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!

Just taking a quick break to sit for a few minutes and sip my "daily double D" (I'm addicted to Dunkin Donuts iced coffee - extra large with cream and sugar, thank you!)

Jill, Danny and the kids arrive later this afternoon for a weekend of fun and frolic with our little tribe! Tonight we're making travises (not sure if thats the proper plural.. sometimes we call them "travi") Danny has never had a travis and has been longing to try one. I'm not sure if I've ever blogged the travis, but I'll give you a brief description: heart attack in a tortilla.

Though I've never been to New Mexico, Richard lived there for half his life, and has always raved about this thing called a travis, (which was served at this particular diner, and whose name escapes me at the moment.) You make this incredibly spicy "gravy" with ground beef, TONS of annaheim, jalapeno peppers, onion an garlic. Then you take a large tortilla, slap some shoestring french fies on it, top with that "gravy" and loads of cheese. Wrap it up like a burrito, top with more fries, gravy and cheese. Serve. Richard tells me that at this diner, they use red chili sauce, but since I personally find red chili nauseating, we developed our own "travis gravy" recipe. Apparently the "Travis" is named after a truck driver who frequented this diner and always asked for this dish. Additionally I find need to mention that the "travis" is so delicious, that it is the sole reason I had my gall bladder removed. I could deal with the occasional attack, but every time I had a travis, I had a major attack. I could not dream of going through life without ever having another Travis.

So anyway.. Travi/Travises tonight. Oscar Meyer weiners for the kiddos.
Tomorrow I'm going to drag Jill out to do some errands with me in the morning. Then tomorrow late afternoon we're going to the Hottest Chick N Wing Festival at the Inner Harbor. Hot wings cool.. the boys are excited to see motorcycles, but this hottest chick in Syracuse contest? Ugh! We may stick around for fireworks, but they're pretty late.

Sunday, we're going to Sandy Island Beach State Park again. Keep your fingers crossed that we have the same beautiful weather we enjoyed last weekend.

Knitting? Har! I'm still slowly working on the Deatheater Illusion scarf. And I started Gretel, though I'm having a heck of a time without a chart (mental note, make time to write up a chart before going any further.) Oh and my Sockapalooza pal let me know that my socks are now on the way. Yay! (No word yet from my sockee.. any day now.. I hope!)

Now off to finish up some chores before guests arrive!

And only 2 days late! Wait, I knew I wasn't going to be able to ship international until a Saturday. So I'm on time, Right? (Do me a favor and just say yes!)

Details if you didn't catch it earlier..

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

Yarn: Fibersnthreads @ Etsy.com

Needles: magic loop on 32" Addi Turbo US1

Now off to run to the post office to drop off!

I've had a rough couple of days. I'd like to blame it all on the heat, but really, the heat is only the melting icing on the cake. First up, I'm late on getting my Sockapalooza4 socks out to my pal. I've participated in every round, and this is the first time I'm late. Its embarrassing.

I'm so close. But damn, have you ever tried to knit wool when its 100 degrees in the shade? And why does this particular sock feel like its never going to end? Just when I think I've hit my groove, I pull out my ruler and I find that I've made so little progress. The silver lining in this is that since its crossing the border and needs to be dropped at a postal counter, I wouldn't have been able to ship until Saturday anyway. I have made post office trips with all four kids in tow before.. and I don't plan to do it again on purpose, any time soon.

Thing the second. Car repair guys. So we take the van in earlier this week to get some work done prior to state inspection. And they do said work, which might I add, was not cheap, then neglect to tell us that we also had a broken tie rod (!!!!) That not so small repair had to be done at the other place where I took it to be inspected. Now this wouldn't normally piss me off so much except that I expected to only have to entertain the kids for an hour. And that turned into a three hour adventure.. in the hades hot heat. Luckily the kid's school is only 6 blocks away so we set off on our walk (in the hades hot heat) to spend some time on their awesome playground. Did I mention the heat? Full sun, burning hot slide, scorching swing seats. Oh, and Dylan got stung by a bee just as we were leaving.

So anyway, van done, but I still need to call the first place because their idiot technician didn't put our hub caps back on properly and we lost one. We'd have lost two if Richard didn't notice the driver's side one halfway off.

Thing the third. Mommy patience. Where on earth do I get more? I swear, Connor has been pushing every button I have lately. Its really hard because I know his sensory integration issues make him intense in all ways.. physically and emotionally. Transitions are incredibly hard, but so is a trip to the market, a diaper change, or even just sitting down for a meal. His special education teacher now comes twice a week until pre-school starts. Shes fabulous, and has loaded me up with all sorts of techniques to use in situations where Connor's SID starts to show. I'm not sure what I'd do without her. I know there's no real advice out there for this, and I'm not asking for sympathy.. I'm just venting. That and I'm just exhausted. But there is some good I can report, Connor is talking a lot. Theres still some jargon thrown in that we can't decipher sometimes, but for the most part we can fully address his wants and needs based on spoken language vs sign language or the process of elimination!

Thing the fourth. The fabulous teacher I just mentioned above? She called earlier this week to let us know that she was ill and inadvertently exposed us to Hand Foot Mouth disease. Cassidy and Dylan have both had this, the rest of us, not. I've been feeling like crap all week, but blamed it on the heat. But this morning I woke up with a sore spot on the roof of my mouth. No rash or anything, and no signs of illness in anyone else. Keeping my fingers crossed that I just scratched the roof of my mouth last night on a crouton.

Oh, and have I mentioned the heat?

I got my new camera! I need to spend lots more time with it to master the controls and get the best results possible.. and this week is no time to play. I have a Sockapalooza deadline!

I hit a snag last night with the second sock, realizing a mistake.. a big mistake.. about 20 rows back. Instead of unknitting, I pulled the needles out and ripped back. Picking up the stitches again was another hour of frustration, not to mention losing another few rows in trying to pick up stitches. I'm back on track though and plan to spend the better part of today knitting on it.

As for the Mr Coffee incident yesterday. I'm much better today. The burns, which last night felt like a really bad sunburn has eased. Its still a teensy touchy when clothing rubs it a certain way, but it is better than yesterday.

My good mood has been attacked by the cappuccino machine. Yes, you heard that right.

So this afternoon, I decided I'm going to mop the kitchen floor, but I'm feeling like a I need a little energy jolt. Since I forgot to make a jar of cold brew coffee yesterday I figured I'd fire up the cappuccino machine. I start to brew, stop to froth the milk, set it back to finish brewing, then turned to put a spoon in the sink, then BABOOM! I'm not sure what happened but the metal handle basket thingie that holds the grounds was forced down, shattering the container, splashing the espresso, and steaming grounds in every direction but mostly landing on my back. I kid you not, it was splashed across the room on the fridge and stove, on my curtains all up and down my cabinets.. and my back! Alex managed to get a bit of a splash too since he was walking through the kitchen as it happened.

Now this is the second time this has happened. Two years ago it happened and I called the company (Mr Coffee) they apologized profusely and replaced the machine, noting that the model I had, did have a documented defect. Luckily that time, no one was hurt, it just made a big mess. This time we have the messy stained counter, floor (and clothing) but with the added bonus of burns.

So this time they're sending me the higher end model. And apologized profusely. But honestly I think I'm going to sell it on ebay or freecycle it or something and just buy a better machine.

Good thing I didn't mop the floor first.

So back to the good mood. I will not let Mr Coffee and his dangerous kitchen appliances dampen my mood. I've decided on a camera, and I'm going to pick it up tonight. I'm glad I did a bit more comparing and shopping around. I'm getting a MUCH better camera for a mere 30.00 more (I love sales!) I've decided on the Kodak Z712IS. The reviews are excellent and I've had much fun searching for images in Flickr tagged with this model. Yippee!

And much progress has been made on the second Sockapalooza 4 sock. No pictures until I can use my new camera. Stay tuned!

Oh! Mr Coffee and his attitude almost made me forget! Ashley tagged me as a ..

Wee!

Now I need to tag five peeps..

Loren @ Musings At Windyridge 

Kelly @ The Larabian Times 

Nancy @ Bronx Girl Knits

Cass @ CassKnits

Susan @ Susan B. Anderson

Because I promised an update..

As I've been saying for the past few days, I've been spending much more time on another project. I'm absolutely not worried about these though. This pattern (Roza's Socks) knits up so fast.. and mindlessly. Before I know it sock 1 will be done. And sock 2 will be underway.

As a side note.. when I went outside to take pictures, I found this leaf laying on the patio table. I've never seen something like this, so I had to take a picture. Alex saw it and said "whhhooooooa! what happened to it?"

I've been offline, for the most part, since Friday. Richard has been converting some video files for the boys (the first season of the original Transformers cartoon.) It hogs all the resources, and takes so long, that you can't really do much else on the computer while its working. Bleh! Must get more Dell memory (or something!)

I've taken the time "off" to knit quite a bit, getting most of the super double secret contract project done. Well, the easy part that is. I'm now at a part in the pattern, where I'm just scratching my head. This part of the pattern calls on a technique I'm quite good at, but its the specific way the pattern has you do this technique, which I'm finding totally UN-fun. I've ripped it several times, re-worked, and re-ripped. Its maddening. Good thing I'm getting paid for this I tell ya! I have to add that if I were to do this pattern my way, it would totally change. Not the final appearance, but my way, would take the pattern up the scale from "experienced" to "very experienced". A weird conundrum, no?

So finally getting frustrated enough with that project, and until I can speak with someone at KnitPicks, or seek the guidance of someone else who has much more experience with this wonky way of doing said technique, I moved on to my Sockapalooza4 pal's Roza's Socks. I've now turned the heel and picked up the gusset on the first sock. I think I'll be able to knock out quite a bit tonight while watching some tv.. so pictures tomorrow when I can show way more progress.

Other than the knitting, we spent a lot of time out of the house this weekend, getting errands done. Mostly shopping errands like groceries, and other usual household needs sort of stuff, even finally remembering to buy replacement blinds for the boy's bedroom. But being out of the house so much, meant everything else was neglected (dishes, laundry, and so on)

So when I say I'm so far behind.. its everything. Reading blogs and email, dishes, laundry, knitting, other organizing chores I had planned.. behind on everything which my life revolves around! Its not a comfortable feeling for me.