What a Life!

When I told Traci that I wanted to buy a pair of Birkenstocks because A) I thought they were comfortable and B) I wanted to show off my hand-knit socks, she about had a cow. “You’ve lived in the Midwest too long. You would not wear socks in your Birkenstocks if you still lived in Maryland!” she chided.

Well, at the Birkenstock store, they have a whole wall devoted to nice-looking socks, so I had a hard time believing that it is not correct to wear socks with your Birks. I asked the clerks and they said that as long as your socks aren’t white socks (think sports socks), it is perfectly fine to wear socks with your Birkenstocks.

So back to what my dear sister said, quite frankly, I don’t care if I live in Paris – I’m wearing my hand-knit socks in my Birkenstocks, thank you very much.

And here’s a picture to show you what it looks like:

See, it’s really not that scary.

Signed,

Your fashion-oblivious sister

P.S. Happy birthday, sis!

I’m knitting a pair of the Padded Footlets from the current issue of Interweave Knits. Needless to say, I would not use the word “padded” to describe them. “Stiff-soled” would be a better description, in my opinion. I am half-way through the decreases on the toe and the sole is stiff enough to make the footlet stand by itself. See what I mean?

They fit okay as far as the length is concerned. However, the “padded” sole is knit with two strands of yarn (vs. only one on the top) so it is far more dense than the top and thus doesn’t stretch to accomodate my foot. As a result, the “padded” sole is about 1/4″ short on each side of my foot.

The other thing that bugs me is that the stitches on the sole are uneven. The way the “padded” sole is done in this pattern is that you knit the sole stitches on one row with two strands of yarn. Then you drop one strand and knit across the top. When you get back to the sole stitches, of course you only have on strand of yarn. So you knit across slipping every other stitch without knitting it. Then you turn the work and using the strand you dropped when you knit across the top on the last row, you purl across slipping the stitches that you just knit. Well, when you work a stitch you pull it a bit in order to get the needle and yarn through but it goes back to its correct size when you work the next stitch. In this case, however, slipping every other stitch means that you end up with every other row having stitches that are BIG little BIG little BIG little BIG… See what I mean? It’s a horrible mess.

I swear this project is driving me crazy. I hate dropping a project and moving on to something else before I have it completed. But I simply am not satisfied with how this is coming out. I’m not sure whether I should just accept it the way it is, somehow fix it (even if that means knitting the whole thing over again), or just frog it (non-knitters – that means rip it all out, as in rip-it, rip-it…) and knit up the yarn into something else. I hate having UFOs (non-knitters – Un-Finished Objects), but this one might just end up in that category until I figure out what to do with it.

Are you aware that the spoons you make and the jars you sell your food in are not compatible? Have you actually tried feeding a child using one of your spoons in one of your 3rd foods jars?

See how the spoon is barely as tall as the jar?

See how the spoon handle is covered with food after you take it out of the empty 3rd foods jar and put it into a 1st foods jar?

I’m sure you’ll tell me that it’s because you use the same size lids on all your jars and since the 3rd foods jars hold more food, they have to be taller.

But do you only have one machine that puts lids on jars? Do you only have one production line? If you had more than one production line (which I imagine you do), you could have one with wider jars and bigger mouths so feeding a child 3rd foods would not be so messy for the poor person holding the spoon.

Sincerely,
A mother with Gerber food all over her fingers

Last week I bought a new camera. An Olympus D-595, 5.0 mergapixel digital camera. Point-and-shoot with nineteen shooting modes. I was tired of paying to develop film (and not taking pictures because of the cost), and my old digital camera was only 2.0 megapixels which wasn’t enough resolution for me to want to take photos I wanted to keep. I had bought it in the morning and was walking around the house and the yard later in the afternoon taking pictures with the new camera.

I was out by the garden – I was on one side and Ben was on the other – when I noticed this movement. Ach! It was a snake! I hate snakes! Someone told me once that if there is a poisonous that lives in the United States, you can find it in Florida. Well, I grew up in Florida. Steve has told me many times that there are no poisonous snakes living in eastern Nebraska. I don’t care. I still don’t like snakes, even if they eat bugs in my garden.

I saw the snake, and my first reaction was to run inside the house and scream. No, run inside the house, scream, call Steve and tell him to come home and do something about it. But wait, no, there aren’t any poisonous snakes in eastern Nebraska – I am not supposed to be scared. I need to be a strong, brave woman.

But I still thought my husband needed to know there was a snake in our yard. I thought, I could go email him and tell him. And then it occurred to me that I could just take a picture of the snake and email it to him. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? There is a snake in our yard!

I used the fancy optical zoom on the camera and quickly followed the snake over to the shed (that Steve painted barn red the week before Ben was born). I snapped a few pictures. Like this one:

Then I emailed that picture to Steve. I didn’t write anything – I just emailed the picture. I mean, I didn’t want to go overboard or anything. I was trying to keep myself under control. After all, there are no poisonous snakes living in eastern Nebraska.

He emailed me back. “Thank you” was all he said. So he was glad that I sent him the picture and let him know there was a snake in our yard, right?

He came home from work and I asked him about the picture. “You think I’m a snake?” he said. What would give him that idea? I took a picture of the snake in our yard, next to our shed. There is a snake in our yard! That was all I was trying to tell him. I mean, would I go to all that trouble to take a picture of a snake just to tell him I think he’s a snake? I don’t think he’s a snake – what would make me think he’s a snake?

Ah, communication. It’s no wonder the first month we dated he wasn’t sure whether or not I liked him. Actions certianly don’t speak louder than words when it comes to the two of us.

I love writing. When I was a kid, I wanted to have a monthly personal newsletter. I never got around to actually publishing it, but I worked on it and dreamed about it just the same. I still have lots of books about writing, and I write in my journal regularly. I have served on the company newsletter committee where I worked, and I’ve even had an article published in the Adventist Review a few years ago. Every year I say I’m going to send out a Christmas letter, but I never get it done. In the same way, I doubt I’ll ever write a book or get an article published again.

I read somewhere recently that blogging gives writers an opportunity to be published without having to worry about whether someone else thinks what they have to say is worth printing. You just write something that you find interesting, post it, and then hope that others will find it interesting as well. So I decided it was time for me to have a blog where I can enjoy the pleasures of writing and share tidbits of my life without worrying about finding someone to publish it, much less have an editor tear it to pieces.

In this blog you’ll hear about my knitting and see pictures of my latest finished projects. You’ll hear me talk about daily life at our house, including Ben’s latest antics. And occasionally you’ll hear my opinions on everything from politics to how Gerber jars their baby food. Feel free to leave comments – I love hearing what you think as well.

So grab a cup of coffee and come on in. I hope you enjoy the time you spend here reading my blog.