quirky

I showed you this picture of Max in the sweater a while ago. I love it. Mostly because it so perfectly displays Cecily's personality. Most of the time she stays out of trouble, somewhere close to me and does her thing. But if she's not right next to me, I don't really need to worry. She's not a trouble magnet....like one of my other children who shall remain nameless. She generally quietly putters doing her thing the way only she does it. She's easily our most artistic child and I love that she's always been more expressive with "things" because she's had a lot of speech issues and hasn't been able to express herself with speech very easily.

But as I wander throughout the house I often find little reminders that Cecily has interesting ideas, or amazing plots or different perspectives dancing around in that little mind of hers. Here is her Happy Family toddler from upstairs, wearing one of my sweaters from the main floor, flying in Eli's bi-plane from the basement. You know, I suppose if I were a toddler flying in a bi-plane I would wish I had a wool sweater on also.

So much for the special toothbrush cup. These must be train toothbrushes. But when I told her that I noticed the toothbrushes she smiled really big and giggled.

When I saw this orange balancing on a grapefruit, balancing on the peanut butter only one thought went through my mind, "Cecily's been here." No question.

Maybe she has a bit of a fruit fetish. One day I opened one of my dresser drawers that I don't use very often because it's on the bottom and mostly used for storage. I was glad I did, because there was a single banana in it. You've got it, Cecily's work. Imagine how nasty that would have been in a couple of days.

I'm not quite sure what her plan was on this day, because I caught her before the act, and she didn't carry it out once she'd been discovered.

I'm sure it would have been fun though because the combination of seven mini-pears and one creative little girl in what she calls her "personal penguin" jammies would make for quite an adventure.

We're so lucky to have a Cecily.

shame, shame, I know your name

It's been a few months since we moved into our house. We've figured out most basic areas, but a few areas were still big question marks in our heads. The nook in our bedroom was especially perplexing. Until we figured out what to do with it we used it as a resting spot for all of our (my, mostly) stuff. It was a good out-of-the-way spot to hide our shame. Pretty shameful though, eh?

I can only show you that picture because I then got completely inspired and took it over as my own arts and crafts nook. We teamed up with craigslist and just over $100 later we created this:

I'm in love with it! I know exactly where everything is and where it will go after I use it! Not only that, I have an area TO use it. I think the $1 Target pails are my favorite thing. Just the right size for a million different things. I come around the corner and walk into my nook and experience utter BLISS!

Just thought I'd share.

The other day I asked Eli to put his folded clothes away and be sure to push in his drawers. This is what I found when I went in to check and see if he had finished his job.

Craigslist, here we come.

Am I serious about knitting but not a serious knitter, or the other way around?

I really love to knit. I've knitted for years and done a lot of projects, but I began with one project in mind. I could see in my mind how cute it would be to have a little Christmas tree covered with mini-sweaters on mini-hangers that were all different. Cute right?

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I may have started out making kite-shaped dish rags, but in my mind it was all just prep work for mini-sweaters. Goal accomplished! I found a great pattern and taught myself to knit in the round and voile!

Here is a close-up of one sweater that I knit recently. Cecily loves them, and she loves her tiny dog that she named Max. So I found this on the counter the other day. Cracked me up. But this gives you an idea of what they look like up close.

While we lived in Syracuse a friend from Norway taught me how to knit Norwegian Mittens. They were easily the most difficult thing I had ever knitted and I thought they would be my first and last pair. Not so. I think we're in the double digits now, and I'm sure there will be many more in my future. I started making my own patterns and that's pretty fun too. Here are some of my recent mittens:

And, BREAKING NEWS: I'm going to be teaching a knitting class for the town of Kaysville in April and May! SOOOO, I'm just saying, I know my way around a knitting needle and I've taught a few people how to knit. All of THAT made me gasp in horror when I experienced what I experienced the other day.

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In addition to knitting I also tat and am fixing a large tatted item, so I need to match the thread before I can proceed. I went to a small needle craft shop the other day to see if they would have what I needed. When I walked in I saw that it was mostly a yarn shop. The shop owner was probably in her 30's but everything about her seemed O-O-OO-OLD. She scared me. I could go on and on about her polyester pants and school marm hair, but I won't. I went to desk and felt very distinctly that I was disturbing her even though she was doing NOTHING. Without looking at what I had or hearing me out she was "sure they didn't have what I needed." I practically had to beg to see what they had and using the lady who was waiting behind me as an escape I said "I'll just look around, go ahead and help this lady." The third time I said that she finally let me by. As I was perusing the yarn I couldn't help overhearing what was going on at the desk. The lady had a knitting question. She read the pattern and did what she thought it said but it wasn't working. So the shop owner painfully slowly explained what should be done. The lady repeated it to make sure she was understanding and THIS is what came out of shop owner's mouth: "YOU'RE....NOT....LISTENING......TO ME!" Just like that!

I had my back to them but my eye's automatically popped open and my head cocked back. Who says that, particularly to someone who is significantly older than them?

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I may not be the sharpest cheese on the cracker, but I learned a lesson that day. When I teach my group class I'm going to try not to personally attack anyone. In fact I think I might even go above and beyond and show a bit of encouragement and patience for the new knitters.

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I think that just might work. And unless they stick their fingers in their ears and sing a song really loud in order to drown out my voice I'm not even going to keep "YOU'RE....NOT....LISTENING .......TO ME!" in my back pocket.