Thursday, I loaded up the kids and a mullet-free Jim into my FIL’s minivan and headed over the mountains to Denver. 2 Apple stores, 3 yarn stores, 1 Guitar Center, 4 Starbucks, 1 Urban Outfitters and a trip to Casa Bonita later, we headed home. It was a quick trip, but Jim was able to spend his birthday money on a couple new guitar pedals and I got to fondle the new yarn I’m thinking of ordering for Tangle.

Saturday, Eden had two soccer games in the 85 degree heat (I tell you, this side of Colorado just skips over spring) and I managed to pull off a surprise party for Jim. He is now 32 years old. The fact that he’s into his 30’s makes ME feel old! Aside from the fact that he was actually surprised, we now have enough Jack Daniels in our house to inebriate a small country. Hey – I guess it really isn’t too hard to buy Jim a present!

Sunday, I sewed curtains from the extremely cool fabric (aka bedspread) I bought at UO and talked Jim into buying shelving material for our work-in-progress dining room. (Pics will follow when it’s all done – in 2009.) I’m really excited to finish up the dining room, and just thinking of all the free space I will have with floor to ceiling shelves makes me giddy. Plus, it’s just really nice to start implementing the plans I have for this house. It only took me 6 years to decide how I really want it – I’m just ready to have it that way!

I’ll leave you with some photos from the new, fancy macbooks at the Apple Store. (PS, this was the first time I saw the new ipod shuffle, and I think I might really need one. Really. Either that or some nike ipod shoes. I fully embrace my nerd-ness, you’re welcome to laugh.)

Monday
Southwest wraps

Tuesday
Pasta Salad

Wednesday
Spinach and Mushroom Enchiladas

Thursday
Veggie Sandwiches with hummus

Friday
(ps, my sister’s senior art show is this night – she’s the only student outside of the art department who is showing – she’s a stinkin’ good potter)
Vegetable Tostadas

Saturday
Date night!! hopefully sushi

Sunday
Organic Steak

Earlier today I told Eden to go get dressed. A couple minutes later she came out of her room and said, “Mom, I think we need a faster washing machine.”

Do you think it’s time to do laundry?

Last weekend we were at a friends house having dinner when the topic of love languages came up. Mine, according to Sarah, is nurturing. But none of us could figure out what Jim’s is. I remained unconvinced that Jim HAS a love language, but he determined that his love language is giving people a hard time. Relentlessly.

That is why what happened Wednesday should have come as no surprise to me:

During lunch, Jim walked over to the local barber to get a much needed hair cut. I was in the bathroom doing my hair when he got home. As he walked in, he was trying to keep a mischievous grin off his face, but that’s not terribly unusual so I didn’t think much of it. He was looking at me straight on and I commented on how happy I was that he cut his hair. That was until he walked away.

I did a double take and realized that he had told the barber to give him a MULLET. On purpose. FOR the purpose of annoying me. Isn’t he SO special?

I uploaded a few photos from Saturday’s soccer game. Eden turns out to be a pretty fast runner, but she’s not very aggressive. She doesn’t get in there and steal the ball away from all those little girls. But when she does get the ball, she runs up and down the field with a huge smile on her face – it’s totally obvious that she’s loving it.

After the game, over a roasted turkey sandwich at Quiznos, she said to me, “I’m having a rough day mom.” I asked her why she was having a rough day and she said, “because I didn’t make any goals.”

Doesn’t that just make you melt a little?

Monday
Green chile smothered burritos filled with leftover Chicken Taco Salad
(didn’t make the green chile last week)

Tuesday
Portobello Mushroom Burgers

Wednesday
veggie stir fry with tofu and brown rice

Thursday
Turkey and veggie pitas

Friday
tortilla pizzas with mushrooms and ricotta

treats:
Chocolate cream soda

I wanted to thank you all for your comments on my last post. I’ve been trying to write that post for the last month without sounding like a whiney baby. It looks like I still didn’t succeed. But I guess sometimes you just gotta whine!

In other news, I tracked down a local CSA that would actually return my call and my application is on it’s way to me. The list of veggies we’ll get at the peak season is WAY impressive. I’m excited about all the healthy veggi-ness we’ll be eating. (Jim is freeze drying McDonald’s for emergencies most likely related to tofu.)

“Children always know when someone doesn’t want to be around them and they act accordingly. As adults we sort of loose that.”

One of my knitting instructors said this to me today while we were talking about dysfunctional family relationships.

It was something that I really needed to hear as I’ve seems I’ve lost all of my childhood resiliency. I’ve struggled so much lately with the thought of friendship. It was like one day I woke up and found myself incredibly lonely. I’ve scrutinized myself relentlessly wondering if I’m not friendly enough, not approachable, not cool, not interesting. Wondering if I was difficult to love and what it was about me that made me difficult to love.

I haven’t come to a healthy conclusion. But I know that i need to thicken up my skin a bit and relearn how to be resilient. And I need to learn how to be content with being alone too.

I woke up this morning to big, fat flakes of snow coming down. The weather here has been very bizarre… (that Al Gore, he know what he’s talking about it seems.) But I’m always happy for cold weather because it affords me the opportunity to wear my knitting!

In fact, I forced my children to wear my knitting today too.

So, because of my perfect opportunity to wear my Sweater Workshop sweater, I have photos for you! (Most of the photos are by Eden.)

I need to start off by saying that I’m not in love with the neck. After washing, blocking and wearing a couple times, it gets more and more stretched out. Something needs to be done with it, but I’m just contemplating how much I want to rip out and re-knit.

(Honor took this one.)

As far as the sweater workshop method goes, I’m not convinced that it’s my favorite. My sweater is WAY big on me – but comfy. Part of that is my fault for not calculating in negative ease. Part of it is the stretchy yarn. And part of that is because the book adds no shaping for the waist and has you increase after the ribbing (hello belly balloon). I added in my own waist shaping and just did a folded hem rather than ribbing. But still! I did, however learn a lot about how sweaters are built and how I would like to build them. (And I’m pretty convinced at this point that top down raglans are my fav.)

Stats:
Rowan Felted Tweed – 5 balls I think?
US size 8 addi turbos 32″ for body 40″ for sleeves 2 at a time.
Use: for me!

And a couple silly pics for your enjoyment.

Yesterday, I came home from a long day to some very exciting mail. We found out that Eden was accepted to the school we were really hoping to get her in. See, we’d gone through a fairly involved application process to find that out of 100 or so applicants, only 22 would be accepted. And this was happening by lottery.

It wasn’t until that final meeting where we really learned more about the school, that I decided that she HAD to go there. In the whole elementary school, there are only 130 kids. It’s the only all day kindergarden in the district and she will have Fridays off. Honor will automatically make it in when he’s ready for school too. Because it’s sort of an experimental type school that’s out of our area, I’ll have to drive her every day, but I think it will be well worth it.

This comes as SUCH a relief. I was so worried about sending her to the school in our area. And I didn’t feel like any of the private schools provided a good alternative for us. Now the only thing that I have to freak out about is that she’s actually GOING TO SCHOOL. GAH!!

(Because I forgot to do this for her b-day, I uploaded a whole bunch of pics of Eden and created a new set. Click below to see the set.)