In a few days, on Sunday to be exact, I will celebrate my first annual 39th birthday. This is a big milestone, no? Well, maybe it isn't since I plan to celebrate the same birthday every year from here on out.

So I'd like to entertain a little reversal here, and have a little contest. No answering questions, no donations to charities, just leave a comment telling me about a favorite birthday present you've received. I'll pick one at random on Sunday, November 4th and put together a little surprise package for the winner. See, as much as I love receiving surprises.. I adore putting together surprises for others. If the winner is a knitter or spinner, perhaps you'll get a nice fibery surprise in the mail. If you're not, maybe an Amazon or iTunes gift certificate... I have lots of ideas!

And here, I'll get you started. What is my favorite birthday present? Cassidy! She was born just a few months shy of my 30th birthday, and I had always wanted a baby before I turned 30 (weird.. I know!) But besides all of that, Richard and I were both surprised, since we had always thought our path to parenthood would be a difficult one. We were looking at facing lengthy and heartbreaking fertility cycles.. then there it was.. a positive pregnancy test, all on our own. And after a rocky first trimester, when we were expecting the worst to happen every day, despite bed rest and progesterone supplements, we were truly blessed... just in time to fulfill my 30th birthday wish.

Now, go, and tell me all about your favorite birthday present! As you can tell, it doesn't have to be a "thing", it can be "the perfect day", a great meal... anything.

P.S. Scorpios Rule!

I know that sounds terrible coming from a mother, doesn't it? To be happy that her kids are back in school and out of the house? Its not that I'm happy they're out of the house. I'm happy that there is a defined routine (something that can never be strictly adhered to in the summer) and that Cassidy, Alex, and Dylan are actually excited to get on the bus in the morning.

Dylan is especially excited, as he enters kindergarten. In fact when he got off the bus yesterday, after his first day at school, he ran up the steps exclaiming "School is FUN!" (of course kindergarten is fun.. we only hope he thinks, first, second and so on are fun too!)

So Connor and I are home alone, and will start his therapy line up on Monday, though is new occupational therapist will be stopping by today to meet us. Today we'll just be talking about how Connor has progressed through early intervention services and we'll also be setting some new goals. I'm just hoping that since both of Connor's new therapists work out of the same agency, we can all get together soon to coordinate our game plan.

And now that my day is slightly less hectic (no fights to break up, no reminders- at least during the day, to pick up dirty socks and toys,) I need to start addressing some chores and projects. Firstly I need to start thinking about moving my plants back into the house from the sun room. Once the temperatures start to dip, we keep that room's door closed (and un-heated.) The problem however, is that I've acquired several plants over the summer so I'm literally out of surface space. I've already purchased some swing arm hooks for my plants which can be hung, (like the epiphyllums and spiders.) But I also have several snake tongue plants from separating a monster of a plant earlier this year, a huuuuge fiddle head fig, and an equally large umbrella tree. Since floor plants don't work very well with a toddler and a cat, I need to raise them a little. I've found that bar stools work really well, and are much stronger than the overpriced and flimsy plant stands that can be found in the gardening section of any discount chain. So add those items to my "to purchase" list, as well as maybe a pretty and inexpensive bakers rack to display a lot of my smaller plants.

I also plan to be a little more active in some of the hobbies I've let slide. Most notably quilting. My poor sewing machines have been sadly neglected for about 2 years now, and I feel bad every time I pass one of them.

I've promised Cass that I'd dig through my monstrosity of a fabric/notions stash, as part of my autumn organizing, and send her a little care package. She has jumped back into sewing/quilting, so I'm excited to see what she comes up with.

And speaking of Cass, shes starting a new Friday ritual called..

I like this idea.. and it may actually force me to post about knitting/spinning/quilting at least once a week. So without further adieu, this is what I'm working on..

These Roza's Socks (I know.. another pair - I just love this pattern) are being worked in Cider Moon Flurry colorway "peas and carrots", chosen at The Loopy Ewe because, y'all know how much I love orange and green. I started these on the way to PA last week and this is as far as I am. Shocking.. because I expected to have one sock done by now.

And my spinning guild holiday wool has finally met my wheel. I plan to spin this as lace weight singles. And of course because of that, my holiday gift project will be lace. I'm not sure which pattern yet though. But even when I decide, I doubt I'll be documenting that particular project, since several of my fellow guild members read my blog and I'd hate to spoil a surprise.

I also started work on the Dana Bag (that Berocco pattern I complained about a few weeks ago.) However right now there isn't much to show. I'm halfway through ONE of the side pocket panels, which requires 13" stockinette over like 300 stitches. This one is going to be a long winter long project for sure.

Yesterday's swatch was a fingering weight single. I grabbed it out of my oddball bin, and shouldn't have. Last night I grabbed a small ball of lace weight mohair and voila. Because you know.. everything is better in lace weight! I changed my double decrease to use: slip 2 together knitwise, k1, p2sso. Ding ding.. we have a winner. Its really just a modified fleurette lace pattern, and at least in my case, is reminiscent of daisies.. (or just about any other flower in the garden).

When I took pictures this morning, I grabbed my wonky Kodak, since its macro works much better than my Sony camera. And upon unloading images to the PC, I found a bunch of pictures I took, and totally forgot about..

My Georgia O'Keefe roving, spun into a lace single, and wound into a ball for knitting. I still grin ear to ear when I look at this cake of colorful goodness. Again, many thanks to Jesse for her wonderful work!

Pachysandra. The evergreen loveliness found under years of brush on our back hill.

And the last tulip of the season, at least as far as my yard goes. This was another "surprise" this year, having popped up in a place which was until last summer, covered in brush.

Now back to working on lace, laundry, dishes, and children coming home early from school.

I almost feel hungover today, though I'm not sure why. I would be inclined to blame it on how hard I slept last night, but the cloudiness in my head started way before bedtime. Before bed, I sat down with my volumes of Barbara G. Walker's books, scanning through the pages, hoping to be inspired (and I was - slightly) by something to put together for my Sockapalooza Four socks. I quickly worked out a chart, changed it up a bit to incorporate ribbing, dug in my stash for some appropriate yarn for a test run and set out to cast on. Bleh. But sometimes that just happens with the the connection between the brain and the hands stuff.

I briefly thought about pulling Spring Things out of my ottoman but with the brain and hands stuff going on, I knew it wouldn't end well. SO, instead I pulled out the lace chart I had been working on weeks ago (you know where this is going, right?) Not even knitting, just tweaking the chart a bit, but the concentration just wasn't there.

Now to borrow phrases from Stephanie at Unwind, "For the horticulturally brilliant among you.. ", and my sweet, now talking, three year old Connor, "it is it?" Chances are its some sort of weed, but its the only one like it that I can find on our property..

The top picture, shows what appears to be something flowering? And I couldn't resist a shot, albeit a blurry one, of the little visitor resting on the plant. So, any ideas?

Nichole's socks are done. Finished last night watching The Sopranos (Watch it? How do YOU think it will end next week? I have theories all over the place on this one)

Pattern: Roza's Socks by Grumperina in Interweave Knits - Spring 2007

Yarn: Nature's Palette in Indigo

Needles: Magic Looped on Addi Turbos 32" US1 (note: the pattern calls for US0 needles, I went up a size)

You may also notice the wire hanger sock blockers. I found wire hangers at WalMart while looking for ice cube trays and thought I really scored. 'Cept the hangers are really small. In my opinion, too small to make a blocker for a woman's sock. These may work well for kids socks though.

We had a nice weekend filled with some chores and errands, but I was able to make it to Franklin Square to meet Liz and Sherry yesterday. I brought along my wheel instead of knitting and wish I had brought my camera! We didn't get to hang out too long though, as the thunder started, then the skies darkened. By the time I got home, it was time to head to the kid's school for the PTO fair. Honestly I wished we could have gone earlier, like before the rain. Everything was moved inside the gymnasium and wow, was it loud. Mostly because of the magician and his microphone. The high pitched tinny echo in the gym made my head pound within minutes of being there.

But the highlight of my weekend? The purchase of a telescoping bypass lopper. Silly huh? But this little tool will make my chore of getting rid of wild grape vines, so.much.easier! I was able to cut down some on Saturday afternoon, and apply some Vine-X. Hopefully yesterday's rain didn't wash it away. Once the weather gets better this week, I'll be back out there finishing the job.

As for knitting.. now that Nichole's socks are done, I can go back to my handspun Spring Things shawl. Yay!

Again, I didn't get much done on the sock last night. The heat, unruly little boys, whiny little girl, a toddler who fell and busted open a lip.. you name it, I just didn't get much time to knit last night. And by the time the kids got in bed and I sat down to watch some tv and knit, Richard came into the much cooler living room to watch Pan's Labyrinth. I stuck around for the beginning, but the face bashing with a bottle did me in and I went to bed to read for a little bit.

Now, a little bit of a stroll around my yard..

Vinca Major. I'm honestly surprised its doing so well considering its zone is 7 through 9. We're right on the cusp of 5 and 6. Last year it was barely there, having found a few popping up through my myrtle.. this year its just gone wild, and flowered! The thing about our yard is that its such a surprise! Our neighbor who lives way up the hill from us, told me last spring that the woman who owned this house many years ago, had amazing gardens (I think I mentioned this in a post not long ago) After two years of clearing out the wild grape vines and removing brush and "other crap", things are starting to come back, and come back nice. I even found pachysandra earlier this spring on our upper hill while clearing out amazing amounts of old dead vine, brush and under that, an old picket fence that had fallen. Oddly enough.. I had been considering buying some pachysandra to plant on our front hill under the pine trees. Score!

Now, to the part where I need some help! This is also new this year. You can see it popping up through the myrtle, with a little bit of vinca major there too. Its so bright! I will likely pull this up and put it elsewhere. But before I do that, I need to know what it is so that I don't put it in the wrong part of the yard (sun/shade).

EDIT: Yay, thank you PumpkinMama! This is definitely euonymus/burning bush. Now I know what to do with it!

And this bush/tree... yet another "new growth" this year. I have absolutely no clue what it could be. Is it a weed of some type? I've let it go so far this year just to see what it turns into. The stems have thorns, and the oval leaves, earlier in the season resembled eucalyptus to me. This morning when I went to snap a picture of it.. flowers! Any ideas what it might be?

EDIT: And I did some more poking around the web, changed some of my search terms, and realized that this "bush" is a Black Locust tree. Cool! I have no idea how it ended up there (weird), but I think I'll let it stay! How cool is it that I figured out what this tree is by finding a Wisconsin DNR/Forestry .pdf. When I told Richard on the phone about it, he said I should have used the tree key at EEK!, (where he used to work) Hi Carrie! Hi Janet! Hi Brenda!