Freak

I have been cruising a chat board on Ravelry about talking with your ex-husband. I have yet to see one response supporting a person talking to their ex. Why are so many people up in arms about this? Are BW and I the only freaks out there who are divorced and civil, even chatty, with each other? It drives The Man crazy but after the kids and I are done talking on webcam (BW is the facilitator and helps keep the kids corralled and conversation going) we will chit chat back and forth. When we got divorced, I lost all but one "friend" in the divorce. I put friend in quotes because friends are supposed to stick with you thru thick and thin but only one did. Granted they were also wives of his buddies but still. I never said one thing when one of them was damnnear cheating on her husband and had a foot in the door of the lawyers office. I guess I was a better friend to them then they were to me. Their loss. End rant.

Anyway, I get many people who don't know how to take the fact that the ex and I are friendly. I was married to the guy for 10 years, lived with him for 11.5, and was with him for 12. He's pretty much the only person, save for my one long-time friend, who knows me the best. We both want the kids to be able to have both of their parents in the same room without a obvious curtain of stress in the room. Why should they suffer because he and I couldn't work our crap out?

So why are we the oddballs? Why can't more people be civil with their ex? Is it because he never hit me, cheated on me, lied to me, stole from me or any of the other things you hear people do when they split up? I have learned over the last two years to not really give a crap what other people think. Lots of people spew poision and luckily I am smart enough not to stand in the cloud of it.

This week is dead week at school and then finals. ACK!! I am hoping to finish with a C in both math and biology. Yes, a C will make me happy. That means I dont have to re-take it. Next big decision is continue math or biology? I can't o both in the same semester again and make it out with all of my hair. Biology is SO time consuming that I am leaning toward keeping that on my schedule and nix'ing the math until next fall. I just want to get A&P out of the way and done. Such a difficult course!!

I suppose you all need a picture. I haven't been posting any lately and we all know pictures keep you interested. I'll see if I can dig up one. This should work:
Meet Cocoa, The Man's new puppy. She is even bigger now, up to 21lbs. She will be his duck fetcher eventually.

Wha? Huh?

I have been so very busy with school and work lately. Oh yeah, forgot to tell you all that I went back to school! I am finally getting my butt back to school and hopefully, in 3.5 years, will graduate with a bachelor's in Radiographic Science... if the math and anatomy and phys doesn't kill me first. If I weren't working fulltime, this would be a different story but alas, a girl needs to make money so fulltime school and work is in order. I'm not getting any younger.

Christmas shopping is nearly done. I got the Man a BlueRay player and have given him explicit orders that he is not to buy anything for himself or the house without talking to me first. I scored one for $109 on dell.com on black friday. Yay me! Just need to think of other things to get him now.

Oldest and youngest are getting bike/trike for my house. Of course the helmet, elbow/knee pads, plastic protective bubble, bandaids, and Bactine are also part of the package. Ok, just the first two things. I'm not THAT overly protective. Seriously. Oldest also wanted the Hotwheels Color Blast thingie and how could I not say no? Grabbed a couple of extra color changing cars while I was at it. Those suckers are three bucks a piece! (Do I have "sucker" written on my forehead?) Youngest got some Cars, ummm, cars and a Mack playset. Being a typical mom, they also are getting clothes. I can see it now: kids rip open presents, see clothes, toss them aside for another present. Cue the scene from A Christmas Story. Fun times.

I have waaay too many knitting projects on the needles for someone who has no time to knit. I recently got a promotion at work and I am now a trainer for new hires for the company. Upside, its more money when I am teaching (when business needs require me to train) but the downside is since I am not on the phones, I have significantly less time to knit. Seriously! I get the majority of my knitting done on the phones at work. For the last 2.5 months, I have been teaching. Since the holidays are coming up, I will be getting back on the phones at a minimum for the next month since we will not be hiring as many people. Good thing too because the boys need new winter hats, I have a sweater on the needles as well as a sock and I have the need to dip my toes into lace by knitting a small shawl.

And since school and work aren't enough to keep me busy, we are working on re-doing the basement too! A third of the basement (approx 450 sq ft) will be opened up into one large entertaining room. Its a walk-out basement so its very bright and non-basementy. Big concern is that right above that room (which is our living room and dining room) is a ginormous 3 sided, all stone, wood burning fireplace. Saying we need a beam is an understatement. I think we may have to go with a steel I-beam. So once the laundry room walls are painted, floor tiled and front loaders are stacked (OMG I LOVE MY FRONT LOADERS), its on to the beam project.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel tho. I have school this week, then dead week then finals week. One class has no final, one class is easy-peasy (101 level class) and then we have the two classes which we shall not speak of. Once finals week is over, I am good to go until January 11th when school starts back up. I will be taking the next series of both classes that shall not be mentioned as well as speech and 2 simple online classes (both totalling 3 credits, hehe).

So, that's whats been going on here. My nose hurts from having it stuck in the books for so long.

Summer Fun

I need to get my truck fixed and since I am starting school in the fall, I also need cash for books. So I have purged the yarn stash and decided what goes and what stays. The items below didn't make the cut, sadly. These yarns play well with others and would be a great addition to your family. :) Prices do not include shipping, I charge actual cost.


Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino - 3 sk color 340505 $12










Elsebeth Lavold
Chunky Al- 1 sk and about half of another in Poppy $6 for both








Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Infusion Kid Mohair- 3 sk color 613, also full skein that was partially knitted then frogged. $20 for all 4








Thirteen Mile Yarn- 205 yds worsted weight wool in a light grey, natural color. Retails $16.50, asking $10









Crystal Palace Panda Wool- 2sk Red Cinnamon $10
PENDING









Mystery Sock yarn- no tags, looks to be wool and either tencel or bamboo, heavy fingering to sport weight. 88g $7.50









Sweet Georgia Speed Demon- 1 sk Afterglow, no tags. $15










Sunshine Yarns Soft Sock Yarn- 1 sk Blacksmith $19












Mountain Colors Bearfoot- 1 sk Red Willow $18










Cascade 220 $5/sk

Color 7830, lot 7212- 1 sk.










Color 8505, lot 7188- 4 sk, one missing its tag. No pic but it is very slightly off white color.





Knit Picks Wool of the Andes $1.50 ea
Winter Night- 1 sk










Red- 1 sk













Knit Picks Telemark- 1 sk Deep Navy (so dark, its almost black) Yours for cost of shipping.










Valley Yarns Amherst- 1 sk navy $3










Lion Brand Fun Fur- approx 1 sk each of brown, red and blue. Please, just take this off my hands. You can have it for the cost of postage.










Spritely Goods Sidhe Fat Fingering- 1 sk Inca Dove $16

The blahs...

My weekends go by waaaay too quickly. Seems like I get off work on Friday night and BAM!! It's Monday. I do miss working part time but love the pay I get with full time. Since I work nights, I was able to get up and do a few things before needing to be at work at 4pm. I got outta there at 10pm and still had time to bugger around the house before going off to bed. Now I work 215pm to 11pm and want to crash before I even make it in the door. There's also the freaking mandatory overtime that seems to bee relentless. In fact, I don't think there has been a week since I started there that we didn't have mandatory OT. I'm not talking a couple of hours a week either. It's along the lines of 1.5-2 hours A DAY. That's just nuts. I work in a call center so if the call volume is that high, HIRE MORE PEOPLE!! Makes sense to me. But here's the really stupid part... The OT isn't based off of call volume. Nope. It's based off of hours worked per location. So if our location is supposed to work X hours per month and we miss that goal then we have to work overtime. Why are we coming up short on hours? Because the freaks there keep calling off. The turnover there is higher than a Amsterdam whorehouse. Seriously.

Last night I couldn't sleep. Went to bed around 9 and laid there until about 1230. I think I may have caught an hour of sleep. Just too much crap going on in my mind. After not being able to sleep, I came out in the living room to read Twilight. The boys were kind enough to get me the whole set, in hard back, for Christmas. I have the best kids EVAH. So I got 4 chapters into that and decided to try laying down again around 3am. No dice. So I grabbed my pillow and tried a different venue: the couch. I woke up around 5am to a kiss and my hunny asking me if I was ok. I told him I couldn't sleep, too much crap rolling around in my head. We went and laid down in bed and ever dang time I fell asleep, I would jump and wake myself up in the process. He noticed and decided he was awake for the day anyway and gave me a back massage to ease the tension away and that's pretty much all I remember until I woke around 1045 this morning.

Youngest was telling me tonight how an elephant goes. He makes me laugh. He calls it an "ephant". I love this age. He is a stubborn lil man (gets that from his Dad) but he is smart as a whip. He sponges up everything around him and learns very quickly, quite a contrast from his brother. Oldest never counted to 10 in increments. Nope. He waited until he knew all numbers from 1-10 before he would say his numbers for me. Youngest is a bit different, willing to learn bits here and there. Amazing how each child learns differently.

Oldest had two decent days at school last week. He had previously been coming home with 5-6 red dots for his behavior during the daily activities at school. If memory serves me, there are about 12 activities for the day, like lunch, bathroom break, naptime, etc. Thursday he only had one red dot for hitting a little girl with a box and on Friday he had 3 because he wouldn't listen and yelled at the teacher. His dad and I are trying a new strategy with him and telling him what he CAN do and focusing less on what he CAN'T do and what he did poorly. So we are making a huge deal over the 1 and 3 dot days and put emphasis on all green dot days instead of telling him no red dots. I think his dad even put the one red dot day on the fridge as a commendation of good deeds.

I need to update my Ravelry profile with new yarns and projects but the things I am focusing on now is encasing my mp3 player ear buds in i-cord to reduce tangling, a hat for my new guy (been working on that one for almost a year), and a fair isle yoke cardi for myself. There is a cotton cardi for the Youngest that needs partial frogging and re-knitting and a sweater for me that needs lengthened. Oh and yeah, a baby sweater for the new guy's sister who is almost 20 weeks preggo. *sigh* A knitter's work is never done. :)

Welcome 2009

2008 was a year of change, big changes. Huge. I went from being a stay at home mom to a working part time mom after staying home with the boys for 3 years. I went from being married for 10 years to being single again. From having someone to depend on to learning self-reliance. From being miserably married to miserably alone to happily dating. From having my children close by to their dad moving them across the state (more on that later).

This year is my year. I'm not making resolutions or any of that crap, making them just makes you feel even worse for not doing what you set out to do so why bother? I am just going to live my life one day at a time and bend to whatever life throws my way... Which at the moment happens to be a wonderful guy that I met last year. He is a wonderful man that I had the pleasure of meeting back in 2007 as a friend and as the weight of my divorce came upon me and with having my life turned upside down, he was there for me. Keeping me sane, keeping me on track and keeping me from feeling like a horrible person for getting a divorce and splitting up my family. I'll get a picture of him up on here soon. He has met the boys once, last summer, and enjoyed the time with them. Son the Oldest asks about him, wanting to talk to him or wanting to know where he is. Son the Youngest still has a healthy Stranger Beware thing going so will only go over to him on his terms, keeping me in sight at all times.

Speaking of Son the Youngest, that's him up top there with his fuzzy monster slippers on. He and his brother got a pair for Christmas, his being blue and the Oldest's being red. The Oldest told me they were too scary for him to wear after I took pics of them wearing their new slippers. Go fig. lol I sent them home when they went back with their dad and I am sure he will coax him into wearing them. If not I guess I will have to make a more mundane pair of slippers.

So as I think I have told you, the boys are living with their dad in Cleveland with his girlfriend. They met while we were divorcing and he moved them in with her this summer. NOT happy about that and could have done more about it but at the time I was naive to my legal standing. Anyhoo, the boys went in to daycare in August and Oldest was booted out about 3 weeks later. They brought in a school to evaluate him, etc. and he has some learning and communication issues. The psychologists at the school have suggested that we have him screen for autism, which I had contemplated for a long time anyway. Oldest has been different from other children, even at birth. The eval shows he has no mastery of a set of skills beyond the age of two and now that Youngest is two, I can see that. The more Youngest learns, the more I see how far behind Oldest is. Youngest just turned two in September and is already pointing out letters, shapes, numbers, and saying his ABC's, something Oldest didn't do until well into his 3's and I don't even know if Oldest can say his ABC's. Needless to say, Youngest is blowing me away with his smarts. :) Oldest is doing very well at his new school, teaching him in a way I never could.

I have been doing a metric ton of knitting, as usual. Recently I finished up another Tam, another Wicked (for me this time), slippers for me and the boys, sweater for the Oldest and several other FO's and WIPs. The new man's sister is pregnant so I will be working up another Trellis. I know I swore off knitting another but that is such a damned impressive sweater! I have knitted enough baby socks in the last few weeks that I would really rather not do those, esp since we haven't found out the sex of the baby yet, nor do we know if she is finding out.

I caught a cold over Christmas. I thought it came from the Youngest as he was pretty snotty when I picked him up Christmas morning but it seems like I had picked it up before then. I am now on day 3 of no voice, just whispers. If I could scream, I would. So tired of having to repeat myself so people can hear me.

I'm hoping to start blogging more. I have been so out of the loop for the last year, not even keeping up on my Bloglines. I need to get back into the swing of some things. :) I hope 2009 brings all of you endless happiness and much health.

Finally Got A Pic

Finally got a pic of Toddling in the sweater I made for him that had the edgings knit then extended and re-knit. lol He has on a polo shirt under the sweater so it looks a bit lumpy but it fits him very well. I cannot believe how big he is getting. Not having him in my house on a daily basis, he seems like he has grown two feet every time I have him for my visitation.

We had a fun weekend celebrating Taters birthday a couple of weekends ago. He turned two and we celebrated at Chuck E. Cheese. I had never been there. The place was a madhouse with kids. Will have to re-think that option again. Tater is going to be like his Daddy when he gets older. He is already 30lbs, wears a size 7 shoe and wears 2T-3T shirts. Gotta love that blonde hair he gets from his Mama tho. :)