Sometimes you just have to go with it.

Street Music...Star 'Violin' Wars, originally uploaded by sathwick.

Sometimes you see something that makes you smile. Then you stop and think "Why does that make me smile?"


You know what? Sometimes you just have to go with it and smile.

On the bright side.

Owen has been gone all week. He is in Maryland for training. It has been hard to run the whole house by myself. I know some military wives would say that if I think one week is hard, I should try a year deployment! Of course if he was gonna be gone for a whole year I might just move home so that I have some help, so in some ways the week is harder! Plus I am pregnant now, and never will be again so I am having a harder time physically than I would if he were to deploy for a year. Plus we still don't have a fence for the dog, and the only time I can safely take him out for a walk is late at night once the kids are in bed. (Although I did figure out a way to be able to tether him outside for a little while in the morning and afternoon without having to rely on one of those giant screw looking things!)

On top of having to run the house by myself, which is just wiping me out (stupid Fibromyalgia making my life difficult!) I have been having to do all of the driving for getting Alexander to and from school. Which means that I cant take my pain management medication. So I just have to suffer until around 1:30.

Now I know that that sounds like alot of complaining, but there is a bright side to all of this! I have had to get dressed every day! Normally I only bother to get out of my jammies if I have to go out in public. Since I am taking Alexander to school, I have to put on real pants everyday.

How is that a bright side, you might ask? Well I gotta tell you, I had been suffering from the blahs and getting dressed and having a pretty rigid routine is really helping to pull me out of it! I don't have time during the day to sit around a mope and be blah, and in the afternoons I have to keep a schedule so I can get Alexander to bed early enough for him to get the sleep he needs for school.

Also, they do "take home reading" where they send him home with a book and we are supposed to read it to him and log the time spent reading and then send the book back for a new book. Owen and I had fallen behind on reading a book to the kids every night. Now it will be a matter of pride. I know that it is petty, but I wanna be the parents who read to their kids more than the other parents. It is a silly thing to be competitive about, but I figure that it is good for the kids!



BTW: On a completely different topic, Liam is getting crazy wiggly! I have motion sickness almost all the time now! This kid is either going to be a soccer player or an Irish step dancer! Seriously!

Cause Knitting isnt addicting enough...

Ok. Some of you may not know this (or care for that matter!) but knitting is addictive. It is alot like crack, except that it wont hurt you ( I guess you could get carpel tunnel or something!) and at the end of the day you have something that you made that you can show off until strangers start yelling at you "Listen Lady! I DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT HOW THE CABLES ON THE BACK OF YOUR FINGERLESS MITTS WOULD SHOW BETTER IF YOU HAD USED A SOLID COLORED YARN, OR THAT EVEN THOUGH YOU REALLY WANT TO, YOU JUST CANT SEEM TO STOP KNITTING UP LONGIES!"

So what is an addicted knitter to do? Take up spinning her own yarn of course!

On Saturday I took a class at Yorkshire Yarns in Lakewood. My teacher was my friend Heather. She is one of the two people who helped me with the koolhaas hat I knit for my FIL. She is a military spouse, like me. I just wish she had more free time so that I wouldn't have to pay for classes to be able to hang out with her!

For one hour she showed me (and 3 other women) the basics of drop spindling. After that hour she sent us baby spinners out into the world to fend for ourselves... With her Ravelry Id in case we had any questions.

After my hour of learning, I went home and showed Owen what I had learned. In the grand tradition of photos of me doing something that were taken by Owen, I only have part of my head.



By the end of the night I had a spindle full of yarn singles. This morning I made a little mini skein cause I wanted to start spinning up my second try at singles. Wanna see the mini skein? If you answered no, stop reading.



I have no idea what I will do with it, or even if I will do anything with it at all. I do know this though, It is friggen cute!

By the end of the Oscars tonight, I had my second attempt at singles completed.



Go me!

Finally, an update.

Ok. Sorry that it has taken me so long to let everyone know about how Alexander's first day of school went. I spent all day yesterday helping Owen get ready to go to Maryland for a week of training... well that and taking a spinning class at Yorkshire Yarns.




We got to Whitman Elementary at 8:30. Class started at 8:45, so we had plenty of time to find out where he was supposed to go. We went to the school office and they told us where the Headstart classroom was. Once we found out, Alexander was off like a rocket!



He skipped all the way down the stairs and down the long halls to his classroom. When we got to his classroom he was assigned a locker to share (with a little girl named Mikaila!)



Once his backpack was put away, it was "library time". They have a little area in the class with cushions and books and the kids can look through books or have a story read to them while the group waits for breakfast. (BTW there aren't any pictures of his day during class. I was not allowed to take pictures because I did not have the consent of all the kids parents, just in case someone else snuck into a picture.)

At 9:00 the class walked in a straight line to the bathrooms where everyone washed their hands. Then they walked up to the cafeteria. There they were given a big breakfast of oatmeal with raisins, dry wheat toast and canned pears. They also got a box of milk! They were given about 30 minutes to eat, then they had to clear the table. They put their silverware in cups on the table and dumped their food leftovers in the trash and put their bowls and trays in the bin for them.... Then we all filed down to the classroom again.

Once in the classroom the teacher handed out everyones toothbrushes. All the kids brushed their teeth while sitting at their tables! They had little cups to spit into!

After tooth brushing... they did circle time. They had the little alphabet rug and everything! During circle time, they first added the date to the calendar, then put the day's weather on the Weather Chart. Then the teacher (whose name I will update when I remember it) read a story that was written in Spanish. She read it in Spanish, then translated it to English. I thought that that was kinda cool!

After circle time it was time for "stations". Stations is basically semi-structured playtime. They can do any of several activities that they want, as long as they share and clean up any mess they make. There was painting, a water table, blocks, books, writing, and "housekeeping" which is really just a bunch of cool little activities in rubbermaid shoeboxes. There was puzzles, and weaving boards and those little toys you can "sew" strings through. Alexander mostly played with the blocks. He did flip through a couple of books though!

After Stations came recess. We all went outside and played in the play area. There is a playground and swings and alot of asphalt to play on. They were not allowed in the grass area cause the older kids (3rd and 4th grade I think) were up in the grass area. Alexander had a fantastic time running around with a bunch of boys his own age. He was the fastest runner in the whole group.

As recess ended the kids were asked to line up for lunch. Alexander became a little confused and accidentally followed the 3rd graders back to class. They kinda panicked when he wasn't in line, but I suggested that they try near the door to the classroom. He was sitting right there by the door, waiting for the class to catch up. The teacher brought him back and we all filed back to the bathroom to wash our hands and then on to the cafeteria to have lunch.

Lunch consisted of cheese pizza, salad, milk and a kiwi. I was even given lunch too! The kids ate lunch (again about 30 minutes was given to eat) and then cleaned up their table. We all lined up and filed back to the classroom.

After lunch all the kids sat down on the circle time mat again and this time they did song games for a while. They sang a song about monkeys teasing crocodiles and getting eaten.... and a silly version of the ittys bitsy spider, and then they did the hokey pokey!

The day ended with Journaling. For journaling, each kid is given their notebook and their box of crayons. They draw a picture and then the teacher or an aid writes down a short story (a couple of lines) that the child makes up about their picture. Alexander drew fireworks and a guy in shorts and a t-shirt, and another guy with a red blob drawn all over him. When I asked him what the story was behind his picture (so I could write it down for him) he told me that two guys were watching some fireworks. One guy got to close and he got exploded (the guy with the red blob!) and then the other guy decided to just go to the beach instead of watching fireworks. The end. I hope that he doesn't draw to many pictures about guys getting exploded. The teachers are gonna start to worry about him!

After journaling the kids were told that they could go have library time until their parents showed up to get them. Since I was already there, Alexander and I were able to just go.



Alexander wanted me to take a picture of him in front of his locker so that I could show it to Owen.

We went and checked out at the office (as a visitor I had to sign in and out!) and then out we went!



Alexander loved sliding down the banister on the way out....



Alexander practically ran to the van on the way out! He couldn't wait to go home and tell his Daddy all about the awesome time he had at school. He cant wait to go back on Monday.

I knew the day would come someday...

I knew that someday my babies would grow up and go to school. Fundamentally anyways. I just thought/hoped that I had dodged that bullet this year!

See, I don't like preschool. I think that kids only get 5 years out of their whole young lives that they get to just be kids. (I know this is not a popular opinion.... but it is my opinion and my blog.) Well at the beginning of this year Owen and Alexander tried really hard to get Alexander enrolled in Headstart. Unfortunately for them, we got settled to late in the year and all the classes were very full. Alexanders name went on a wait list. In November we got a letter informing us that Headstart was not gonna happen for him! We thought that that meant for the year.



Phew! Dodged that bullet, right?

Wrong.



Yesterday I got a call from the Headstart program. They had two spots in their classroom, and did Alexander still want one of them? I considered not telling Owen that they had called, but with my luck they had probably called his phone and left him a message too.



So Owen called the program back and told them that Yes, we were still interested. We went down to fill out the paperwork. They told us "Alexander can either start tomorrow or Monday. Your choice."

My choice was NOT AT ALL, but nobody was listening to my choice, even when I broke into hysterics and begged Alexander to stop growing immediately!



So today I will be accompanying my baby boy, my first born, to his first day of school ever. I will write a blog all about it when I get home later... you know, sometime after I stop crying hysterically.

Swaps are fun!

So, I am a moderator on a group on Ravelry called Caffeine Addicts. One of my jobs as moderator is to co-run swaps a couple of times a year. The hard part for me on this is not "cheating". It would be very easy for me to pick out who sends to me and who I send to. Instead I had Owen help me!

Well anyways. It came to be time to ship out swap packages. I sent mine off to Vegasdealer78. She was alot of fun to shop for. She and I have similar taste in things, and some of her favorite places to visit are some of my favorite places from my past! I actually had a hard time trying to stay in my limit! I started to spend closer to $100, and Owen reminded me that as a moderator, spending twice the limit I helped set would be setting a bad example! Spoilsport! If you wanna see the package I sent, you can check it out here!

My package came to me all the way from Australia!!!! I have always wanted to go to Australia, but for now a package from there will be just fine!



This is before I opened my package. Please ignore the hole in the wall behind me!

Then I opened it!



There was some soft and pretty redish/hot pink fingering weight yarn, a box of chocolates, which was consumed by my family (I got a few pieces) within the hour, some heart shaped chocolates, a box of loose leaf tea and a tea strainer ball. The tea is very floral and sweet. I drank a whole pot by myself in under an hour!

Thank you Liz, AKA Rickielee1985! My package rocked!

I won!

Every month Ginger, AKA Momma MC, runs a contest on her blog. She gives away some new cool thing she has made. I have always faithfully entered every month, but have not won since she picked 7 winners for her birthday contest on 7-07-07. (I think that is right!)

This month, I was the big winner! Wanna see what I won? Cause I am gonna show you anyways.





These are three Valentines Day cards with matching lavender filled sachets that Ginger hand made. I already know who these are going to this year for Valentines Day!

Then there are these:



Three more sachets, which also match, but I am thinking about keeping. I am not sure though. I may send each of the card recipients 2 sachets each.... I may save the three to send out to other people. I haven't made up my mind yet what the fate of these three is going to be.

That is all I have for now... unless you, for some reason, want to talk about my new cream colored sheets...

As one door closes, Another opens.

See that? That is Mikaela's brand new big girl bed. We have known for a couple of months now that it was time to move her out of her dilapidated old crib and into a brand new big girl bed, but had to put it off for several reasons. One of those reasons was, in all honesty, money. The biggest reason for me though was me. I wasn't ready for my sweet baby princess angel to be a big girl.

It was time for me to face the facts though. She is potty training,(which for the record she initiated. I am not pushing her in the slightest!) She can talk in coherent sentences, and most importantly, every time we went to Ikea she begged for a big girl "jump-jump" of her very own. I let her pick her bed and she chose this bed. We purchased it at Ikea. It is adjustable. It starts out a toddler length/twin width bed and can be extended two times until it is a standard twin sized bed. The mattress even comes in segments so that you don't have a bunch of extra mattress hanging around.

Mikaela even picked the bedding that she wanted. She picked it cause it had a hippo on it. What a cute way to pick your bedding!

Owen and I put the bed together in the living room while Mikaela slept in her crib. Then we moved it into her bedroom while she slept, and transferred her into it. Of course the noise of moving a bed into her room woke her up, so she knew exactly what was going on...

The conversation pretty much went like this:

Me "Mikaela, your bed is ready. Do you wanna sleep in your big girl bed?"
Mikaela "Jump-jump?"
Me "Yep. Do you want me to move you out of your crib now?"
Mikaela "Up please."



She immediately made herself comfortable.



We tucked her into her bed.



She was asleep in her bed before I even stopped snapping pictures. Goodnight my sweet big girl princess angel.