Year in review (photo-heavy)

How did time go by so quickly?

Things have been rather busy lately. Somehow I still haven't finished my holiday shopping (after Christmas). A few weeks ago, I made photo calendars for my mother, my grandparents, and a few others. Unfortunately, I found out about the buy-one, get-the-rest-half-off sale the day it ended. I spent an entire day uploading pictures to a very cranky Shutterfly, then I stayed up until 2:30am doing the calendars. It left me entirely unenthusiastic about taking or uploading pictures.

Going through the last year's stock of pictures reminded me that my kids have an okay life. The next time I feel like Bitch Mother, I'll remember that my kids spent the year going on field trips, gardening, and playing on the beach in Maine.

Here's a little (big and photo-heavy) year-in-review...

I don't even know what to call this...

Over the summer, I checked out a library book called Confessions of an Organized Homemaker. In October, I finally admitted the damn thing was lost. Irony.

I ended up paying for it, and the librarian told me that if I keep the receipt and find the book within a year, I could bring it back and they'd refund my money.

So I took my receipt and placed it in the "Holiday Receipts 2009" envelope. And then last week, Chris found the book in the backseat of his car. It must have fell out of the returns bag and gotten buried. So now I can return the stupid lost book (although I'll read it first) and get my money back. All because I was organized.

num!

Today we went out to the Norman Bird Sanctuary for a homeschool raptor class.

The kids found a bunch of... undigested food in the thicket. yum yum.

the past few weeks

We've kept ourselves busy lately. We've been enjoying the last of the fall hiking, mostly at Purgatory Chasm. A few weeks ago, we made it up to the Berkshires for Indian brunch with friends and hiking at The Cobble.

The next weekend we celebrated our third Enzoween. The past two have been really hectic, trying to fit in cake and presents before or after trick-or-treating. This year, Halloween fell on a Saturday, which made it way easier. Our friends and their son joined us for a very mellow birthday party, followed by a warm-weather candy extravaganza.





After Halloween, our pumpkin went from this:


to this:


to make this very yummy Roasted Pumpkin Soup.

This weekend it's work, more hiking, and hopefully the completion of the Great Bathroom Debacle.

Corn Maze

We try to make it out to a corn maze every year. We've been doing this since '03, with the exception of the year when I was 9 months pregnant in October. We always go to Salisbury Farm, since they have awesome hours and reasonable admission fees.

This year my friend Kim and I went with the kiddos. This is the first year that Enzo has been walking without the option of a sling. Keeping track of 3 kids in a corn maze? Hard work. It's not so easy to find them once they are lost.

Luckily, we pretty much had the maze to ourselves, so no one else had to hear me yell "WAIT UP!" 500,000 times. We finished the maze in about 1.5 hours, which is decent considering the adults were outnumbered 2:1.









Tomorrow we're all heading up to the Berkshires to visit one of my most favorite friends. We're having Sunday Indian buffet and then going hiking to work it off.

thank you, cows

Wright's Dairy Farm

Last week I found a little green bug in the house that looked a lot like a baby praying mantis.
It was one of the few bugs in our house to see the outdoors again; Chris didn't kill it because he thought that it looked like a mantis.

I'm pretty sure that it was now- there's been a mantis and her... buddy hanging outside of our house for a few days. Yesterday she posed for a good long time. I got closer than I should have because I assumed that the praying mantis does not fly. I assumed wrong.

I think it'd be rather fun to leave a mantis on someone's screen door, ring the bell, and run away.






Yesterday we also went (back) to Northampton to see Ysolda speak at Webs. One of the things she spoke about was the importance of creating and photographing samples in larger sizes, and I really appreciate that. While it's nice to see how a sweater looks on a 34"-sized woman, I'd also like to see it on a 40. Hannah tried on a few things, and added more to her list of "knit me's". She also had Ysolda sign a post-it. :)

I have been relatively lazy about updating. Chris and I went on a kid-free vacation, and I only took two pictures, both with my iPhone. The Northampton photobooth took 2 as well.

Kid-free vacation ROCKED. We lazed in bed and brought our books to the hotel's jacuzzi. We ate really unhealthy breakfast buffet, did a lot of browsing in downtown Northampton, saw a Girlyman show, sat in coffee shops, visited our favorite restaurants, and took a really good hike. It's nice to be able to spend time together outside of the drudgery of raising decent human beings. We've vowed to get away at least once or twice a year.

On the knitting frontier...

I have had a hell of a time with the Hope Spinnery wool. It's a great wool, but there wasn't even enough to make a hat. After knitting it into a hat three times, it was starting to look a little ratty. Finally, it ended up becoming a cowl. Somehow, though, the written pattern made NO sense. I ended up winging it; I cast on 24 stitches on size 9s and knit in 4x1 rib until I ran out. I have about 10 inches left over.


I got a little worried about Enzo's obsessive need to roll things up. His favorite item to roll is this tape measure. He also likes to do belts, and once I found our runner rug-thingie entirely rolled up. I was spazzing out, thinking he must have some issue- until I noticed that I do the same thing. At least we can be weird together...


I really wanted to knit the Hurricane Hat, so I ended up using Malabrigo instead of the yarn I would never have enough of. It's for me, but Hannah's modeling. The first picture is the accurate color. I couldn't be bothered to match it on the second.

Sticks

I picked up two skeins of yarn from Hope Spinnery ast the Common Ground Fair. I had all of these grand ideas about knitting something stripy. And then the yarns knitted up at completely different gauges. And then one didn't feel as soft as the other. And then I ended up starting a solid-color hat. And then I didn't even have enough yarn to finish the hat.



Last night I cast-on for hat #2 with a completely different yarn. I need suggestions for this lovely mustard-colored yarn. A buttoned cowl, maybe?

and, non-stick related:

-Chris and I are leaving today for two glorious kid-filled days in the Valley. We're going to visit all of our favorite restaurants and catch a Girlyman show on Saturday. I'm hella excited. We haven't been away alone since 2004, and that trip involved a lot of pregnancy-related puking.

-I went to family court this morning with my mother. She's in the middle of a divorce. Family court is incredibly depressing. I always end up feeling really bad for the judges. That bullshit must get old.

-I wish I could fast-forward through winter. The real cold hasn't even started and I'm already done with it. I am dreading being stuck in the house for days with the kids.

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