And more Irony

The new Pottery Barn catalog came in today, and as she was leafing through it Mom said,

“Look, that is beautiful!”

“Yes”, I reply, “that quilt is fab”

“No, not the quilt, the bed. I don’t like quilts, never have. The last one I received as a gift, I gave to your sister Jan.”

Irony is...

Having your mom come for a visit so she can help you out so you can actually have some free time to do things that you want to do like quit a top that you pieced for her as a gift but you cannot work on while she is here since it is supposed to be a surprise.

Feliz Cumpleanos !!!

Birthday tidings go out to (in order of appearance)

Nana - STT's mom

My sister Marsha

and

Niece

May they celebrate many more!

Lent

So being the good catholic girl that I am, I always make it a point to do something for Lent.
It’s not always about the giving something up, in my case it’s usually more about behavioral re-conditioning.

This year I made the decision to work on the healthy body, healthy spirit thing.
My Lenten promise is to:
Drink water and Say the Rosary weekly.
(It was going to be daily, but why set myself up for failure?)

As a rule, I drink a cup of coffee in the morning, one or two cans of Coke in the afternoon, and sometimes a beverage or two (I really don’t drink as much as I seem to) in the evenings. It’s rare I drink water at all, sometimes weeks go by before that happens. I even take medication with coffee or Coke.
The worse thing is my do as I say, not as I do thing with the students. I’m constantly pushing milk, water, or juice. As a rule, they only get pop as a special treat. And it’s usually only Sprite or orange.
So my personal promise is to drink at least 1 litre of water a day, and say the rosary with the students on Fridays. (Naturally, me being me blew the water thing already today. Not a sip…)

I had also promised myself that I would start praying the Rosary again when Nephew gets deployed. I figured the early start for all those serving now can only help.
His deployment date was just changed (again) and it looks like he’ll be leaving Easter Sunday. That also means he’ll be celebrating his 21st birthday over there.
It’s hard thinking about him right now. He is fully expecting that he’s not coming back (prepare for the absolutle worst thing possible and be pleasantly surprised when it doesn’t happen.), so I get exasperated with him whenever we talk. But the good news about it is that he put Catholic on his tags, so he’s thinking about it at least, and that hopefully means that the bible I got him might actually be opened occasionally.

So, wish me luck!

Please!


I need all the help I can get!

I’m back.

I actually got back Saturday night. The unexpected visit from the in-laws to the city made me run like the wind.

I’m kicking myself for not getting up early to head out yarn shopping Saturday morn, but after arriving the day before at the George Washington Bridge at 3:15, and walking into bro-in-law’s apartment (50 something and 10th) at 6:20, I wasn’t quite feeling up to it. Then there was the drive into The Bronx that I was dreading, I was a slug.

Thanks to my suburban princess, (Frick announced that she did not want to go out and get dinner, she wanted her Uncle or I to go and bring it back. When I said that we could order in, she said that she didn’t want pizza. So I then had to explain the glories of living in NY, and how we could order ANYTHING we wanted and they would deliver. She promptly asked for Chinese.), we never got to go to Serendipity. But we did go to Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes. Frack was BEYOND happy. She had 3. Frick doesn’t like cake or cookies (she has a severe egg allergy. I think it’s her way of coping), so we hit the deli across the street from the apartment for frozen fruit bars.

So after leaving the city at 1pm (only had to see M.I.L.D.E.W. for about 2 minutes) and arriving at the apartment in the Bronx almost 3 hours later (bad directions and a carsick Frick), we finally left the Bronx at 8:15 and arrived home by 12:45. By then I was more than happy to go to my bed.

To to make up for it, STT met me at Carole’s, and we hung for a while with Knitglit. I got to actually knit for the first time in 48 hours and am now done with the sleeves of Tubey. I'm trying to pick up the stitches for the body. It’s slow going. I’m knitting it in Scarlet Fleece Painted Merino in Olives & Pimentos that STT got me for Christmas.
I’ll post a pic after I’ve started the body.

There’s Hope!

As long as it’s just cold, I’m off to NYC in the morning.

After K1P2 tonight, I think I have to amend which shops I’m going to hit.
I’m still planning to take the girls to the Bronx to visit my aunts, but I’m leaving for home on Sunday, so I have to plan carefully…

In other news…

Believe it or not, my final SP9 package finally went out today. I had it all set to go Fed Ex and arrive (hopefully) before my SP left for a trip to Japan. Only to discover that it had been touring Maryland for a bit…

So yesterday, I put it in my truck and went to my LYS (there’s a UPS store 3 doors down). I got there and the man was just about to put it in the pile when I happened to mention something about tracking Fed Ex online.

At which point he looked at me and calmly said:

“We do not ship FedEx. This is the UPS store.”

Duh.

So I book it over to the Fed Ex store that is down the hill from my house, (seriously, I could walk there) arriving at 5:35.

Final pick-up is at 5:30.

It got on the first truck out this morning.

I hope.

darn weather gods

I was supposed to go to NY this morning with the kids to pick up my mom and one or two of her sisters. Naturally the weather gods had other plans and decided that we needed a major snowstorm.

I could have left this morning. At best, I’d miss the major parts of the storm. Even better, I’d be stuck in NY until I can drive home. There’s a dream. Do you have any idea how many yarn shops, restaurants, and markets are within a walk or train ride from his apartment?!?!?
So my kids are spoiled suburban princesses that are not used to walking anywhere – let alone the cold streets of NY. They are too young to appreciate the walking home in a blizzard speech (it really happened!) I can leave them with their Abuelita and 3 Great-Aunts.

This is not what I call a major snowstorm.

This is what I call the CFO needed an excuse to take my truck to work and leave me stranded at home with 2 kids, 6 loads of laundry, one dog, and just enough snow to make them want to go out and play and come in 15 times all wet and muddy and let dog out 15 times so she can run around the neighborhood and track in even more snow and mud.

So after 3 loads, dinner simmering on the stove, breakfast and lunch cleaned up, kitchen/hallway/foyer floor mopped (AGAIN!) wet kids and dog dried off, and kids filled with hot chocolate and marshmallows,(the same kids that are now ready to go out again since the neighbor is home from school early), I can get back to finishing (AGAIN!) bro-in-law’s hat.

The cursed thing has been finished 3 times. First time it was WAY too long, second time I learned that no, ribbing will not decrease evenly no matter what, third time I had to frog because I shortened it too much and I wouldn’t stay on MY head!
Notice how nicely the navy and black stripes show up on camera. Trust me when I say, it doesn’t look like that way in the real world.

It must be finished this time since he promised to take us to Serendipity when we do finally go up.

Just when you thought

you had them pegged…

So I asked Frick & Frack the Disney question.
Would you rather be like Zack & Cody, Raven, or Hanna Montana?

Being their mother who is with them 24/7, I was certain that Frick would choose Hanna Montana because of her Diva-like tendencies, and equaly certain that Frack would choose Zack & Cody because of her attachment to her sister.

I was wrong.

Frick chose Raven so she could see what would happen.

Frack chose Hannah Montana so she could sing all the time.

Who knew?

Don't know why,

but i'm getting really excited!

http://www.sheepandwool.org/index.htm

For some reason I've started counting the days...