A Bouquet of Happiness

Hello friends!  I am so sorry for my extended absence, but on this lovely positivi-Tuesday, I know that you will completely understand. 

After I last signed off, I experienced some kind of super human bout of exhaustion that drained me for the balance of the week.  Last Sunday evening I was planning on submitting a post featuring my joyful bouquet of miniature roses, but instead I cut my thumb rather drastically, requiring two half-hour car rides, one two-hour emergency room wait, one confused ortho consult physician, one sarcastic general ER physician, three stitches, and six chicken nuggets (my comfort food of choice at midnight).

The irony of it was that I spent the entire day Sunday making sausages, that is, cutting, grinding, seasoning and stuffing meat into sausage form, and did not get injured.  When I got home, I made a salad for myself and Mr. Frogged and promptly attempted thumb-sassination. 

Since then, my knitting has suffered, let me tell you!  But on the other hand, my end weaving in has almost been completed, however this only means that I am to a point in the ripple blanket where I can CONTINUE crocheting and then weave in more ends...will the madness never cease!?  By the time it's completed the infant will be walking, talking, and going to prom at this rate.  I'm a bit concerned about my sock-knitting rate though as I'm aiming to enter these socks in the Knit One Heart 2 KAL due next Wednesday and I'm not even past  the heel turn yet. 

The Mister and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary on Valentine's day and to honour this he planned us a beautiful day together on the Saturday prior to both February 14th and the thumb-slicing incident.  Of course it went completely pear shaped, but it was the thought that counts.  We were supposed to go skating together, as we are apt to do on Valentines, when we woke up to a beautifully Canadian high of -25 degrees celcius with the windchill.  That kiboshed that plan.  Plan B.  Matinee showing of The Vow, it's just so sappy it might work, but alas, it was sold out.  So, we watched the not at all romantic Chronicle, which was just about the most stressful movie I've ever watched!  I needed to knit on my socks just to avoid getting anxiety-induced tremors.  Fortunately dinner went well and was absolutely delicious. 

I would say that would catch you up to PositiviTuesday this week.  I'm going to change up the positiviTuesday report a bit and instead of giving some positive news I'll try to review something (recipe, book, pattern, yarn, movie... you get the idea) each week, so that you can then go out and make your own positivity with whatever that happens to be. 

In any case, this week what I've been loving is hanging with my parents who have been in town from Florida.  It was my mom's #&th birthday (when you get to be her age, the number needs to be censored) and we threw here a party and spent lots of family time together.  It was awesome. 

Das my mom...Ain't she a cutie!?

I've also been loving hanging out with the Mister on this family day long weekend.  We barely changed out of our pj's on Monday and it was just what I was looking for in a holiday. 

This week I'm looking forward to having my in-laws and friends over this weekend and cooking.  It's been some time since I've cooked a new recipe and I think I'm trying something a bit different this weekend.  I'm also looking forward to visiting my parents in Florida in a week.  We were going to go to Legoland, but they are closed on Wednesdays (who knew?) and instead we'll be going to Universal.  The greatest part is that Mister Frogged has never been to either place so I get to see it through his eyes either way. 

As for a review, this week I will review my latest and greatest book, The Help.  I've not finished the book yet, but I'm about half way through and I'm really enjoying the writing style.  I like that it is written in such a way that I can hear the characters in their southern drawl in my mind and feel like I'm that much closer to them.  Sometimes it tends to drag a bit but all in all, I highly recommend the book.  I will be continuing through it and then watching the movie for comparison purposes, although I never like the movie version as much. 

Well, I think that about sums it up for me today.  I wish you a wonderful week and Happy Crafting one and all. 
xxoxoxoxoxx

Random Happy Thoughts

Hello out there and welcome to the Positivi-Tuesday Post today.  I have to admit, I'm a bit stumped today.  I guess I've got writer's block, but that's not what you want to hear, so I'll try to get something going, please bear with me. 

In the news this week, there has been a family lost and found and I think that's pretty good reason to celebrate.  A family of three in southwest of Portland, Oregon was lost in a forest for 6 days surviving on only stream water when they went out mushroom hunting.   Search parties went after them when they hadn't returned to their campsite.  They were finally found and airlifted to a nearby hospital, and after the entire ordeal only suffered a sprained ankle, minor frost bite, and a back injury between all three of them.  They were certainly lucky to be found, especially since it is said that they would not have been able to survive for more than two more days out there.  I don't know them, but I'm thankful they are safe. 

I have to say that this week I've definitely had my mood ups and downs, but I have been enjoying a number of things.  One of them is All Wound Up: The Yarn Harlot Writes for a Spin  by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee that I just finished.  Can I just say that I would like to be her friend?  Stephanie, if you're out there, let me know.  For those of you familiar with Big Bang Theory, I think Stephanie could play the Penny to my Amy Farrah Fowler.  Stephanie lives in Toronto, I live close enough.  Stephanie likes knitting, I like knitting.  Stephanie needs closets, I have spares.  I'm just sayin'....we could make it work.  This book was so entertaining, I even began reading a chapter here and there to the Mister and we shared a giggle.  Each chapter stands independantly of the rest of the book which makes it great for reading in fits and starts as I tend to do each lunch hour.  I wholly recomend this book, it is light and funny, touching and sincere and it certainly resonated with me. 

And when I'm on lunch reading the Yarn Harlot and the like, what else am I doing?  Eating?  Yeah I guess, but more imporatantly, knitting!  I've been ploughing through Mr. Frogged's socks (but that means on size 11 feet that I'm about half way to the heel turn.  I really like working on them though.  So much so that I'm fairly sure it's safe to say that they were calling to me over the weekend.  I make a point of only working on them when I am out of the house because they are my portable knit project, and I have other things on the go around here that don't travel as easily.  Lately I've been thinking about knitting on them all the time.  I was at three different parties this past weekend, and at all of the parties I couldn't help but think,  "Would it be inappropriate to knit here?"  Unfortunately, the answer was pretty resoundingly yes it would be inappropriate to knit here.  Here's my progress. 

What a cosy toe?

I've also been taking some time to be with my pets this week.  Tonka has been going to daycare three days a week since I began my new job and it leaves him equal parts cuddly and exhausted. 

 

 We gave our hedgehog, Penny (Penelope Pricklesworth), a bath tonight and some TLC.  Penny is a conundrum of creatures because by nature she quite frankly does not care to be doted on.  She's nocturnal and perfectly happy to not be bothered by us, but today we just had to brave her prickly temper and soap her up.  I think she's the happier for it, even though she totally bit the Mister - hehehe.

This is going to seem quite abrupt, but frankly, I had homework due at midnight yesterday and I am so tired, I'm falling asleep while I type.  So on that note, Happy Crafting one and all, and I will try to complete this post tomorrow. 

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting. 

Patina

With every new adventure, new knitting, new relationships, new jobs, there comes a point where a patina begins to develops. At the very start its all bright and shiny but that wears a little with time. There's nothing wrong with that exactly. It doesn't mean there's anything the matter with that drop stitch cowl you've been belaboring, or that you should run out on some kind of errant love affair, or that you should quit your new job and go into hiding in the back of a cube van and knit socks for a living - it just denotes the natural progression of time.

It actually is a realization of imperfection. Everything is absolutely perfect until the moment it isn't. As humans we tend to be a little overambitious in our expectations of just about everything, never cutting ourselves any slack for fear others will notice that we are living imperfect lives too. The fact that I'm now a little worried you all think I'm ungrateful and depressed for using the words imperfect and life in the same sentence is a testament to the negative connotations we give to the admission of imperfection (come on, this cannot just be me). Imperfect isn't bad though. Perfection, as in Stepford wife / Leave it to Beaver lifestyles would be immensely, and wholly boring. Challenge is the fuel to life's fire, we just all bitch about it anyway because, well, if we didn't we would quickly run out of things to talk about.

While I'm still very in love with Mr. Frogged I may not spend the same two hours getting ready for a date and giggling that I did when I was 18. After living with someone and having them see you lying on the couch for a week solid with a cold, frankly two hours seems excessive. This is probably a good thing since it leaves more time for the actual date and, as a bonus, results in more intelligible speech than that of a twitterpated teenage girl.

And though I'm still plugging away on those loose ends for my ripple blanket, I'm still excited to finish it. I think that project may have slipped below patina and into a slightly tarnished state of being, to be honest. I mean really, the amount of ends to weave is both obscene and masochistic. It doesn't help that I am seeking perfection and am a little paranoid about random ends wiggling loose so I split my yarn before weaving it, resulting in double the work.

And lastly, while I'm still enjoying my new job most of the time, there are days where it occurs to me that no matter how fast I learn on the job, I'm still learning. This is arguably a good thing. Surely switching careers entirely at this point in my life in combination with my knitting will provide sufficient brain exercise to cure all worry of dementia and Alzheimer's in my golden years. But when I've been a fairly competent person for a good 4 years I now feel like I'm playing the intellectual equivalent to pin the tail on the donkey. I know I'll get it eventually but in the process I end up feeling a bit of an ass.

What I'm really getting at is when the going gets tough, and the tough go knitting we should all remember that perfection is elusive, perfection is often impossible and frankly, perfection is overrated! Embrace the challenge. The results will be better for it.

Happy crafting!