Catching Up...

It's been a rough week. Kids are getting ready to go back to school, parents are ready to rejoice. Only a few more days, hang in there. It seems that at the end of the summer, they go a little crazy. Summer vacations are usually done, camp is done, days are getting shorter, fall is in the air. They're itching for something new. It's an ugly, rainy Saturday morning today. Husband went all the way out to Montauk to play a Wedding Ceremony at 1PM. In order to make it there on time, he left the house at 6:30AM. Holiday weekend, gotta pass the Hamptons, one road...could take a few extra hours. I miss him already. I need him to help me with my kiddies who have the End of Summer Crazies. Don't believe me, do you? Read on.......

This week, I telecommuted on Thursday. I got up extra early so that I could do mommy things before work. I planned on making meatballs and sauce at 5AM. So, at 5AM, I got up and went downstairs. I heard the pitter patter of little sneakers....I went into my sunroom to see my son.

"Hello, Mommy. I got up at 4:48 o'clock today. I made this".

He is very proud of his art. So, I let him play with it and proceeded to make sauce and do laundry before I had to start working. See those meatballs floating around in there? I dumped them in the pot, raw. It adds fat to the sauce and makes it extra delicious, of course. It also saves time, no frying or baking. The disadvantage is they tend to fall apart which is ok because then we just have meat sauce. I think next time I will lightly brown them in a hot oven on my Pampered Chef bar pan. Sauce was perfect. Kids and husband gobbled up almost all the meat. I stole two meatballs when no one was looking.

After making the pot of sauce, two loads of wash, running the dishwasher, I worked. At lunchtime, I stopped. I had to make him one of his favorite sandwiches. It had to be cottage cheese on white bread, not toasted and cut exactly the way he likes it. Surrounded by cherries to make it visually appealing. Surrounded by cherries so he could save the pits and plant them in the backyard so we can have a Cherry Orchard.

Can you cut a sandwich like that? Who said girls are harder than boys? She eats whatever is put in front of her. This applies even if it happens to be in someone else's bowl.

DS & DD,Sharing a bowl of Rice Crispies. Noticed they used a divided bowl, don't want to get each others "COOTIES".

By nightfall, they were tired. Work was done and it was time to knit the socks. I got up to the heel flap and I crashed. (Remember, I always tell you, never knit when you're too tired! I do not take my own advice often enough and this is what happens.)


These are for my DS, who has little boy feet, size 12 shoes. I will make them a little longish and hopefully he can wear them 2-3 years, we'll see. I guess that depends on how he grows. I wanted to use the regular slip stitch heel flap but I didn't. I put in stockinette stitch, forgetting to slip. Dopey. Also, pattern has an odd number of sts in the heel, which I DETEST because I can't think that way. 48 sts around, 24 each sole and instep. Bada-bing (I'm keeping with the Italian flair to this post, have you noticed?) and you're done. No dice. I ripped it out. I also had to be a smart ass and knit them both at the same time and I turned in the wrong place. I ripped it out. Then, I noticed that a stitch that was supposed to be a purl was a knit. It was about half way down the sock. In fact, there were two of them that were wrong. Very, noticeable. You probably can't see it here but I can. I put the sock to bed Thursday night and scheduled its surgery for 5AM Friday morning.



Friday morning, I prepped the socks. (one stitch each sock was wrong...) I put one sock on a holder and worked on the other. "Crochet Hook", I said to the nurse, my trusty dog, Zoey, and I proceeded. I dropped the stitch back eight million rows and fixed it. Second sock, at 5:25, alot faster. Probably because I had my coffee. DS stayed in his bed a little later, thankfully. DH got up early to help me handle the kiddies, thankfully. Sock was fixed.

The crazies continued during the day when the little Punkins called 800 numbers to buy stuff off the television. You know, stuff they need, Rainbow brushes, Oreck Vacuum cleaners, that chamois wipey thing that the "Germans make", Hank Williams classic CD Collection and Sledge-o-Matic. Thankfully, DH was able to nip this in the bud.

Friday night, socks were together at last on one needle. I clipped them together with a holder, a guaranteed prevention of turning in the wrong place. I knit the heel flaps, turned heel on sock one and turned heel on sock two. I actually knit them together on a single needle all through the gusset decreases and no errors. YAY. Don't ask me how I did this. I know how to do it but I haven't figured out how to explain it. You need to have a spare DPN or two and it's not really hard once you think about it. Just remember, you have to knit all of the soles and then all of the insteps. If the sts are in the wrong place, slip them to the DPN. Keep slipping them and knitting them on and off in order and voila, at the end of a row (or two, if you miss the first time) everything will be lined up. This took me three attempts when I first did it and now it's cake. I will attempt to document it and photograph it someday.


Finally, this morning's knitting session, which began at 6AM (I let myself sleep in a bit because it's Saturday) went swimingly. I know this is a really cruddy picture but I'm well on the way to completion now. I'm past the halfway point of the foot and should have nice FO pix within a day.

Ah, Saturday. We didn't have eye candy yesterday but I have a feeling we will have a nice sky picture for tonight....hopefully a good one. The end of a rough week.

We'll be saying goodbye to summer tomorrow and I hope to have some nice pictures to help us all remember it. This way, we can look back in January and say, "look at that nice rainy weather".

Stay tuned, I can't wait to tell you and show you my new trinkets. I am going to work on a special project next and guess what? It's not a sock!