I cannot tell a lie . . .

You Are Very Honest

You tell it like it is, no matter what. Even if the truth hurts, you'll dish it out. And while some may get hurt by your honesty... At least everyone knows where you stand!

How Honest Are You?

Either that or I lied on my answers to the quiz. BWAHAHA!

Someone is taking a second viewing of our house today. The good old show-it-to-mom walk-through. Cross your fingers!

Because I always make life decisions through blog quizzes . . .

Your Learning Style: Unconventional and Insightful

You are very intuitive and ingenious. You're attracted to any field of study that lets you break the rules. You Should Study: Art Art history Architecture Comparative religions Eastern religion Education Music Philosophy

What Should You Study?

This actually seems pretty accurate. I was a music major for a while, but ultimately got my degree in English Language and Literature. I've wanted to go back to become an architect, but the schooling options in that field around here are nil, especially for someone with four kids who doesn't want to live and breathe school at this stage of my life.

Warsh it up.

Warsh rags! That's what Mason-Dixon Knitting calls these lovely knitted objects. I tend to call them washcloths. Either way, they're colorful and fun to knit. Shown here is a sampling of the ballband washcloths I've knitted. No, that's not all of them. Each of my kids wanted one after they saw the first, so they each got one. I can't stop knitting them. They're quick, the pattern is easy to remember, they're small. The perfect project to carry around when you're running around with kids.

I've knitted three or four of the round washcloths in that same book, but I gave them all away without taking a picture.

I love washcloths so much, I joined an online group with washcloth knit-alongs twice a month. They post a few lines of a pattern each day and you knit-along and see what you get. Here, you can see the three washcloths I've knitted with that, so far.



So, here's my deep dark secret. I don't use washcloths. I love them, but I'm a die-hard kitchen sponge user. I just can't adjust. I thought I'd put off buying more sponges when my last one wore out and try to switch, but that didn't pan out.

The other day, my husband and I were talking about things that stress us out. One thing he stresses about is that he likes to write, but never does anything with the things he writes. He writes screenplays and short stories. He edits, he re-writes, but they just sit on our hard drive and/or in notebooks. Then he gets irritated and thinks he's wasting his time. I told him his writing could be like my washcloths. I love to knit them. I fondle the yarn. I carefully choose colors. I knit. Sometimes I rip it apart and re-knit if I don't like the way it's turning out. I finish them. I love them. But, really they don't do much of anything but make me happy. Perhaps they will be used, eventually, and perhaps his writing will become more eventually. But for right now, it's OK if their only purpose is to make us happy.

A Summer Place, or Anyplace!

I think I may be nuts. Well, this isn’t unusual. See the bzz part of BzzLaraBzz? That’s because I’m incapable of doing one thing at a time, or turning my brain off for long. I’m always bzzzing.

I currently can’t stop thinking about a house. We looked at a house a few weeks ago (and again yesterday) that I thought had potential. It’s a big, old house, definitely in our price range. Way under in fact. The reason it’s way under is because it’s halfway renovated. A guy bought it with thoughts of renovating and flipping it but ran out of money halfway through and has to sell as-is. He’s bought most of the supplies, but cannot afford the time or the labor to do the rest. This means all plumbing and electrical is done, the walls are complete and re-textured, new subfloor is in, the exterior is painted, and he stopped. It’s actually nice that he stopped there, because he was going to carpet the whole place with this inappropriate carpeting and I would do wood floors. Actually, carbonized bamboo. And the carpet, if bound into smaller pieces, would make nice area rugs. It’s just wrong for wall-to-wall carpet in a house of this age and style. (I’m actually creeped out by wall-to-wall carpet. We have four kids, and two cats, and carpet does not fare well. I’m constantly shampooing it just to keep myself from being grossed out.)

The neighborhood is fine, mostly these big old houses interspersed with some smaller, less-old, but still old houses. (Craftsman bungalows, etc.) A lot of them are in the midst of being fixed up. You drive down the street during the day and there are a fair number of roofers and carpenters around, as well as some older folks puttering around in their gardens.

But, obviously this house still needs a lot of work. If I worked non-stop, there’s a possibility I could have it move-in ready in two weeks, but a month is more probable. And our current house has to sell before we can buy another. So, we’d be selling our house and moving in with someone else, or somewhere temporary while we finished the other house. But, completed, this house is my total dream house. Enough bedrooms for all the kids to have their own, plus have an activity/play room on the same level. A clawfoot bathtub in the kids’ bathroom. Enough living space on the main floor for me to have my own studio/craft room. A master suite with Jacuzzi tub and separate shower. Main floor laundry. A separate dining room. And it’s all financially feasible. If only our house will sell before someone else buys the other one.

I keep thinking about which window I would knit the bubbly curtain from Mason-Dixon Knitting for. What colors I would paint each room. Which kid gets which bedroom, and where the furniture would go.

Then I think, “Am I nuts? I’m getting so far ahead of myself, I’ve really got to be crazy!” But I really love this house. Sigh.

I stitched “A Summer Place” by Cross-Eyed Cricket (pictured above) while my tendon in my left arm was healing. (No knitting.) My 11 year-old daughter asked if we could just move in there. It’s on the beach; it’s cute. Why not?

Not 100% ?

I found this amusing, since according to my birth date, I'm 100% aries. Ha ha!

You are 67% Aries

How Aries Are You?

Mmmmmm, pizza . . .

Cheese Pizza

Traditional and comforting. You focus on living a quality life. You're not easily impressed with novelty. Yet, you easily impress others.

What's Your Pizza Personality?

The Sounds of Silence

I kind of forgot what silence is. This morning, for one blissful hour, I was alone. Completely alone. OK, the annoying cat was here, but she was basking in a ray of sunlight sleeping, so it was like I was alone. And there were no other humans in my house.

I dropped my oldest child off at school at 7:30. Then, I came home and prodded the other three children to get ready for school. By 8:30, they and their dad were out the door so he could drop them off on his way to work. I was alone until shortly after 9:30. I ran the dishwasher, washed the couple things that didn't go in there, emptied the laundry hampers and got the daily laundry going. Then I had time to re-heat Chinese food from supper last night and read the paper before my nephew came. He's here now, and despite trying to climb down my body to get back to his mom as she was going out the door, he's great now. We read a couple stories. He laughed, and now he's playing here next to me.

Between four kids, we had three first days of school this week. My oldest daughter is entering middle school. (Yikes! All those big kids! All that class changing!) And she loves it. See how calm and mature she is on the morning of her first day?



My middle two children started a day later. They are both back at the same school they went to last year, so no worries there! They wanted to show a little more personality in their second back-to-school shot.





Finally, yesterday, my youngest started kindergarten. She was excited! She is going to the same school as the two middle kids, and she went to pre-K there last year. She's my little sweetums.





They have all ben laying their own clothes out the night before, and I think doing a lovely job. They sometimes make a few unusual choices, but nothing life or dress-code threatening.

Well, T's getting cranky again! It may be naptime.

Lots of kids!

I have four children. Three of the four are back in school now, and the fourth goes back tomorrow. I expect to have pictures for you in an upcoming post. ;)

But, three days a week, I also have a fifth child. He's my nephew, T. He's a cutie, that's for sure! And he loves coming over and playing with my kids. Except when he sees the front door and is reminded that his mom left him here. Today, we tried a new tactic and waved from the porch and so far, the door has not made him cry.

Here's a gratuitous picture of some real cuties. (In my opinion. Hee.) This is them last week. Q (left) and A (right) had been giving puppet shows, so T wanted to go behind the puppet theater and see what he could do in there. He's standing on a little step stool so he can see everyone through the window.

Friday, all my full-time kids will be in school and T and I will have some one-on-one time. Wish us luck!

Ahhhh, new sewer lines and air conditioning are good.

Yes, the sewer line replacement went fine. The AC came back. Things are fine. It wasn't fun. Of course, it didn't go completely as planned. But, it's fixed now.

Kids are enrolled in school. Well, mostly. I don't want to go into it. Since we're not moved yet, they're enrolled here for now, except for one child, but we're hoping to resolve that in a meeting tomorrow morning. (Run-on sentence, anyone?)

Enough about my horrifying life. :p OK, not quite enough. I was going to segueway into knitting content, but that reminded me that I can't knit right now. I did something to a tendon in my left arm in the midst of all the listing-the-house home improvement, such as laying a patio (seen above before fill dirt was brought in) and taping/mudding/sanding drywall on ceilings and building porch steps using patio blocks and mortar. Knitting just exacerbates the problem and doesn't let it heal, so I have to take a break. Waaah! But, stitching doesn't use my left arm, except for gripping purposes, so I've been doing some of that.


However, here today is knitting. This is a baby kimono from the Mason-Dixon Knitting book. I started it before I knew of any babies, but the day after, I found out my SIL is pregnant. So, if she has a girl, it will be hers. If she has a boy, I'll have to wait for a girl baby to come along to wear it. I knitted some booties to go with it, but they're not in the picture. (Sheesh. Sometimes I think this blogging stuff requires a much less scattered brain than I have in the midst of my four kids, moving house, crazy slow-down-please life.) In the second picture, you can see that I have enough Sugar and Cream cotton to make as many washclothes as my left arm can handle. hee. And it's on sale at Hobby Lobby this week. I will resist going to Hobby Lobby. I will resist!


Please tell me I will get a real break sometime. Please?

A New Day

Things are less soul-crushing today. As you can see, I can now use the letter "C". I may use extra "C" words just because I can. Can can can.

The sewer pipe thing? Still expensive. But it is being taken care of tomorrow morning. I may not be so chipper at the moment when they disconnect my central air units in 100 degree weather in order to dig up the sewer pipe, but it will all be taken care of tomorrow. Not next week as they originally said. Tomorrow.

Today, I let M make popsicles. She made various types of Kool-Aid and poured them in the popsicle molds just fine. The kitchen floor may be a little sticky, but that's OK. It's washable. She also made what Q calls "free sample popsicles". See?


And to further amuse you, my short-toed socklets I knitted on airplanes and in airports when I was on vacation in June. It seems so, so long ago! These are silly little socks, but they were a good plane knit, and a nice way to use up sock yarn leftovers. E gave me a pedicure today. The color is typical of 11 year-old girl polish. ;)