Craziest weather ever

Utah has some crazy weather. You can't count on anything for too long. Friday and Saturday were wonderfully warm in the 70's. We spent the morning in short sleeve tops while out at the park. The first short sleeves of the season. Sunday some dark clouds rolled in and now Monday morning we're sitting inside looking at a white blanket of snow over the world.

Oliver and Evelyn have both come down with colds so I don't mind that its a cold wintery day. I would rather be indoors on a snow day than on a warm sunny one. Their colds don't seem major so hopefully they'll be back to normal in a day or so. Its kind of nice to not feel the need to go anywhere today though!

My knitting is going well. I worked on a scrap trying out various techniques for about a week and decided to start a small project. I got knitting and pearling down so I'm knitting a child's backpack. Its a design from Little Badger Knitwear by Ros Badger and Elaine Scott. Its a relatively simple project since it does not have any increasing or decreasing. I'm not very good at that yet.

So some might wonder why knitting? Well I wanted some hand work I could do while watching the kids play in the front yard. All of the neighbor kids play out front. Oliver is finally old enough that I trust him to play out front by himself for short durations. I still check on him. The other moms have large windows out the front of their homes to keep and eye on their children. My living space is towards the back of the home we're in so I can't easily just see the kids. That's a big part of why I've been the slowest on the street to let my children roam. I'm not in huge favor of just letting kids roam unsupervised anyway. That's why I like the idea of a large backyard...Since Spencer and Evelyn want to be out with the kids too I get to sit out front and supervise. Knitting will be another creative outlet that still allows me to look up and keep an eye on the kids. I thought reading might be nice too but I think I wouldn't have a clue what was going on around me since I get sucked into books.

Old Woman

I'm thinking I'll make a great old woman. I can bake bread, paint, quilt, crochet, and soon knit. My husband just rolls his eyes. Its a little strange I must admit but I figure those old women didn't learn to do all those things in their old age either. I'm just headed to become the classic old woman. Ha, ha!

Knitting

The last two or three weeks I've picked up books about knitting at the library. Do I know how to knit? NO! I just have really been attracted to the idea lately. I love sweaters and prefer the look of knitting to crocheting. I do crochet. So....

There was one book in particular, Special Knits by Debbie Bliss, that made be decide it was worth trying out. Every time I look at the pictures I fall in love. The book is all beautiful baby clothing with special details like beads and ribbon. The main clothing I saved from my babies were these kinds of knits. So now I'm going to do it.

I bought my first knitting needles today but no yarn. The budgets small but I have an old skein of yarn laying around in the closet somewhere that will do for my learning.

Off to knit and pearl!

Jumping Rope

This evening we jumped rope in our family room. Usually an outside activity but since there's snow on the ground we stayed inside. The kids hadn't ever seen anyone do this and were quite excited to join in. When Chris and I turned the rope Oliver was able to get two successive jumps. We never got more than that! Evelyn was the funniest though she would wait until the rope made it around and then jump, kind of like a delayed reaction. Since most of the little ones aren't coordinated enough to jump in time yet Chris held them while he jumped. Great spontaneous fun.

Evelyn was taking a turn and we finally just laid the rope down so she could jump over it back and forth. She was thinking so hard about jumping over the rope that she had no room for any other thoughts. That included the dog walking in front of her. Everyone else saw the dog, I can only figure she did too but things didn't click fast enough and she jumped and kind of did a belly flop on Rosco. Nobody, or animal, was hurt in her stunt. She looked really shocked that the dog suddenly appeared there.

I think she has that thought process from me, her mother. Watching her reminded me of a diving class I took as a child. The first day of class the teacher wanted us to practice jumping into the deep end. I was nervous about the class and had in my mind that it was a diving class. For the first 3-5 turns I tried to change mid jump from a dive to the jump the teacher had requested. By the time the teacher gave up and had me dive all I could do was jump because I'd finally gotten that in my head. I think I had a whole class of belly flops...sorry Evelyn, you're just like your mama but don't worry there's good things about that too.

Painting the cupboards

Its seems that every time I further realize that we are not moving out of my parents home I begin painting our space more. I seem to go through cycles of I'm really wanting to move but the finances are there, I find a place of contentment, and then I seem to make my surroundings more mine. Thankfully my mother isn't opposed to this! This time I'm painting cabinetry. Not the lovely honey colored cabinets (don't have a heart attack mom or dad!) but the dark, ugly cabinets under the laminate counter.

Robert began painting these for me two years ago before we moved in. He primed the insides of the drawers and the outside of the cabinet but never got to the outside of the drawers. Today I finally primed the outside of the drawers and hope to get some fun paint up over the next week. I still have to decide what I'm doing and of course I can't settle with just one color! I'm thinking of green inside the drawers and cupboard, a light blue that matches my walls outside, and red and white details. What details? I don't know yet that's what I have to plan. I'll post what I do when I finish.

My little helper, painting the dishwasher with water.

This is the cabinet partially through priming.

My ivory colored soap bars

I pulled out another bar of new soap. This was a batch that I made that was supposed to smell like cucumber melon but it smells more cucumber and plant than anything else. Not my favorite scent but usable soap. It came out a nice ivory.

I still need to work on the formula. It lathers nicely but isn't as moisturizing as I'd hoped. Still progress is progress and I'm happy.

Evelyn saw the soap at the kitchen sink and was excited to use it. She said it was a huge bar (probably only 4oz but that's twice the size I've been making). She didn't think she could use such a large bar of soap. Then I told her I'd made it and she smiled. She started lathering and then told me "Its the mostest amazing one ever!" Thanks kiddo!

Kaleidoscopes of Pink

This is my most recent quilt. The main body is a bunch of kaleidoscopes made from the flower fabric at the bottom portion of the quilt. This is a twin size quilt top.

This was another learning experience. I made this quilt after looking at a book of kaleidoscope quilts that were really fun. There were some I really liked and others that were alright. Mine kind of fits in more with the ones I kind of liked but as I put more of the quilt top together I'm liking it better. What's fun is that the colors are all picked for you. But too many colors makes finding a quilt layout difficult. I think I spent 8 hours before I was satisfied. If I were to do it again I'd pick a fabric with fewer colors. As for now I'm ready to do something that doesn't have biased edges.

I had fewer problems with stretching biased edges than with the lone star quilt (still in progress). I mostly had warping when I added the pink border. Hopefully it will come out alright. I'm still learning how to work the the edges so they don't do this...getting a little better at it though.

What happened to the fries?

Last night I was cooking dinner, and cooking dinner and cooking dinner. I guess I should say dinner wasn't cooking. It started to but then the temperature dropped and would never get high enough to cook again. I tried the other burner and the same problem. After two hours of trying I figured the chicken wasn't going to be safe to eat and we went to Burger King.

The hot plate lasted far past its lifespan so I really can't complain. I just hope I can find another that will really cook and not just keep food warm, one of the woes of a makeshift kitchen.

So does anyone one know what happened to Burger King's fries? They were terrible. I've heard in New York they've changed the frying oil but I can't imagine they'd sell something that was so gross. Maybe my location just needed to change the oil.

Usually I'm thrilled to have our rare fast food outing but maybe attempting to cook for two hours spoiled that. My burger was really disappointing and the fries even more so. It was really weird. I remembered liking Burger King but have not been there for a few years. I guess I must be in the Carl's Jr. fan club at the moment.