Knitting, life, Christmas time, and Diet

I have picked up my lovely hobby of knitting once again. My current projects should be linked at the side via Ravelry widget. My sister-in-law asked me about the Mermaid Tail blanket that is all the craze right now. I found a pattern that was knit, bought it and yarn, and have been working on the girls gifts. Not done in time for the party unfortunately. :( But we will be in Lansing again soon and can deliver them then. I also found an awesome Shark blanket (same designer) for my nephew! But first he is getting a TMNT hat in Raphael's colors.

In knitting the girls blankets I was asked by a family friend if I could make one for her daughter after said daughter saw it and went gaga. Of course I said yes. So I'm casting that on now to bust it out before the end of the month. Another friend asked about Harry Potter house mitts and scarf for her daughter, those go on the needles next! I'm slowly getting my sanity back via knitting and will be glad to sit over break and relax with my knitting!

Life - my poor middle child! Due to some outside circumstances we decided to pull her from public school and have her attend online schools. No more than a week in she faints due to low blood sugar while I'm at work and gets a concussion. Concussion = no stimulation....meaning no screen time....meaning no school until cleared of symptoms. Fast forward a month and still having headaches, next step is a neurologist appointment. She believes that the concussion triggered migraines and we are now trying an elimination diet. The girl is a picky eater as it is but when you take away chocolate & cheese - you severely diminish her foods she will willingly eat. Let's say she hasn't been entirely the strictest on this diet as I cannot starve her. She already doesn't eat much from one food group - dairy due to issues with lactose. And then on top of this she has hurt the muscle in her thigh at the knee. We are watching to see if swelling goes down for another week. If it doesn't potential physical therapy and/or MRI. Mind you this is all since the tail end of September to today.

We attended the second of four family parties we have this month. The first my youngest and I were scheduled to not attend due to a conflict but it was canceled so we went to the mother-in-laws side. Today we attended my side's party and I ate my fill in yummy cookies and homemade fudge. We even took our family photo outside since it was a lovely but damp almost 60 degrees here in the Mitten state.

Diet - more life a lifestyle change. I had to give up my Jazzercise position that gave me a free membership due to my work schedule changing. But I had a backup - Beachbody and became a coach. My awesome cousin Nettie is my sponsor and my Rockstar leader. I love 21 Day Fix but I have fallen off the wagon after Thanksgiving. :( My Monday is actually Sunday so I am starting over tomorrow. And since I got my Black Friday sale deals I might mix it up and try a new program! I'm tracking that journey on my other blog Slimming Down to RockTheFit (linked to my profile).

We have another animal.....

On 2/18 my friend saw a cat frozen to the ground outside her house. She sat with him, rubbing his paws until she was able to remove his feet from the ground and take him inside. Unfortunately due to her and her daughters allergies they could not keep him in their house long. She called me begging me to take him in. And we did. His poor back paws were severely swollen because of an infection caused by the frostbite wound on his tail. He had a wound on one of his back legs and his paw pads were torn up from being frozen.

On 2/19 we took him to a vet to have his paws looked at. Me being the animal sucker that I am, told them to do the works. I couldn't decide to hold off on anything, especially if it would be something needed in a few days time. He was left there to get fluids, rabies shots, and a slew of other things. He wouldn't allow the vet to examine his leg wound but he was given an antibiotic and some pain meds. We were asked to return with him in four days time.

On 2/23 we went back for his recheck. He roamed all around the room, exploring everything, trying to eat the treat they had whole (it was a piece of jerky).


*****UPDATE*****

So I originally started this entry back in Feb. when we got the cat. And then promptly forgot to come back to it! Colby is healthy and an expensive FREE cat! But we love his crazy butt and wouldn't have it any other way. Hard to believe this poor baby was once outside and frozen. He had some complications - needed to have his tail partially amputated from being frozen. And must have had frostbite to his bits as when they fixed him he wouldn't stop bleeding. One trip to stay overnight with the emergency vets and he was ok and still alive! He is a miracle cat and we wouldn't have him any other way.


We called him Tiny Cat to begin with as we weren't sure we would keep him and he was soooooo tiny compared to our BIG Jack cat.

Mother Nature needs to up her meds

For the past month and a half every time the weather changes my allergies go crazy. Sometimes it's as little as a headache or migraine. Other times I'm in bed hiding from the world because my head is so full of snot I'm not fit to be around others. This has caused a lapse in my reading and reviewing. I'm attempting to play catch up over the next few days but I have quite a few books to review that I didn't think to write down my thoughts on while sick. Today is yet another headache day but I am powering through and getting reviews up once again.

I've found that I'm also in a knitting slump. Which sucks as I am spoiling the most awesome person I know and can't tell you who that is. I have stalked them and plotted what to send but the actual knitting and buying of items has been waylaid. By what you ask - JV soccer. My oldest has finally tried out for a sport and wouldn't you know it we have to buy things for it! So buying for other things is on hold until that is done and my bowling fees are current. Ha so basically no new cool things until May-ish. Which is of course when I will be getting my hair done once again and potentially getting a new tattoo with my girl cousins.

Living paycheck to paycheck sucks behind.....I was going to say sometime but no it's really all the time. But enough ranting about that. I've noticed that the stat count on this blog is up, and it seems to be because of the review blog - thanks for stopping by if that is the case. :)

New turn in the road

I decided to do something different. One of the many authors I read shared a link for a fellow author with an ARC link. I followed it and joined the site to get my ARC's to read and review. Yup review, I've started a new blog on which I read and review books. As well as a new twitter account to go with said blog.

Why not right, I read a bunch as it is so this is just one more step in the process. And I'm having fun doing it. So far I have enjoyed all the books read. The current one I am reading is a bit wordy, and hard to follow but I'm toughing it out. I was even pre-approved for an YA ARC and I'm excited to read it once I finish the current book. My new blog - kkmreads is linked in my Blogger profile if you'd like to check out what I have been reading. :)

I have lost my mind......

This week was the longest week ever since I have started working waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when the girls were in elementary school. This week was elementary conferences. This meant two half days; two days off the lunch lady (playground not food) gig and two looooooooong afternoons with the before/after school program. We decided this year to split the days and I got to stay the whole time on one of them.......

I am soooooooooooo tired! And to top it all off - I have lost my mind......there are 5 girls in my house, 3 are mine, 1 extra is spending the whole weekend and the last 1 was a last minute add. I sent the hubby to pick up the pizza because I knew he will want the escape. HAHAHA

Life......again!

It seems like all I do is work. I've hardly knit anything in the last two years, which is sad. I have a half finished monkey to make for my nephew. As well as a few other monsters to make for family members. I should probably get moving on those. But it seems like as my kids get older there is less time for me to do the things I did before. Probably because I am carting them everywhere instead! I'm looking forward to this afternoon when I can sit and figure out what to do for a couple special people. But I'm off to work now.

Life.......

Has this tendency to run away from me. Crazy busy lately. Enjoying the peace of a quiet home while the kids are at their grandparents for a few days. Then back to the hub-bub of the holidays. One Christmas knitting project down - knit my FIL some slippers he could wear inside his boots for extra warmth. Onto the next projects - 2 Maddox the Mischievous monsters for my nieces & a Grumpasaurus for my nephew.

Got an awesome gift from my friend Amy sent me an awesome Christmas gift this year. I got 2 batts of fiber to spin from WoodenSpinner Fiber by Brenda in Hot Stuff & Babbling Brook colorways. Soooooooo pretty!



And she sent me Itty-bitty toys by Susan B. Anderson. I look forward to making some of those for my nieces & nephews as well as other babies to come in the future. :) Thanks Amy!!! ♥



Now back to knitting........

Knitting....

Yeah so I finished Hubby's scarf finally! Can't remember if I posted that or not & being too lazy to double check if i did. :P Then I got stuck because I have one to finish that is literally just putting the darn thing together but I have no time frame any longer on when it needs to be done by. So it's in the wait pile. I have another project that is mostly done but I don't like how it turned out so it's sitting to be finished and sent on to the person. I have my hat that I need for winter that I wanted to knit myself......since last winter. Hasn't happened yet. And i have a swap project (or a few) that I started, messed up and now need to tink it before I can do anything else. And lastly I took on the task of knitting house shoes for my father-in-law as a Christmas gift......was ok with the idea until I found out he has extra wide feet in one area only. I've only successfully knit socks for myself because I could try them on as I went. So we'll see how this works out....

The frustration......

Tub has been one little problem after another to replace. Did I mention that hubby couldn't find the spout? Yeah and of course we find it after he has bought a new one. No biggie it's returnable. But frustrating & the tub could have been done a day before. It's mostly done now - not pretty by any means but it's done......mostly.

What a day!

The tub - ugh! Guess hubby wasn't looking at it right last night & he drilled a hole in the wrong side for the spout to go into..... grrrr. Not to mention the walls & the tub combined didn't work well together. It was a very TIGHT squeeze to get the tub into place. Tore up the trim on my walls that wasn't right by the tub. I had to work at Jazzercise this morning so my jello arms were not carrying the tub into the room. We lucked out & had a friend who could help us come over. Then it was just up to me to remove all the things they couldn't get to because they were holding up the tub. Comedy of errors basically was the day. Get it in place & it becomes apparent that it should probably be tucked up under the walls. That's not happening because we weren't removing the walls. So hubby caulked where the tub doesn't quite meet the walls. It's not pretty but as long as it doesn't leak it'll do.

Off to clear off the bed so that I can eventually get to sleep tonight.

Sinus headaches.........

Suck but laughing at my friend and I comment back & forth on her Fb status instead of texting each other is kinda funny..... And then I totally forgot that I was writing this & went to bed. /facepalm

Started that last night & now it's Friday. My email was hacked yesterday (can't remember if I blogged it & too lazy to check right now). Finally got that issue resolved this morning after MUCH frustration. Successfully contacted my employers about not being able to log-in to the payroll site. Was told something totally different than what the original email said. But hey it worked & I got logged in so I'm not complaining!

The bad of the day - our school districts busing issue! Older girls were late to school the past 2 mornings by at least 15 minutes. They have to drop off the high school kids first. Then today their bus wasn't there for almost 45 minutes. When it got there it was a preschool route driver & bus. But she got them from the school & home in 25 minutes - that's impressive with all the kids that are on that bus.

Installing a new tub in our bathroom. The old one cracked right in the middle & started to leak under into the floor. It's all ripped out now & waiting on the hubby to get all the tools he needs to start the rearranging of the pipes & junk. I get roped into helping install it when he finally gets all that stuff done. Oh joy!

Boston cream pie....cake?

So I'm attempting to make the above listed cake for one of the maintenance workers where I live. It's all my friends fault who happens to work with him. I made J a cake for his b-day this year as I'd said I would last year & then didn't. So when his co-worker put 2 + 2 together at the football party J had he asked for a b-day cake of his own. His b-day is today & he wants Boston cream pie cake. Took me some doing to find a recipe that I could work with but I have it started & the custard (cuz it's not right with anything else in it!) cooling in the fridge. But I'm off to work in a bit. Gotta assemble the back this afternoon while trying to juggle all the other stuff that needs to be done today. Such is my life!

Hump day

It's Wednesday again. My busy day of the week. Get up to exercise at Jazzercise, come home to shower, veg for about an hour, go to work, home to veg for another hour, older girls come home, start dinner, pick up youngest from Girl Scouts meeting, home to finish dinner & eat, then bowling and finally home to bed. It's crazy but it's my life lately. Used to be hubby picked up B from her meetings but with me working at Jazzercise in the mornings he has to stay home so she can get to the bus without being home by herself for at least an hour.

Tomorrow is going to be almost as much fun but only in the afternoon - kids off bus, take L for shots, home for dinner, then to church for worship team practice, older girls go to youth group, I go home & send hubby out to pick them up later. I love my life but I think I need some more down time than what I am getting. At least Wednesday night I get out & get to bowl. Not necessarily down time but it is me time & something I enjoy doing.

Busy busy busy.......

The game yesterday was a disappointment. Well both games yesterday - football & baseball. Michigan & the Tigers lost. Then the Lions lost today. What do these things have in common? I watched part of all the games! LOL Not that this is why they lost.

Craziness! I tell you I swear that Sunday morning's are just pure crazy. Typically I do worship team first hour in the 2nd & 3rd grade room then I'm free to attend service. The last 2-3 Sundays I have been put into a small group because we are short Shepherds. No big deal seeing as that is what I do in there second hour - I have my own group. But I'm missing out on the message. Makes me greatful that I can either catch it on OPC's website or download it from iTunes. Seeing as I really don't want iTunes back on my comp I have been trying to catch it on OPC's website.

Then today we had the 'rush back home to change before heading back out to a birthday party for 2 boys' kind of afternoon. Party was good, kids had a blast & the cake was awesome. Took my knitting with me & finished Jo's mitts there to give them to her. She was so happy even if it did almost take me a year to finish them.

Hubs is driving me nuts. We have this whole lack of communication thing going on right now. On both our parts. But he has been assuming what I will think or how I'll act & then go according to that. It ticks me off when he gets me hooked on a tv show & then I find him watching it without me because 'oh you didn't seem interested in it'. Was I watching it with you? Then I'm interested. Some are more interesting than others or I'll read while watching to tire myself out. He takes that as I don't like it. Just so frustrating right now. And of course when I call him on it he gets all pissy with me about not saying anything to begin with about whatever. Vicious cycle.

Pain

Man I'm loving working out but I keep getting all these aches or shooting pains in parts of my body that normally wouldn't do that. It sucks getting older! LOL The worst offenders are my feet. Haven't twisted my ankle yet but I'm starting to wonder if the shoes I got don't work for me. Which sucks cuz I got a good deal on them & have really only used them for 15 classes. I'd hate to have to go spend more money but if it stops the pain I guess I might have to do that.

Weekend is going to be busy - MSU (Mich. State) vs. U of M (again Mich.) game is tomorrow. The game that divides my house in half with 1 who doesn't care either way. Will be heading over to a friend's house to watch the game & hang out. Should be a blast. Then Sunday I have a birthday party for my BFF's 2 son's. That was fun shopping for them as I have no boys. But hey transformers are universal right? I liked them as a kid so why wouldn't these boys - not to mention they are Lego's too. It's a win-win as far as I'm concerned! ;)

On Ravelry I've joined the Spinning 12 in 2012 group. Planning to spin my bin of Sunshine Yarns roving & extras that are in there next year on my drop spindles. Pretty sure I can do that. It'll be fun either way I think. No knitting projects worked on. Mitts for my BFF just need to cast on the thumb on the 2nd mitt & weave in the ends on both. Should be able to do that tomorrow morning before the game starts.

ForEVAR!

Yeah it's been that since I last blogged.....anywhere. Lots of knitting has happened since then. New baby in the family (not mine my brother's) - A BOY!!!!!! So there are 5 girls & 1 boy grandchildren wise for my parents. A whole new kind of knitting has been opened to me - boy things. :)

What else... I've moved from working in the clubhouse at Jazzercise to actually working out because I am a class manager now. It's 3 days a week vs. 1 day twice. But I think that would kill me right now if I attempted doubles. Some of the ladies who do I swear are crazy....

We had to put our dog to sleep. :( She got sick one day & couldn't sit or lay down without needing help to get back up. She'd gotten an infection from something internal that was causing her to be sick. Then she got a fever but since we didn't know how long she'd had it most likely she had brain damage. :( So our sweet girl who was anywhere from 11 - 13 easily went peacefully & with the least pain possible. It's rough I still think that I need to let her out or back in sometimes. The cat is besides himself as his play buddy is now gone. But he's surviving & taken to attacking my screen door in attempt to get the falling leaves outside. LOL He's not the brightest cat obviously!

And it's fall here & back to school now for a month. The only issue I have with it is the new company who pays us instead of the school district. We get paid 2 weeks after the end of the pay period. I've never worked anywhere that is like that. It of course screwed up my budget for this past month but I'm learning to deal & playing catch-up where needed. Just frustrating and I know how to plan better for next school year.....when everything will be due before school even starts. ugh

Knits in progress: Bella mitts for my friend Jo - made in FFtC yarn in Bella colorway. Sackboy for Dana's cake - it's freaking huge! Hubby's scarf that is perpetually ongoing. Keep telling him that I'm going to teach him how to knit so he can finish it himself. HAHA

Kids growing like weeds. Hard to believe that I have kids in 7th, 6th & 5th grade this year. Why must they keep growing?!

And..........

I'm back! While I like WordPress I'm not so much into it for blogging. Seems like I used Blogger more as I am constantly on the Google page for other things. Might as well stick with what I know works right?

I've moved.....

Because I felt like it I have moved my blog and combined with my weight loss one here. No real reason other than I felt the need for change :)

Crazy.......

I thought I was before but the past few months have proved that either I wasn't that bad or that it can just get worse. Knitting has been my sanity and of course this morning I do not have time to post the pretties that I have finished. My dad and step-mom divorced for a second and final time and much bickering and weirdness happened afterwards. See I may not have always liked my step-mom but I did grow to love her in the end. Her being the uber-bit$h that she was is what i needed to get out of an environment that wasn't healthy for me. So yeah I love her for that because I totally could have been one of those girls in school who was knocked up at 16.

School started and again busy stuff going on. This is my last year as the PTO fundraising chairperson. Can't say I am sad to see it go and really we only do one thing. This year it was decided that I would have all the little things (box tops, ink cartridge returns, etc.) reported to me and then I'd report them to the PTO. No biggie but now it's more work than ever before on top of me working, being a Junior troop leader (yeah more on that later), watching a kid in the morning (again) and being down to only 1 car. Oldest daughter J's troop bridged most of their girls last year and their leader moms as well. So this year the 10 remaining and of that 5 returning needed a leader - no on wnated to do it. So I steped up cuz how hard could it be to lead a troop for 1 year right? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA And on top of that I was scammed into watching on of the kids I'd watched before a few years back in the morning YET AGAIN. Not thinking that yeah I'd have her even longer in the mornings because of the late school start this year. >.< I love her and her mom but it's hard not to feel taken advantage of some days. Was tol that I needed to drive hubby to work this morning due to his ride/boss needing to drive his wife to a dr. appt. No biggie right? Was supposed to have her and texted mom and said 'If I am going to have your daughter Monday morning you need to make other arrangements for her because I have to drive hubby to work and don't have room in my car for her too.' Legally I had no seatbelts and I wasn't getting arrested or given a ticket because I had her daughter in my car. she argued 'What do you want me to do? No one else will take her. And am not asking her dad....' Dad ended up watching her this morning anyways because I said can't no way I can fit her in. Just frustrates me to no end sometimes the crap that I get myself into and then have to get out of because I am too nice a person. But the spine is growing and I doubt that I will be going through this hassle much longer.

And it's school fundraiser time. Yay! But I keep getting emails for people to volunteer - not that this is a bad thing - but the fricking info just went home on Friday 10/2 and i had emails starting 2 weeks ago! Ok thanks for being overeager to do this but I don't even have a schedule yet for the PE classes until later this week! UGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

And now I must get ready for work and try not to take my lack of sleep out on the kids. *SIGH*

Wait what?

So today we had a meeting with all the lunch supervisors that are coming back this year to discuss the change in lunch times. Seeing as we have over 650 kids in the school, 14 long tables (1 designated peanut free), and the changes in time starting had made it something to puzzle over. We found out today that the way our principal worked it so that it goes along with the limit on how many kids can be in the cafeteria at once per the fire marshall - there will only be a 5 minute overlap of the grades.

How does this change our work schedules? Well we now are no longer all coming in at the same time and working together. We picked grades and we will come in 10 minutes before that grade comes to lunch and then be there for 2 hours. We are to clean as much as possible after coming in from recess before we have to leave. And those with the lower grades will do the mopping and the rest of the cleaning. Good in theory but we'll miss chatting with each other and this kinda eliminates us going out to lunch after work. Maybe we'll have to get together before or something. I took 1st grade as I don't work Wednesday's at the school and then the lunch lady who works Kindergarten who has no kids on Wednesday's will work my grade for me.

So now I work from 12 - 2 pm - darn this later start time but hey I don't really have any thing going on during the day. It'll just take some time getting used to. Hopefully the kids won't be too bad - I subbed in the Kindergarten lunch last year so I know a lot of them. But the thing that got me was not only are the start times changed but we start a day earlier and end a day later! They added two full days to the school year this year. Somehow I'd caught the ending date change but not the start date - they go back next Tuesday not Wednesday! ACK! I thought I had one more day - nope! So the kids are going to be so frickin' tired next week once school starts. Ugh so am I. We may start later but the girl who comes over in the mornings so I can get her on the bus will be here at 6:15 am. The bus doesn't come until 8:28 am. BLEH! I'm gonna need me some really good green tea really soon. ;)

Knitting - Amy's b-day sock colorway has been revealed. She couldn't wait and I wanted to see if she could guess it - she did. :) Weasleys Wizard Wheezes from Sunshine Yarns was the colorway - she gets rainbow socks! And I repeat Amy if they are too big - send them back and I'll keep them! hehe ;)

Started my Ishbel in Emmett from Sunshine Yarns on the way to Michigan's Adventure with the in-laws. Have finished chart A and working on chart B once I get the lifeline in.

And now it's bed time since I need to get up and be to the Jazzercise Clubhouse tomorrow by 10 am. First morning of back to back work there. Should be interesting and I guess I have to figure out what we are doing in between the first and the second class times. Maybe a picnic lunch in the park tomorrow. Really don't feel like driving home in between.....