Smacky with a Side of Grown Up

Cuz baby boy is this many today:

The Return of the Random

Yeah, who am I kidding? It's all random, all the time.

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For those of you lamenting the last days of summer before the crisp fall air brings color-changing leaves, frost on the punkins, dying grass and wool sweaters, I invite you to visit.



Ain't no fall here any time soon.
Sigh.

Fall is my favorite time of year - primarily because it's rare. On average, we get about 12 minutes of it, each year. (I suppose you could look at it a different way - we have several months of fall and no winter to speak of.) Fall is when we plant our flowers and seeds, open up the windows to the beautiful weather, sit on the patio with coffee and a book, go to the park with the kids and play. Summer sucks, my friends. (I swear if I had a job that allowed me to telecommute I'd leave town for 5 months of the year and go someplace with one of these mythical "nice" summers where people enjoy the weather and leave their houses.)



Nora? Joan? Bev?

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Turns out that the vague memory I had, about not putting pyrex dishes directly on the burner? Was something I should have listened to.



Bright side! The counter is spotless. And that pan I was trying to boil water in? I don't gotsta clean it anymore. (Note to self - when roasting something with a sauce, use Pam in the dish, for the love of little green apples.)

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It's really dramatic when a 13 X 9 glass pan of soapy, greasy water explodes.

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Still loving the appliqué. I'm almost finished with the snowman - I only need to find a scrap of orange for his little carrot nose, embroider the eyes and mouth, and it will be time to quilt him. This will also be my first attempt at hand quilting. If I like it and don’t suck at it, I'll be making that other bed-sized one, light greens in the background, appliquéd fall leaves, hand-quilted. I should finish it in, oh, 2014. (Hahahahahahahaha that’s funny. Try 2044.)

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Still have no knitting mojo. Have some cleaning mojo, but not much. (I don’t spring clean, I fall clean. Same reason – it’s the first time after a long season of being cooped up inside that I can open the damn windows and get some fresh air in.) I’ve been enjoying cooking more. T has a more varied palate than I do did, and before he got involved, the choices were pretty much grilled chicken or pasta with marinara. Since T came along I have tried new veggies, new recipes, new ideas, including allowing him to add stuff I would have sworn in the past that I hated. Mushrooms in the stir fry? Not my favorite, but it’s fuel and vitamins, so down the hatch it goes. Asparagus? Yum. Veggies on my pizza? Bring it. It’s like a year ago, someone hit the reset button on my life and suddenly I like all new foods, drink wine, exercise… Sometimes I don’t even recognize myself. In a good way. (I think the “reset button” was the level of grokking about life and its fleetingness I received that one ugly August day. A hard won lesson, that, but one that I managed to listen to. I don’t have to like the way that happened, but I can appreciate the results.)

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Got word yesterday that T’s parents will be flying down for Thanksgiving, which I believe will be at my place this year. That’s pretty awesome, methinks. If I start cleaning now, the place *might* be respectable by then. But I doubt it.

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Happy now?
(Added in response to comments: he's happy to be in the box, unhappy at having that &(*)@#$ camera in his face again.)

August is the time for not-knitting. Since I can’t access my own blog from work (am writing this in a word processor) I can’t go back and look for info, but I vaguely remember late-summer doldrums in many of the past years. I know that last year at this time my knitting was stalled out and I picked up an appliqué kit I had stashed. Well, I think there’s something going on here:

· First, it’s nasty nasty hot out there. (Forecast for today, 113º + 40% chance of storms = Teh Yuck.)

· Second, it’s all Elizabeth’s fault with the quilting.

· Third, I should have known better than to tell Lynn about it, cuz she offered a bit of encouragement, and then hearty laughter when I broke down and ordered a block-of-the-month appliqué kit. (It’s amazing how effective she is as the shopping accomplice even when she’s 100+ miles away.)

· Fourth, this is the time of year I start thinking about late fall and winter and wishing it was cold enough to need a blanket. For a reason I can’t determine yet, working on a blanket and wishing it was cold enough to need a blanket is better for me than working on a scarf and wishing it was cold enough to need a scarf. (The frustration of the B-Side sleeves is still fresh and taints the knitting of the OFA red scarf I have OTN anyway.)

I was having fun with my little snowman last year at this time anyway, but I put him down because I didn’t have the right color thread to do the stars and moon. Yesterday I stopped off at JoAnn’s, and $20 and some fall decorations later, out I came with my thread. Which turned out to be too light which didn’t matter because I had the right color after all and I dunno why I didn’t use it.

So, I am back to the snowman, and later in September I will begin to receive the blocks for the kit I ordered yesterday.



Now I just need to find a decent thimble.

And we won’t talk about the plans I have for the bed quilt…


Oh, and SOMEONE decided Smacky-In-Basket was insufficient. These will have to do - my phone camera is slow and the lighting was bad (and the kid never. sits. still.) so they're blurry, but you get the idea.

You asked.

I couldn't find or get one in an actual box recently (not for lack of trying - mostly for lack of photographic talent, and the fact that the family member who HAS the photographic talent has decided to stop shooting photos until he cleans up all the photos from our trip a few weeks ago).
He pulled this basket-drawer out of the stack for the express purpose of sitting in it, though. I dunno how long he was in there before I went to see why he wasn't making any noise.

Smacky, 20 months

Things I need to remember about Smacky, 20 months

A translation of Smacky-Speak

Smacky:	English:
Yaaaaaaaay	Yay!
Bah!	Ball, Grape, Any round thing that I can throw
Beeeeeeee	Bird, Puppy, Flower, Airplane, Daddy
Maaaa	Mama
Maaamaaa	More
Meh Meh Meh	I want whatever I just chucked on the floor and woe betide you if you do not get it for me, knowing full well I will chuck it on the ground again in 9.2 seconds

When I come in and open the blinds in the morning, you sit up, grin at me, then fall over on your face and pretend to be asleep again. I pick you up, get you dressed, and tell you, "Give Bubba loves." So you toddle over to his bed, throw your arms in the air and flop over on him, climb on him, snuggle on him, until he gives up and gets out of bed.
There is no music you can listen to without dancing. Sometimes you get so excited dancing you knock yourself over.
There is no box you see that you don't sit in. Sometimes for half an hour, contentedly looking out the window, sitting in the cardboard box with your puppy.
After I pick you up from daycare, if I leave the house to get anything else from the car, you scream bloody murder until either I come in or Daddy picks you up. Bubba stands there and tries to calm you by telling you I'm coming right back, and sometimes it works. I love to hear that little voice say, "See? I told you she'd come right back" and see you both standing at the door grinning at me.