On the road again...

Well, it seems that two road trips with Wee(py) Ninja Girl in tow just weren't enough for the summer, so now I am in Albany with her visiting my parents and family. Extraordinarily Patient Dude is stuck working in Rochester, but will be up on Friday afternoon.

Wee Ninja Girl is usually pretty good in the car, but 3.5 hours is a bit much for her, despite being the shortest trip yet. We only had to stop once since my youngest sister (Ms. T) and I were sitting in the backseat with WNG entertaining her the whole way. EP Dude will come and pick us up and we all return home Sunday morning.

I have been doing lots of knitting, crocheting, and beading lately, but most of what I've made have been from other patterns. Ms. T's birthday gifts were fingerless gloves and a little cell-phone sock. I made up the sock, so if I remember to jot down the pattern I could post that. I really like self-striping sock yarn.

My younger brother's (The Engineer) birthday gift was a cabled hat from Stitch 'n' Bitch Nation. It came out really nice in a lovely dark brown wool.

My mom's birthday gift was a black and white beaded necklace. It came out nice—she didn't think I had actually made it myself. I'm not sure if I should be insulted or complimented. I have a hard time photographing jewelry, but if I can get a nice shot I will post it.

I was so proud of myself for finishing gifts for ALL the August birthdays in the family when I realized that my oldest niece, Energizer Bunny, turned 8 today. Sigh. One more late present to go and then I think I'm home free until October.

Then it's time to think about Christmas...

A mere flesh wound!

Okay, so I don't have a flesh wound. I do, however, have a bruised foot.

"But wait," you cry. "How can someone as graceful and nimble as you do something like that?"

Sigh. It was late and I was tired.

I was going up to bed and carrying a large basket full of clean, folded laundry. The stairway was dark except for the eye-grating glow of the little fluorescent night-light in the upstairs hallway. When I got to the third step up I noticed something lurking in the shadows along the baseboard above the fifth step. A house centipede.

I'd post a picture, but just looking at them on Google has freaked me out, so I'll spare you. Feel free to Google it yourself.

Anyway, I slowly stepped down one step (backwards, with a loaded laundry basket in my arms, mind you) and thought I was off the stairs entirely. So I lunged a step backwards.

I'm not good at math, but I can tell you that three steps up minus one step down equals two more steps down. I landed hard on the ball of my right foot and almost careened into the moulding around the dining room door.

I didn't drop the laundry, however.

Extraordinarily Patient Dude looked at me like I sprung a second head, but when I explained about the bug, he lived up to his name and disposed of it without complaint. It took him a while to find it since it was deep in the shadows. I must have some sort of Spidey-sense (Centi-sense? Pedey-sense?) because it was very obvious to me.

So, after limping around for a few days, it seemed this morning that the bruise was healed. (Notice how I could have made some sort of pun with the word "heal/heel" since the injury was on my foot. You're welcome.) I rejoiced and took Wee Ninja Girl for a walk in the town park.

So now my foot hurts again and my Achilles tendon is sore for some reason. I guess I'll just have to put it up and sit around for a while.

I'll try to offer it up.

Not quite back in the groove.

I have a very normal routine. Laundry is done every three days. Diapers are washed after Wee Ninja Girl goes to bed whenever we don't have enough clean ones to get through the next day. Every Monday I dust and vacuum the first floor of the house. Every Thursday I dust, dry mop, and vacuum the first and second floor of the house. One Thursday a month I wash the hardwood floors and the kitchen linoleum. Two Mondays a month I clean the bathrooms. All other cleaning is done on an "as needed" basis.


When my house is a disaster I can't concentrate or focus on anything. My mom and dad would laugh at that, since I wasn't exactly tidy when I lived at home, but it's true.


And yet, ever since coming back from our three-day vacation, I have had a rough time getting back into the swing of things. We're also in the process of re-organizing our study/computer room and cleaning out my craft room and the upstairs closets. Oh, and the dungeon basement, too.


Fun times.


So, once all the junk is cleaned out of everything and the house is back in order, I might get around to posting a new pattern for the Mountain Girl hat I made a few weeks ago. Here is a picture of it.


I know. I'm such a tease.