Is Change in the Air?

How many times have I started this blog post? About as many times as I’ve cast on the Baby Surprise Jacket. It’s been a tough week from a blog and a knitting perspective. I’ve been very distracted and have a variety of issues muddying up my head.

The main issue with which I have been grappling is whether to go back to work. My DH has been working on contract for a while, longer than we expected. While we are fine financially, we both are more than a little tired of the instability. I’m just a little hesitant about getting a steady, sit-at-your-desk-all-day type of job. Will I physically have the energy to work a 40+ hour week? Will I be able to keep work commitments with three small children, two of which have medical needs? And what if my DH finds a job that requires travel? After his last consulting gig that required full-time travel, I informed him that I would not be a Working Weekday Single Mom. That job as a WWSM is for the birds.

In some respects, it is good for my ego to review what I accomplished in my last position. I accomplished a fair amount of experience in a fairly short period of time. I was even gaining a good reputation for my work. Unfortunately, I had my own practice, and owning your own business requires a 60+ hour a week commitment. I’m not doing that to my family. Or to my own sanity, for that matter. (My DH wants me to add that my 60 hour weeks do bad things to his sanity as well.)

I do think I have matured considerably since I closed my practice. I’ve learned a lot about what situations I do and do not want to handle. For example, I’m a straight shooter who is not interested in office politics, and I do march to my own drummer. I would be a poor fit in an office where I would be measured by my United Way donation and the number of navy blue skirt suits I own. (BTW – I never owned a navy blue suit. Teal blue, yes; navy blue, yuk.) I do have a fabulous bright apple green suit that I wear in the spring and summer. I will know I am working in the right place when I can wear that suit and receive compliments instead of surprised glances.

Of course, returning to the law may delay my ultimate goal of becoming the next Yarn Harlot. She gets paid to knit and to write about knitting and her broken dishwasher. I know she’s not a perfect knitter; I’ve read her knitting horror stories. I can write, and I certainly can knit horror stories. I even have a dying oven. How do I get her gig?

Despite the frustrations of the week, we did have a high point – my middle son’s birthday party. For his fifth birthday, we had a roller skating party. Most of the children had never roller skated before, and they all had a great time. I love watching small children learn to skate. They remind me of does first learning to stand. They get knobby kneed just before their legs go different directions and their body hits the ground. Then they look up with a big grin on their faces. It’s priceless.

My DH made my son’s cake from scratch. I am so proud of him. It was almost too cute to eat.

DH spent hours putting this cake together. In fairness, the design comes from a kit, but he made the frosting from scratch and decorated it by himself. Okay, I helped a little, but he did a better job.

My DH is a great baker. We joke that when he retires, we’re going to open a bakery. I even have the name picked out: Mike’s Sweet Stuff. At some point, I’m going to send him to the culinary institute for a class in pastries. While it would be deadly from a Weight Watchers perspective, it would be a lot of fun. Cake decorating also has a yarn benefit - cake frosting dyes are supposed to be great for dying yarn.

My knitting, well, it’s making slow progress. I’ve only done a few rows this week. I became a little paranoid when I checked the BSJ forum in Ravely and discovered a series of YouTube tutorials on the BSJ. I watched the first four, and I think I’m doing okay. I’m marking the decreases differently that the video suggests, but I’m being consistent. I’m also bravely using a cotton blend instead of wool. Cotton just makes more sense to me since the baby will live in Arizona.

I feel a little boring don’t have anything else on my needles right now. On some level, I’m ready for a new challenge. I really don’t want to make another scarf or baby bib. On the other hand, I seem to have trouble counting (thus the slow progress of the BSJ). Lacking the ability to count, I’m not sure that I’m mentally prepared to handle the challenge of a pair of socks or a baby kimono.

The more I blog, the less I knit. So I suppose it’s time to sign off and hit the needles. Or maybe the pillow. I roller skated for over an hour today, and I’m not the high school skating queen I used to be.

The Best Husband and Mother's Day Ever

I just have to rant and rave about my wonderful husband. He got me a set of Harmony interchangeable circular needles for Mother's Day. In fairness, when he asked me what I wanted, I did tell him I wanted this set of needles, but this is a super nice gift for what I consider to be a Hallmark holiday. He also enclosed a copy of a book of baby patterns by Debbie Bliss.

And, if that weren't enough, he worked with each child to make decorative cement stones for the garden. You can make these stones from kits sold in a big box craft store, or probably in Walmart. While I was at my knitting meeting this week, Mike poured each of the boys poured a concrete stone and had them decorate it with a handprint and beads. Mike then put a picture of each boy encased in plastic in the top left corner. The stones are so cute! I put them in the corner of my garden near the front door.

Two of the boys also surprised me with gifts from school. My oldest made a flower picture frame out of foam and a card with an origami flower center. My middle child made a "Mommy cookbook" in which each student in the class describes how his mother makes a certain dish. Here is how I make a "potatoe": "Mommy washes the potatoe, then she puts in in the microwave and bakes it for 1 minute at 40 degrees."

Another favorite recipe is Emma's Mommy's Spinach Pie: "Put grapes in a bowl, add corn and apple. Put something over the bowl. Put in microwave for 34 minutes. Put crust on then eat."

What an amazing Mother's Day. I hope everyone had a Mother's Day as wonderful as mine!

Sorrow & Joy

t was a sad, sad night for my baby surprise jacket. I went to a local knitting group, and I needed help with a section of the jacket. I was using a wool that has different thicknesses - the yarn goes from very thin to very thick - and I couldn’t tell if I had dropped a stitch. Ultimately, it was determined that I was having a lot of trouble seeing what I was doing with the yarn, and those with more experience strongly suggested that I frog what I have and try the pattern with a more forgiving yarn. As stubborn as I am, I knew they were right. So I frogged the project this morning and will start again with a new yarn. (Ignore the soft weeping you hear in the background.) Let’s hope that the third time is a charm.

There was a shining spot yesterday. I completed my Duck bib for my brother and SIL.

(Lily Sugar n' Cream Solid, yellow and hot orange)

I need to make a couple of changes to finish the bib. The fish button is a functioning button, but it is difficult to unbutton because the yarn catches on the fins. At the suggestion of a knitter in my knitting group, I think I'm going to add velcro or a snap for the closure and make the button purely decorative.

I am very proud of the bib for a couple of reasons. First, it is cute. Second, I adapted the pattern from a crochet duck bib pattern I found on Ravelry. I guess I created my first pattern. Not bad for a beginner, huh.