So busy! Words just can't convey it. I'm treading water with everything going on but the important thing is I haven't sunk below the water. yet. There is just so much to do with the business and family activities that it is hard not to feel completely overwhelmed all of the time.

For my own sanity I have been doing a little bit of knitting. On Tuesdays I can sneak in a little while I'm waiting on children in gymnastics or swimming. There is no knitting at t-ball as it is a full time job just to keep my little boy in the correct location on the field and tell him what to do.

I've been plugging away on the two-at-a-time socks and they're coming along very nicely. Since I've become completely compulsive about counting the stitches each time I finish a row on each sock and I double check that my yarn isn't twisted things are going well. I've been tempted to stop by Twist several times and pick up more yarn but I want to get these finished and then finish/work on other projects I already have ready to go. I'm such a downer, huh?

>>cue Debbie Downer music, "Wah, Wah, Wahhhhh"<<

In addition to the socks I've also been designing a baby hat. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would "design" a pattern. And by design a pattern I mean that I had a picture in my head and went and found similar elements and cut/pasted/adjusted math and made my own pattern.

I wanted a ruffled brim so I found a pattern with a cute ruffle and noted how they decreased to make that happen and did the same thing in my pattern with different weight yarn and a different number of stitches. I then looked and looked for a lace pattern that I liked and finally settled on one that I liked. I'm working my way up the hat and will soon be decreasing. I'm anxious to see it finished and hope that it will actually fit on a real baby's head. Time shall tell.

In completely unrelated news I'm sitting on a secret that is killing me! It's a surprise for tonight and I can't hardly contain my excitement. Wheee!!!

Now I better get back to actual work so that my next post isn't all about how I started sobbing in the middle of the grocery store because I'm too overwhelmed by everything...

Can't. move. my. neck.

My pillows are conspiring against me. For many, many months now I've slept with two pillows at night very comfortably. Until Monday morning. I woke up very sore and figured I must have slept funny that night. Yesterday morning I woke up and was even more uncomfortable. I decided it was my pillows so I swapped mine for my husband's (he didn't know. it was a scientific analysis. totally was.) This morning I can't turn my head from side to side and am oh so sore. Of course this is also the day I have several photo shoots and will have my heavy camera around my neck as well. ::sigh:: We're going to flip the mattress and try new pillows. Hopefully that will work.

Until then I'm popping ibuprofen and counting down the hours until I'm home tonight and can have a martini...

Hee Hee

The other day my oldest daughter was putting some fish fillets in the oven for lunch for her, her brother and sister. My little four year old boy ran over and asked her what she was cooking. "Fish Fillets," she said. He then ran to the living room and said, "Daddy! We're having Fish Legs for lunch!"

The new name has caught on and we now only refer to them as Fish Legs...

This morning I was working on my computer and decided to play some music. I scrolled through all the cds in the cd player and decided to listen to one I hadn't played in years. I was happily working away and humming along when I was completely caught off guard. One of the last songs to play was a song we had at our wedding 13 years ago.

Hearing the lyrics today brought tears to my eyes as I look back over all we've been through since that day in May when we stood before our friends, family and God and promised to love each other for better or worse. We've held each other while we've grieved over the death of dear grandparents. We've cried with joy over the birth of our three children. We've slammed doors and yelled at each other and we've laughed until we've cried. I couldn't have predicted all we've been through or where we have yet to go but I'm so glad to have that wonderful man hold my hand as we walk through life.

The song isn't well known but I loved the lyrics then and I still do now...

There's No Remedy for Love
Susan Ashton

There's no remedy for love
Nothing can change the way I feel
I'm hopelessly head over heels
For worse or for better
There's no remedy for love
But I'd have it no other way
The symptoms are clear, I'm yours
For now and forever
There's no remedy for love

Caught up in the concept of your kisses
Of the Mr. and the Mrs.
Of the steps our love is taking here

I'm lost in the magic and the mystery
In our own small part of history
Our hearts have started making here

And I know there'll be no cure for me
But what sweet malady

There's no remedy for love
Nothing can change the way I feel
I'm hopelessly head over heels
For worse or for better
There's no remedy for love
But I'd have it no other way
The symptoms are clear, I'm yours
For now and forever
There's no remedy for love
There's no remedy for love

Wow. It is BUSY around here!

Can't remember the last time I posted and right now I only have 12 minutes to get this post done before I have to leave the house to pick up a kid at the pool. Summer is keeping us really busy. Due to various swimming activities the kids are involved with I have to leave my house SIX times each morning going to and from to drop off/pick up kids. Then each kid is involved in a summer sport. Couple that with regular summer busy days (Father's day, Memorial Day, family birthdays, etc.) and my busiest time of the business year and it's verging on completely over scheduled and overwhelmed.

I am surviving and things aren't going too badly. I was ahead of my work and I'm just starting to slip and fall a tad behind so I see some late nights in my future to get caught back up.

Knitting hasn't been getting much attention so far I'm managing to have one brief knitting session each Tuesday while I'm at kid's sporting events. Usually about the time that I'm in a knitting rhythm family members arrive and I spend the time visiting with them. I'm not ashamed of my knitting, if it were a different knitting project I'd definitely keep it going while I visited. However, these are the socks of doom that I seem to screw up when I'm concentrating on them. I can't imagine how badly I'd mess them up if I tried to work on them and carry on a conversation. I think the reason I keep messing up is that I get going too fast on them. I'm finally making good forward progress on them and ::crossing fingers:: hope to have them finished up by the end of the summer. Normally this wouldn't take so long but with my limited knitting time it's really stretching out how long it will take.

Other cool things I've come across lately:

Birthdays Without Pressure
Several years ago we decided the birthday parties were really much more of a pain than they were enjoyable. We changed our plans and now have family only birthday parties with immediate family and grandparents. Before the family party we always go out to eat at Red Robin (per the kids request) which has become a tradition. Then we go back home for the family party. The focus is family oriented and we have presents, cake & ice-cream and much more relaxed and enjoyable. Each child also gets a little "mini-party". They choose 1 or 2 friends and I take them out for a meal at a restaurant and one fun activity. It's much more enjoyable for everyone involved. I spend slightly less than a regular birthday party but that's not the goal. The kids can actually enjoy the parties because they aren't overwhelmed with too many kids, too many presents, too much noise, etc. This has been a great change for our family and I was surprised to see an entire website devoted to the same subject.

Smugmug
I LOVE Smugmug! I've been wanting a way to share pictures with friends and family that would allow them to easily see the photos (not having to wade through my business website by using passwords to keep my family pics private from my customers), order photos if they wanted but one that also looked beautiful. Smugmug does it all. They have a great set up which is free and you can go in and with some extra work and coding make a beautiful site. I spent a few days making it just like I wanted and I love it now. Unlimited storage, complete customization, it's the best! Check it out.

I better run, time to go back to the pool to pick up a kid!

Happy Summer!

I've been writing posts in my head for quite some time but I never seem to be able to find the time to actually tap the keys and get them up here in the blog. Business is getting super busy again with wedding season so I'm doing my best to stay on top of things and hopefully even get a little head of the game (a girl can always hope!).

Anyway, a new (probably excessively long) post will be coming soon. Possible subject matter:

-my kids' birthdays
-storm chasers
-ridiculously extravagant kids birthday parties
-personal finance
-the bleeding of my finances from taxes (just kidding government!! :-) <--- see the smiley face?! It's a joke already!)
-knitting (hello, this is a knitting blog, right?)

I'm sure there's more but I'm now in the midst of a hair crisis with my daughter. What to do with her hair for gymnastics? Ponytail, braid or a free-flowing ratty mess? Decisions, decisions...

Phrase #8,643 I never thought I'd say as a parent:

Your Hot Wheels cars do NOT go in the peanut butter jar!

Peeking In...

April ended up being an up and down month on the stress roller coaster. I don't have time to post much but wanted to peek back in. I'll be posting some pictures of my little man's big fourth birthday celebration soon. Things have been busy with a little bit of painting around the house, tax junk, book keeping, photo shoots, hungry growing kids and ample time of stewing and fretting over stress and life in general. Thankfully things seem to be slowly improving.

There's no new knitting to show as I had reached a new level of stress that precluded even knitting. I'm trying to play catch-up with everything else and get back into at least a teeny bit of knitting soon. The two-at-a-time socks are still on the needles making sloth-like progress.

Much more to post soon...

Fiesta Chili Beef Update

I received an e-mail from Campbell's in response to my inquiry on what had happened to the Fiesta Chili Beef.

"Enough! We get it! We made a mistake, OK? Sometimes we just have this inexplicable need to mess with our product line up. We need to be busy so we won't lose our jobs and sometimes that means we have to find things to do. As you can imagine we can only come up with so many combinations of Chicken and Noodle soup and we've exhausted everything with that d@m! soup. We clearly can't redesign our packaging so that's out. A couple of months ago our bosses had a meeting pointing out that we weren't "doing" anything and we had to justify our employment here. We immediately began research studies on the most innocuous thing we could come up with, Fiesta Chili Beef. We spent months doing "research" and then a few more months preparing an elaborate report on why Fiesta Chili Beef was actually costing our company too much to make and how we could save millions of dollars by discontinuing this product from our line. We all got bonuses and went out for beers and high fives over our brilliant strategy to not only stay employed but also receive accolades and bonuses.

Imagine our surprise when we began to be inundated with e-mails from people like you wondering where their precious little Fiesta Chili Beef went. At first we thought we could hide it from our supervisors and no one would know. But the e-mails kept coming--more and more. Server traffic was up and we were finally found out. The outcry from the public was too great and we've had to confess our ill-fated scheme to our supervisors.

I've managed to save my job by personally over seeing the re-introduction of the Fiesta Chili Beef back into our product line and personally apologizing to each and every e-mail that comes in. Bob wasn't so lucky. Shortly after the Fiesta Chili Beef scandal came to light he was over taken by a mob in the Campbell's parking lot. Frank survived but is still undergoing therapy and hopes to be walking with crutches soon. Mark, Neil and Joe were all fired and I'm left to clean up this mess. I've had to take a cut in pay and my car's been repossessed. Christy kicked me out but Mom and Dad said I could stay in their basement until I'm back on my feet again. But only if I bring a case of Fiesta Chili Beef with me.

Happy?! You have your stinking soup back!!!!!!!!!!"

::sigh::

OK, that's not really the e-mail I received but a girl can wish. I received the same tired e-mail that everyone else has received when they write to find out what happened:

Ms, we received your message and appreciate your taking the
time to contact Campbell Soup Company to inquire about our Campbell's
Condensed Fiesta Chili Beef Soup.  Unfortunately, this product is not
currently available.

Tastes and preferences constantly change and there is only so much space
on a supermarket shelf.  Periodically, we look at the sales for our
various products and are forced to make the difficult decision as to which
products stay and which must be replaced.

Inquiries such as yours remind us that sales figures aren't the only
measure of a product's value.  Perhaps one day Campbell's Condensed Fiesta
Chili Beef Soup will make its way back to your grocer's shelf.

Please accept the coupon we have sent to you via the mail with my
apologies for any inconvenience you may have experienced. The coupon can
be redeemed for any product in the Campbell family of brands including V8,
Prego, Pace, and Pepperidge Farm.

Thank you for visiting the Campbell Soup website.

Campbell Soup Web Team
kjm

So that's that. Funny, I don't recall my taste and preference changing. I did come across a recipe that someone claimed tasted just like the Fiesta Chili Beef so I'll give it a try and report back.

Until then, good-bye Fiesta Chili Beef....

Misery loves company

I've discovered that I'm not the only vendor having problems with these clients. At current count there are at least four other vendors in the same predicament. At least I have someone to commiserate with.

Last night I drowned my sorrows in a chocolate martini and watched the Desperate Housewives of New York. I love that show, what a train wreck. It's fascinating how out of touch some of the people are. I especially love the blond rich-wannabe who made it clear that she would *never* move back to Kansas. Let me make this clear, we *never* want to invite you back. I love how the coasts love to run down the "fly-over" part of this country never noticing that if it wasn't for the hard-working folks here their lives wouldn't be the same. We're the farmers who feed them, the people who build the planes that carry them and the ones who watch them make complete asses of themselves on t.v. If it weren't for us, the viewing audience, you wouldn't be on t.v.

Anyway, didn't mean to turn that into a mini-rant. I do like the show as entertainment. They've done a pretty good job of showing the difference in personality from coast to coast which is interesting. I love how the New York women will just throw down the gauntlet and talk about what's bothering them, confront who has offended them, etc.

The other show I haven't been able to find for a while that I love is "Flip This House." I know they currently have some bastardized version with some non-personality random people but I want to watch the Trademark Properties people. They had another show we found for a while that had a different title since they were in a court battle with A&E tv but that seems to have disappeared too. They were some interesting people and I loved when they'd talk to the owner Richard. He's a very savvy business man and it was always insightful to hear what he was talking about. I love being around business men like him. You can learn more from them and their business experience in a dinner than you could in a semester of a college class. And how can you not like a guy who loves the phrase, "Winner, winner, chicken dinner!"

I better get back to work, I'm turning procrastination into an Olympic sport here. Even the poor knitting is suffering. I worked briefly on the two-at-a-time socks yesterday waiting for kids after school but that's been about it. There was no way I was going to even look at them last night. Given my record of monumental mistakes I've made with them when I'm sober the last thing I was going to do was tempt fate with a chocolate martini. That sounds like the title of an awesome book, "Tempting fate with a Chocolate Martini." Perhaps that will be my autobiography someday. I probably should have named my blog that (I think I secretly want to have the longest blog name ever, hee hee).

Speaking of chocolate I made my husband record this snippet from Saturday Night Live the other day and I now watch it over and over again. Makes me laugh every, single time. Tell me Ashton Kutcher shouldn't have his own show once a week...

Stress

Stress. Stress. Stress. No other word for it.

This past month hasn't been fun. I keep getting bad news here and there and every time I think it can't get much worse and things should start looking up I get new bad news that drags me down a little more.

I remind myself daily that none of this is health related and thank heavens everyone is healthy and doing fine.

Unfortunately though I am beginning to wonder about just how rotten the economy really is. I've known it has been taking a down turn for quite some time but it has now jumped up and slapped me in the face. In the last two weeks I've had customers simply not pay and violate their contracts with me. I don't want to get into specifics but let me tell you this is intensely frustrating. It would be the equivalent of your boss one day telling you on a whim he decided he wasn't going to pay you for the month. Yes, the whole month. Imagine the financial impact...

I am really frustrated and angry that people have so little regard for others that they are leaving me in a terrible situation. I've had people who have approached me as soon as there is a problem, early on, and I've let them out of their contracts. I'm not heartless and I understand that sometimes life throws you a curve ball. If given enough time I can re-book the event. When folks only give me less than a week notice it is impossible to re-book a date that I have already turned down other business for because I have a contract with them.

Frustration and anger are high, stomach is in knots and I've developed a permanent headache.

Here's to hoping this is the bottom of the bad luck and things can only go up from here. There's some light at the end of the tunnel so I'm going to focus on that until all this passes.

Just when my pear tree thought it was safe to unfurl her buds for spring we have a freeze warning for tonight. ::sigh::

Another one bites the dust...

Man. What a rotten week.

All in all it's been a pretty crappy week. Various issues at work and life in general have resulted in an escalating simmer of frustration. But the coup de grace, the final straw, the cherry on top, is my sad discovery that the geniuses at Campbell's have now taken my favorite soup off of the market. Amazing how you can tolerate that big junk that life throws at you but it's the little things that make you truly crazy.

Yes, my friends, the beloved Campbell's Fiesta Chili Beef is no more. For those of you unfamiliar with this soup, allow me to explain. From the time I was a little girl my mother would use this soup to make Chili dogs. This is the single best chili ever. It has a very unique flavor, completely different from a traditional stove-top chili you would make at home. It isn't as tomato-y as regular chili and would probably best be described as the freakishly awesome step child of chili and refried beans. This still doesn't quite capture the true essence, the je ne sais quoi that is Campbell's Fiesta Chili Beef but it is the best I can do. I would even go so far as to say that it has it's own special branch of the Chili family tree. It's related to Chili, but it's really completely unique.

I haven't been able to find it in the stores for several months now and finally had to resort to doing some basic internet sleuthing to figure out what was going on. Much to my dismay I discovered that Campbell's in their infinite wisdom decided that we really do need about thirty different variations of chicken and noodles (and rice! and stars! and wild rice! and noodles with vegetables! and Spongebob shaped noodles!). We evidently need every conceivable incarnation of chicken and starch based soup imaginable so they had to drop the Fiesta Chili Beef to make room for them all.

This is so irritating. Chili Dogs will never be the same. I think we need a letter writing campaign to bring back the Fiesta Chili Beef.

I'll keep checking the soup aisle in hopes that they will bring it back. Until then, R.I.P. Campbell's Fiesta Chili Beef.

There's an uneasiness in the air. I'm worried about a friend and it's as though there is something askew in her life right now that I can actually feel. It's nothing I can put a finger on, no definitive word or action that points to anything specifically wrong, but it's there. It reminds of when a spring thunderstorm is rolling in and you can actually feel that it's coming in the air. It isn't the change in temperature or the clouds on the horizon but a barely noticeable change in the atmosphere. It is as though you can feel a slight charge of electricity.

That's how I'm feeling now. Something isn't right and I'm worried. She tends to back away from friends when things aren't going well. I've been trying to reach out to her casually without making a big deal about things but that hasn't worked as she's been "busy." I have mixed feelings about it. One one hand I want her to know that I love her and want to be there for her but I also don't want to rush in and invade her space if she just needs time to work things out on her own privately. On the other hand I'm a little hurt that she's backing away and doesn't want my shoulder to cry on. Which just makes me angry with myself for feeling that way, who am I to have hurt feelings because someone else is going through a rough patch in life? How selfish am I?

Is it woman's or mother's intuition? Is it someone so close to your heart that you can personally feel when their's is breaking? There are alarm bells ringing in my head, hurt in my heart and anxiety in my stomach.

The bottom line is I'm hoping I'm terribly wrong and really mis-interpreting things but it sure doesn't feel that way.

My dear friend, I love you and hope everything is ok.

Two-at-a-time sock status: never-ending.

It is as though I enter some odd time warp every time I pick these things up. I knit on them and knit on them and yet they never seem to see any progress. I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever finish them. This is kind of hard on a monogamous knitter, you know one who just knits one project at a time. I admit it has driven me over the edge and straight into the arms of an easy little project.

I picked up a cute little kit by the Crafty Alien at Twist. My business partner's birthday is coming up and she is a cat fanatic so I think she'll enjoy it. The kit is the Calico Kitty kit and it's super easy and will hopefully be just as cute as the picture in the package when I get done with it. In what seemed like mere minutes compared to my never ending socks I knitted up all the pieces. I now just need to attach the calico spots to the body and do the felting/stuffing/finishing work. My girls love the kit and I'm trying to encourage my oldest to give one a try. I think it would do much to boost her knitting ability and confidence.

In addition to the little bit of knitting I've fit in I've been busy shooting weddings and trying to get my taxes finished. I hate procrastinating but I seem to punish myself by procrastinating on certain things. This time it's taxes. Thankfully I had a good 2/3rds of the work done already, now I'm just trying to wrap up the remaining bit. However, in an exciting twist, I have apparently lost a month and a half of expense receipts. And I hadn't managed to get them scanned before I lost them. I think I know where they are, now I just have to find the file I think they're in.

Back to work, pictures of the Calico Kitty after I get him/her finished up...

PS--Forgot to mention the dream I had the other night. On April fools someone posted that Julia Roberts had joined Ravelry. There is an actual member named JuliaR and it has her picture although you don't know if it is really her or if it is a PR move to promote an upcoming movie. It says that it she has requested a private membership so there isn't anything to see other than her name, picture and a plug for her upcoming knitting themed movie. This obviously found it's way into my subconscious because I had a dream that I actually met her. In the dream we meet at a dinner party somewhere (I know, me at a dinner party with Julia Roberts, ha ha ha ha ha because it's so very likely). Everyone else is asking her about working with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and all matter of Hollywood drivel. I on the other hand ask her if she's really on Ravelry, what she likes to knit, how long she's been knitting, etc. The funny part was she was much more interested in talking to me about knitting than with everyone else about the Hollywood gossip. Everyone else kept interrupting us because they thought their Hollywood talk was so much more interesting and important than knitting. What a funny dream. It does make me wonder though how many "famous" people are members of Ravelry under ordinary screen names. My husband once told me that Dale Earnhardt Jr. was a member of an online racing video game forum under a different name. He would play against other people online and they never had any idea who he really was at the time. I think he said he eventually told people who he was and it just kind of ruined the fun of it all because then people weren't themselves anymore, they were move caught up in his celebrity.

The weekend has come and gone. The kick-off to the wedding season was busy but not as overwhelming as I had worried. I can feel the slow progression from slow to busy but so far so good. I'm perhaps even a bit ahead of schedule (which is surely just asking for a monumental crisis that will bring everything to a grinding halt). Never mind, not ahead of schedule at all!

I would post pictures of the two-at-a-time socks but frankly I'm starting to become afraid of them. It's as though the yarn has become self-aware and does not want to be knit into socks. It clearly has a different idea of what item it should be knit into. Despite my intense care and meticulouslessness (ok, that's not really a word at all I'm just trying to show just how d@%! careful I'm being with them) things keep getting screwed up. Not just a little screwed up. Seriously screwed up.

I had made it past the heels and was cruising along in lovely stockinette. I stopped and checked them every single time I came to the separating point and pulled the two socks apart to make sure I hadn't accidentally connected them and make sure I had the correct yarn. I thought things were going well. Until I noticed a little hole. Huh? A hole? Oh yes. A hole. Wait. Two holes. Two holes a good two inches down from where I was. $*#@!!!! I immediately put the socks back into the project bag, zipped it shut and put it back in the knitting basket. Then I had a cocktail and tried to block it out of my mind for two days.

I tried to figure out if I could drop down and fix it but it appeared to be accidental yarn overs. After searching the Internet I didn't find any solution that looked like it would work for me. Perhaps there is one. At this point I don't think I want to know about it. I spent an obscene amount of time to tear back to those rotten stitches to fix it. Two nights ago I finally, FINALLY, got back to that last stitch and fixed it. I then proceeded (carefully!!) to start re-knitting it. Again. This is now the third time I have knit this section of the socks. I am now being super careful to watch how I'm knitting and make sure I'm not accidentally knitting between stitches, doing yarn overs or any other manner of stupid mistakes. I'm compulsively checking the socks to make sure they haven't been knit together, counting my stitches and making sure I'm always knitting with the correct yarn for each sock.

Despite this sock knitting neurosis I managed to drop a stitch last night. These ridiculous size 1 needle stockinette stitches are so freaking tiny I had to buy a new crochet hook today so I can fix them. This problem I can thankfully just drop down and fix without having to tear two socks back by two inches. It is still a little demoralizing. Ok, a lot demoralizing.

I know this two-at-a-time business is suppose to be more efficient and seem faster, I am clearly not there yet. I should probably just have kept going and figured no one would see the holes, but they bothered me too much and I knew it would bother me every time I saw them. The next pair of two-at-a-time socks I'll try on double-points and see if that method is a little easier for me. I don't really think these are hard to do, I just keep messing them up with dumb mistakes. And I don't want to start anything else until they're done. It's making me a bit grumpy.

I'm not sure what my problem is. Obviously this is all the fault of the yarn. It clearly would prefer to be something entirely different, perhaps wrist-warmers or knucks. Which is too bad. This is a battle of wills between the sock yarn and myself. I'm not giving up. They will become socks. I may have a Scarlett O'Hara moment in my front yard one evening vowing, "As God is my witness, this yarn will be knit into these two-at-a-time socks!" I will prevail. I will triumph!

Although I might start sleeping with my door locked. It's scary to think of what the yarn might be plotting for me at night while I'm sleeping...

January, February and March are traditionally the slow season for the wedding industry. Brides generally prefer to be married when the landscape is full of color instead of dried brown grass and trees. Some brides prefer Spring when the temperatures are mild, the breezes still cool and the landscape is in bloom. Some brides prefer the summer months, especially June, for the grand, old tradition of being a "June Bride." Within the last decade or so it has even become very popular to have a fall wedding and incorporate the colors of the changing leaves into the wedding.

Yet January, February and March are still out of vogue for today's brides and I can't say that I blame them. Random ice and snow storms can wreak havoc on guests (and vendors) making it to the wedding. It's often too cold and dead-looking outside to do any outdoor pictures. The exception to this tends to be the Christmas wedding. These weddings are usually held in the weeks leading up to Christmas or the weekend immediately following Christmas. Churches have up all of their decorations and lights and the brides often wear beautiful fur-trimmed, hooded capes. Relatives and friends are often in town visiting for the holidays and everyone tends to be in a festive mood.

But excluding the Christmas-theme weddings it is a slow time for someone who's primary business is wedding related. This can be challenging financially but mentally is a much needed break. During the heat of wedding season I often shoot two weddings a weekend and have even done three in a weekend. I even once shot three weddings in 36 hours (which I'll never do again!). Most people don't understand why we work ourselves so hard and book so many weddings. The only people I've found who do understand this are my grandparents. You see, they are farmers. They understand that you have to harvest when the crop is ready and the weather is clear. You have to get up early and stay up late to get the harvest in because there could be a storm coming and you need the profit from the crop to carry you through until next season. Although a completely different industry the idea and urgency is the same.

Mentally the break has been wonderful. I am actually caught up with my business which I've never been able to say before. My turnaround time on work has been faster than ever and I've felt much more relaxed. I've managed to spend more time with family, cook more, knit more and blog more. Things that have been on the back burner because there were more pressing matters to deal with have finally received the attention they deserve. It's also allowed me some time for introspection and planning. I've been making connections and discovering solutions to problems. I'm not so tired. I wish I could say my house is sparkling and immaculate, but come on, I have three kids.

Over the last week I've been thinking about some personal issues I'd like to deal with. They've always been there and to be honest most of the time I feel hopeless about dealing with them. I tend to be an all or nothing kind of person so I feel like if I'm going to change a behavior I need to dive in and change everything, anything less was failure. Obviously this is nothing but a set-up for failure. I've been thinking about baby steps. Almost every program for helping yourself (weight, health, finances, cleaning, Bible study) touts the benefit of baby steps. The word has never appealed to me, it sounds as though they are talking down to me (ridiculous, huh?).

Lately though I've been looking at my knitting and connecting it to my everyday life. The day before me is like the start of a new row. If I work little by little, stitch by stitch on the decisions before me I can get through the day. Starting a knitting project would seem impossible if I told myself I had hundreds of thousands of stitches to do and couldn't make any mistakes. If I added a stitch or knitted the pattern incorrectly I'd have to throw the project away and berate myself for my stupidity. Nice, huh? The reality is that the project is big and long but there is reward at the end. I will make mistakes but I can fix them and keep going. Some mistakes will cost more time and frustration than others but they also teach me to be more careful next time and pay better attention. The most important realization for me is that although I don't see the end result of the sweater in the first row or as I'm knitting day by day, stitch by stitch, without the daily work there would be no sweater at the end. It takes the little bits of effort which seem to do nothing at the time but add up over time to a beautiful garment.

These realizations on the daily devotion it takes to do everything worthwhile has been a great connection for me to make. The struggle will be carrying through on it when life gets crazy. I've enjoyed my break and am starting to feel tense again about the approaching wedding season. It's starting to ramp back up again. After several relaxing weekends at home I will have two weddings this weekend and then will be back to working every weekend again. I've learned a lot over the last several years and hope I can continue to learn and grow and incorporate what I've learned into my daily life.

I need to knit the knits, purl the purls, check my gauge and watch the pattern. If I can keep with it the end result will be so worth it.

Goodbye January, February and March. I'll do my best to keep posting...

Here is the current progress on the two-at-a-time socks. I had planned on making the top portion longer but became concerned about having enough yarn so I went with this length.


I turned the heel on both of them and am now working my way down the foot. It seems to be taking forever but I think a large part of that is because of all the time I spent ripping back and then re-knitting it when I accidentally knit them together.


I may try a slightly different version of the short row heel next time to see if I can eliminate the tiny eyelet holes I got this way. They look pretty and aren't really noticeable but it's always fun to try new techniques. I do wish I had remembered to pick up an extra stitch or two before I joined back in the round on the heel as it would have eliminated/minimized the lovely holes I have now. No biggie, this project is all about learning for me!


Isn't this yarn beautiful?! Last week we attended a funeral in Newton so afterwards I stopped into The Newton Beadery to look at their yarn. I was so excited to see that they carry the Lorna's Laces line of yarns. I've been looking at the Lion & Lamb online as I'd like to make a Clapotis one of these days from it. Since that's currently out of the budget I purchased two skeins of Shepherd Sock in Gold Hill. It's so pretty I can't wait to cast on with it.

I also made a visit to Twist yesterday. I had recently noticed that my current purse was dying a slow, painful death. The straps were tearing both against the body of the bag and also in the middle of the handle. I decided this was obviously the universe telling me that I needed to purchase a new bag big enough to hold basic purse stuff as well as a knitting project so I'd always have my knitting with me. This fits the bill:




I'm still adjusting to the new, bigger bag but so far I'm loving it. I was a little disappointed it didn't have a divider. When I first looked at it I thought it did have a divider but it turned out to be the piece that fits in the bottom of the bag that had slid up the side. In a fit of organization I had recently purchased some clear cosmetic bags and had everything from my purse organized into two of them (one for cosmetics one for pens/office type stuff). Changing purses was a snap. I just tossed the clear bags, my wallet and cell phone (and knitting project! squee!) into the new bag and I was set. Took it out for it's first outing last night at the drive-in and it worked great. Unfortunately won't be taking it out for Easter tomorrow as it clashes horribly with my dress.

Happy Easter!

I had planned on taking some pictures of our Irish dinner the other night but the family devoured it before any pictures could be taken. I have a divine recipe for Irish Soda Bread that is soooo yummy (and easy, bonus!). This recipe makes two loaves of bread which is great, because then there is plenty left over for breakfast for the rest of the week. Well, I've been noticing how much more food the family seems to be going through lately (see: growing children) and this was no different. Before dinner was over one loaf was entirely gone and the second was cut into slices and they were working on it as well. There was a few tablespoons of corned beef left and a bowl of veggies but that was all. Good heavens can those kids eat! I've started doubling some entrees so that I'll have plenty for dinner and left overs for lunches. I really thought the kids would be older before I'd have to start doing that, but that time is already here. Looks like I'm going to have to start doubling on a more regular basis.

Speaking of cooking, the last time I was at the grocery store I went to buy flour and it was $1.98 for a 5 lb. bag of Wal-Mart brand flour. $1.98?! I know within the last year or two it was $0.77 for that same bag of flour (more on how I know that later). I fear that one day soon I will have a breakdown in a public place over the ridiculous skyrocketing prices of EVERYTHING. It is as though every other industry has noticed that fuel prices went through the roof and the consumers just had to take it and keep buying, keep living their lives. The other industries noticed and decided they would try it too. Now, perhaps this isn't the case with flour. To be perfectly honest I haven't researched the flour/wheat crisis at all, although I do recall overhearing one day on the news that there was a grain crisis of some kind. Maybe there is, I don't know. It just seems unlikely to me that there is some kind of "crisis" in almost every tangible good that we need to purchase. Fuel? Crisis! Wheat? Crisis! Natural gas? Crisis! Dairy? Crisis!

I'm wondering how much more the general public can take before people start to lose it. I'm a fairly mild-mannered gal from the Bible belt. If I'm getting fed up with it all than I'm sure everyone else is as well.

OK, I'll get off my soap box and calm down my crazy eyes here.

You may be wondering, "Why on earth would she remember that a 5 lb. bag of flour from Wal-Mart used to cost $0.77?" That is because of the awesome little program, Handy Shopper! (and also because I have a ridiculous memory that remembers dates and numbers for no apparent reason but I can't remember how many chest compressions to do for CPR. Useful, no?) Handy Shopper is this great little program for Palms that lets you create shopping lists. You can create your lists for different stores and for each item you can enter the price as well as aisle number. I LOVE this software. After I have compiled my list at home I have a pretty good idea of exactly how much money I'll be spending based on the prices from last time. Perhaps the most convenient aspect of Handy Shopper though is the ability to sort your grocery list by aisle. Eliminates forgetting something and having to run back across the store to get it. It also lets you keep track of when the store has raised the prices on products since you have the cost from your previous trip already in it. It keeps a running total of how much you've spent through the store for each time to click that you've picked up an item. So if you're slightly OCD like me this is a great program. You can note price increases and rant like a crazy person afterwards (see above).

Does anyone else's husband talk (ok, and yell) to the tv as though the athletes playing can actually hear every precious bit of coaching he's giving them?