchen. Since I'm going to be working a LOT more during the next school year, I'm trying out a few new organizational systems. Of course, a few months ago I started a Control Journal based on the system I found HERE. I have tweaked it a bit over the last few weeks, and it works perfectly for me. I've never been so relaxed, and my house & laundry have never been so clean and caught up.

The new thing I'm trying is to do most of my week's worth of cooking on Saturday or Sunday. Evenings are really hectic around here, and family meals (eaten at a reasonable hour) are important to us. I cook almost everything from scratch (because then I know exactly what is in our food). I've always prepared a weekly menu (which translates into the weekly shopping list), but now I'm doing as much of the prep-work as possible during one day of the weekend.

Last weekend that meant washing all (and chopping up much) of the produce, making a marinade, assembling a mexican meatloaf (to be cooked in the crockpot), mixing together all the ingredients for baked beans and hardboiling some eggs. Also, Ty & I made homemade tortillas:


He loves to help me in the kitchen. He helped me with most of the tasks and we ended up spending about 2 hours in the kitchen. (He spent a little less due to his five-year-old attention span.)

Sounds like a lot of time for a Saturday, but here's the neat thing: so far this week I've spent a total of 30 minutes cooking in the kitchen in the evening. And with leftovers for dinner tonight & tomorrow night... I'd say it was worth the time on Saturday. Plus, who could possibly complain about 2 hours of quality time with Ty?

And what was Riley doing during the marathon cooking session? Well, he slept through most of it, but also spent a little time bouncing around. Actually, he doesn't yet understand how to bounce... he just sort of wobbles around in it... but, hey, he has fun & it's good for him.

I know I haven't had a lot of knitting content lately. I just feel dumb showing you pictures of the same (long) wip's over & over. I've got three going right now & all are so mind numbingly boring that I'm about to lose it. I need to finish them up so I can move on to something more interesting (maybe something with a purl stitch...).

I have only 2 1/2 blocks to go on Sweet Pea's blanket. It will be smaller than I had hoped for, but that's a whole other blog post. I'm so close I can taste it. So maybe I'll get it done this weekend & show you pictures soon!

Until next time... Knit Happy!!!

Motherhood Revelations...

Revelation #1. My baby's tummy does not like cow's milk. How do I know this??? Because every time I drink a big, wonderful glass of chocolate 2%, Riley's system seems to get backed up. He ends up crying for 2 days solid because he's full of gas and can't poop.

Initially this may not seem like a big deal, but for me it's a tragic fact of motherhood. I don't smoke; I don't drink alcohol; I've given up caffeine (mostly); I've seriously cut back on the sugar. The only culinary pleasure (if you could call it that) is a big, wonderful glass of chocolate milk to start and end my day. Whatever will I do?

This is what I have done:
It's a HUGE sacrifice... but one I am willing to make for the sake of my baby's tummy and my sanity. It's thin, like water, and it has a funny after-taste. But, it does sort of resemble real chocolate milk... after you add a little extra Hershey's syrup.

Revelation #2. Despite my best efforts and an arsenal of binkies of various shapes & sizes, my son is a thumb sucker. I give you exhibits A, B & C:



Notice that it's always the right thumb? I have tried & tried to get him to stop, but he persists. He'll take a binky when offered, but ejects it (usually shooting it across the room) at first chance. And, he slips that little thumb in when he thinks I'm not looking. I keep hearing these suspicious little slurping noises coming from his cradle in the middle of the night. Sneaky.

The reason I am troubled by this (& would prefer that he take the binky exclusively) is that I can take the binky away in a year or two. I can't take his thumbs away, ever. Argh... I think this is a battle I can't win.

Revelation #3. When not sucking his thumb, the baby still likes to be wrapped up like a cute little sausage.

Ty gave up (actually, rebelled against) being swaddled at the ripe old age of 3 weeks. Riley would hang out in this thing all day if we let him. He can be crying and fussing and so tired he can barely keep his eyes open. The minute you tuck his feet into the swaddler, he gets real still, puts his hands down, and sometimes gives us this ENORMOUS grin. The downside? He's about to outgrow this one, and I'm going to have to hunt down another one in a bigger size. I hope he doesn't still need this kind of wrapping when he's 30.

Revelation #4. I may actually have the cutest kids on the planet. I know, I know... those of you who know and love the kids in your life will disagree... I admit that I am completely biased. On this issue I cannot be objective. At. All. What mother could? Don't you just love it when you're with your kids/grandkids/nieces/nephews/etc. and you are suddenly struck with the sheer adorableness of them and you realize that you love them so much you could just hug them until you squish them? (Disclaimer: we here at KeowdieKnits do not now, have not ever, and will not ever, condone the practice of kid-squishing. We do not actually engage in kid squishing. ever. We just want to.)
I do have knitting content to share. Unfortunately, it's in my iPhone & I haven't figured out how to get those pictures into my laptop. I really should figure that out. Soon.