for the love of winning

i'm entering a contest here. you should, too.

how to be a square and a heel

i'm not happy with the socks i'm making. these are my reasons.

the foot of the sock is really narrow. i have high arches and suspect that these socks won't fit around my feet comfortably. i'm not making them for me, but i don't think they'll fit anyone. they're pretty, though.

i'm trying out a new heel. it's a bitch. first i did it wrong and it looked like this:
see the little flap on the right side of the needles? that's supposed to be the heel. do you know anyone with a flat, tapering growth on the back of their heel?
this shows the growth better. it looks like something vaguely obscene to me. a sock's private part. anyways, i tore it out. i hate undoing what i've knit, normally i just keep going and live with a flawed knit object. but this particular flaw would make the sock unwearable. i heaved a sigh and tore it out.

after the first heel i followed the instructions religiously. there was no way i was going to redo these babies more than once. but the pattern (lifestyle toe-up instructions) betrayed me. see, socks are supposed to have a gusset to make them foot-shaped. a triangle of fabric that helps them fit better. (it's the lightened part of the purple sock) the peach sock is more like a 90 degree angle in a pipe. now look at your foot. does it look like a pipe elbow to you? yes? i've got some socks for you!
so i'll finish the socks, because i can't not finish, but i'm not using the toe-up method again. not until these instructions apologze and make amends.

i hope the intended recipient has bizarrely shaped feet she's never told me about.

~*~

in other news, my non-condom hat is progressing. i like the colour and the texture and all that. but my friend pointed out yesterday that i have a green coat, green boots and i often wear green pants. now i feel torn about my cool green hat. maybe i should branch out a little, colour-wise.

anyways, i had an idea, inspired by this from craft:. it's headphones built into headwear. personally, i hate trying to keep my earbuds in my ears when i'm wearing a toque. they only stay if i hold very still. annoying. this hat will have earflaps and be lined with microfleece, with an old pair of headphones built in. the wire can go inside the cord that dangles from an earflap. what could be better?

off to a protest then for some food. have a great day, peeps!

about a boy (or two)

this morning i'm really frustrated with my kids, so i'm going to ignore them while i post positive things about them. when my attitude has been improved by all this positivity i'll go interact with them again and hopefully not want to kill them any more.
(just so you know, they're merrily munching chunks of cheddar cheese while i sit and stare at this screen. they aren't starting fires or harming each other at the moment)


lately my boys have been blossoming, creatively. the baby has started being interested in drawing, the boy has been making up stories, and both of them are brimming over with silliness. for example, a few days ago the boy told me that his feet can't cry because they don't have eyes or a mouth. out came the jiffy marker, then out came the camera. the kids spent the rest of the day making their feet interact. (the boy wanted sad feet so i made the baby's feet happy to balance things out)

they've both been really into playing pretend, these days. my boy didn't play pretend when he was 1.5, but he didn't have a big brother to imitate and emulate. they are most frequently jedi, sith, spidermen or supermen, but they also become gollums, treebeards, puppies, trains, tiggers... yeah. they pretend a lot. and they're really into costumes. they have a variety of cool hats, and a couple of masks. today they were the dark knight and a panda.


they don't actually play in the masks, since they can't see anything, but that's better for me. i only ever get blurry shots when they're jumping around with invisible lightsabers, fighting the forces of evil. (or good)

in case this post wasn't cute enough for you, my boy came up to me after breakfast and said,

"jar jar binks is in a movie, not some peoples' boobs"

i asked him to repeat himself a few times to make sure he'd really said something so incredibly random, and yes, that's what he said. so in case you're wondering....

"jar jar binks is in a movie, not some peoples' boobs"

~*~

i want some better code names for my sons. i can't keep blogging about 'the boy' and 'they baby', since the baby is almost done with babyhood and often does some very boylike things. i could call them 'the monkey' and 'the puppy', but i think cute animal comparisons are overdone, when it comes to little kids. i could use their initals (jad and ez-d) or... ideas?

ok, i'm ready to go play nice.

making everything except news. and babies. and some other stuff.

things have been pretty business-as-usual around here. we've stayed holed up at home as much as possible, given the ridiculous cold outside.
i'm planning a trip to toronto with the kids in april and so am already scheming what to get at ikea. it's an illness, i can't help it.
my baby has been singing the star wars theme song (very off key and off tune, unbearably cute) and is obsessed with yoda. we only have one book with a picture of yoda, so he carries it around with him all the time, open to the page with his hero, and crows 'yaya! yaya!'. i want to bottle up his sweetness and keep it forever.

i forgot to post about it at the time, but in december i made this cape for my boy's friend's birthday. i'm pretty pleased with it. it's a cut up t shirt, with the star made out of old jeans. so it's 99% recycled materials. (the 1% is the embroidery thread. i'm not that hardcore)
my son has one of these and he loves it. he wears it all the time. they're so simple to make, and bring such joy to little people. i am definitley a fan of the diy cape.
the cape is being modeled by my baby, who, as of last night, is nightweaning. it's either that or get him a cow to sleep under so he can drink all night. i'm not willing to be his night cow any longer. the kid plays hard all day and goes to bed starved, and so nurses all night. he's 18 months old. old enough to eat during the day and let his mama sleep at night. he is firmly anti-nightweaning. he's made his opinion known. he expressed it all night last night and i'm sure he will again tonight. we'll probably have a desperately miserable week, but then much, much better sleep after that. until he gets a cold and i feel bad for him and so nurse him at night and we have to re-nightwean him. seriously, it never ends. never.


warning: this is not a giant wool condom, no matter what kara tells you. that is not a reservoir tip. it will not prevent pregnancy or sti's. please do not attempt intercourse with it.
actually, i'm making myself a hat. the lace socks, while fabulous looking, have gotten tedious so i decided to break it up with a quick, easy project. i don't much like my current toque (americans call them beanies or watchcaps. i'm not american) so i'm making one with this beautiful green yarn. it will have earflaps. i might even line it with microfleece, depending. i hate sewing, but added warmth is welcome when the forecast is for -55 tomorrow.

for dinner tonight we had my incredible, famous, delicious spicy orange tofu. it's my favourite way to cook tofu and no matter how much i make there are never leftovers. and you're in luck, i'm going to share the recipe.

phenomenal spicy orange tofu

1. start your rice cooking. use 1/2 water and 1/2 orange juice if you want it to be extra delicious. use all the spices listed below if you want to fall over with pleasure when you eat your meal.

2. chop a block of drained tofu into bite sized pieces. rabbit or chicken work well with this, too, i guess, but then you'd have to change the name, and that might get complicated. it's best to stick to tofu. anyways, saute the tofu (or whatever) in some oil, with garlic and/or onions if you're so inclined.

3. while the tofu becomes golden and delicious (or the meat cooks, i guess, you bloodthirsty carnivore) mix together

• 2/3 cups of orange juice
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• salt
• cayenne (if kids and wimps are eating this limit yourself to 1/4 tsp of cayenne, if you're making it for me use at least 1 tsp, preferrably more)
• chopped veggies (whatever you have around. today i had nothing in the fridge so i used frozen peas, carrots & corn, and that was fine) (beets do not taste good in this meal)

4. when the tofu is perfectly cooked pour in the juice & spice & veggie over the tofu, and stir until everything is nicely mixed. cover it and let it simmer for a bit, stirring every now and then.
5. take the lid off when the tofu has soaked up the sauce. let it simmer for another minute or two, just to thicken it.
6. serve with the rice.

mmmmmmm.

the boy's health news, jan '09 edition

i haven't updated on my boy's health in a while. it's a major saga, so i'll recap first.

• when he was 6 months old he stopped gaining weight. babies often slow down their growth around then, so we weren't panicked, but we were keeping an eye on him.

• at 1 year i had to go back to work so he went to daycare. he started getting sick at least once a week (colds, etc) and had major digestive issues.

• at 15 months i had to quit being the sole breadwinner to keep him home, since he still hadn't gained any weight and looked like a skeleton.

• a month later i tried eliminating gluten from his diet and within a week he was digesting food properly, his bloated belly had flattened out, and he was much happier. he gradually started gaining weight.

• all through this time we were seeing doctors and trying to get some help for him, but hitting dead ends. when i cut gluten from his diet the doctor accused me of dietary neglect. i got a dietitian to sign something saying that his diet was fine to keep the doctor from reporting me to the child welfare people, then quit taking him to the doctor for a while.

• since then he's gradually put on weight and grown. when he's exposed to even trace amounts of gluten, even if he inhales it, he gets really sick for three days. he also seems to have a compromised immune system. he picks up every stray bug that comes his way. i've found that if i keep him at home he gets sick much less often, so we stay home pretty constantly. it isn't fun or exciting, but i can't handle the excitement of him being sick all the time. we've also gotten a new, better doctor, and started seeing specialists. he's had a zillion examinations and tests and no one has any idea what's wrong with him. they've ruled out several things, including celiac disease. we're still pursuing a diagnosis, but we're encountering mostly indifference from the medical community, so it's frustrating. i don't know if they don't believe me or think i'm exaggerating or what, but they don't seem to be that serious about figuring out what's wrong with my boy.

the update:

in december he got a bad cold and a cold sore, which developed into open, festering sores all over his lips, the inside of his mouth, and down his throat.

here he is on christmas eve, when he was starting to get better.

he literally didn't eat anything for a week, and he lost a lot of weight. he didn't have any weight to spare to begin with, and now he looks like one of the kids from world vision infomercials, minus the flies. and his body has been acting like it has gluten poisoning for the past two weeks, but with no apparent triggers. and he's suddenly not toilet trained at night any more, plus he's having bladder control issues during the day. something is wrong.
i don't want to take him to the doctor's, he gets sick every time we go there. but he's sick, anyways... i don't feel like asking the doctor, again, to help us figure this out is particularly productive. i'm just not sure what else to do, and doing nothing is obviously not helping him. it's really discouraging.

after all his weight loss i've been fanatical about stuffing him with as many calories as i can, most of them fats. he's been eating a delightful mixture of applesauce and lard. think creamy, faintly bacon-y applesauce. yum. lucky for me he has no idea that most people don't eat this crap, so he chows down obligingly.

anyone have any brilliant ideas?

a recipe from above.

i have a friend. she doesn't know about this blog so i can't use any identifying details, but lets just say that she's pure of heart and righteous of spirit. she was chosen as a sacred vessel... maybe i should tell this story.

so my friend was doing something sacred and chaste like singing hymns or doing laundry or facebooking or something, when an angel of the lord appeared to her.


'be not afraid!' the angel thundered reassuringly. 'you have been chosen by the mightiest of deities to deliver his/her manhattan chowder recipe to the people of the world!'

then a glowing scrap of paper appeared in her hands. my friend's holy eyes scanned the paper and said 'oh, cool, i have all the ingredients.... um, except the clams. i'll get some when i pick the kids up from school. thanks!' but when she looked back up the angel was gone, and when she looked back down the paper had stopped glowing and she noticed that it was part of the envelope from an unsolicited credit card offer that had come in the mail the day before. the supreme deity reuses before recycling, my friend mused.

that night she made the soup. it was quick and easy and tasted good. the next day she heated up some of the leftovers, and it was freaking awesome. she tried it cold, and it was perfectly edible. 'so,' she thought to herself, 'this is a soup that tastes better the next day.'

my friend smiled to herself.

in the coming weeks my friend made the soup often, and it was always well recieved, even by her son, who is an insanely picky eater. (i've babysat him, and the kid likes cooked spaghetti noodles with a little parmesan cheese on them as a meal. nothing else.)

the holidays came and my friend and her family were planning to travel to visit family. my friend emptied her fridge of perishables (sushi! milk! lettuce!) and brought them to my house, since we were in the middle of our month-long illness. included in the bounty was a sour cream container with leftover manhattan clam chowder.

that night, in between the boy crying himself to sleep and the baby waking up covered in puke, i sat down with the container of soup, cold. i couldn't risk the microwave waking up the little sickos, but i hadn't eaten anything all day, since it had been a hellish nonstop sickfest. and the glory of the soup was revealed unto me. and deliciousness and wholesome fillingness shone around.

i bribed another friend to finangle the recipe for me, and made it last night. here it is.

chop and fry in a bit of oil:

• a medium onion
• 1 cup of chopped celery
• a clove or two of garlic
  

when onion translucent, add:

• a potato or three, cubed
• 2 cups of boiling water or stock

simmer for ~15 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
then add:

• 1-2 cups of chopped up tomatoes and liquid
• 1 can of clams with liquid
• 1t thyme
• salt and pepper to taste

simmer another 10 minutes.

we love seafood 'round these parts, so i used two cans of clams and their juice, minus the several that i ate straight out of the can while making it. you can never have enough clams. that's my motto. i also used a whole huge jar of tomatoes. and an extra potato. so i guess i doubled the recipe or something. that's fine, double the sanctity! more food from less cooking!

so cook it! enjoy it! and when you copy it out into your recipe box, title it 'divine manhattan clam chowder sent from above', ok?

breakable

this evening my partner started to read to me the article associated with wikipedia's picture of the day. some bug that lays its eggs strategically so that the newborn larvae can devour... i made him stop. it was making me really sad.

bug cruelty, sad books left unfinished, crying at songs and pictures and thoughts... what's going on with me? i'm not pregnant and i don't have pms. but i have been keeping up with the news coming from the middle east. it's affecting me deeply. physically. i'm a mess, emotionally. i'm not sleeping well, and it isn't just the baby's fault. my shoulder muscles are rock-hard and in pain. and i feel horribly guilty for complaining about these things; the people in gaza are dying.

white phosphorus, depleted uranium, cluster bombs. after years of systematic deprivation and degradation, interspersed with air attacks, israel is invading gaza on foot. hospitals, universities, and homes are becoming mass graves. i don't care if you support hamas or not, this isn't even remotely any way to treat a population.

the western world owes the jewish people a debt of guilt for their silence and complicity in the holocaust. we also owe such a debt to homosexuals, gypsies, people of colour, pacifists and the handicapped, and i don't see that being paid, but i digress. silence and inaction were, effectively, permission for millions of people to be rounded up and slaughtered. it was a wrong of inexpressable depth. but does this mean that the world needs to stand aside and allow aparthied, collective punishment and genocide to take place, as a way of making amends? i understand that north america's 'special relationship' with israel is about more than just the holocaust, but that's the seed from which it grew, from the little that i understand. but no matter what, nothing justifies our inaction. innocent people are being slaughtered while the western world sits on its hands. as usual.

i desperately wrack my brain for something, anything i can do. my mp is tired of hearing from me. everyone i know has been made aware. a protest has been attended. the situation goes around and around in my anxiety-ridden brain. i check the news obsessively. it all means nothing; i am powerless in the face of such a huge evil. it's fucking depressing.


for those who really want to know, read here and here.

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.

2008: a retrospective

thinking back, it's hard to remember what i did this year. nothing, mostly. a lot of sitting around. i'm usually too tired to feel capable of anything, so i sit in this chair and read blogs and webcomics and message boards. it's not a good use of my time, but what else can i do? i end up frustrated and angry when i try to challenge myself when i've had very little sleep. so a lot of this year was pissed away. that sucks, but it's not something that i have a lot of control over.

a year or maybe a bit more ago i realized that this whole stay-at-home gig wasn't about to end anytime soon and bitching about it was only making me depressed. in 2008 i tried to make the best of it and be the best goddamn housewife the world has ever seen. i knit, cooked, canned, butchered, gardened, wiped asses, read stories, came up with activities, cleaned... you name it, i tried my hand at it in 2008. i learned a few things about myself in the process.

i hate doing childcare. hate it. my kids are great in small doses, i can read to them and tickle them and wipe their tears... but all day, every day, and every night? fuck, no. keeping them fed and clean(ish) and entertained and mediating their conflicts wears away at me and pisses me off. i spend a lot of time just wanting them to go away. unfortunately, childcare is my primary activity. fuck. all i can really do about this is wait as patiently as i can for them to get old enough to start school and, hopefully, one day start sleeping through the night. i hate that i have this attitude because one day they won't be so small and cute and they won't want to snuggle with me. i don't want to waste these years with my impatience and irritability. i don't want them to remember me as the mama who just wanted them to go away. so i really do try hard to be a good, attentive mother. but as i read them the same stupid book for the ten millionth time, i keep an eye on the clock.

cooking, cleaning and laundry i can handle. they're mindless activities that need doing. cleaning is a pretty quick way to get satisfying results. cooking can be fun, if no one is pulling at my legs. laundry... whatever. it's fast and i like clean undies. i can't stand cleaning the kitchen, so it stays dirty. problem solved!

gardening, canning and knitting make me happy. i love making things, especially useful things. these aren't often considered to be serious art forms, but they're the closest i get these days. i don't miss painting and doing metalwork when i'm gardening. canning is a little more tedious, but the resulting rows of jars fill me with as much pride as any ring or painting ever did. knitting is sort of a mix - i liken it to making jewelry. the conception and planning of a project is where the creativity is - choosing materials and a pattern or design. then comes the drudgery, where i use the skills i have and acquire whatever new ones i need to create the object. the finishing touches and cleanup always make me feel glow-y. unless the project didn't work out the way i wanted, and then i walk around muttering curses for a while, then start over.


metalwork is more prone to creating income, but it takes lengthy, formal training and a lot of expensive equipment. knitting is less impressive to an outsider, but it's a more affordable art, and one that i can practice while my kids play. and it doesn't cause serious health problems in fetuses. one day i hope to get back into jewellerymaking, but until then knitting is an acceptable substitute.

four book reviews for the price of one

the library hasn't seen my face in weeks. in fact, the only outings i've gone on in the past few weeks are to the grocery store and to the drug store. food and cold meds, that's all my house needs these days. books can wait. *sigh*

but my compulsion to read hasn't disappeared just because my source of reading material is temporarily out of reach. so i've made do. and between the internet and the shelves of books i've picked up at thrift stores and never actually read, i'm doing ok, i guess. i'm writing this so i must not have become illiterate during my holiday from new, interesting books.

books reviews 1, 2 and 3: the twilight series by stephenie meyer
my friends were raving about them so i gave them a shot. i thought they might be like the harry potter books, which i think mostly lived up to the hype. i don't feel like these books did. they just didn't grab me. i think a 15 year old version of myself would have been spellbound by them, (and not allowed to read them) but it just didn't feel like the books reached across the aisle to the adult audience the way rowling's books did. they were enjoyable, but not particularly gripping or memorable. obvoiusly many readers feel differently from the way i do, but that's cool. i can live with that. too bad those other readers are wrong.

book 4: i am not spock by leonard nimoy
i got it in a thrift store for a dime and gave it to my partner for xmas. leonard nimoy's autobiography - what's not to love?
a fair amount, actually. this isn't a book that will be showing up in literature anthologies, hundreds of years from now. but, to be fair, for a celebrity author he's not bad. granted, i'm comparing him to pamela anderson, but still.
i think trekkies probably love this book and people who have a good grasp of sci-fi tv culture would enjoy it, but i've only seen an episode or two of star trek and only have the vaguest grasp of the whole thing. so when nimoy started talking about some klingon death pinch, i got confused, which led to boredom, which led to me putting the book down and going to bed early.
meh, it'll get a chuckle out of the people who are browsing the livingroom bookshelf.