3 Kids Crazy

Crazy Aunt Purl

Ok, I'm not quite finished this one, but so far I've been quite enjoying it. I'm not divorced and I've never directed traffic with my bra on my head (not counting that one time in college....) So far it's a quick easy read that draws you into her topsy turvy life without bringing you down. I'd recommend it as a light read, but you may want to pick this one up at the library. I'm not sure I'll want to re-read this one repeatedly so it's shelf-space vs. expense is not equal.

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In the Beginning

There was cheese.

Oh wait.... No there wasn't.

In the beginning, there were cows.

...and sheep.

...and goats.

...and dogs.

Ok, to Americans the dogs thing might be gross. But hey, they lactate, don't they? I bet somewhere in the world they make cheese from dog's milk. Let's not be so ethnocentric, eh?

]]> So this is the Story of the Sutton quest to eat way too much dairy products. Is this an outcropping of 4 years of no dairy due to allergies? No, I don't think so. Ask my parents, I'm a cheese junkie. Heck, why else would I move to Wisconsin?

During Science, Jack and I read that someone could try a new cheese every week for 40 years and never run out. This book wasn't exactally published yesterday, and now it seems that there are still plenty more varieties coming out every day. We decided that Jack could probably try a new cheese every couple of weeks and perhaps not run out in his lifetime. And that is how our crazy fromageophile quest began.

If you're looking for the web's best source for cheese information, this certainly isn't it! But, if you are looking to see what happens when a six year old spits cheese ten feet after the first taste, or see mom do her best not to eat ten ounces of cheese in a single sitting, you are at the right place. Bon Appetit!

Marley & Me

Last week I was at our monthly Paws for Love meeting and a friend had just finished Marley & Me. When she went home, she left it for someone else to take. Unable to resist the opportunity to not hit the hold list at the library, I took it home. It was excellent.

I do not own a yellow lab, but I do understand the whole "worst dog in the world" concept quite intimately. (Don’t we all, really?) I have also known my fair share of labs that could be Marley’s twin.

Weighing in at 304 pages, the length seems to fit perfectly. It is well paced and at no point did I find myself wanting to skip ahead or find myself completely lost. John Grogan is known for his light, personable writing with a penchant for good-hearted humor. This book is no exception. I found myself reading into the wee hours of the night (the fact that I start reading at eleven doesn’t help) and finished it in about four nights of reading. It was engaging and entertaining. Partway through I thought that I would be disappointed at the end, craving more insane-canine antics. Quite the opposite was true as I wrapped up the novel last night. Grogan did an excellent job of winding us down to the conclusion at exactly the right pace, leaving us contented to set the novel down, both nostalgic for the past and optimistic for the future.

I won’t recap the book more than this…. Young couple decides to get a dog, picks a boisterous lab, and lives with the consequences. Ok, a little more. The story follows this family’s growth as it adapts to a string of changes including starting a family. We meet Marley as a young pup bursting with way too much energy, watch him flunk out of obedience school, and finally grow old and need more human assistance. Any dog owner can relate to this story, but anyone who has lived with a less-than-perfect canine companion will find themselves flinching, groaning, laughing, and crying right alongside the Grogans.

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She is sooo my daughter!

Yesterday I offered Beth Ann two Size J crochet hooks to choose from. Her face lit up and she exclaimed, "I've never crocheted on a Brittany!"

Note that she can not read. She was able to recognize a Brittany needle (hook) by the packaging. I would normally point out the fabulous decorative tooling at the end as a point of rapid recognition, but she had never seen a Brittany hook before. She simply couldn't know that this was unique. She is my daughter. That is the best explanation. She just knows a good quality hook when she sees it.

The Ringworld Engineers

The second book in the Ringworld Series, this one explores more of the "practical" aspects of the Ringworld. I found this book more enjoyable than the first. Being a "later" Sci-Fi publication, Niven does not over-explain most of his principles in this chapter, making these books an easier read for modern audiences.

The Pax Protectors definitely gave me some major willies. That is always an excellent compliment. I was able to sleep after reading until 1am. Garth Nix still has him beat in that arena! (Of course details that suck you in are Nix’s speciality.)

While at the library I saw that they have the third book in this series. I definitely will give it a read, but this book didn’t leave me needing to do it "Now!" For now, () by is on my Sci-Fi menu.

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Dear Mr. Springer,

As a general rule, I do not watch much of your show, but I find myself needing to thank you. You have enriched my late night knitting in a way no one could have prepared me for. I now know who that baby's daddy is! And damn that bitch! That ho went and slept with her dude while she was in the shower! DAMN! Now that takes moxy!

Even though you failed to mention whether this was a master suite shower, or maybe way down the hall, or even on the next floor, but none the less it kept that mohair flowing well into the wee hours of the night.

My 6 year old's sweater may never have been finished if it wasn't for exhibitionist transexuals who love the dogs that don't love them. Please forward my thanks on. In fact, give me a call when you do a follow-up show, I'd be glad to come down and thanks them ho's myself!

Sincerely, Libby

A lesson in top down simplicity

If you don’t know me very well, you may not know that I’m kinda crazy when it comes to cables. Like really, kind of crazy. I cable washcloths. I’m actually that bad…. So I’m making this scary green sweater, maybe a cable or two will spice it up!

No, cables did not spice it up. I was stupid enough to pick cables that are wider than the initial front collar. So I’m adding cable stitches as I go. Nope, not a good idea… this is even confusing for me…. **Riiiiiippppp**

Ok, so cables weren’t the thing. Maybe a nice seed stitch stripe just above the armpit? Ok, here I am a Jerry Springer into this thang and I’m not digging it. Something magical has occurred. The wonderous combination of texture and neon green has taken my gorgeous tweedy merino and caused it to mimic some nasty afghan from the 70’s. You know which one I’m talking about. The nasty thing made up in crazy-durable acrylic that’s hiding in the back of your closet. We all know it’s there. Don’t lie to me. **Rrrrrriiiiiippppp**

I’m on the right track now. Just a plain stockinette stitch all the way. Top-down simplicity. This will be a lesson in less is more. I can do it, yes I can!

Dude, that is way too much green....

I totally had a "What was I thinking?" moment when I looked into this pot. Inside was a simmering, stinking (I used vinegar since it’s what I had on hand that day) radioactive mass of fiber.

In hindsight I am very proud of myself. I did not cry. Not a single tear. I just kept stirring (and squinting because of the glare) as I watched over a pound of beautiful merino yarn turn to the color of slime. Remember You can’t do that on television? It was like that.

I guess I should explain. I'vd had the second lesson in the same week on why we don’t let our children pick their own yarn. I decided to make Jack a sweater for his upcoming birthday. He’s always complaining that I don’t knit him enough, and I was looking for an excuse to make something out of the Licorice Twist. So, in my most covert fashion (which isn’t very covert) I take him over to the rack of acid dyes and ask, “Which is the best color here?”

He picks “Bright Kelly Green.” A.k.a. Kermit the Frog green. The color itself is a very nice bright color, but I am sitting here picturing an entire garment in this shade. I’m not liking it. I steer him towards blue, but it ain’t happening... bright green it is.

The yarn dyed up perfectly. The tweed effect from the yarn is very subtle, but provides a nice texture. Of course though, it is still very, very, very green.

Job Update

In case you were still wondering about the job reference in the previous post, I was offered a part-time position at a local video store. It’s only a few hours a week, but it’s a video store! Since I was very young I always thought that working PT at a video store would be the bestest job on earth (high aspirations, I know. But it is a step up from the service station attendant I idolized in my preschool days.)

So now I am gainfully employed by the illustrious movie rental industry. How is it, you ask? Disappointingly, as is the case with everyone who has idolized a minimum wage job at some point, I have come to discover a horrid reality… it’s a job. I vacuum floors. I Windex glass surfaces. I print out reports. I make change. I make a lot of change. I answer questions for cranky customers. I answer questions for wonderful customers. Yes, my friends, it is, unfortunately, work.

But, hell, if you’ve gotta work a min wage job, a movie store freakin’ rocks!!! Ok, let’s not even get into the free rental situation. I now have a use for my myriads of useless movie trivia! I now have an excuse for watching at least 9 movies a week! Yes! Yes! Yes!

You’d think that watching six to eight new releases a week would give me more of a reason to update my video reviews section. Well, you’d be right, it does. But the difference between should and would may become pretty damn apparent. I’ll try…. Really, I will.

My Sincerest Apologies

I have neglected my readers beyond reason, and I have no good excuse. Ok, I actually have the world's best excuse. I'm a mom. No, scratch that, I'm a self-employed mother of three with too many hobbies, a moderate to extremely neglected social life, and as of recently a part-part-time job, but more on that later.

Now here is where you point towards your hard-working neighbor with six kids who holds down a full-time job at Wal-mart and still manages to get everyone to hockey on time. Well, I say more power to her. That is not a mom. That is a freaking super-freak of nature. She is way more "together" than I am. But, I bet she'll be committed ten years before me too. I guess I'll just have to resign to being inferior on this one.

Ok, so we've established that I have a perfectly legitimate excuse. Of course having a "reason" doesn't really justify the results to me. So I am going to post more. A lot more. If you consider the fact that it's been a few months since my last post, I'm thinking this is a campaign promise I can keep, eh?

Here's to my delusions! Cheers!

Long lost siblings re-united

Dog meets sister.
Dog tries to kill sister.
Damn dog.

So we got Forest and Sable together for the first time last night! Actually, if you are used to dogs, it went very well. There was a whole lot of barking and growling and a few unpleasant "I ain't stinkin' my arm in there to pull them apart" dog fights, but they spent more time wagging tails, licking butts, and ignoring one another than fighting if you really total it all up.

If you haven't heard yet, we discovered a month or two back that friends of ours has one of the other dogs from Forest's litter. It was so odd to discover this now because we have known each other since before the adoptions took place eleven years ago! They were over at our house and I was talking about my cranky old man (Forest) and we got to figuring out how old he is. The looks from the other side of the room got more bizarre as I continued into the situation surrounding his adoption (they were abandoned at the shelter at 4 weeks old.) Eventually Jenny mentioned that Sable (one of their pups) and a past neighbor had two of the other dogs from what simply had to be the exact same litter. We amused ourselves with recollections on how only two out of the five or so puppies had shared more than one breed. They've all got lab, but past that it was a God-only-knows mix. We are guessing definitely beagle in there somewhere though because 3 had both beagle and lab traits. So Sable is a black lab.

So, Jenny shows up for dinner last night and mentions that she's got Sable in the back of the car if we wanted to try and introduce them at some point. Both of our families lost a dog this summer, making Forest and Sable suddenly only-dog-children, so we thought, hey, it's worth a shot. We figured the worst case scenario involved me scraping Forest's remains off the sidewalk and Sable being tossed back into the car through supper. I slapped on Forest's Gentle Leader (if you don't have one of these you should look into it, they are awesome) and we went down the street to do the introductions on neutral territory. Neither dog is remarkably sociable, but they both have done fine with some other dogs in the past. They are still working out some territory issues, but they shared the big fenced in backyard alright, and did okay inside for a little while.

I think there may be some potential for a few outdoors play-dates eventually, but I'll be happy either way. It was totally worth it to see a full-size black lab and a half-size lab/beagle mix sitting next to each other and to say, "I'm sorry Forest, but your momma was a whore."

Growth is Good ... right?

Well, it's that time of year again! The end of the summer season. The time of mixed feelings where I look forward to packing the clothing inventory back down into nice little boxes that take up much less room, but I still feel sadness at losing my "brick & mortar" store. There is something wonderful about standing there in a 10x10 foot space surrounded by our hard work. And since it's all dyed, it looks freaking awsome too! But it's a lot of work setting up and taking it down every week at Farmer's Market and after a nice long season, I'm looking forward to not heading out at 6am to screw little black hinges to our tent.

This time of year I always find myself longing for a true brick and mortar shop. We have decided this will be our end goal, but we will be smart and do it s-l-o-w-l-y. After much painful debate, we have also decided to kill most of our tie-dye inventory. Yup, you heard me right, we're dropping about two-thirds of our tie-dye lines. We will continue to sell the baby items, and a limited number of kid and household things, but most of the adult lines are out the door. We will still keep blanks on hand for special orders, in case a family wants to deck themselves out, but adult T's and so on... gone! gone! gone! I'm even contemplating ebay to unload it. Ack! Someone shoot me, quick!

Don't worry, we aren't going out of business, but we're finally going to take the business places we've been trying to go for two years. We've been trying to expand our yarn selections since fall of 2003, but we were too busy making rainbow swirls to actually accomplish it. So this year is the year! I've been sitting down late at night and paging through sample cards, picking my poisons. We've also started stocking Playsilks! This is something I've been hoping to accomplish for over a year, and it feels so great to finally have them out there!

To top it all off, I've been taking small business classes at the local technical college. They have a small business cert. program and I'm plugging my way through it. I had forgotten somewhere along the way that college was actually work, but in a discussion with Jo last night, she helped me to clarify an important point. It is a lot of work and especially time, somewhat of a precious commodity around here, but I am actually learning something. I am learning lots of useful tips and pointers. I am learning valuable processes. And I am even learning that I knew quite a bit before I started the classes. And it is somewhat of a comfort to know that I really so understand my business, and anyone who has BS'd their way through a small business venture will know what I mean!

So, here's to bright futures, and goodbye to successful pasts! Onward Ho!

On the Move

Well, we all knew it would happen, but so soon? Wendy has decided that crawling really is the way to go.

I'd post pics, but I took the camera to a show and now it's packed away in a box and I'm too dang lazy to go dig it out. Ok, all you 3rd children out there, did you ever resent your parents for not taking pictures of you? We've got a billion of Jack. Ten of Beth Ann and, well, I'm sure we have a few of Wendy.... somewhere....

Crawling is one of those fuzzy milestones that parents look forward to and dread (well once they know what they are in for they do!) It's awesome to know that they can, but within a day you wish they'd forget they'd ever become mobile. Already Jack is beginning to see how "not cool" Wendy's new-found freedom is as I make him pick up every last lego and string beads in exile over in the corner that no one ever uses. Babies sure suck, don't they Jack?

At three in the morning I would tend to agree. I know that it is a phase they grow past, but baby crawling on my head is not my favorite late night activity. Neither is "baby pulling to see how far my hair can go down the mattress" or &wake up, Mommy! that face plant I just did against your hip actually hurt my nose!" Of course, once the sun has been up for an hour or so, she makes up for it by regaling us with a giggle storm as she gets up on her tippy-toes and rocks for five minutes. *sigh* Timing is everything isn't it?

The Newbery Challenge

This page is still under construction. Please check back later for more!

Thing I hope you'll see:

Searchable lists of Newbery Award Winners (Medal & Honor Books)

Possibly lists of other Awards Types

Follow along with my progress as I attempt to read all of the Newbery adn Caldecott winners

Track your own progress, should you choose to accept the Challenge on your own!

The Newbery Challenge I have set forth a challenge to myself to read as many of the Newbery and Caldecott Award Winners as I can possibly take. It is not without rules, however:

My goal will be to focus on winners since 1950. I already have a few older ones under my belt (like Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson, 1945 Medal Winner), and I may choose to read more. My goal, however will not include winners between 1922 and 1949 by default, since a girl has to have limits.
My goal will "require" only Medal Winners, but I would like to attempt as many Honor Books as I can.
I will limit myself to books I can get through the library (including Inter Library Loan), from friends, and from the bowels of our stacks upstairs. I will not eBay just to finish the list.
I will finish the books. Any book that I can't get through does not count.

1 Wish me luck!

Happy B-Day, Newbery

Today is the birthday of John Newbery, namesake of one of the most prestigious awards for young adult novels. I spent a few minutes perusing the list of medal winners with a librarian friend yesterday and discovered I hadn't read nearly as many as I would have liked to. I am especially lacking in the newer publications. So, as a goal on the side, I am going to take the list of Medal winners and Honor books and attempt to read as many as my little mind can handle. I'm not going to set myself a deadline, but I have established a few rules.

My goal will be to focus on winners since 1950. I already have a few older ones under my belt (like Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson, 1945 Medal Winner), and I may choose to read more. My goal, however will not include winners between 1922 and 1949 by default, since a girl has to have limits.
My goal will "require" only Medal Winners, but I would like to attempt as many Honor Books as I can.
I will limit myself to books I can get through the library (including Inter Library Loan), from friends, and from the bowels of our stacks upstairs. I will not eBay just to finish the list.
I will finish the books. Any book that I can't get through does not count.

Here is more on the Newbery Award, taken from the ALA site:

The Newbery Award was the first children's book award in the world.
The Newbery Award was first awarded in 1922, and is still awarded today.
The purpose of the Newbery Medal was stated as follows: "To encourage original creative work in the field of books for children. To emphasize to the public that contributions to the literature for children deserve similar recognition to poetry, plays, or novels. To give those librarians, who make it their life work to serve children's reading interests, an opportunity to encourage good writing in this field."
In 1971 the term "runners-up" was changed to "honor books."

I'm debating adding the list of Caldecott Medal winners to the list, but that decision hasn't been made just yet....

For more on the Newbery Award visit the American Library Association's Newbery Medal Home Page.