We may not celebrate Halloween, but we can, however, rock the giant November 1st sale on dress up clothes. Of course, included is the requisite grumpy Eden photo.

It’s been a crazy last couple of weeks. I feel like I’ve barely had a moment to breathe, as evidenced by the lack of interesting blog content. But life always seems to continue wether we have time for it or not. And so there is cleaning and laundry and yarn orders to be placed and knitting classes to teach and children to chase and dogs to pet and husbands to catch up with. (What? Who are you? You seem familiar, like maybe I married you a few years back?) So everything is happening at once, and we just move forward, always forward, watching to see what will unfold.

I did have a wonderful time with Joelene who was here visiting me last weekend. I’d love to share all the fun things we did just as soon as she uploads all her photos as I didn’t take a single one. Of course.

And now I must go clean up the giant mess of dress up clothes. That seems to be my number one supreme job title today – the cleaner up of messes that could have been easily avoided by anyone other than Honor. Oh Honor… at least you’re cute.

Tomorrow my friend Jill is going to be on the Rachael Ray show. She’ll be, of all things, swimming with sharks on the show. I’m not a big Rachael Ray fan, but you bet I’ll be watching. Yay Jill! I’m proud of you and I can’t wait to see the show.

Has anyone ever knit a sweater using the methods in the book The Sweater Workshop? The book is based on Elizabeth Zimmermans original percentage system. I’ve been sitting in on the class going on here at the store. I’m one (out of 6) balls into my sweater and I’m getting a little worried about the fit. So I’m wondering if I’m just being nervous because I’m straying from the comfortable top down sweater or if I should be concerned?

The other concerns I have about the system is that you cast on your target number (gauge x inches around) less 10% for the ribbing. After you complete the ribbing, you increase up to your target number. I’m not doing ribbing, I did a folded hem, but I’m worried about the others who are knitting it. I’m worried that it will balloon out at just the wrong place. The book doesn’t account for any other waist shaping, so I’m also adding that in for myself as well.

I plan to work a cable into my raglan shaping too. This has me feeling tenative because the one I’m looking at has yarn overs on either side of the cables. Hmmm… maybe I just need to knit up a test swatch to see how it will work out.

Thoughts?

I think maybe Honor has an ear infection. We’ll find out today at 2:15. He had an especially hard time going to bed last night and then he woke up because he wet the bed. I’m not sure why in the middle of the night it doesn’t occur to us that we can just change his sheets, so I made him a pallet on the floor next to my side of the bed. This proved to be a big mistake because he whined ALL. NIGHT. LONG. Poor little guy…

Then, not long after, Eden wet her bed. This is very unusual. And once again, no sheets were changed, so I went out to make her a bed on the couch. This, of course woke up Honor and so by the time I got back into bed, I was wide awake. I probably laid there for an hour. This makes me SO mad. I hate not being able to fall asleep. Jim, on the other hand, falls asleep the second his head hits the pillow… no matter what is going on.

Today Honor is still not feeling well, but he’ll go to the doctor this afternoon and we’ll get him fixed up. Eden is convinced that Honor will get a shot at the doctor’s office, so she is quite certain that she does not need to go. I guess she’ll spend some time with Jim today at his office.

On another note, I’ve been so frustrated with my head. After my migraine last Wednesday, I got another one on Friday. I think that Monday was the only day in the past week that I haven’t had a headache. Yesterday another migraine threatened it’s way in but I managed to ward it off with Ibuprofen and Rice-a-Roni. I’m just at the point where I’m flat pissed off. I do not want to deal with this. I want to feel fine and damnit! that’s how it needs to be!

I probably need to do another elimination diet. I’m just worried that I’ll find I’ve developed another allergy. What could it be? My aunt is allergic to wheat – it causes her migraines. I’m pretty sure that I can’t be allergic to wheat because beer it made with wheat and… well… I’m not so sure what kind of life I could live without beer.

I woke up today with cramps AND a migraine. And, no, I haven’t had any cheese to cause said migraine. WHAT GREAT FUN!

I’ve been feeling a bit unpopular in the blogging world these days. I think its easy to turn blogging into a popularity contest and then it starts to feel like High School all over again. Knit bloggers are especially hard to understand. You never know what you will say or knit that will suddenly make you oh, so cool. But in the meantime it’s hard to be on the outside looking in.

I try not to obsess over my daily hits and only visit my stats page a couple times a month. But I couldn’t help but look at my stats when I saw that only 14 people subscribe to me with Bloglines. I felt better, though, to see that my hits are doing good, going up. It’s silly to be obsessed with these things, I know, and even sillier to blog about them. But I’m blaming it on my migraine medication. Yes, that and the fact that I plan to eat ice cream for dinner… that should make me feel much better.

I think the funniest part about my stats page is the top 20 search strings. This is the top 20 things people search for that brings up my website (that they click on.) At one point in time a google search would bring me up #1 when you typed in “booger picking queen”. Here they are for the first few days of October.

16.95% purse
3.39% pretending sanity
2.54% lip balm recipe
2.54% lip balm recipes
1.69% 241
1.69% goofy boys
1.69% knitting scarves
1.69% kutless
1.69% ms. marigold
1.69% poop smearing and children
1.69% recipe for homemade lip balm
1.69% thorasic output syndrome
1.69% wristlets mitts
0.85% 1 year old boy
0.85% a purse
0.85% baby biker
0.85% baby herringbone hat pattern
0.85% ballerina picture by eden
0.85% bday cake
0.85% best lip balm recipe

My personal favorites, poop smearing children and a purse. I cannot even imagine what page I come up when someone searches for a purse. Probably page 1200. That right there, that’s dedication, to go through 1200 pages and then suffer the disappointment of finding ME!

A couple weeks ago, Joelene posted a short row heel tutorial. Because I’m not really that humble, I would like to take a little bit of credit for this. I was the one who figured out how to pick up the wraps on the purl side. See? Not so humble. I also prefer to pick up my wraps from the top rather than the bottom. So go check it out, it’s the bestest way to knit a heel.

I haven’t had nearly as much time to knit socks as I would like. That is why this pair that lives in my purse was is still not finished. I started them on the Fourth of July as I was waiting for it to get dark enough for the city fireworks to start. I think I need to get Regia in the store, don’t you? I really like these.

And then there’s these socks.

And you’re thinking… why haven’t these socks progressed? One word. Tuck. The dog PURPOSELY grabbed one of my balls of yarn and started chewing on it. When I yelled at him, he took off across the house with my socks wrapped around his legs. I chased him screaming, NO NO NO, and it just made him run faster. The socks finally found their resting place in the kitchen when the yarn broke. BROKE! Deep breaths…

I should have taken a picture of the mess the dog left, but I was just. so. mad. I managed to mostly save the socks, but now there is a knot in the yarn. I hate knots. Weaving in ends is just so not fun. I had to rip out my 4 inches of progress I had achieved on Yahaira’s Dragon Skin Socks. This would be, I think, the 3rd time I ripped out the socks? I started in plain stockinette, and then decided to switch to the dragon skin socks. Then I realized that the chart was written (non-traditionally) left to right, so I had to rip again. Now I’ve started again in plain stockinette and I’m not so sure about it. I really like socks with some ribbing. Dare I rip again? And now that I look at the dragon skin socks, I’m still really liking them. But I think for awhile these socks need to just get put away… they bring up too many bad memories and… the dog… I still have to like him, unless of course anyone out there wants a 10 month old barking, howling, chewing, sock yarn loving beagle?

Oh, and I really wish I had time to join and I don’t, but everyone should go join Socktoberfest.

We’ve got the whole month of October’s weekends planned. I like this. We have a plan and a purpose.

This coming Saturday, we’re having a little get together with a few friends at our house. This will be a replacement for Fiesta Blevinza as we just didn’t have time to plan it this year. Saturday is also my big sale at the store. I just like to do everything at once. The weekend following we made reservations in Glenwood Springs to celebrate our 7th anniversary. This will be childless!

The weekend after that we plan to do the same thing to our bedroom floor as we did to the kids floor. I also plan to paint the walls in our room, after 5 years of while walls, I think it’s time to commit to a color. This is the one weekend activity that I think we will probably put off, but I’m still planning on it.

The last weekend this month I get an extra special treat. Joelene, the Sock Queen is coming to visit me!! I am exceedingly excited about this. We will have a great time knitting, drinking coffee and eating sushi.

It’s nice to have plans, this will be a great month, I just know it!

Something amazing that I discovered yesterday: You can track packages with Bloglines. Now I can obsess over my packages arrival without even visiting an ugly brown website.

It is soooo cold here! Usually around this time of year it’s around 70º to even 80º but today it’s 42º. This has been such strange weather, it’s rained SO much over the past few weeks. The poor dog today was sopping wet, so he gets to spend the day in the house.

I got the heat running here at the yarn store and I’ve spent much of my day standing on the heating vent. I remember when I was little, taking my blanket and making a little tent over the heating vent in the cold mornings before school. It’s funny the things we still do.

What funny little habit do you still have from childhood?

Are you involved in politics? I want to be involved in politics. I’ve always said that if I don’t go vote then I don’t have the right to complain about the outcome of the election. But just because I vote doesn’t mean that I really know what’s going on or WHO I’m voting for. I want to have some sort of investment in our government, both local and national. There are moments in my life that I feel very passionate about certain issues. But when something isn’t in front of my face every day, I tend to forget about how important it is.

I don’t like that I do that.

One thing that I’ve observed about politics is that many times political parties will fight a loosing battle and ignore the desperate situations that they could change. I think that is probably true of most people at some point in their lives.

I think really, I just want to help people in some way that is tangible. The hard thing about not being involved in a church is that we don’t have that opportunity readily available. But we’ve also had a hard time finding a church that we like that isn’t inwardly focused. I want to see a place that makes a real difference in the community. But since I’m not finding that right now, I need to try to make a difference on my own. I need to know who I’m voting for and support the candidates that I respect. I need to make phone calls to congress and knit scarves for the homeless and… do something to make this world a little better.

And I need to not forget all this tomorrow.