October Update

Well, I feel like I am slowly emerging from the busiest month and a half of my life. Besides being up day and night with brand new babies, I don't think I've ever worked such long hours in my life. Maybe when I was doing my Masters full time, with three jobs and a practicum. But I didn't have kids then, so I wasn't as constantly weary. Anyway, I've now done the first month and a half of my new job, which I'm very happy about. Some very rocky moments, but I escaped mostly unscathed.

I can tell that I've reached the turning point of busyness with the new job because now I actually have time to knit again. Not much, but something is better than nothing, right? I finally finished the second, bigger size of the Sadie dress for my niece.

I'm really happy with how it turned out. I thought about frogging it at the beginning because the colour seemed too dark, with few colour variations. The yarn is Sweet Georgia, Tough Love Sock (which is an awesome name) in the Ultraviolet colourway (which they don't seem to make anymore). I spent some time on ravelry and checked out other projects that were done in the same colourway. The other projects changed my mind, and I'm happy that I stuck with it because I love how it turned out.

So, on to my next projects. I know several people who are expecting babies soon, so I decided to work on a few different baby blankets at the same time, just to be prepared for boys or girls.

Baby Granny Stripe, pattern by the Purl Bee

Cerys Baby Blankie, pattern by Leah J Williams

Last but not least, I had a chance to go see my kids in their swim classes. I had to miss the first two because of work (even though they're on Saturday mornings) but was really happy to see them in action this past weekend. They both LOVE the classes.

The pictures aren't great, but I had to take them quickly since I try to avoid taking pictures of other peoples' children. Thank goodness for them, the kids seem to have inherited their dad's athleticism, rather than mine.

Now that work is starting to slow down a tiny bit, I'm realizing how much time and energy I'm spending on all the small details that need to be taken care of. Some are things that are an hour or two old, but some are a month old. My goal this week is to tackle all of them. It sounds ridiculous, to say that I'm just going to take care of everything this week, but I decided that if I can put all my energy into this week and try to take care of as many loose ends as possible, I'll be able to move forward with more time and energy. Wish me luck!

Summer Update

Hello! Once again, a long time since I've posted. Instead of lamenting how long it's been, I actually had to look at the date and be amazed at how much has happened since I last posted. I have a lot of good reasons for being busy. Some of the highlights are:

1. Finishing the school year
2. T started walking two days before his birthday...then climbing...then running. Exhausting!
2. T's first birthday

3. Two week trip back to our home town, where we helped roof my parents' house
4. Trip back home...one car, two adults, a one year old, a two year old and two cats.
5. Packed up and moved...three floors down and 200 meters away
6. Unpacked most of our house in a day and a half

'Helping' with the move

7. Started a job a couple days a week, with Z at home with the kids
8. Had friends stay with us. Our friends from Germany (two adults, a two year old and a nine month old) stayed with us for three weeks. During that time, some other friends also stayed with us for five days (two adults, a 12 year old and a three year old).

M is sad that we're saying goodbye and mad that we can't go with our friends to Germany right now.

9. While visitors were here, we were tourists in our home town. By far the busiest summer we've ever had.
10. M turned three years old and we had a big party to celebrate

11. Gearing up for my return back to counselling from maternity leave
12. Starting a new role, which will be very labour intensive

One of our busiest summers ever. We had a really busy summer last year as well, but that was mostly because we moved twice and had a baby. While that was gratifying in a different way, this has been a lot more fun. Equally tiring, but more fun.

On the beach at Jordan River, BC. Guess which one of us isn't part Japanese?

Needless to say, I haven't been knitting a lot. I knit a shawl (which is actually more of a scarf) during the Olympics as part of the Ravellenic Games on ravelry. I'll write a longer post about it, but here's a little preview of it.

I have less than a week before our school starts up and I'll be flat-out busy. I'm going to take better pictures of my shawl for a longer post, but in the meantime I'm working on a blanket for my friend's brand new baby.

Eat Your Frog!

Why does my kitchen look like this?

It's been so long since I've been posting regularly, so there are  a lot of things that I want to write about. I decided today to stick with one of the big things that I'm doing in my life right now. The cute kid pictures and knitting adventures will have to wait for another post.

(OK, just one...)

I haven't had very much free time at all over the last two to three weeks. Family emergencies, busyness with work (including some big projects coming due), a toddler who is reaching new milestones daily (like figuring out how to open doors...I'm not a huge fan), financial stress, general exhaustion...the list continues. Generally I can manage to balance everything, but with my daily goal of having a cup of tea and knitting (even for two minutes), I can tell that time and energy is in short supply when I haven't knit in more than a week.

Anyway, I was reading a funny blog a couple weeks ago and followed a couple links that were on the page. I eventually got to this website: http://52bites.com/. I'm in love! Tsh Oxenreider has essentially taken all the things that I want to focus on and created an e-book about tackling each thing in a manageable way. Her blog is www.simplemom.net and she describes the goal of her blog is to help her readers live more simply. How lovely is that? The idea is very attractive.

So. Back to the e-book. Tsh sells an e-book on her website called One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler. The cost is even simple...$5.00 US for an instant download of the book.

The book is written in 52 sections, one for each of the 'bites' that you can tackle. The sections are short and sweet. Some are more intuitive than others, some are more complicated. The book is divided into different themes: living green, living well, money management, organizing your mind, organizing your space, relationships, taking care of yourself, and time stewardship. Many of the 52 sections fit into multiple categories. There isn't one single theme or section in the book that I don't want to tackle. I actually have had the book open in a minimized window since I bought it, so that I can open it up and read it when I have a chance. I've been so busy lately, but can easily find three minutes to read a new section and think about how to incorporate it into my life.

To start, I tackled a few sections that were similar to things I already did (drink more water, carve out intentional downtime). Some of the sections I'm currently tackling are things that have been on my to-do list for a while (declutter your wardrobe, streamline your email). My clean kitchen is the result of #39, which is 'make a daily to-do list'...again something that I've always done, but with some great ideas of how to make it more workable (and guilt-free). Also, I use #1 every day, which is 'eat your frog'...one of my favourites, based on the quote from Mark Twain, "Eat a live frog every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day." I'm looking forward to the sections on making a debt-free plan, creating an essential papers file and dumping your brain.

Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, I'll end the post with a picture of what my living room currently looks like...always a work in progress:

Static!

Happy (Late) Valentines Day!

While my husband and I don't really do a lot to celebrate Valentines Day (for example, I wrote down on the grocery list that I wanted a few bunches of red tulips - romantic, isn't it?), I had a lot of fun this year with Valentines crafts with my daughter. She made some Valentines cards to hand out to her friends.

We put up some Valentines stickers, but the windows still looked a little bare. Inspired by this post, we made our own hearts with crayon shavings. I didn't have a crayon or pencil sharpener, so I used a knife to create shavings. M helped choose the colours and unwrapped the crayons. Have you ever seen a two year old concentrate like that? T was a good sport and hung out with us while we worked.

M and her wild, wavy hair. T wanted to grab hold of the crayon shavings to stick them in his mouth.

Crayon shavings, before melting...

...and after.

I used a cookie cutter to trace heart shapes. We decided that we liked the pieces of waxed paper that had only a little bit of crayon shavings too.

Hope you had a great Valentines Day!

Weekly Update

For the longest time, I've been a list maker. This drives my husband nuts but helps me out, especially in my sleep-deprived state. I'm a night owl, which means that I usually make lists at night and then have no memory of what went on that list early in the morning (you know, when shops are open...). In the spirit of making lists, I've decided to do a weekly update about things that I enjoy and appreciate, things that I'm hoping to accomplish during the week and, of course, my lovely knitting projects. So, without further ado, my first weekly update...

Some knitting this week:

- working on my Winterfresh Kina cardigan. I've made good progress on it but have been a little bored with the rows and rows of stockinette lately. I'm this close to finishing, so I'm trying to keep it up.

-testing a pattern for someone to check for accuracy. The pattern is called Forest Baby and Child Pullover by NEEDdesigns (on ravelry here). This is almost instant gratification! A baby sweater knit with two strands of worsted weight yarn held together. So fast.

-starting a Redheart pattern called Square Upon Square, which is a crocheted blanket. I love the colour and design of the blanket. I've finally wised up about bigger projects like this and started off with only one ball of yarn, rather than buying all ten up front. This is sometimes how I'm left with a million skeins of yarn. I was thinking about doing a square or so a day, which means it should be finished in about three months or so. I'm not in love with how the squares are joined so I'm trying to change the pattern to my liking. The first set of squares that I'm doing are a similar colour to the picture above.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to show off the finished cardigan and baby sweater in less than a week. By the way, can you guess what my favourite colour is?

Some things I'm loving this week:
-my 34th birthday. I don't typically like to do anything big for it. I'm not sure what we'll do this year. Maybe dinner at a restaurant?

-going to the White Heather Tea Room with a very good friend. We order the Big Muckle Giant Tea for Two every time we go and this visit I brought home a package of Mad Hatter tea. If you're ever in Victoria, it's worth a visit - just make sure you book ahead.

-M and T sharing a bedroom! So far this has been a love/hate relationship. We finally bit the bullet and stuck T in his crib in the bedroom. The first night there was a bit of crying but it was pretty smooth. The last two nights they've been taking turns getting up every 30 minutes or so, with last night being particularly bad - M was up for about three hours in the middle of the night. Ugh. But, I do really love having the rest of the house to ourselves again.

-M finally using the potty! In the midst of the Nights With No Sleep, she decided that she's going to do everything on her own, including using the potty. We were all very excited about this milestone (for evidence, see here and here) and made a very big deal out of it. M has been announcing details of the experience to anyone who will listen.

Some things I'm working on this week:
-getting together one or two boxes of items to donate

-doing at least three cringe-worthy errands. These are chores that I've been putting off for any number of reasons but I cringe about every time I think about them. I want to get some of these done instead of letting them take up real estate in my thoughts everyday (like they are right now).

-going to do yoga four times this week

-drinking eight glasses of water a day. I (like most people) don't drink enough water, so I'm going to consciously do this for the next week.

That's all from me. What does your week look like?

They're Plotting Against Me

I really love being a mom. I knew that it would be the best thing that I would do in my life, and it's even better. I love the sweet moments, like this morning when my 2 and (almost) a half year old daughter M told my seven month old son T that she hoped he'd had a good sleep and asked him what he had dreamed about. So sweet.

However, there's at least one moment everyday that is surreal. I find myself doing something that I could never have imagined before I had kids. Sometimes it's ridiculous - my husband and I frantically tossing our house searching for Bear, M's little stuffy that she always carries around. The few times that I haven't found Bear, I've resorted to elaborate stories about what Bear might be doing. Maybe he went to the store? Maybe he went to visit Grandma? Maybe he's in jail? That last one is a joke, but I find that the stories are getting more fantastic as she gets older.

The most surreal moments of my day to day life now revolve around the bathroom. I just want to warn you, if you're thinking about having kids, you might want to stop reading right here. You've been warned!

M can use the potty. She's a very smart girl (naturally, I'd say she's a genius). She's also very, very feisty. At first she enjoyed the novelty of the potty. We made a big deal over every time she went. But, she's recently decide that she isn't going to use the potty - no way, no how. The problem is that I'm so over diapers, it's not funny. Some days I feel like I'm just alternating between changing each kid's diaper. As soon as one is changed, the other needs to be changed.

So, back to M. I really want to be patient and let her go at her own pace. But, I'm not above trying to bribe her. I've tried various things - Smarties (the Canadian chocolates, similar to M & M's), pulling out the new Valentine's Day stickers, painting, etc. Yesterday I tried to bribe her with big girl diapers - pull-ups! Only for big girls. You just pull them down and go to the potty. Two hours later, cue M coming into the living room and presenting me with a VERY full pull-up that she figured out how to pull off, all by her big girl self! Ugh. The clean up. Let's just say that some of her room was left unscathed, some was not.

Shortly thereafter, M heads out the door and I decide that this is a good time to give T a desperately needed bath. My back has been hurting, so I bathe him in the kitchen sink. He's so cute, sitting by himself, laughing and splashing. A rare quiet moment in our house. I pull out my camera:

A minute later, he makes a funny noise that he usually makes while pooping. I scoop him out quickly and he pees on me. It says something about how long I've been parenting when I tell you that my only reaction is to laugh. My, how times have changed.

That's when I go to drain the water and discover that there was a surprise left for me in there too. It gets worse from there, but I think I've already shared enough disgusting details for today. Let's just say I wasn't laughing anymore.

But seriously, two gross incidents in one day? I think they meet up at some point during the night and plan that they're both going to get me the next day. At least the bleach was already out.