My weekend.

Friday, we packed up with Grandma and Grandpa Deplume and our pair of kiddos, and set off for St. Louis. I started knitting Otis from Knitty.com during the drive. After about an hour, I realized that this pattern is rife with "at the same time" type instructions. I had never encountered those before. And I had only skimmed this pattern before I cast on. This resulted in frogging an hour's worth of work. Ugh. Note to self: really read the pattern before starting any project. Duh.

After we got to the hotel we decided we were hungry and wanted to go out to eat. Not to mention, it was our anniversary, and I was NOT going to eat a vending machine turkey sandwich and white zinfandel for my anniversary dinner. The Grandparents decided that they were not willing to leave the hotel at 7PM for dinner, so the four of us set off in search of food. We found Oishi Sushi down the street. It was wonderful. Some Japanese beer, Pad Thai, and spicy tuna rolls made Mr. Deplume and I very happy. It was a lovely anniversary dinner. And the kids loved their rice and soy sauce (I did share my shrimp with them, though. They weren't completely deprived).

Saturday morning, we went to the St. Louis Science Center, where we would visit the Marvel Comics Superheroes exhibit. It was a lot of fun. Not exactly what I would have picked for my main birthday activity, but what's a girl going to do? The kids had a blast, and Mr Deplume did too.

Then we drove to Laclede's landing for lunch, and walked around the riverfront a little while. We then packed back up and were home by 6:3o pm. I promptly poured myself a glass of wine and sat in front of the TV, knitting, the rest of the evening. Not a bad birthday, although I didn't get any cake. On the bright side, I think that without cake, the birthday didn't happen, so I'm not actually 35 yet. ;)


Sunday, we played hooky from church so I could work, then we went to the playground with the kids and a picnic lunch. It was fun, aside form the friction burn I got on my back from attempting a ride down a kids slide. Later, we walked to the high school's football field, and flew a kite. I hadn't flown kites since I was about 19. It was the kids' first time. I think I had more fun than anyone else did. Sunday was a good day.

It is just not my week.

This weekend my computer started freezing up. I'd just be typing away, and suddenly, the old girl just stopped, staring at me. Catatonic. I work from home, using the computer. A working computer is not an optional piece of equipment for me. The first time I thought it was a fluke. The second time, I figured it was a cue to shut down some programs. It kept happening, with increasing frequency. By Sunday, it was scaring me. How am I going to afford a new computer right now? Property taxes are due this week! So I spent too many hours cleaning my registry, searching for spyware, removing old programs, and defragging. So far it seems to have helped. I have my fingers crossed. But just in case, I'm planning on buying a good backup software today.

Yesterday morning, after some nasty storms had rolled though, I found water in my basement. A lot. My poor cats had to slog through basement flood to get to their litter box and food. They were not happy about it. The dirty laundry that was waiting on the floor was soaked. Several boxes of miscellaneous basement-type stuff were wet. What a mess. I took care of the laundry, and let Mr. Deplume deal with the remaining basement water when he got home from work.

Yesterday afternoon, While my daughter was at a friend's house, my son and I started putting away the mountain of clean laundry. I left my room for a moment, only to come back to him playing in a bottle of paint. Black acrylic craft paint. I know that a master bedroom is a stupid place for craft paints, that's where they were waiting for me to find them a new home. The boy had already attempted to play with them in their last "safe" place.

Back to yesterday-- I walk into the bedroom to find him with the lid off, sticking a brush in. Then I walked closer. He had spilled it all. over. the. carpet (the only carpet in my whole house, by the way). Black craft paint is NOT easy to clean up. I dabbed and blotted and scrubbed and cursed and rinsed for about 20 minutes, then laid some damp towels onto it until I could get the carpet cleaner upstairs to try to shampoo.

Then the carpet shampooer was spitting out more water than it could suck up. It is definitely broken. Oh well, now I can get rid of the bulky thing without thinking of all the money I spent on it 4 years ago. Had I mentioned that the shampooer didn't work? I still have three large splotches of back on the sage green carpet.

Last night, I worked on the Mystery Shawl a bit. I'm racing along, and did one wrong decrease. I tinked back, and managed to screw that up. Or maybe I didn't. I tinked and cursed some more and finally got it right. I cannot help but think that I should have ignored that one backwards decrease and saved myself an hour of anguish. I'm now on row 70. I might get this thing finished before retirement, but I do not expect to finish it in August.

The day was finally over. I went to bed.

This morning. The boy walked into the kitchen, and within 30 seconds, did something unknown with a can of RC Cola, causing it to explode. The cola shot into his eyes and hair, causing him to stand there and scream. There was also sugary carbonated spray on him and his clothes, of course, and my floor, cabinets, counters, dishwasher and oven. The diameter of the spray was over 10 feet, and splattered well over 6 feet up, to the top of my cabinets. That boy has talent, I tell ya.

This week sure has been exciting, but I think I prefer the boring life, thank you very much.

I love my thrift store.

I love vintage stuff. Unfortunately, there isn't enough room in my home for every old thing I find lovely or interesting. But books I can find a place for. It started out with some old crochet pattern books my mother got at an auction for next-to-nothing (meybe even nothing, I never really asked). I ended up selling a few of them, as I cannot crochet, nor will I probably ever learn. But those books were so fun, that I started looking in the craft book section at my local charity shop.

Most of the time, the only books there are 1980's instructions on how to crochet collars onto hand-painted sweatshirts. There are usually a few afghan books too. And macrame. But this time there were knitting books. With flair. And they leaped into my basket.

Vintage knit pattern books
Originally uploaded by robinmommy21

First three I found were quite nice. I might actually make something from one or more of these.

Vintage Doll clothes patterns
Originally uploaded by robinmommy21

Next up were these lovelies, titled "Mary's Dollies". I'm not into dolls or their clothes, but maybe someday I'll pass them along to someone who will use them.

Mod knit pattern booklet
Originally uploaded by robinmommy21

And then I found this beauty. Columbia Minerva Leaflet No. 2510, "The Super-Sonics," promises handknits that will "fly off your fingers with supersonic speed." It was originally 25 cents. How much did I pay for it? 25 cents. I felt it wrong to quibble about money on such a wonderful find. The clothes. The hair. The gauge. I'm relatively sure that I'll never knit any of these. Maybe I'll frame this and hang it on my knitting studio's wall. (No, I don't actually have a knitting studio. But a girl can dream, right?)

Detail of mod knit dresses
Originally uploaded by robinmommy21

"The Portobello," the dress on the right, has a stitch gauge of 6 stitches to 5 inches on sz 50 needles. I tried to come up with something witty to write about that, but all I can seem to manage is to chuckle and shake my head at it. And that doesn't translate to the written word so well.

MS3 Update

MS3 Clue 1 chart a
Originally uploaded by robinmommy21

I've completed chart A. I was hoping to be further along by now, but it's been a nutty week. So I'm behind on the stole already. Oh well. I knew that keeping up would be a challenge. I'd love to spend the afternoon catching up, but there's laundry to be done. ick.