KnitCrush

Peek-A-Boo!

I see you! This is what results from trying to sneak a picture of My-Only-Hunter-In-The-Whole-World. He catches me every time, no matter how sneaky I think I'm being. He's like a neen-ja. (I love the funky green of his eyes; they've been ever-so-slowly changing from blue to green for years now.)

While I was trying to sneak a picture of him, I was working with this. It's luscious Misti Alpaca Handpaint Lace. At the time, it wasn't too humid outside to work with it; in the intervening days, it has alternately been great to work with or too-sticky-in-the-humidity to work with. I have fiddled with this yarn from almost a year, never happy with the stitch patterns I cyphered out for it. Now, I've come up with something dandy. (Yes, I said "dandy." Why? Because the colors of this yarn remind me of fields of wheat, of the Plains, and of Little House on the Prairie. And "dandy" fits that, I think.)

The deal-breaker (thank you, Liz Lemmon) with this yarn? The needles. Matt gave me the Knit Picks Options set of needles for Christmas a few years ago, and I also have several sets of Addi Turbo circs. I had started this on some Addi Turbos, but they were just a smidge too blunt--and I do mean "smidge." There is only the most miniscule difference in the pointiness of the Addis versus the Options in this small needle size, but it has made a massive difference. The double-decreases aren't sliding away from the tips of the Options like they did the tips of the Addis, which was really irritating me. See that? Addi Turbos on the top/left, Options on the bottom/right. Squint, really hard, and you can maybe see the microscopic difference in pointiness that kept me from chucking the whole thing into the garbage bin.

Stocha-what?

Stochasticity. My new favorite word.

Do you listen to RadioLab? If not, go now, I'll still be here when you get back.

Did you look? Cool, isn't it? I've been listening to the RadioLab Podcast for, I don't know, maybe a year or so now, and I have loved every single one of them. Some tiny fact or observation from each episode makes me think, really hard, about something I've never noticed, or known, before.

This current episode was entitled "Stochasticity," which is even more fun to say than "prodigious" and "troglodyte," if you ask me. It kind of slides off your tongue. It means "randomness," which was the subject of this last episode.

While I found the story of the girls & the balloon whimsical, and the story of the woman with the gambling addiction crushingly sad, something about the story about the E.coli left me simply amazed.

Genes produce proteins, which in turn make up the things that make us Go. Protein production is The Fundamental Process within any living organism. Until recently, we had no concept of how genes produced proteins; we assumed that it was a smooth, highly-polished process. It must be an almost perfect process, right? I mean, it's been taking place for, well, forever, and look at what it has yielded! Every creature, every Thing we could define as "living," houses this process within itself, is sustained by this process. EveryThing.The complexity and diversity of life on this planet is absolutely astounding, and we have always made this assumption that the most basic function that occurs within all living things must be nearly perfectly streamlined in order for anything to survive, let alone even to live in the first place. 

Genes everywhere have been snickering behind our backs, because we couldn't have been more wrong.

As it turns out, protein production is a halting, herky-jerky process that barely manages to successfully get the job done. At the most basic level of our being, we are all a disorganized, haphazard mess. So is your spouse, your child, and your great-aunt Harriet.

And yet here I sit, a functioning being, with a heart that beats, lungs that breathe, and a boggling plethora of biochemical processes that continue to chug away within this amazing machine that, at its tiniest, simplest level, is just short of a trainwreck.

How you choose to wrap your head around such information is completely up to you. The shock of learning that this body that you desperately need to properly function is based on some half-assed process may consume you and leave you paranoid. You may hear this news and brush it off with a slight "uh, whatever," because it doesn't really interest you.

Personally, I take solace in it.

If all of existence is dependent on a process this screwed up and undependable, well, then, isn't anything fixable? We all make mistakes, and sometimes they are huge. But if the very thing that makes us Go is a noisy mess, and yet it still manages to produce the mind-blowing complexity and diversity of life on this planet, then anything can work if we just muck through.

(Besides, now you have a great excuse for when you've failed to follow through on something, regardless of the reason: "Hey, get off my back. My proteins don't even get made correctly half the time, so you shouldn't be surprised.")

Finding the Time

It can be so difficult, sometimes, to find the time to get things done. Not the ordinary things, like cooking, cleaning, and running errands--those things get done because they have to be done. It's the knitting things, My things, that get pushed aside. Please don't misunderstand me--I don't have a huge issue with this; I fully grasp the fact that we have a lot of kids and opposite work schedules, and that's all fine. But when the ideas start to pile up in my head and I can't get to all of them, it makes me feel a bit unproductive.Ideas for patterns float around in my spacious brain all the time, but I don't think I'll ever have the time to get them all knit up.

I have charted out many lace shawls and stoles(I absolutely love doing the charts--flying that geek flag proudly!), but I don't think the knitting will ever get done. I work on things here & there in little stolen moments that don't seem to amount to a whole lot, especially in laceweight.

Take this sweet little bit of lace. It's Misti International Handpaint Laceweight (forgive me, I don't remember the color--I want to call it Foxglove for some reason, though). This poor yarn has tried to be several different things, but not one pattern fit it just right. I thought maybe a scarf instead of a wrap, because maybe I can feel more productive with fewer repeats per sitting. That bit there is the result of some scattered minutes of knitting yesterday.

And then these things happen, which irritate me to no end but are seemingly unavoidable. That, friends, is the result of casting on 256 stitches to knit a stole sideways so that the subtle striping runs the length of the stole. Over several days, I got about 5 long rows done. I left it at the side of my desk while I made supper the other night; when I had finished cleaning up, I found my poor, abused tiny-beginning-of-a-stole with about 30 stitches dropped off of the needles. A few of the boys had been using my laptop and had lain all over the desk, undoing all of those stitches. I tried to salvage it, I did, but it was too far gone. Oh, well.

(If only I could find a job just charting the lace. Then I would be so very happy.)

A Love/Hate Relationship

Matt just got me a sweet pink BlackBerry Curve 8330. I haven't been so in love with a Thing since I brought my laptop home almost three years ago. It does it all: keeps all eight of our schedules & tasks organized, text & e-mail, internet pretty much anywhere... you know the drill. It introduced me to FaceBook (ok, I knew about fb, but hadn't bothered to look until the BB came to live with me), where I've found a ton of old friends. It's pushed Plurk aside for Twitter, because Twitter has a much better mobile app (several, in fact).

There's just one thing, though. I can't get the TypePad app to run on my lovely little toy. Yes, the program that hosts this blog refuses to run on my Little Surrogate Brain so that I can post whenever I feel like it! I have scoured the Internet looking for a solution, pored over CrackBerry.com, Pinstack.com, TypePad Help, and far too many other places, all to no avail. (Thinking about the time I've spent in total, here & there, trying to solve this conundrum, makes my right eye all twitchy.)

In fact, all I've been able to find are a few other confused souls asking the same question I'm asking: "What do you mean my 'internet preferences are incorrect'? Everything else requiring internet works PERFECTLY FINE on my BlackBerry!"

Ahem. If I ever discover a solution, or find someone else who has, I'll let you all know-- I know you're just as concerned as I am. I'm going to drop it for now, and go quietly grieve for the knitting time I've lost trying to get this thing to work (and play with the new toy while I'm at it).

One of the Many Reasons...

... Why I love this guy. This is how Matt spent his Sunday, in between coming in to check on Snappy. The poor Putt-Putt-To-Work car hasn't been going anywhere, so he's been working on it.

I don't think that people who work with their hands get enough respect (and not just because I married one--I've always felt this). This man can fix anything he sets his mind to fixing. I love that he asks me to come out to the garage to keep him company; when I do, he doesn't laugh at all of my questions about what-does-what under the hood of a car. I've learned a lot, actually. He's better at explaining things than I am (go ahead, ask him a knitting question. He'll try to answer, but considering the woeful explanations I've given him, he doesn't really stand a chance).

So, let's all say a little prayer that he's able to get the Putt-Putt car going again after he has more time to work on it again this coming weekend. We need it moving! Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

And So Summer Begins...

Wee Jack is a Wild Man. Boy is Crazy. No one who has ever met the little darling would dispute this; they would wholeheartedly agree that this is A Fact. He is more Boy than the other four boys combined.

Wee Jack just learned to ride his Wee Bike sans training wheels. I mean, who can properly pop-a-wheelie whilst hindered by baby training wheels, right?

I've come to the conclusion that Wee Jack's Wee Bike wanted to keep it's training wheels, because said bike grabbed him by his little leg, yanked, twisted, and pulled him to the ground, breaking his little left leg. 

He's been such a trooper. He woke up yesterday morning in the funniest mood, making faces and horsing around in general. This morning was a little rougher, but, in general, he's just been so good. We have watched more movies in the last three days than in the last six months combined, and today we played balloon volleyball for, well, way too long in my humble opinion, but he was thrilled, and that was the point. (I don't think I'll ever be able to lay eyes on a green balloon again without twitching a little bit, but I'll live with it.)

I did it! I did it! (Insert Happy Dance here)

Have you ever wanted to do something for years, and, for whatever reason, never done it? I’ve had one of these things on my mind for a long time, for years, and I finally took hold of it and got it done.

I got a tattoo! I still can’t believe it’s done. I’ve wanted a tattoo for the longest time, but didn’t want something that I might ever see on someone else. When Nancy and I were in Orkney (almost EIGHT years ago, my gosh), we visited the Maeshowe burial mound. When the Vikings were traversing Orkney, some of them sheltered in this burial mound during a snowstorm. They left runic graffiti all over the walls. Some of it was as simple as “Thor carved this here,” and some of it was surprisingly touching, like one man who wrote that Ingibjorg, his wife, was the fairest of all maidens. An Orcadian jeweler, Ola Gorie, crafted a pendant using this runic inscription. When I saw the inscription in the burial mound, the idea of having it as a tattoo popped into my little head out of nowhere. Who else might have that tattooed on them? If I’m going to put something permanent on my body, I want it to be as unique as possible.

I was nervous, and a little light-headed at the beginning, but then I just got sleepy. It was the strangest feeling I’ve ever had, I think. And now I think I might like to get another one. And, by the way, yes, I AM wearing a shirt in that picture. It looks bad, but it was one of the best ones The Welder took, and I detest having my picture taken.

So very, very true

Go here now, and laugh hard. It's just too funny, and so very, very true. (Thanks, Tom, and Swiss Miss).

Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy

Knitting a Rainbow

Meghan, whom I greatly adore, has done an amazing thing--she re-introduced me to Ricky Gervais. Run to iTunes now and download his podcast, because it's hilarious and makes me all giggly. Good giggly. So-giggly-that-whilst-listening-and-driving-people-look-at-me-all-funny-like. Even more stitch-in-the-side-laughter can be found in Ricky's clip with Elmo, also available at iTunes. 

Adding to the giggles are these crazy people, who are crazy, and make me crazy, but are funny as all get-out. (What does that mean, anyway, "as all get-out?")

That's Wee Jack, showing me what The Uglies look like. Kid is CRAZY.

 

And that's My Only Hunter In The Whole World, hamming it up because he's really good at it. Kid cracks me up. He's been this huge kid since birth, just big all over, and he has the biggest heart, too. The crossing guard at his school told me the other day that he's been setting a great example to his class of how to welcome the new student; Hunter has buddied right up to him, which is just how Hunter rolls. The best thing? He still climbs into my lap, even though he's so big--he's always been the cuddliest one of the boys.

My Only Hunter walked up to me the other day whilst I knitted on this bit of lovliness and said, "Mom, you're knitting a rainbow!" I am in absolute mad knitcrush love with this stuff. It's so darn cheerful! Makes me smile every time I look at it. It's Jojoland Harmony laceweight in color HC05; this color name does it no justice so I'm calling in Knitted Rainbow. (I know, not very original, and I swiped the name from a seven-year-old, but it fits, so...).

Happy Weekend, everyone. The kids have spring break this coming week, so the next time we talk I'll probably be losing my ever-loving mind. (Hey, what does that one mean, too--"ever-loving mind?")

A Bigger Umbrella

You know how when it rains, it pours? Well, in the last two days, The Welder and I have determined that it is indeed pouring and we need a bigger umbrella. Or perhaps an ark. I'm speaking figuratively, of course, as it's still too cold here to rain -- any precipitation would be frozen, frozen, frozen. So many things have gone wrong here in the last two days. However, many, many things have not, and I'm trying to focus on those things (I'm a big fan of the silver lining).

All of the kids are healthy (now that I've said it out loud, look out!), everyone's doing well in school, we have a home, and electricity, and heat, and food, and vehicles that run (again, now that I've said it out loud...). We are blessed to have made a new family, something which neither of us thought we'd have again. The Welder and I both went through pretty bad divorces (what divorce is "good," really), and we both, independently of each other, of course, had fallen in love with the idea of being alone for the rest of our lives. Then we became friends and fell in love with each other, which tossed that silly Being Alone idea right out on its keister.

What's pouring on us right now is just Life Stuff, and it'll pass. I need more hours at work. I need to be able to just finish school already (this would most likely alleviate the needing more hours). We would love for the petty, lingering junk from our respective divorces to just stop already, because it's stuff that affects the kids and we won't stand for their heads being messed with (this one's the toughest issue, by far).

But, that silver lining? It's that neither one of us has to do any of it alone, which I find simply amazing. Miraculous. How two people who were so in love with the concept of being alone, after being hurt so badly, were able to get past that and take the massive risk to Try Again, is absolutely beyond me, and I was there. Being together, getting married, Trying Again, is ginormous proof of how much we love each other. People have said that it's easier to remain alone than to dive back in; but we found that the idea of not being together was so much harder to comprehend than plummeting headlong into whatever our relationship might turn into.

And so here we are. Mucking it out, in the trenches, doing the stuff that comes with life. But at least it's together -- it would be so much harder to go it alone.

(And with all these kids in one house, we have constant free entertainment. Wee Jack just told his oldest brother to "move his big watermelon head," and he meant it in all seriousness. I dare you to try to say "watermelon head" without even cracking a smile.)