fell asleep

last night recording music for school.....
too bad I can't figure out how to put up my fave Christmas carol.....

Tonight I sang the alto stuff in Messiah at a church not too far from home... Was fun and they have the best goodies after. It really lifted me up. Work has been pulling me down lately so this was a welcome change.

This weekend I got my geek on with Garage Band.... now I know the loophole to transposing a file you want to drop in it... I love it when my brain solves a problem while I'm NOT thinking about it :-)

I think I might knit a bit. I've started that Lacy Ridge Cowl twice now... hopefully the third time is the charm.

Or maybe I should grade papers... nah I'd rather knit!

Bring on the snow tonight!

today is a great day for..

organizing! I don't know why, but I got this urge to clean and organize my pantry in the kitchen. When I was at the grocery store, I bought these fabric boxes and bins and was anxious to put them to use. The large bin was for the kids snacks in the pantry. I wanted to keep them out of MY way so I would be less tempted to eat them. While I was doing that, I figured why not organize the pantry to see what we have...

LOTS of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish (I can go a couple of weeks without buying any and my kid devour them.
TOO MANY boxes of Macaroni and Cheese (enough for a month or more, not every night mind you... but think Sam's Club quantity)
TEA flavors that I should be drinking!
Plenty of flour (all sorts, wheat, white, organic, soy, spelt.... you get the picture)
Powder your body with powdered sugar
NUTS (which I'm nuts about... and are all on my new diet :-) )

At any rate, it's really beautiful now and I know where everything is. And can easily keep away from the crackers and chips and cookies and pudding and well you get the picture.

There's more boxes to hit the coat closet... I'll save that for later tonight!


OH this should be dated yesterday, I wrote it in text edit and forgot to post it.. if you're reading this, you've probably read the previous post and already know why!

let it snow

another snow day except now it's just raining... yuck!

All 3 kids have now had the virus and hopefully we're done with it. I need to get up and moving so I don't feel so old. Tomorrow will be schedule as usual. With any luck there will be no more snow days before I go in to DS1's class to show spinning (or 4 more ;-o )

The college even closed today which is unprecedented. There's not that much snow, I don't get it!

Day 3 of flat belly diet.... I'm not hungry just bored with the food....

stressed

will I get this in on time???

hoping that I can. K cheated a bit. Fell asleep with DS2 and just popped up and nabbed the puter.

I worked all weekend on school work for the chorus program blech!

But last night Natalie and I went to see Vespers at Moravian... I'm so proud of DH! His ladies choir was really good. I wanted to take Olympia but didn't feel like dragging a huge bag along, so I stole this shot from the college website.

Now that I'm awake, I think I'll go do something downstairs... just heard DH go to bed, so I don't want to wake him up.. let's hope this little boy stays asleep for more than 30 minutes!

eating my words

so I know I just won that gorgeous necklace and lo and behold, Kathleen Taylor leaves a comment on my post to tell me that I won 2 skeins of Knitpicks main line yarn from her blog! I can't stand the excitement (OK I really can, I am getting the winning bug) I am dumbstruck, at a loss for words (and for me that's saying quite a lot!)

Kathleen blogs about her passions: knitting (including many free patterns on freebie fridays), music, books and paper dolls. She's the author of Knit One, Felt Two and I Heart Felt and Yarns to Dye For and her prayer shawl pattern is on the cover of the Prayer Shawl book (soon to be released) Go visit and say hi!

Today was a LOONG day... first the coffee grinder stopped working... before the coffee was made. That had the makings of a bad start to the week. I spent 30 minutes trying to get it going, but alas I believe the motor is burned out. This is our 2nd sunbeam doffee grinder in 2 years. DH asked if I had time to stop at the local kisok for a mug but no I had spent too much time trying to fix the grinder. Then the car I usually take on Mondays was out of gas, (no I didn't leave it that way) so I did what any wife would do and took the other car! Fortunately I didn't have to sub for the fifth grade teacher again this afternoon (that was Friday...took any and all free time I had) there was someone there for the whole day.

I made mom a pouch for her pitch pipe... forgot to take a picture of it though... maybe I can get a picture next weekend. And I hope the pitchpipe fits in it. From sock yarn that I made my Charade socks in.

Hopefully, with any luck and some staying awake tonight, I'll finish the pair of baby booties to go along with the sweater and hat.

Wild stripes is coming along about 1/3 of the knitting. The baby will be born on Thursday. Thankfully, it's too warm to need this blankie, so I'll just tell its mom and dad that the gift is still gestating!

Maybe pictures in my next post??

Oh and I got my package from my love2knit dishcloths exchange partner today. Question is can I wait until Oct 1st to open it???

I also bought some Spunky Eclectic sock yarn off a ravelry member. It's in her harvest colorway and I have the perfect pair of socks to knit for it. I found the pattern after I had one monkey sock finished. A pattern that I was looking for but didn't have of leaves because I thought that colorway would make great fall leaf socks. Well I wasn't going to rip out a whole sock, not during the olympics, so when I saw this yarn I knew I had to buy it. It's a beautiful varigation of greens, golds, browns and oranges, perfect for fall leaves. Now to dig out the pattern (even though I should be knitting Christmas gifts right now!)

I'm almost finished sewing the patches on DD's new brownie sash. I think I'll save the numbers for tmrw night. No sense in getting them done too early before the next meeting (LOL)

My colleague captaincosmic and I were choosing music for our joint spring concert which will be on Earth Day and hopefully in the town park. natch the theme for the concert is Earth Day related. I used to have this Sesame Street Tape called We are all Earthlings, but alas about 7 years ago it broke. I was looking for the tape to buy online and the only place I could find it was amazon for almost $50.00 yup you read that right fifty for a cassette that is 15 years old. Needless to say, I wasn't about to spend that on it. Fortunately some thrifty friends on ravelry pointed me to youTube and there I found video clips of the songs we were interested in using. Here's on of my absolute faves:
Love the Ocean
(if anyone can tell me how to drop the video in, I'd appreciate it!)

busy weekend

DS1 and DD had a full schedule Saturday. They both had their respective gymnastics lesson this morning. Then this afternoon, they each had a meet. The boys first and then the girls. DS1 (who seems to goof in his lesson more than anything) won first place - highest overall score - in his division. He is tickled, well red (his favorite color)
DD did better than last year. I should mention that in between class and the meet, she went to a birthday party. Not making excuses for her... but she was pretty pooped. She fell asleep in less than 2 pages of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

The concert Friday night was an experience. DS1 didn't wear the hat or makeshift bow-tie I made him. And for a while, I thought he wasn't going to go. "I look stupid, people will laugh at me" but DH convinced him to go (after the rest of us left) and he soon realized that all his chums looked just as 'stupid' as he did and rather cute I'll say.


DD came through.. she wore her outfit with pride and gave me no problems once it was finished. Her outbursts were before it was even made. After the concert, we went for ice cream at the parlor closest to the concert venue. We all got cups except for DD who insisted on a cone. Her dress wore more than she ate. Thank goodness it only cost me $3. I'll try to wash it out though as she seems to think it would ve fun to use as dress up. The blouse was big on her, and somehow more lace managed to get ripped. So before I put it away, I'll fix the new broken spots. and then carefully find it a home.


I had my first camera disappointment. I bought this model from eBay when the kids broke mine that is identical. I wanted this one because one year for Mother's Day DH had gotten me a telephoto lens and a wide angle lens that screw on to the camera with an adapter. This ring is supposed to screw off the front of the camera. I couldnt' get the ring to screw off the ebay one at the concert (had I tried it before, you ask.... of course not) so I had to hold the lens on the front of the camera.. not precisely ideal for taking pictures in focus (the camera wasn't very steady with me pushing the extra lens on the front) but you can get the idea. That and we were back 26 rows... so the flash wasn't very helpful. The place was packed and quite the mess. Bach Choir of Bethlehem's first weekend of the May festival was happening at the same time (at a very nearby venue) so the parking deck was full of Bach goers and school concert goers. The average audience member, who is there to see their own kid, can be so rude to other listeners. I've found this at the concerts we give at my school and I'm always enraged by it, so I don't know why I was surprised.

We didn't even get to look at the art work in the lobby because the information that came home said that the elementary concert was first then browsing the gallery for the art show and then the middle/high school concert. But they made the announcement that kids should take their art work home.. so half of it was gone. DS's grade showcased a lesson on birthday cakes. (same as DD when she was in Kdg) This birthday cake is for me... hence the 12 on the cake. the Date of my birthday (and of course it says happy Birthday mommy) My sweet, sweet boy.

DD has a picture of a fish that they used white paint on the paper and then used pastels on top.. it creates a textured picture. The background of the picture was to be comprised of cool colors and the picture itself was to use warm colors. This kids amazes me!

Sorry I have no knitting pictures. Natalie and I did fix our dresses yesterday and my shirt this afternoon though (where did I squeeze that activity in) so we look more presentable at our concert Tuesday evening when they put us on Blue Ridge Cable TV presenting our check to ACS


The lilacs are out full force and I have the voice to prove it.






As are my chives:



I bought a cheap (in many ways) bookshelf from craigslist today to put my cotton cones on. It fits behind the door to the yarn room... so it's out of the way. Pics of that will come as soon as it's ready.