Lame Blogger.

I am a lame blogger. I initially typed "lamb blogger" but as funny as I think that is, sadly it isn't true. I'm definitely lame.

I have to go through this list and figure out if I've done anything. I think I have. October is the beginning of the busiest time in my year. In the 2 1/2 months between the middle of October and the beginning of January, not only does my little family celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, but also two birthdays and an anniversary, not to mention numerous birthdays of friends and extended family members. There's a celebration of some kind every week or two, not to mention all the crafting, gift buying, etc., that goes into planning for these things. It makes me a crazy person.

I know one thing I did NOT do on this list, though, sort of. I intended to plan a party with her classmates for Kit's first school-age birthday. I was tripped up by unfortunate timing. We aren't allowed to send invitations to school. We are only allowed to contact parents via the Student Directory the school PTO puts out each year. Kit's birthday fell before said directory was published, and I honestly only know the first names of most of Kit's friends from school. Next year, presumably I will have this year's directory with which I can contact the kids Kit wants to invite. But since this is her first year, I have no directory left from last year. We DID have a party, though, with family from both my and Cory's sides of the family, and Kit got a party at school. So it wasn't a total bust, it just wasn't what I had in mind.

I don't even know

I don't even know right now what numbers have been maked off and what haven't. I marked some off. I made something in fair isle. I'm not posting it. It's a gift. I've paid off all my medical bills, which is awesome!! Except for my mortgage and what I owe my folks, I'm debt free! I've started a few other things, like teaching Kit stuff. Also, I've added an item.

Item #81: One day have electric sex gleaming from my window

Item #'s 23 & 72

Item #23 is knitting something in fair isle. I've done it! But I can't post pictures, you'll just have to trust me. It is a gift, and I'll have to wait to post pics of it. But it's awesome. Yay me!


Item #72, making Kit's first day of school outfit, is not yet finished, but will be, and good timing too, because tomorrow Kit starts school. The plan changed somewhat when she changed her mind between green, blue and PINK to green, blue and PURPLE, after I'd bought a fair bit of fabrics. But then I found some lovely quilting fabrics on sale at Joann's for $2 a yard, and there were five coordinating fabrics in that exact set of colors, so I got that and am making a simple tiered, gathered skirt and maybe a simple little top. Phew. I WILL post pics of that, probably tomorrow after work.

Items #8 and #10

moody, originally uploaded by lothruin.

For Father's Day (early) I gave Cory a Canon Digital Rebel camera and a kit of accessories. Pretty much right away he went out and bought some lights and items for backdrops and asked me to post for him. So I did. In addition to being supportive of my husband, whom I love and want to be happy, I also get to cross an item off my list. Modesty prevents me from displaying anything more than above.

As for Item #10, that's just a little update that I have, in fact, been posting vintage items for sale at least once a month. Now that Cory has a nice camera, I'm feeling hopeful that the craft items wil get listed as well.

Items #37, #44 & #36

My First Bento, originally uploaded by lothruin.

In preparation for Kit's 1st year of school, I've decided to get into making Bento lunches. They are compact and fun to make and eat, use leftovers well, and come with all kinds of cool accessories. They're really perfect for a child, too, with smaller portions but bigger variety, and little utensils for little hands. (Including chopsticks!)

So in preparation for that day, I've gotten a whole slew of little bento boxes and accessories, and have done some research on pre-prep and use of leftovers with the intention of beginning now to make myself bento lunches through the summer so that I'm an old pro by the time Kit starts school.

My first bento is sort of developed around using the leftovers from dinner and the leftovers from my little pre-prep session, plus two additional ingredients, without wasting anything. The corn is leftover from dinner. The lunchmeat deli roll uses the package leftovers from Kit's sandwich. The scraps from cutting down the tortilla to fit made the little tortilla strip chips. The pasta salad is made from cut-sup spaghetti left over from my spaghetti-portion freezing experiment, plus slivers of celery left from trimming down the stalk bites that are stuffed in with the deli rolls. The whitee bits are cream cheese packages to go with the celery. And the fruit is from freezing fruit cup portions. All in all, quite tastey and lots of variety and healthy options.

An unexpected, or at least, unintentional, bonus is that this will help me meat the requirements of Item #37, Plan and pre-prep easy work lunches each weekend. Because of the nature of bento, I'll be planning and pre-prepping only SOME of each lunch, to give me the leeway to be somewhat spontaneous each morning in my lunch choices. It will also help me to meet the requirements of Item 44, Eat fresh veggies daily for a month or more. Again, due to the nature of bento, fresh veggies are a must for proper color and texture. And last but not least, in order to prepare for my portioned frozen pre-prep, I cleaned out my freezer. So yay for that!

My small collection of bento supplies so far:

Item #'s 1, 25, 30 & 63

Item #'s 1 & 30.

So I think I mentioned I've combined these two into one. A continuing education class from SEC on spinning. I've crossed both off the list even though the class is still going because I think I have sufficient knowledge after only two classes to consider the goals reached. The class is at the Lincoln Handweaver's Guild. The teacher is a lovely woman named Catherine. The class started two weeks ago, and I think I pretty well have the drop spindle down. We started with the spinning wheel last week and I have a ton of fiber to work through. The $15 supplies fee included a drop spindle of our very own and I think 1 pound total of fiber, split between a top wool and corriedale, both undyed. I have half a mind to dye the corriedale before spinning, but maybe not. We'll just have to see.

I've also already placed and received an order from the Sheep Shed Studio for 2 pounds of mill-end roving from Brown Sheep. I got a pound each of the brown mix and black/white. My brown mix happens to be brown/black/white, so I got a lot more of the black/white than I anticipated, which is OK by me. It's really pretty and I think it'll go into a black/white heather that will then be overdyed. Along with this order came over 3 ounces of buttery mohair as a thank you. Thank you Sheep Shed Studio! And while in Sheridan, I purchased a little over a half a pound of alpaca roving from The Fiber House on Coffeen Ave. It's a really beautiful store! What this boils down to is I have a month left of class and have nearly 4 pounds of fiber to spin. A month of class is only four days, 2 hours each. I do not think I will be able to get through all of this fiber in 8 hours. I will persevere.

Meanwhile, my drop spindle is currently occupied with about 5 oz of variously colored wool roving from a needle-felting pack. I bought it to spin on the plane to Wyoming, which I'll discuss in a few moments. I think I'm about halfway through it. It takes a while, and I haven't spun much this week. (naughty!) I haven't decided if I'm going to ply it or just set the spin and use it as is. I think it's about a sport weight, maybe a bit thinner, and not exactly even all the way through. It is a first attempt after all. (Really it's a third or fourth attempt, but it's a first attempt at a serious quantity of yarn that isn't just meant as a practice or to learn how things really work around here.)

Item 25

My dog is not entirely a lady anymore. She has been fixed. We are glad. She is not. She will be, though. It went smoothly, if expensively. We opted for laser to make things easier on her. She was at exactly the right point after a heat cycle for her body to equate removal of her girly bits to having a litter of puppies and she started lactating. Embarrassing for everyone, uncomfortable for Mina. Her scar is nearly healed, her hair is coming in well, and she is still lactating, which makes rubbing her tummy a little oooky. Aw well. Strike through on this item.

Item 63

Item 63 is learning about my Grandma Betty's family history. I kinda thought I had some time on this one. My Oma died at the end of December, but my Grandma Betty was, considering her age and health, doing pretty well. I figured going straight to the source would be the best course of action, but loitered over other things, including my grief over Oma and an ill-timed car accident in early February that resulted in physical therapy for me. My Grandma Betty died of a massive heart attack 2 weeks ago. My cousins and aunts and uncles got to choose items from her jewelry box. I chose her thimble, among other things. It's a beautiful thimble and I love it. It makes me feel close to her. Among the items in her jewelry box was a half of a walnut shell with a baby picture in it. The baby is me. In a nutshell. I took that as well. I get all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that my grandma kept my baby picture in her jewelry box. I thought that her death would rather put a crimp in my plans of research, both because of my grief and simple logistics, but actually the wake and funeral were a wonderful source of both comfort and information, and I consider this item well on it's way already.

Item #71

swatches, originally uploaded by lothruin.

I have a plan for Kit's 1st day of school outfit. We discussed what she wants and she gave me a list of colors to work from. I think I'll be making a dress with a patchwork skirt, using as many of my vintage scraps as fall into the color palette, which you can see above. The bodice will be a solid color, possibly with some embroidery or a pocket, I haven't decided, and I think I'll knit a matching shrug. I'm really pleased with the colors