Snow and a Sweater

Otherwise known as an account of the past week of my life. First, here's our house last Saturday morning after 22" fell on it in less than 24 hours....

And here's our road looking to the east...

And to the west...

And here are my front shrubberies...

Did you say shrubberies??

And here is our neighbors' back yard...

Our neighbors are retired and are spending two months in Florida. Our neighbors are smart.

And here is my 5' 6" daughter standing in snow up past her knees...

She looks...happy. Kids. Sheesh. :}

And here is my husband doing his best to plow out the driveway, using our daughter as ballast to keep the tractor from slipping. (It should be noted that our son was actually an hour away, up in the mountains, for SNOW CAMP with the youth group. Ha! They picked the right weekend for that, lemme tell ya!)

She was having fun here, too. Him? Not so much.

And here is a car-shaped lump that would in fact be formed over my car...

And here is my actual car after I spent two hours Saturday afternoon digging it out from its snowy tomb.

Yes, digging...with a shovel...because there would have been no way for the husband to get the tractor in and around my car up there in its spot. But hey! All these months of kickboxing have definitely paid off because it turns out I'm in GREAT shape! Didn't get too tired or sore at all from the shoveling experience!

Indeed, by mid-afternoon Saturday, the snow stopped coming down, the sun came out, and it all looked very pretty...

No? Yes!

Being snowed in makes for excellent knitting time, and knit I did, finishing my Eyelet Cardigan...

I lurve it sooooo much!

Even though I have a slight linebacker-ish look to me from behind...yikes...

My butt! My butt! Where is my butt?? Alas, I inherited the buttless gene that seems to pass down to females on my mom's side of the family. We are buttless women, we are.

Had the perfect pewter buttons for it in my stash, too. How awesome is that?

Pay no attention to the fact that I cannot evenly space buttonholes to save my soul.

And look! I was not the only red thing outside! I finally got a semi-decent picture of a Cardinal with a snowy background (this has been an ongoing quest of mine for a long time)...

All in all, it's been a good week...other than the fact that I am now going stir-crazy and really MUST get out of my house SOON if I am to salvage what sanity I still possess.

The snow is either smiling at me or sticking out its tongue at me. I'm not sure which.

Warning: Pictures Ahead...

A fair few, to boot. So sit back with your favorite beverage in hand and allow me to take you on a leisurely stroll through this past weekend. And just a head's up: if you aren't into American history, scroll to the end of the post because there are indeed some fiber-y and FO-related pictures down there.

Ok...we begin our tour at Mount Vernon, home of George and Martha Washington (the US's first president and first lady, for those of you in other non-US locales), located on the lovely Potomac River just south of Washington, D.C. Kevin and I drove down Saturday morning, and we arrived around noon-ish. It wasn't the brightest of days, but the rain didn't start in full until after we were mostly done walking around, so I can't complain too much.

George and family were on hand to greet us when we arrived...


I assume these are meant to be life-sized statues. However, I'm 5' 4" and according to one guide, Martha was only 4' 11". She's bent over a bit in this statue and is still nearly as tall as me. I don't remember...maybe the statues were on some sort of plinth that added height. Anyway...

We watched the introductory video about Mount Vernon that was narrated by Alex Trebec, which I found an odd choice of Mount Vernon spokesperson, but whatever. From all of our Founding Fathers studies that we did last school year, I have to say that the video was really a very accurate account of many George Washington hightlights. Accuracy. I like that in a history-related experience, and it isn't always guranteed.

From there, we wandered about and I soon realized that Mount Vernon is lousy with sheep. There were sheep at every turn! How cool is that?

At one point, we actually stumbled upon this little guy...

...who had literally just been born moments before. (Not so clear in the picture, but the umbilical cord is still hanging out the back of Mom. LOL)

With so many sheep around, its no wonder they needed this...


...the spinning room! There was also a huge floor loom in this room, but I wasn't able to get a very good picture of it. Still...cool! :)

The line to wait to get in to tour the actual house was a bit lengthy, about a 45 minute wait in the drizzle, with me hiding my camera under my jacket to try and keep it dry. (It was at this point Kevin and I were most glad to have come without the kids, lest we be hearing, "I'm cold!" "How much longer?" "Are we almost done?" and other general whining.) Pictures were not allowed inside the house itself, so I snapped a few from the outside.

Here's the house from the end of the bowling green...

(I posed the question to my husband as to why it is known as a bowling green...he didn't know...I guessed it was because they would play lawn bowling there, and he rolled his eyes clearly indicating he thought I was silly. Well, according to Wikipedia, that is EXACTLY why it was named that! And what's more, before the lawn mower was invented, sheep used to be grazed on it in order to keep it closely trimmed. So there! I was right, AND sheep were involved!)

(Also...in case Cheryl is looking at this picture above and wondering, yes, I did Photoshop something out of it! LOL)

The house features a cupola...

...which I think is pretty neat. I could imagine looking up and seeing ol' George standing up there, looking out over the Potomac behind the house, or watching the sheep bowl on the front lawn...ahem...

The view from behind the house...spectacular!

I could so sit out on the back porch and sip my morning coffee whilst drinking in this vista, couldn't you? Apparently so could over 600 people in one year, which was how many guests the Washingtons are reported to have played host to at one point. No wonder they had their own private quarters!

We visited the museum last, after warming up and getting a bite of lunch in the food court. Standing around in the damp so much was wearing on us, so Kevin wasn't much in the mood for posing too animatedly with our original Commander-in-Chief, but he humored me nonetheless...

I told him I needed photographic evidence that he actually went on this trip with me. LOL

Those were Saturday's highlights. I'll spare you the gory details that were involved in both finding our Annapolis hotel that evening as welll as being assigned a room that a) did not have a family of ants in the bathroom and b) that did have a working heater. We did, however, score an excellent crab-oriented dinner at Mike's Crab House...totally hopping place. Gotta love fresh seafood.

Sunday dawned just as rainy as Saturday had been, but thankfully the Homespun Yarn Party was indoors. ;) It was also packed! We arrived right before noon, when it opened (and yes, I said "we," as Kevin was going to just walk through it with me as he had nothing else to do), and there was a line of close to 200 people serpentining around, waiting to get in. My dear husband's words? "You've GOT to be KIDDING!" Not that there was a line, per se, but that there was a line of this many people waiting to get into a yarn event. Poor guy just has no idea how many of us there are. LOL

At that point, he opted to take his chances in the rain and wander around outside while I enjoyed the yarn and braved the crowds. It was lovely. Lots of very nice stuff. I was only going to buy roving, but you know how that goes. Yarn at these things just reaches out and grabs you and won't let you leave without it.


The two on the left are Vesper sock yarns from Knitterly Things from right up here in Pittsburgh (the red, black and gray one being for socks for my son, as he loves those colors...the colorway? "Hell Fire." LOL). The pink and orange is Sock Hop sock yarn by Dancing Leaf Farm in Barnesville, MD. And the blue colorway (Poseiden's Revenge, I think?), is some cashmere and silk Gaia lace from Dragonfly Fibers, who shared a booth with The Sanguine Gryphon (who is just too cute!).

And of course...fiber...


The first is a Crash into Ewe roving, colorway Bed of Roses. It is a Merino/Targhee/and something else blend...I'll have to double check on that!

The middle one is unlabled so I have no idea what colorway it is, but it is from Three Irish Girls. I've often wished TIG sold roving, so it was awesome to find some at the show! I've bought from TIG online a couple of times, so it was nice to meet Sharon -- and absolute doll when it comes to customer service! -- in person! I meant to get back to her booth and pick up a skein of one of her new colorways she was sneak previewing there, but her booth was always very busy when I went by, so I never got to do so. Bummer. :( (I believe she is officially unveiling her spring line of new colors tomorrow, though, so check it out!)

The two on the right are from Serendipitous Ewe, Happenstance Roving, South African Wool, in the Tulip colorway. I saw some yarn there also in this colorway...very pretty! Nice springy colors. :)

I bought two other things at the show as well, but they are for a swap partner, so I can't show them to you here! But they're yummy! :)

Lastly, the fruits of my many hours of car and hotel knitting this weekend! First, a FINISHED Februarly Lady Sweater!


Yes! Look at those sleeves! Note the length! Yes! They are about the same exact freakin' length as shown on the pattern. The same length I've been fighting for over SIX MONTHS. And guess what? The length is perfect. I am stupid. But at least I have a finished sweater that fits wonderfully and is light enough that I can still get some wear out of this year. Wore it today, in fact. Perfect!

Lastly...


...my first finished Monkey sock. Looks lovely, no? Yep. Does it fit my foot? No. No it does not. It is exactly 3/4" too short. That is about how long one pattern repeat is. And I measured it and thought, "No, I can't do one more repeat or I'll need to do toe decreases within it and gawd I don't want to do THAT." Of course, this was me measuring the sock in the car on my lap, after I knit it in the car and in line waiting to get into the HYP and then in the car again. I should know better. Again...I am an idiot. My plan is to knit sock #2 then go back and rip the toe out of #1, do another repeat and redo the toe. Damn. :::sigh:::

I also made significant progress on my 2nd Blackberry Jam sock. No pictures of that. But all in all, a very good knitting weekend!

Surviving the week...

I was checking my friends' Facebook statuses earlier this evening and saw that my husband changed his today to "Kevin is surviving the week." I thought that seemed a little glass-half-empty, but he has had a crazy week at work. Big meetings with big people. I guess it is good that he is surviving!

I, on the other hand, have not had big meetings with big people. I have just had a pretty normal week. We've done school. I've knitted. I've cooked. I've tried to keep my family in clean clothes. Aside from Monday being a somewhat rough school day (we have those occasionally), it's been a fairly non-descript week. No major drama. (Man, I always feel like I'm tempting fate when I say that.) And tomorrow is Friday. The kids have a youth group overnight at the church, and then Saturday I will have a the day to myself. The only thing missing from this coming weekend is a Steelers game, but its their by-week, and with all the injuries they've had lately, they need it, so I can hardly begrudge them the week off. 

I finished the blue/green tweed sweater I've been working on for the past few weeks. It knit up pretty fast, really, and I mostly like it. (Talking about glass-half-empty, I realized recently that I consider knitting projects successes if my gut reaction to them is, "I don't hate it.") It's a little tighter than I hoped for, but I think a little blocking will help with that. I'll post a picture soon. Hopefully. 

(Just a digression here...me and pictures? I've got 'em, but to put them up when I'm blogging on the MacBook is just pain in the ass. First I have to get them from my desk top to the lap top, then I have to get the lap top to let me put them where I want them in the blog posts, and that is really the biggest pain of it all. I wish I knew why. It shouldn't be this hard!)

Now that the sweater is done, my main focus for the rest of the month should be socks, in honor of Socktoberfest. I started the Mystery Socks that Kirsten from Through the Loops is offering...that's been fun (though Week 1's clue knit up way faster than Week 2's is going to!). I do need to catch up on an afghan square, and I still have my February Lady Sweater languishing with its sleeve issues. So. Those will be my focii for the rest of October. At least that's the plan. Subject to change without notice, 'cause lemme tell ya, I've been having compelling bouts of castonitis lately. :::sigh:::

Oh, and tomorrow morning is knit group...I've missed the last two, so I'm planning on going tomorrow just so I don't appear to be completely anti-social! LOL

Our appliances are possessed...

And yes, he just loved having me taking pictures at this point in time...

Our furnace began making a high-pitched whining sound last Saturday evening just as the Steelers-Jags game got started. (Considering the outcome of the game, I suppose it was an omen.) Husband diagnosed it as a bad capacitor, which he could replace. Considering that this is the 30+ year old furnace that was originally put in the house and that we've had blessed few problems with in the 14 years we've lived here, that seemed pretty lucky. We've got a wood stove that keeps the house pretty warm most nights anyway, so a day without a furnace during unseasonably warm weather was not a big deal.

Fast forward to today. I called Husband at work today to ask if I should be alarmed that our dryer was ticking. It was not running, but it was ticking. Like a clock. Or a bomb. He was too busy to diagnose it, so I just unplugged it and left it for him to check out when he got home. By the time he got home, I was at work and he did not hear any ticking sounds when he plugged it back in, so apparently all is well.

Or is it?

I got home from work to an empty house, Husband and the kids off to visit his grandfather. It had gotten colder all day today, thus the furnace was running. Upon coming downstairs to check e-mail and Scrabulous games, I noted a weird sound coming from the vicinity of the furnace...kind of the sound UFOs made in 60s TV shows? You know the sound. So, when Husband came home, I told him there was a UFO in the furnace. (He loves it when I tell him things like this. Really. You have no idea.) No sooner did I say this than the furnace started making the same high-pitched whine as it had made last Saturday.

Going downstairs, he shuts off the breaker to the furnace, opens it up and begins grilling me on the noise I'd heard earlier.

Him: So, what kind of noise was it making before?

Me: I told you already. I even mimicked it for you.

Him: :::heavy sigh::: Well, can you mimic it for me again?

Me: OoooooEEEEEEEeOOooooooooo

:::crickets:::

Him: So, was it like the sound of a bad bearing?

Me: :::heavy sigh::: I don't know. I'm not all that up on my bearing sounds.

Him: But you're up on your UFO sounds?

Me: Yes!

Him: :::heavy sigh::: This will be so helpful at the hardware store tomorrow.

So...he's now removed the motor from the furnace and started a fire in the wood stove. It is going to be cold out tonight, thanks to a clear sky (which, I must say, is making for an absolutely stunning view of the constellations!). And did I mention the age of our furnace? Yeah. I'm thinking we're going to be biting the big one and buying a new frickin' furnace soon. Though I did point out to the husband that we should probably weigh the cost of any new home improvements against the possibility of needing to move out of the country should Hillary Clinton actually get elected president. But that's a whole other issue. And really, it's best not to discuss politics and major appliance replacement in the same conversation. Seriously.

(Oh! I almost forgot! I was drying my hair today, and my hairdryer shorted out on me! Started to make a bad, burned electrical smell and then shut off! Granted, of the three appliances, this is the least problematic to replace, but still...what the heck is going on today?)

Surprise...

On the third day before Christmas,

my true love sent to me...
two dozen beautiful red and white roses!

They were to be accompanied by reservations for dinner and the kids spending the night at his parents' house (all planned by him without my knowledge!), but the boy child woke up today with a fever and sore throat, so this part of the surprise has been postponed until another time. But still. Dude. We've been married over 13 years now, and this is the first time ever the hubby has gone to this kind of trouble to surprise me with anything. Guess he still likes me. :)

So, the actual birthday itself...?

Not too impressive. Before I explain why, let me preface this by saying that our family doens't really go all-out for birthdays and anniversaries. We celebrate them and acknowledge them, but unless you're a kid in the family, chances are it's going to be with minimal fuss.

However.

Last year, when my husband turned 40, I made an effort of recognizing it in a bigger way than usual. With the help of a friend, we threw a little surprise party for him. Cake, cards...nothing fancy, but it was more than he was expecting, I'm quite sure. I wanted him to know that I knew this was a special birthday. After all, marking four decades of life doesn't happen every day.

But you see, I realize now that I broke one of my cardinal rules of life when I planned that party. How? I had an ulterior motive. I'm not sure I even realized I had it at the time. But I'm pretty sure it was there. I'm strongly against ulterior motives in life...I sincerely believe in giving without expecting anything in return. I think I live by that fairly well most of the time.

But the party...yes, the party was genuinely for him and I wanted him to know how much his friends care about him and that I care enough about him to go completely outside of my comfort zone to plan a gathering of that sort. But. I think I may have also thought that by giving him a little party, he would GET THE HINT that I might like to have my 40th birthday similarly acknowledged this year. Nothing extravagant. Just a small gathering of friends, some cake, some cards...a time to laugh and have fun. To celebrate life.

And then, as luck would have it, just a couple months ago, one of our friends threw a surprise party for his wife's birthday...not even a milestone birtday, but her 42nd. Just because they'd never had a special party for her before. I thought that was the sweetest thing in the world, and I commented on that to my husband a couple of times. And I thought...surely he's PAYING ATTENTION and is GETTING IT that I might really appreciate something like this for my birthday.

So. Yesterday. Birthday. 40th birthday. I got a couple e-greetings from friends and my mother-in-law wishing me a wonderful day. Talked to my mom on the phone twice...she remembered it was my birthday on the second call. With all that's going on in her world right now with the move, I couldn't really get upset at it slipping her mind. My kids, however, said nothing. My oldest is usually pretty good about calling and remembeing, but he didn't call until today. And the younger two? Ok, I thought. They're kids. It probably isn't the first thing on their mind.

So we went through our day yesterday...went to soccer, went to the library...ran into a couple friends when we were out and about, both of whom wished me a happy birthday IN FRONT OF MY KIDS. Did they pick up on this? No. No they did not. Not one utterance of birthday wishes from either of them. Fine. Whatever.

On the way home from soccer, we stopped at McDonald's for a snack. When we got home, I attempted to snag a few of my son's French fries since I didn't get any for me. He, channeling the attitude of a greedy little piggy at that moment, would not share. So, feeling beyond miffed at this point in the day, I said, "You know, it's my BIRTHDAY and you didn't wish me a happy birthday, so the LEAST you could do is let me have some of your FRIES!" At that point, both kids chimed in with a happy albeit remorseless chorus of "Happy Birthday!!!" (But he still wouldn't share his fries, the little twerp.)

Now, I've been on the verge of weepiness all week long...mostly due to life transitions happening in my life and that of a close friend, not really about the birthday at all. However, this obvious lack of any caring whatsoever by the people in my life who are SUPPOSED to love me had really gotten to me. So when my husband came home from work -- after having NOT called me ALL DAY to acknowledge what day it was -- and the first thing out of his mouth was, "So, how was your day?" he was lucky I didn't skewer him with a pitchfork then and there. (Not that I keep a pitchfork in the kitchen, but you get my drift.)

I didn't answer right away. I waited. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. A chance to THINK and REMEMBER and not completely blow it. So, he asked again. "How was your DAY?"

I have my limits.

"You mean OTHER THAN NO ONE IN THIS FAMILY REMEMBERING THAT TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY?" BWAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa....

Despite how miserable I felt and how big a pity-party I was throwing for myself inside my head, I almost felt sorry for him because he truly had one of the most convincing deer-in-the-headlights looks on his face I've ever seen. "I'm sorry..." he started, but by then I was a full-blown mess and retreated to the bedroom. I mean...I accept the fact that when it comes to this kind of stuff, he has always been clueless. Downright CLUELESS. He's the first to admit that. And for 14 years, I've made the best of clueless. I've put up with it.

But.

For 14 years, my birthday has fallen exactly FOUR days after his. His is the 23rd of September and mine is...one, two, three, FOUR days later....on the 27th. Every year. No deviation. He used to joke that it was a good thing his was first otherwise he'd never remember mine. Clearly his early alert system failed. What about using Outlook reminders? Writing yourself a note? PAYING ATTENTION to your WIFE who has been YABBERING ON AND ON FOR A YEAR about how much she is totally, genuinely looking forward to her 40TH BIRTHDAY?

:::sigh:::

So, that was how my birthday went. Not at all how I'd anticipated celebrating that day. I'd really love a do-over. :::sigh::: Of all birthdays...I can't remember ever looking forward to one as much as I was this one. Not 16. Not 21. This one was supposed to be special. And I guess it still was. It was special to me as I spent an entire year looking foward to it and ruminating about it and reflecting on what it means and truly being happy to have gotten to this point in life. It really does feel like a milestone to me. I just would have really liked someone else to share in the celebrating. I'd have liked my family to GET ME enough to know how much it would have meant. I think that's what is bothering me the most. That they didn't. And that makes me feel kind of lonely.

I know this post sounds really whiny and oh-poor-me...and that really isn't my style. I don't tend to go this direction very often. I try not to let myself get consumed with self-pitying issues because really? Life is bigger than this and it's too short to waste time being bogged down over a forgotten birthday. I wasn't even going to blog about it because I was worried that people would come away from reading this thinking, "Man, what a self-centered b*tch she is." I've been trying to just put it all out of my head and forget about it and get on with life. It's just silly, I tell myself. But it's still eating at me. And that tells me that it isn't completely silly and I need to be honest with myself about how I'm feeling instead of doing what women do so often and just brush the things important to them under the rug lest they seem selfish.

So, I'm being honest. Yesterday really was not a good day. My feelings were hurt more yesterday than I can recall happening in a very long time. I know it's not the end of the world, and I will get over it. Already today a good bit of the sting of it all has left. (I probably couldn't even have written this yesterday, frankly.) And tomorrow will be yet a better day. And then on Saturday, we leave for Florida, where a whole new leg of this life journey will begin, and the lost birthday will not seem so hard. Time is a good friend.