Look like anyone you know?

My grandma sent me this picture yesterday in Eden’s birthday card. I was a big kid, I was thinking I was like three in that picture which was going to give me hope for Edens hair, but my mom said that I was only one and a half. Ah… well.

The felted bag. Oh, was it easy! This is the first thing I’ve ever felted. I made it for the store and the class I’m teaching. The yarn is Paint Box (color 10 I think?) and Cascade 220 held together. The pattern is from the book Pursenalities – the only cool pattern in the whole book.

And my new glasses looking at you through a silly picture. It’s strange to be able to see well. You can see that I didn’t fork out the extra 80 bucks for the anti glare coating. I’d rather spend $80 on yarn.

Today I am 24 years old. 24 seems like it will be a really good age, old enough to be taken seriously, young enough to shop in the Juniors section without being laughed out of the store. It’s gotta be a good year.

I’ve got a busy day planned today. First my sweet husband is taking me to lunch at the Nepali restaurant. I love this place and Jim hates it, so it really is love. Then I am going to walk over the the new salon on Main St. that my friend Sarah told me about yesterday. (You saved my life Sarah.) If it seems cool and the stylists have great hair, I’m going to make an appointment. Deep breaths.

Then I will head to the office where I will quickly print out invoices and do some bookkeeping. Next I will go to the yarn store(!) where I will teach my very first knitting class. I’m very excited about this. It’s the Colinette Point 5 hat. After my knitting class, Jim, the kids, my sister and I will all head to my moms house. She’s making me homemade tamales, margaritas, and ice cream cake. Oh, yum.

I’m off to start my busy day.

I’ve always had a hard time writing about things that don’t make me look like a person who has it all together. My whole life I’ve been concerned about peoples perception of me. I wanted to be percieved as a great student – but I didn’t care about my school work. I wanted to be perceived as a great Christian – and while God is the cornerstone of my life, many times my words and actions were what I thought a Good Christian Girl should be saying and doing. God hates lip service. I don’t think that God is trying to fit us each into a little Christian shaped box, he made us who we are and that’s who he expects us to be.

I think that every parent wants to be perceived as being great at what they do, as never having a difficult time with their children, as always loving their job – and it’s hard, you never want someone to think that you’re not great at parenting because your children become the core of who you are. I have a harder time being a mom than some people do.

I think perhaps money is the hardest thing to be honest about. I think everyone wants to appear that they are financially All That. It’s some sort of mega status symbol – and why? It could be gone tomorrow. It’s more than that, money is how you survive, it’s how you define your lifestyle. It’s how you send your kids to swimming lessons or your husband to the doctor. It’s what decides what kind of house you live in, what kind of car you drive, what kind of clothes you wear. It determines your success in life. Everyone wants to appear to have it, and nobody does. We can get to the point in our life where we’re honest about every other aspect of life, but never money. Why? Why can’t I say, I’m more worried about how we’re going to pay for Jim to go to the doctor than finding out what’s actually wrong with him?

Maybe it’s because we fear judgment more than failure.

And I’m tired of it. I can only be myself and I am not going to apologize for that anymore. I can only live MY life, and I’m not going to try and look like it’s something different than what it is. I think in life when you come to terms with WHO you are, you take a stand on that person. That is the point where you cannot change the way you are perceived, because you’re committed to being yourself. I think I’m nearing that point. And it’s a good thing.

I thought that I’d open today up for questions about me. So ask away! I’ll post my answers here.

What is your ultimate goal for yourself?
Of course I’d get the hard question first. I want to live in the mountains of Colorado, like Ouray, Ridgeway or Telluride where we’ll possibly run a bed and breakfast. And definitely raise sheep for their wool so we can hand dye it, spin it and sell it and most importantly knit it. I want to live in a big farm house with a porch and a big area for a garden.

The biggest accomplishment of my life will be having well adjusted kids who love God and who are great parents and spouses themselves. If this is all I ever accomplish, I will die fulfilled.

What’s next on your knitting agenda and how big is your stash?
I think I’m going to dive into leg warmers. Also, aren’t these great thigh highs? I may just buy them instead of knit them tho…

I’m trying to focus my knitting on what I’m actually going to WEAR this fall and winter. I’m still formulating my “fashion” plan in my head, but that’s where I’m headed. I may also need to knit Eden a cute little wintery dress.

I think my stash is pretty modest, although Jim wouldn’t agree. I usually pick up lots of sugar and cream cotton when it’s on sale for dish cloths and small things for the kids. I’ve got some acrylic novelty yarn and am quickly using up my stash of wool. That’s about all. I need to make it bigger!

How did you and Jim come up with your kids names?
Jim came up with the name Honor when I was first pregnant with Eden. He’s ignoring me right now and won’t tell me how. Since we were pretty convinced that Eden was going to be a boy (even though we didn’t look during the ultrasound) we took our time finding a girl name, just as a back up you know. It was just a month or so before my due date and we were shopping at Target for diapers, onsies, things like that. The check out girls name was Eden and as we walked out of the store, we both looked at each other and said EDEN!

How did Jim propose?
It was August and Jim took me to Aspen. We walked around downtown, peeking in store windows and listening to the street musicians. We rode up the mountain in a gondola and walked around the top for awhile. They were building a fancy schmancy restaurant up on top and it was pretty cold. On our way down, Jim got on one knee and proposed. Even though I knew it was coming, it was still so perfect.

What’s your favorite thing to eat for dinner? Or if you don’t have one maybe just a few of your favorite foods?
Do you have a specialty meal that you make, that people love?
I have a hard time choosing a favorite food, but I really love salads. I also love general tsos chicken and fajitas. oooo, and tamales! I love food too.

Everyone loves my frog eye salad. Also I make a pretty good lasagna. Jim always asks for enchilada casserole.

Eden Joy (Joy is my middle name and my moms middle name.)
Honor James (James is Jim’s real name, it was our compromise as he wants SO bad to have a kid named Jim.)