Wreckage

Pretty much sums up where I've been coming from. But hopefully, on the mend now. It's three weeks of bronchitis (still coughing), school (ending on Monday, final exam and project done as of last Monday), holiday stress and new beginnings all weighing in. I'm looking forward to some time to get my head together; I haven't been very good to myself lately.

New beginnings - there's always an ending at the start of a beginning - does that even make sense?

Thanksgiving was nice. I love that we stay home for it now; while I enjoy reconnecting with family and friends, it is nice to not have to drive around for an hour looking for parking. Or take the kids upstairs and wait for Mike to find a spot while the boys fight over which episode of "I Spy" or "Crashbox" to watch.

Mike and I cooked up a feast. He made three turkey breasts, cranberry sauce, gravy and stuffing; I whipped up some cappuccino custards (I baked them in my Corelle mugs - so cute!), maple-glazed carrots with pecans, and mashed sweet potatoes with nutmeg & sour cream. Even Will got into the act, making white chocolate-coated pretzel logs with sprinkles and later, sugar cookies with turkey faces on them (candy corn feathers... mmm...). Mom and Rich came over, and Christian, my brother-in-law, arrived the night before. It was a nice, small group.

Knitting Blogs

I'm always on the search for a good knitting blog, and in my quest for cute skull and crossbones patterns (don't ask), I've found a great site called DomiKNITrix - how cool is that? She's got a book coming out, so I'll be putting that on my Amazon wish list. And yes, she's got a skull pattern. Rockin'. Even more rockin' - she posts links to other cool knitting blogs. Love it, so I'm going to post a few here myself:

Glampyre Knits - and yes, she has a skull pattern.

Ysolda has a skull illusion scarf - after doing the Alien Invasion scarf from Stitch & Bitch a couple of years, ago, I'm so psyched to do this.

MagKnits has skull wrist warmers - including one with a bow in its... um, head. How cute is that?

I'm off to photojournal my scary apartment in the hopes that journaling it on Domestic Goddesses will actually make me do something about it.

I've been sick...

I've been sick all week with an absolutely irritating case of bronchitis. I hate being sick. But it did give me a nice weeklong respite on the couch catching up with Dexter and rewatching Sex & The City, both On Demand. I love cable. We had the brother-in-law's wedding last week, which was fun and the kids looked gorgeous (as always). Think I joke?



Yes, Will looks like a dazed deer in the headlights, but look beyond it. The boy looks sharp in a suit; they both do. Alex ran around like a nutcase on the dance floor and Will decided at the last minute to punk out and not dance with me. Bah! Overall, it was a fun wedding.

I also spent quality time with the knitting needles during my almost-week of convalesence, figuring out finally how to knit in the round and creating preemie hats that I have to wash and pack over the weekend in order to send out to a few hospitals. We're doing this Knit-Out on ClubMom's knitting board and since none of the local hospitals returned my calls, I'm going to send them on to a hospital that the moderator's already noted. I can't figure out how to do the extra-small preemie hats on circular needles, though - even on 16" needles, they are so tiny that when I join the yarn, there is still a huge divide between the stitches. And I can't sew them because the seams hurt their little heads. I need to figure this out.

More pictures to come, but I need to post first about this great knitting site I found. And she warrants her own post.