should knitting be as important as eating?

I've been thinking about what I wrote yesterday, mostly because I'm bothered by what I said about going through "phases." I say I have "cooking phases," but I never go a day without food. I want to make knitting like that, that I don't go a day without it. I suppose there are enough knitted items and balls of yarn lying around my room and living area that it would be impossible for me to go through a day without at least thinking about knitting, but I think I could do a lot better in terms of daily knitting. And daily exercise. And picking my laundry up off my floor daily. The path to self-improvement is slow, and kind of blocked by my laziness (haha).

Speaking of laziness, I'm having a calm holiday weekend, taking care of my Grandmother, knitting, and yardening. I had plenty of fun last weekend, during our family camping trip (my dad has 9 siblings, which means I have 26 cousins on that side, and all the aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends go up to South Higgins Lake State Park for a week of family togetherness and shenanigans). Speaking of my dad's family, they are where I learned to say "warshrag" instead of "washcloth" or "dishcloth." There are a lot of things I love about the rural lexicon I absorbed growing up, especially "warshrag."

And that provides me with another segue: my use of "warshrag" cotton continues. Now I'm knitting a swiffer cover. Swiffer sheets are great, but I'm out of them and they're kind of expensive (not to mention that they go into a landfill). I saw the Swifty pattern in the Mason-Dixon book, but I was thinking that the buttons were a bit unnecessary. I picked up a freebie pattern at Michael's for a Knit Duster Cover, and as I was thinking of how to combine what I liked about both patterns, I stumbled upon a pattern created by Noelle (free pattern link). I really love the ballband dishcloth pattern:Happy Birthday, America!

May sweeps, wedding garters, gauge issues, and Mother's Day

Well, I wasn't very productive over the past few days because I didn't feel well last week (I was kind of worried that I had the swine flu b/c of a headache and just feeling lousy, but it never got any worse than that so I survived), and because I've allowed a lot of distractions. As always. I enjoy television way too much in May, and watch shows that I never normally watch just to get in on all of the May sweeps escapades. All of the tv weddings, hook-ups, break-ups, near death experiences, natural disasters, man-caused disasters, outrageous stunts, and shocking episodes of Oprah have me watching WAY too much television. Rotting my mind. And not doing enough yard work (though I did put in a full day on Monday, it's a jungle out there). OH WELL. I can hardly wait to watch House tonight, even though I'm worried that the House/Cuddy hook-up last week will destroy the show.

My Blossom has been sidetracked by intense gauge issues. I've gone up a few needle sizes, but am still getting 6 1/2 sts per inch, instead of 6. I figure if I walk away for a few days, it will magically resolve itself. haha.

I have a few weddings to attend this summer, and I have been thinking up gift ideas that involve knitting (I have a lot more time than money nowadays, so I figure knitted gifts are perfect). I was thinking about working up a lace edging for a set of pillowcases as a wedding gift. And I was stumped about a shower gift, until Kniterary Club on Sunday, when I remembered that Caitlin knit up a garter for her friend, and I got some info on knitting garters from her. EXCELLENT. I came home with a ball of crochet cotton so that I would be able to get started on my lace edgings, and I ended up using it to experiment with lace patterns for a garter. It was fun! I tried the Beech Leaf Edging from Barbara Walker's A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns (pg 362). I'll see where it goes.

For Mother's Day, my mom told me that she wanted to get take out ribs from Ruby Tuesday for dinner. At first I was kind of upset that she didn't want me to cook for her, but on Mother's Day, mom gets what she wants! And it was good to do take out, because it can be stressful to take grandmother into a restaurant. What I did do is make a dessert she requested, Pistachio Pudding Bars. Which I managed to not get perfect, despite the fact that it involves very limited baking and impossible-to-mess-up convenience foods (cool whip, jello pudding). Though no one complained, I'm going to make them again to get it right (I kind of made up the recipe I used by combining several things from the internet, so I should really get the actual recipe from my aunt) and maybe then they'll merit a blog photo. But it was a good day for my wonderful mother, and I'm really glad we didn't buy any tender plants at the nursery for a gift yesterday, because there's a frost advisory for tonight (it affirms my conviction that you don't buy sensitive plants until after Memorial Day in Michigan).

long time, no post

My first excuse for not posting is that I was out of town for a week to welcome home my brother, who was deployed to Iraq for the past year. It was great. The Army has the welcome home thing down to a science. We (my mom, dad, and I) drove on post, parked in a special lot, got on the special bus that took us to this special airplane hangar:

We were there pretty early, so not very many people were there when I captured this picture of the "Patton flag." There were a lot of families there, lots of little children there to welcome home their daddy. That part really struck me. I missed my brother and all, but he had a relatively safe desk job in Baghdad, and him being gone wasn't any different than when he was at the academy or when I was in college. I can't imagine what those kids went through without a father (or mother) at home for a year. Military families are amazing.

Anyway, the plane landed, they got off, and they marched inside the hangar:

I know you can't see him, but he's the fifth person from the left in the second row. YAY!

It was a great spring vacation--welcoming home Wade and moving him into his new apartment. I had some really good times in the car with my mom, and we visited her bff, which was educational, as always.

My second excuse for not posting is laziness... I haven't been knitting much. No excuse, really.