back on the bandwagon

for almost two months i've cruelly neglected this blog. i'm sorry. i'll try not to do it again.

the blog isn't the only thing that's been languishing in the bitter winter of my inattention. apparently blogging, picturetaking and knitting are linked in my life. i know this now because i haven't done any in any signifigant way since early april. before i was knitting a pair of socks a month, taking a zillion pictures and blogging almost daily. these days i've been doing schoolwork, earning a living, keeping up with housework, reading, walking, lots of stuff, but no knitting, photography or blogging. is it too late to start again? can you forgive me?

i hope not.

so anyways, i made this sock in april:and since its completion at the end of april i've knit about two inches of its pair. i suck. but the sock (a modification of the nutkin pattern) is slow, painful knitting. it looks cool, but is not worth it. and i feel that this design would look better as fingerless gloves, with a longish arm part. i may make that one day.and i don't like the yarn as much in sock form as in skein form. alas. it just sort of looks like a messy pile of colours here, instead of something beautiful and subtle.

this is my front door, as seen from inside the house. can you see it? i noticed the other night that the words 'men's toilet' are on the door, but painted over. my jiffy markers and i are renewing the letters. i do one letter for every chapter of my text that i read and write notes on. it's slow going, but filling in the letters is actually a good break from the mental strain of memorizing page after page of dry information. i'm hoping to have all of the 'men's' filled in by bedtime. we'll see, since the kids are getting ornery from all the inattention they've recieved today. i might need to actually aknowledge them and, you know, feed them or something, at some point. sooner or later.

i'll try to blog again tomorrow.

my wishes re: reincarnation

i am trying to be very, very good in this life so in my next life i will be reincarnated as a well-cared for housecat.i will wallow in the sun.a lot.

more kid art cuteness

this afternoon my son (who is 3) took the camera and tried it out. out of 142 images about 15 weren't too blurry or dark, and these are the best five.
i promise that tomorrow won't be about my kid's artistic endeavors. thanks for bearing with me.

a lazy sunday: book review, recipe & photos

yesterday it was -40 and my partner was stuck at work, thanks to car trouble. so from the time we woke up until bedtime, the boys and i were on our own, housebound. plus the internet was down.
it was cold. hell-ass cold.


and, as we all know, the best thing to do when it's cold is make some delicious from-scratch chili that simmers its way to perfection over the course of the day. mine was made with garden black beans, farmers market veggies and lots of love.

we filled our day. there were stories read, naps taken, snacks munched, tickles,


songs hummed, (ani's present/infant, from her new album) (<-- track 3) blocks stacked, star wars watched ( the return of the jedi. yoda, jabba, darth vader and ewoks all in the same movie? plus a space battle? my kids think they've died and gone to heaven) and coffee sipped thoughtfully. i also made farmers market/ garden salsa. here's how.

• in the summer i gathered cilantro, onions, garlic, lemon juice, salt and hot peppers and threw them all in the blender. when the mixture was liquefied and burned my sinuses if i inhaled too close to it, i divided it up into baggies and froze them.
• i also processed a mountain of fresh corn and tomatoes and green peppers.
• yesterday i thawed a baggie of the salsa base, plus tomatoes and corn and green peppers. if i could have left the house i would have gotten avocado.
• i chopped the green peppers and tomatoes and mixed them into the base with the corn. then i pulled out the tortilla chips. i also mixed in some blue cheese, but many people would find that gross. many people are wrong.

i've been reading a cure for grief by nellie hermann. i'm not sure if i'll finish it. it's a good book - the author is clearly well educated and an adept writer. the pace is good, the prose is sparse and direct, the characters are relatable... but i feel like a peeping tom. the book is obvoiusly a thinly veiled autobiography. (the author's biography and the book match nearly perfectly.)

a cure for grief is 272 pages of pain. the protagonist lives through tradgedy after tradgedy, and every moment of her agony is expressed on the pages. it's not melodramatic or cheesy, at all. heartwrenching is more the word. and intensely personal. i feel guilty about reading something so private. hermann is a master of the english language andhas phenomenal skill as a writer, but this book is too visceral and too real to be read as entertainment.


of course, i can't read and drink coffee (and red wine mixed with cranberry juice) without knitting. my first project of 2009 was chosen to test my knitterly skills. i'm making hedera, from knitty. i'm over the moon that they're turning out. keeping track of a 4-row lace pattern when the little dudes are calling my attention away from the needles every few seconds is a real feat, i believe. on top of the complex stitch pattern, i though i'd try knitting these socks two at a time, toe-up. that's working out so far, too. and after so long using yarns i didn't like, dream in color's smooshy is pure bliss. the yarn is sproingy and soft and knits up quickly into a dense, smooth fabric with a subtle sheen. i'm not crazy about the colour, but the yarn itself is fantastic.
i haven't decided yet who i am making these for. on the one hand, i would love to show them off to everyone i see the way i've bragged on them here. then again, i don't have any nice shoes that would showcase them and so i'd have to pull off my boots or runners every time i wanted people to see them, and people might view me askance if i started pulling off my footwear on the bus and in the library and post office and grocery store. plus i'm not crazy about the colour. i don't have to decide just yet, i have a few more hours' work until i'm at the point where i decide what size they will be. you have until then to state your case in the comments.

productiveness

i finally have my camera back and so i can tell you about some of the stuff i've been doing for the past few months.i did mountains of canning and freezing all through the summer and fall. our house's corners are stacked with jars with pickles, jam, tomato sauce, and more. the freezer is crammed with tomatoes, rabbits, and half a pig. the above picture was taken in the fridge just now. the jam was opened this week, the pickles opened yesterday. it's the universe's best jam, in my humble opinion. chunky and tart and flavourful and just the right consistency. i've been hunting for excuses to eat more of it. finding a spoon is a good enough excuse, in my book.
i don't personally like pickles, but i made 11 litres of them for my partner, because he's a pickled food fanatic. we opened the first jar yesterday and he says they're the best pickles he's ever had. i believe him, since he sat down with a fork and ate half the jar right then.
i won't show you the frozen rabbit meat. you're welcome, kara.

we butchered the baby rabbits, then talked about it for about a month, and ended up butchering the adults, too. raising rabbits inside the house isn't really a great idea, it turns out. it's cool because we get local, ethical, affordable meat and we're more self-sufficent, but the flies and the stink are less cool. we'll definitley do it again when we a better setup, like a heated, ventilated garage or a well-sheltered outdoor spot.

my little guys went as yoda and luke this halloween. of course, i made their costumes. it was fantastic. we went to a party and they cuted all over the place. i went as the virgin mary, complete with an immaculate heart, but we have no pictures of that.

we made a christmas tree yesterday. we needed to have an invincible tree, since the baby is a destruct-o-bot, so here it is: green wrapping paper taped to the wall. it's actually really cool because the little dudes can make as many paper ornaments as they like and we can tape them on. it's very modern-looking in this picture, but it's already kindergarten-esque, with crayon and paint-decorated circles all over it. by solstice the green will be almost completely covered, i predict.


i've been knitting like a madwoman, lately. so many presents, so little time! the slipper has a sheepskin insole and recycled denim sole. i'm very proud of how it turned out. my right index finger, though, is suffering. pushing a tiny sewing needle through all those layers savaged it. hopefully it's healed by tomorrow, in time to sew the other slipper.
i'm making socks for my boy. he's always asking me to make him socks, so he'll be happy. i'm making them out of cotton (dishcloth cotton, the bulky-ish kind) so i can just throw them in the wash. worsted weight toddler socks sure take a lot less time than fingering-weight adult socks. i could get used to projects that take only a couple of hours.
the hat is for my sister in law. right at the end i ran out of yarn and had to unravel the beginnings of a glove i was making to get more yarn. it kept tangling and knotting... i was up really late last night finishing it. she'd better like it, is all i'm saying.

i've done about 10 other small knitting projects, too, but i don't have pictures, so i won't bore you about them.

what have you been making?

dear baby:

little puppy, you are more than a year old now. you have three words (four if we count woof, your word for dog) and you can sometimes sort of walk. you're the cutest, smiliest baby around. if someone is ignoring you, you tilt your head and peer into their face with the most beautiful puzzled expression around. if someone is being silly with you, you wrinkle up your tiny nose at them, then laugh uproariously at them. you have three top teeth and three bottom teeth, but not the same ones. top right eyetooth, top middle teeth. bottom middle teeth, bottom left eyetooth. it's like a diagonal stripe of teeth. they make me laugh every time you laugh. which is often.you adore me, your daddy, your brother, and the cat. not in that order. the cat, obviously, is first in your heart. but i make the list, at least. you give us all drooly open-mouth kisses, drape yourself across us dramatically, try to feed food from your slobbery mouth, pet us, wave goodbye whenever you leave a room... you have so much affection in your sturdy little body.but.
in your extreme old age you have decided that you don't need to sleep as much. puppy, it ain't true. staying up until one, getting up at seven, and only napping once - this is insanity. i can't keep up. and i have to stay awake when your brother is awake, too. this is too much. a year ago you slept almost 20 hours a day. that was really nice. you don't need to go to that extreme, but a few more hours a day would be splendid.also, quit waking up to nurse at night. you're old enough that you don't need to. and it doesn't help with my chronic exhaustion and subsequent crabbiness.and this climbing thing. you've proven that you can get anywhere your brother can. but he's almost three and can climb more safely than you, usually. you can't really even walk, but you're already halfway up the bookcase, on the back of the couch, and up on the table constantly. i'm getting a nervous twitch. please stay closer to the ground. pleasepleaseplease, my fearless dumpling.lastly, please quit getting older. you're already too big, too independent. you need to stay a baby so i can snuggle you and play with your rolls and raspberry your cheeks forever. because i don't think you'll let me do that when you're 30.
thankyou.

everything grows

my baby has his first flu. he's burning hot to the touch and pouring puke, tears, snot, drool and shit from all the right orfices. the poor little man is miserable. he wants to be held at all times and only sleeps in my arms. by 'sleep' i mean he takes restless naps for no longer than ten minutes. i'm in a fog of exhaustion, unable to even fathom keeping up with the making of food or cleaning of the home. the boy has mostly been left to his own devices, and he's been really good. mostly.

my garden has been bursting at the seams. most of it remains unphotographed, (so far) but i have mountains of black beans, massive beets, a few cukes, a good showing of carrots, some peas, several sunflowers, ripening yellow peppers, a huge, brilliant hot pepper, and a flood of tomatoes. this is less than 1/3 of my tomato harvest so far. there are 5 varieties here. if it doesn't look like much,bear in mind that my garden would fit in most peoples' bathrooms. and tomato season is just begun. (it runs for another 3 weeks, until the first frost)


today i went with some friends to an amazing organic greenhouse. they had everything. herbs, trees, flowers, etc. almost everything was rare or unusual. apricot orange trees, patchouli plants... you name it, they had some obscure variation of it, organically grown, suited to these bitter canadian climes. i wandered around touching leaves and calling out my discoveries to my friends (also trying to keep the boy from destroying the place, it was his first time out of the house in days and he had some energy to burn)
in the end i limited myself to three plants. a banana stalk, a hot pepper, and a guava tree. (not pictured) all of them fruit. i'll be one of the few canadians eating local, organic bananas and guavas this winter. sweet!

cuteness overload

i should have waited one more day to post the rabbit saga. this morning one of phyllis' young was out of the nesting box for the first time, hopping around, smelling things and looking at things. i took pics of the unbearable cuteness then put it back in the box.
my boy is mostly potty trained. he wears underwear (but no pants) around the house. he's stayed dry at night twice. i think what made the difference was switching from raisins to gummi bears as a reward for using the potty. i know i prefer sugar as a reward. this morning he was wearing this:
don't you hate it when your underpants get caught on your legwarmers when you're pulling them down to pee, then you need to hold your superman cape up so it doesn't get in the potty, but it's hard to see because of your batman mask? i know it's a problem for me....

oh, and the heart is drawn on with marker. we were talking about internal organs and their locations. that was more than a week ago. he's had me redraw it every day since then. are there any health hazards associated with being drawn on with permanent marker?

rainy day contest

it's raining. here's photographic evidence. my boys already love staring out the window, but the rain makes it even more mesmerizing. they've barely left the window all morning.
my cucumbers like the rain a little less. this is the second time in a week that they've been immersed. last time the planter was full to the very top with water by the time i bailed them out. i don't think they'll survive this again. i guess i'll just buy cukes when pickling time comes.
i have freaking water damage all over my freaking house because it freaking leaks every time it rains. my basement floods every time it rains. my windowsills drip. my walls get blisters full of water that the boys and i pop and then drywall-y water runs everywhere. it makes me want to sell the house and rent. but enough of my bitching.

i've noticed that other blogs have contests with prizes. stuff like gift cards. that ain't happening. but i do have a humiliating video of myself dancing, my boobs and belly flopping all over the place. i made it this morning in a fit of boredom. and i will award (read: email) it to whoever points me in the direction of a fantastic new blog that i haven't already seen.
leave the links in the comments section.

two things: an evening in pictures

my baby's current hobby is looking out the window. if i look around and don't see him i just assume he's crawled off to the bedroom to look out the window.
that makes me sound like a bad parent.
if it helps any, i often join him. i usually spend at least a couple of hours a day looking at traffic, pedestrians, trees, etc. right now it's especially exciting because of these.
i freaking love lilacs. they smell so great and brighten up even the ugliest corners of this ugly ghetto. life is better when the lilacs are out.

i was peacefully reading blogs (boobs,injuries & dr. pepper) when the boy called me to come look out the window and see 'kee-kats fighting!!!'. dumpster fires and catfights brighten my days, so of course i came. this is what i saw.
those cats are not fighting.

as a matter of fact, they've done the deed at least seven times since i took that picture. right now they're doing it right in the middle of the street. maybe they've been listening to the beatles. if they have, they were misled. someone is watching them. and taking pictures.