holy seventh ring of hell, batman!

or why i'm up at 3 am right now.  -_-

so i'm over at my mom's house because i promised my sister i would help her with her garage sale.  several things are already inherently wrong with that statement: namely, "sister" and "help".  basically, she didn't come home from work until 6:30 in the evening and then proceeded to empty out her closet of all her clothes.  so yeah.  she wasn't even *close* to being ready for this thing.  and we'd planned it for three weeks.  and if you think that's not such a big deal...

yep.  that's the fallout from all the purging we did of her closet.  and that's not even all the hangers.  imagine the piles we had.

still, you might be thinking, gentle reader, that this shouldn't have taken so long, much less warrant a post subject title like the one above.

but wait!  there's more.

so we cleaned out her closet.  it's now 8-ish pm and the kids are ready for bed.  it's their normal bed time.  but uncle mark has decided that i needed to do an interview with this financial planner guy.  basically, mark is apprenticing with this company and this was his "training".  initially, when he pitched the idea to me, i thought he would be giving me this spiel, and informally at that.  but, no!  at 9pm, this man in a suit comes and proceeds to give me this soft sell about either a. investing in this company and/or b. working for this company in some pyramid-ish, ponzi-like scheme thing.

by the time he was done, it was 10.  my kids are shattered.  and my mom has no good cable channels or fast wi fi so they're tired and bored. to give them credit, they're not whiny or cranky, but i'm feeling guilty as hell.  i dismiss the man as politely as i could and hurry the kids to bed.

then the fun begins.

i brought my normal sleeping clothes - flannel monkey pjs coz we all know my hubby keeps our house at freezing arctic temperatures - but i forgot that my mom loves to conserve energy and money so she has her temp set at 80.  EIGHTY FRICKIN' DEGREES, PEOPLE!  and i have flannel pajamas!  and i'm sleeping in a bed next to dutch oven aly.

I CAN'T FRICKIN' SLEEP LIKE THIS!

aly also grinds her teeth.  argh!!!!

but that's not the end of it.  guess who's up with me?  dylan.  he's a bit homesick.  and he's been getting up every 30 minutes or so - bathroom, water, etc. - so just when i think i can fall into a dozy, exhausted, sweaty sleep, dylan wakes me up and we start the process all over again.

finally, i just get up and decide that it's much cooler in the living room anyway and so, here i am.  blogging at the butt crack of dawn, knowing i have to get up in less than 5 hours to set up for this blasted garage sale that's probably not even gonna pan out or earn us any money worth this hell because we're so disorganized.

i need coffee.  and i would just get up and grab some starbucks or even 24-hour mcdonalds crap but i don't have the code to the alarm and am trapped here.

and dylan is eating pepperoni pizza, reading over my shoulder.

i am in the seventh ring of hell.

and this was supposed to be a fun, cheery post about our camping trip.

oh, well.  better luck next time...

p.s. did i mention that earlier today - or yesterday now, i guess - i had already spent a long, hot, gross day knee deep in algae cleaning our inflatable pool? FML.

of puppies and precociousness

the other day, my MIL got a phone call from florida.  a man asked to speak with dylan.  my MIL answered cautiously that no, dylan wasn't available but this is his grandmother. what can i do for you?  at this point, the man asked how old dylan was and when she answered "eight", he began laughing uproariously.  then he proceeded to tell her that he was a pomeranian breeder and that dylan had placed an online order for a pup, filling out all the relevant contact info but just leaving blank the payment info.  of course, he said, he couldn't hold dylan to the contract since he wasn't 18 or older but that my MIL should be porud of having an eight-year-old smart enough to do all that.

imagine if my son had a hold of my credit card numbers.  0_0

i dunno whether to be proud or terrified.

Borders blows

A Fond Farewell... Thank You for Shopping at Borders

well, that sucks major monkey nuts. i'd just bought the borders reward plus thingie about a month ago, after being assured that it would be honored online even if stores were closing right and left. i should have paid more attention to the signs, i guess.

i wonder how barnes & noble are still going? or are they next on the chopping block?

sigh.

i feel like this is the end of an era and i don't know if i like the one that's replacing it. ebooks and instant gratification are all well and good, but does this mean books in print are going the way of the dodo? will they soon be defunct, like VHS tapes? will i never get my own ISBN to engrave on my tombstone as i'd envisioned because the publishing industry is going digital?

my heart is shattering slowly as we speak.

and now for some station identification...

so i think it's time to clarify some things for you, gentle reader, since you can count yourself one of the rare, faithful few who actually deign to skim my musings in your spare time. you deserve some need-to-know info.

first, the labels. yes, labels. they are located underneath the title of each post. i guess in other arenas and forums, they're known as "tags" but perhaps they're not as intuitive here on blogger. dunno. not up on my code and html designing as i used to be.

regardless, there they are. and i put them there because i'm lazy and i can't be arsed keeping up more than one blog. however, as you know, i have many facets to my life and most of them are completely disparate from each other. not only that, i have whole communities dedicated to said disparate things and i am different people to these different communities. call me sydney bristow, i guess. a gal of many aliases.

anyhow (i've decided that 'anyhoo' was getting too annoying, even for me), if you are a reader from a specific facet of my life and aren't interested in the others, then these labels will be your godsend. follow me on my guided tour, if you please. anything labeled:

• knitting - is self-explanatory
• life - is about my kids, my work, the minutiae of my day
• the universe - is about my inner monologue/rant/rambling on sundry universal themes/topics
• everything - is about miscellanea like youtube vids of interest, books/movies/tv shows i like, or anything else - like this little number - that defies categorization

so there you have it. of course, a lot of my entries will probably overlap and i shall attempt to use the appropriate labels for your personal edification. if i miss the mark, somehow, my apologies ahead of time but life *is* messy and convoluted that way so perhaps i don't need to apologize?

oh, i just reread what i wrote - like the good english major/teacher that i am - and i realize i said "first" earlier on, implying there's more than one thing i wish to address. now what was the other thing...

sorry. senior moment.

okay, got it. the title of my blog and the URL. they don't match. that's because i really wanted my title to be my URL but it was already taken so i had to come up with a new URL but i still wanted to keep the title, so...voila! and in case you're not a nu-whovian and both phrases need explaining, i've added a handy-dandy link right under the subhead of my title. it's very subtle. blink, and you'll miss it. ahahaha! pun intended.

oh, and because most people are visual learners anymore and will only skim to the pictures, here's one i found simply by googling "random picture":

edwards/keelan/maricel signing off! :)

Texas Study Raises Questions About Impact of School Discipline

i know that most news is bad news because, really, how many people would tune on or stop to read happy things (unless it's a boom in the economy and a lowering of taxes)? but every time something about education comes up in the media, i become alternately outraged and/or ashamed and/or fearful and/or all of the above, both as an educator and as a parent. here's yet another in a string of news bits. thanks, lisa, for giving me more provocative summer reading.

Texas Study Raises Questions About Impact of School Discipline - NYTimes.com

you grow wise, young padawan...

i was gonna wax contemplative regarding that last harry potter flick, it being a seminal part of our common culture and being the end of said seminal part and all. but the longer i wait, the more removed i feel and to poke at it now would be tempting fate. (for those of you in the know, you'll remember that i tend to obsess and obsess *hard* over things - can we say "pearl harbor" and 1940s vintage clothing? - and i fear prodding the beast that is/was my HP obsession would be dooming my family to non-mommyhood).

instead, i give you a response to this post of mine by one of my best and brightest. introducing ciku gachiri, former student and current friend:

I just read your post and not only was it a delight to read but absolutely, positively, 100% correct. That's what Tumblr is. A long-form social networking site and by long form I mean it's merely a longer form of people's status bars on Facebook. It's not better, just longer. Your whole thing about punctuation, grammar, etc was also spot on. I was *just* having this conversation at work, actually. It drives me up the wall whenever I read misspellings and oh gawd, bad grammar. I even die a little when I read a typo because it's usually something that if read through JUST ONCE could be fixed! But hey, nobody rereads their work, right? I can't say I'm a saint when it comes to spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. but at least I try. *At least* I reread through my work whether it be a text, a blog, an email or whatever. Yes, it takes me 10x longer than the average person to send something that should be "instant" (i.e. this very email) but I like to think the quality is a little higher than the average person's too. Though I must add, I'm a little obsessive. Lord knows how many times I've combed through past posts on my Blogspot to correct spelling and typos or change around sentences to make them sound better. It's not like anyone is going to go back and read them but it feels better once I do it. Like now, all is right with the world. Sigh. I blame my parents.

I just wish people cared a little more about what they sent out for the world to read. Now again, I have been guilty on numerous occasions (especially this past quarter in my creative writing class. Oh goodness...) of turning in assignments without having even skimmed through them. The main reason is lack of time (I save things until the last minute) but another strong reason is lack of caring. I didn't care. And I feel like most of society is the same. They don't care how it sounds, if anything is spelled wrong or if they used "effect" instead of "affect" but rather that you got the message. All that matters is that you get the gist of what the person is saying. I blame this on our "I want it now!" culture. For the most part, I love it! Who doesn't like dinner in 3 minutes thanks to the microwave or communication with an entire office in 1 minute thanks to email or being able to chat with a friend in 1 second thanks to texts? But for every good there is a bad and I think you're right, everything is only as good as the next tidbit or soundbite.

As creepy as Mr. Ruiz was (and perhaps still is) I remember him mentioning how when we type, we type with so many typos that are automatically corrected or revealed to us by that red squiggly line that when we write by hand we have the same number of typos, misspellings, etc. but never go back to change them. This left Mr. Ruiz with paper after paper ridden with errors and our generation with atrocious spelling that we think is alright. He then said he wished we had to use typewriters (like he's even old enough to have used one...) because with that, no typos/misspellings were allowed. If you made just one mistake, Bam! You had to rip out the paper and start all over again. His theory was that spelling was a lot better back then than it is now because of the typewriter and although at the time I just quickly nodded my head so he could leave us alone and stop berating my generation, after some time I couldn't help but agree with what he was saying. Because of this, I unfortunately do not believe writing will go back to the way it was.

Unless writing is confined to only the elites who have nothing but an ink pad and paper or even worse, stone to chisel, and all other forms of "showing" are erased (i.e. television, movies, pictures) writing for the masses will never again be beautifully detailed, elegant, and sanstypos. Could you imagine Shakespeare coming out with *any* of his work today? It'd be thrown out! "What's all this about comparing Juliet's beauty to a rose? Just say she's beautiful!" Not to mention no one would understand it. I know you know even the peasants understood his plays. Now writing for the masses is geared towards an 8th grade reading level and even that is a joke. Pole a sample of 8th graders and I'm sure we'd be disappointed at best by the results.

Maybe I'm just being pessimistic but I think writing is only going to get worse. That means people like you just have to continue writing the way you do and pray that it catches on. If not beautiful prose, at least we'd live in a world where slang in an email to a teacher was considered vile, thinking "puppy" was a verb led to jail time and writing using cApiTaL aNd lOwErCaSe LeTtErS aLoNg w1tH nUmb3rS caused a person to be ostracized by society and forced to live in Siberia or the Sahara desert where no one knew of their crime.

That Edwards is a world I would love to live in.

slacker mom confessionals

it's a balmy 77 degrees out. slight breeze. clear, blue skies. i have set my fold-out chair with attached fold-out canopy out in the driveway. my knitting basket is by me and i'm preparing to finish a few rounds while performing my dutiful mommy duty of watching my kids as they ride around on their bikes on the street.

about 40 stitches into my 4th row, i am regaled by stomping and pounding and a raising of voices that soon escalates into a full-blown screaming match. i'm counting stitches and i feel myself becoming irritated that i have to referee yet another fight between the kiddos, losing my count in the process.

then i remembered confessions of a slacker mom, a book i finished in the hour it took me to finally come down from my 2-shot frappucino high (3 o'clock in the morning, after having watched the midnight show of the last HP movie; more on that in a later post). and thus, thinking of the wise words of ms. mead-ferro, i simply sat in my fold-out chair, continued counting and knitting, and proceeded to let the little drama play itself out.

after not very long since the first angry remark, the two did indeed come running up to me, their little tattletale faces at the ready. i shook my head curtly and commanded them to "work things out" without looking up from my knitting. what followed next was a 20-minute exchange that i wish i could've captured with the school ipad. it was an oscar-worthy performance on both parts - every word fraught with righteous wrath, every inflection laced with outrage. as i listened, i was filled half with amusement and half with awe - sure, my children were screaming at the top of their lungs but it was what they were screaming at each other that was amazing. they sounded like two little adults, slinging well-articulated, SAT vocabulary-riddled sentences at each other like seasoned politicians. aly was using the power of pathos, invoking her hurt feelings; dylan was throwing around ethos, stating he needed to be listened to as the older brother. soon the two of them were at it with the logos of children, going back and forth with "well, you do this!" and "you do that too!" but they were still being very intelligent and logical about their arguments. it made my english major soul proud, i tell ya.

but it wasn't the precocious use of language that awed me. it was the end result. after 20 minutes of being banshees, my kids worked it out. all on their own. i'm not kidding. they hugged each other - gasp! - swore they'd never fight again, then came to me to announce their resolution with very sincere, determined expressions. sure, it took 20 minutes. sure, the whole neighborhood heard our business. sure, i probably looked like the most neglectful mother, just serenely sitting in a chair and knitting while world war three broke loose around me. but waiting paid off. i didn't have to raise my voice. i didn't have to worry about taking sides or hurting one or the other's feelings by doing so. i didn't have to stop what i was doing. the kids regulated themselves. i was practicing the art of slacker mom-hood, and whaddaya know? it worked.

i'm glad my MIL and my husband weren't around. it wouldn't have worked had they been because they wouldn't have let it go on for as long as i did; they would've interfered at the first sign of an altercation. at the risk of sounding judgy, i have to say that perhaps this iron-fisted, traditional, "grown ups know best" approach may not be the best solution all the time. it seems like it requires a lot of energy and effort on the grown ups' part, and it takes away the responsibility and problem solving ability away from the very people who should be owning up to both.

i dunno. to each his own. and i'm sure the mommies that read my blog will have loads to say about this. but damn if i don't feel energized and invigorated and proud of what i'd just witnessed. this slacker mom business may just revolutionize life for the edwards clan. at the very least, i'll be able to finish tons of knitting projects.

7 down and counting - layering shrug complete

so i've been joining all kinds of groups on ravelry, realizing in the process that i am a social beast online (as opposed to my oft-professed misanthropy). one of the groups i joined is called IntSweMoDo (international sweater-a-month dodecathon) and the expectation is that you knit 12 tops/sweaters within the year. apparently this is a very large and popular group, boasting over 1000 members, and i'd always seen the "intswemodo" tags on people's projects and wondered if i, too, could be a cool kid.

well, not only was joining the group painless, i found out that, although i joined the bandwagon a bit late (7 months into the year), i'd inadvertently already knitted 6 tops/sweaters on my own. my current project, although not technically one or the other, apparently counts and i just finished it today and thus the title of today's post.

it was a bit of a pain because it was lace and i don't do lace because i'm just too damned impatient and i had to frog and reknit multiple parts multiple times, but i'm cautiously optimistic about the outcome of this project. i mean, i love the yarn, i love the color combo (although, with what i had on hand, it's more UCLA than CAL), and i love the overall weight and drape of it. i just don't know if i like how it looks in the front. i had shorted out the back (doing one less pattern repeat, or one set of the two-leaf panel, for the non-knitters out there) because i didn't relish the thought of something baggy and saggy.

i like the way the back looks; it's the perfect ease for me and the usual kind of clothes i wear.

but by shorting the repeats for the back, i also unthinkingly shorted it for the front and now it looks a bit scant.

if only i didn't have boobs. -_-

anyhoo, it's soaking in eucalan right now and i am prepared to give it an aggressive blocking. the yarn is 65% cotton and 35% milk fiber so i hope it can be bullied into stretching and growing a bit. also, i want the collar and sleeve to have these cute little curvy points, so again, a vigorous blocking is in order. /keeping fingers crossed.

of air horns and animals

i went to bed hearing it. i woke up hearing it. sigh.

why do 8-year-olds like the strangest things? for the past two days now, dylan has repeatedly played a series of youtube videos of people messing with dogs and cats by scaring them with air horns. and he watches them at full blast. then he giggles. madly. and i haven't the heart to yell at him because when he giggles like that, i think that this isn't gonna last. this innocence, i mean. i'm not even gonna deign embedding a sample of the air horn madness because no one needs to endure what i'm enduring and really, unless he's your son, it's not at all wistful or endearing. suffice to say, that was how my day began today, which should've been an indication of things to come.

but it wasn't.

because, surprisingly, i actually got a lot done and feel uber productive. no, not knitting. but i did manage to plan several weeks' worth of lessons for r.a.w.r.r., with much thanks to my MIL who sat next to me and helped me cull through tons of books and who gave me focus and perspective. i feel a whole helluva lot more relieved now that i have established a game plan. i'm all about the game plans. i'm lost without them. on my tombstone, under my ISBN, i want it to say: "you gotta have a game plan."

oh, lord. he's giggling again. i almost wish he'd go back to watching "fred" and "annoying orange" videos.

anyhoo, now that i've got that sword of damocles stalled for a bit, i can focus once again on getting some knitting projects done. i know, i know. it seems i've done nothing but work on knitting projects. but it's my summer, dammit, and the powers that be should consider themselves lucky they even got a day's worth of work free from me, even if that day's worth of work is really gonna benefit me in the long run. will post my working syllabus once i get something typed up.

the undeniability of a disposable society

today, i declare that i officially have long hair. i've been in denial for quite some time, having always been a short bob cut gal all my life. oh, sure, i've had brief flings with shoulder length do's but nothing ever past grazing my collarbone for me.

then i met and married the hubby whose idea of a soothing bedtime activity is grabbing a hank of my hair and twirling it until he falls asleep. couple that with my inherent laziness and throw in a scroogishness when it comes to non-material things like haircuts, et voila! long ass hair that is two inches past my bra strap and gets in the way whenever i drive.

do i sound slightly bitter? perhaps. it's difficult surrendering what i thought was quintessentially me - my bob was veddy asian and made me look like an anime character. win! - for the sake of marital bliss. [this is where i'd be inserting a pic of me with short hair, but all those predate the digital age and i can't be arsed to scan and save any at the mo'.]

however, my "commitment" to long hair - a patient, years-long investment - has got me thinking about the state of our society today. forget for a moment important, thought-provoking information a la the story of stuff (although here's a sneak peek at the 21-minute video that chipped away a little bit of my consumerist lifestyle):



i'm talking about something as simple and seemingly petty as blogging. remember ye old days of livejournal? yeah, probably not. but i do. and it was amazing. here was a community of folks who were brave or stupid or exhibitionistic (is that even a word?) enough to bare their souls for all the world to see and comment on. don't get me wrong; a lot of the journals out there were crap - angsty rumblings of a disaffected culture made powerful by the instantaneous notoriety of the written word. but at least people were writing, investing time and energy and thought into what was, in essence, a public show of self.

but in the search for quicker, faster, more, more, more (and i attribute this to consumerism and capitalism and misplaced ambition), blogging evolved into social networking, where the exhibitionist element was still alive and thriving but what was left on the wayside like spat-out flavorless gum was the depth and passion and sincerity of *thought*.

we've become such an impatient thoughtless society. we don't take the time to take an idea, turn it over and examine all its facets slowly and deeply. instead we chuck it out there for all the world to see in its half-baked, unformed glory. we want to be the first to say it, the first to post it, the first to tweet it. never mind that we lack proper grammar or spelling or punctuation. never mind that we've discarded politeness in our haste to word vomit. never mind that one-liners and emoticons and acronyms have infiltrated even the most hallowed halls of academia. it's all only as good as the next tidbit or soundbite. it's all disposable anyway, right?

this mentality not only breeds superficiality, it breeds laziness as well. case in point: tumblr. i tried one the other year when everyone was grinning smugly about this next best thing. but it confounded me. it seemed the interface was all about following other people's tumblrs and "reblogging". well, score one for literacy because at least it was compelling people to read others' writing, right? well, not really. what most people seemed to be reblogging were pictures and quotes and youtube videos. here i was, trying to set up a tumblr where i could post chapters of my fiction, and i could barely fit a paragraph onto a page before i was unceremoniously kicked off. (ok, that may be an exaggeration, but you get my point). now, to give it the benefit of the dount, perhaps i was just being an ignorant luddite and i just needed a good wiki to guide me through the whole tumblr process, but it still got me thinking about this whole quicker/faster way of life.

it's a wonder i manage to keep my sanity as a teacher of english. i beg and beseech my students that the most vital part of writing is the revision: the pausing and perusing and evaluating of one's words, the manipulation of said words into elegant, articulate, persuasive prose. but no one listens. it takes too long. it's too much work. too much effort. who bothers to read something so long anyway? how many sentences minimum can i get away with to make a paragraph anyway?

sigh.

are we ever going to go back? will the tide ever turn? they say that all things are like a pendulum: wait long enough and everything eventually swings back to the way they were. i can only hope it happens in my lifetime. but while i wait for that day, i'll stick to my blog and politely refuse tumblr, thank you very much.

(and btw, congratulations! all those words and you still made it down this far! there *is* hope for our society after all!)

badger, badger, badger...

and now it's time for a youtube commercial break, courtesy of my incorrigible children. i'm warning you now of its excruciatingly addictive lyrics that compel you to do the badger bounce. click at your own peril.

layering shrug - why sideways construction confounds me

so i thought i was almost done with this sucker. after 7.5 repeats of the back pattern, it looked like it would fit and be okay for me to start the other sleeve. upon questioning other ravelers, however, i was assured that the pattern calls for it to fall loosely and that i needed to go the whole nine yards and knit 9.5 repeats. sigh. not that the pattern is hard - in fact, i have it burned in my brain - but sighing because i'm so ADD with knitting and i already have other projects lined up but i'm a one-project-at-a-time kinda gal and i just want to be DONE with his one so i can move on to the next, a sweet little number that looks like this:

i know, whinge, whinge. bitch, bitch. at least it's summer break and i have all this time to knit at all, right? you're right, gentle reader. thanks for the sanity slap.

in other news - i finally got all the kinks in the blog/rav connection fixed. aside from some minor stylistic adjustments, i think i'm satisfied with what i've wrought and now can focus on posting instead of designing.

i think. -_-

but maybe a progress bar for my current project...or a quote of the week...or a book list...

BBC - Science & Nature - Sex ID

BBC - Science & Nature - Sex ID

so lorelei showed this to me a while back and i rediscovered it recently, thinking it might make a good blog assignment. now that i have my elective, however, i wonder if i should just save it for that.

p.s. it's 9:39 pm and my dog is snoring in counterpoint to my husband. mwahahahaha!

p.p.s. i was actually just test driving the "blog this" button on my nav bar. i see it works. and elegantly too. ah, this blogging business! how far it's come since livejournal! i foresee much blogging in my future!

to capitalize or not to capitalize

someone recently pointed out to me that, in my previous life and my previous blog, i was all about using nothing but lower case letters, eschewing proper capitalization rules for the ease and irony of being e.e. cummings-esque.

when i started designing this new blog, i didn't really give much thought to it one way or another.  because a lot of my time has been spent on ravelry forums and since i belong to multiple groups there and it would've been a major hassle explaining my seemingly improper conventions usage to each and every single group, i just fell into the habit of being normal and traditional.

but then, thanks to good ol' steph, i was reminded that i would be untrue to my online persona if i fell in with the status quo.  and it really *is* easier and faster for me to type sans caps.

and so, gentle reader, i hope i do not offend if i revert back to my old, tried-and-true ways.  i shall try to keep everything else correct and proper (grammar, spelling, sentence construction, etc.) so you know that the lack of capitalization is an ironic choice and not an act of ignorance.

in honor of this post, how about one of my favorite e.e. cummings poems?


maggie and milly and molly and may
by E. E. Cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

for whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

r.a.w.r.r.

so i got the green light for my new elective next year.  in my infinite cleverness, i call it "r.a.w.r.r." or "re-evaluating the attitudes of women regarding respect".  the official blurb about it is:

Are you familiar with the day-to-day necessities like finding a bra that fits, balancing a checkbook, making a decent cup of coffee or hemming a pair of pants?  Do you know how to build a wardrobe on a budget, how to make introductions in social situations, or how to say “no” gracefully?  Thanks to the feminist movement during the latter half of the 20^th century, women today can transcend traditional gender roles and “be all that they can be”.  But in ignoring a lot of these traditions, women may actually have sabotaged themselves, perhaps making them more helpless and clueless than when they first started. This elective will explore what it means to be a woman in the 21^st century and how to earn and give respect to fellow females everywhere. 

fun, yeah?  although i think the powers that be are going to change the first line so the description isn't as alienating for boys. apparently, most males don't worry about bra fittings.  heh.

anyhoo, i'm really excited about my new elective, but the more i research and plan, the less excited i am and the more anxious i've become.  i don't want to presume to step on any parental toes by presuming to teach their children something they feel is within their purview and not mine.  i'm using this book as my main reference text - the girl's guide to absolutely everything - and i suppose i could just go down the table of contents, but i'm having a difficult time narrowing down my focus. 

some topics i'm thinking of are: body image, dressing appropriately to your body type and occasion, phone etiquette, writing professional inquiries/business letters, proper posture, and healthy eating habits.  yeah, yeah, it sounds like a class straight out of mademoiselle magazine, and to some, it may sound shallow and superficial.  but when you consider the number of teens whose main role models for behaviour and manners and dress come primarily from reality shows, you might be able to see past the "fashion/beauty" aspect of it all and agree that perhaps it may end up being a relevant and worthy class.

with this in mind, would anyone like to chime in and let me know what they think i should be covering?  i'd be eternally grateful. there might even be a cookie in it for you if i end up using your idea.  if it's not asking too much, could you give suggestions on activities as well as topics?  i don't want the class to be straight lecture.

thanks in advance!

the sweater saga part two - clarity

Schrouderknits, aka Joan, is an amazing wealth of information, an incredibly patient instructor, and an overall beautiful human being.

ME:
Aha! Everything just clicked! Schrouderknits’ instructions coupled with Wusel’s link have given me a “Eureka!” moment. I think I am ready to begin my adventure.

But just so I’m clear: if I follow Schrouderknits' instructions, I would not have to knit short rows but I would have to pick up stitches to create the turtleneck afterward, correct? And if I wanted to start with the turtleneck, then I’d have to work short rows before I work the raglan?

SCHROUDERKNITS:

Correct, if you shape for a crew neck, you won’t need to do short-row shaping.

Yes, you could knit the collar first and then do the short-rowing to simulate the same crew neck cut-out. The first problem would be to decide just how many sts you want for your T-neck. Then you’d have to apportion them out to the various segments, perhaps 40-10-40-10%, ie 40% each for front and back, 10% for sleeves, then take 1 off each segment to denote it as the seam st.

Then you’d start by working back and forth all but the 40% that is the front. Add 1 more st at the end of every row until you’ve done enough rows to = ~3” more on the back, and then work all the way around.

I much prefer to do any neck treatments at the end most of the time (the lone hold-out is if the patterning won’t blend well at the going down/going up junction) because I can tweak so many things:

 EG what if your CO at beginning of T-neck is too tight to get over your head? If my BO is too tight, I just have to rip it back and go again more loosely.  EG what if I’m running low on yarn? With T-neck done last I can make it an inch shorter.  EG what if I realize I don’t really want a T-neck after all - just too hot. I can rip it back down to a regular crew neck border.

the sweater saga part one - desperation

entire conversation is copy/pasted directly from ravelry, my personal knitting valhalla.

ME:

So I want to design a top-down turtleneck sweater for my mom - my first ever attempt at designing - and I need a bit of hand-holding and advice. Some of my questions/concerns:

1. Do I have to work short rows to make the turtleneck sit better? This project I worked called for it, but I think it’s because it was more a cowl than a turtleneck, right?

1a. If I do have to work short rows, how exactly does one do so? I am short row-challenged. :/ I’ve read techknitter’s directions but I still don’t get it.

2. I want to put a lace or cable panel down the center to break up the stockinette and to distract from the fact that I will not do any waist shaping. ;p Any advice on how to incorporate the panel right below the turtleneck while doing the raglan increases so I don’t knit it off center?

3. Any other words of wisdom to impart before I embark upon this most perilous mission?

SCHROUDERKNITS:

So you’re making this raglan style. I would start with a conventional crew neck shaping. You can use a provisional CO if you want. The crew neck starts with the back, 2 sleeves, the 4 raglan “seam” sts and 2 sts on each side of the neck front. You work back and forth, inc’ing 8 sts on every RS row along those raglan lines (2 sts at each one), plus a st just inside each selvedge of the neck front, ergo total 10 sts every RS row.

When the front neck depth reaches ~3”, then count up the all the sts on the 2 fronts tog and subtract that from the # of sts that are across the back. You’ll CO all those sts across the neck front so the front # and back # are the same, and from thereon work in the round. You could then start your st patt across those new CO sts.

Later you’ll pick up sts around the neckline which is already lowered in the front so you won’t have to do any short-rowing. But for turtlenecks I like to change ndl sizes as I go through one. EG 2 sizes smaller than body for the first 2”, then 1 size smaller for next 2”, then end with last 2” on another size larger, ie the same size as the body. That way the upper part will be a bit looser to lay down along the outside of the fold and won’t feel so much like it’s strangling.

ME:

Oh, wow! That’s so much simpler than I’d envisioned. Thank you loads!

Two clarification points, if I may? When you say

The crew neck starts with the back, 2 sleeves, the 4 raglan “seam” sts and 2 sts on each side of the neck front.

does that mean I start off casting on 9 stitches then do all my increases? And where would I place markers to signify when to do my increases?

SCHROUDERKNITS:

You’ll need a lot more sts than that as you need some width to the back of your neck, say ~7” or so, where raglan points would end if you were making this bottom up. So 7 (or so) x your gauge. You might also need to start with a few sleeve sts since most people have some depth to the side of the neck, so perhaps an inch worth of sts for each one?

The Incredible Raglan worksheet is a great tool to help you calculate all that out. And yes, do reread Barbara’s chapter on raglans again as they should also help.

aly cat

My daughter is obsessed with cats. I *knew* we should've named her "Alyson Catherine" instead of "Alyson Jennifer". That way, we could call her "Aly Cat" and the nickname would be extremely appropriate.

Anyhoo, being the precocious 6-year-old that she is, she shared this Youtube vid with me and it had me giggling so much, I felt it was worthy of being shared with you, my friend.

let the games begin

So this is...what?  My nth attempt at another blog?  Will this one stick, you think?  Perhaps if I gave myself some reasonable goals.  Yeah, goals.  Goals are good.  Kinda like the 365 challenge I've been doing over on Facebook.  You know, how you take a photo a day for an entire year?  How's that going, you ask?  Quite well, my friend, thanks for the support.  It *is* a bit depressing sometimes, though, when I browse my photo albums and realize I've become that entity I used to scorn: a mom with an inexhaustible propensity for taking pictures of her kids.  Sigh.  At least I've tried to be all artistic and use the rule of thirds with most of my photos and all.

Okay, before this devolves into a miasma of indulgent self-pity, how about a pictorial update of my current WIP? Because that's the goal I think I'm setting for myself: a consistently updated documentation of my current knitting projects with a dash of random commentary about life, the universe and everything. And I'm defining "consistent" as posting at least once a week. Does that seem like a reasonable goal? I think so too.

Et voila...

So I screwed the pooch on the pattern and didn't stagger the leaf repeat. But my buds on Ravelry say it won't be noticeable once it's all done and I really don't want to frog the thing because it's lace and I wouldn't even know how without messing up even more so I'm leaving it as is. Perhaps I should just work on the thing late at night when the kiddos aren't tugging at me and causing me to lose my mental mantra of ssk, k1, k1, yo, k1...