ThirtySomething

I can’t believe a new year is upon us once again.  2011 was a year of changes for us and as usual, full of ups and downs!!  The biggest change this year was our move in May.  We love our new home, our new neighborhood and the kids new school.  <3  Jack and Aeryn are both in scouts (I am Aeryn’s Daisy troop leader) and Aeryn is also in dance.  She LOVES dance and Daisy’s!  Jack is still warming up to scouts, but does really enjoy it.

One of the downs has been with Jack (unfortunately).  I am not sure how much I really want to divulge right now…but we are working on getting some answers for him.  It breaks my heart to see my child struggling as he does and it is so very hard for me to not blame myself.  All I’ve always wanted for my children (as most parents, I am sure) is to be happy and healthy and well adjusted but for Jack, this is not the case.  How can I not blame myself…it’s my job to keep him feeling safe and secure?  I don’t think I want to say much more than that at this point.  I just hope we get the answers we need very soon so we can start to move through this and I pray it is something we can move past eventually.

I guess it is also the time of year for resolutions….or goals as I prefer to call them.  I am full of them this year and I have a deep and intense desire to meet every single goal I have for this year.  I have a photo that pretty much sums it up:

I love magazines…I get so much inspiration from them.  However, these magazines are just to show aspects of what I want to accomplish this year. 

-I want to learn yoga and eating better…not only eating better but cooking better and improving my cooking skills.  I have a whole lot of weight to lose, but I just want to be healthy and feel better in my own skin….weight loss will just be the added benefit to that.  I love what yoga is and what is does for your body, I have been intrigued for a while, but now I want to dive into it.  And eating clean is something I’ve also been reading about for some time now.  I don’t think at this point I can do this 100% of the time, but I want to try to incorporate it in as much as I can.  I love the ideas from the Clean Eating magazine and the Yoga Journal magazine is an awesome resource. 

-Our house is almost 100 years old.  It needs a lot of improvements, but overall we absolutely adore our house.  It is full of so much charm and potential.  We are currently renting, but hope to one day purchase this place and put all our own touches throughout.  But for now, I just want to decorate and make this house our home. I love the inspiration I get from Better Homes and Garden and This Old House magazines on how to decorate.

-Crafting.  I love to work with my hands.  I love creating.  I love texture and color!  I think for my final goals this year, I want to better myself in my crafts.  Knitting, quilting, sewing.  I want to capture my projects on a blog too.  I think it would be fun to delve into the world of crafty blogs.  I also want to improve my photography skills.  I want to learn more crafts too, maybe beading, or spinning or jewelry making or…the list is infinite!  :)  Magazines give me ideas and inspiration to create beautiful things.  I hope I can just get better and better. 

It seems like 2012 is going to be a full year.  It can only get better from here.   

Jack, Chris and I were window shopping the other day at Kohls.  It was a rare treat where Aeryn was with my parents and Jack actually came with us to browse…he usually chooses to stay home either with Chris or maybe his grandparents.  Jack was also in a very happy mood, which was an added bonus.  So, I was browsing the purses and Jack was looking at the ladies sunglasses and bringing different ones to try on.  All the while I told him, I am not buying any sunglasses because I already have a pair.  But we found a pair we both really liked for me and he decided he would hold onto them while we shopped.  Well, i moved on to the jewelry.  Jack started to bring earrings to me and he has such a great eye, I told him so too, everything he showed me was beautiful.  Well, he found a pair he said would definitely be my favorite and they were especially nice because they matched what I was wearing.  He was right, they were beautiful and I really did love them.  He also found a pair for his Nannie.  However, I wasn’t there to buy jewelry…for anyone.  So, as we were ready to leave, I told Jack that we needed to put back what he had.  Well, he put them down and when he turned around his face was red and tears were streaming down his face.  He sobbed, mom we picked those out together, it was what we both loved and it was special.  Oh my goodness!!!  I couldn’t believe he was guilting me into buying something for MYSELF!!!  LOL!  Well, you guessed it, momma got a new pair of beautiful earrings and Nannie is going to love the earrings she’s getting as well.  I did stick to my guns with the glasses though, he was happy enough that we got the earrings…he is so sweet and tenderhearted and loving!!!  That boy never ceases to amaze me!!

Jack and Aeryn started school this past Monday, August 23, 2010.  They were both so excited to go to school that day.  Jack didn’t really show it:

 

but he was so excited to get to school and see his friend from the previous year (his name is Jack as well).  We bumped into his friends mom on the way in.  She said hi to Jack and told him Jack was waiting to see him inside. 

Well, when we got inside the hall where all his classmates were standing, the other Jack spotted “Jack B” and started jumping up and down with pure joy and was so excited, he was shouting out Jack’s name; “JACK B JACK B JACK B!!!!!!!!!’ while jumping up and down and waving his arms around.  It was really very adorable…I will never forget that moment.  My Jack almost didn’t say goodbye to me, but I made sure he did before he took off down the hall to greet his friend. 

 

It was so wonderful to know that Jack’s friend was at his new school this year and Jack is truly enjoying school so far. 

We didn’t get to see Aeryn off on her school bus, Poppie put her on the bus since we had to drive Jack to his school, we just couldn’t get home in time to see her off.  She insisted on riding the bus, so I am thrilled she was happy to do that.  :)  I got some great photo’s of her that morning.  She is SUCH a morning person…very opposite of the rest of us.  LOL!

Aeryn also had a wonderful week at school.  Her school did a staggered start, so she went on Monday, Thursday and Friday.  She had a wonderful week.  I got some photos of her coming off the bus too:

It was a very bittersweet day.  I am so proud of Jack starting in the gifted and talented program.  I know he is going to do very well at his new school.  Aeryn almost went there with him….but it turned into a transportation nightmare.  So they are in different schools, which upsets me, but they’re both quite happy.  Which is what matters, but I am hoping next school year they will be back in the same school.  I am so proud of Aeryn my kindergartener.  She has been so excited to start all day school.  She couldn’t wait because now she would have art and gym and music.  She loves all these things.  She’s even excited for her homework assignments to start coming in.  LOL!  We had a great and wonderful start to the new school year, I hope this means the rest of the year will go just as well!  :)

Chris goes back to school in October.  I am so excited for this new chapter in our lives.  :)

On a side note, my mom and I went to Boyd’s Bears Country, Longaberger was there for Basket Fest.  We’ve gone every year for 4 or 5 years now it falls on the weekend before my birthday, so as a birthday gift my mom pays for a basket or for  me to make a basket, this year I made one:

Learning the ropes

Happily weaving

  Look at that concentration! More Concentrating!

Trimming

Putting on the adorable teddy bear tacs

  All finished!  :)

I had a blast, the guy helping me was great!  He was cracking us up the whole time!  :)  And my basket is so pretty!  :) 

This morning I put my soaked yarn into one of the mason jars along with some of the water it had soaked in and then poured 3 packets of grape koolaid on top and swirled it around a little so the powder was mixed in well.  I had a ver dark purple water…almost black looking:

I left for work at 8 am and just left it up to fate.  LOL!  Well, I left it in the capable hands of my husband and father in law.  Last night when I was telling everyone my plans for the yarn I was wrapping around the kiddie chairs, they all thought I was a little silly, but I guess they’re used to that from me.  LOL!  They were all eager to see the results however.  So, this morning I left for work and eagerly looked forward to updates from my hubby on the progress of my yarn.  So, all day he kept telling me the water had not changed, it still looks just as it did this morning.  I got home tonight at 7:30 pm, I was not too eager because Chris had told me all day it was the same.  So, this was the result:

Do you see it?????????

The water is CLEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  WOOHOOOO!!!!!  IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was jumping for joy…I was so excited.  So, I rinsed it and the water was clear in the rinse and it smelled sooo yummy too.  :)

See the jar with the clear water, it’s just an amazing process.  And this is the yarn wrung out a bit and hanging to dry:

I canNOT WAIT to knit this yarn up into something….not too sure what it will be, I am thinking socks!  I can’t believe it worked!!!!!  WOOHOO!!!

So, I have been lurking for a few months on a yarn dying forum on Ravelry and I am finally going to take the plunge.  I re-skeined my sock yarn by wrapping it around a couple chairs (I wish I would’ve remembered to take a photo of that) and I have it soaking over night, tonight,

waiting to be dyed purple.  

In the morning I am going to pour the kool-aid into those jars along with the soaked yarn and I am going to put it outside all day to ‘solar dye’ my yarn.  I am so excited!!!  I really hope it works as well as I think it will.  I am thinking I may put some foil around the base of the jars…we’ll see how much time I have to mess with it.  I will update tomorrow.  :)  From what I’ve been reading, grape kool-aid tends to break…so I am excited to see what I come home to see after work!  :)  I am hopeful for purple yarn…but if something else occurs…well, that’s fun too!

Just a few thoughts about my hobby…obsession?   I love knitting.  At work, I am allowed to listen to music and podcasts and radio stations and such on my computer….I listen to podcasts.  I listen to knitting podcasts mainly with 2 mom podcasts and a few sewing podcasts as well.  I looooooove to listen to knitting podcasts though.  I learn so much about yarn, fiber, fiber producing animals, knitting accoutrement like needles and whatnot and of course patterns and techniques as well.  I love em!  This year I attended Maryland Sheep and Wool for the first time ever!  OH MY!!!  It was like heaven to my knitterly self.  I learned to drop spindle there and while I haven’t been practicing, I do really love it.  Maybe one day I’ll get a spinning wheel…that would be totally RAD!  :)

So, I have loved walking the yarn aisles of JoAnns or Michaels or even A C Moore, I could look at and touch so many different yarns and look through many pattern books and I was happy doing that.  Until recently I realized that I MUCH prefer going to my LYS (Local Yarn Shop) and that I MUCH prefer the “nicer” yarns they carry.  So, I realize I have become somewhat of what they call a ‘yarn snob’.  My preferences have changed in the 1 1/2 years I have been knitting.  It’s just funny to me because I never thought I would care. 

I have also realized what type of yarn I enjoy working with and that’s the smaller weight yarns, they produce such a wonderful fabric.  Sure, it takes much more time to make something with the smaller weight yarns, but it is sooo worth it in the end…I just love the drape the fabric has and the look and feel of the yarn itself.

I am also thinking of doing a podcast, a knitting podcast.  I am trying to get up the nerve, find the time, come up with something to say…I just need to get behind the mic.  One day, I am sure I will podcast.  Maybe when life isn’t so chaotic, I will podcast. 

I will end this rambling post, but I just wanted to talk of my love of knitting.  I really do love to knit.  I still sew too a very little bit.  I have a quilt to share, I will do that soon along with more of my knitting projects.  I am a slow knitter and a monogamous knitter, so I don’t have much….but that will have to wait for now.  I will also have a post about the goings ons in our lives soon, I just need to edit what I have…and I hope this will become more regular now.  I really want/need to chronicle this chapter of out lives.

Until…

I know I have been away for WAY TOO LONG!!!!  I hope to remedy that.  So I am going to start with this blog and soon I will catch up with what’s been going on here.

Jack is in Kindergarten this year and is doing VERY well.  They’ve completed their first quarter and Jack got the highest marking in EVERY aspect of school (except music and art…which surprises me) and is doing VERY well.

Jack is what is considered a “highly able” kindergartener.  He is in the top 5% of the entire kindergarten class at his school.  He is in an enriched reading class and they do enriched learning in their classroom with both reading and math.  We were told he will be nominated for testing into the gifted and talented program in our county.  So far he has tested into 2nd grade level for reading, but I am sure he is even higher than that.  We are sooo very proud of him and I am thrilled how well he is doing this year.  He goes to school very willingly and happily.  Loves his teachers and is pretty easy going.  He has gotten a good behavior (Hero) award every month so far (they only get it if they stay on Hero status all month). 

Jack has also been making friends this year.  His best friend by far is a little boy named…JACK!  :)  So there are 2 Jack’s in his class.  Jack B. and Jack F.  They are both in the enrichment classes together and have the same teacher.  They have become buddies now and Jack tells me every day they play together.  He says Jack F is funny and he likes Star Wars.  I love it.  Yesterday Jack came home from school with a gift from his friend and it was sooo sweet, I HAD to share it!  Jack F. had made Jack B. a book (and this is how they refer to each other all the time too, LOL!)  I took some snapshots of the book…it is so sweet:

I just thought this was too sweet to not share with my blogging world!  :D  I will catch up more soon!!!