Ranty Ranterson updates her blog.

Disclaimer: My apologies to those who are not into running, barefooting, or semantics. Feel free to move along and wait for the next post. I promise there will be new knitting content in the very near future.

On to my rant of the day

I just read this on a well-known running message board, in a forum geared toward experienced runners, most of who wear normal running shoes:

I checked out barefoot forum, but it seems to be populated predominantly with hard-core BF runners! I'm not there...yet. Some poster got repeatedly chastised for referring to running in VFFs as barefoot running.

Just for make sure for myself, I checked out the dictionary for a definition:
bare·foot (bârft) adv. & adj. With nothing on the feet.

I grow weary of the lack of clarity when people claim to BFR when really they just aren't in big clumpy running shoes. How is it so hard for people to get over that fact that they aren't really running barefoot if they are wearing shoes? Even when the shoes have visible toes. Running in minimalist shoes is a great thing-- but even little shoes are still shoes. It is not a value judgment to say that one is wearing shoes. It is a fact.

It reminds me of the first of The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz,"1. Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean." I know that Ruiz was speaking more metaphorically, but its wisdom holds true here, too. Why is it so hard for people to just speak the truth? Live the truth? Most agree that's important in the big picture. Isn't that big picture made up of a zillion small moments? It seems to me that if we work on being true in each little experience, the big truths will be easier to come by.

Here ends Norm's Tuesday tirade.

P.S. I'll probably come back and edit this post in the very near future. I feel like I'm on to something here but am communicating it poorly.

Busy day

Wednesdays are truly hump days for me. This is how today went. It's like this most every Wednesday:

Get up, shower, get kids to school, go to knitting group at Mika's where I drink three cups of coffee, eat a cinnamon roll, and revive the long-suffering entrelac blanket-to-be. Leave the knitters to go pick up first kidlet from school, go home, help clean up the big box of Legos that fell the across dining room floor, eat lunch, empty dishwasher, fix broken Batman toy, grab kidlet and laptop and walk the four blocks to the office to pay some bills. After a couple of hours of work, pause to go pick up second kidlet from school, go back to office and finish the bill-paying, gather up both kids and walk home.

Take a deep breath. *whew*

Kick off my shoes, start a new load of laundry, pull giant load of brand-spanking-new kitchen towels out of the dryer, fold stuff, realize that choir practice is in 20 minutes. Put shoes back on, jog off to church for an hour of high-velocity singing (seriously- this director practices a dozen songs in under an hour. You can work up a sweat just being there).

Here's where I get a break. Church hosts a "Cook's Night Out" on the first Wednesday of each month. That means that after choir practice, I just wandered over the the parish hall to join my family for a dinner that Mr Deplume and I neither thought up nor cooked. And it was good.

And now we're home. Kids are in pajamas, homework is done, TV is on, and a bottle of Newcastle sits next to me, helping me celebrate another day of life.

UPDATE:

Still nothing exciting going on. But the blog feels sad when I don't post for weeks at a time, so I'm giving it a little attention this morning as I sip my coffee.

We did have a fun time last night when Mr Deplume's brother and family came over for dinner and lego tower-building (that was mostly a kid activity, though). I'm now kicking myself for getting not one photo of the event. They are from a far away state and it will likely be the only time they come over this year. Oh well.

Now I need to go pack a lunch for the girl and get dressed. Later today, I go back to the front room for more plastery adventure. Wish me luck, my faithful reader!

Just move along, nothing to see here

I mean it. I have very little to show for my days lately. I ripped down some wallpaper in the front room, and started patching holes, but then I realized that I needed to tape the corners in the room before I can go any further. I went to the hardware store and bought the tape, but they didn't have one of those nifty inside-corner-putty-knife-dealies. So no progress there, until I have a chance to get to a home improvement warehouse.

I have still been working on my "doable" shawl, but now each row takes like 15 minutes to complete. Have I mentioned that there are vast expanses of stockinette stitch on this? That's a whole lotta purling, folks. I thought a mostly stockinette lace weight project would be good, as it's mindless. A little too mindless, it turns out. It's rather like a woolen lobotomy.

But I've gotten all the dishes done three days in a row! Super boring factoid there, but it really is nice to wake up to a clean sink. Thanks, Marla Cilley! SOme day I'll even follow the rest of the tidy-house steps, but for now I'll be happy with my dishes progress.

And now for something fun: My four-year-old boy refers to the legs of pajama pants and sweatpants as bottom sleeves or foot sleeves. As in "My bottom sleeves are stuck on my knees!" IT cracks me up every time he says it. And I fear that soon he'll learn the right words, never uttering footsleeves again. The thought makes me sad. I don't want them to grow up quite yet. Waahhhh!

Tonight, we'll go to a local fair and ride rides and eat carnie food. Good times. Good times.

That's all for now!

BIG NEWS!!

At about 11 o'clock this morning, my older child lost her first tooth. I repeat: we have tooth loss. Several of her friends in kindergarten were losing teeth 10 months ago, and she's been very impatient on this front. Anyway, it was marginally loose yesterday, but some fresh corn on the cob sped up the process, and a chicken sandwich closed the deal this morning. We have secured the tooth, and it will be presented for Tooth Fairy confiscation tomorrow night (they'll be staying at Grandma and Grandpa's house tonight, and the Molinator doesn't have their address on file). She was later surprised to find that Mr Deplume took half a day off work, and we all went swimming, where she showed off her new talent, the back float.

It's been a very big day.

Now we're off to drop the kids off for the night, then have a (slightly belated) birthday dinner consisting of copious amounts of sushi, then some shopping to spend the birthday money from my Mama.

oops- sunburn

I took the kids swimming yesterday. They had a blast. There were lots of blow-up flaties and googles and flippers. Both kids are itching to go back right now. In a rare instance of good parenting, I managed to slather both of them with sunblock. In a not so rare instance of run-of-the-mill stupidity, I forgot to slather my self with same. So now I have a upper-torso sunburn. At least I was wearing a hat, so my face is largely unaffected. As the optimist that I am, I'm thinking 'Hey, at least it will even out the awesome farmer's tan I've been rocking this summer." I hope it doesn't peel and go all away, just leaving a flaky and unattractive farmer's tan.

I have been trying to work on my many UFO's lately. The problem with working on stuff like that is there is no spark, no drive to get going. So I'm all too happy to sit around playing on the internet or cleaning the house and not knitting or crocheting. I have promised myself to have finished at least two projects before the Olympics. I'm not great at meeting self-imposed deadlines, but now that I've put it here, maybe I'll do better. :)

Proud mama moments

Miss Nora wanted to learn how to knit. So we sat down, started to teach her, and she decided that it was still too hard for her little fingers. But she still wanted to play with yarn. So I reached back behind the mental cobwebs and recalled how to finger knit. I set her up with a ball of chunky purple yarn and her fingers, and off she went. This picture was taken about a week ago; the resulting tube is now about 8 feet long. Every time I break out my knitting bag, she gets her project and sits down next to me. It makes me squee with delight.

I'm not having the same delight at my own knitting these days, though. The wrap that I started with Trekking XXL is pretty, but lives in that irritating space between mindless knitting and something that I have to pay attention to. I kept forgetting to concentrate, and now there are several errors in it. I was thinking for awhile that I'd just try to block out the ugliness, but I just know that it wont work, and the bockety parts will bug me forever. So I think it is going to have to be pulled out. ARGH. Even that will be a pain, because it is being knit with two yarns at once.

I really need to finish the crochet sweater I started. I have the body done, I just need to finish the sleeves, then figure out a border. The sleeves will take me an hour or two, I think, but the border vexes me. I'll need the input of crocheters much more skilled than I to pick the right one that won't look stupid, methinks.

Sorry I've been a blog slacker lately. I've been feeling rather grumpy of late, and hate for all that grump to spill out here. I'll try to do better, I promise.

Note:

Soft 'n Gentle brand toilet paper is neither soft nor gentle. Especially if you buy the giant economy-sized package that touts "75% recycled fiber". Sometimes a bargain just isn't really a bargain.


And Addidas brand deodorant using "Cottontech" to absorb odors doesn't. Methinks there's a reason that they are the only brand using this miraculous cotton odor fighter. I would go so far as to say that the stuff actually made matters worse. Back to the skeery Aluminum tetrahedron bly or whatever it's called.

I didn't pick up any yarn hooks or needles today. I wanted to, but had to go the the giant Walmart today instead. Two hours later, we have some groceries vegetable seeds and potting soil. Contrary to what my intuition tells me, I'm acting on the theory that spring will someday actually come.

Sometimes even end-of-February snow is pretty

I'm not a fan of snow. It does cover up the dead landscape, but it is hard to truck the kids around in, tracks snow and general dampness into the family room, and is a general pain in the ass. But this morning, I woke up to a few inches of snow, and it was beautiful. As much as it was going to be a PITA to walk the girlie to school in it, it was pretty. The snow followed a few days of thaw and rain, so the back yard had been more like Lake Deplume. And last night's snow stuck to the branches, which allowed my eye to see beautiful white trees and not the gray sky, waiting to drop more snow on us.

I was so taken by the beauty of this meteorological event, I took my camera along on the walk to school. And as it turns out, a red brick library really stands out on a snowy morning. And that red gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. The fact that our local librarians know mine and my kids' names, and is less than two blocks from my house might have something to do with that, though, as well.

Once we got back from the school walk, Nige decided that he wanted to play in the back yard. It had begun snowing again by this point, and his three-year-old self was in seventh heaven. I let him, of course, and kept the camera at the ready. A few minutes later, he was sitting atop the slide, with 4 inches of snow obscuring his descent. He sat up there for a few minutes, telling me that he was a little scared. I explained that it was just fluffy snow, and it isn't scary. Luckily he believed me, and slid on down. It was quite a ride, shoving all that snow off the plastic slide with his butt.

He had a fun time, but bore a striking resemblance to the abominable snowman by the time I convinced him to come inside. It was a good day.

An embarrassment of riches

Our television is dying what seems to be a slow and painful death. A couple of weeks ago, it started taking longer to turn on in the morning. As the TV-plague progresses, it causes the picture to blink on and off an increasing number of times before it becomes watchable. Sometimes it just won't turn on at all, and we have to turn in it off and try again later. It is a most irritating malady.

So we've begun the search for a new television. Mr. Deplume and I have looked at HDTVs, regular TVs, LCDs and anything in between. Our options are this: buy a regular old tube TV, for a couple of hundred bucks, an HD tube TV for a couple hundred more than that, or a fancy flat screen for yet another few hundred. We've ruled out the HD tube tv, because it is so heavy that we'd need to buy a new stand for it, taking away any savings over the fancy one. So we have to decide on a plain old television that shows the shows, or a fancy one that shows the shows, only much better.

We've always maintained that HDTV is a silly concept, and that the glory of high-definition is just lost on us. But we find outselves drawn to the bright shiny flat screen gorgeousness. But here's the rub: we're cheap. We are really very frugal, and do our best to avoid the consumerism that runs so rampant in our society.

So we're faced with this horrible moral dilemma: do we spend $450 more on a fancy HD television, when a regular old tv will do? If I have that $450 and am willing to part with it, why is it okay not to do some good in the world with it? The food pantry could buy lots of groceries with that. The church could heat the building or pay for programs with that. That money, given to Heifer International could buy sheep or llamas or a cow for a family in a poverty-stricken country.

But I really want the fancy TV.

In thinking and praying on this today (yes, I'm praying about a TV-- wanna make something of it?!?), I'm beginning that I need to give away something to help someone else before I can splurge on a silly want of my own. I'm so grateful to have enough money in the bank that these things are even a possibility. It wasn't all that long ago that we were trying to figure out how to pay the gas bill and also clothe our growing baby girl.

Will Norm's family get the fancy HDTV? Will she learn to get over it and enjoy her current station in life? Will she ever finish the sweater she's working on? These questions and more will be answered in the coming weeks.

Yeeee-uck

Last Friday we got 6 inches of snow. The kids and Daddy built a snowman. Now it is three days later, we've got rain and fog. And slush everywhere. Blech. And our poor snowman is shrinking. At least we have a good portrait of him in his youth.


I made some more progress on the crocheted half-moon shawl, but then last night, at the beginning of the 4th quarter of the Superbowl, tragedy struck. Yep, my worst enemy reared its ugly hea:, yarn barf. I worked at it for way too long, and I don't know if I made it better or worse. If I had a Wal-Mart close by, I'd just go buy a new skein of Simply Soft and be done with it. I might still do that. But not today. I'll instead work on cleaning the house. urgh.

Early morning.

The boy woke up at 4:30 this morning. He needed a "guy" to snuggle with. He wanted his Rudolph, so I trudged downstairs, located the red-nosed reindeer and delivered him. By the time I got there, Señor Wakeypants was already back to sleep. I sighed and went back to bed. It took a bit for me to settle in, but finally managed to doze a little, with a Lenten song* from last night's choir practice stuck in my head. It was 5:12 AM.

MMOOOOOMMMMYYYY!!! YOU FORGOT ABOUT MEEEE!!!! WHERE ARRRE YOUUU???


Crap.

The boy was expecting me to be there for him, and was upset that I had gone back to my own bed. I got in there to find that he is thirsty. And hungry. And cranky. So up we get, and head downstairs for a "snack" of mini wheats and water. It is now 6:48, I've had 3 cups of coffee, he's seen too much Max & Ruby (his new favorite show), and I am ready to start my day. Methinks it's going to be a long one.





* If, by chance, you are currently considering joining your church's choir, I suggest waiting until after March 21. Songs for Lent are not. fun. to sing. Talk about a downer!

What a weekend!

Urg. I feel like I'm becoming one of those complainery hypochondriacs these days. Really, we're not normally sickly people- I swear! But last weekend, Casa de Deplume became virus central once again. Friday night, the girl came down with the world's worst cold. Her ears hurt, her sinuses were going crazy, and she spent a lot of the weekend either in tears or asleep.

Saturday morning found my dear husband in the throes of some stomach bug. The boy had had it early in the week (although he certainly had a mild case), and we all thought we had managed to avoid it. The poor man was laid up for two whole days subsisting on one popsicle, ten animal crackers, one piece of toast and 2 liters of ginger ale. I haven't seen him that sick in 10 years. I managed to fight most of it off, but was definitely under the weather by Sunday night. The girl and the man both called in sick on Monday. I'm hesitant to say it, but I think we're all on the mend now.

On other fronts, the house is a total mess. The laundry (both clean-in-baskets and dirty) is piling up, and my stairway is still not finished. But I did catch up on the dishes yesterday, and tidied up my linen and clothes closets.

Last week I promised a post about a recycled sweater, but it awaits finishing. I've been unraveling while pedaling the recumbent bike in the TV room, and knitting it back up into a project while ignoring household chores the rest of the day. But the WIP is slow going. I'll post copious pictures when it is all done, I promise.

And now I shall bring this post to a close. I have to go tackle something domestic. And go buy chicken for dinner tonight, too.

Year-end reflections, 2007

The blogstalking assignment (yes, I know I've ignored 6 weeks of this, but I'm hopping back on the bandwagon again here) for this week is to do a reflection on 2007, and maybe a resolution or goal for 2008. Well, there are 4 hours left in the year, and I really don't know what to write. But I'll give it a shot.

Tangent: it snowed this afternoon. I just heard a snow plow go by. I really hope that the guy gets to be home to smooch his significant other by midnight. I know from experience the suckiness of having your spouse working on NYE (and Mother's day, Easter, Independence day, etc.)

Now back to the subject at hand. A reflection. I don't know what to write here. One thing that was mentioned was to state my "proudest moment." Hrm. I am drawing a blank here. I learned entrelac, I started knitting lace, learned to plaster a wall. My son learned how to use the potty (with my help). My daughter started kindergarten. I guess those all count.

As for resolutions, I typically don't make them. Partly because I think that if you need to make a change, you should make that change right then, not wait for January to do it. But really really really, I just know that I'll think about it for 3.7 weeks, then it will slip my mind. I assume that I tried to come up with something for New Year's 2007, but I have no idea what it was. Oh well.

If I were forced to make a resolution, it would be to exercise more. I love doing yoga, but have problems getting around to doing it outside of class. Mr. Deplume moved our recumbent bike up into the TV room, so maybe I'll get into the cardioi more. That would be a plus.

I dunno. This is a cop out year-end post, but it seemed like something I should do. I've grown tired of it now, and will sign off to snuggle with my family for the last time this year. I hope you all have a good night, and a lovely 2008.

The strangest squirrel encounter ever

I've been putting off writing this entry, as I'm pretty sure that words won't do it justice. But I have to try. The other day, I told the kids to go outside. It was a beautiful day. I didn't feel like sweeping the sidewalk or tidying the yard or picking the tomatoes that will end up rotting in the kitchen (FYI, when one is the only tomato eater in the house, one should not grow 8 plants of 3 different varieties of tomato). I of course brought out needles and yarn and cast on for yet another project.

A few rows into it, I hear Nora say "Hi, little squirrel" in her sweet little voice, echoed by Nigel's voice repeating his sister's words. Hrm. I've never known a live backyard critter to hang out long enough for not one but two children to say 'hello.' I immediately assume that the kids are saying hi to a dead squirrel in our yard. I decide to investigate further. As I walk across the yard, I tell the kids to stay clear of it, because sometimes squirrels bite or scratch, and it would hurt. This warning served mainly to scare the boy up onto the swing, where be started crying, because the beast was still sitting there, staring at him.

Yes, a live squirrel, just sitting there, with a 3-year-old boy treed on a plastic swing.

I picked him up from the swing, one-handed, and set him on the swing on the other end of the set. My knitting was still in my left hand at this point. I'm not one to set down a project in the middle of a row, you know. He was still rather upset about the happenings, but he was feeling more safe.

Nora decided that it would be best to take a trip over to the sandbox a few feet away. She quickly started cooking a sand cake. The squirrel headed off toward her, and before I knew it, he hopped onto her leg and started climbing up her.

As if she were a denim tree!

I ran over, shooed the damned thing off my daughter, who had quickly become hysterical, and swooped her up to the same swing with her brother. The little bushy bastard got the message and loped off toward the hosta bed on the other side of the yard. The kids and I took this reprieve to gather up the 2 baby dolls and 3 backpacks that were outside with us. I picked up Nigel and we started back for the door. Just then, the rogue squirrel hopped back out of the hostas and up to the door.

Nora cowered behind me and said, "Let's go in the other door." It sounded like a great idea, except for the fact that the back door was locked. The only way to get back into the house was directly. past. the squirrel. These are the situations that separate the moms from the boys, so to speak. I looked around, noticed the umbrella that had been left out, and told Nora to pick it up. I gave her explicit instructions:

Do not hit the squirrel with the umbrella, but poke it at him if he starts to run at us.

Nowhere in the parent handbook did it ever mention that I was going to have to explain to a 5-year-old how to protect the family from aggressive rodents, using only her gumption and a red plaid umbrella. Believe me, I looked. It's not in there. Was there an addendum somewhere that I didn't get? I probably should have mailed in the registration postcard, huh?

So we quickly head for the door, umbrella in Nora's hands, Nigel, baby dolls, and Bainbridge scarf in mine, and raced for safety. The *&^%@! tried to run into the house with us! We got in without him, so he sat on the step outside the door and stared at us. For like twenty minutes.

The kids now do a squirrel search before they go play out there. It was the single strangest encounter with any critter in my 35 years on this earth. It even beats the goat at the zoo that bit me in the head when I was 8.

My boy is now officially three

He was actually three at 4:37 am on Thursday, but the party wasn't until last night, and I've adopted the policy that you cannot get older without candles and a cake. And last night we partook in a Spider Man cupcake cake from Super Floor-Mart. The cupcake I had was mediocre, but the boy was really happy with it. He then went on to get lots of Chinese-made superhero toys. I hope none of them are recalled. We're already trying to locate a zillion hazardous Polly Pocket toys leftover from the girl's birthday. argh.

Quick update

Sorry for the long absence, avid reader. (I didn't bother putting the 's' on there, as I'm not sure I have even one regular reader here, judging from the number of comments I get.) We were on vacation in the Thousand Islands region of New York for a week, then this last week has been filled with unpacking, cleaning, catching up on things, and preparing for the big girl's first day of kindergarten. The getting there was pretty traumatic for both of us, but she was her normal bubbly self by the end of the morning. I'm also very happy that she is only in half-day kindergarten, as I might not have survived waiting the whole 7 hours of the full school day to see how she did.

Knitting wise, really nothing has happened. I am still way behind on the Mystery Stole 3, and probably will not finish it at this point. I was planning on catching up to the current clue during vacation, but between sunsets like this and the bazillion people to have fun chatting with (it was a family reunion, with over 50 talkative types), no knitting was done. Besides, once I saw the wing on the end of the stole after my return, I lost much of my previous love for the "mystery" part of this knitalong. My name is Robin. I can not and will not wear wings. I did work a little on Knitty's Otis during the drive back from NY, but there are no photos of that yet. The drive to NY was filled with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, of course.

There is also a home project in the works right now, involving a beadboard wall that had been spackled and wallpapered by a previous owner. I promise before and after photos just as soon as the "after" has been attained.

Gah! I'm a blog slacker.

I've been missing again, I know. But I have been neither knitting nor working on the house much the last couple of weeks. I hope that once summer winds down I'll find more time for my projects, and their blog.

Meanwhile, I was stung by a bee on Saturday. On my eyebrow, no less. Last night I sliced open my thumb on a food can. I really do believe that I'm becoming accident prone in my 'advanced' age.

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.