Time to Crochet! Week 6

I dragged along one of those expensive sparkly Vanna White skeins of yarn with me to Colorado last week, thinking that I wouldn’t have much time to crochet but that I might as well take it along just in case.

I was finished with a crown in two days.


It’s shiny and pretty, and fits my daughter (I haven’t put the trim on the edge yet so I have to keep yelling at her to put it back down), but after I was done I didn’t have anything left to do.


The first night we were there, my mother in law had all of her family in the house, and the only thing to do with all of us in the same space is to sit us down in front of the television and watch a movie. I can’t remember what we watched, but as we sat, I had my project, my mother in law was knitting a dress for my daughter, one of my sisters in law was working on knitting a scarf, and the other was making sure her new puppy didn’t jump on anyone important or make a mess. At one point I looked at her and said, “Did you want us to get you some yarn? I’m sure we could find some for you.” She declined and we all laughed.


You can’t exactly chase a puppy around and concentrate on a pattern at the same time.

Warmth > Gift Cards

Right now, on our bed, my husband and I have: sheets, a jean quilt, a thick six pound afghan that I made, a comforter that his parents gave us, and to top it all off, the down comforter that we got as a wedding present.


My daughter runs around with fluffy blankets, using them as capes, laying them flat on the ground like she’s going to have a picnic, wrapping her stuffed animals in them, or just generally rolling around the floor with them.


In our living room, there’s a blue fuzzy king size blanket draped over the back of the chair that sits in front of my husband’s desk. There’s another fuzzy blanket (green) tossed on the couch where I usually sit, and sometimes a blanket left by my daughter on the other end of the couch, when she finishes her day by cuddling with me.


We have enough blankets.


But if you’re looking for a gift to get us, walk right past that big display of gift cards. They don’t keep you warm. A fuzzy, fluffy, warm blanket will always be appreciated by my family.


Even if we already have plenty.

The Sterling Silver Lining

Long road trips with small children are hard. You have to stop frequently to get to a potty, make sure they get enough time to run around when you take a lunch break and have enough things to entertain them on the road, otherwise you’ll have several hours of screaming.


Even if you have a perfectly happy child, there are always things that will vex you on the way, like when you are trying to have a quick snack before getting back on the road after gassing up and your two year old grabs the latch to the car door and gets both her hand and the apple slice she was enjoying covered in grease.


Make sure, when you’re chucking the apple slice into the grass, that the $18 ring that you bought at Kohl’s in 2005 doesn’t fly off your finger into the wild unknown to be consumed, along with a greasy apple, by some prowling creature.


But if it does, don’t worry. Just go into the Arby’s, change the baby’s diaper so that she goes to sleep instead of screaming for the next two hours, and when you come back out, maybe check on the other side of that van parked next to you where a truck was parked when you went inside, and you might find it.


After that, the trip will be no problem. You’ll be so relieved that you almost lost but then found the ring you’ve had since before you got married that you won’t even mind that your two year old is whining that she wants to go back to Grandmama’s house or that your nine month old yells for the last hour of the trip.


Though traveling with small children can be difficult and stressful, there’s always a silver lining. Even if you accidentally made it yourself.

You Should Feel Bad

The other day I bought a zester. For those of you who don’t know what a zester is, don’t be intimidated by the name. A zester comes from the same family as a cheese grater. 



But instead of the nice large holes used to shred cheese, a zester has tiny holes to grate the outside of a citrus fruit. The shredded outside layer of a citrus fruit is called “zest” instead of “the shredded outside layer of a citrus fruit.” Zest is used in recipes that need a bit more zing, or “zest,” if you will.


I needed both the zest and the juice from a lemon for my recipe, but first I needed to get the zester out of the packaging. It was encased in what I have heard called “a dungeon of plastic.” You know, that kind that’s two thick pieces of plastic sealed together so tightly that you have to stab it repeatedly to get at whatever’s inside.

I didn’t break my scissors (mostly because I used my knife), and I didn’t think it was a big deal until after I washed my zester and began to use it, because as I was using it, something terrible happened.

I got lemon juice on my hands.


Which was when I realized that I’d cut myself on the sharp packaging.


So whoever it was that decided to design packaging this way should be ashamed. Your product is bad and you should feel bad. You should have realized that it was a bad idea when you were creating it, though I guess it’s not your fault that companies have continued to use it despite the fact that everyone hates it.

But I guess they could always just get one of these.

As long as they don’t mind opening the package.

Time Travel

Vacations are nice. Even vacations that are in a different time zone. There are perks and drawbacks of leaving the time that you’re used to, and while they’re usually not that bad, some can be very stressful.


We went to Colorado for Thanksgiving, and the best part about being an hour earlier is that you can sleep in and still get up at your normal time. So if my kids let me sleep for an extra half hour, I’d still have quite a bit of day left at 7:30. It’s less fun in the morning when traveling east. If you plan to get up at 6:30, don’t forget that your body will think it’s 5:30 and wonder why you’re forcing it up so early.


I didn’t mind my kids staying up a bit later when we’d come from Colorado to visit my parents in Nebraska. 9:30 was really only 8:30, so we’d only slipped bedtime by about half an hour. Last week when I stayed up late watching every single Disney princess movie that my sister-in-law owns (which is all of them), retiring around 11:30 meant that I’d be super tired if I didn’t get some extra sleep in the morning.


When we drive to Colorado, we live through one hour twice, but when we drive back, we lose an hour completely. If someone asked me what I was doing at 12:30 on Saturday, I wouldn’t be able to answer: 12:30 didn’t exist for me.


An hour change isn’t such a big deal. We adjusted pretty well, put the kids to bed at 7:30 instead, and enjoyed our extra hour in the morning. A fifteen hour difference is a bit more stressful.


My husband’s best friend could not seem to wrap his head around the Friday that he lived through, because it was 38 hours long. He explained it to me, but I had a hard time following it, because it was a certain time when his plane took off from the Philippines, an “hour” later when it landed in Korea, and then when he finally got to San Francisco, it was “earlier” than when he’d first started his journey. His Friday wasn’t over yet when he fell asleep for the first half of the James Bond movie we went to see together, or afterward when I was trying to explain to him that the reason for his long day had to do with crossing the International Date Line. (Mostly the conversation went like this: “But I don’t understand why my day was so long!” he would say, to which I would reply, “Because you crossed the International Date Line, so it was Friday again!” After which I would receive a puzzled look, and, “But I don’t understand!”)


Vacations are nice, but traveling can be stressful. Especially when you’re traveling in time.

Time to Crochet! Week 5

This week I tried to make sense of a pattern. The finished product will be a little crown; it’s just a basic headband with pointy bits sticking out of the top at intervals. I like to have something nice and easy to crochet while I’m relaxing, something complicated enough to make me think about it a bit but not so confusing that I couldn’t tell exactly where I am in the pattern if I happen to turn my attention to something else for a while.


This was not one of those patterns.


By about the fifth time I had taken it apart enough to know exactly where I was in order to start again, my laptop, which was displaying the pattern for me while running on its battery as it sat on the table in front of me, chose to power down. I growled a bit and decided I’d go get the power cord in a minute, but didn’t put the yarn down. In fact, I kept going, only to discover that all of the taking apart and putting back together and taking apart again had only helped me to memorize the pattern.


Once I had memorized it, I had no problem paying attention to other things as I crocheted. All I needed was something to remind me if I was working on row 10 or row 14. To finish, I just need to lasso my child to stand in place for long enough to see if it’ll fit on her head.


It will be my crowning achievement.

Fun with Football

Sometimes when I’m watching professional football, with its high salaries, its never ending commentary, and its own particular brand of drama, I have to sit back and wonder if everyone has forgotten something rather fundamental about it.


It’s a game.


It’s something people do for fun, both the players on the field and those watching. But if you were to say something like “hey, calm down, it’s just a game,” to certain rabid persons, you’d likely be lynched in the street. Merchandising, advertising, and analyzing every move made by every person connected to the game has become an obsession.

The amount of blogs, websites, shows, and television stations dedicated simply to the NFL is pretty astounding. I don’t see the phenomenon slowing down anytime soon. But at least we realize that it’s happening, and when the whole thing gets too boring, we can always make fun of ourselves.

Or at least try to spice things up.