Sunrise sucks

Claire was up at 5:45 today, which translates to me spending half of the day looking for curtains to block the morning sun better. It is not going well. I made three attempts at local shopping. First "Giant Tiger", which is very eclectic, everything from frozen hamburger to clothes to sheets. But it's all crap. They only had a few ugly lacy kitchen curtains. So then I tried a small, regionally based department store. Actually, it's a hardware store with delusions of grandeur. They had curtain rods, but nothing to hang on them. My third stop only did custom windows. Also tried a Pier One wannabee and a "green" store, but not with high expections.
So it seemed clear that online was the way to go, but I just can't get excited about anything. The only thing I really liked was at Ikea, and it's not available online. I like sheers, especially ones with cute butterflies embroidered on them, but that really does nothing for the sun problem. Then I start going overboard with tiebacks and finials, and soon I've got $100 worth of stuff in the shopping cart, and I'm only doing one window.
I came very close to buying a sewing machine and doing them myself.

Diametrically Opposed hobbies

Is it odd that my two current obsessions are knitting and baseball? Other than the fact that I can do one while watching the other, they have almost nothing in common. They both involve some math, but that's it.


Is one of my other hobbies taking goofy staged pictures of my kid? Yes it is! This is a blanket I made, you can just barely see the C worked into the knitting. (upside down) I did one for Nathan too. It was very simple, just took a long time doing row after row of plain stitch.

I finished Claire's poncho today, but it's a little big. Should be fine for the fall. Since she's still crawling, it just gets tangled up in her legs now. I'm working on my shawl now, although I've ripped it back once already because I was doing a stitch wrong. And I was inspired by the Yarn_Harlot to make socks, so I bought some yarn for those yesterday. (The Christmas stocking is hiding under the bed now, oh well, I'll get back to it someday.)

In baseball news, my Fantasy team is still in second, and the Sox are in first. Yay!

Today's thought

I like the smell of wool.

Two stories about the Amish

I was feeling neighborly today and decided to stop at a roadside stand on an Amish farm to buy some bread. Had to buy cookies too, darn it all, since the slot where you put the money didn't give change and I wanted to get my five dollars worth. Then, I embarrassed myself. I was doing a k-turn in their drive and accidently hit the horn. The family in the window waved, and I waved back, but I felt stupid. It's soooo rude to honk at people, and especially rude to honk at people who have a religious aversion to cars.
There are a lot of Amish in the area. Apparently, land in PA and Ohio is getting too expensive, and with 10-12 kids per family, they have to spread out a bit. Land here is cheaper, because so many families are getting out of farming. Can't blame them, with the long winters and rocky soil. Amish don't have to save for college or make car payments, so it's easier for them to make a go of it. I'm going to try to be supportive of the locals this summer by shopping on the roadside or at the farmer's markets. Anybody want an Amish quilt for a wedding gift?
My second encounter today was at the Little Caesars inside the K-mart. (Yes, eating in department stores is icky and depressing, except for IKEA, but it's easier than dealing with carseats in the rain.) It was a little surreal to see an Amish woman order a pizza. I don't think it was too common for her either. It took about five minutes for the woman behind the counter to figure out if she was asking for a slice or a pie, and another long discussion to decide what toppings fell under the request of "meat".

Knit Knit Knit Knit

I got a fun book the other day, Knitting_rules. And I mean fun, with jokes about sweaters that go out of control and the weird math involved in knitting round shawls. Even Dan was reading a bit and asking me if I knew what gauge was.

She has a blog too, Yarn_Harlot . I totally identify with her nickname, I move from project to project, seduced by new patterns and yarns, seldom finishing my commitments to finish the hat/mittens/scarves I began with. And reading her book is just making it worse, since I now want to see what it is about knitting socks that she finds so calming. Plus, I want to try a sweater.

But, I have half a Christmas stocking on a set of needles, and three more to do to complete the family set. I've set it aside for now to do a poncho
for Claire, but that is amazingly taking only a few days. This is just half of it, I'm making it up as I go along, and haven't figured out how I'm going to join the back and front yet. I really like the pattern and want to do a shawl for myself in a solid color. Plus I still want to do a felted bag to keep my knitting in. See, there I go again. The number of projects I want to do at any given time far outweighs the number I've successfully completed in the last year. (baby blanket, hat and mittens for Nathan, Felted Bag, Felted Hat,Ear Warmer/Headband)

Easter

Here are the kids on Easter morning. I tried to go with more toys instead of candy, and actually just gave Claire a lot of clothes, but we're still swimming in chocolate. Quick story about the baskets. For Nathan's first Easter, it was so simple to pick up a basket, paint, ribbon and ornaments at Michael's, the whole thing was done in an afternoon. But Claire's took about a month of planning. I checked everywhere for a basket - Jo-Ann fabric, K-mart, Wal-mart, etc (which are about 40 minutes away). The local craft store had basket-making supplies, but I wasn't going to go through that much effort. We were actually going to go to the nearest Michael's (an hour and a half away) the day the Camry died. Finally stumbled across a basket at the pharmacy, but still had to search high and low for paint and ribbons that I liked. This is life in the middle of nowhere. 

What the heck is anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibody?

Good news from my doctor today. I have low levels of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibody. Umm, what? Anyway, the gist is that I may have a form of Rheumatoid Arthritis that is not going to aggressively damage my bones. This is a huge relief. I can deal with the daily medications and the occasional painful flare-up. But I was getting scared about what kind of permanent damage was happening and the possibility of future knee or wrist surgeries. I may have dodged a bullet here. Still waiting to see if the new medication is working yet. Tomorrow I have to start cutting back on the steroids until I get to the point where I feel pain again. Wish me luck.

Where I live Part 2

The other day a neighbor out for a walk stopped to let me know that a Level three sex offender was moving in two doors down. Someone Dan works with is friends with some of our other neighbors and was told the new guy is a pedophile. Yay!

Sun and Sand

We just came back from the little beach on our lake. Lots of sand. Sand in the shoes, sand on the clothes, and I suspect they'll be sand in Claire's diaper. There was definately some sand in her mouth too. Claire and I just dug in the dirt for awhile. Nathan went with his favorite pasttime of finding sticks, dirt and rocks to throw in the water.
We may go to the playground after Nathan's nap, there's sand there too. We timed things well yesterday and met some people. Too bad Dan and I both thought that the child named Sonny with the long blond hair was a girl. Oooops, a boy. He then spent several minutes asking me why people always think he's a girl. Ummmmm, because your hippie british mummie dosn't believe in hair cuts?
But now I'm watching baseball, I actually shelled out to watch MLB.TV on the internet because I couldn't bear to miss opening day at Fenway. When we were in Saranac Lake I was lucky enough to pick-up every Friday night Red Sox game on my UPN station, but now I just have Yankee and Mets broadcasts. Yuck. Not off to a good start at the moment. Bases loaded with Blue Jays and only one out in the first. Better put my rally cap on! Just kidding, I'm not that much of a dork.

Take me out to the crowd

My Fantasy Baseball team, the Hannawa Hounds is off to a great start. Second place in my league of twelve, not too shabby for a girl. Especially a girl who really only knows the teams in the AL East. Too bad my star player, Pujols, just went 0-4 and a third of my pitching staff is unavailable. Why oh why did I draft Roger "I think I'll play golf this summer instead of baseball" Clemens.

Good and Bad

I should have stayed home Wednesday. We tried a walk and a trip to the mall, but it wore me out since my arm was still bothering me. Then Claire didn't sleep well, and my usual soothing didn't work since my arm hurt too much to rock her. So I didn't get much sleep and that made my shoulder hurt worse. I couldn't lift my right arm without pain for most of yesterday. Shampooed one-handed. Fed Claire left-handed. Then, when I tried to go grocery shopping, I discovered the new car had a flat.
The good news is that my car dealer wants to be on my good side, so they sent someone over to pick up the car and change the tire. They didn't even charge me for the labor. I also called Dan's parents to rescue me, and they came over with some dinner and corralled Nathan for awhile.
I still don't have total range of motion with my right arm this morning, but the steroids will kick in by this afternoon, and I should be better until the cycle starts again tomorrow morning. I'm beginning to see a pattern of one joint flaring for 3-4 days, then its alternate joint flaring. Left knee, right knee, left shoulder, right shoulder etc. You wanna take bets on what's next? Wrists or elbows?

Lazy, Lazy, Lazy

Trying to decide what to do today. Yesterday was kind of a lost day. My right shoulder decided it was its turn to give me grief, it was about 1 p.m. before it was pain-free enough that I could easily pick up the kids and feed Claire. Nathan watched two Star Wars movies, and I watched Sin City while he napped. Not very productive. But it was snowing again yesterday, so it seemed like a lazy day was called for.

Highs today are only 38. We could go for a short walk, or to the playground, or we could just go grocery shopping and watch Return of the Jedi. Although I'm really not liking the idea of getting groceries while my shoulder is still sore. I hope my new meds start working soon, or that I can switch to better ones at my next doctor's appnt. It sucks to have to plan Nathan's activities around how well I feel.

Memory Trail

On August 13, 1990, a friend from college asked me to go to a concert with him. Thanks to the pouring rain at the show and the need to huddle together for warmth, by August 14 we were dating. We spent that first day at Lampson falls, making out for what seemed like hours. Good times. We've gone back many times over the years, but it was really great to go back as a family this time.