A Letter from my Husband

Seems your daughter is even more "head strong" than you. (pig headed might even be an appropriate word)

 

Our little joy and I had a to-doo today that took a little over an hour of our respective lives. (Which of course, I have much less of in reserve)

 

Seems our "precious",  enjoys throwing cat food around the kitchen as I found her engaged in this activity much to my dismay. I immediately took action to end the aforementioned activities and found myself demanding that she clean up her mess. I engaged her and she cleaned up every piece of cat food (at least a hundred or more) piece by agonizing piece by picking it up and placing it in the closest cat bowl. Over and over and over again until there were 7 pieces of cat food left on the mat. At this point she declined further action on the cleaning front and decided that she had done all she was going to do. This became an issue for me and our standoff commenced. She wailed her discontent and stopped only to insert her thumb into her mouth for the purposes of suction. I laid down and waited for her every now and then asking in a firm but reasonable voice to please "finish up," "Clean up her mess", "She made it, she cleans it." Etc. She removed herself a number of times only to have me walk her back to her perch and counter with her wails of discontent. The neighbors I am sure have called state agencies who are probably assembling with swat teams and firearms outside for a raid at any time. The standoff continued for a minimum of an hour with her scheming to walk off and entertain herself with a ball or other toy and I countering with a quick and decisive walk back to the cat bowls. The cats of course were probably starving but would have none of this war and stayed clear. Finally, she relented and picked up the 7 pieces of offending cat food. All is well with the world now.

 

I win and she gets to nap. Unfair this world be. Unfair indeed.

 

With love and affection,

 

Your husband.

 

 

>^.^<

January 20, 2009

I see a light at the end of the tunnel.  I have hope for my country again. 

Good luck to you, Mr. President.

 

>^.^<

 

Nephew O's Hat

Over the past couple of years, I have made various promises to my sister-in-law that I would make a hand knit for her son O. Initially I wanted to make a sweater on one of my knitting boards, but never got around to it. Then I discovered knitting on needles and decided he should have a hat. I dove into my stash and found some lovely alpaca. After modifying a patter, I realized that I did not have a circular needle in the correct size so I opted to use multiple DPNs. I'm a circular needle-magic loop type of girl, so using DPNs was a challenge. The hat was failure. It was too small (this child has a gigantic head for a 2yo.) and my gauge was terribly wonky. *sigh*

After an exhaustive rav-search I found the perfect pattern, found some acrylic/wool yarn in my stash (better yarn for a youngster who will probably lose his hat) and had the correct size cirs on hand. I present to you...

Project:Scrap-happy Celebration Hat by Cosette Cornelius-Bate. This pattern is available as a free dowload on Ravelry. This is a bit more information about the hat too.

Yarn: Wool-Ease by Lion Brand. I used three colors, but could not tell you their specific color names. Cream, Burgandy & Brown would be my best description.

O refused to even touch the hat so my girly offered to model. Yeah - it's too big for her.

Needle: Addi Turbo Needle US6 / 4mm - 32"circular. I used magic loop (as I usually do when I don't have a smaller cir. on hand.) I know the pattern calls for size US 7 needles, however at the time I didn't own that size. Decided to use a US 6 and hoped for the best.

Gauge: I didn't measure that. I'll have to do a better job of that if I'm going to blog about my projects, 'eh?

Finished size: See gauge

>^.^<

Girly Sez:

Get out and VOTE!

>^.^<

Election Day!

What more can I say that hasn't already been said...

VOTE!

People have died, been incarcerated & voluntarily gone on hunger strikes to give YOU the ability to vote. Don't take this freedom for granted.

Get out and VOTE!

Go now!

Really, I'm not kidding.

Go now and VOTE!

>^.^<

Dining in Pittsburgh

Today I find myself with my co-worker 'D' in Pittsburgh. We're here a day early for a training class at a company facility. I have only been to PIT once before about 3 years ago. Similarly, I was here on business attending the same facility.

Feeling rather adventurous, I wanted to find a 'local' restaurant for dinner. And beer sounded really good too. After perusing a 'what to do while in Pittsburgh' magazine, I found Penn Brewery. The magazine claimed it serves German and American favorites. We both thought...yummmm German beer. Decision made.

Armed with directions from Mapquest, we started our adventure. Follow street A to street B. Drive through a trippy underground tunnel. Turn here, turn there. Exit on Exit 7C. Missed 7C completely. I swear there wasn't a sign. Drive out of our way. Turn around. Drive completely out of our way again. Finally we managed to get off the highway and onto a local road. Using the crappy map in the "what to do while in Pittsburgh" magazine, we managed to navigate downtown PIT and finally arrived at our destination.

The restaurant was super cute. They have a great cobble-stone patio which I'm sure is well used during the summer and on the weekends in October. Inside they have long tables where 6 or 8 could sit. Very European...or so I've been told.

I immediately ordered a Penn Dark. Very malty with rich flavor. Went well with the musical stylings of a little German polka band made up of a string bass & and an accordion. I wished I had a stein and had a few more friends around to really play up the toast the band occasionally made.

The menu was completely overwhelming. Not a scant trace of American food. Oh no, this menu was full of calorie laden, artery clogging German comfort foods. I was giddy. I could not decide on what to order, so the waitress helped. I ended up with this...

SCHWEINELENDENSTÜCK
Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloins grilled to order and topped with pan gravy.
Served with Bavarian Red Cabbage and Mashed Potatoes.

The beer was really affordable, however the food was a bit on the pricy side. All in all - it was worth every penny.

yum yum

>^.^<

12 Weeks

Tomorrow I am going back to work after being on maternity leave for 12 weeks.

*sigh*

I have completely enjoyed spending time getting to know my girly. I feel fortunate that I could afford to take 12 weeks off from work, but I am sad that I must go back to work so soon.

Yes - 12 weeks = too soon.


>^.^<