A scary movie

For Christmas E and K received tickets to a comedy show.  Clay and Caitlyn checked with them before buying the gift, but somehow the event wasn't on the calendar or at the front of E's mind so when the week of the show arrived she had not arranged for a babysitter.  Although our dinner and games group was set for that night, I volunteered to watch the children, figuring they would be in bed most of the time.  And I got off work early that afternoon since I would be returning after supper.  While it's true ec was put to bed before they left about 6, Friday night is movie night for es.  So soon we put "Frozen" in the DVD player and sat on the couch together to watch.  She laughed a lot, but other times she said, "This is a scary movie," and cuddled close.  "Save me, Grandma," she said, and I did.  She went to bed about 8:40, and I watched one episode of "Shetland" on Netflix.  During the second episode, Randy arrived; one of our group members dropped him off on the way to drop off someone else.  Soon ec woke up, and as I was deciding whether I should give him a bottle his parents arrived home.  EK really enjoyed their show.  Randy and I drove home together a little past eleven.

Brrr!

Our furnace has been making a strange noise for a while.  Sometimes it sounds like a truck has hit the house, a loud bang that startles me badly.  So Randy called the landlord.  "Change the filter," she said.  We had already done that, but we put in another new filter.  No change.  This past Wednesday she sent over her handyman, who checked that the filter was installed correctly.  At one point Randy suggested he might stand back a bit from the furnace, but before he could move, it kicked on with the huge bang and he jumped back.  "That's not a filter issue," he said, "that's a liability issue, and I don't do liability."  He reported to the landlord who then sent a furnace guy on Thursday.  He determined what the problem was and told us to leave the furnace unplugged; he returned last night with the new valve, but it was not the correct size for this 38-year-old furnace.  Now we are on hold till at least Monday. 

Fortunately the outside temperature warms up to the upper 50's or even low 60's these days, but when I come downstairs in the morning it's often in the low 40's outside.  Getting out from a warm bed into chilly air is not fun.  This morning I was reminded of Lynne Cox, a female endurance swimmer who swam 2.7 miles across the Bering Strait in 1987; the water temperature was 43 degrees F.  In 2003 she swam a mile in the waters off Antarctica with the water at 28º.  I read her autobiography, in which she discussed how she acclimated her body to the cold by taking cold showers, sleeping without blankets, and so on.  I guess adapting to an inside temperature of 52º for a few days is not so bad.  We have lovely quilts, long underwear, woolen shirts, caps and gloves to help.

Can you believe it?

This picture is somewhat embarrassing.  Our old vacuum was wearing out; I recently had patched the hose with duct tape when I couldn't order a new hose.  It still worked but the case was cracking, and since the on/off switch was broken we plugged the cord into a plug with its own switch.  That worked just fine, except every time I wanted to turn it off or on I had to go to the wall plug, a bit tedious.  With so much going on, buying a new vacuum was not at the top of my to-do list, but when I looked in the machine's manual and saw the receipt indicating we bought the vacuum in 2002, I realized it was time to start researching on Consumer Reports for a new one.

EK beat me to it, buying us a Shark Navigator with a lift-away canister for easier use on stairs and off-floor cleaning.  Now, I have vacuumed the house weekly for years.  I may not dust that often, but I do vacuum.  The first time I used this new machine, which claims to have really strong suction, this is the amount of dirt it picked up.  Wow!

Hair

A waterfall of hair cascades down es' back to her waist, lovely but tempting to touch.  Sometimes ec pulls his sister's hair hard enough to make her cry.  He probably doesn't really know what he's doing, but it hurts just the same.  Recently when this happened, I suggested we put her hair into pig tails or braids so it might hurt less if grabbed, but she said, "I like my hair this way," even as she wiped away tears.  On the days she goes to school, she allows her mom to put up her hair so it stays out of her way.  Maybe that's why she likes it loose on other days.  Because her hair is so fine, even braids don't stay neat all day.  I am curious to see how her hair changes as she gets older.

Unraveling, part two

As I finished the foot on the second sock, I realized I had made another mistake.  I had knit 40 rounds instead of 36.  How did this happen?  I keep a running tally of rounds knit and referred often to my record of the first sock of this pair, but it turns out I was not looking at the right tally marks.  So I stopped before switching to double-pointed needles to work the toe.  My error meant the foot was nearly a half-inch longer than it should be.  After some consideration, I decided to unravel just two rounds then move on to the toe.  If the yarn were thicker and the stitches larger, I would probably just take out the needle and pull the yarn to unravel it.  But this sock yarn is quite fine and the stitches quite small, so I get best results when I pull out one stitch at a time, which actually takes longer than the original knitting.

Why these errors?  I'm not sure, unless it's just a lack of concentration these days due to tiredness and stress.  Perhaps instead of recording the rounds for a couple of pairs of socks on one sheet of instructions, I should tally just one pair per sheet.  Or maybe using a different colored pencil for each pair would help.  I need to do something; unraveling my work is just no fun at all!

Here is the finished pair using a pattern called Cath Socks, with a bit of basket-weave-like texture.  The yarn is Patons Kroy in Cameo Colors.  I really like the shading of the pink, purple, blue, but not how the stripes don't match up very well.  I followed the advice of a blogger who has knit many pairs of socks, and used a new skein for the second sock rather than finishing up the first skein; she said she has better luck with matching by doing this, but I sure didn't.

Magical shoes

Hiding in the closet were these wonderful shoes which es has now appropriated.  When she puts them on, plus a purple headband with a bow, she becomes Dorothy traveling in the land of Oz.  I get to be all the other characters in the story.  She especially likes me to pose as the Tin Man so she can "oil" me.  We've watched just a couple of youtube clips from the movie, ones that I thought weren't too scary for her.  We've sung our way down the yellow brick road, off to see the Wizard.  She can click her heels together and get back to Auntie Em.  To help the Wizard return to his home, she summons Peter Pan, who sprinkles fairy dust on his balloon.

After watching Minnierella, a version of the Cinderella story that features Minnie and Mickey Mouse, es turned the red shoes into the marvelous glass slippers that Minnierella wears to the ball.  When she hears the clock strike twelve, she stops dancing with me (playing Prince Mickey) and leaves quickly, stepping out of one of the shoes.  Then I pick it up and go door to door to find the owner, usually receiving a big hug when she shows me the matching shoe.  This afternoon, I found Daisy Duck first, and she told me where Minnie lived.  Later es actually allowed me to wear the shoes and be Princess Minnie, a first.

This little girl has a vivid imagination, and I usually enjoy helping her act out these stories, at least the first two or three times.  We also did Little Red Riding Hood today, though without the red shoes.  Since we don't have toy food items, she chooses blocks and ring toys to be the goodies in her basket, and a length of a red rayon print from Hawaii serves as her cape.

Little things

Has it really been just two years since es was eleven months old?  I don't remember little things, like did she do what her brother does when he's tired?  He will walk up to me as I sit on the couch, lift his arms asking to be picked up, then fall asleep on my shoulder within a few minutes.

He's walking most of the time now, though he still can't stand up from a sitting position without holding on to something...or someone.  He holds his arms up a bit for balance and toddles around the house.  He continues to be a happy little boy, smiling and laughing a lot.

Since E and K had a holiday yesterday, I had the day off, also.  I sorted through more stuff, emptying a box full of old Sunday School teacher's materials.  It hurt to put those lovely pictures and activity guides into the recycling bin, but I knew I wouldn't use them.  I taught the two- and three-year-olds class for a couple of years, 1986-1988 or so.

Unraveling

The other night as I was knitting I found I was having trouble picking up the 16 stitches needed to attach the heel flap to the rest of the sock.  I finally managed to get 16 then kept going for another round or two before noticing the heel just didn't look quite right.  Well, it turned out that instead of knitting 32 rows on the heel flap, I had knit just 22, thus making the heel shorter.  BIG question--keep going and have a smaller sock, or unravel several rounds and fix the problem.  After consideration, I opted to unravel.  Very carefully I took stitches off and returned to the spot where I could add the needed rounds.  I found it frustrating to have to undo my work, but I'm very glad that I did.  Now the heel is the correct size; I will find it fits better and is more comfortable, worth the hour or more that it took to fix.  Lynne Tyler, a quilter whose blog I follow, once said, "No matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, go back."  Sometimes easier said than done, but I suppose she's right.

Nothing is safe

What happened to this magnet, you ask?  Did James get it when he visited?  Did the vacuum chew it up?  No, a little boy pulled it off the refrigerator then began to gnaw
on it before we caught him.  When he began to show interest in it, es put it up high, out of his reach, but I thought he wouldn't be able to take it off the fridge because it is flat and requires a certain dexterity to grab by the edges and lift off, so I moved it a little lower.  He merely pulled it down the front of the appliance till it reached the bottom and fell onto the floor, at which point he was free to put it in his mouth.  We were all standing there in the kitchen, but he was fast!  I guess we didn't think about the magnet having some kind off plastic or paper surface on the front.  He must have a cast iron stomach.

Epiphany Carol Sing

For many years now, we have hosted a carol sing on or near Epiphany, January 6, the date in the church calendar that celebrates the arrival of the Wise Men or Magi to see Jesus.  When we were first married, we had a sing at the beginning of Advent, but after a few years it seemed people were busier in early December.  So we decided to move our event to the end of the Christmas season, and it has been quite successful.  Guests mention how much they look forward to coming and singing carols one last time.  I used to make several kinds of cookies and treats for this party rather than before Christmas; now most guests bring something to put on the table, so I don't make as much.  This year I made date nut pinwheels, pecan pie slices, and white chocolate spiced brownies.  Thursday night I made cranberry nut brunch cake to take to a potluck on Friday, a meet-and-greet for church staff and council members to meet the pastoral candidate for Trinity.  Only one or two slices were eaten, so the cake was added to our party table last night.  E and es joined us; ec slept through it.  Several people had been ill, so the singing was a bit soft, but still enthusiastic.

I really can't recall if we had a party the year Sarah was born.  The old calendar shows "sing?" on December 7, and I don't see anything on the weekend of January 3 and 4, so it looks like maybe we didn't have one that Christmas season.  It was a hard time, with Randy out of work and sick, our rental house on the market and me 9 months pregnant.  A party may have seemed like just too much work.  We hope to celebrate Epiphany next year in our remodeled house!

A day off

The sky is gray today, and fog lingers over the bay.  This morning Randy and I went to REI to get me a pair of waterproof shoes for walking in the rain, assuming we have any this season.  I have rain pants and jacket but no shoes to keep my feet dry.  These new ones look like they will do the trick.

Yesterday K watched the children while E and I went to Famous Dave's BBQ for lunch, then spent a couple of hours in her office/sewing room.  She worked on the second lumbar pillow for Clay and Cait's camper while I tried different layouts for the quilt blocks using the challenge fabric for our quilt guild.  I would never have bought this fabric so it is a challenge, but I found some orphan blocks from a previous project and they go together pretty well.  The light print in the upper left and the lower right corners is the challenge fabric; color balance isn't quite right in the photo.  I "fussy cut" the fabric to feature flowers in the upper block and the wheels in the lower one.  Next, I need to keep rearranging until it suits me, then stitch them together.  A finished project is required in order to be included in the judging next month.

Now I'm on my way to Kohl's to spend my Kohl's cash, then I expect to begin the process of making date nut pinwheels for our Epiphany carol sing Saturday night.  E must go into the City for meetings the next three days, so I possibly will have longer days with both children; es is on vacation from her preschool all week.

Happy New Year!

Some people like to choose a focus word for the year, like "mindful" or "smile" or something.  I find it difficult to choose just one, so I guess I will be without focus in 2018!  Perhaps "breathe" would be a good one, reminding me to slow down and take it easy.  Or "listen," which I will need to do as we continue to work on the house project.  Or "today" to remind me there's no guarantee of tomorrow.

We managed to stay up till midnight to see in the new year.