Making Progress

Zero Calorie Birthday Cake

This week I've been trying to mix things up a bit. In between each hat I knit for Venue and Happy Delusions, I am trying to finish up some long overdue projects. What you see before you is Meghan's completed birthday cake. I bought the pattern and yarn months ago. I saw a sample of it at Hilltop Yarn East and bought the pattern on the spot. I had to have it. Had to. Was not leaving the store without the pattern. I knit it up right away, but had the bottom to complete and then had to have a piece of foam cut for it. Those last 2 steps took me about 4 months. And in the meantime Meghan saw it and claimed it as her own. Which actually works out nicely because I'd like to make another one, if for no other reason than to justify the purchase of my Skacel lace needles. I believe the next cake will be chocolate with pink inside.

My Tillie Tomas scarf

I've also started making my luscious Tillie Tomas wool scarf, which is adorned with tiny glass beads.

In the meantime I'm making valentine hats for both of my shops (Mike brought a few hats into Venue last week and apparently one of the valentine hats sold 15 minutes after he left), as well as more cupcake hats and vikings. Oh yeah, and I still owe my mom 1/2 a sock, I have 3/4 of my first convertible mitten done, and my second Cinderella still lies in dismembered parts in a basket under my sofa table. I have plans for Cinderella #2, so I need to get a move on. I also bought sock yarn for my sister, Caroline, at her request, and I have my own pair of socks to knit from the cotton candy hand spun hand dyed sock yarn from Cultured Purls. Will the fun never end? I have something new on the horizon that I'm dying to take a crack at, but I will not allow myself to begin even one Woolly Snowman until I finish up this list. Or the vast majority of this list. Or at least one more thing....

Speaking of Cultured Purls, they love me. Not to get too Sally Field on you, but they really really love me. They want to increase my hours a bit, but they are worried about the time I'm spending away from my family. What kind of boss says that? What kind of boss cares at all that you even have a family? They really want to make sure I'm liking my job and that I'm happy. I told them to bring it on!

And after the day I have had with my two precious cherubs, I may consider working there full time. I jest, of course. They have been anything but precious cherubs this afternoon. I believe the word I'm looking for is ANNOYING. Or perhaps WHINING. BELLIGERENT? SOUL-SUCKING? HORRID LITTLE BEASTS WHO ARE COMPLETELY INCAPABLE OF COMPLETING A SINGLE SOLITARY THING WITHOUT FIGHTING/ASKING ME FOR HELP/COMPLAINING/WHINING/STOMPING/DID I MENTION WHINING?

But I digress. Well, actually I'm going to digress back to the last paragraph for a moment. IF ERIC DOESN'T TAKE A NAP TOMORROW (AND I MEAN A NAP WHERE ACTUAL SLEEPING IS INVOLVED) I AM GOING TO DROP AN AMBIEN INTO HIS APPLE JUICE.

There. I feel better now.

Back off girls, he's all mine!

Seahawk Blue Day
Would you purchase
an IRA from this man?
You would if you lived
in Seattle!

This is how my husband dressed for work today. Mike is a financial advisor, and being that it's a rather conservative industry, he generally dresses in a shirt and tie. His new company is a bit more casual, but a sport coat and dress pants are still the norm.

Tomorrow the Seahawks play their first playoff game. As today is Seahawk Blue Day, well, you can figure the rest out for yourself.

Mike is a huge sports fan. Not in a paint-your-face-wife-get-me-a beer-while-I watch-ESPN-on-my-300"-tv-all-weekend kind of way. But he has a true love of sports. And more specifically, a true love of Seattle sports. Mike has quietly collected every Sonic basketball card from 1977 to 1998. Mike still has his 25 year old Mariners baseball hat, that he use to wear on a daily basis when we met in college (he had to wear it every day because he was always late for work at his 8:00 print-shop job, 3 minutes from his dorm room). Mike was a Mariners fan when no one was a Mariners fan. Mike was going to the games when he was getting in for free. Literally.

In 1995 the Seattle Mariners made it to the playoffs for the first time in Mariners history. There was a one game showdown between us and the California Angels to see who got the last playoff spot. Mike took the day off work and went with his friend Steve to that game. When the Mariners won, Mike cried. Mike did not cry on our wedding day. Mike did not cry when our kids were born. But he cried when the Mariners clinched a playoff spot for the first time ever. And he carried that ticket in his wallet for years. He had no pictures of me in his wallet, but he carried that ticket. He and Steve then, somehow, bought Mariner playoff tickets and he attended every game. He went to a game on my birthday. And he went with my blessing because I knew that for him, this wasn't just hype. He is not a fair-weathered fan. Mike had truly been waiting for that moment since 1977 when he was 9 years old and the Mariners played their first game in Seattle.

Mike reads the sports page daily. He doesn't just read the fluff stories. He reads the stats. He knows the players. He keeps track from season to season. He watches the drafts. And he has strong opinions about issues that he has been following his entire life. He believes Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame. As well as Barry Bonds. Not because he loves gambling and steroids but because he believes these players have truly earned their spots, and my quiet unassuming husband can very passionately convince you of his arguement.

Two years ago a friend generously gave us tickets to the Seahawk playoff games. During the first game it rained. It poured. We sat in the freezing cold rain for 3 hours in the exposed end zone trying to eat our lunch before it washed away and Mike loved every single solitary second of it. Somehow I ended up with beer in my hood and peanut shells on the inside of my sweatshirt (and I didn't eat any peanuts) and my jeans were dripping wet, but I loved it because, again, I knew how much it meant to Mike to be there. It wasn't just that he was experiencing history. He was experiencing his history.

And that is why my husband is dressed like Norm from Cheers today.

Mike nearly cried, and then my dad...

It was never my intention to stay away for over a week. But somehow that just happened. Every day I think to my self "hmmm...I should blog...." and then it never actually happens. So now I have a choice. Do I blog about Christmas? Work? Current knitting projects? Knitting sales? All of the above? Does anyone actually care about the mundane details of my life? And yet, that's what the last week has been--just living my life.

Venue: Record month for me. I sold 16 hats and I'm thrilled about that. On to Valentine's Day!


Cultured Purls: Work is great. I play with yarn. I help people pick out yarn. I answer questions about yarn. And at the end of the day my boss tells me how great I am.

Christmas: Christmas was fun. Christmas was great. Christmas was, well, Christmas. The boys were beside themselves with anticipation and we did compromise with Ryan and opened half our gifts on Christmas Eve and half on Christmas morning. We sent the boys on a scavenger hunt on Christmas Eve, the end result being the Wii under the couch. The boys were, of course, thrilled, but I always have to remind myself that Ryan is a kid of delayed reactions. When he opened it he just kept repeating "it's a Wii, it's a Wii....". No screaming, no jumping up and down. Ryan is a kid who needs to process information before he can react. And the bigger his audience, the more withdrawn he becomes. So I was a little disappointed by his reaction (or lack thereof). But once the information is processed, however, LOOK OUT. That kid is now Captain Wii. And watching Eric shake his little buns has he plays Spiderman Friend or Foe is about the funniest thing I've ever seen. And I may need rotator cuff surgery from the homerun hitting contest.
Mike and I had agreed not to exchange gifts this year, declaring the Wii a family gift. But he broke the rules and bought me a skein of my beloved, coveted Tilli Tomas yarn that I pet every time I'm at work.


Mike's greatest fear: My mom is a huge Celine Dion fan. For the last few years she has been lamenting that she wants to go to Vegas to see Celine. And now Celine is leaving Vegas and mom will never get a change to see her. Ever. And so now she's been lamenting about that. My mom is a world class lamenter.


Several weeks ago my sister Caroline had a brainstorm and left the message on our voicemail--Celine Dion is coming to Seattle and would we all like to chip in and buy tickets for mom as a combined birthday and Christmas gift? And although those tickets are way out our price range, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. And would forever stop the lamenting (about Celine, that is). Mike listened to the first part of the voicemail, screamed and hung up. The words "would you like to buy Celine Dion concert tickets" are words that make him shutter and cry. Those are words that will keep him up at night. If you're ever looking for a way to torture Mike and make him talk under pressure, blast a Celine Dion cd. Put on the soundtrack to Titanic and he'll just lay there and sob as he hands over his firstborn.

So I listened to the voicemail and told him to get a grip--we are not going to a Celine Dion concert--we're sending Mom and Dad to the concert. And, well, Mike had no issue over the cost of those $300 tickets as long as he didn't have to see Celine Dion with his mother-in-law.

On Christmas morning my mom opened her gift and almost burst into tears when she realized what we all had done. And then my dad realized that he has to be her date and nearly burst into tears himself.

And that, my friends, is the miracle of Christmas.

Christmas Eve

It is Christmas Eve at 8:22 am and I have about 8 loads of laundry to do. My floor hasn't been vacuumed, with my new Bissell bagless vacuum, in days, and the bathrooms....there are no words. I wouldn't care so much if we weren't having Mike's sister and her husband for dinner. And well, that means I need to feed them. And church starts at 4:00, which means I only have until about 3:15 to get all of this done. My Christmas cards are only 1/2 addressed and we just finalized the letter last night. We have no stamps and Mike needs to go to Kinkos to make copies.

Perhaps I should concentrate on what I have accomplished so far. My shopping is done and, as of 7:00 last night the gifts are actually wrapped. We've planned a scavenger hunt for the boys which will result in finding the Wii under the couch. I worked close to 20 hours at Cultured Purls this week, and I was completely successful at doing absolutely no baking at all.

My job is great. The people I work with are so nice and I get to help people pick out yarn. This week I got to help a lot of husbands select gifts for their wives. I'm having a great time there. I'm actually accomplishing some of my knitting backlog and I have finished the boys' Harry Potter bookscarves, Jeremy's hat, and I've made significant strides in Meghan's cake.

Anna canceled the rest of her order (which I had suggested to her a few times, but I guess it needed to be her idea) because the stuff is not selling as fast as she had hoped and the thought of making 4 more pairs of booties right now was just about to do me in. I still owe my mom a sock and now I'm starting to compile new projects for ME. Cultured Purls sells this really fun hand dyed sock yarn, so I had to get some of that! I also plan to make some convertible mittens, a really great scarf (I'm not a scarf maker, but this one is very pretty and is a lot more interesting that 10000 rows of garter stitch), these cute woolly snowmen, and oh yeah.....I still have to replenish my stock at Happy Delusions and Venue.

We're trying to talk the boys into opening all our gifts tonight. We're a Christmas Morning family, but tomorrow we have to leave early to make the 2-5 hour trek up to my parents' house. I've explained to the boys that I don't want to rush them and I want them to be able to enjoy their gifts. They will still have their stockings in the morning, but opening the rest of the gifts on Christmas Eve makes more sense this year. According to Ryan, I am ruining Christmas! Why would I do that? We HAVE to open presents on Christmas morning or it will all be RUINED. Fine. I'll get up at 5:00 am and then MY Christmas will be ruined. I'm kidding. If it means that much to him, that's what we will do. But I will be the first to say I TOLD YOU SO when he complains that there is no time to play with his new toys because we're in such a hurry.

Merry Christmas to my 6 faithful readers!!

The Griswolds strike again

Don't believe everything you read

This is a copy of the Renton Reporter, our little local paper. And while it certainly does not have a readership of The Seattle Times, it does have a distribution of several thousand households.

See that little article I circled? In the Christmas Calendar, under Christmas Lights? That would be a blurb about Clark and Ellen and their garish disjointed seizure-inducing light display. They contacted the Renton Reporter and actually advertised their hideous display, inviting people from all over Renton.

Seriously? The only reason this should be in the paper is if it were in a "how not to decorate for the holidays" section. If you're writing an article on "don't let this happen to you" then this is the house for you.

And no one else on our street has really decorated. A few of us have a string of lights up, but that's about it. My home is inviting and tasteful, but certainly not worth a special trip. I can only imagine what people think when they've piled into the car to see the "light display featuring more than 5000 lights, figures, and a hi-tech light and sound show synchronized with 40 holiday songs", and then they arrive on our street.

I also need to point out that they posted different days than what was on the little flyer they sent around the neighborhood. According to the paper, they are holding the show Fridays through Sundays. Which, again, is pointless because in reality they are running it 7 days a week.

Why does all of this bother me so much that I feel the need to share it with all of you, my 4 faithful readers? I don't know. Maybe because Clark and Ellen/Todd and Margo are such an anomaly to the rest of the neighborhood. Maybe it's because I'm a little sensitive about my own Christmas decorations. Or maybe it's because I'm trying to avoid my mile-long to do list of household and holiday chores and this is a good diversion!