Halloween

I had to do this in 2 posts, because (blah, blah, blah, stinking computers, blah), but here's Halloween!



Only after I took the picture, did I think, hmmm. maybe it would be appropriate to take down the picture of Jesus?  Is there halloween decorating protocol to cover these situations?  Jesus is going to hang with the Christmas decorations in a month or so.......



Yes, I knit the "disguise." 

Breanne was a "steampunk" girl, and she made her own skirt, vest, jewelry, and cane!  She got her parts from a shirt, DI, some aviator goggles and her own collection of "junque."  I knit the spats, just cuz she needed some and her outfit is so AWESOME!!

It was raining cats and dogs for the ward trunk or treat, but that didn't stop this attractive bunch!   Bryce and Uncle Rick came, and Roger decided the disguise needed to be a lumberjack.   

At the end of the day, who doesn't need to sleep in their Princess Lea wig?  It's just nice and warm.

A fall walk

We took a walk the other day, up Battlecreek canyon, before going to the Purple Turtle, then to see The Sorceror's Apprentice.  A very fun family date!!  For those of you in the local area - you do know about Watergardens being $3 a seat, and drinks and popcorn being 1 or 2 bucks?  Is Awesome!

My talk is on........this piece of paper

Let's see, laundry, family, work, meals, dishes, let the dog in, let the dog out, family, shopping, laundry, work, knitting...........  Oh yeah!  Here's a bright shining nugget of chagrin-


My assignment:  a talk in church on "serving the poor and needy" with at least 40% of the talk consisting of personal examples.  Yes, you heard me right.  The other 2 members of the old RS Presidency didn't get their assignments worded like that, so I called BACK and verified, and yes, I had heard  correctly.  So I dithered around with that for awhile, but when I finally got down to it, I felt like the talk really wrote itself; I got the "flow", and I felt really good about it.  I was a little stoked to give my talk, which didn't totally offset the actual "giving a talk" clammy nausea and such, but still.


So, among other things, I told a lovely story where my mother was a wonderful example of service to the poor and needy for me by inviting a smelly homeless man into our home to shower and sent him away with some of my Dad's clothes.  Because she felt good about it.  Like the spirit let her know it would be ok.  I remember this!   I've been telling this story for years to illustrate listening to the spirit.   Except....... when I was sharing my (successful!  spiritual!  totally not too long or short!) talk with Mom over the phone afterward, she had to regretfully inform me I had it all wrong, as in: there were 3 or 4 men on the sidewalk, and 1 of them asked if his Dad, who had messed himself could come in and shower, and she DID NOT feel good about it, so she gave them some of my Dad's clothes and told them they could use the hose outside.


Yeah.  I totally pulled  a Paul H. Dunn!


Now I have to view my own stories and personal (version of my)  history with suspicion. 
What the heck else have I invented?
Why can I only still remember MY version of the story? 
What's more real in the end, what actually happened or what you think you remember? 
So did I feel the spirit or just invent THAT too? 
Isn't this just the perfect testimony about keeping a journal or what!  


Well, I do know: Brains and memory are wierd; mine plenty so.  I know from having OCD that my brain is SUCH a liar, so I guess I shouldn't be so dismayed here.  (But I am) Also, the Lord works with what he's got, namely us, the weak things, and he's in the process of making us stronger, so theres that. 
One moral of the story: Do a fact check BEFORE you give your talk. (Actually, I had called Mom before church to see if she had anything to add, but she was in meetings herself, and when she called back, I was in the shower, and Ethan took the call......)


Since this is what currently passes for my journal, photo album AND communication with others who are interested enough to read here (bless you!)  I thought I should write it down.

the saddest sweater ever

Warning: non-knitters will find this incredibly boring.  Skip to the pictures. 


So this sweater has been kicking my butt.  I whipped the actual sweater out pretty quick, then debated, pockets before or after zipper?  I decided to add them after the zipper, then found out I could buy a zipper either 1 inch too short or too long.  I went with too short, and really regretted it.  Then I debated, hand or machine sewing?  I went with machine sewing and really regretted it.  It made the front stretched out and mashed down.  I thought about re-doing it, but the yarn (Encore) has turned out to be a huge disapointment.  The one day he wore it without pockets, he came home with 4 snags!  The yarn is thin-ish, and chintzy feeling, instead of plump, thick and soft like his last sweater made from Knitpicks Swish.  So I plowed ahead, adding bad to worse, because the kid had specifically requested the pockets, but I was down to a little leftover smidge of yarn, and everytime I knit with it, my face and nose itched like crazy.  I j-u-s-t c-o-u-l-d-n-o-t make myself sit down and get 'er done.  I don't know what was wrong with that last bit of yarn!  To add insult to injury, I don't like the way the striping and shading turned out on the pockets; I found that adding the pockets after the zipper was a mistake cuz it poufs out, and I sewed the top of the pockets unevenly!  The whole thing felt like when you almost slip, cartwheel your arms wildly, wobble and stagger around for awhile and finally fall in slo-mo. 

I could fix it, you know.  I could unpick the zipper, resew the pockets, handsew the zipper, even buy one long enough.........

 Ethan is already wearing it, and he moves fast, right? 


Next time: only good tough wool for a childs sweater!  A kid who will wear hand-knits religiously deserves the good stuff.




Here's the one I made him in kindergarten, 2 little, 2 short, mended several times: well-loved. 




Here's the new one, funky short zipper, bizzare pockets.  It's killing me. 
Pattern: Knitting Pure & Simple, children's neckdown cardigan 
Size 10-12 
Yarn, Paton's Encore 




This is the view from the dining room table looking out the back door.  The light shining in the house was amber gold all afternoon. A certain slant of (autumnal) light indeed.




Breanne finished her duvet cover.  It's awesome!  I had to show it here, but I hope she puts it on her own blog.  Skulls, winnie the poo, Hawaii, China, batman: it's all on here.





I................I am sorry.  I can't help myself!  He's so stinking cute.  How have I turned into one of those people? 



A Public Service

This summer I've been absolutely pathetic on the canning front, I've canned exactly nothing.  But the following recipe is so easy, I've put away batch after batch of this roasted tomato sauce.  It is SO GOOD people, SO GOOD!!  It makes my mouth water thinking of it.  This real recipe is here:  http://family.go.com/blog/catherinewman/easy-roasted-tomato-sauce-832480/ .   I love love love Dali Mama's writing and recipes!   But here's the Robbie version.   First, ya pick em.  I stop after I fill this giant silver bowl, because it's just about right to fill 2 cookie sheets, which in turn is all that will fit in the oven. 



Then you cut them in half face down on a cookie sheet.  Sprinkle on a sliced onion, 2-3 smashed garlic cloves, and drizzle on some olive oil.  Salt, pepper, a swish of sugar, italian spices if you want  (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.  It just depends on how fast I'm pushing this thru), then bake for 2 hours at 375 degrees. 



Well, this is an example of what not to do, small bear, these ones were overcooked because I forgot to switch the pans 1/2 way thru, and they were a little hard to scrape off the  cookie sheet, but still delicious nonetheless.  I scrape them all into the blender, blend the heck out of it, then freeze 2 cup servings in ziplocs.  The real recipe says you can use a food mill to sieve out the skins and seeds, but I've never needed to, the blender takes care of it just fine.  Bonmama has tried this, and she said it was so creamy she just went ahead and made tomato soup with it.  Several other people I've recommended this to have become converts, so I thought I'd just spread the lycopene love.

You're welcome.



The new carpet

So, I've been looking for a cheap but beautiful carpet for our TV area, mainly to anchor the couches in place to keep the one from scooting back into the curtains and over the furnace vent.  We tried carpet grip stuff under the legs, but it didn't work for long. The Liquidation Team had this 8 by 10 that was EXACTLY what I had in mind, and if you don't think it's beautiful, you can word it carefully, but I won't believe you. 

Anyway, I muscled it home, wrestled it around by my lonesome with Ethan and Toby dancing around making me all frazzled.  It took awhile to get it all moved around and lined up and I was pretty sweaty, but happy with how it looked. 

Then.............. dun dun dun. 

I decided to water the plants, and put some miracle-gro in the water, cuz, well, it was just time to do that, and as I walked to the corner to water that Dr. Suess plant I've got there in the corner, I thought "huh, that coffee table is just a little crooked, bent over, and SPLOOSH, there went 2 quarts of blue liquid over the new carpet.  It had been in place all of 30 minutes!!!!!!!!  Yep. 

I hauled it out to the driveway, scrubbed it out and hosed it off.  It washed out fine, and Roger came home to wet carpet drying over the stair railing.  Ethan didn't hear a single one of the dirty words I furiously muttered to myself, so I'm counting this one as a win. 

This all happened early in the month, but such is my camera cycle.  You know, the taking of pictures, the downloading of pictures, the naming of the file, then the cursed searching and searching for the bleeping file.  You gotta want it.

Yes, something needs to be done about the coffee table I bought at Salvation Army 20 years ago, but my gumption for projects is missing, and my money for new is sitting on the floor there. 

Doesn't this look like he's got Dr. Oct legs coming out of his back?

 

Ethan, Aislynn, and Eli had all earned free Utah State fair tickets (plus one free ride and a free drink) this summer by reading books and filling out a form, so we went and had a dang good time, if you don't count the $6 corn dogs.  The kids were most excited by far by this bungee/gymnastic contraption, but the art and craft displays were pretty popular with them too. 

homework, money and crappy plastic toys

The routines of the schoolyear have started up again, and I find myself deluged with making sure one single 2nd grader does his reading, spelling and math pages EVERY SINGLE DAY (except Sunday) and recording it on the form that must be signed and turned in every week. I got a personalized note about checking his math more carefully please. (ok, that was last year, but still! I know the teacher is watching) His piano lessons have homework FOR ME!!!! I could darn near be homeschooling. It was NOT this complicated with my first 2. Sheesh. One thing about having assigned reading every day (20 min) is he only does that, and hardly ever reads for pleasure. (Well, I'm sure having netflix and computers handy affect that situation also. Well, and Roger reads great books nightly to him. Well, and he's young.)



I've gotten really really intolerant of crappy plastic toys, and laid down the law last spring that he couldn't buy anything under $40. Just can't do it. He needed to set a goal for something big that he wants and then save up for it, cuz there are just too many stupid little (..................insert all the things you've ever thought or said about wasteful, expensive, breakable, piece losing, crappy little plastic toys......................) in our house. So he got all motivated to earn money and buy a nintendo DS (gameboy) like Ava has. I thought that was great then found out they cost $180. gulp. I agreed then that we could buy it when he saved up $100, so he piled at least 1/2 his toys in boxes for a garage sale and bugged me weekly about when could we have a garage sale. I should have just let him have his own, but of course I thought I should declutter the whole house and have a GOOD garage sale while we were at it. Which of course I never did, and a friend in our ward just got cancer, and his friends were throwing him a fundraising garage sale, so I gave Ethan $20, and gave the stuff for the garage sale, and got that monkey off my back. The kid's up to $63. Now he's angling to sell me his sack of Halloween candy for $20.


Ok, here's the other thing. If he does all his homework and reading WHICH I AM SUPPOSED TO HELP HIM DO, he can pick a crappy little plastic toy out of the treasure box from his teacher. Same at Piano! 2 crappy little plastic toys per week added to my house!!!! It is a cruel, cruel joke. Especially because he is insanely motivated by these treasure boxes, and the mere mention of these boxes existence wins willing cooperation every time. Do you see my dilemma?