This day? I'm not really a fan, and I don't think that fact is any big secret. In fact, if we hadn't had children, I'd be happy to act as if it were any ol' regular day. Its gotten worse over the years, and this year is no exception. Its as if some cosmic force just wants me to hate this season, because every year, some heaping pile of crap falls in our laps to deal with.
Because of the seemingly yearly pile of crap, I'm typically a great big sourpuss from Thanksgiving through New Years, Richard thought he'd try to cheer me up with some "Carla Approved" Christmas music, complete with an um, colorful title...

I love it. It's made me smile entirely too much, and I listen to it often.

Now on to the obligatory pictures..

The tree.. before the onslaught

Cassidy, excited over her new Hannah Montana light up fashion plates type thingamajig

Alex with is much anticipated and pined over roboraptor

Dylan scored Megatron.

Connor, loved everything.

Christmas eve was... interesting. After waiting for what seemed like forever for the kids to fall asleep, Richard had already fallen asleep, and I was left to deal with the Santa set up by myself. Then halfway through finishing wrapping, before I could even get the previously wrapped gifts from the attic, the massive wind storm took out the power.  Yeah.. scaling the attic steps with a flashlight and a wrapped Roboraptor - I wouldn't suggest doing it any time soon.

Two hours of Santa set up in the dark, crawl into bed dead tired.. and power comes back on.

So, whatever you celebrate, or if you don't celebrate anything at all, I hope y'all had a great day.

.. when I'm not blogging.

Truth is, I'm only blogging right now for two reasons. One, I actually have something to say. Two, I've now received FOUR Christmas cards, commenting on my lack of blogging (HA!) Not to mention, actual phone calls. I have to admit I'm feeling the love.. it's nice to be missed.

As for the something to say, I've been soooo uber busy holiday knitting, and I mean BUSY. I planned it out in three groups. Group one and group two.. DONE. Group three's knitting to start tomorrow, ending with a mad sprint to Wednesday. I have it all under control. I can do this! I can!

The bad news? Because everything I've knit lately is a gift, I can't show off anything yet. Next week though... lots of pictures and details.

More of something to say? I designed a pattern. It's absolutely nothing special.. just a basic ribbed hat. But there was a need. See, Richard has a pretty big head. As does his dad, and my brother. Knitting hats for them can be downright difficult without adding pattern repeats or tweaking stitch gauge to compensate for several more inches than the typical hat circumference. Such a pain in the arse.. AND I'd never get exactly what I was looking for. Something was always "off" about the finished item. So I figured, that's it.. I'm just writing my own...

Presenting... Gargantuan Melon. It's a free .pdf download, both here on the blog, and on Ravelry. Because dammit, I'm not the only knitter who needs to knit for obnoxiously sized noggins. The great big bonus? Because this hat is so springy, not only does it fit a gargantuan melon, it also fits a child sized head! Multi-purpose... I love it, and I didn't even plan for that.

I'll try to post again this week... but there is that mad sprint and all.

part two...

I had hoped to blog a few times this week, but I can't take a decent picture to save my life for some reason. I'll try harder after Thanksgiving break. I hope.

I survived not only getting one hat out to my first target, but I got to take out yet another unsuspecting HA2 player, Michelle (seriously, click the link for the funny death notice!)

Funny, the work in progress sent back to me from my original target, is nearly identical to the yarn I picked out for her. I hope that means she really loves it.

So, I'm still alive. It turns out that as of right now, there is not another work in progress heading my way, as someone downstream flaked out, hasn't sent a death hat to her target, much less responded to any emails. I now sit and wait for my death to arrive in the mail, or for a mercenary mad hatter (extra players, not really playing the game until The Oracle calls on them to "make a kill". I know this all sounds confusing and downright silly, but its a lot of fun!

Also last week, I finished up spinning, and plying, my guild holiday wool...

It didn't come out at all like I expected, and I honestly hated spinning this. Because of that, I'm having a hard time figuring out what to make with it for the holiday swap. I've already cast on 2 different projects with it, only to be disappointed. Ugh. A felted stockinette table runner is sounding really good about right now.

Life 'round here is still quite busy. Jill and Danny's wedding is on the 11th and my dress doesn't get fitted for alterations until Thursday. Not that I'm in any rush mind you... the alterations are costing nearly as much as the dress. Highway robbery in my opinion.  If my Bernina was working I could just do this stuff myself. Alas its not, and I'm stuck.

But, mark my words.. I will not ever, be in another wedding. I hate weddings. Huge waste of money, and only marginally fun to attend.  Everyone should just fly to Vegas and elope. Seriously, save the money, elope and buy a house, pay off a school loan.... or something else.  I won't even go into my disdain for the jewelry industry, who suggest men spend THREE MONTHS SALARY on a diamond, probably mined by children in a war torn country. /rant over.

I'm also gearing up to spend weekends traveling to northeast Pennsylvania with other local Obama supporters. New York is most definitely safe as far as delivering for Obama. Pennsylvania is still a swing state, so we're doing voter registration and such, helping out the Scranton/Wilkes Barre offices.

And speaking of my hometown...

Ok, its Fox, so this should be expected, but split decision? Looks to me like the only McCain supporter on camera is the reporter.

I originally intended to get these up by last Friday.. and didn't. Sorry. And today, on the third official day of school, I'm dealing with two sick kids. Dylan and Connor are both home for the day - cough, sore throat, sniffles.

First, some pictures from the last week of summer vacation..

Yes, those are pink streaks in her hair.

Alex while camping at East Lake, Labor Day weekend.

Dylan and Ethan also on the slide, Labor Day weekend at East Lake.

Horrid picture. I was rushing to snap one, since the bus was literally pulling up to the driveway. Cassidy Alex and Dylan - First day of the 2008/2009 school year.

Connor, a few hours later, watching for the bus to come around the corner.

Nothing much else going on here. I'm not even knitting very much, which is pretty typical for me this time of year. I don't expect my knitting to pick up any time soon though - its political season.

I have some pictures from the kid's first day of school. Even ones of Connor waiting for his school bus. He did excellent by the way. Not even a single tear... from him anyway!  But I have to get them off the camera yet, and I'm not really in the mood tonight. I promise.. tomorrow.

But I do have this ...

This is just screaming to be made into a bumper sticker.

I have to admit, that after taking so much time off, it is a little hard to get back at blogging. I mean, where do I start? Which activity from the past month do I highlight? What knitting project do I blog about?

Perhaps this is part of the reason why my little "vacation" extended itself.
But I'm back.. for now.. and I can't promise that I'll be blogging as frequently as I always have. Well, at least until the kids return to school anyway.

So what have we done this summer? Actually, not too much. Nothing exciting anyway. But, we did make a trip to Sandy Island Beach ...

(You will notice a complete lack of even a single picture of Cassidy. This would be because as soon as we get there.. every single time.. she manges to find a friend to play with and we don't see her, but from a distance for most of the day!)

Also in July, my spinning guild held its annual Summer "Dye Day" at Christina's house...

I didn't bring anything to dye, but after inhaling the vinegar fumes all afternoon, I couldn't resist going ahead and dyeing my holiday wool at home later that night...

I started out dyeing it "avocado green", but it turned out too much like baby poo. So I started a fresh dye pot with "sky blue" to try to over-dye that awful green... the result was, to say the least, very very surprising. I love the end result though.

And now for the most exciting news. The knitters among us will already know about Ravelympics, mostly because you just can't log into Ravelry without hearing about it. For the non-knitting readers, Ravelympics is sort of a take on the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics from the winter games, 2 years ago - but much much more organized. In a nutshell, Stephanie (the yarn harlot) had this idea... cast on a project, a challenging one, and finish that project before or during, the closing ceremonies.

Ravelympics is basically the same idea, but Ravelry forums are used to organize, cheer each other on, and see pictures of other's progress and finished items. There are even "events" for different types of projects, like "lace long jump" and "designers discus" (and the list goes on). Its cute, and its funny.. and its actually fun to be part of.

BUT... I held off committing to participate until the very last minute... the day before! So I totally missed the part where I had to actually "sign up for" a specific event. So no medal for me. And thats ok... I'm using this time to press on with the design of that lace shawl I've been talking about forever! I don't need a medal.. I'll have a beautiful, original lace shawl at the end, that I designed all by myself!

Since I didn't want to buy charting software, I searched and searched for an alternative, until I found what I needed. A font, specifically for knitting charts! And as soon as I installed it, I sat down to transfer my handwritten-on-graph-paper-chart into Open Office. I played, I tweaked, and did some more math.. then got started! I actually did cast on during the 8PM airing of opening ceremonies.

But by Saturday morning, several repeats into the project, despite the lace looking just gorgeous, I decided that my lace was too much for the body of the shawl. And that in fact, the lace I had spent so much time charting, would make a much better border for the shawl. I ripped it all out, re-wound the yarn, and sat down with my charting tools again and re-worked a new lace pattern. After 6 hours of more math and swatching, I had a new chart and casted on again...

Despite the poor lighting in an image taken at 10PM, I really do love this shot. Because I hope to make this pattern for sale as a .pdf download, I don't want to show too much. I am loving it, but I have at least 10 more repeats to go before I start the border section. Will I do it? I don't know... stay tuned!

I love this picture. So much.