Never, ever cut one of those hard plastic zip ties holding together your strand of Christmas lights with an exacto knife. Even if you try to be careful, you’ll slice a deep cut into your thumb. Right after the pain medication kicks in and you try to do something as simple as zip up your jacket because the temperatures dropped 30 degrees in an hour, you’ll realize that just because your thumb is no longer throbbing, doesn’t mean you can use it yet. Nor will it feel better when you try to get back to work on your socks because the idea of wearing wool socks in a houseful of tile floors sounds really tempting. ugh.

Speaking of the lights, here is what the almost-finished outside of our house looks like. This is before the ladder fell out from under Andy, many more fuses needed to be replaced in the strands from busted light bulbs, and Andy’s pants suffered many holes from climbing around on the roof.

While uploading these photos, I found a few surprises thanks to one of my daughters.

The culprit outed herself by attempting a few self-portraits. I love the photo surprises that I get when I download my photo card. I think some of the greatest photographs in my collection where taken by the girls during random moments.

The culprit:

Ack. My thumb’s killing me. I’m trying not to use the cut side to type, but it’s hard to break a habit. I’m going to go in search of my notes for the hats I made for the girls. I want to make more, but I’m not currently feeling patient enough to try to recreate the pattern by looking at their hats.

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Now playing: Marly - Episode 19 Whatcha’ Gonna Do With A Gall Darn Ball Of Yarn
via FoxyTunes

Tags: Family, Girls, Home

This is the first time in my life that I’ve actually needed to keep a weekly planner of all of my activities. When I was working, I never had the need. I didn’t have appointments or lunches with clients to keep track of. Now, I’m volunteering in the mornings at the girls’ school (trying to average twice a week), I’m their Room Moms, I’m their Girl Scout Troop Leader (which I’m very excited about!), and they’re taking swim lessons. I’ve got an interview Monday evening at JC Penney for a holiday job to help out with a little extra Christmas money. I’ve just finished my paperwork to start after-school tutoring. It sounds like a lot to me, but it’s all working out well so far. I’ll probably not be as convinced of everything running smoothly after I start working a few evenings a week too. As far as that, I’m just excited to get out of the house in the evenings and make a little extra spending money.

Now that I’m finally over the nasty flu from last week that managed to keep me feeling miserable through this week, I have a few projects that I finished in September to share. First, I made hats for the girls. Laura’s is in worsted weight (Lion Brand Wool Ease) and Maddie’s is in fingering weight (Lion Brand Babysoft). I hope to post the pattern free in a few days, as soon as I find my notes.

Hey! That’s not Laura! She’s still at school so you get me as a model. :)

I also made a stash basket from a Bernat pattern. I haven’t woven in the ends yet and I need to buy starch to finish it out. It’s going to be an organizer for my bills more than a stash basket, but for now it’s home to the yarn for Laura’s Griffyndor scarf I’m working on.

Now, please avert your eyes if you would rather not see knitting, but I’m excited about what I’ve accomplished. It’s my first sock!! It’s the training sock from Knitty. I used Red Heart Sport and Size 3 needles. I’m going to weave in the ends and put it with my Christmas ornaments. It’s cute although not perfect.

 Now, just as exciting - I started a pair of Monkey socks!  I’m just on the first bit of ribbing because I’m not working exclusively on it (got that scarf to finish), but no troubles with 5 dpn’s so far.  I’m impressed with the twisted ribbing, I’m not just particularly impressed with knitting in to the back loop.  It takes too much time.

  It’s back to cleaning the house for me.  Mom & J are coming up this weekend for a visit.  The State Fair is on the schedule for tomorrow so hopefully I’ll have a bunch of cool pictures to share.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Tags: Crochet, Girls, Home, Knitting