Totally worth it!

I've been doing a lot more spinning lately. While the several tons of fiber I've accumulated over the years does provide a nice amount of insulation, it's been taking up space. Without turning into yarn. In spite of my best efforts, no amount of wishful thinking makes roving spontaneously metamorphose into yarn.
Apparently, I forgot about the most important step of the process to change the fiber from nice fluffy batts of wool to yarn I can knit with. Spinning!
Carol is walking (when she feels like it) and crawling all over the place. Now that she's fully mobile, I'm trying to train her to ignore the spinning wheel. She'd have to try hard to injure herself with it, but she's a clever lass. I'm certain she'll figure out a way.
So every time she touches the spinning wheel, whether it's in motion or not, I slap her hand and say "no touching the spinning wheel!"
As I was spinning some silk today, the drive band kept falling off the wheel. Carol, of course, tried to "help" me fix it. After that, when I didn't notice that she had been playing with the wheel, she got my attention and did it again. She spun the wheel, and dutifully held out her hand to me for a disciplinary smack. I could almost see the gears turning in her baby head.
"I want to play with the beautiful spinning thingy, but every time I touch it, Mama smacks my hand away. But if that's the price of playing with it I think I can live with it. Maybe I should make this process as easy for Mama as possible--just smack my hand so I can get back to playing with it!"

In Memoriam

Shirley T., Brian's amazing and wonderful adopted grandmother, went to be with the Lord last month.  She was a great lady, and I'm glad I got the chance to know her, but we all miss her. I'm also glad the Mimi got to know her namesake some before she died.

Last summer, the Mimi wasn't getting the whole "great-grandparent" concept, so we started calling Shirley and her husband "SuperNana" and "Super PopPop." That was the week before this picture was taken. At Shirley and Jim's 60th anniversary party, the Mimi walked up to Shirley and promptly asked "SuperNana, where's your costume?"





"I'm so awesome I don't need a costume,"Shirley said, right before she gave the Mimi a large stuffed pink and white glittery unicorn wearing a sequined jumpsuit and a pink marabou feather-trimmed bolero. (It used to sing "You are my Sunshine" when you hugged it, but some minor surgery fixed that.)



And a picture of my mother-in-law trying to look nonchalant at a formal dinner party while carrying the "it's so pink and fluffy I could die!" unicorn around:

When we went to Shirley's funeral a couple of weeks ago, the Mimi looked around the packed room very wide-eyed before saying "Wow, SuperNana's got a huge fan club!" And we were all blessed to be part of that club.

Family, visible and invisible

On Saturday, we went to a family gathering to help our favorite cousin move. Shirley wore her Perry costume.  One of the cousin's friends inquired how we were related to her.

"Jay's my cousin, and I'm also Perry the Platypus' father," Brian explained as he pointed out the Mimi.

"I'm Shirley the Platypus!" the Mimi wailed.

Last month she announced she wanted a little sister. I told her she'd have to pray harder for it, because I was already doing what I could.  That's when she decided that Perry the Platypus was not only her invisible friend, but also her imaginary little sister. Does that make me Perry the Platypus' mother?

Shirley the Platypus!

I haven't been posting many pictures of the Mimi lately. That's because she spends most days running around in only her underpants. While we don't mind as long as she follows some basic ground rules (if someone comes over you must put on clothing, you must wear clothes to leave the house, etc.) it has cut down on the number of pictures we've taken of her.

She dressed up as Perry the Platypus for Halloween. (I crocheted the hat, and the rest is a matching teal sweatsuit.)

Now, not only is that costume the only outfit she's willing to wear, but she's claimed Perry as her imaginary friend. They're currently playing hide and seek in the living room. ( I drew the line when she claimed that Perry wanted chocolate for lunch.)

How I spent my weekend

On Saturday, Cat, the Mimi and I went to the spin-in in Newport. In spite of trying on (and discarding) four different outfits that morning, the Mimi still managed to be clad in nothing other than training pants when Cat arrived so we could car-pool. (And then decided to wear the first outfit of the day.)
The Mimi was amazingly well-behaved for the spin-in. She held my hand (and hissed "no touching, Mama!" every time I visited a fiber booth) and was polite to people. My father-in-law was kind enough to keep an eye on her for an hour or so, letting me sit and spin with people. When I told him I didn't want him to think I was dumping the kid on him so I could goof off, he said, "No, you're going to sit and spin. In our family, that's perfectly fine work." Love the in-laws!
The best part was seeing the expression on his face when someone asked the Mimi "what are you going to do after lunch?" and she said "gonna take over the world!"
I made out like a bandit, if I do say so myself. I picked up a pound of miscelaneous longwool for ten bucks, got some silk hankies (I felt inspired by the Yarn Harlot and I've already dyed them up) and even found some silk/camel fiber at an insanely good price. I'm out of mad money until March, but find it hard to care.
Because the Mimi is prone to crawling in my lap while I'm using the drop spindle and saying "me help make yarn?" and "helping" me spin, she now has a very pink starter spindle and some equally pink wool roving that's for her. Baby's first fiber stash!

And the antonym of "pot-head" is...

Holidays always bring out the crazy in everyone. There's something about lots of people in a small house, large amounts of fattening food, and uptight Martha Stewart wannabes who "just want everything to be perfect"--combined with strictures against making any offensive political or religious statements (At Christmas 2008 I wound up in the doghouse for suggesting that Jesus would come back whenever Jesus felt like it, regardless of who got elected president.) and reminders not to bring up awkward family politics that just brings out the collective squirrelyness (not dysfunction, because that implies that you have a plan, and we're way too disorganized for that) that lurks just beneath the surface of even the most WASPy middle-American suburban family.

And since extended holiday dinners with relatives, non-relatives, and screaming children always make me (a lifelong teetotaler) want to pick up binge drinking as a new hobby, I've spent the last two weeks asking patients (most of whom are either in recovery, or avoiding alcohol as part of their probation) very specific questions on what they're planning to do to stay sober over the holidays.

And the responses have been very illuminating. They've ranged from "go to extra meetings," to "my wife won't let me buy beer, and it's too far to walk to the store."

One slightly offended gentleman told me, "I don't have a problem with alcohol."

"That's good sir, but your parole officer does have a problem with you using it. So what are you going to do to keep him happy this holiday?"

"I'm spending Christmas with my in-laws, and they're the most uptight stone-cold sober-heads you're going to find. I couldn't drink even if I wanted to!"

World's cutest photobomb

 The Mimi loves to be the center of attention, especially if there's a camera around.

Signs your family doesn't understand your job #457

This week, my favorite auntie asked me "Have you given up on your dream to work in an abortion clinic?"
My mind was wandering a bit, so it took a while for the question to register. "I'm pretty happy with my current job--wait do you mean "family planning," by any chance?
"Yeah, that sounds about right."

Vacation pictures

For the Fourth of July, we visited Brian's parents and did the traditional barbecue on the beach. For me, it just doesn't seem like Independence Day without lighting marshmallows on fire. (I've never had the patience to toast them "properly" for smores. Light 'em up and blow them out before they completely turn in to charcoal, I say.)

We introduced the Mimi to her first-ever smore. "I'm covered in sugary goo and I want to share!"

She also recently learned how to feed herself semi-liquid foods with a spoon. Oatmeal got everywhere, but she did it all by herself.

I saw this sign at the Black Sheep Gathering last month. It's an important distinction, but there were so many shops selling handmade baskets that I can't help but wonder if it's just a clever bit of PR.

We visited Mom last month. It's hard to tell what the Mimi's expression is when she has her fingers in her mouth, but note the matching maniacal grins. Insanity is hereditary--you get it from your kids!

Due to other pressures this year (like work) I'm not doing the Tour de Fleece. Mostly because I found out about it (although I really shouldn't be surprised that July happens every year) two days ago and don't think I can "compete." As I see it, the whole point of spinning is that it's a relaxing activity that makes yarn. And when you get right down to it, in spite of the joy yarn gives me, it's just string. Unlike nursing, in which you're regularly reminded that if you screw up, you can kill people (and the board of nursing regularly publishes helpful vignettes of people who have done exactly this) yarn doesn't matter.

If I spend weeks and weeks knitting a sweater out of lace weight yarn on size 3 needles only to get to the armpits and find out that my bust is more than 26 inches, I can rip it out. I can turn it back to yarn, I can use it for stuffing in a decorative pillow, I can cut it up and make coasters out of it. Why? Because it's yarn! I've never punished a failed project by setting it on fire, but I've removed the needles from more than one and just thrown it in the Dumpster because I was that disappointed with it. No one died, and I went on to happily complete other projects.

Family Christmas

I've been too distracted lately to post much on the blog, but I thought I'd put up pictures of what I've been up to in the last couple of weeks.

We had a lovely immediate family Christmas Eve celebration at my sister in law's house. After trying desperately (and failing miserably) to keep Shirley out of the Christmas tree, we finally let her help decorate it. There was a definite line of ornaments all along the tree showing where she could reach!

For Brian's adopted grandmother Shirley, I knitted a variation on the Ice Queen cowl from knitty.com. I hate working with mohair, so I used my silk handspun yarn. And since it was my first time working lace from a chart, I left the beads off.

For a first project working lace from a chart in the round, it was fun to knit and surprisingly easy. I had so much fun working on it that I'm already planning to make one for myself, with the beads!

My brother in law got my name for the massive family Christmas gift exchange. Instead of a gift certificate, he gave me money for yarn. That was very nice of him, and I've already gone on a sock yarn-buying binge at Little Knits. But the way he wrapped it deserves special mention. (Yes, that is a five dollar bill sticking out of a ball of "the wildest crazy acrylic yarn I could find for you.")

I forsee someone getting an especially vibrant hat for his birthday...

Every mother is a daughter...

There are as many theories on raising toddlers as there are parents, but in our house we have four inviolate house rules: No hitting, no kicking, don't exceed the "polite society volume level," and don't walk on the couch! Ignoring any one of these results in "Time Out," when we send the Mimi to her room until she stops screaming.

I called Mom today. And as we were having a lovely conversation, the Mimi began her regularly-scheduled conquest of the couch. "SIT!" I yelled at Shirley, invoking the Voice. She promptly sat, then gave me her best "I was merely investigating the compressability of the couch cushion-I can't believe you would question my baby honor by implying that anything untoward was occurring" innocent look, followed by blowing kisses. (Her new way of appologizing for minor infractions.)

Then, of course, I had to explain to Mom what was going on. "I love her, but sometimes I don't understand her in the slightest."

She chuckled. "Sounds like another little girl I know. Just wait until the teenage years!"

It's too bad that when we visited Grandma she was feeling too poorly to tell stories from when Mom was a toddler!

Photos from Wyoming trip

We drove 2550 miles in six days! I took a lot of pictures, mostly of things that amused me.

Like the Pioneer Post ginormous playground in Pendleton Oregon. Oh, to be six again!

Alpha Omega Services was a Christian book store and gun shop when we lived in Nampa three years ago. It appears that they've decided to go with just the weapons and gunsmithing, although I notice their window also advertises free Bibles. It is Idaho, so I guess they know their market!

These interesting rocks were in Utah. Utah was the land of lousy drivers, scarily clean gas station restrooms, and undrinkable water. The rest stops we were at all had signs from the health department saying the water was "nonpotable" due to the high coliform bacteria count. This might just mean that the health department checks the water more often than in other states, but still is worrisome.

Grandma had surgery Saturday and by all accounts is doing much better. It was good to see her. Shirley kept running up to random nurses and hugging their legs trying to get them to pick her up. Social baby!



We got to see our dear friends the Mwiingas. Nathan and Tasha have grown a lot since we were there in 2006!

I'll post more random pics in the next post, as the photo upload function is annoying me.

Ewww!

We're in Wyoming at the moment, visiting Grandma. (Can't find the camera adaptor thingy to upload pics again.) We'd planned to visit her at her home in Wheatland, but she's fallen sick and is at the big hospital in Cheyenne.
Grandma is doing better, but several things have struck me about Cheyenne. First off, darkness makes it very difficult to tell that there is a railway hub a block and a half from your motel. Trains have been going by every twenty minutes or so. I can sleep through a lot of stuff, but that's a bit much!
The hospital here is fairly new--one of the plaques commemorated construction in 2003. It's also designed so the patient floors have an identical layout. Grandma got moved from the sixth floor to the fourth floor, but kept the same room number and location on the floor. Her new room looked exactly like her old one! If I hadn't walked down with her as the staff wheeled her bed, I would have been really disoriented.
All was going well with our visit until Shirley got bored. She started crawling on the hardwood floor, and then she started licking it! I know what gets spilled on hospital floors, and watching that made me really queasy. Needless to say, she got a bath as soon as we got back to the motel.

Billy's wedding pictures

I haven't posted since right before we left to drive to Coeur d' Alene for Billy's wedding. As a surprise for Billy, we arranged for our college buddy LeeAnn to car-pool with us. We also had Brad's fiancee Carin riding with us, as well as the Mimi.

All was well and good until the Mimi got carsick all over the backseat before we'd even picked up Lee! (How can someone who doesn't even weigh 25 pounds yet acheive that level of projectile vomiting?!) Thankfully, this turned out to be a one-time occurrence.

Lee's date Josh had to work and couldn't go to the wedding, so she found a "new date." (Don't put a garden gnome on your wedding registry unless you want something like this to happen.)

After seeing Billy and Sabera married and dropping people off with their respective rides/airports, we headed south to visit Mom and Aunt Tig.

We also visited Palouse Falls. It's most spectacular in March or April when the spring floods are in full force, but it's lovely any time of year.

The canyon below the falls:

Seeing this really makes me want to take up oil painting again, but I'll have to stick with yarn and other non-toxic art mediums for now while Shirley is in the "It's pretty--I wonder what it tastes like!" stage of development.

Mini-vacation!

I had to work Memorial Day Weekend, except for Monday. But because I work night shift, I got paid 7.5 hours of time-and-a-half from 0001 to 0730 on Monday for working Sunday night! Very nice.

Monday was also Brad and Carin's engagement party in Eugene.

I still question Carin's sanity at wanting to marry my brother-in-law, but I'm very happy for them. I was less happy to attend their party, as I got home at 0800, and then woke up at 1130 to ride to Eugene for their party. Fortunately, by the time we arrived, my Pepsi had kicked in and I managed to get through the party without saying too many stupid things.

Then on Wednesday, we piled in the car and went to Crater Lake. Shirley was very happy at getting to climb on a new bed.


We'd planned to meet with friends of ours from San Francisco, but they weren't able to come after all. This was the view from our window at the Lodge:


In spite of the 70-plus degree weather, there was still five feet of snow in places. So we bundled up the Mimi and let her experience lots of snow for the first time in her life. All went well until she ate some.


Apparently snow that's been on the ground for Lord knows how many months doesn't taste very good!


While we were on the trip, I also started on yet another version of the Sonnet cardigan done with my bulky weight handspun yarn. I've got the body completely done and I'm working on the sleeves now.

The difference between Brian and Naomi

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Screaming with Mimi

We watch a lot of children's DVDs in our house. Not only is it (probably) safer for Shirley's emotional health than watching our Jet Li movie collection, but I'm also trying to get better at my Spanish skills (After years of practice, I believe my competency is now at "extremely verbal toddler" insead of "sedated parrot.") through watching them with the Spanish language track switched on. Lately, I've been working my way through the "Garfield and Friends" series.

Fans of the series may remember the segment "Screaming with Binky," in which Binky the obnoxious clown ("El Payaso Binky") comes onstage and yells "HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDZZ!!!!!!" at the top of his lungs while the other characters try to maul him. Just the sort of mindless entertainment that made the sugar-infused Saturday mornings of my childhood such a trial for my mother.

Last night, we were able to experience "Screaming with Mimi." Immediately after dinner, Shirley was unable to cope with the unfortunate reality that she had drained her bottle of milk and commenced to show her displeasure vocally. When time out in her crib didn't work, I decided that since she wasn't going to be happy regardless of the situation, I might as well go ahead and give her a bath. In retrospect, this plan may have been a mistake. My left ear is still ringing slightly from her wails.

After ten and a half hours of sleep, she's a much happier person, thank God.

Grandma is also doing much better. She's been moved to "the head case floor," and if all goes well should be going home this weekend.

He is risen!

I love Easter. Probably it has something to do with my childish joy over any holiday that involves special church services, lots of loud singing, and Marshmallow Peeps, but Easter is my all-time favorite holiday in the entire church year. (My favorite personal holiday is the Winter Solstice, but that's just because it means that the light will come back and my seasonal depression will get better. And since God apparently chose to make me with seasonal issues like this, I trust that God understands. It's strangely difficult to find cards that say "Happy Winter Solstice," so I usually settle for "Happy Holidays.")

It's spring-time, flowers are blooming, wildlife is reproducing (A note to the neighborhood feline population: Please try to modulate the volume on your late-night serenades and lover's quarrels. The cuteness of your eventual offspring does not outweigh the disturbance you are currently causing in my sleep.) and God has conquered Sin and Death and Hell! Jesus is risen from the dead, HOW COOL IS THAT!?

I had planned to spend the previous week in Wyoming visiting Grandma, as the 9th was her 80th birthday. However, due to "budgetary shortfalls," we're having to delay the trip until August, when the passes will be clear enough to drive. (I haven't had the heart to tell our trusty Toyota that it's got a four-cylinder engine, but the fact remains that it's mostly fiberglass. I refuse to drive in snow and ice unless it's absolutely unavoidable.)

So we spent Easter weekend with Penny and Dave. After a very disturbing midnight cryptic text message from Mom (which I followed up with multiple panicked telephone calls after I checked my messages at 0500) I found out that Grandma had fallen, gotten a subdural hematoma, had emergency surgery, and was in ICU in Cheyenne.

And as of yesterday, she's still in ICU. Granted, of all the things which can possibly be interpreted as "bleeding on the brain," a subdural hematoma is one of the easiest to fix, but brain surgery when you're 80 is still...brain surgery! I'm trying to turn off the "nursing panic" that comes from having the letters "RN" behind my name and knowing what could go wrong, but it's still hard.

(Extra points to the ICU nurse I first talked to on Sunday when I couldn't get ahold of any of the family. "I can't tell you anything because of the HIPPA act and the privacy laws, OK?"
"I know that," I said. "I'm a RN in Oregon and can you just tell me how many drips she's attached to so I can know if I need to fly out there right now?"
She chuckled. "Okay, I'm not telling you this, but your grandma's awake, talking to us, and doing much better than before the surgery.")

So I'm doing what I usually do when family members are sick and I can't sleep and I'm worried--knitting. I've got about 1200 yards of handspun in a pink/orange/brown/ colorway (And about 2 more ounces of my own "crazy batt" to spin up more in case I run short.) and I've started the gauge swatch for Sonnet. Thank God for nice easy mindless knitting.

Who wants to fight about politics?

My brother and I are different people. I know this point seems very obvious to many people, especially as he needs to shave far more regularly than I do.
But this is most obvious when we start talking about politics. Specifically, what should be done to fix the seething cauldron of issues, insecurities, and occasional bursts of outright paranoia that is the United States' relationship with most middle eastern countries. (From their end of things, I imagine that it's a bit like asking a woman's (Let's call her "Iraq.") entourage of female friends what they think of her on-again, off-again obnoxious boyfriend. Some of them think he'd be fine if he'd just stop drinking (or invading other countries) and some of them would love to see him dead. It all depends on which gal (country) you talk to.)
And after a recent discussion on Israel, Gaza, Hamas, and ways in which Israel's situation as a Jewish state in an Islamic region compares to "being the little guy in a prison cell," I had a sudden flash of insight as to the core difference in our world views:
We both believe that diplomacy requires both a carrot and a stick. The main point of disagreement between us is what exactly those should be. Objectively, I know that only time and history will tell whether military might or economic incentives are the better strategy. But in defense of my own position, I must point out that while you can only blow something up once, you can wreak havoc on a country's economy forever.

Family and Christmas insanity

In spite of the fact that so much snow has fallen on the Willamette Valley that snow chains are required to drive in downtown Portland, this is the largest amount of snow that my back yard has seen so far this winter. Thank God!


The other two "B's", Billy and Brad, came to visit a couple of weekends ago for the annual computer game festival. Now that everyone has steady jobs and significant others, it's a bit more difficult to find time to get all three of "the boys" together, but it's well worth the effort when the plantets and everyone's schedules align.

I love it when family comes to visit! And while I enjoy spending time with (most) of my and Brian's assorted relatives, there's no avoiding the fact that some visitors are more enjoyable than others. I love it when Mom and Aunt Tig visit, but life is just a bit wilder when Billy and Brad come calling. (Most of this is no doubt due to the fact that my parents do not stay up until 2am with us, swapping ribald stories and watching offbeat movies.)

They introduced Shirley to soda. No, no one let her drink any. But she had a blast playing with a full can of Fanta. If you refrigerate them, the rounded bottom rim of the cans make great teething objects.
She has also reached the "security object" stage of development. Specifically, the Mimi has developed a bizarre fascination with my socks, especially this one. (As though I wasn't feeling guilty enough about going back to work!) So she spent much of the morning crawling on the floor, soda in one hand and a sock clutched in the other chubby fist.


Now that she's walking by holding onto things, decorating for Christms has become a major challenge. We decided against a Christmas tree this year, but I did hang stockings and make the house look more festive. (What? You're saying that you don't have a dummy covered in chain maille to decorate for the holidays? Poor deprived souls!)