Accidental Poet

The Word of God is quick and powerful (Hebrews 4:12)

2012-02-13T10:11:00.001-07:00

We sometimes talk about the Bible being a dynamic read - how you can read a verse five hundred times, but the five hundred and first time you read it? It somehow leaps to life off the page at you, and it's like you're reading it for the first time.

That happened to me today.

Because I am thisclose to finishing my novel, and I have a few weeks off work, I don't allow myself to knit during the time when I could be working on my book. The exception is that I listen to the Daily Audio Bible, and I knit while I listen.

Today I had to put the knitting down so I could write down this verse that came arrowing out of the air at me.

"Come, all of you who have skills, come and make ..." Exodus 35:10, The Message

Yes, sir. Message received and understand. Putting the knitting down mid-row right after I've listened to today's Bible reading.

From the book of Matthew this morning

2012-02-03T09:17:00.001-07:00

And Jesus is asked:

What is the greatest commandment in the Law?

And the first word out of His mouth is?

"Love."

Why do we feel a need to make that so complicated??

So then I thought, hey, I know, I'll write a blog post

2012-02-02T17:44:00.002-07:00

I am in the middle (please may it be way past the middle) of replacing one character in my novel with another character. The new character has a similar journey, and does a lot of the same things the first one did, but this is not a simple switching of the cloak from red to blue, as you might imagine.

Right now I am writing a blog post while my underneath brain figures out who, exactly, was in the canoe, and if it wasn't K's father, then who IS that tree in the middle of the wheat field? As I am an essentially lazy person, the upper brain is telling me to go cast on a Wingspan shawl because oh! the colours! and the cool striping effect and wouldn't that ball of Zauberball look GREAT knitted up into one of these, but my upper brain can SHUT IT because a) I am revising a novel and 2) I don't have the right size needles (and just how is that possible? you ask. I cannot answer you.) and iii) NOVEL.

I am blogging while the underbrain works because if I walk away from the computer, the underbrain minions blow the "End of Shift" whistle and go back to obsessing about things I can't change, like the weather, or that horrible thing I did to that person way back when and whether or not I should have a shower. I need the underbrain to stay on task, so I am faking working.

Also it is dishcloth season so I am making several to sell at a fundraiser. I don't actually sell the dishcloths. I put them on a table with an envelope and a sign saying "3 dishcloths with each $10 donation" and then walk away. The dishcloths disappear, money shows up. It's cool.

Someday I will post a picture of a pile of dishcloths that will do nothing for anybody but me.

~~Our winter~~ Wow. I can't believe I was almost that stupid. I was THISCLOSE to inviting a winter storm the likes of which hasn't been seen in these here parts for a hundred years. Been a mild winter here, that's all I'm saying. Some people are delighted by that.

And here's some good news! My mother's broken leg is healed! AND she got over 40 Christmas cards and she was very pleased.

And some MORE good news - my mother in law has been declared cancer free. Time to grow her hair back in!

Back to the novel. I like the novel today, so I think I should keep working on it, because by tomorrow I will once again be convinced that my time would be better spent anywhere but on that particular page.

Hey who left this bandwagon here?

2012-01-12T19:19:00.000-07:00

I don't care. I'm jumping on it.

Scroll down till you find The Joy Dare.

Read my 2c worth here.

Two things that almost happened, and some that actually did.

2012-01-12T12:27:00.001-07:00

Things that did:

- We went to Manitoba for Christmas and had lovely visiting times with lovely people. I knit a lot of dishcloths and handed them out like candy. I was very socially engaging. (not really)

- I pinched a nerve in my neck or upper back or something by ...sleeping. I am still trying to make it so I can use my right arm on a regular basis without weeping. Weeping is annoying.

- I'm still knitting, though. Even though I watch my arm move while I knit, I insist that it "doesn't move very much" as I knit, and cannot therefore be contributing to the pain.

- I knit another thing for myself. A pair of fingerless mitts and I have yet to lose either of them.

- I bought myself some new earbuds while we were in Manitoba. Mine tend to walk off and insert themselves, uninvited, into someone else's ears, and then leap off when no-one is looking, and be lost forever. (I'm not going to tell you whose ears, but I am going to tell you a story about B.) Let me preface this story by mentionning that I bought new earbuds for both the offspring for Christmas, as well. Three new sets of earbuds. Mine should be safe. Just to be sure, I bought mine in a colour I was sure no twelve year old male would want near his person. They're either teal or turquoise, but colour is not my strong suit. (Spelling colour with a U right where it belongs? THAT'S my strong suit)

So a few nights ago I was sitting working on my book listening to music and B walks in. "Those earbuds are the coolest colour EVER.", he says. (Notice what a good Canadian he is. He pronounced colour with the U in its proper place.)
I offered to trade him for the earbuds he got for Christmas if a) he could find them and b) they worked in my ears, because I do love the brightly coloured wee cheapies I bought myself.
He found his lost earbuds in 3.6 minutes. I tried them. I hated them. They kept falling out, and even when they were in, they did nothing to block household sounds. I informed him of this, earbuds were exchanged, and all was rosy.
The next morning I came downstairs after B had left for school and when I sat down to start work I noticed black earbuds plugged in to my laptop. As I was working up a perfectly good mad, I noticed a wee note tucked under my laptop lid. "Notice anything different?" it read, so I laughed instead of getting mad, but when he got home from school I said "Nice try, bud." and held out my hand, and that was that.

Two Things That Almost Happened.

Thing One:

I have two sets of stupidly expensive knitting needles. 5 needles to a set and really, you who ARE knitters know how much Signature needles cost (or you are off to google it this second), and those who aren't knitters really shouldn't try to find out how much they are because you don't need this much evidence that I am not mentally stable. (In my defense, the first set was a gift. I opened it and said "Do you know how much these cost? Are you crazy?" and then thanked TB profusely and cast on a sock.) They are not only nice and sharp just like I like them but they are oh so pretty. Really really pretty.

Here's the thing about double pointed needles. (hereinafter referred to as DPN's) A set of double pointed needles minus a needle becomes a handfull of pretty pointy sticks. And in this case, an expensive handfull of shiny sticks.

I took a sock project to B's hockey game last night. I sat down on the steel bleachers, knitting away, my hands nice and cosy in my "knitting at the hockey game" fingerless mitts that I made for myself from yarn I bought in the Netherlands, and it was all so pretty to look at, the sock I was knitting and the new mitts and the shiny sparkly DPN's, and - I dropped one. I heard a tink! and then a second tink! and I looked down at the steel bleachers and saw a gap much wider than my stupidly expense needle. Two tinks, I thought, and then looked to see how I could get under the bleachers.

And there was no way to get under the bleachers. Not even for an enterprising small child.

I stopped breathing. In my mind I did the math. "$$$$ / 5. They are not going to dismantle these bleachers for that." (Aside - I wonder what they WOULD dismantle the bleachers for. I wonder what is under there. I've been watching too much Monk lately. I bet Monk could solve a murder if only they would dismantle those bleachers. I'm calling Tony Shalhoub.)

And then I cautiously moved my purse, and there lay my pretty pretty needle, astride the gap, and I bent forward and picked it up carefully and put the DPN project away and I may never let those needles leave the house again.

So I almost lost a really expensive needle. That would have made a good story, no?

Thing Two.

I let the dog out to do her morning thing at Still Dark O'Clock earlier this week, and she Did Her Thing, and then leapt aside in sudden terror and started barking. It was dark, but there was snow on the ground, and even though I didn't have my glasses on, I could see that there was nothing to bark at, and then something large and lumbery started moving away from the base of the tree out front.

Something large and lumbery and porcupine-y, and much bigger than my small bossy dog. Promises of treats did nothing to dissuade her from defending the front yard from The Thing, and she has always ignored me when I say "Come!" so finally I resorted to ...this is what you get when you don't train your dog properly. "Come!" means nothing to her, but "Leash!"? Apparently that means you stand still until someone in their nightgown comes across the snow in her bare feet to put your leash on. Even if she doesn't have a leash. I brought her in and gave her a treat and she spent the next hour at the front hour, whining to go out and teach The Thing a lesson.

So that would have made a story too, hey? "My dog attacked a porcupine in our own front yard! And we live in the city!"

But none of it happened, so I have nothing more to talk about.

In which the universe offers me crazy pie, and I turn it down

2011-12-19T14:31:00.000-07:00

(the crazy pie phrase is borrowed from the Yarn Harlot.)

This post is partially for those of you who have ever gotten way too far into some project, usually in the kitchen, and thought "But Martha made it look easy!" (This doesn't have to be La Stewart herself. It could be anyone who made it look easy, and was all excited about it, therefore making you think you could do the same thing.)

So I made these. I got all the way up to just having to add the flour when the little girls I babysit were here - measuring and pouring are way up there on the list of things wee girls like to do, so it was all good. There was oatmeal and sugar all over the floor, and I tidied and swept before adding the flour because it was just flour and a few tsps of things left.

HA. So the girls left and I made lunch and went looking for other cookie in a jar recipes and one recipe I saw said "if you are new to this - you really do need to tamp each layer down as you add them." Well, huh, I thought. The lady who gave me some of these last year said the same thing, but you know, I left out the walnuts - it'll all be good.

Well, good is relative, I suppose. Go back to that link? See how the chocolate chips are well, brown? As in not covered in flour, because whoever made them did NOT have to smack the jar on the table approx 432 times in order to get all the flour in?

There will be a fine coating of flour dust in my kitchen for the rest of my natural life. At one point, I considered reprinting all the recipe labels, and adding "1/3 c flour" to the list of ingredients needed to perfect the cookies, but that was too much like giving up. Also I discovered that the Italian seasoning spice bottle fit into the sealer quite nicely, and if I pushed on it with all my might for a count of ...well alot. ...I had room for the flour.

And then I was looking at the finished jars, all wiped down and lidded and thought you know what would be nice? Instead of cutting out circles of cloth that nobody will ever have use a for for the topper, I'll use handknit dishcloths! And I counted my pile of dishcloths, and I have eight and a half. And then I noticed that the round ones looked better than the square ones, but I only have two round ones, and this thought actually flipped through my head:

Well they only take a few hours to make.

And then I multiplied "a few" by ten, and even without looking at the date, knew that the universe was once again attempting to get me to take a big old bite of Crazy Pie.

So if you get one of the ones with a square dishcloth on it - be proud of me.

And pretend the chocolate chips provide a nice contrast, will you?

In which Murphy and I call it a draw for today

2011-12-02T16:27:00.001-07:00

So I have this son. He's 12. He's grown approximately 8 billion inches since the beginning of July and mostly, he eats and sleeps and plays hockey.

Monday morning I was looking at him lying on the floor begging not to go to school because he was soooooooooooooo tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired, and he looked - well, awful. Then he said his ears hurt and his legs hurt and so I thought, okay you have been complaining about being tired for six months. Maybe you should see a doctor.

So today he bounces out of bed cheerful as a (insert cheerful thing), says his ears don't hurt, and he feels great! Hopefully he has hockey today!

And I had to take him to the doctor anyway, because they charge $50 for cancelling an appointment less than 24 hours ahead of time.

So Murphy won that one.

***

I got home and decided to bake cookies. I was in the kitchen trying to decide what to bake when there was a knock on my door, and there on my doorstep was the lady I work for, with the three tubs of frozen cookie dough I'd bought from the preschool fundraiser.

Take that, Murph.

(I looked up that whole Murphy thing, cause I was trying to explain it to my left brain and I couldn't remember where it came from. And seriously - there's someone out there whose name is Murphy, attorney at law. (I left out the first name just in case I should.) I think that I would be nervous having that person defend me. If I ever committed a crime. I don't plan to, but there are still teenagers living here.)

Operation "Cheer My Mom Up"

2011-11-22T12:20:00.001-07:00

So my mother is even more laid up than usual, what with the broken femur and all, and she's in pain a lot of the time, and I was looking at her bulletin board the other day thinking it's been a while since she got mail ...

And she loves Christmas ...

And I had this idea!!!

Who wants to send my Mom a Christmas card? Even if you don't know her, you can just sign it "Sue's friend Hepzibah" (alternatively, feel free to use your real name) -

wouldn't it be awesome to fill her bulletin board with Christmas cards?

It's likely best if you email me at brekke2004@gmail.com for her address.

Please?

Whoosh!

2011-11-21T10:44:00.001-07:00

Six hockey games in four days! (B's team won them all. Lots of close ones, too.)

So the last five days have been arenas and take out coffee and the smack of the stick against the ice and really, is there a sound more Canadian than that? And mothers screaming encouragement from the stands and lots of good cold Canadian air ...

And a dog with a backache and kids with earaches and heartaches and an amazing dance performance by my daughter's talented hiphop ~~troupe~~ crew. It's a called a crew...

And church and a potluck, and an hour or so with my mother, who would like to sleep until either the winter is over or her leg is better or something interesting happens ...

So today is about writing a book.

I should post once in a while.

2011-11-16T14:35:00.001-07:00

So it's been exactly one while since I posted last.

Update: the lower something-or-knobby-other than sticks out on the end of a femur is the bone that is cracked, not broken, on my mom's leg. My mother remains unconcerned about laying blame and is just lying around healing. And trying to scratch inside the (somelongname) splint she's wearing.

Novel update: (novel as noun, not adjective) I had to make a decision this week. Decisions make me fractious. The Novel, as is, is not quite adult and not quite YA, so Changes had to be made. But first I had to decide who I was writing for. Some people decide this before they write a book. These, I suspect, are people who actually believe they can actually write an actual whole book before they have shuffled off this mortal coil. I am only one of those people who believe that because, whoops, I did it.

So it was either make it grittier or replace the protagonists mother, who was kind of a co-protagonist, with someone much younger and therefore someone the imaginary YA reader wanted to read about. Nothing grittier occurred to me, but a spiky teenaged year old girl, all elbows and wild hair, showed up and told me her name was Greer, and she was perfectly capable of raising one young boy. (she actually didn't tell me her name. I had to guess. I guessed for days.)

Weird writing thingummy: I pondered how to effect such a change. "Maybe," I thought, driving around doing errands, "Kirna could die in childbirth." and suddenly there was, in my imaginary head, an outraged shriek, and someone saying "I will most certainly NOT die in childbirth." The discussion continued until I found a way to get rid of Kirna that she would agree to.

Animal update: (also noun, although what other part of speech could animal be?) She is currently gently bewildered, as I have barricaded her into the dining room because she has a sore back. More accurately, she has a sore back when she is not taking anti-inflammatories (with a syringe! I squirt them into her mouth and she tries to lick them off her tongue! It's very entertaining.) Even though the drugs take away her pain, she must continue to act like she is in pain if her back is to get any better, ie, not jumping on the couch, or racing up the stairs, or being an enthusiastic small dog.

There is no way to explain this to her, so I have barricaded her into the dining room, so instead of sitting at my feet staring at me because she is in pain, she is sitting at my feet staring at me because she wants to lie on her blanket on the couch.

And that's all I have to say for, oh, a while or two.

A Small Story

2011-11-06T09:37:00.001-07:00

I may have mentionned that I was raised in a turbulent home, by an angry, frustrated woman who did not know how to control her temper.

A woman who gave her life to God when I was 10 or 11 ...and the transformation began. It wasn't overnight. It wasn't even over the course of a year, or two years, but now, three and a half decades later - here is a story about my mother.

She called me from the nursing home Friday, in terrible pain. The aides had gotten her up to be weighed, (she is unable to move on her own at all), and in the process, had hurt her knee somehow. Saturday she was sent for xrays, and today, I discovered that she has a broken bone somewhere in her knee, and is in a cast from hip to ankle.

I waited until I was no longer angry to call her and see how she was doing.

"I feel sorry for Jennifer*" she said. (*Jennifer is not her real name)

"Jennifer?"

"The girl who hurt me. She just forgot my knees don't bend, and bent it right back."

No anger, no judgement, no sense of entitlement, no feeling sorry for herself.

That right there, people?

That is a woman who knows Jesus.

Information Session

2011-11-04T16:54:00.000-06:00

I think it's important, as we go through life learning things, that we pass on what we've learned to others.

Today, for instance, I have learned that a common method of aftercare for tattoos is to use a solution of rock salt dissolved in water for cleansing.

Therefore, if you have a teen who has a friend who got a tattoo for her birthday, it's just possible that one day your teen's friend will stuff a bag full of rock salt in your teen's purse.

This makes it possible for your teen to leave a bag of rock salt on her bed.

This makes it possible for the dog to find the bag of rock salt.

This make it possible for you to discover the rock salt when you take it away from the dog.

And the other very important thing I learned today?

If you stare at the bag in your hand, and then google "what does cr@ck c*c@ine look like?" - you will find something that looks remarkably like ...

rock salt.

It is not always an asset to have a rich and lively imagination.

Paper or Plastic?

2011-10-26T18:35:00.002-06:00

I have at least 1000 books in my basement. They migrate. They are piled on my headboard, on my living room floor, on my desk. And every so often, while I'm trying to walk past a bookstore without making eye contact, one of them calls to me ...

I read stupidly fast. I don't know if I read every word, and I hate that question. Who says there's a right way to read? (the kids timed me on holidays this year. I read in my head three times faster than I read out loud.)

So it's hard to keep me in books. Not quite as hard now that I'm writing one, because I can't often justify sacrificing an entire afternoon to a book. (There have been some exceptions. When I read The Thirteenth Tale, I read until 3 in the morning and when I got to The End, I flipped back to the beginning and started again.)

It's especially hard to keep me in books when I am travelling because there's always the issue of how much weight do I want to schlep around? and yet! I will have TIME TO READ.

Enter the eReader. Oh blessed blessed eReader. You can buy as many books as you want before you leave home, and they don't weigh ANYTHING. And then, if you find WiFi somewhere, you can buy MORE weightless books if you run out.

I read a LOT.

I have read a lot MORE since I started ereading. I have Kindle software on my computer (free. You get it for free) and Kindle on my phone, and someone GAVE me an entire Kobo. So as long as there's something unread - I can read in the lineup at Starbucks. Even if I forget my book AND the Kobo, I've usually got my phone.

So which do I prefer?

Pros and Cons.

1. A paper book never runs out of battery.

2. An eReader (mostly, usually) keeps your place. (the Kindle on my phone likes to mess with me on that one)

3. A paperback can handle being dropped in the bathtub.

4. eBooks can be purchased at three in the morning, in your bathrobe, in your dimly lit kitchen. Really, with enough of the right software on things, you wouldn't even have to get out of bed.

5. Paper can be written on. Underlined. Etc.

6. Nobody can yank the bookmark out of your eReader just to be funny.

7. A paperback loads instantly. If you are me, and reading before bed, this might mean the difference between reading and not reading that night.

8. eReaders don't weigh anything, at least mine doesn't.

So it's pretty even. eBooks are also, often, cheaper, so I get to buy more and still spend less. I have found, though, that if I really really really love a book (see the post I have yet to write about The Book Thief) - I want it out here among the people, not electronically hiding somewhere.

In Which I Write Lines

2011-10-20T17:31:00.002-06:00

I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.
I do not have to go to every fight I'm invited to.

Sixteen years ago today

2011-10-04T18:44:00.000-06:00

Sixteen years ago today someone else did all the work while I played Solitaire on my computer at work, pacing my cubicle, waiting for the phone to ring.

The phone rang at noon. "I told them I want the freezing, and they said it's way too early for that", Z said. "Maybe I should have done that prenatal class thing. It's getting hard to concentrate on my card game."

It didn't ring again until long after we were home from work, long after we'd had supper. Midnight, and we heard "It's a girl with small hands and big feet and lots and lots of hair!"

Much like Z had no idea what was in store for her in the labour room, I had no idea what was in store for me, the day we brought her home. All of you who've raised kids, you know - you know that even if I'd already raised a child, I'd still have had no idea what was in store. It's all about the stretching and growing and learning and figuring out this amazing new person and how and when to be there and how and when to back off and how and when to ...the list is endless.

And it's not over yet, this ride, but as I told Z today - it still feels like there is no way to communicate how deeply grateful I am that I was invited on this ride.

May I never forget to be grateful.

I love you, A, with all my heart. You have been a surprise and a delight from the very first time I laid eyes on you.

Bonus Writing Tip

2011-09-24T19:42:00.002-06:00

This one is more just logistics.

If you type a letter wrong, and delete it, and type it again, and delete it, and type it again, and delete and type it again ...

Try hitting "Shift" before you retype it, if the problem is that you don't want a lower case letter.

(actual event taken from the actual life of an actual writer)

Handy Writing Tips

2011-09-24T15:49:00.000-06:00

1. Reading Angela Hunt's blog every day for a year won't get your novel written. It will teach a whole lot about novel writing, but it won't get any of your actual words on your actual page. Took me a whole year to figure that one out, so I'm passing it on to you.

2. Reading every adult novel written by Angela Hunt, Nancy Rue, Kathryn Mackel and Lisa Samson will not get any of your actual words on your actual page either. It will also teach a whole lot about novel writing, and if you read mindfully, you will learn a whole lot about your own goals as a writer, and what it is that you want your actual words to convey, should you ever get past your own crippling self-doubt and do that whole actual words/actual page thing.

3. Believing every stupid lie your insecurity tells you will not get your novel written, and may - I give you this warning freely - turn you into a knitter.

I'm a mantra girl. I love words, and when things are tough, I am apt to find a well-turned phrase to memorize and cling to and take out at three o'clock in the morning to look at and lean on.

So here are some of the things that got me through the first draft of my novel.

1. Murray Pura, in a novel writing workshop that I only went to because I was quite sure I couldn't write a novel and I may as well go listen to someone talk about it to prove to myself I was right - he talked for an hour and I remember two sentences.

Sentence One: You can't edit a blank page.

Sentence Two, delivered at the end of the session, with his huge hands swirling the air as he spoke: So, go, and spread the page with shining.

2. (source unknown) Don't get it right, get it written. (see the homonyms? oh how I love homonyms. Not sure if I love them enough to spell the word properly ...)

Apparently it's a short list.

Please don't ask me how to get the second draft done, once you've gotten all sorts of reader feedback, etc, but have no actual deadline. The two things I've tried so far (texting a mentor until she changes her cell number, and blogging about writing) have been less than successful ...

(ETA: YES, Blogger, texting is a word.)

whoosh goes the summer

2011-09-11T07:47:00.000-06:00

I saw some teens all dressed up fancy last night and thought "Grad." and then I realized it was September and either a super early grad or a super late one.
"Homecoming" corrected the savvy American I'm with.

A man on the plane talking about his children said his twins were born September 1.
"Oh, so they're almost 5" I said.
He gave me that look I sometimes get, the one where my mental competence is called into question. "No, they just turned 5."

I'm not keeping up.

My son spent the summer sleeping and eating and is now taller and thinner than he was when the summer began. I have to resist the urge to rub my eyes, blink, and look again when he walks into a room. The change was much less dramatic with the first child.

I spent August knitting a blanket for a wedding gift, and reading poetry and prose for the magazine who lets me be on their editorial board. I shouldn't read the submission letters, but I do. Here's a wee tip about submission letters:

I don't need to know anything about you other than a) the title of what you are submitting b) a few of your previous publications (a FEW. Three or four, not a full page) and c) a BRIEF bio in which you resist the urge to be cute about yourself.

That is all.

And then I thought maybe I was missing the point

2011-08-16T17:55:00.000-06:00

So as an aside to the sermon on Sunday, the speaker mentionned that she'd heard that a good way to help lessen insomnia was to turn off all electronic stimuli an hour or so before you want to go to sleep, and do something relaxing, like knit, or read.
So an hour before i wanted to be asleep I got my knitting and sat there knitting for a few minutes and then went and got a book and spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to prop the book open so I could knit AND read ...

Very relaxing. Totally not stimulating at all.

In which I Do Math, and it does nothing to cheer me up

2011-08-16T14:23:00.000-06:00

So I am making a gift for someone, a gift that needs to be given away in no more than eleven and a half days. It's done in sections, and there are (20 X 300 =)6000 stitches in one kind of section and (10 X 150 =) 1500 stitches in the other kind of section. I have done two of each kind of section which means I have already knit 15000 stitches, and I have no idea how many more of each section I have to do, or even how many I have yarn for, so that means I have ...

eleventy-billion stitches to knit between now and next Saturday, give or take a few billion.

I don't know why I stopped to type, either.

"God bless God, sometimes He knows just what He's doing."

2011-08-09T15:41:00.000-06:00

I don't remember where we heard that, but it's one of those silly/true things that sticks in your brain. Especially if you're me, and you love silliness and you love truth.

Our holiday was GREAT. So great. I'll write about it some day soon, when I get a chance to pick a few photos.

I'm finding things hard these days, because YAY, my Mom is close enough that I can go feed her every day and yet - sigh. She can't even FEED herself, and because it seems everywhere I turn, someone I care about is struggling and because of things I can't talk about that keep me awake at night lecturing the ceiling and calling it prayer.

And then on the other hand, there's this enormous bright light that is the highly encouraging feedback I've been given regarding the Perpetual Novel, and unsolicited highly useful editting and advice re What To Do Next and some days I'm sort of calm and looking forward to a second pilgrimage in the same year and some days I am sick sick sick to my very bones with the knowledge that I am not worthy of this calling.

And today was one of those days, and today I got an email from someone I haven't spoken to in over thirty years who happened upon this very blog and said enough kind and encouraging things that I am crying.

You know who you are. Today was the perfect day to get your note. Thanks for listening to the prompting.

har.

2011-07-28T21:36:00.000-06:00

So I was talking about my job with some family members the other day, and talking about the younger child.

"She likes things to be in the right place", I said, "and has been known to smack me, if it's near nap time and I won't put my glasses back on."

"I could use one of those", my SIL said. "A short angry person who follows me around smacking me when I don't put things away." She paused. "A Clean Up Dwarf."

***
At Mom's the other day, I was clipping her nails when she shrieked in pain. After counting her fingers, I consoled her.

"If you bleed to death, you'll go straight to heaven." I said.

She fake-glared at me. "Yeah and you'll go straight to hell!"

***
I bought a new dress for my nephew's wedding, and was extremely pleased that it didn't cost me an arm and two legs. I tend to chat about things I'm excited about, until my entire family walks around with cotton balls in their ears, nodding in my direction, fake smiles on their faces.

The same day I bought the dress, we had a false alarm at our place while we were out and we came home to find the police there and the alarm blaring. The police had already checked the house.

I walked into the living room and said to A "Oh good, the laptops are still here." then I made a pretend-terrified face and said "GAH. What if they took my DRESS?"

She didn't miss a beat. "You mean maybe that was the fashion police?"

The four year old speaks

2011-07-23T15:17:00.000-06:00

She's lying with her head on my lap, gazing up at me, and observing with wonder how big the pores on my chin are. I tell her, gently, that I wish she wouldn't have long conversations about my appearance, because sometimes I'd like to be prettier.

"Oh Susan." she says. "If you want to be pretty, you have to be a fancy lady. Like A."

"A is fancy?" I asked.

She nods. "Yes and very stylish. You can tell her I said that."

This post is for Anonymous

2011-07-22T16:16:00.001-06:00

Every few whiles, Anonymous drops by my last post and says "SAY SOMETHING." I go over the list of things I have in my head to say and realize ...there's no list. But I do like to please people ...

- So it's summer. This summer has been very very rainy and really, while I love the outdoors, I kind of hate weather. I don't like it hot and I don't like it cold and I don't much care for windy ...I'm stupidly hard to please. If the whole world could just have the same kind of air you get when step off a plane at the San Francisco Airport - just that first hit of cool, moist air that feels like it would hydrate you forever - before you breathe in any fumes of anything - that would be perfect.

Doesn't much happen in Alberta.

- We had a fun thing happen last week. TechnoBoy took a road trip at the beginning of July and when he was on his way home, he picked up a backpacker somewhere in the interior of BC (aside: why is BC the only province we speak of as having an interior?) The backpacker turned out to be from Germany, spending a few months hiking in Canada (he'd just come from doing the West Coast Trail, which is XTreme backpacking. Not for the faint of heart or limb. He met someone the first day who broke a bone attempting it) He wasn't sure if he was going to try to come to Calgary or not, but TB offered him a place to stay if he made it here, and he did, and so he stayed with us four nights and wow, was it fun to have a traveller around. Made me remember what it was like to BE a traveller. (TB and I backpacked from May 1990 to April 1991) I talked the poor boy's ear off. But I also fed him, helped him find a place to buy good German bread, and drove him out to Banff when he was ready to leave. And I did try to ask questions and listen for answers, so if you want to know what I learned about the West Coast Trail, you just ask. (I may ignore you. One of you asked about my birthday presents and I'm still holding out on you.)

- I think that TB and I are now parents of two teenagers. As my skin is only physically thick, there are days when I don't really want to talk about it. And by it, I mean anything.

- we are taking a family holiday this summer. TB and I are trying to actually make a few plans ahead of time (TB's entire immediate family just fainted) This is new behaviour for us. It's making me itchy.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd now I just editted out a bunch of whining, so I'm done. Off to feed my mother, whose extermities are checking out long long long long long before her brain is. It's a stupid messy way to end things, this old age business, and I refuse to believe that this is how things would be if Eve had never eaten the apple. I only found out a few weeks ago that Mom could no longer feed herself, and the kids have been great, this week, about making sure there's dinner on the go here so I can be at the nursing home when I would normally be cooking supper.

Hee. I just called out "I'm going to feed grandma! Who wants to come with me?" and the dog is making Serious Eye Contact with me. She gets treats at my mom's.

AND speaking of treats - my three year old nephew, who was here visiting with his whole family (and never once used the word LAME, to my knowledge) loved giving the dog treats. He liked the tricks she does, too, so one day he marched over to the cupboard, opened the door, levelled a treat at Toopka and said "Do a trick, dog!"
She did a trick alright. She did the trick where you reach over and take the treat without even blinking. He was not impressed.

AND speaking of fun, my goodness was it fun to have J-L and Cynthia and Abby and Jack here. They're just really nice people. Some day, when I grow up, I'm going to be nice too.

Friday

2011-07-08T22:42:00.000-06:00

So she's at the Stampede with a rotating group of friends and she's having a great time but she's cold even though you suggested she might want to take a pair of jeans along but you don't mention that because you know what? who cares if you were right, and the person who should care the least that you were right is you, because what is this? some kind of contest about who can be the rightest most often? and you could just as easily have been wrong and so what about that too?And she's taking the bus home with her friend, after the fireworks and that's going to be really late and the train is always so crowded and there was that one year when some kid got jostled under the train and so you text her "do you want a ride?" and she says "nope, we're good, thanks" and you stare at the phone for a really long time because you don't want to be pushy and controlling and inyourface, especially not with someone who has pretty much wanted to be in charge since she was five, but we've all heard the stories and we think it, we all do, whether we say it out loud or not whereweretheparents?? but you don't argue, you just say please don't walk from the bus stop by yourself and she says okay I won't and you want to ask for details but because parenting someone her age is so much more about shutting up and praying than it is about anything else, it seems, you just say thanks and Jesus keep her safe and then you think about safety and how that's a much trickier concept that you could ever have imagined and really, none of us are safe no matter how much we build up around ourselves so maybe you just shorten that. Jesus keep her.

Point form post, which is therefore full of points, but pointless.

2011-06-25T18:59:00.000-06:00

- So. If it's not asthma, it's bronchitis. My lungs are a pair of misbehaving drama queens, and yet, I am stuck with them.

- A continues to crack me right up. Do you want to hear about that, or do you want to hear about all my amazing birthday presents, each one more astonishing than the last?

- My dog is small, cute and disobedient. I'd ask if you wanted to hear about that, but ...you just did.

- I knit some stuff.

- I wrote a whole book. There's not enough conflict in my book. Huh. Shocking, seeing as how I embrace conflict wholeheartedly. Oh wait, no I don't. Who knew? Also the fact that I sort of cheered K up early on in the book because I was tired of her stomping around being difficult is not believable. And as the writer you can't just say "I don't care if you don't believe it, that's what happened" because when you make stuff up, you have to follow rules about not breaking the fictive dream blah blah blah. Having your reader look up and say "As if!" is not really what you're aiming for. Dang it.

- Parenting is - newsflash! - harrrrrrrrrrrrrd. (Yes I'm whining. I have bronchitis. I don't like bronchitis) Turns out you cannot parent a 15 year old the way you parent a four year old. Why it is taking me so long to figure this out, I am not sure, but I'm pretty sure it will be a good thing for all of us when I get a handle on it.

- if you are still reading, go have a cookie. You deserve it.

So.

2011-06-22T20:22:00.000-06:00

The annual pilgrimage is over. It was all I hoped it would be, and more.

I came home just in time to go to the nursing home and tell my mother that her only remaining sister died that morning. Once there were 6, now there is one.

It seems to have taken the wind out of my mother's sails, a bit. It would truthfully be a mercy if she could go - she is in physical pain, of varying degrees, most of the time. Up until Friday evening, the suffering was primarily physical. Now there is the emotional pain of a goodbye that, frankly, I am a little frustrated that she had to endure. I wish that God would agree with me about when to say "Enough."

I come from feisty women. My mother glaring at me from the nursing home bed she rarely allows them to get her up out of. "I think that woman feels sorry for me! How dare she?! I am perfectly happy!"

My Aunt Betty ("Auntie BopBee", we called her), mischievous elf, playing cards with my five year old daughter on the floor of her garage at 4 in the morning. Donning a hard hat, so many years ago, and following my father down the mine shaft, just to see what it was like. Getting cheerfully, hopelessly lost, time after time after time.

My Aunt Norine ("Auntie Rene") giggling behind her hand at me as her husband walked by in his pj's. "Don't you just want to tickle those cute little buns?" she asked. (I did not)

My mother is the only one left. "What makes you happiest, looking back on your life?" I asked her today.
"You kids and your dad," was the immediate reply. And then with a definite TAKE THAT note in her voice, "Living so much longer than those doctors said I would." (she was born in Rocky Mountain House, AB, in 1937. Rocky Mountain House is still considered rather remote. She was born at 26 weeks gestation, and weighed 2 lbs 10 0z. If her father hadn't been one of the only men in town to own a car, her story could very well have ended differently. And earlier.)

I laughed. "It's that kind of feisty that's keeping you here, you know."

She laughed, a slow, tired, laugh.

Oh Mom. I'll forgive you if you leave. I will be so sad for me, but so happy for you. And I promise I will stand up at your funeral and tell everyone there that God was gracious enough to let you live so long that I realized how much I love you.

Not that I have ADD or anything ...

2011-06-07T15:51:00.002-06:00

...but this morning I forgot to rinse the creme rinse out of my hair ...

for the SECOND time in a week.

Probably a writing post

2011-06-03T12:39:00.001-06:00

So a long time ago, after I had started writing the Perpetual Novel, someone in a class I was taking said "Sure I have three chapters of a novel. Everybody has three chapters of a novel sitting in a drawer somewhere."
I thought of my novel, and how impossible it was to figure out where these people were going and what they were doing. "Not me," I thought. "I am going to write it."

I had no idea how I would write it, but I was determined to finish it.

Probably a week later I was quite sure it was impossible again, but it never went away. In February of 2007 I went to a writers workshop-week at a castle just outside Colorado Springs. I went knowing I could never write a novel, I left five days later thinking "well a novel is likely impossible, but I can write a scene. And then maybe another one ..."

The trip to Glen Eyrie has become a yearly pilgrimage. I think that when you decide, as a writer, that if you can't quit, you may as well get serious, you find the community you need to keep you going.

I have good writing friends here at home, and strong encouragers, and in addition to that, a large part of the community, for me, are the people I have met in Colorado. One of the biggest reasons for that is "where two or three are gathered in My name, I am there".(Matt 18:20) The Glen is owned by a Christian group - one of the things they do is start praying for you by name when you sign up for conferences there.

So God is there, waiting, for me to show up and leave every other obligation or duty behind, and concentrate on what I'm trying to do with the gift I've been given. It's an earthshattering place for me, and I don't use that word lightly.

This year, I am going back, to beloved mentors, and beloved friends, (in fact, beloved mentors who have become beloved friends) to a place where it often feels as if the very ground were soaked in the prayers of God's people, and I am taking with me:

The finished first draft of my first novel.

Nobody is more surprised than I am, and I seriously doubt that anyone is more grateful.

Every once in a while, I post something they'll hate me for

2011-05-24T17:38:00.000-06:00

So I just bought B a hoodie with thumbholes in it, a brandname (affordable) one, with a pocket for his MP3 player.

I looked at him. "You're turning into a teenager! How much longer do I have before you hate me?"

"You're okay so far," he said. "Just don't get any weirder."

I laughed really hard, and rather loud.

"Like that." he said.

Summer Saturday

2011-05-22T08:38:00.000-06:00

I can't even tell you what a perfect day yesterday was. (but I am going to try)

I got to start the day at my own pace, and not at 6 am, either. I had the nicest sleep in I've had in FORever, and then, as none of my company (Brads mom and her husband are here) was up yet, I sat at the wee table in the bay window of my bedroom and read. A book. I have so little time for reading, what with the going to bed way too early so I can up way too early.

And then I went downstairs and had coffee with my mother-in-law, who is one of the nicest, kindest, most wonderful people on the planet. And once we were all up, we played games, we watched a hockey game, we went out for ice cream to the DQ just down the street that turned into a drive to the mountains, poking around waterfalls and meandering around curvy swervy dirt roads. (note to self: Bring your knitting, even if you are just going down the street for ice cream. You can stick in your bag. No-one will have to know.)

This visit is especially precious because Mom started chemotherapy last month, and is in between feeling like absolute death and getting her next shot, and they wanted to quickly take a trip while they could. Five days before they left her husband fell and broke a rib, but a little thing like a broken rib doesn't stop him. (did I mention he's 81?) They DID take the 15 hour drive from their place to ours in two days this time, "just so we didn't get too tired, but really, I think we could have kept driving". Feisty folk, the pair of them.

There are two things Mom loves about driving through back roads. One of them is singing hymns, and we sang hymns until our voices gave out, and then we sang them some more.

The other is seeing wildlife, and I can't tell you the countless hours we have spent, in the past, yodelling and calling out windows for bears or moose to show themselves. Yesterday I had a private chat with God, and asked Him to send Mom a moose. I have lived in Calgary for almost 20 years. Brad and I LOVE road trips. I have seen moose once.

We were counting mailboxes on rural fence posts and joking that maybe, just maybe, we should collect them and build our own moose out of them, when TechnoBoy said "Or we could just look at the moose up there on the road." And there she was. Perfectly silhouetted against the sky and as we got close, she picked her ungainly way across the road, stopping at a chest high fence, which she then stepped over with almost no effort.

My mother in law is the first person in my life that loved me unconditionally. (caveat - there may have been others before her, but love is not what Mom does, it's what she is. She's the first place I noticed it.) The first time I met her, she was watching at the window as TB and I drove up, and she came tearing out of the house, to MY side of the car, wrenched the door open and gave me the biggest hug in the universe.

Whatever happens in the next several months, I have this, this perfect gift of a day with her, and birdhouses along fence posts to remind me of it.

Ahh the love.

2011-05-17T17:29:00.000-06:00

So A and I are driving home from somewhere, and I have just booked my Castle getaway and I am in a great mood.

I am, well, bubbly, in a great mood.

A looks at me, and asks a question and I burst out laughing, and then say "Ok, just to make sure I get this right for the blog - did you just ask if there is actually anyone in the universe who finds me funny?" (this is a paraphrase)

A nods, grinning. "Yep that's what I asked."

I tell her there are indeed people who laugh at my jokes, in my presence.

She shakes her head. "There's always those few who ruin it for the rest of us."

Bunnies, Talking To

2011-05-12T11:26:00.000-06:00

I got to sneak away for 24 hours with a friend and my laptop last weekend. Friday night to Saturday night.

When I came home, I told A that not only had we seen bunnies, but my grown up adult friend had rolled down her window and talked to them.

TechnoBoy burst out laughing.

Apparently he had overheard A talking to a bunny herself on Saturday.

Things That Have Made Me Laugh Out Loud Recently

2011-05-03T18:02:00.000-06:00

just got a text from the lady I babysit for:

"Someone just asked where D* got her curls from and F** said "From her babysitter!" "

Uh. Or something.

*D - the 1 year old
**F - the 4 year old.

***

A and I were in Edmonton this weekend. We were parked on a side street waiting to meet someone and a big ol' jackrabbit came loping down the sidewalk. This struck me as funny so I pointed it out, and A made some sort of remark back and continued painting her nails.
I rolled down A's window.

A: Don't talk to the bunny.

Me: What's interesting is you knew I was planning to talk to the bunny.

A: Mom. You are challenged. Like legit. LEGIT.*** Some of the things you do - I think to myself "Why is this woman not in a home??"

*** this means she means it, and she is telling the absolute complete truth. Legitimately.

DUDE! That was a miracle!!

2011-04-29T08:52:00.000-06:00

So A has a shirt she wants to wear later today, and last night as she was trying it on and putting together the Outfit, she spilled something with blueberries in it on this lovely white shirt.

Last night I attacked it with laundry soap (which turned the spot blue instead of purple) and then Shout and then scrubbed it with a toothbrush, all the while being very careful to use cold cold water so as not to set the stain.

This morning the stain had faded considerably but it was still there.

My friend who is visiting from Ottawa, darien-the-commenter, walked into the bathroom and asked what I was doing.

"Trying to get a stain out of this shirt."

"What is it?" she asked.

"Blueberries", I grimaced.

"Oh fruit stains," she says. And proceeds to pour boiling water over the stain.

People, if you do not have a stubborn fruit stain on something white, I suggest you run right out and get one, just so you can watch the beautiful beautiful miracle of hot water erasing it before your very eyes.

The shirt is in the dryer, the wardrobe crisis has been averted.

I should blog once in a while

2011-04-28T22:21:00.000-06:00

Gah. It's just so up and down with the emotions in this head.

I think I have decided to attempt to move out of my own head on a more regular basis. I am not sure what that means.

I think that I have realized that I am possibly, and more than occasionally, too controlling as a parent and a spouse. (TechnoBoy is reading this thinking - well I don't know what he's thinking. I think he's likely tiptoeing away carefully lest I see the astonishment on his face. Yes, darling, I have finally figured out why you occasionally use the word "Nag". Also, you are a saint. Thanks for sticking it out.) Controlling works with two year olds who are hitting the dog with a shovel - and even then it is not appreciated. Someone asked me "What would it look like if you just abdicated, and said to your husband "okay you're in charge of (pick an area)?" And inside my head I shrieked "He might not do it the same way I do it!!!!" And then "Dude. Lighten up." and also "yikes. Who says you have to be right?" And then quite suddenly I was terrified. What if I'm not right?*

And then I wrote it down to read later when I'm feeling a need to see what on earth I blather on about here, so that I will run into this post and remind myself that yes, yes I have a tendency to try to make the universe get in line behind me and my idea of how things should run. IN FACT, the other day I asked myself "why don't you just pray about (thing with a child that is being frustrating)?" and I answered myself "well I tried that but He's not making (the child) do what I want her to."

Yeah that's the point of prayer. Tell God how everyone else should act, and then snap your fingers at Him, and tell Him to get right on that.

*(Yes I am seeking help from professionals. Don't leave me advice. It will make me want to scratch my eyeballs out. From the inside. And that's just messy.)

Who put that there?

2011-04-26T18:33:00.000-06:00

"Love keeps no record of wrongs." 1 Cor 13:5b NIV

Maybe it's always been there. How come I just noticed it today?

By Way of Saying Thank You for answered prayer

2011-04-15T18:21:00.000-06:00

I looked around my messy house. I hobbled to the easy chair, looked for the heating pad, couldn't find it, laid my head back on the headrest and blinked away tears of exhaustion and frustration.

"Lord", I whimpered, inside my own head, "Please help. Help me find the stamina to get this cleaned up, and help me have the impetus to get started. It's too far behind for it to be fair to ask the kids to do it."

The front door opened.

"Mom," said B, "This house has gotten out of hand with the messiness. If C and I spend a few hours cleaning, can we have a sleepover tonight?"

The fingerless mittens are pouting

2011-04-11T22:55:00.000-06:00

I don't love them as much as I did a few days ago, because I tried to knit wearing them. Left hand is fine, right hand is wanting a slim fit version. Good thing i did all that pathological sock yarn acquisitioning ...

And want to know what I'm thankful for?

I have been married dang near 29 years and I still really really really really really really miss my husband when he's away.

Really.

Gleep. Does this count as writing?

2011-04-07T14:29:00.000-06:00

Hey hi.

It's very messy at my house but march right in, if you'd like. I need company. The Sane One is out of town, on a whole different continent, and I'm going a little squirrelly. The kids are still here, so I'm getting dressed on a regular basis, and not eating condensed cream soup straight out of the can with my fingers, but still - too much time in my own head. I really really really should not be left in charge.

Also ...

YippeE!!! I knit a pair of fingerless mitts! I love the one I didn't lose! I love it that I wore them a whole total of about ten minutes before I lost one! And I actually do love it that I lost the one where I made the thumb hole too big. It's a pattern I made up myself, so it's not as precise as some might be. The written out bit uses the word "approximately" a lot, so even though I was making a copy of one I already had, the exact numbers of rows was iffy at best. The pattern is much more accurate now. It reads "so do that bit until the resultant thumb hole will be bigger than the first one you made but smaller than the second one you made." And I added this line to the end of the pattern:

DO NOT LOSE.

There's no way that can't work. I may be haphazard but I do like to read the directions.

Oh hi. Let's pretend that last post was a few short days ago

2011-03-22T12:53:00.000-06:00

1. Wow. I shouldn't be a writer, except for the fact that I am, and I can't fix that now. I'm sort of stuck with it, but yikes.

2. I have been spending a lot of time inside my own head. I have a vivid imagination and no self-discipline, which means that half the time I'm "writing" I'm actually staring off into middle distance thinking about supper and what would happen if I burned it and what if the fireman who came while the house was burning down looked exactly like my cousin Timmy and I called him by Tim's nickname (Boomer) and his eyes filled with tears because his brother was named Boomer and my dog bit him. (that him can refer to anyone. If I were critiquing that I would "referential ambiguity with the pronoun, yo" (without the "yo") but here I'm just sayin' "pick a him. It's not like there was a narrative flow to start with.")

3. I have worked out that I might actually finish my book someday. In fact, I have set myself a goal for when I will finish it, and thereby terrified myself into knitting and pretending my laptop has been sent away for repairs.

4. I am teaching a poetry class which is so much fun I can't stand it. It's a little bit too much fun at the moment, but I'll get over that, and it'll go back to being just fun enough. Maybe.

5. Yesterday afternoon I wound a small skein of cashmere into a wee ball to make a lovely lace scarf with. Well yesterday afternoon and evening and long into the night. I make a bit of a mess of it, and I was determined not to break the yarn. It took ...a very long time ...but I am happy to report no yarn was broken in the winding of the cashmere. For a lot of that time, I had good conversation and good company. Then everyone wanted to go to sleep and I had just the dog, who was snoring. And this morning I started the scarf I want to make with it, and lo, it is pretty. And the three year old I look after looked at the pattern and at my scarf and said

"Oh I like the one in the picture better." and I compared the two and they were exactly the same.
"How is that possible?" I asked.
"Well I thought you were making a white one", she said.
"but I have blue yarn."
"Yeah, I was curious to see how blue wool could make a white scarf. But" and she sounded just a bit disappointed in me "I guess you aren't even going to try that."

6. I need to go do errands. Like - now. What are you hanging around here for? Go read something profound about someone's deeply held beliefs. What are you hanging around here for?

Monday Morning Conversation

2011-03-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

Three year old: Every time you eat a good breakfast, it makes your body feel like running and running and running.
Me: huh. Doesn't seem to work like that for me.
Three year old: Oh Susan. Every body is different.

on balance ...

2011-03-05T23:56:00.000-07:00

Today was a seriously good day.

I taught today, a workshop I've only taught once before (description here: http://www.alexandrawriters.org/saturday.html - you'll have to scroll down) and there was a good group of people that got along well and we had a lot of fun besides. Man I like teaching.
And then I came home and helped A with homework and folded laundry and cleaned up the kitchen and made supper (yes, in that order) and my brother said nice things to me over the phone and whoever is in charge of the Perpetual Novel planted some plot fine tuning in my head and ...

It's been a great day.

Grin

2011-03-04T17:03:00.000-07:00

A, trying to convince me to help with her homework, (as I am making supper): "You can be like my psychiatrist."

Me: "How, exactly?"

A: "You just say "Mmhmm" and write down what I say."

Letters

2011-03-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Dog:
Wow. Thanks for not chasing the deer that was on our lawn at 3 a.m. You really DID have to go!

Dear Deer:
You are very pretty. Hang out on my lawn any time.

Dear Weather:
You suck.

Dear Mean Person in My Dream:
a) the sweater I was making in my dream? WOULD SO FIT ME.
b) I'm not making a sweater out here in the real world, and yet I am still annoyed with you. How does that work?

Dear Child Who Intercepted The Call From The School Reporting Your Absence:
That is WAY up there on the Not Cool scale.

Dear Child Who Woke Me Up To Watch You Hurl Not Once, Not Twice, But Three Times Last Night:
I love you too.

Dear Universe:
Please be gentle with me today? I'm low on reserves.

ETA: Dear Blogger: Seriously? DO NOT EAT THIS POST. Is "Publish" so tricky?

Some things I've been thinking

2011-03-02T17:31:00.000-07:00

1. We are not the source of every hurt our children will suffer, nor are we meant to be the cure for them all.

2. How do I love my children unconditionally? What kinds of conditions exist only in my head, buried beneath hopes and expectations and thinking I knew what to expect? How do I find out what they are and get RID OF THEM?

It's not like I accomplished nothing this week.

2011-02-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

I coughed an impressive number of times.

I set a new personal record for number of hours spent sleeping in a given 24 hour period.

And I finished these:

Who doesn't love hearing about someone else's health?

2011-02-17T15:43:00.000-07:00

I'll put all the other trivia up here and then you can just stop reading for the ambulance ride stuff.

1. Slipper Update. I picked up the slippers and fixed them with a stern glare today, and then announced to 258 Facebook friends that I was going to beat the slipper into submission today. Then I had to lie down. (see ER visit, below) Dear Facebook friends - I lied to you all.

2. My kids are off school for a five day weekend. This morning A made baked oatmeal for breakfast and lo, it was delicious.

3. A chiropractor should have warm hands.

4. I have been home from work since Tuesday.  The dog is delighted by this, and every time I sit down, she jumps into my lap and licks my hand. I think she likes me, or, at the very least, has decided that of all the packs available to join, mine is best because I feed her.

5. How I Spent Tuesday.

I woke up with the same sore throat I had gone to bed with, took some Cold FX, went to work. (I babysit) Called the mom around 9:30 to say if there was a chance that this was one of those days where she could come home early, it might be a good idea, because I wasn't feeling well and I didn't want to make her kids sick. By the time she got home, half an hour later, I realized that I was missing something, and that something was oxygen.
As a species, we tend to need oxygen. I went home and used my "when you're having an attack" inhaler and my lungs shrugged and said "sorry but we are pouting."  So I tried that again an hour or so later and got the same reaction so I went to the Urgent Care place and began the long process of telling them that yes, I knew I wasn't wheezing and I knew my oxygen sats looked good but this is what an asthma attack looks like for me and I need a breathing treatment. They were happy to hand me Ventilin and let me suck away at it, but in the meantime, because my most consistent asthma symptom is pain between the shoulder blades, they did a blood test to make sure I wasn't having a heart attack (I wasn't) and one called a DDIMER (sp?) to check for unusual clotting.  I laid around trying to breathe and sleep and a nurse came in around six and said "we're just going to hook you up to some oxygen."
"Why?"
She looked at the wall. "Oh just in case."
Yeah right, I thought. And spent the next twenty minutes, before the doctor came to tell me what was up, quite sure that I was having a heart attack and telling God I trusted Him with my life, but could it please NOT be a heart attack?  that is just SO cliched - fat woman has heart attack. It would be so embarrassing.
When they were hooking up the "just in case" IV, the nurse told me I could go ahead and let my husband go home.
I asked no questions, but raised my eyebrow at her.
Then the doctor came and said the DDIMER showed "elevation" which could be a lot of things but let's just make sure it's not a blood clot, okay? and there will be an ambulance here soon to take you to somewhere that can do a CAT scan.
And DUDES! The CAT scan was COOL. I was mildly disappointed not to end up on a sandswept planet when it was all done (ala StarGate) but all in all, it was an interesting experience.
And lo, there was no blood clot, and I was given antibiotics just in case the cold decided to become pneumonia and prednisone for the asthma and now I am lying around all languid and breathless, glaring at my knitting.

Also I would like you to know that it is VERY HARD to knit with one of those stupid oxygen sensors on your finger.

Also I have learned from my last ambulance trip. I had both my knitting AND my pants. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

WAIT I ALMOST FORGOT. Trippiest Facebook message ever? "Hello I babysat you when you were four." And she did. She remembers my mom and says I was an angel. (I was. Nauseatingly good, and proud of it, too.) She asked if I still had blonde curls. I had to say yes to the curls, but "only out of a bottle" to the blonde ...

I lied about the slipper

2011-02-14T14:44:00.001-07:00

The slipper is in time out. It does not have the right number of stitches on it, and although I tried to tell myself that it was a SLIPPER for PETE'S sake, so what if there are two stitches LESS on this one???? ...I couldn't do it. I now have to pick back the finished slipper to the start of the decrease rows and figure out what I did, because the pattern is incorrect and I don't remember how I altered it.

I hate knitting.

In other news, all the dishcloths I have made this year were sold at a fundraiser Friday night. Yippee skippy! If you want to buy some dishcloths - don't look at me. Go find a craft show. Mine are nicer than those ones, but I'm not making any more just yet.

I am, however, considering setting fire to the rest of the dishcloth cotton in my stash.*

In other other news, I really like the little girls I babysit. If I were just sitting at home trying to write a novel, nobody would ever say to me "Can we please please PLEASE go to the grocery store?" And when I go to the grocery store by myself, no-one evers asks me "Do you want to know what the funkiest car in Cuba was?" And when I'm in my house, just me and the dog, I never walk into the kitchen and find someone gluing paper wings to their brand new running shoes.

(I had to take a picture. She was so heartbroken to be told that brand new running shoes weren't craft supplies.)

And if I was smarter than my new phone, I could even show you the picture.

*It's not really a stash. Other people have a lot more stash than I do. I have ...yarn that I totally plan to absolutely make stuff out of. And some for petting.

Actual unretouched conversation

2011-02-02T20:04:00.000-07:00

Offspring: you bought more shampoo? I thought I had only one bottle but I just noticed I have two.

Parent: Odd. I thought I had two bottles and I couldn't find any.

just how complicated is a slipper?

2011-02-02T16:56:00.000-07:00

(this post is for J-L)

So I knit my b-i-l a slipper for Christmas. That was lovely of me, except he has two feet. I didn't want to cast the slipper off and move on to the next slipper because I wanted to be sure it would fit. So at Christmas time, I knit all the way to the end of one slipper and sort of fake sewed it together to see if it would fit. It did.

Then I didn't want to leave it sewed up because I wanted to be sure the second slipper was the same size as the first (although nobodys feet are exactly the same size as each other so why did I do that?) but since it was already off the needle I put it on a stitch holder and stowed the needles in my knitting bag. On my way home I knit half a pair of baby socks and didn't even think about the slipper because I knew I was going to run out of yarn anyway.

So I got home and stowed the needles in my big ol' sack of circs, and life continued apace. I kept forgetting to buy more yarn. I was knitting baby socks, and then a hat, and then forty frillion dishcloths (in the interest of full disclosure - only 18. So far.) And then when I finally got yarn, I couldn't remember what size needle I'd used. The pattern suggested a needle size - had I used that? Had I made up my own head? I cast the slipper on and in a sort of Goldilocks way, started knitting swatches of second slippers until I had one that was just right. This took several days because it wasn't a mindless take-along project and I started two new jobs and B had eleventy hundred hockey games.

The next part that took more days was I used up the first ball of yarn and did about half the slipper, and needed to start the new ball of yarn. This got into Tricky Territory again because the slippers are knitted using two strands of yarn, and I am at my most convoluted when I have something to overthink. How best to do two strands at once? Pull from the centre and the outside at the same time? Wind off half the yarn into another ball and use two balls at once? (I rejected this initially because if the two balls of yarn didn't have exactly the same amount of yarn in them, planets would collide, and I'm in enough trouble already) I finally decided that the only thing to do was take from the inside and outside at the same time and wind a ball that had both strands already together ie the very thing I had done when I made the first slipper.

So I took an entire morning at work to do that. As my work is looking after two small children, there were times when I wished I had waited for a more opportune moment, by which I mean any moment in which a 13 mo old would not try to help with the yarn. I have several of those moments in my life, but I chose to utilize none of them.

And then when that was all done, I didn't like it. The strands were all twisty and annoying. Clearly the only thing to do was wind smaller balls from the big ball, which of course had to be done simultaneously. I saw no reason to wait until nobody short and shrieky wanted to help me, that is, not until 12 seconds into the job, at which point I should have stopped, but I thought it wouldn't take that long, and plopped her in a playpen. I forgot the part where time passes at different speeds for an adult engrossed in what they are doing, and a furious thirteen month old who wants to help.

My eye has finally stopped twitching, and the reverberating echoes have died down.

I've only got half a slipper left, and I'm visiting my Mom tonight, and a visit with my mom pretty much consists of sitting at her bedside prattling away and knitting. Wish me luck!

Hello, I have been sleeping

2011-01-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

And babysitting and knitting half a dishcloth (I know right? SLOW DOWN with the frantic knitting output, Plett. Half a dishcloth in a WEEK? By the end of the year you will have ...SIX of those babies. What will you DO with them all?) and delivering flyers (I deserve Stellar Plan of the Year Award for that one) and making lunches, (some of them for very short people who tell you what they want by walking up to you, making eye contact and nodding carefully, even if they have not been asked a direct question) and teaching a class and locking myself out of someone else's house, with someone else's children in a stroller gazing at me in wide eyed wonder. And driving people to piano and work and dance classes and talking to banks on the phone and handing out hot chocolate to homeless people downtown. (Best day of the year so far, the hot chocolate thing.)

Some of those days there has been NO COFFEE.

On all of those days there has been no blogging, but let me just tell you, if I had the confidentiality aspect of blogging about other people's children and downstairs room-mates and housekeepers settled in my own mind, there would have been blogging. Even thinking about Thursday makes me want to both lay my head on something soft and weep, and ALSO giggle hysterically - and then there was Friday. "Fridays are a little crazy at our house" I always say, but now I know the truth. Friday HATES me, until about 6 pm, when it suddenly remembers how nice I am. Friday is a tantrumming toddler who notices something bright and shiny and musical at around 6 pm, but not before it has spent the rest of its time kicking me in whatever body parts it can reach.

And now I am going to go knit another 1/200th of a dishcloth. Christmas is only eleven months away!

(Oops, J-L, I meant your slipper, I'm totally going to knit your slipper, because THAT Christmas is only a month away. In the other direction. That Christmas totally wins.)

Ahhhh the love.

2011-01-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

An unnamed offspring and I went to the grocery store.

As we made our way to the car, I teased "So where to next? The chiropractor?"

"No."

"The dentist?"

"No."

"Theeeeeee - "

I got interrupted.

"Look. I am HUNGRY. I just want to go HOME."

I paused. "Well *I* want to go to the chiropractor? And do you know why? Because HE never yells at me."

"Yeah? Well I bet he's wanted to at least once or twice!"

why this insistence on titles? it's a BLOG POST.

2011-01-13T17:04:00.000-07:00

So here's what happens when it's cold outside and I have to deliver flyers.

1. a lot of whining in my head
2. a lot of praying for stamina
3. an annoying amount of overassessment of how my knees are, or how my back is

ie. I dread it. I look at the weather report and try to figure out if I have enough warm clothes to wear and when I start out I shiver before I even leave the house.

And then I do the flyer route, shedding layers of cold weather wear like dandruff, until I'm down to three shirts and a scarf and a hat and only one pair of mittens ...and it takes me about an hour (sometimes more. For instance, today I took extra time to pile all the flyers into the back of my van, drive four blocks and then open the back of the van and watch the flyers cascade onto the snow covered street. Exactly what I was hoping would happen, because then I got to pick them all up again and figure out how to transport them without an instant replay) There is plenty of cheering self-talk for the half i do without B (I do some while he is still in school) Although today I sort of messed up on the cheering part of that.

"Sue," I said. "It's only exercise. Nobody ever died from exercise. Well, except that one time your Dad cleaned the snow off the driveway..." And then I was glad no-one could hear me.

And then suddenly I am done the flyer route and I feel like I am made up of 100% Awesome.

How To Make Supper

2011-01-12T17:12:00.000-07:00

My way. Some of you just go into the kitchen and make supper. I wish I were you.

Go into the kitchen.

Look around alot and pour yourself a glass of water. Think while you are drinking the water.

Remember you are there to cook supper.

Get out the frying pan, put the hamburger in it. Add a spice or two.

Watch hamburger fry.

Realize you are bored and go get the dishcloth you are knitting.

Knit and stir hamburger.

Answer your cell phone and ask whoever it is to call you on the home phone, reasoning this will buy you enough time to finish your row.

Answer the house phone and start opening cans of things to make the hamburger into chili. Sigh as you put the knitting down because you seem to have misplaced your third and fourth hands.

Spill baked beans on the floor and step in them.

Hang up the phone.

Clean up the baked beans, throw a lot of things into the pan, and pick up your knitting.

Leave it just "on the bubble" for as long as it takes to make an entire blog entry around "oh gross I stepped on baked beans!"

Fetch the offspring and eat.

Scrabble conversation with my mother

2011-01-11T16:45:00.001-07:00

(Aside: Mom always asks how to spell things. Spelling things wrong is her super power. My Dad used to mess with her mind, for example:
Mom, writing a shopping list: How do you spell Metamucil?
Dad: M-E-T-A-L M-U-S-C-L-E.
Which Mom would faithfully write down and then crumple the list up and throw it at him. Good times.)

It's my mother's turn in Scrabble.

Mom: How do you spell (mumbled)?

Me: Clawed as in ripped your face off or clod as in chunk of dirt?

Mom: QUAD. As in with a Q.

Me: Q-U-A-D

Mom (disappointed) Oh. I needed it to be Q-U-R-R-D-S.

Seriously? Dec 30? As in last YEAR?

2011-01-11T14:57:00.000-07:00

Well here's the thing. I keep thinking "Hey I should blog about that" and before I get a chance to something else blog-worthy happens and it gets added to the list and now the list of things I thought would make good blog fodder is so long that nobody will read it.

Wait since when do I care if anyone reads this?

Thing the First.

I have not finished the Christmas knitting. However, because I take a less than linear approach to life, I have started some of next year's Christmas knitting. This makes me happier than it should.

Thing the Second.

My mother had a great Christmas, on January 2nd, because on January 2nd, her entire family came together all in one place for Christmas - all her kids and grandkids, and one delicious wee bump that is currently housing a great grandchild. After everyone else had left, Mom and I played Scrabble and suddenly Mom looked over at me.
"That was so cute." she said.

"What was so cute?"

"That baby bump." She paused. "I want to see who's in there!"

Me too.

Thing the Third.

Flyers. What was I thinking? But then I get out there and start walking and feel like maybe I can do basic exercising things like walk and even if it is cold out, I start to feel better. Even when it is -Alot. (Today started out at -24, but is now a balmy -17 and sunny. I have done almost half the flyers, and B and I will do the other half when he gets home from school. I was planning to be all bossy about him doing exactly half but he has things like school and hockey that interfere with my bossiness.

Thing the Fourth.

A is in Grade Ten this year. I do not think this has been a particularly easy semester to be A. You could pray for her, if you want. I know I am doing so.

Thing the Fifth.

A group of knitters I know started an innocuous knitting contest that has knocked all reason out of my head. I always think I am not competitive because it only makes me cranky to lose sometimes (yes I'm reading what I'm writing) but ...yeesh. I don't even want the prizes, I just want to Do Well. Like I have something to prove.

On the other hand, I should have some dishcloths for sale fairly soon :)

Thing the Sixth

If that's the real time, I'm late to pick up B. And we have SO MUCH FUN waiting for us, out in the snow and cold.

There were more Things, but #6 is trumping them all.

More bits, fewer snits

2010-12-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

1. I am wearing rather a lot of clothes. For someone who lives in a country with four distinct seasons, I do rather a lot of avoiding weather. It's either too hot or too cold or too full of air to be outside. The stupid thing is - I love walking. I just don't do it.

And then I got this GREAT idea that B and I should deliver flyers. The flyer people don't care how much of a weather wimp you are. So I put on two pairs of socks and two pairs of pants and three fleece shirts and a knitted cowl and a knitted hand and a winter jacket and some mittens - halfway through I took my jacket off, because it turns out it was only -16, not -2,000,007.

I wiped out most spectacularly at that one house with the ice. They try hard to deal with the ice but something about the particular configuration of their sidewalk and Calgary's insane melty-freezey-melty psychotic approach to winter makes that one bit of their sidewalk super icy. Today the ice was covered by fresh snow, and I went down like a sack of seriously annoyed potatoes. I lay there thinking that I hated myself and my life and that I was useless and couldn't do anything right and the man next door asked me if I was alright and then I realized I actually ...was. I canned the self-flagellation and just cried for awhile and now my upper arms are very very sore but my knees, thank you Lord, my knees and back are okay. My pride? hugely dented. Probably needed a smacking.

2. This is for the non-knitters. If you are at a hockey tournament and one of the moms is knitting a dishcloth, don't even JOKE about "how much do you charge?" because the one thing a knitter prizes, above all, is an appreciative recipient. Someone who doesn't even know you who likes your knitting so much they are willing to PAY you for it? That is like CRACK, people. And you don't know if those dishcloths are meant for someone else and if your begging to buy them might cause that knitter to stay up all night for the next few nights feverishly knitting dishcloths to give away at her family Christmas on January 2nd because she was AHEAD of the game and then you TRIED TO BUY THINGS FROM HER. Which she now has to replace.

Stop it.

3. I was so tempted to sell dishcloths yesterday. Those same people will be there today, at B's game. I am leaving the completed dishcloths at home and I am not taking anyone's address or phone number.

bits and snits

2010-12-30T10:40:00.000-07:00

1. Apparently this is the time of year when I am sulky. I am trying not to be, with limited success.

2. So I had this great idea. B wanted a flyer route, and when I called up to sign him up for one the flyer route people had three of them lying around and so I took them all. How hard could it be?

Gee, I don't know, stupid. You haven't done anything but nurse your aching back for almost three solid months - how could delivering 250 flyers twice a week aggravate anything??? One of the routes is B's, one is mine, and one has been taken over by a friend and her kids until I can gracefully back out of it. Two is do-able, especially once my body gets used to being asked to do things again, and B and I do them together, which is enjoyable but in the meantime - I hurt all. the. time. Which leads me down the road to self-flagellation, because being out of shape is all my fault. Especially the arthritic knees part.

It should get easier, no? Come spring I'll be gambolling about like a newborn lamb, handing out flyers with a big smile on my (hot sweaty) face.

Today, however, it is -17 and I am attempting to convince myself I want to out into the deep freeze so I can come home and hurt and shiver for the rest of the day.

To add insult to injury, the big doors on the van are all frozen shut, so I can't even load the cartfull of flyers into the van. I haven't worked out exactly what I'm going to do instead, yet, and B is still asleep, due to a hockey tournament high that kept him up well past midnight.

3. that's enough whining. I'm going to go knit a baby sock and hope my son wakes up before noon.

Well that was an interesting day

2010-12-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

Without a lot of boring preamble, let me just share with you one of those Mom moments I didn't see coming. We'll tell it from the point of view of the old couple I startled. I have no idea what they said, I'm just guessing.

"What is that hanging from the fence post?" he asks, as he pulls the car into the driveway.

She follows where he's pointing. "Shorts? Maybe?"

The shorts are white, they sort of blend in with the snow all around.

A large, cranky woman roars up in a minivan and stomps out of her vehicle. She snatches the basketball shorts off the fence post, and notices the couple watching her.

"Teenagers!" she growls, and drives off.

(Dropped them. On the way home from a friend's.)

***

Later that day, as I was sitting high up in the stands at A's basketball game, knitting a dishcloth, a woman about my age joined me and struck up a conversation. Extremely friendly woman. The first thing she said to me was "Look at this church!" I looked up and she was holding out an iPhone. Church was in Gary, Indiana, apparently - gorgeous church.
So we talked and talked and talked and every so often she'd cheer for A's team (her daughter wasn't playing till later) and one thing led to another and before I knew it she was knitting on the second project I had in my bag, for when I was finished with dishcloths. Or needed a change.
And then A's game ended and she was reluctant to give up the knitting, so we exchanged cell phone numbers and agreed to meet for coffee Tuesday.
Last night she texted me. "I've run out of yarn - where can I drop this off?"

Easiest Christmas knitting I've ever done!

Hey! here's a trick!

2010-12-09T04:13:00.000-07:00

How oh how does one get an ice pack to stay in the center-ish of one's back? (at the bra line, so to speak, if you are of the gender that wears a bra) Lean on it, sure, but then you move to pick up your dropped knitting needle, and there you are arching your spasming back trying to get the ice pack back in place, thereby causing more spasming ...

OR ...you could put the ice pack in a pillow case, and sling it over your shoulder.

I thought that one up myself, but I bet a lot of people thought it up before me.

In which I type a lot, and possibly say something

2010-12-08T16:27:00.000-07:00

Wow, am I driving a lot for someone who isn't supposed to be driving. I think the pain that originally sent me to the ER sans clothing is now gone. However, it may be working its way up my body, as I am now sort of almost always in pain of some sort that feels exactly like someone has been kicking me in the back. A lot. If I bend over to do anything like tie shoes or load the dishwasher or dress myself, there is a sharp spike in the pain that causes me to say GNURGH!, loudly, and freeze for a few seconds.

It's very entertaining. I've decided it will be helpful to lose 100 lbs by Friday. My mother asked how that was going for me, and I said "It's only Wednesday!"

Meanwhile my house needs to be cleaned and Christmas needs to happen, somehow. When I start to panic about the mess, I remember that when I *could* clean my house, I often didn't.

BUT! My mother! and I have had two lovely outings in the last week. She lives very close to both a dentist and an eye doctor, so I've been taking her out for maintenance (hee) and then we've been going to lunch, etc. Today we finished up with the cutest little bowls of gelato you ever did see. So nice to be doing something with her besides sitting by her bedside.

Also got lost last night trying to pick A up from a friend's house - lets pretend the address was 8446 Overhere Road. The GPS delivered me to house number 8446 at the corner of Overhere Road and 86th St. So I sat outside for twenty minutes, knitting dishcloths in the dark, not wanting to nag, and finally called the house and told them I was sitting right outside. More minutes passed. I went and rang the doorbell, and a very large, very pink, very round, very shirtless bald man answered the door and said "you're at 8446 86th St. 8446 Overhere Road is two houses east."

WAY TO GO, city planners. NOT AT ALL confusing. It's not like I wouldn't get lost left to myself, you know. You don't have to make efforts to make it harder.

GNURG. Time to go. I GNURG'd at the chiropractor's today and he offered to put my shoes on for me. What I said out loud was "There are limits to my willingness to be helpless" but what I thought was - Not while there is breath in my body.

Also? Blog fodder

2010-12-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

So I like it when TechnoBoy has been driving the van because he backs into the driveway and I don't have to step out into a snowbank. A few days ago it occurred to me that I could try backing into the driveway myself even though I am quite sure that backing up AND aiming the vehicle at something, both at the same time, is ...beyond me.

So I backed in. Broke ...nothing. Did not hit the garage, did not run over children or stray dogs, parked close enough to the edge of the driveway that TechnoBoy can back the other vehicle, the pampered one, into the garage.

So I have been continuing to back in. The stomachache at the mere thought of it has receded to just the slightest pinching, and this morning, as I was backing up in the dark after running a way-too-early errand, I had to take a few tries. I berated myself then said out loud:

"The important thing is that you are trying it."

Pause.

"And more important? There is no-one awake at this hour of the day to watch you."

Because I care about you.

2010-12-03T11:34:00.000-07:00

Just a bit of advice. Everybody likes advice, right?

When you mix together a few ingredients to make a sauce to pour over the meatballs so there's dinner in the crockpot for whoever shows up whenever because Fridays are a big slice of crazy pie* at your house, whisk gently. Seriously. Gently.

Worcestershire in the eyeball is not an experience to be recommended.

*hat tip Yarn Harlot for the phrase

Don't even bother to read this

2010-12-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

I've got no post planned and probably there is going to be whining.

I can't even tell you how sick and tired I am of my back. It's better and then it's not and then it is and then it's not and then - you get the picture. Please do not comment with any sympathy. I'm sick of myself, and sympathy will make me feel like I'm justified in whining.

I am not.

Also, I am not qualified to raise children. Especially enormous children who are either taller than I am, or almost taller than I am, and are bright and beautiful and complicated and only reluctantly communicative and frankly, terrifying. It's not like I'm scared OF them, I'm scared FOR them, and all the learning and shaping and hurt there is out there just waiting for them. On days when I have much too much time to think (see above re BACK), I can see this hurt stalking them, lying in wait for them (although it may, in truth, be "laying" in wait for them instead - feel free to correct my grammar in the comments, just please, for the sake of my already overactive imagination, do not do it anonymously) and I know that if I don't monitor every single action and interaction, God will not be able to go into this great big world with my child. And certainly I must know everything in order for God to know everything, right? For God to be able to work with them in their pain and insecurities, in their trials AND their triumphs, don't *I* have to be fully informed?

The thing is - I'm actually glad it doesn't work that way. I want a God who can do more than I can. I *need* that God.

I'm just saying - toddlers are tough. I remember that. I remember counting to 17 million and 5 while I waited for someone to decide to stop screaming, lying on their back in a parking lot, while old ladies tried to call 911 for me. But when they're toddlers, you get to be in charge of pretty much ALL the consequences. I don't want to be in charge forever, truly I don't, but I think my Parenting Report Card might, at this moment, read: "Does Not Transition Well." At least my children are super super patient with all that hovering hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahah oh I crack myself up.

You know, right up until I typed this sentence, I didn't know I needed to hear this:

"When they're toddlers, you get to be in charge of pretty much ALL the consequences."

I kind of feel better now.

Oh look a blog

2010-11-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging. I'm waiting to see if I can get my sitemeter "average hits per day" to zero.

Not really. It's just the older your kids get, the fewer cute things they say. And sometimes when you sit down to write all that wants to come out is an inarticulate scream or possibly just sobbing ...and that's not what I do here. I'm PollyFrickinAnna and I plan to stay that way.

The dog is ...nutty. I've been at home with a backache forfreakingever and now when I leave the house for an extended absence of say, twelve and a half minutes, she greets me upon my return as though I'm the first rain in the desert for seven years.

What's terminally cute is the neighbour's daughter, who is about 8? 7? has put a sign up on our mailboxes saying "I walk dogs. I walk small dogs. I walk them around the pond. I charge $2. I love dogs!" and listed her phone number. And then there is a helpful drawing of a dog just in case you don't know what kind of animal she is referring to. (both her older and younger brothers have made appearances on this blog over the years. I'm glad they live on our street.)

It has been 2 million and 5 degrees below zero here, with a windchill of minus waymorethanthat, and she calls every day. "Does Toopka need a walk?"

Indubitably, honey, but she also needs all the body parts she is currently in possession of.

**
Oh hey, here's a thing! Speaking of the Family Across The Street, we have this thing going on where if I have no butter I call them and if they have no taco shells they call me and if I have no bread ...you get the picture. Sometimes I bake cookies and send some of them across the street. Sometimes my mother in law bakes buns and I send some over there, because who could walk by our house and smell that and not have a moment of pure longing? It's magic. I make a call, a small person shows up at my door holding the missing item. Or I get a call and there is a small person on my doorstep holding out their hand. I like this arrangement. Makes me believe we're not all so barricaded into our separate houses that we can't be accessible to each other now and then.

My mother in law was visiting the other day, and we needed evaporated milk, which - can you believe it?? - I did not have on hand. I called across the street, a small person showed up bearing the goods.

Later that week, my mother in law came in from the grocery store with evaporated milk. I blinked at it in confusion. "We need more of this?"
Mom gestured across the street. "Oh but you need to give it back to the neighbours."

While this is a perfectly reasonable expectation, I'm sure they were just as bemused as I was.

I'm glad they live on our street.

Lost and Found

2010-11-12T21:27:00.000-07:00

My mother knit all through my childhood, with painstaking care. She was not a fast knitter, but she enjoyed it. She made sweaters and big thick mittens and wraps and shrugs and one year when I was in my late teens she made me a long white scarf.

I did not like the scarf.

It was exactly the right length and I liked the pattern and I liked the tassles on the end but - it had mistakes in it. There were two rows of ribbing in the seed stitch border, and a few other glitches here and there. I thanked her for it but inside I thought "Have some standards!" (Teenager - not giving a parent a break. Has never happened before or since) I wore it but really ...it niggled. I wanted to reknit one in the same pattern that was RIGHT.

I never did.

Two years ago, while my mother was undergoing a surgery that was supposed to kill her, I knit all day, and wondered where that white scarf had gone to. Had I thrown it out? Why oh why had I not tucked it away somewhere, why hadn't I treasured it?

She can't knit any more.

Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about the white scarf, probably the last thing she knit for me, and I want to go back and find that younger me and give her a good talking to. I've searched the closet a dozen times looking for it, wracked my brain trying to remember when I finally threw it out.

Yesterday we spend some time working on tidying up our basement. Mostly I sat in a chair and bossed people around, but at the end of the day, I went into the basement bedroom and saw a box of boots and winter wear that hadn't been gone through.

At the bottom of the box, underneath the old mitts and toques - a glint of white.

It's still the perfect length, and I still love the tassles. And all those mistakes I remember are still there and ...

I couldn't care less.

Thanks for the scarf, Mom. I hope it lasts a lifetime.

And then there's the day ...

2010-11-06T12:12:00.000-06:00

Maybe it's a Saturday morning, and you're feeling a little fragile because the day before you said "Fine! I will do it mySELF" and your back ...is still your back, not your healed back ...

and everyone else in the house is busy or wants to be a kid, not your helper, and you lean your head back on your chair and say "Please, God, meet my needs today. Help me know what the difference between NEED and WANT is."

And from your music player comes the song*:

I'll hide in the shadow of Your wings
and listen
while You sing

I'll hide in the shadow of Your wings
and listen
while You sing
over me.

And you remember that, whatever it is - God's got your back. (no double meaning intended, but it's likely still true in that sense as well)

*free dishcloth for the first person who tells me where that song is from. Feel free to google it (I don't know if that will even work!).

I get all quiet sometimes ...

2010-11-03T11:30:00.001-06:00

Yes, those of you who remember me from high school, I really do.

I don't blog as much when I'm struggling to be cheerful. Maybe that makes me dishonest, I don't know. Monday I was very tempted to treat you all to a long waily waily post about how overwhelmed I was feeling but it turned out that a close friend picked up on how discouraged I was and brought me a coffee, and another close friend answered my "how is family going to get FED??" by sitting down with a pen and a paper and saying "ok what's for dinner tonight? And do you have the ingredients?" and by the time she left there was a menu plan for the week and a grocery list and the friend with the coffee was on her way to the grocery store.

Last night I needed to pick up a prescription or two and a friend (that's the third one) came to give me a ride and drop A off at piano on the way by ...we left B home alone, and when we came back, half an hour later, supper was ready and waiting, because the boy loves tacos enough to have taught himself how to make them. And he does it all - cooks the meat, slices and chops and shreds until there's lettuce and tomatoes and cheese ...

I have nothing to whimper about. What was discouraging me was that I hadn't been to the chiro in a week and a half (because he was out of town) and on Monday, when I went, he said that I had been in better shape the last time he'd seen me - in other words, no forward progress, considerable backward progress.

HOWEVER. Today he gave me exercises to do so we've moved on from mere symptom treatment to some prevention.

And the sun is shining.

And the people in my novel are speaking to me again and !!!! There is going to be a meeting between two very unlikely people, in this novel, and I can't wait to write it, because it's going to make me cry. A little child shall lead them, I tell you!

Also this is what we saw out our back window Sunday morning:

I think they were brothers. There are two hundred and fifty million trees out behind our fence, but they were fighting over this one.

There was originally a third porcupine. I think this is their parent, likely a parent who achieves more emotional distance from squabbling offspring than I do. Or a much younger sibling who didn't want to get in trouble for fighting. The Good One. Climbing a totally different tree.

And this is how I handed out candy Sunday night. Missing from this picture are:

- the recliner TechnoNiceMan moved outside for me so I could hand out candy without hobbling across the living room and down two stairs every time the cherubs hollered

- my knitting.

And no, I have no idea what that look on my face is. I could barely see. (In fact, I dumped a handfull of candy all over a teenager's feet. The teenager was kind about it.)

Oh hi

2010-10-23T23:27:00.000-06:00

Still here. Still finding things that aggravate whatever is going on with my lower back. Am limping most convincingly again today after having a few days of walking so well even *I* started to suspect I was making a log out of a speck. (Or something. There are no good nether-region analogies.)

Here's why my mother in law is a star.

I walk (hobble, limp, stumble, wince) into the kitchen today where she is making meat loaf, vegetable soup (with farmer sausage in it. Apparently farmer sausage is a Mennonite vegetable) chicken noodle soup, a chicken casserole, and chili, all at once. Every available counter surface is covered with pots or pans or something in progress.

"Whoa!" I say "You're about as busy as a person can get!"

She shakes her head. "No, I'm just standing here wondering what else I can get started while I'm waiitng for all this."

Spam

2010-10-21T08:25:00.000-06:00

The e-mail:

"60% off maternity clothes!!"

My answer:

"That ship has sailed."

read this quick and I'll post something cheerful after lunch

2010-10-19T08:14:00.000-06:00

But wait! just thinking about lunch cheered me up, because a friend of mine makes this AMAZING vegetarian casserole just chock full of all kinds of veggies that are good for you and I can't even tell you how much I love it because it's not like I'm a writer and good with words or anything BUT! She brought over a big container of it yesterday, and it is sitting in my refrigerator at this very moment, whispering to me about how great my lunch is going to be today.

As I am once again working on losing weight (nothing like pain to make you pay attention! see http://www.wouldshed.blogspot.com/), a veggie-rich lunch is a delight.

That's not what I fired up this thing to say but what I had to say is whining about how I overdid it yesterday by ~~mowing the lawn~~ ~~scrubbing a floor~~ ~~running a marathon~~ ~~lifting a bus off a senior citizen~~ grating a pound of cheese. So I won't say that.

Except I have this liniment I'm supposed to use as often as possible that makes me smell like a nursing home, and it is applied with a roller ball. Considering the size of my posterior, every time I roll it on, I think "this would go much faster with a paint brush."

Being who I am, that thought makes me grin.

yeah, that too

2010-10-17T22:51:00.000-06:00

So A and TechnoMathDegree are doing Grade Ten math. A is not necessarily catching on.

TMD: That's not quite it.

A: but I had good intentions!

Me: Ever hear what the road to h@!! is paved with?

A: Math?

The suffering continues apace.

2010-10-17T11:19:00.001-06:00

It is Sunday morning. I am not at church because sitting upright is pretty much the most painful position available. Even if I can sit upright without pain, when I move to stand up my back starts stomping its feet and whining.

Instead I am sitting here , with my feet up on a footstool that belonged to my father:

I am knitting. There is a small black dog on the couch across the way, hoping I'm done taking pictures of knitted items draped across her body.

There are hymns on the CD player, hot tea in my cup, and just for now, because I have been extremely careful to do pretty much nothing for the last few days and because someone was smart enough to invent freezers and ice packs, I am in no pain.

Drop by for tea any time :)

Zuma's Revenge it is!

2010-10-16T18:59:00.000-06:00

Just when I was starting to think I was the only computer game playing person in the universe, Ruthie got it right!

I'm ridiculously pleased that I get to send a dishcloth to another knitter.

Ruthie e-mail me at brekke2004@gmail.com with your mailing address, okay?

Here all the things I have accomplished since October 1

2010-10-15T20:18:00.000-06:00

I don't want you to think I'm just sitting here doing nothing, changing "the angle of tension on (my) lower back every twenty minutes". As if. I have done a BAZILLION things.

1. Ingested a variety of drugs, some of which made me as lucid as hand signals in fog. Or as this metaphor or simile or whatever.

2. Watched Chilean miners emerge and kiss people.

3. Read a really well done, thought provoking book, The Matter of Sylvie, by local author Lee Kvern.

4. Shot a lot of stone marbles out of a frogs mouth at some other stone marbles.

5. Knit a few dishcloths. Seriously. Only a few. But I will send one of them to whoever can tell me what game I'm referring to #4.

6. Whined. A lot. Wow. It's like I'm practicing for a Whining World Championship. I am so tired of myself, I can't even tell you.

7. Resolved to Whine Less.

8. Made 453,017 hot water bottles.

9. Wondered how my mother does it. How DOES my mother do it? She is made of much more patient stuff than I am. Why don't I put down whatever I am doing every single time she calls and talk till she's tired of talking to me? What is my problem?

10. Gone to the chiropractor. A lot of times.

11. Forgotten to be thankful for what I have 2 million and 87 times.

So here's what I am accomplishing tomorrow.

1. Knit a row on something every time I want to whine about my back.

That's a good start, no?

Say what?

2010-10-15T19:33:00.002-06:00

Where on earth have the last fifteen days GONE?

Hey look it's Tuesday!

2010-10-12T17:01:00.000-06:00

You know what's nice? Friends, that's what. Friends who call you just to see if you need a ride anywhere, or friends who spend the entire day with you making sure you are good to go after your night at the ER, or friends who cook a huge chicken dinner so your daughter can have that birthday party with "adults who mean something to me" that she wanted . And then stick around and clean up. Friends who do your foodshopping, who take you to the chiropractor three times a week, who show up and fold your laundry. Friends who give you books to read. Friends who come and hang out, friends who e-mail you encouraging wee notes.
How on earth I got so lucky, I'll never know.

I've named her Grace

2010-10-10T10:00:00.001-06:00

The lady in the mud hut in a small Kenyan village with SI joint trouble? Her name is Grace. That way I can lie awake at 3 am and pray for Grace. And for grace.

I was also thinking about my mother last night. My mother whose entire stomach herniated into her chest cavity, who had major surgery when she was over 70 and already bedridden, who is unable to walk due to aging and cerebral palsy, who could not have so much as a sip of water for two months after her surgery, and couldn't eat anything without throwing up for several months after that, and who never complained, not even once, not one time did she say "why is God doing this to me?" Who spends all her time in bed now, waking up when someone comes to visit, smiling that lovely acceptant smile of hers.

As I lay squinting into the dark and panting and wondering if there was any position at all I could attempt that would be comfortable and wishing it wasn't 5 more hours till the next painkiller ...I thought "Have I learned nothing from my mother?" And right then I decided to stay in the position I was in, which was almost comfortable, and I settled down to talk to God until I fell asleep.

And this morning I am resolved to be more like my mother.

I am resolved to be more like Jacqueline Roberts.

Those of you who have known us long enough will know the great redemption there is in being able to say that and mean it.

Blogging takes a hiatus when all I want to do is whine

2010-10-09T12:32:00.000-06:00

This thought has been occuring to me.

Somewhere there is someone who cannot afford health care, who is in the same pain I was in on Thursday night, and has either spent 24 hours or more waiting at a county hospital (if they live in the US) or maybe is just spending the day in a mud hut somewhere, unable to move and maybe terrified of the demons that are causing this ailment.

When I woke up at 3 am last night because the painkillers had worn off, I thanked God for painkillers, and prayed for that person, somewhere, without access to doctors or medicine who was in the same pain I was.

Adventures in Couch Sitting

2010-10-05T17:51:00.000-06:00

so it's not like I can't do anything. I just can't do anything that involves doing something while standing or bending.

Well, I can, actually. I can get up one morning and decide I feel just fine, thank you, and putter about the bedroom sorting laundry and tidying for fifteen whole minutes then wander downstairs and make a lunch then drive someone to school and then put a load of clothes in the washer ...

And then sit down in agony that does not abate.

So much the Amazing Power of Positive Thinking. There's apparently a fine line between positive thinking and denial.

It's not like life is boring, though.

The fiesty four year old showed up at my door, and seeing me sitting on the couch, proceeded to mouth things to me through the window. I got A to open the door and he asked her to tell me that B and S and C were being mean to him.

I listened to a long tale of woe.

I asked "Is there a reason you didn't tell your mom this?"

Him Oh I just didn't want to.

Me: Is it because your mom would ask you to solve it yourself?

Him: No no no.

(short pause)

Him: Actually yes that is why.

GRIN.

Sunday Several

2010-10-03T13:02:00.000-06:00

My Sunday Several is Several Things That Are Nice.

1. A husband who is not a nurturer by nature bringing you flowers when you are not 100%.

2. Chidren with a sense of humour. I don't remember what she said, but A had us all laughing at supper again last night.

3. Neighbours who make lasagne and bring it over for your whole family.

4. Walking to the bathroom and back without screaming.

5. A small black dog who glues herself to your side when you are sick.

6. Percocet, but it's best not to like that one too much.

7. A child who asks "Do you need anything else?"

8. Teenagers from your church stopping by after church with a box of chocolates to tell you they are thinking of you and praying for you. (Hee. I answered the door and S said "Have you heard the good news?" and I blanked for a second and then asked "Oh that Jesus loves me and has a wonderful plan for your life?" GRIN.)

9. My dog really is incredibly soft.

10. Canada Dry Green Tea Ginger Ale.

and then under Things That Are Just Plain Freaky :

1. I'm too tired/loopy-because-of-painkillers to KNIT.

Don't Mind Me, It's Just the Kain Pillers

2010-10-01T16:58:00.000-06:00

A piller of kain? pillar of kain?

Shut up, narcotized brain. Let me just say up front that while the medical profession is calling them painkillers, they're not killing the pain. They're taking the edge off. It's like they've sent the pain a sternly worded letter containing threats of Dire Consequences.

My pain is tougher than that.

Pain, you ask? Well I thought it was sciatica that wasn't radiating down my leg but it turns out that that's pretty much what sciatica is, the radiating, and so that's not what it is. The ER doctor flailed my limbs around for awhile and turned to the nurse and said "Write down 'acute sacroilitis' "

I invite you to google that. Here's a phrase that'll give you a clue what my last few days have been like. "Sacroiliitis can make it impossible to walk or move." I think my particular manifestation of this is not necessarily inflammation due to infection, but inflammation due to the fact that my sacrum and my ilium have had a minor falling out, a strain, if you prefer.

Whatever you call it, an IV with enough Demerol and then some other kind of "ol" that was pushed fast enough to make the room spin did not erase the pain. It maybe nailed it into a corner behind a barricade that it is busy kicking on as we speak. I have had percocet and am now able to take two entire steps without screaming, muffled or otherwise.

So last night at two in the morning, when the spousal unit was unable to get me off the toilet without my screaming in pain - seriously, out loud, screaming - I called 911, and two big burly men came and made me walk out of my house anyway. I can't even tell you how much fun that was.

Then they tried to give me morphine in the ambulance and I experienced Side Effects while the pain laughed and pointed.

A did not wake up when the ambulance arrived.

B woke up, noticed there was a tall stranger in his house, and backed away and gently closed his door.

The dog expressed her opinion and then tried to glue herself to my body.

TechnoBoy stuffed a few things in a bag for me. "Get the knitting" I said. He found things like my health care card and my wallet. "I need knitting!" Eventually he caught on that, agony or no agony, I wasn't leaving the house without something to knit.

Which brings me to today's Handy Tip From Those in The Know, that you will thank me for some day when you're in the ER waiting room waiting for someone to come and take you home, at noon ...

When you are inching your way down the stairs at 3 am, shaking and crying and moaning in pain, and your husband is packing a bag for you? Less emphasis on the knitting, more emphasis on pants.

Whoosh, goes the year*

2010-09-14T11:35:00.001-06:00

*especially the summer, in which the weather was, well, less than summery.

So this was going to be a Sunday Several, and suddenly it's not Sunday but Tuesday. Not sure how that happens. So now it's a Tuesday Too Many. I'll use bulleted points so you can take breaks if you like. Feel free to skip the entire post.

1. BIG EVENT. The puppy we were watching was outside one day, sniffing and sniffing and sniffing at a large pile of something brownish on our lawn. It was raining and wet and I really didn't want to him to eat any more poop, so I went inside and got a bag to pick the stuff up. I wasn't wearing my glasses, but when I got close to the offending pile ...

It moved.

And then it moved again.

Simulatenously repulsed and intrigued, I got closer and closer ...and oh my goodness, baby black squirrel, curled into a shivering fetal ball.

I picked it up. I showed it to B. I tried to decide what to do with it. It was clearly very young, and had multiple lacerations on its hindquarters and maybe the mother had kicked it out because it was going to die anyway?

Children gathered and B got a tin to put it in, and we got a warm towel and laid the animal on it, and I gave the throng of neighbourhood children my best "Circle of Life" speech and explained how we were going to make it comfortable and let nature take its course.

The feisty four year old across the street fixed me with a stern glare. "Or MAYBE", he said "We should ask MY Mom what to do!"

Nevertheless the matter was settled, except that my dog, oh my goodness, my dog wanted me to FIX IT. She could NOT stop sniffing at it and then looking at me with huge pleading eyes. If I put the box up where she couldn't reach it, she stood on her hindquarters sniffing and pleading.

And then A came home from work. (Aside: helllo, what? WORK? When did one of my children get old enough to have a job?) A took one look and scooped the baby squirrel up and cuddled it and warmed it and told us to go ahead and go out for supper without her because she had a baby squirrel to look after.

When we got home from supper she came to the door wearing a hoodie with a front pocket - when she tickled the pocket, a tiny squirrel head, eyes still fused shut, popped out. She had warmed it and washed it and tried to get to have something to eat and was quite determined to raise it, until we all realized that we'd have to order special baby squirrel food from Somewhere Far, etc, etc, so we called around and found a wildlife rehabber that would take it and look after it.

But seriously - how cute/also creepy is this?

2. The prayer shawl is finished except for grafting the toes. (see earlier post re prayer shawls with toes)

3. I am now filling in the time before the yarn arrives for the next wedding shawl by knitting hats for babies. Anybody having a baby? I have a sock yarn hat for you.

4. Last year I knit approximately 2 million dishcloths. I have enough yarn for about 50 more. I am so over knitting dishcloths. However, I sell them 3 for $10 to raise money to help send the youth group from our church to Mexico to build houses with Amor Ministries over their spring break, so for you, and for the kids, I'd knit some more if you wanted them.

5. TECHNOBOY HAS A JOB. One with paycheques. It's been a while. I am delighted, and also not quite sure it is real.

6. I get up early in the morning every day to drive him to this job. I like to do this because now that he is not around all the flipping time, I miss him, and this gives us a chance to talk.

7. However, it is making me tired, because I am too stupid to a) sleep and b) take enough asthma medication that I am not tired from that not-enough-oxygen thing.

8. B has started hockey tryouts. This is the first year that they are allowed to check each other. I am never going to a game, ever. Or maybe I am, but ... *cringe*.

9. I was going to wish it would stop raining and then I heard it's supposed to snow in Calgary on Thursday. Now I'm just keeping my mouth shut.

10. Also, A's funniest baby squirrel moment? She looked at B and said "I need you to go find me a mother squirrel and milk it."

11. I was very careful not to look at the pile of unfolded laundry while I was typing this post, so the Laundry Fairies could feel free to tiptoe in and do their thing, but ... sigh.

12. Follow up to the squirrel story. On Friday afternoon, the doorbell rang and when I opened the door, the fiesty four year old from across the street (who may actually be five) was standing there, holding out his cupped hands, with a dead mouse in them.

Me: "A dead mouse. How interesting." (I wasn't lying, I do find it interesting)

FFYO: "No, I lookeded at his eye, and it is still open, so it is not dead."

Me: "I'm pretty sure it's dead, buddy."

(insert small lesson about rigor mortis and if you move the leg and it moves right back, stiffly, the mouse is likely dead.)

He was unimpressed by my lesson.

"Do you know why I brought it to you?"

I said that I did not, although I must confess, I had a suspicion.

He showed me the open eyes again. "It is still alive, so you need to take it to where you took the squirrel baby so they can fix it."

As gently as I could, I reiterated the reasons I thought it was dead.

He looked at me, and down at the mouse, and back at me. "I think that is very sad." he said, and I agreed with him.

B came and looked over my shoulder. "That is way cool and totally creepy both at once." he said, summing it up perfectly.

I think ...

2010-09-07T18:29:00.000-06:00

1. someone should knit ME a pair of socks. (probably that someone is me)

2. It's a good thing Pippin didn't do any damage to my stupidly expensive sock needles, that he jumped up on the couch to pluck off a table.

3. Pippin has a hunger for knowledge of Jesus. Proof? Three different times this week I have rescued a book entitled "The Deeper Christian Life" from his slavering jaws.

4. I am a boring boring cook. My family agrees with me. They are less charmed by this quirk in my character than I am.

5. Heaven is going to be GREAT.

Thursday addendum to the thirteen

2010-09-02T19:58:00.000-06:00

So this puppy - oh, this puppy. He is so sweet and so very very bad. "Drop it!" I say, and he drops it for a split second then carefully carries it in his mouth and gambols away.

He loves to stand at the window and bark. I have a spouse who thinks a dog that barks, ever at all, is a dog who should be living on a farm in Minnesota.

"No bark!" I tell the dog, firmly, and he stops barking and runs away from me, and barks from his new vantage point where he can't even SEE out the window.

At one point today one of the children came home from school and let Toopka out and then wandered off, forgetting that our dog was outside. Our dog hung around, likely barking once at regular intervals to let us know she'd been forgotten (seriously. She knows how much TechnoBoy hates the barking) and Pippin was in the house losing his freaking mind. "Rorororoorororororoororowwww!" is his alarm bark - the child in question was downstairs, I was off somewhere with another child, and TechnoBoy and Pippin had this conversation:

P: OTHER DOG! Other Dog is outside!! Let me go outside too!!!

TB: Shut up!

P: OTHER DOG! Other Dog is outside!! Let me go outside too!!!

TB: Shut up!

P: OTHER DOG! Other Dog is outside!! Let me go outside too!!!

TB: Shut up!

P: OTHER DOG! Other Dog is outside!! Let me go outside too!!!

TB: Shut up!

And then I drove up and Toopka ambled over to the van and I let her in and Pippin stopped barking and all was right with the world again.

However ....

Hee.

Thursday Thirteen

2010-09-02T17:13:00.000-06:00

(if I get to thirteen. There's no telling.)

1. The shawl, blocking.

2. The shawl, on a bride, whose head is not in this shot, because I didn't think I should interrupt the honeymoon to ask for permission to show off my knitting on my blog.

3. and 3.5 A prayer shawl for a beloved friend who is undergoing chemo at the moment.

Notice how very much like socks this shawl looks? Yeah, she's not so much the shawl type.

4. I gave these socks to my SIL for Christmas 2009. Delivered them in July 2010. I'm so on the ball, no?

They were supposed to be totally exactly completely matching. I came so close!

5. We are puppy sitting.

He's a cross between a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel and a poodle. He is the most vocal dog I have ever met.

6. Aww, lookit them being friendsssssssssssss.

And the rest of the story: Note the look of pleading on Toopka's face. "The puppy has invaded my safe place. Get it oooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuttttttttttttttt."
Pippin is saying: "Who me? I'm just hanging out here. With Other Dog. Nice Other Dog. I'm not hiding anything. What would I have to hide?"

7. This.

This puppy has Jaws Of Steel. I can't believe the things he can chaw through, and how quickly. I spend most of my time rescuing bits of plastic before they hit his intestinal system. He's just murdered a Kong while I was typing this.

8. First Day of School today. This is the only shot I got, and only because he didn't know he was posing for it. He is scraping the windows of the van unnecessarily because - okay I have no idea why.

9. A tale of two children. One of them is old enough to take the CITY BUS to school.

The other thing in this picture is ...an eraser named BOB who has apparently been part of my son's life for four years now.

10. I done got me a writing gig. September's column will be there soon.

11. A few of my favourite things. (The shawl wasn't much bigger than what you see in this pic when the pic was taken. It is also not blocked, so what you see is rumply leaves.) The daylily is from the front of our house. That may be the only day lily that bloomed this year.

12. One of my children got up at 6:30 this morning and was barely ready to leave for school by 8:30. The other one refused to dress up. "It's so stupid. You get all fancy for the first day and then the second day you're just NORMAL. I'm fast-forwarding to the second day!"

13. More of my favourite things. I may have posted this on the blog already but usually what happens is I take pics like this for the blog and then not post them.

Procrastination is time consuming

2010-08-21T16:29:00.001-06:00

Alternate title: where I have been.

So I made a wedding shawl out of worsted weight cotton, just what the bride wanted, and the cotton knit up so lovely and the weight was just right and it was one of those projects you just want to stop knitting to pet once every few whiles, and then ...I finished it. And I even put wee beads in the scalloped hem. Putting wee beads in the scalloped hem was New Behaviour, which I tend to approach with my particular seven stages of denial:

Don't do it.
Eat Something
Nearly do it
Imagine all the ways it can go wrong
Almost do it.
Leave it alone for days.

The seventh stage is Suck it up and get 'er done. And lo, beading was fun!

And then I had to block it. I had to get it soaking wet and then pin out the scalloped edge so it was actually scalloped, not merely undulating.

So there was that whole seven stage thing to negotiate yet again.

It's blocked and drying on the bed downstairs. It has not fallen apart, malevolent mice have not broken in and eaten all but a few threads and the blocking pins ...and the wedding is eight days away. The scallops may not be uniformly evenly the same size but I am pretty sure the sky is not going to fall. Relax already.

All that procrastinating took time, though, and then there was this other thing that was not only New Behaviour but involved the words "Artists Grant" and there was a whole new level of "Who do you think you are?" involved in THAT, but all that is left with that is to PRINT IT and MAIL IT. The biggest part of last week was spent staring at the writing sample I wanted to send, weeping because "okay so it's the same night, just way later, I don't know why he didn't go home with his parents, but he didn't, so now he can hear them arguing .." is just not the type of smooth segue that gets a panel of faceless strangers to stamp "Approved" all over a grant application.

Plus side - added one whole page to the novel, fiddling with that blasted segue.

Also my dog has been shaved to within an inch of her skin. She's blinking painfully in the unaccustomed light, what with having all of her face showing and all. Here is what she looks like now:

(there was a short delay while I realized that the card reader in my laptop will not accommodate a camera battery ...sigh. I need more sleep. Procrastination eats into your sleeping time, too)

I'd change names to protect the innocent but it would still be obvious

2010-08-14T12:36:00.001-06:00

...so I'll make it theoretical instead.

So once upon a time there might have been 3 boys, all roughly around the ages of 10 and 11, working on a huge Lego project in an upstairs bedroom, with the door closed, in the middle of summer. They might all get very very warm and remove their shirts and after a few hours, two of them might come dashing downstairs for "emergency supplies."

I'll give you a few moments to guess at what the emergency supplies might have been.

Yeah, you got it - underarm deodorant.

Lessons in Technology

2010-08-11T15:45:00.000-06:00

You can leave the camera battery in the charger for as many days as you like, but it's not going to charge if the charger isn't plugged in ...

FYI

2010-08-11T14:03:00.001-06:00

I hate having asthma.

That is all.

well that was fun

2010-08-06T22:30:00.000-06:00

So A had youth group tonight, and TechnoBoy and B were busy, and the youth group was meeting somewhere half an hour from our house tonight, so instead of driving there and back and there and back I thought I'd just take the laptop along and find a coffee shop and work on the book.

So I did and then the coffee shop was freezing (and if I am cold, everyone ELSE is wearing a parka!) so I left and parked half a block away from where the youth group was meeting and sat there listening to the radio and working on my book and generally loving life and then

because I had cleverly turned the van OFF before listening to the radio for an hour and a half ...

the vehicle battery died.

And no matter how hard I begged God to work a miracle, I had to call the youth group and beg for a boost.

But hey! I didn't run out of gas!!

Is it just me?

2010-07-26T20:07:00.002-06:00

...or does this dog look like she's smiling?

Spoilers

2010-07-19T11:10:00.003-06:00

Totally misleading title, and I'm not even sorry.
Thing I did not spoil even though I thought I had:

The Shawl. This is a story fraught with knitterly tension that non-knitters may feel free to skip. I'm knitting a shawl for a friend's wedding at the end of August, and what with having to figure out how to block it, and how to make those little pointy things and incorporate beads and the rows being 300 stitches long and getting longer by 4 st every other row, I'm a bit unsure of my ability to get this done on time.

Yesterday I was knitting at my mom's and I went to reel more yarn off the ball and it was stuck so what gave instead was the knitting on the needles and several rows of two or three stitches unraveled. This is lace. (looks like leaves. Is amazing) This is yarn-overs and stitches that weren't there last row and this is me, who considers it all magic and doesn't get where the yarn is going if it's anything more complicated than garter or stockinette stitch.

I loaded them all back on the needles. It looked wrong. I took them off again, and loaded them on again, and they still looked wrong. There were the right number of stitches, however, so I purled the back side row and then it was time to leave so I stuffed it in a bag and later that night I looked to see if I could find the error and there it was, shouting at me and sticking its tongue out. I took the stitches off, and put them back on again, and lost one in the process and sat there staring at the hours and hours of knitting I had done, wondering why I hadn't used a lifeline and generally wanting to move to Siberia.

And then the miracle happened. Without any conscious thought I loaded everything on the needles again reconstructing as I went and – it was right. The knitting fairies skipped off singing about me owing them one. I mentionned the gusset on the Christmas socks I gave away last month. They're thinking about that.

Things I Do Spoil but totally not today

My small adorable dog considers her food beneath her. She'd live off begging for scraps if she could, and she almost could, in our house, because that's the way we roll. One of the three of us who care about the dog will decide one day that WE ARE NOT GIVING THAT DOG ANY MORE TREATS and the rest of us will agree and then I will be eating a carrot and really, veggies are good for everyone and ...

As a result she's not good about eating her food on a daily basis. I stir bits of supper leftover into her food and then she'll eat it. Sometimes I get stubborn and leave the room and she'll eat her food with a resigned sigh after three or four hours.

Today I buried the tiniest possible piece of turkey pepperoni beneath her food. To my great amusement she ate the entire bowl of food looking for it, and came and stood beside me and belched a gentle belch.

Why It is Annoying to Watch a Movie with Brad and I After We Have Seen it and You Haven't, (this does have to do with spoilers)

We laugh way ahead of the funny parts. We watched Waking Ned Devine with the kids yesterday and the instant we saw the motorcycle the first time we burst out laughing.

Things I Do Not Wish to Discuss, that have nothing to do with spoilers.

What novel?

kind of you all ...

2010-07-15T17:06:00.000-06:00

not to mention "eyebrown" instead of "eyebrow" in the previous post ...

More later. Trying to write a freaking book here.

Art

2010-07-12T13:47:00.001-06:00

Last week I went to hear these Steve Rokosh and Tamara Beatty in concert, with various other guests.

Tamara has a beautiful voice, and her music is upbeat, upliftting and very enjoyable.

I cannot even begin to tell you how enchanted I was with Steve, as both a musician and a performer. I am not a musician in any sense of the word - I can listen to a band and be completely unable to tell what instrument is doing what (although I can usually pick out the drums) - so this is a non-musician's review.

Steve sat down at the piano,and said "This will be improv."

My inner skeptic raised an eyebrow. "This will be interesting."

And then he did that thing you always read about that you never ever ever actually see. Steve closed his eyes (maybe literally, certainly figuratively) and let everything in his heart come out through his fingers to the keyboard. Technically, I have no idea how good it was. Emotionally, it was amazing. No words at all, and yet it told a story - starting out slowly, increasing in tempo and intensity, a slow fade. I was sorry when it was over.

And it was like through all of Steve's set. He is an intelligent, passionate man, and yet he performs some kind of miracle of self-effacement. He starts to play and he retreats, and it is the music that meets you. It's not so much performance as it is immersion in evocative sound. It is enthralling, and then the song ends and he moves back into himself and seems both surprised and delighted that he has an audience.

Keep an eye on these Calgary artists. I hope there are many more of these performances in the future.

well that was nutty

2010-07-09T00:45:00.000-06:00

So A's first day lasted three hours and then she was told her services were no longer required. I'd tell you more, but it's A's story, and not mine - suffice it to say there was nothing she could have done to have changed the outcome. Easiest to say the decision to hire her was not unanimous.

So she's out looking again.

And that's all I have to say about that.

I SO deserved it

2010-07-07T13:57:00.000-06:00

So every once in a while, when TechnoBoy is in the shower, I fill a cup with ice cold water and throw it over the top of the shower stall. His response to this is to leap like he's been shot and then to sag against the wall in resignation. I giggle with glee and shout "That just never gets old!" and run away.

Today I took my daughter to her very first day of her very first job. I watched her go in, all misty about milestones and such, and then as I was driving away, she walked back out. Someone called in sick, there was no-one to train her.

TechnoBoy was up all night wrestling with computers and asked me wake him up at noon. He is notoriously hard to awaken.
"A is home", I told him.
"Why?" he mumbled.
"I think you should ask her." I said.
He was up out of bed like a shot, throwing on clothes and went, brimming sympathy, to find his daughter.
I was still laughing when he got back to the bedroom, where I was having a bath, (in the ensuite, not the bed.)
"Well that was a thoroughly unpleasant few minutes", he said and I guffawed.
He mock-glared at me and I sunk beneath the water to rinse the shampoo off my hair.

And he threw a cup of cold water on me.

Kristin is better at titles than this.

2010-07-01T11:50:00.000-06:00

( Kristin is over here. I couldn't make blogger put a link in the title. )

(Also Kristin is no relation even though her maiden name is the same as mine, and her mother's name is also Susan ...)

So I was going to build myself a Cone of Silence but that looked too complicated, and then I thought "Well maybe just a real cone-shaped cone that if I was wearing it, people could only approach me if they were bleeding or on fire* or wanted to place a cup of steaming fresh coffee by my elbow" but then I realized what that would like so I settled for the Wrap of Wrath. (interrupt me while I'm wearing it, and invoke the Wrath of the Interrupted)

Fetching, isn't it?

*or both. I'm reasonable.

I Told Me So

2010-06-26T01:14:00.000-06:00

So I'm knitting a triangular shawl for a friend, at her request. I love the pattern, I love the fact that three days after I started hankering to knit lace she asked me to do this, I love the new book I went and bought (Knitting Lace Triangles) For those of you who know what I'm talking about - I'm knitting it in a DK weight cotton and I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how much I love the cotton. It's Butterfly Super 10 by El D Mouzakis and oh my goodness is it knitting up nicely. It's the perfect knitting experience - nice sharp Addi lace needles, lovely yarn, great pattern ...

There's only one row on the pattern I need to be a bit careful of, because it gets me every time. Every time.

So an hour ago, when TechnoBoy went to bed, I said "Let me just finish this row. It's the tricky one, and I don't want to stop in the middle of it."

And then my brain said BEEP. Tricky row! After midnight? You sure about that, sunshine?

Oh pish tosh, I told my brain. It's just one row.

I finished the row. I started the next one, and my brain said Do you think you should count your stitches?

Nah, I said. It's going really well.

I counted as I knit. It's pretty easy to tell where halfway is, and at halfway, the count was right. I stopped counting.

Hey? my brain asked. What makes you so sure you're only ever going to make a mistake on that half of the row?

Oh FINE, I told my nagging brain. I will count the stitches and you will SHUT UP, okay?

I counted. And counted again. And then a third time, just in case my brain was messing with me.

The bright side? The whole time I was picking back and fixing it, I was thinking - Hey I can blog this!