Bullying

When I was young, it wasn't called bullying. A kid picked on you, you grew thicker skin. These days, someone calls you blonde and it can be considered bullying.

I though kae was just over sensitive to things, that her idea of getting picked on was just her blowing things out of proportion.

I was wrong.

We went to kae's class today for their winter celebration.

It was chaos, the kids were running around like Pygmy warriors. But not a single one even said hello to Kaeley, or invited her to play with them. Not even the girls in her scout troop.

Also not a single parent acknowledged that Ross or I existed. I'm pretty sure the teacher only did because she had to. Even my assistant girl scout troop leader ignored me.

Children learn by example. And I've come to find out, via eavesdropping, that they have group play dates, every single day, and kae is the only kid excluded.

At the parent conference with kae's teacher it was expressed to me that there are people who don't think kae should be in a gifted class....who gets to say that? If it was teachers, counselors, I could understand, but other parents? Who gives a fuck what they think?!?!? The bitch step ford wives who volunteer don't get to decide.

I've decided I'm done with them, my assistant leader can do the rest of the scout year, since they hate my daughter and I so much, I'll sit and knit while she handles 11 seven year olds alone, like I've been doing while she gossips.

The problem becomes, of I try and protect kaeley from this, will I make it worse by keeping her from them. Am I making her more of a social outcast by keeping her from the petty bitches than hurting her feelings by forcing her to interact with them to spite the selfish moms... /sigh

Parent teacher conference

Ever feel like the world is judging you? Your parenting skills?

Kae's progress report came home today. She's below grade level in handwriting....and has no ability to manage conflict.

Ok I know kae is really sensitive, she gets upset easily, she doesnt handle bullying well, she doesn't handle criticism well. She's SEVEN...

We've had a lot of upsets this year, Connor being born, the "incident", daddy probably changing jobs. We've had some conflict. She's having to share her room now, and her parents.

The teacher says, no need to be alarmed. But this [jnsert profanity here] called Dcf on us. So my knee jerk reaction is to go in with my dukes up.

It doesn't help that I'll have both kids with me because Ross can't ever be home to help with this.

November Reading list

november
1-69 Southern living Christmas cookbooks vol 1 (11/11) - free/library
2-70 southern living Christmas desserts (11/11) - free/library
3-71 the three shepards daughter - Gillian Summers (11/28) - free/Gail loan

Yeah, really exciting.

The Tree Shepherd's Daughter is a YA Fey book. I was told to prepare for mass hatred of the main character Keelie. That she'd annoy the hell out of me in just a couple pages. I was pleasantly surprised. Keelie wasn't as bad as some teenagers, considering the situation.

If I'd been in her situation, I'd have been SOOOOO much worse....yeah.

Anyway, I'm not totally psyched for Renn Faire 2013!

Time to pull my Bellydance stuff out of storage and put my Gypsy costume back together!

October Reading List

yes, i know November is almost over. I just completely forgot!

1-64 Ascend Trylle #3 - Amanda Hocking (10/9) - free/gail loan
2-65 Death Masks - Jim Butcher (10/11) - free/library
3-66 Blood Rites - Jim Butcher (10/21) - free/library
4-67 Kiss the Dead - Laurell K Hamilton (10/27) - free/library
5-68 Time Untime - Sherilyn Kenyon (10/30) - free/library


ok so Trylle..it was ok, but the ending was too happy. Someone should have died.

Death Masks was actually a re-read, i'd forgotten which Dresden book i was on and picked it up again. This one is great. I miss Shiro already. Blood Rites was GREAT! yes, caps. I love these books, once you get past the second one they're fantastic.

Kiss the Dead....Really LKH? really? Affliction better be worth it, or i might just stop reading these books..nah, probably not. But they're kinda ridiculous now.

Time Untime. Kenyon NEVER disappoints. ever. I have loved every single book of hers i've read, even the CIA sniper romance novels...weird but true. This one walks a little more away from the Greek Dark Hunters and explores OTHER cultures trying to end the world, the Mayans. Yup..the End of the Mayan calendar. and Ash is in it, so it's all good.

Oh look! A recipe!

Some of the husbeast's favorite meals are two things. Simple. And vegetarian.

This last meal plan was cheap and easy. And needed to use a lot of stuff sitting in the pantry and the freezer! I had a bag of frozen mixed broccoli and cauliflower. And two boxes of rice a roni long grain wild rice (my favorite!).

Roasted Parmesan veggies

Dump the veggies in a big bowl (I thawed mine first)
Add a drizzle of olive oil
About a tablespoon of lemon juice
Minced garlic (I used about a tablespoon)
Salt and pepper
A teaspoon of red pepper flakes
1/4 - 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Toss really well and dump onto an aluminum foil lined baking sheet (mine had a lip)

Cook at 425 degrees (preheated) for 20 minutes, stirring every 5 or so.

I served mine with the rice. It was nummy!

Bad stuff

Monday was a hard day for me. Lots of things happened. Bad things. Not bad things in the Trueblood sense either.

Without going too much into it, I almost lost the most important things in my life, my kids. I've been scary depressed.

I'm around, and we'll survive, but I'm not in a good place, and I've used up my allotment of "smile and everything will be ok" for the rest of my life.

I love my babies, everyone who knows me knows that. How could anyone think otherwise?!

Loomin

So I got my loom warped and started a project on it. It's a table runner for my mom for Christmas. I hope.

It's about 13 inches wide and my loom accommodates 60 inches of warp, so that's what I'm going for. Her dining room table is like 75 inches anyway.

I think I'm going to run out of weft yarn before I get to 60 inches, so maybe it'll be a weird abstract wall hanging instead...

Like my craft stick shuttles?!

September Reading List

September
1-53 Craved - Stephanie Nelson (9/5) - free/kindle
2-54 The Art of the Loom - Ann Hecht (9/17) - free/library
3-55 kids weaving - Sarah Swett (9/19) - free/library
4-56 hands on rigid heddle weaving - Betty Linn Davenport (9/20) - free/library
5-57 Hands on Weaving - Barbara Leibler - (9/24) - free/library
6-58 The Key to Weaving - Mary E. Black (9/27) - free/library
7-59 Legacy of the Witch - Maggie Shayne (9/30) - free/kindle
8-60 Small Loom and Freeform Weaving - Barbara Matheissen (9/30) - free/library
9-61 Weaving Made Easy - Liz Gibson (9/28) free/library
10-62 Pasta! - Time Magazine Book (9/29) free/library
11-63 100 Knitting Projects - Jean Lanhauser (9/30) free/library

most of them were non-fiction this month. I really enjoyed Kids Weaving by Sarah Swett. It was really well written with easy projects for kids (and adults) and included instructions on how to build a PVC loom. see my previous post lol.

Kae decided to check a few books out for me on her trip to the library with daddy (i stayed home with the sleeping boy-child) she got me Pasta! and a couple knitting books. One of them was..outdated. the other is baby knits, she even picked out a sweater i MUST knit for connor. must..now..get to it mommy.

all in all i spent nothing on books this month. very little non-fiction, and honestly it feels like very little at all. I got my loom put together and warped, did a little spinning on my wheel and have knit a little.

girl scouts takes up a lot of time. We have a fundraiser starting today /sigh

Mommy and me crafts

Over the weekend we made a family trip to the library. I'm especially fond of these because the kids get to see that, yes, in fact, daddy CAN read.

I had put on hold all the weaving books our public library had to offer, they've been trickling in, including one on weaving baskets (no) and a history of weaving book written by my 12th grade AP English/Art History teacher (f-ing awesome!). But the best so far has been a book called:

Kids Weaving by Sara Swett.

In it is a diagram to make an upright loom with 2 heddles using PVC pipe. It's basically a tapestry loom. That a child can't easily destroy.

I made two.

One for kae and one for me. She saw a pattern in the book for a pieced blanket she really wants to make for Connor.

I got everything at home depot for about $20, and it took me less than an hour to cut and assemble all the pieces, though I do need to get shuttles for both, there are directions for making them from Popsicle/craft sticks in the book.

They're sitting on the patio, so kae will see them when she gets home from school. I'm hoping to get them warped by the weekend so we can get started :)

Recipe time

I haven't posted a recipe on my blog in a while!

I meal plan these days, and typically I get all my recipes from pinterest. It's expanded my cooking skills, and the types of things my family eats. Kae is a much better eater. And she loves to help cook!

So tonight we had creamy ranch chicken.

You'll need:

- 3-4 chicken breasts (I used frozen boneless skinless)
- 1 can cream of chicken soup
- 1 8oz package of onion cream cheese
- 1 package noodles
- 1 package ranch dressing powder mix

Put the chicken in your crock pot!
Mix the ranch dressing and the soup in a bowl.
Add cream cheese and soup mix to crock pot!
Cover and cook
- thawed on low 3-4 hours
- frozen on low 6-7 hours

I shredded the chicken while I mixed up the sauce and added a drained can of peas, which I served over twisty noodles :D

Kae ate all hers, Ross told me its on the "make again" list. I can't taste anything, I have the sick. But I trust that it's good if the girl eats her food ;)

August reading list

Both were bad, bad kindle books. Sometimes the free books are great...sometimes no, just....no

Bad to the bone
The mystic wolves

The second wasn't as bad as the first, but I have no desire to read the sequel

Pool

So what our development has two swimming pools and we're two minutes from the Atlantic ocean?!

Soooooo!

We have an inflatable pool...

I didn't buy it...mom did

Late post - the zoo

The Saturday before school started (last week) we took the bratlings to the zoo!

Our zoo isn't huge, but it's way bigger than when I was a kid! Kae went on a field trip last year but didn't get to see a lot of the animals. The tiger had just had babies do they weren't out, the panther too.

Last zoo trip I was on I was pregnant with Connor but didn't know yet. Connor likes the turtles and birds.

All in all it was fun, hot, humid, but fun.

First day of school

Today was kae's first day of First Grade! Omg she's getting so big, too fast. I'm totally not ready.

Kae spent all weekend trying to decide what to wear to school today, and then deciding which shoes. And backpack, and how she wanted her hair did, I thought I wouldn't have to deal with this until middle school or something?! Blah.

The easiest part about the morning was the food. Kae's new lunchbox is made for bento! It's a hello kitty Tupperware lunch bag, it came with 4 square, locking containers and two water bottles. We used the big box today, and made a simple lunch. Sammich, cheese stick, peanuts, kool aid. We'll get more complex, it was HARD for mommy to drag out of bed at 6:30!

Also we were out of fruit /sigh
Do gummies count?

Ravellenic Games 2012

I decided to just do one post of all my projects this time around!

First up I knit a Pygmy puff, from Harry Potter. They're in the books but hardly in the movies. In 6 Ginny has one one the train, it's hideous and lavender...
Mine is cute! It's for kae for Christmas. I knit this for Team Tardis and the competition with team Sherlocked in the British cricket event.

I then knit a soaker for Connor using the snapdragon pattern and storied yarns custom hand dyed in a highlander color way for Connors cloth booty! It's for team storied yarns!

I dyed a skein a yarn, a huge skein of yarn. It was the green wool I got from Peggy! It's now a beautiful peacock that needs a project!

Then I popped out a charity scarf for the drive I'm doing right now, it's yarn I received from my mother in law when I first started knitting, paton's pooch. The scarves and cowls (and hats) Gail and I have been knitting all year have found a charity. They're going to warm up
Cincinnati for donation to elementary kids in Kentucky. We have 15 scarves, 3 cowls and 1 hat. I'll be getting more from the lovely ladies at the Wednesday night knitting. (shoot me a message of you have any to donate, I'll get you the address or collect since I'm shipping a huge flat rate box)

I also finished my purple handspun from the tour de fleece! I got 490 yards of fingering weight. Now I'm going to start spinning the grey, I'll either knit a spectra shawl from westknits or get a third color and do a color affection!

I also knit a multi-use item, it's a bracelet, necklace, and a headband. I knit it using a 23 yard 2-ply sample skein I did on my Turkish spindle!

Last project is a Fennec hat for Connor. I love this pattern. Seriously, it's easy, cute and perfect for handspun because it's so forgiving. It also works great in heavily variegated yarns. I'm using my Titania fractal spin yarn from TdF. I'm counting this in the cast on trap shoot because I cast it in during the Olympics, and got more than 30% into it, but didn't finish. I'm actually half finished with the decreases but need to dig out my dpns to finish.

I had a wip (10-stitch blanket) and a shawl (test knit my own design) that I had hoped to get to. But I just ran out of time with two kids!

I'm proud of what I did accomplish this year though ::dance::

Spoilers - politics

Disclaimer: while I generally leave politics out of my blog, I feel the need to chime in on the chik-fil-a anti-gay comments.

One, I support gay marriage and rights, I need to get that out right away. Some of my very best friends are gay or lesbian. And even a few of them are die hard Christians. I love them anyway :P

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One person, the CEO of the chicken giant made a comment. And now franchisees are suffering.

Both my husband and my brother have worked for a fast food franchise, brother still does. Ross quit working for panera because of the franchise owners racist, sexist policy. He didn't feel right. I don't blame him, I'm proud of him for standing by his morals and teaching our daughter that that shit just isn't ok. But those are not the views of the entire company, just the franchise in Florida. So we eat there very very rarely.

If someone at corporate makes a mistake, the owners of the franchise who don't necessarily have the same views or ideals, shouldn't be punished for it. So by boycotting a place because of one idiot's views, you may be causing 50 people to lose vital income. Some of them might even be those gays everyone is boycotting chicken to protect.

Chik-fil-a supports PBS kids. They offer educational kids meal toys, not with the intention of luring children in with spongebob or teenie beanie babies. They try to encourage reading with comic books, children's books, they offer educational cd-rom games for kids, and art projects. And so few, if any, have Christian themes (except veggie tales).

I will not buy chik-fil-a. But I also don't think thousands of people should have to suffer because of one idiot. I don't think a fast food chicken place has any place in politics, especially one as publicly religious as chik fil a, closed on Sunday's, I mean really.

I'm not going to mention this again, but it's been bugging me how crazy people are getting. My parents taught me to think before I act.

Stupid Yarn - the revenge

So for the Ravellenic Games I decided to give the lime green yarn a second try.

I used a whole pot of Wilton's icing gel. About half a cup of vinegar, and enough water to cover the yarn. It cooked on low, being squished and flipped for about two hours. Maybe closer to three. I was playing Everquest.

It soaked almost all the dye up, and there are still green spots!!!

But not many. So I forgive it. And ugly yarn is now pretty peacock yarn!

I couldn't reproduce this color if my life depended on it /sigh

July reading list

1-44 Torn - Amanda Hocking (7/9) - free/Gail
2-45 Doctor Who Borrowed Time - Naomi Alderman (7/11) - free/library
3-46 Doctor Who The Silent Stars Go By - Dan Abnett (7/11) - free/library
4-47 The Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum (7/15) - free/audiobook
5-48 Doctor Who The Way Through The Woods - Una McCormack (7/16) - free/library
6-49 Respect the Spindle - Abby Frequenmont (sp) (7/16) *reread* - free/mine
7-50 Doctor Who Touched By an Angel - Jonathan Morris (7/24) - free/library

my non fiction for the month (which i'd been ignoring!) is Respect the Spindle. It's a three time re-read for me. i pulled it out again during the TdF to read a bit more. I especially like the part about the history of spindles!

all my books were FREE!

and for my efforts i received a huge blue travel cup from the library. For the Adult Summer Reading program :D

Kae also completed hers and got an award certificate, tickets to a hammerheads game, a bookmark and pencil, and a light that goes on your finger so you can read in the dark. Does it make me horrible i hope she forgets it's in my purse so i can keep it for reading at night?!

What's In a Name

I've been asked why I go through so much trouble to find names for my spindles and things. I guess it's the pagan in me. Names have meaning, they have purpose. Names are important.

Names give life.

in last night's post i named (and linked) to all my spinning stuff. Arachne, Clotho, Nieth, Anake. And today I'm going to introduce you to:

Aella

The amazons were always pushed to the very edges of greece's known territory. So they were always considered barbarians. When the people would reach that area, and no amazons were found, they always said "well they must have moved on, or Heracles killed them all."

Aella means Whirlwind, she was known for fighting with a double axe, and lost her life to Heracles in the defense of Hippolyte's golden Girdle (one of his 12 Labors).

This is a ThreadsThruTime Medium Turkish, the shaft is 6 1/4 inches long, and she weighs 1.4oz. Spins like a little whirly dervish. Made out of Burmese Rosewood and Bloodwood.

I think it fits :D

Tour Ends Spinning Continues

So I ended the tour with what seems like very little spun

I did singles then a 2-ply of my Titania braid from Storied Yards. Got 120yds from that, then did my very first navajo ply with the remaining single! I got 22.5 yds from that! This will become a Fennic hat for Connor during the Ravellenic Games.

I also finished my Unseelie batt. If you go waaaaaay back to when I bought my wheel two years ago, it was one of my first batts. It's bfl/silk by Corgi Hill Farms. I love it. I got 300 plus yards of single from 2 oz. I think I might make myself a citron with it.

I am almost finished with my purple pencil roving. I need to finish it so I can start the grey. I'm going to make a Westknits Spectra shawl with both.

Then today in the mail I got a new toy, it's a Threads Thru Time Turkish spindle. She needs a name, something from mythology, fiber arts related and possibly Turkish.

Ashford Kiwi - Clotho
Ashford spindle - Anake
Rose Spindle - Neith (but she's being traded)
Spider spindle - Arachne


Perhaps her name will come to me in my dreams

Tour day 21 and 22

Let's see, Friday I finished spinning the Titania singles to ply, and set them aside to rest.

I skeined, soaked and smacked my Unseelie batt from Corgi Hill Farms on etsy. Talk about and outstanding wip, I started this batt 2 years ago! I got 137 yds from the first half, and 397 yds from the second lol.

Today we went to Ikea! The kiddos were so well behaved! Then Ross spent 3.5 hours helping kae clean her room to make space for the new storage shelf we got. I also hung up their new bug nightlight.

So the kitchen and kae's room are clean and organized, next is the living room, I seriously want to throw out the plastic desk in the corner, and purge my craft stuff. I'll probably be putting fabric on etsy to destash.

I got some spindle spinning done in the car on the way home, but no pictures to prove it /sigh. I'm sure the crazies on I-95 were so impressed!

Then I plied my Titania singles, I got 120 yards of two ply and 22.5 yards on my very first Navajo ply! Which I thought would be hard, but really wasn't ::dance::

I'll post a finish line post with pictures tomorrow, I'm pretty proud of myself considering I didn't have my wheel until halfway through.