so it's now officially a month and i'm still plugging away on this damnable thing. i probably shouldn't say that - or even think it, for that matter - since it's gonna be my mom's christmas present and what if i put some "like water for chocolate" mojo on the thing? still, i really am tired of this project and i wish i could pick another up but my nature dictates that i only work on one thing at a time so i'm pretty much stuck.
i would actually be done with this thing had i not run out of yarn ONE INCH BEFORE FINISHING THE LAST SLEEVE. so i had to order more online and had to set it aside until the skein came but when i did, i actually stopped to scrutinize the sleeves and i realized that i never did decrease every inch from the armpit like i'm supposed to so it's pretty damned shapeless and even if i pretended i meant to do it, the cuffs are just too wide for regular and too narrow for bell.
so what to do? any other non-knitter would never know the difference. but i would. and since it's for my mom and since it's the first time she's asked for something knitted from me, i feel it ought to be close to perfection. but i've been at this for far too long and it's getting to be more a chore than a pleasure.
sigh.
i know what i'm gonna end up doing and i'm just not looking forward to it...
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
the prodigal emotion returns...
...and i'm hoping it's only here for a visit and not to stay.
i rushed out the house today because a. i wasn't carpooling and therefore had to get on the road immediately or miss that tiny window of no-traffic opportunity on the 10 freeway and b. i wanted to avoid the MIL. in the process, i breezed past a whiny, needy aly and a solicitous, wistful dylan in my haste to GET THE HELL OUT.
if it's not yet apparent, reason b was the primary reason for my mad dash for freedom. we've been at odds for the past 2 days now and, being women, we have perfected the art of civil silent treatment. i know i can keep this up indefinitely - our house is big enough - but the kids get caught inadvertently in the crossfire and that's what's bringing on the guilt.
stupid prodigal emotion. thought i'd gotten rid of it several lents ago.
anyhow, my levels of guilt are legion, but for the sake of brevity and because i have to let the kids in in less than 15 minutes, let me just highlight the most heart-piercing (although, oddly, also the most seemingly petty) incident of guilt inducement...
dylan has this routine where he stands in front of the garage door - or the front door, depending on which point of egress i choose that day - and seeing me off for work. he's done this since he was little, ostensibly to "watch my wheels go", but nowadays i wonder what goes on in his little man brain. he always looks so wistful, like he wants to go wherever i'm going but knows it's not possible. most times, we've gotten ready at the same time so he's dressed and primped and opens the car door for me, suffering a quick kiss on the head if the boys have come to pick me up and tolerating a hug when i drive myself. sometimes, i leave early and he's still in his underwear so he stops short of the driveway and just watches me leave for the day. regardless, he always expects me to roll down the window, call out "have a good day; i love you!" then give him a honk of the horn before i zoom off. (i've even trained the boys to give him the honk when they pick me up for carpool).
today, it was the same routine, albeit rushed because of the aforementioned reasons. nothing new. same old, same old. right? but dylan actually picked up my rolling cart so it would clear the threshold on my way out. and he actually hugged me back when i asked for one instead of impatiently standing there as is his wont. and when i told him it was GNO (girls' night out), he looked so crestfallen that i almost half-decided to call and cancel.
so, yeah. that's it. i pull out of the driveway and head out - yes, i honked - and it seemed very normal. but something was plucking at my heartstrings and when i examined it during the long drive alone to work, it articulated itself thusly: dylan is a boy. and he will outgrow his "momma's boy" phase soon, never to return to that simpler, sweeter place. in fact, i realize now that he's already been pulling away from me. it's been a gradual process, as most things are, but it's happening nonetheless. i told myself i was relieved that now it's "greg's turn" when dyl chose to hang with his dad instead of going to the mall with me, or happy that i got to spend uninterrupted "girl time" with aly. but in truth, i wasn't really happy or relieved - i was in denial, trying to bury the ache of losing my son under these less painful emotions.
when this particular epiphany hit - somewhere between the milliken and haven exits - i was crushed with the guilt of rushing out of the house without spending a few, precious moments savoring that hug or complimenting dyl's chivalrous lifting of my rolly cart. how many more times will this happen before he becomes too cool for mom? before he decides sleeping in is infinitely more rewarding than standing in front of the garage door, shivering in his underwear, to see me off? when will he become sullen and closed off and refuse "sleepovers" in his bedroll at the foot of our bed because that's for babies?
these questions may seem petty and premature, but can you blame me for trying to guard my heart from shattering? because it's inevitable, you know. a mother's curse. i can only hope that when it happens - the vanishing of my baby boy - i will be able to replace him gladly with the man i hope he becomes.
i rushed out the house today because a. i wasn't carpooling and therefore had to get on the road immediately or miss that tiny window of no-traffic opportunity on the 10 freeway and b. i wanted to avoid the MIL. in the process, i breezed past a whiny, needy aly and a solicitous, wistful dylan in my haste to GET THE HELL OUT.
if it's not yet apparent, reason b was the primary reason for my mad dash for freedom. we've been at odds for the past 2 days now and, being women, we have perfected the art of civil silent treatment. i know i can keep this up indefinitely - our house is big enough - but the kids get caught inadvertently in the crossfire and that's what's bringing on the guilt.
stupid prodigal emotion. thought i'd gotten rid of it several lents ago.
anyhow, my levels of guilt are legion, but for the sake of brevity and because i have to let the kids in in less than 15 minutes, let me just highlight the most heart-piercing (although, oddly, also the most seemingly petty) incident of guilt inducement...
dylan has this routine where he stands in front of the garage door - or the front door, depending on which point of egress i choose that day - and seeing me off for work. he's done this since he was little, ostensibly to "watch my wheels go", but nowadays i wonder what goes on in his little man brain. he always looks so wistful, like he wants to go wherever i'm going but knows it's not possible. most times, we've gotten ready at the same time so he's dressed and primped and opens the car door for me, suffering a quick kiss on the head if the boys have come to pick me up and tolerating a hug when i drive myself. sometimes, i leave early and he's still in his underwear so he stops short of the driveway and just watches me leave for the day. regardless, he always expects me to roll down the window, call out "have a good day; i love you!" then give him a honk of the horn before i zoom off. (i've even trained the boys to give him the honk when they pick me up for carpool).
today, it was the same routine, albeit rushed because of the aforementioned reasons. nothing new. same old, same old. right? but dylan actually picked up my rolling cart so it would clear the threshold on my way out. and he actually hugged me back when i asked for one instead of impatiently standing there as is his wont. and when i told him it was GNO (girls' night out), he looked so crestfallen that i almost half-decided to call and cancel.
so, yeah. that's it. i pull out of the driveway and head out - yes, i honked - and it seemed very normal. but something was plucking at my heartstrings and when i examined it during the long drive alone to work, it articulated itself thusly: dylan is a boy. and he will outgrow his "momma's boy" phase soon, never to return to that simpler, sweeter place. in fact, i realize now that he's already been pulling away from me. it's been a gradual process, as most things are, but it's happening nonetheless. i told myself i was relieved that now it's "greg's turn" when dyl chose to hang with his dad instead of going to the mall with me, or happy that i got to spend uninterrupted "girl time" with aly. but in truth, i wasn't really happy or relieved - i was in denial, trying to bury the ache of losing my son under these less painful emotions.
when this particular epiphany hit - somewhere between the milliken and haven exits - i was crushed with the guilt of rushing out of the house without spending a few, precious moments savoring that hug or complimenting dyl's chivalrous lifting of my rolly cart. how many more times will this happen before he becomes too cool for mom? before he decides sleeping in is infinitely more rewarding than standing in front of the garage door, shivering in his underwear, to see me off? when will he become sullen and closed off and refuse "sleepovers" in his bedroll at the foot of our bed because that's for babies?
these questions may seem petty and premature, but can you blame me for trying to guard my heart from shattering? because it's inevitable, you know. a mother's curse. i can only hope that when it happens - the vanishing of my baby boy - i will be able to replace him gladly with the man i hope he becomes.
Monday, September 12, 2011
i HAVE to blog about this!
OMFG! LMAO! yes, yes, i know. how dare i blaspheme the english language by invoking netspeak? but those are the knee-jerk reactions that express how i truly felt after reading this (i think she had me at "teacher/mother"):
26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Will Meyer sue for copyright infringement?, November 13, 2010
By S. McKinney (Indiana)
This review is from: Evermore: The Immortals (Paperback)
Sometimes I wish I hadn't decided to become a teacher. I'm very glad to be the mother of two daughters, but the double-whammy of teacher/mother means that I feel like I need to read the books the kids are reading so that I'll be able to offer considered opinions.
With the Harry Potter series, it was all a delight. The Series of Unfortunate Events was clever satire and fun to read. Thankfully my students and my daughters were too old for Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but then I got stuck with the Twilight books and spent a lot of time wanting to eat my own head, they were so incredibly fundamentally awful.
And now I get to read them again! With different character names, to be sure. And in these Immortals books, we are now dealing with, well, immortal beings rather than vampires. But honestly? Everything else is exactly the same. Even the cover of the book is a blatant rip-off -- there's even a similar FONT STYLE.
In Evermore, we have a girl with an evocative name (I still haven't stopped rolling my eyes over "Bella Swan," and now I have to deal with "Ever" and I may never get my eyeballs back to where they should be and that was only, like, the FIRST PAGE.) The girl with the evocative name has to move across the country to live with an adult who is completely incompetent in the care of a teenager, but that's okay because the girl has no need of supervision. She is a woman of the world. Luckily for Ever, her weird lawyer auntie is rich, so Ever gets to drive a speedy little Miata instead of a rusty old truck AND she gets to live in a cool mansion in a gated Orange Beach community instead of in Charlie Swan's dumpy house in damp Forks, Washington. You should note that both vehicles are red, though.
Ever is also more fortunate in that she does have a couple of friends, but they're losers in the out crowd (we take a brief foray here into ripping off The Princess Diaries) and she feels as much veiled contempt for them as Bella feels for the young folk of Forks.
And then a NEW BOY shows up at school. Everyone is just flat-out crazy about him. He's obviously wealthy, has looks that could shame Adonis, is brilliant at all subjects without the apparent need to study, is mysterious, is hot and cool by turns (which drives Ever nuts - too bad she wasn't able to read the Twilight series in her world; she could have dealt with Damen's nonsense with a snap of her fingers.) And strangely enough, despite the fact that there is nothing special about Ever, he is immediately and irrevocably attracted to her.
We have to hear a lot about how awesomely awesome-tastic Damen looks. A LOT. Not quite as much as we had to hear about flipping Edward. Alyson Noel managed to restrain herself from telling us about the sweet fabulousness of Damen's breath, a small mercy for which I was very thankful.
A bunch of stuff happens, but if you've read Twilight, you already know the plot. There are parts that make sense and parts that make no sense at all and the message of the book really sucks -- lots of underage drinking and drunkenness, lots of lying to authority figures, lots of cutting school; like Twilight, it's a list of Things Teenagers Can Do to Eff Up Their Lives, only of course there are never, ever, ever any consequences. Noel threw in some reincarnation and some chakras and some transcendental meditation and....a psychic? Hmm. Okay, whatever. Anyway, she tried to throw us off the Twilight scent, but we all have that stench coating the inside of our noses and we can recognize it from miles away, as far from Washington state to southern California, I'd say. Wouldn't you?
26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Will Meyer sue for copyright infringement?, November 13, 2010
By S. McKinney (Indiana)
This review is from: Evermore: The Immortals (Paperback)
Sometimes I wish I hadn't decided to become a teacher. I'm very glad to be the mother of two daughters, but the double-whammy of teacher/mother means that I feel like I need to read the books the kids are reading so that I'll be able to offer considered opinions.
With the Harry Potter series, it was all a delight. The Series of Unfortunate Events was clever satire and fun to read. Thankfully my students and my daughters were too old for Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but then I got stuck with the Twilight books and spent a lot of time wanting to eat my own head, they were so incredibly fundamentally awful.
And now I get to read them again! With different character names, to be sure. And in these Immortals books, we are now dealing with, well, immortal beings rather than vampires. But honestly? Everything else is exactly the same. Even the cover of the book is a blatant rip-off -- there's even a similar FONT STYLE.
In Evermore, we have a girl with an evocative name (I still haven't stopped rolling my eyes over "Bella Swan," and now I have to deal with "Ever" and I may never get my eyeballs back to where they should be and that was only, like, the FIRST PAGE.) The girl with the evocative name has to move across the country to live with an adult who is completely incompetent in the care of a teenager, but that's okay because the girl has no need of supervision. She is a woman of the world. Luckily for Ever, her weird lawyer auntie is rich, so Ever gets to drive a speedy little Miata instead of a rusty old truck AND she gets to live in a cool mansion in a gated Orange Beach community instead of in Charlie Swan's dumpy house in damp Forks, Washington. You should note that both vehicles are red, though.
Ever is also more fortunate in that she does have a couple of friends, but they're losers in the out crowd (we take a brief foray here into ripping off The Princess Diaries) and she feels as much veiled contempt for them as Bella feels for the young folk of Forks.
And then a NEW BOY shows up at school. Everyone is just flat-out crazy about him. He's obviously wealthy, has looks that could shame Adonis, is brilliant at all subjects without the apparent need to study, is mysterious, is hot and cool by turns (which drives Ever nuts - too bad she wasn't able to read the Twilight series in her world; she could have dealt with Damen's nonsense with a snap of her fingers.) And strangely enough, despite the fact that there is nothing special about Ever, he is immediately and irrevocably attracted to her.
We have to hear a lot about how awesomely awesome-tastic Damen looks. A LOT. Not quite as much as we had to hear about flipping Edward. Alyson Noel managed to restrain herself from telling us about the sweet fabulousness of Damen's breath, a small mercy for which I was very thankful.
A bunch of stuff happens, but if you've read Twilight, you already know the plot. There are parts that make sense and parts that make no sense at all and the message of the book really sucks -- lots of underage drinking and drunkenness, lots of lying to authority figures, lots of cutting school; like Twilight, it's a list of Things Teenagers Can Do to Eff Up Their Lives, only of course there are never, ever, ever any consequences. Noel threw in some reincarnation and some chakras and some transcendental meditation and....a psychic? Hmm. Okay, whatever. Anyway, she tried to throw us off the Twilight scent, but we all have that stench coating the inside of our noses and we can recognize it from miles away, as far from Washington state to southern California, I'd say. Wouldn't you?
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
A Century of Clothes/Dance/Music in 100 Seconds
super fun for project revolution? maybe when we're talking about finding specific topics...
Monday, September 5, 2011
now why can't greg be like this?
Gets Too Obsessed
omg. thanks, steph, for posting this on your FB wall. and now i reblog this because this is probably the best thing i've read in a long time. gives me hope for the human race. :)
omg. thanks, steph, for posting this on your FB wall. and now i reblog this because this is probably the best thing i've read in a long time. gives me hope for the human race. :)
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