Musical Mantra

Mr. Edge brought these videos to my attention and I laughed my way through them both. The first is the Pachelbel Rant. This is a song I have loved for a long time. I probably have 5 different versions of it on my iPod. I love it and yet I did not see the connection this comedian did.



The second video is a fantastic view into many songs using the chord progression of C, G, Am, and F. It is fantastic. One note of caution, near the end of this one there is a strong swear word that was from one of the songs highlighted. It is at 4:30 mark so if you want to avoid it just stop before this time.

ENJOY!

Valentine's day in March

Grandma and Grandpa in Tennessee sent the kids a card for Valentine's day that included $2.00 for each of them. We decided to take them to our local ice cream shop the other night and we had a great time.

First Pie Girl got chocolate in a waffle cone (her "usual").



Buddy loves strawberry more than anything and we have found that he eats all of his food as fast as Uncle Juice (and that is fast!).



Duder Man loves all things with color and he liked his sherbet but he started getting sick during our visit and ate only a little before he and I sat in the car while waiting for everyone else to finish.



Dollerheart shared with daddy so it was only right that I include a picture of her with her dish.



We had a great time. Thank Grandma and Grandpa!!

My cats are trying to kill my dog

I have always known that cats are more intelligent than dogs and operate from a much crueler place in their brain than most humans. They are vicious in their hunting and can torture a mouse for hours before eating it. But lately my two cats are showing a new side their evil ways.

We have two cats. One is named Lola because she is persistent as anything. If she wants to be in your lap she will continue to stalk your lap until all of a sudden (after tossing her our of it 15 times) she is curled up purring in your lap and you have no memory of how that happened.



Lola is our bulimic cat. We have their food in the garage and they have access through a cat door and so they feed themselves. She will go in, gorge herself, and then within 15 minutes throw up on my carpet or couch. When we went to Tennessee for three weeks in December we came home to her throw up in every room of the house.



Our second cat is named Yuki after a character in a Japanese cartoon movie. She has the same markings as this other cat and it means Lucky. She is lucky we still have her. When we first adopted her we kept her inside to make sure she would run away or get in a fight with the neighbor dog (that is another story). She didn't like not being allowed to leave and found her own way to leave...through the chimney. I am not kidding. She scratched her way at least halfway up the chimney before loosing her footing. I was changing my youngest one day when I heard a scratching sound and turned in time to see her fall to the bottom of the chimney in a puff of black soot. She did this twice and after the third(somewhat rough) bath she finally stopped. This is after the last bath.



This shows the interesting personalities these two cats came with but their newest behavior is the reason for title of this post. I love barbecue chicken and Mr. Edge is the cook around here and likes to make it for me. We are extremely careful to get all bones put away in the garbage away from Sam in the garage. Well it turns out the cats have found a way to open a small hole in the garbage bag and get the bones out. After they chew off what they want they are consistently leaving the bones just inside the garage just below the cat door. Sam cannot get into the garage through this door but he does put his head in and grabs those bones as fast as he can and runs off to try and eat them. This has happened several times and the cats hate the dog so I do think this is intentional. These are some mean cats! They only look innocent.

Mmmmmmalabrigo

In my first post I discussed my love...no...addiction of Malabrigo yarn. This has been a love affair that has been going on for over two years. I have many projects that I will share with you but today's fascination is going to focus on my legwarmers.


I know what you are saying..."uh,you do know it is not the 80's and you are not that girl from Flashdance, right?" Yes, to both of these questions, even though I have never seen Flashdance because I was too young when it came out and I have never felt the need to see it since then. Besides, there is enough of it referenced in every day pop culture that I feel like I have seen it anyway.



Anyway, back to the luscious Mala-legwarmers. Knitty has a great archive of knitting patterns and when this came out I knew that I needed to make it in Malabrigo and set about getting the right colorway. It is called Stonechat and is one of my favorites. The yarn is so soft and scrunchable (yes, that is a word in my world) it actually took me a while to finish the pattern because I kept pausing and petting it.



Pattern: Mosey
Yarn: Malabrigo in Stonechat colorway

Nothing but a Hound Dog

It is time to introdue to the world our newest family member. Sam.

He is a Basset Hound that we adopted from our local animal shelter. He was slated to be put down because he had been in the shelter for too long and they have a high turn over rate. I have started volunteering an hour or so there to help them take photos of their animals to be put on www.petfinder.com. (They have a much better camera than I do.)

He has been a joy! Even my DH, Mr. Edge likes him and Mr. Edge has never liked any dog really. The only draw back is that Sam was not housetrained. We have had him for about a month now and he is now housetrained. Loves the kids. Never bites at him even when they lay on him or play with his ears. He really has been pefect. I love the dog. :) He does have a hound dog smell and I find myself constantly vacuuming because of all the hair he is shedding this spring but I really don't mind. I think my favorite thing about Sam is that he has been able to convince Mr. Edge that dogs are great companions and can be a joy.

Comfy Pinwheel

My newest FO (finished object) of 2009 is this Pinwheel Sweater that I just LOVE!!!! I knit it with Knit Picks Comfy yarn that is a cotton yarn that is incredibly soft and fantastic colors.


It is a super easy and fast knit. It is supposed to fit a baby up to a 4 yo. Dollerheart is 18 months old and this will probably just last the summer. My gauge was a little tight making it smaller but I still love it!!! I even have enough yarn left over to make her another one next year that will fit her then. I love this pattern that much. Dollerheart loves it too.

Project details

Pattern: Pinwheel sweater

Yarn: Knit Picks Comfy

Ivory - Less than 1/4 of the ball
Cypress - Less than 1/4 of the ball
Planetarium - Less than 1/2 of the ball
Pomegranite - About 1 and a half balls
Fedora - About 3/4 of a ball
Blackberry - Just over 1 ball

To Frog or not To Frog

I am trying to decide what to do with this sweater I knit this for Buddy. He is 7 years old and loves green. This is the Drive Thru sweater and I love it! Unfortunately, it looks like a really bad remake of an ugly sweater from the 70's on him. I knit the 8y0 size and lengthened the sleeves and body by 2 inches to fit his measurements. But when he wears it he looks like it was knit onto him and will never come off. Should I frog?

The colors look really good on Buddy. He likes it well enough but I see something different. It is tight in the chest. It is hard to get in and out of it. I am really considering frogging it (rip-it out).




PROJECT DETAILS Pattern: Drive Thru by Wendy Bernard

Needle size: US 8 and US 6

Yarn: Knit Picks Shine Worsted

Jade 5 balls
Squirrel heather Less than 1 ball
Black Less than 1 ball
Truffle Less than 1 ball

Take Two

Okay if you happen to look at the date of the previous post and this one you just might notice the small time gap. It seems I got sidetracked from my first idea of my own blog about knitting and life in Idaho. Hopefully, this is a problem of the past.

I am in the process of getting all of my projects off of Ravelry and back into my own control. You never know when you become one of the "uncool" kids and get banned. In the next few posts I hope to get my projects on here with their pictures and all of the information that I have of them.

In the spirit of catching up, I have included a picture of my Dollerheart at only a couple weeks old in the blanket I knit for her. Sadly, this blanket was knit when I didn't know how to change skeins and now I have some bad holes in this blanket. I haven't even tried to wash it because I am afraid that it would fall apart. *sigh*