Not Inadequate

So. He was going to let me knit him some socks! I interrogated him about what he wanted in a sock. Nay, what he needed in a sock. What color, how high, how tight, how thick…  I’m pretty sure he began to regret humoring me with this sock request. 

Number one on the list was machine washable. Obviously. I bought some nice charcoal gray Cascade 220 Superwash (having been warned what constitutes suitably masculine color) and consulted one of the best sock books ever, Sensational Knitted Socks. I measured and re-measured the feet in question (once even pausing the teevee to do it, much to the annoyance of Someone). I even – get this – swatched. 

I was so excited. Before I even cast on a single stitch I was having ridiculous fantasies of how much he would love the socks … He would start waxing poetic about the joys of a wool sock. I would have to go and buy tons of manly sock yarn. I would make boatloads more socks (a pair a month!  - no, a pair a month each for him and the kids! and me!) behind closed doors and present them to him next Christmas…. 

Then I was shocked out of my reverie by the kids fighting over one. single. Lego.  And that strange burny smell the fridge makes when I put too much hot food in it. And the fact that I can’t sit in front of my fireplace knitting like I am in a chapter of Little Women because if I take my eyes off these tiny people for a damn minute there will be a mutiny.

I am totally stealing this from Connie at The Young and The Relentless, but it’s freaking HILARIOUS and deserves repeating -

Over the weekend while I was out running errands, I decided to pop into the only bookstore in town that has home school supplies.

The last time I was there, I browsed around for a long time, unrushed and unbothered by the owner. I was quite looking forward to another visit. This time she met me at the door, cheerily asking how she could help. I said I had come in to look at some school supplies. I answered all the typical questions – telling her I’m a home schooler, my kids are almost 6 and 4, and that I was looking for a poster of the days of the week and months of the year. 

She told me my son was too young for that. I was a little taken aback, but said that he’s been asking about the days of the week lately and I wanted to get something he could look at whenever he wanted. She said, “Oh, well if he’s asking, then that’s okay.” Oh, goody. She said home school moms are always coming into her store and trying to buy things that are way too advanced, because they all think their kids are just so smart.  

That seemed like kind of a weird thing to say to a customer who JUST TOLD YOU she’s a home schooler, but whatever. And anyway, my kids ARE smart, so neener-neener. 

She followed me around the store the entire time I was there, pointing out things I should buy and telling me repeatedly that she had been a teacher for thirty-five years. She would pause after this announcement and blink expectantly. I got the impression I was supposed to be asking her for advice.

She made pointed comments about the simple things home schooled kids miss out on learning - how to work with others, how to sit still, or how to recite a nursery rhyme. Nursery rhymes, for those of you not In The Know, are of paramount importance. Why, she saw he fell down and broke his crown referred to in a $500 Math book just last week! I was thinking that if I spent that kind of money on a math book, I’d want more than Humpty-Dumpty, but instead said brightly, “that’s so interesting!” 

In an effort to change the subject, I mentioned that I was looking for an alphabet to put up that matched the handwriting program we use, Getty-Dubay. 

Her: “That’s a terrible program.” 

Me, feeling my eyebrows twitch a little: “Oh?”

Her: “It’s not a program that they recognize.”

Me: “Who’s They?” 

Her: “The public school system and administration.” 

Me: “I don’t care what the public school system does.” 

Her, not missing a beat: “Or parochial schools.” 

Me: “I don’t care about that either.” 

Her: “You never know what might happen, things might change. We have some wonderful private schools in town.” 

Me, edging away: “Well, I am committed to home schooling.” 

Her: “They offer scholarships.” 

Me, twitch, twitch: “Both my husband and I are very committed to home schooling. Money doesn’t have anything to do with it.” 

Her: “Well, you never know what might happen. Things might change.” 

And then she told me this story about how she had been in a horrible car accident last year, broken 30 bones in her body, and had only survived because there was an off duty trauma nurse walking by.  “So, you never know what might happen.” She stopped just short of saying, “…it could happen to you!” but I’m pretty sure she was thinking it. She was so……. oddly gleeful at the prospect. It was a little unsettling. 

I made sympathetic mouth noises, but by now my brows had crawled so far up into my hairline, I vaguely wondered if I’d ever see them again. She pounded the message home, telling me “to make sure and have a Plan B, because you never know what could happen, you might get a fantastic job offer! An offer that you wouldn’t be able to turn down, a job you would kill for!” 

“I already have that job.” 

“Oh, really? Where?” 

I just looked at her. “Oh, right,” she said, “Being a mommy.” 

Jim asked me why I didn’t walk out. I think it was because I’ve never had a total stranger talk to me like that before and was morbidly curious to see what she’d say next.

• I saw a cookie recipe on Bon Appetite that takes 27 hours from start to finish. And that doesn’t count that you have to make something called Milk Crumbs first. Probably won’t be baking those any time soon.

• Yesterday afternoon I could hear my neighbor in his backyard talking baby talk to his dog. Really loud, enthusiastic baby talk to a dog that flings himself at the fence growling whenever my kids are outside. It was kind of creepy.

• I got an email from Room & Board letting me know that the secret to a happy holiday season is a new dining room table. The one I liked was $1600. Without chairs. All these years, I have been having inadequate holidays and I didn’t even know it.

• Friday night I took Big to Costco. As I was digging through my bag to get the membership card while keeping one hand on my kid and juggling his snack (the secret to shopping with children is to never leave home without food), the enforcer at the door came bobbing out, chirping, “let me show you how to put him in the cart without lifting!” Even though this lady was probably 65 years old and not a threat to me in any way (unless it was to startle me into dropping all my crap), I still do not appreciate having strangers making grabby motions at my children. I gave her a curt, No Thank You and swung him into the cart. She visibly deflated, and then I felt bad for hurting her feelings. But she was LUNGING AT US. So why do I feel guilty?

• There is something, somewhere in this house that is beeping. Every few minutes, three faint little beeps. I might go mad.

Later —

I located the beeping sound. My husband had left the refrigerator door open. Luckily, we have annoying, condescending appliances to alert us to human error. Every time I put groceries away and the door is open for more than ten seconds, it starts in with the beeping. I have, in fact, actually cursed out the fridge. That’s how I roll.

The fact that I find the fridge so annoying is not going to stop me from plotting revenge on my husband, though. I’m a multi-tasker that way.

When I first took up knitting, I knit a lot of these fuzzy, multi-yarn scarves. A lot. Like maybe 35 fuzzy scarves.

Just plain garter stitch and a lot of novelty yarn. I didn’t even know how to purl. I refused to pay more than $1.99 for a ball of yarn (Mmmm, acrylic!). I inflicted them on gave them to everyone I knew. 

Then I decided to grow up and do some Real Knitting. You know, knitting that did not involve size 35 needles (I did still only buy 99 cent yarn. Let’s not get carried away). I decided to knit a scarf for my husband. I found a Mistake Rib scarf that looked nice and was a simple enough pattern for me to try. I learned to purl and everything. I was happy with how it turned out, and Jim seemed pleased to receive it. 

I was so excited about this, a successful project! I immediately began peppering him with questions about what else he wanted me to knit him.

Me: Yarn! Colors! Patterns!

Him: You already knit me a scarf.

Me: ?

Him: I only need one scarf.

Me: Dude, I have invested tens of dollars (heh) into this new hobby and you think you are going to escape with only one scarf? 

I mean, really. 

I didn’t argue, but secretly devised a Campaign of Conversion.

I took a sock class and began extolling the virtues of the hand-knit sock.

I took him to a football game on one of the coldest days of the year and heroically presented him with a fold-up-brim merino wool hat knit with team colors. I even made a matching one for myself, and I hate football.

I let him in on the mysteries of felting.

I made hats for the kids to look cute in.

And then….

Finally, after over a year of waiting, I heard the words I had been waiting for – 

“I might like you to knit me some socks”

Victory!

Nah. We can make it another day.

Stardate: HolyCrapIsItFridayYet

We are being sucked into the gravity of planet BigWhinerNaughyPants. It is unknown how well the ship will fare if we are stuck on this planet for very long. We will try to survive by using our reserves of Dinosaur Train, but supplies are running low.

If anyone out there is considering launching a rescue mission, please bring cookies and those tiny bottles of liquor.

Fear and uncertainty grip the crew.

We remodeled our kitchen last summer (just in time for the market to tank. yay). Our house was built in the 70′s and most everything was original when we moved in about 3 years ago. I say most everything because the last owner did make one significant change to the kitchen.
 
She put carpet in.
 
Seriously.
 
Apparently her feet would get cold. A lot of people would say, “Hey! Socks!” But she went the carpet route. 

After a few months with two kids under 3 eating in a carpeted kitchen, I couldn’t take it anymore and we ripped it (and the previously undiscovered TWO MORE LAYERS of carpet) out and got some cheap peel-and-stick tile at Home Depot. It’s just not right to VACUUM your kitchen. 

When we first started the remodel, Jim was all “I’ll take next week off and we’ll do a bunch of the work ourselves.”
 
Then FRIDAY NIGHT, he switches to “yeah, I can’t take any days off.”
 
Then MONDAY MORNING, he says to me “by the way, I’m probably going to have to work a bunch of nights this week.”
 
I’m sure you can imagine my response to these announcements and I don’t have to bore you with all the cursing details. 

The Before:

THREE LAYERS of wallpaper! Fluorescent lighting! Thirty year old cabinets with that one drawer that fell out and broke my foot every time I opened it! 

We bought the dishwasher before we even moved in because I would not wash baby bottles and pumping equipment in a dishwasher from 1977. We bought the stove when the old one (harvest gold!) was down to one working burner and the oven ruined three batches of muffins in a row. The stainless steel table was something we bought at the restaurant supply store for a hundred bucks to give me more counter space. 

I miss this kitchen a little. 

NOT.

The Middle:

The middle was very hard. I had two kids that needed to eat every fifteen minutes. I had no stove, no sink, and no dishwasher. We were eating out or microwaving macaroni & cheese in the dining room (more carpet!) I was doing dishes in the bathroom. It was disgusting. There was not enough bleach in the world to make me feel better about it. We could not get the THREE layers of wallpaper off, and had to call a guy and throw money at him to rescue us. It was six weeks of “I swear I’ll call a divorce lawyer if you ever suggest buying a fixer again.”

The After:

So. Much. Better. 

Now there is more counterspace and more storage space. Porcelain tile, engineered quartz countertops, and my favorite part –

The trash can pulls out! Seriously, this makes me happy every time I use it. No more cramming the trash under the sink or sticking the can in the doorway to the dining school room - I just scrape all the bread crusts and vegetable peels right into the can. 

Now if only I could figure out a way to keep it this clean. I actually wrote the first part of this post a long time ago, but the kitchen has never been clean enough to take After pictures. And probably never will be again.

This post is linked to Touring Tuesdays at Our Life in Words.

The other day I was following rabbits all over the internet, and one of my regular reads (don’t remember who) was talking about Laura Kelley at Pitter Patter Art. I am always interested in original arts and crafts, and Laura sells her artwork because they are saving to adopt a child. She makes the most adorable custom bags, t-shirts, necklaces, and baby items. She also makes custom key fobs, which is what I ordered last week. She has a boatload of fabrics to choose from and she created a key fob in two of my favorite colors, orange and green. I received it in a matter of days and it is SO CUTE! I am going to put my keys on it tonight, and now I will not lose them in the bottom of my bag. I love giving unique handmade gifts, and with Christmas and baby showers coming up, I definitely am planning on another shopping visit to her site.

Link over and check out her stuff – it’s all really terrific. And without getting too sappy about it, I was really pleased to be able to add to their adoption fund.

I was feeling punky yesterday (when, oh WHEN will I learn that refrigerated pie crust baked with cinnamon sugar is not food?), and the residual effect seems to be vague crankiness and the urge to watch teevee all day.

Who am I kidding – I always feel the urge to watch teevee all day.

After convalescing on the couch with the remote* for a while, I went to Knit Night last night. Jim’s work schedule has interfered with the last 3 out of 4 Knit Nights and I didn’t want to miss again. Plus, if I stayed home, I’d have to fix dinner. I need to get out of the house every once a while to preserve my sanity, but Knit Night at my local yarn shop has changed in the last few months, and when I got home I felt iffy about going back.

The group seems to have evolved into two distinct camps: the Crotchety Old Ladies and the Self-Absorbed Twenty-Somethings.

The Crotchety Old Ladies are singles who like to mingle, have no verbal filter and use language that shocks me. The swearing I can take, but the detailed descriptions of octogenarian rolls in the hay are too much. The Loud Twenty-Somethings dominate the conversation with ridiculous pining over some guy. The guy who has 4 kids by 3 different baby-mamas but is just so nice! The guy who is twenty-five years older than she is. And of course all the guys who stop texting after the girls put out. On the third date. The Oldsters and the Youngsters have two things in common – they are both appallingly loose with their lady lovin’ (ifyouknowwhatImean), and they use the internet to find the next Inappropriate Hook-Up. I have to bite my tongue to keep from telling the young girls that they probably won’t find The One on the No Strings Attached area of the internet. I leave feeling sad because they have such poor decision making skills; cranky because the real grown-ups can’t get a word in; and very, very grateful to be going home to a husband and not an apartment filled with cats.

I don’t fit in with either one of those groups, though. No one even knew what Hammer Pants were!

* kids can sniff out daytime teevee viewing. To foil their nosiness, be ready to flip to the news when they come in the room. Mine will roll their eyes, whine Not News! and sulk their way back to the playroom, leaving me free to flip over to The Real Housewives. Speaking of Real Housewives (we’re on the DC version now), can you BELIEVE those Salahi’s? I think the husband must be a sociopath.