Think of a Happy Thought, Any Happy Little Thought

Where did the week go?  I've been concentrating hard on my project list that I've barely noticed the individual days go by.  All in all, it has been a pretty good week. :)

Yes, I researched, prayed, cried, and voted.  I have been avoiding the nasty social media war.  

Please, lets not talk about it here.  Happy thoughts only!

Last Saturday I put the finishing touches on the hats my aunt commissioned me to make for Christmas gifts.  I would recommend both these patterns and the yarn I used.  

Trying to Catch My Breath

I'm trying to catch my breath over here for a moment so I can tell you all what I've been up to!  The time crunch last week was so severe that I didn't have time to stop and write my weekly blog, so now I have a lot of catching up to do here.

Thomas' birthday was in September, but as it was such a difficult month I couldn't do his birthday party yet.  Then my husband got a big electronics order from the company he works for; he worked on it evenings and weekends.  So that meant that I couldn't host a party here, so then I started thinking about putting the money up for renting the community room that our apartments has for events. The more I thought of it, the more I liked the idea.

We don't have a tiny apartment, but it isn't huge either so we can only host small parties here.  Having it at the community center would open it up to being able to invite anyone / everyone he wanted.  Since he really wanted to have a table top game (board games, dice games, card games) party, this would be a great time to do the big party thing!

Never a Dull Moment

I recently wrote a detailed account about what was going on with my ferret, Pandora, in another post.  In between all that drama I had other things going on, of course.  Nothing is ever simple around here!  Did I mention that I finally caught my kid's cold over the weekend?  (Frequently going out in the storm washing helping things.)  Blur and Anna both came down with a second cold, too, so we were all miserable.  'Tis the season!  This threw Blur's new schedule all out of whack, and he had been making great progress with his sleep / wake cycle. 

I started knitting a stocking cap for my nephew while I was visiting family in June.  He requested a slouchy black beanie with a symbol from his favorite anime, Fairy Tail, on it.  He has a large head and sock yarn with size 3 needles takes a long time to knit a beanie.  So unfortunately I didn't get it finished while I was there.  I did finish knitting it sometime after I got home, however when I found a model with a similarly sized head I found that the hat fit perfectly... not slouchy.  So I was going to have to frog out the decreases and knit about 3 inches more.  Well I finally got around to doing that last week and finished the hat a second time.

Next came the hard part; duplicate stitching.  I had in my mind that the emblem was going to be fairly

Pandora Out of the Box

I know I've said in the past that I've had a hard week.  I have a lot of those.  I have a lot of mental, emotional and physical demands in my life.  Some weeks take it to another level.  This was one of them.

This is my furbaby, Pandora.  In her youth I would call my baby a feisty princess.  She had an attitude and wanted things her way.  I reorganized her cage?  Well it wasn't how she liked it so she's going to re-reorganize!  lol 

 I've had this girl since she was little and I've comforted her through pain, sickness, and loss.  There's

Carpet & Tinking

This last week I have been very busy doing non-crafting things.  I am now watching one of Thomas' classmates, and his sister, before and after school.  I had to do a bunch of setup to start our routine off right!  First I bought a carpet cleaner and started cleaning the carpets!  They still need a second (and maybe a third) round of cleaning, but at least it no longer looks like I'm running a zoo!  (No more monkeys spilling milk, etc, all over the floor, please!  Ick!)  I'm monitoring closer than ever to make sure Thomas and Anna behave with their food, however still somehow a banana peel made its way under the couch.  Grrr.

After I started the carpets I went and bought a small cabinet, too.  I assembled it and put in puzzles, activity books, Playmobile people, games, etc, in it.  The kiddos are supposed to ask before they dive in so I can make sure all the pieces get put back away.   So far so good.   I'm thinking about getting a second cabinet.

I picked up my nephew's hat this week again.  I started it in June when I was on vacation visiting family but didn't finish before I left.  He wanted a slouchy hat but I underestimated the length and finished it too early.  I decided to pick it up again and rip back to the decreases.  Lots of tiny black stitches on size 3 needles.

Then on Monday it was knit night at West Slope Community Library.  I trouble shoot and teach basic knitting.  We had three new people this time!  Two were new knitters and one was teaching the other (the best way to learn is to teach!)  I backed them up as they had questions.  Another woman had put down knitting for about 3 years as she dealt with various life stuff and wanted help figuring out where she was on the pattern of a gorgeous scarf she was working on.  I helped her figure out which row she was at by "tink" ing (that is "knit"ing backwards) the last couple of rows.  She was having trouble getting back into the groove so I suggested that she get some plain yarn (the  scarf was textured) and practice the pattern on that for a couple of repeats.  Then when she found her groove again she could jump back into the scarf. :)

I've been taking the hat as my travel knitting this week.  I took it when I went to lunch with a friend and now I've finally re-knit all the yarn that was attached, which is about 2" past where I ripped out to, and need to connect more yarn, .  I think I might go another half-inch or so before I start decreasing again.  (The altoids are because I ate a lot of onions and didn't want to make my friend pass out! lol)

Other than that, I've been busy with kids, cleaning, and reading!  Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series is fun!  I'm reading the second book, Lost in a Good Book, with my sister for our Friday Night knit club.

By the way, I *did* start writing this on Thursday, and I've been pretty good about doing so.  I just don't always finish editing and publishing on Thursday, so perhaps its better to say that I'll publish weekly by Friday, though I'll still be aiming for Thursdays. :)

My back is very fatigued from the week's work so I hope to get back into knitting more and rest a bit this weekend.

TTFN.  Ta ta for now! ;)