InsanKnitty

GNO… is a Hannah Montana song, Girl’s Night Out… it’s a cute little ditty ;-)  I’m sure you’ll be shocked to hear that a mom of a 7 1/2 year old girl listens to LOADS of Hannah Montana…  so much so that the Little Girl prefers it to any of the traditional 3 year old music choices… you know those old favorites like The Wiggles, or Raffi…

No… the Little Girl wants Hannah, 24/7 actually.. and her favorite song is:

Nobody’s Perfect Everybody Makes Steaks … yes.. you read that correctly… STEAKS.

The first line of the song is ‘Everybody Makes Mistakes’…  so…the Big Guy gave her line 2 as…’Everbody has A1′ (it’s really, ‘Everbody has those days’)..  yep, back to the fun of vocabulary and speech, the 3 year old way! ;-)  So now, it’s just… ‘Do you want the steak song, or the party song?’ when we first start up the car!

Girls night out is something I could really use… you know.. a night (or 10) with my knit girls… and if space, money, time etc. weren’t a restriction… all these absolutely amazing girls too!  If only the world of the internet could work for a sit ‘n knit huh!

My girls have kept me going lately.. and today Chan surprised me with this beautiful paw print scarf…

(I couldn’t get good color even outside, the sunlight is just terrible at the moment, and the scarf being a natural/beige tone isn’t coming out right in my photos…

I did have a true GNO this week, though it wasn’t a ‘knit’ night like I’ve been wanting… it was Bunko night with some of the ladies I’ve met here in PA… and I was responsible for dessert… so here’s what I brought…

This is the ‘Look At Me And Gain A Pound; Eat Me And Gain Ten‘, ‘Thunder Thigh Death By Chocolate‘, ‘Guaranteed To Need a Bi-pass Cake‘, Rich Chocolate Truffle Cake (a flourless cake).  My goal was to wow ‘em…

I succeeded… and I won’t tell you what the scale said the next morning.

My Dishcloth Swap pal, Karin, received her package yesterday… and liked it… phew… Yes.. every time I send out a package this a twinge of worry that the recipient won’t like it… Go check her site out.. she wrote I nice thank you to the swap hostesses too, Anne and Holly, two wonderful friends who again pulled off an amazing swap together!

And… since I’ve mentioned Holly… I need to say, she’s one seriously remarkable woman.. and I could swear she was a sister of mine.. the way we connected, and the things we share in common… it’s funny actually.  She and Chan have been a lifeline for me lately with how I’ve been feeling… it’s so nice to know that this blog has brought me friendships like theirs!

I have to admit that I have only a very few close female friends… I generally take a long long time to warm up to women, but once I do, I rarely lose them as friends… I have trust issues.. and yes.. Dr. Freud.. it stems from my parents divorce…  but also, because I’ve been burnt in the past by some female friends witches..   so I take my time, I go slow, if I want you as a friend I will open up when I’m good and cozy…

Hey… today was Thursday… Guess where I found my boy when I got home from the morning from he**?

Murphy is doing quite well now… you’d almost never know he had the issues he was dealing with last week… Thank you God and thank you Cindy for your tremendous help…

Murph… you know better baby!  NO COUCH.. and definitely NO GRANDMA’S AFGHAN! (crocheted to fit our CalKing Bed!!!)

And this got here by way of international air…

Sweet sweet Monica sent me these cute tins of ‘proper’ English tea, and this luscious Miski Alpaca yarn!

Monica and I met a few months ago.. I forget exactly how… but we really started talking fairly regularly just before her move to the UK to be with her honey… I had been a lurker or only occasional commenter on her blog in the late summer until she announced her move and since then we’ve gotten to be quite decent friends!  I hope to one day meet her in person!  Right now she’s hosting the UK swap, and while she really wanted to be involved in the Cocoa swap, she realized how much time hosting a swap and participating in others can be (smart girl she is!)

She was so incredibly sweet to thank me for my.. ahem.. help? with her swap… not sure exactly how much help this new swap hostess gave her, but am pleased she found what tips I threw her way to be of some sort of assistance!

Monica, I hope one day we can meet for a proper cuppa tea!

just look at that yarn.. my favorite colors too! :-)  Boy am I getting spoiled lately!

Do you like the yellow, absorbent, and porous one?

Cuz I’ve met lots who just HATE him, and others, who, like me, think he’s down right hilarious! Spongebob is loved by our children.. I daresay adored. It started at 3 when the Big Girl learned the song from one of our campers… she had no idea who or what Spongebob was… but she liked that song! We have a hilarious Spongebob toy that when you squeeze him his eyes bug out and he says some hilarious comment (I think there’s about 20 or so that he says)… we found him in the basement yesterday… he brings a chuckle to my face… and lately I’ve felt like I needed a good laugh…

I don’t want to open my window too wide… but what I can admit is that I really miss home.

Ok, pulling the blinds back in…

Today I met with my MIL to hand off some things she forgot here this past weekend, and a bag of stuff for my name twin SIL in Rochester… we had a lovely chat session in Panera where I enjoyed my first Cinnamon Crunch bagel since wow… months it must be… There’s this amazing shop across the street that I have been wanting to go to since we moved here… It’s called the Country Junction General Store. Um… why haven’t I gone there before??? The Big Guy is so lucky that I accidentally forgot my wallet at home…

The little girl and I had so much fun.. here let me show you around the store…

The Store has everything under the sun you can think of from food, wine, snacks, to tableware, wall hangings and nick nacks… the store actually has a partnership of some sort with Ashley Furniture, so there is also furniture everywhere.. but just in case you’re looking for something extra-ordinary … you should really check out the one closest to you… I mean seriously..

who doesn’t want a cute Lion in their house… I mean, one to show off his lovely mane, just like my little girl was doing…

or… if Feline’s aren’t your thing, and your more of a fish sort of gal… how about a seahorse.. they have a mane too right??

I know I’m not tall at a mere 5′1″, but that sea horse would definitely look good by our pool wouldn’t it??

No sea animals??? Come on they had ‘A Pirates’ Life’ playing in that section.. ok.. farm animals more your thing???

as you can see, I’m not joking.. these things are actually for SALE!

Personally I wanted to walk away with the Serta sheep…

Does anyone think that the wee child has the same expression??

His tag says ‘Do not remove under penalty…’ he must be the Serta Sheep!

In fact, there were loads of fun ’sheep’ items there..

For the woodworking, patriotic,  fiber lover…

for the yarn saver who needs a sheepy bank..

I thought of so many of my fellow bloggers as we wandered the aisles aimlessly…

Cass.. I found where you got your cool coffee mug.. and wow… it’s pretty reasonably priced.. thinking I might need one myself..

Chan if you could have seen the fowl section…

that shot is 1/4 of a wall out of FOUR walls of chickens, roosters, eggs, you know.. Farm Bird stuff… We might have had a difficult time pulling you out of there to discuss whether you can knit the fur of this beautiful creature looking for the perfect home…

Finally the poor wee child had this to say about our last ‘friend’…

I don’t know if she’s imitating the Grizzly or just not too thrilled to stand near him…

The best find in the place though… hands down…

** There will be more posts today.. but it’s homework time at the Insanknitty household…

Oh my…

Anita was my spoiler for the Winter Doldrums Dishcloth Swap.. and wow… did she ever spoil me! I have only got a moment, and will update this as soon as I can with photos but off the top of my head, here’s what was in my package…

• The cutest froggy stitch markers from her Etsy Shop
• 
• A pink crochet covered measuring tape (yay)
• 
• Custom knitting needles that I am at the moment assuming she made, they’re gorgeous
• 
• Another set of stitch markers that are so cool, rainbowy and sparkly
• 3 absolutely gorgeous dishcloths… I MUST get the pattern to the round one in particular
• 
• 
• 
• Knitting supplies (ie tape an additional tape measure, tapestry needle)
• an I’d Rather Be Knitting Pencil!
• 
• The soap… looks like a giant chocolate, it’s called ‘vanilla buttercream’ though and is RIGHT up my alley as far as scents go (I’m not a big chocolate girl)
• 
• Two bags of yummies… Wherthers (oh yum, opened them immediately) and Cream Savers in the Tropical Mix which is my favorite and I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell her that
• A beautiful candle holder and some candles, and some lotion and … wow…
• and and and…
• That yarn I showed you all the other day, and those notecards!!!! wow!!!

Anita.. YOU ROCK!

I promise to get pics up as soon as I can… Wednesdays are always nutty here!

Rick was in trouble. He forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife was really angry. She told him “Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in less than 10 seconds, AND IT BETTER BE THERE!!”

The next morning Rick got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up she looked out the window and sure enough there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway. Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway, and brought the box back in the house.

She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale.

Rick has been missing since Friday.

Please pray for him

**got this in an email from a good friend and it gave me such a nice chuckle I just had to share..

Ok,… The pics yesterday of my weekend FOs… well.. it’s deceiving because if you look, for example at the booties… they are photographed with a blanket and hat… both of which were complete weeks ago, and, the booties, were complete before the weekend, except for the buttons… so the only work there was sewing on buttons and weaving in ends..

The bag posted… it’s the Kureyon-Chan bag, and is small, when complete it measures around 5-6″ tall , it takes only about 1/2 a full skein of Lion wool (which is what I used, not the Noro it called for)… and it is only 64 stitches around (and only that many for say 10 rows I think?)… so… a fairly quick no-brainer knit (there’s only 34 rows)… that was my Saturday evening knitting while watching TV, talking with the in-laws, project.

The bag listed before that one was a picture from a Christmas knit that was gifted in December..

The Ruffles and Ridges Shawl was started in early January, and was knit before I went to bed at a rate of about 2 rows per day… if that on some days… it sat for a few weeks without even being touched… I didn’t even realize I was that close to finishing until mid-week last week and finally got around to it on Friday and blocking… well… we’ll see if that ever happens.. it’s supposed to be ruffly…

The secret project I started last week… and it’s not very big… pictures can be deceiving… it stands (now completed after last night’s Law and Order viewing.. Monday’s have NOTHING on tv…) 7″ tall and 3″ wide (approx)… this little guy and the bag are the only true knits from the weekend…

the others were complete or needed ZERO knitting to complete prior to the weekend… I tend to use my weekends to do the ‘completing’ of knits I’ve worked on through the week….

That being said, I’m flattered at some of the comments I received… I do admit, I’m a fast knitter… and pretty much only knit while watching tv/news etc. at night when the kids are in bed… I have been known to stay up just a tad too late because I’m caught up in my knitting, but I could never compare to (though secretly strive to) people like my swap pal from the Dog Days Dishcloth swap who I think must be an insomniac because she knits multiple sweaters on nearly a weekly basis! Her knits are gorgeous… and truly amaze me…

I owe some chatter about my homeschooling research.. .and I will get to that… for now, it’s still a possibility, but the Big Guy is a harder sell than I’d expected. I’m peeved at my local library, and therefore have NO books to show for my research hours last week. Instead I’m busily hunting down homeschool groups in my area (hmmm having some troubles there)… and doing online research. I have a tentative ‘trial phase’ planned for this summer, which will go over so well with the littles, I’m sure… haha, and am trying to find the best plan to execute this summer… I have received umpteen links from friends and am slowly working my way through them… thank you all for sharing!

So.. yeah, still having the happy dance syndrome here… I just can’t believe Knitty liked my pattern I guess.. Y’all should know that my Big Girl is the one who took the photos.. the Big Guy couldn’t manage to get one decent shot out of the 25 he took without cutting my head off, or putting the camera on the wrong settings or who knows what.. Thank goodness the Littles enjoy photography and play with our old digital regularly… because I thought the Big Girls pics came out pretty well, and apparently Knitty did too! For those who are curious.. the pattern is for an ‘accessory’ and it is Doggie friendly!

Please do go read Cass today, if you haven’t already.. she once again cracked me up!

Not that many FO’s to show for this weekend. My in-laws were here for one of the days, and I spent a bunch of time catching up on the winter weather laundry… you know, several wet outfits per day, hats, mittens, scarves, coats, snowpants… all up the wazoo.. oh the fun!

Important news… Murphy seems himself again. Lively, ornery (he ran away from me while enjoying some shoveling of the driveway that bad boy!)… other than a slight head tilt, I’d say that our episode is past us. Special thanks to all of you again for your loving words and support…

Today I need to do a ‘Thank You’ Post. I’ve been the lucky recipient of some recent packages that need mentioning.

Last week, around Valentine’s ish… I received two very sweet packages from Chan and Holly, I did thank them by email, but kept forgetting to photograph the lovelies they sent me…

Chan sent me a gorgeous heart dish, and some of my favorite nummies… Werther’s originals… which are nearly gone to be honest… and Holly sent me some beautiful Valentine’s appropriate kitchen cotton (already OTN for a DW dishcloth), and some of the chewy Werther’s ummmm they were gone within an hour of opening the box, so they didn’t make the picture…

Additionally, this past Saturday I received two lovely treats in the mail. The first, some super lovely squishy goodness from my Defeat the Doldrums Dishcloth swap pal, by way of Jessi’s etsy. The colors are soooo screaming me… blue and green, and since I’m now heading into Sock love territory, will be the first pair of socks I knit myself… I love this colorway, and it’s name is also lovely, ‘Michelle’s Melody’… thank you pal and Jessi for your gorgeous work!

The mailman was a busy guy too.. he also brought me something from an unidentified person, who I believe is my Scavenger hunt swap pal… Whomever it was knew I’d been coveting these Knitterella note cards (which leads me to believe it’s the SHS pal because she asked me for a wish list… and I shared this item on that list) If y’all aren’t visiting Etsy on a regular basis, you really should, the artwork is amazing… you’ll surely find something you absolutely NEED to have …

I did finish some things…I finally found the buttons for the Saartje’s booties I made for my friend Elizabeth who’ll be bringing her first into this world around Easter… it’s now all ready to ship!

and here’s the whole package…

I have the iCord to knit for another Kureyon-Chan bag, for my SIL who I knit this for

for Christmas… she had actually wanted a smaller ‘grab and go’ sort of bag but the pattern she’d picked ended up much larger than either of us had realized…. so I’m sending her this.. (though I want to keep it for myself).  I knit it from the scrap yarn left from her Christmas bag… (as an aside, I do have to say how proud I am of myself for how much I’ve been knitting from stash this year!)

The ‘biggest’ thing I got finished this weekend was my ‘Ruffles and Ridges’ shawl. I do really enjoy it. I wore it to church on Sunday, and it kept me warm and cozy. I find that I’m wearing it in bed or on the couch later at night while I’m knitting and chilled… it keeps the shoulders good and toasty! I do need to block it still, but just couldn’t wait to use it..

I also worked on… this secret project… which I hope that posting a picture of the progress won’t give it away… actually I’d be surprised if anyone of you could guess what it is…

That package is nearly ready to go… just need to finish up this baby… and then off to the KSHS pal…

In my cleaning effort this weekend, I found this…

Which is full of this…

a load of un-cataloged (as in Ravelry) knit items from the last two years… mostly scarves and hats and mittens…. not sure I’ll get them in Ravelry or not… but I may… depends on how bored with cleaning I get today!

And finally.. I’ll leave you with a snack… a treat we make periodically here at the InsanKnitty household.. it’s healthy I promise, but so yummy too. For those Weight watchers gals… it’s 1 point per muffin.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins (healthful version)

3 Ripe/Black Bananas
1/2 Cup Oil (canola, safflower or Veg)
1/2 C Applesauce
3/4 C honey
2 tsp Baking Soda
2 1/2 C Whole Wheat Flour **
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4-1/2 C mini chocolate chips

** or use 1 1/2 C whole wheat flour, plus 1/2 C wheat germ, and 1 C whole oats which is how I ALWAYS prepare mine

Blend wet ingredients, add dry ingredients slowly and blend well. Add Chocolate Chips. Spoon into baking cups, or greased loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees for 18 mins (mini muffins), 20-25 mins (standard muffins), or 45-55 mins for loafs.

YUM! I always make mine in mini muffin form (1 point per muffin) and freeze them in batches of about 6-9 because my kiddos eat 2-3 for breakfast some mornings. They are filling, rich in fiber and good for you too. They feel like a treat with those nummy chocolate chips!

Speaking of ‘nummy’… another family word came up this weekend.

The big girl is a brownie and we finished delivering Girl Scout Cookies to the neighbors and the middle guy said he wanted to be a brownie so he could sell cookies. We told him all about boy scouts and how when he’s a scout, he can sell mogo cocorn (caramel popcorn)…

Mogo Cocorn was invented by the big girl, as she couldn’t say caramel popcorn… It has stuck and we now call caramel corn mogo cocorn…

weirdos I know!

and because I’m still so pumped.. go see my previous post about Knitty!

Guess which badge I’m going to earn…

Yep… the Knitty badge… because they accepted my pattern!

please excuse me… I need to go do the happy dance…

When we first moved here from NC, I enticed the kids with promises of snow forts, snowball fights, and snowmen… and the other day the Big Girl called me a Liar… saying I had promised snow forts etc…. and we haven’t had them yet this winter…

Well, I’m not a liar!