a little bit of knitting going on

So, I knitted like a banshee this weekend. My children were like some strange version of my normal obnoxious yet cute red heads. They played together ALL weekend with hardly any whining or "she touched me", "he's annoying me" and "it's MY turn on the nintendo". I know, I'm actually waiting for the earth to open up here in KC and for the real monsters to rear their whining heads.... No, really, I've got amazingly good kids, they just drive me nuts every so often. It was FREAKY though. I spent most of the weekend sitting on my butt in front of the tv knitting knitting knitting. I'd get up and fix food, help direct them into another project or just make sure they were actually alive and they just played their little hearts out. I completed my booga bag, pics to come soon, it's dark now and the pics under the lights don't show the noro's pretty colors, so I'll take a pic in the sunshine tomorrow. YES we also had SUNSHINE! I thought we were living in Seattle (minus the cool artsy atmosphere) for a while as it was about 3 weeks without direct sunlight...clouds, mists, fog, rain, and all that fun stuff.

There's the prettiest full moon out and the stars are bright it's amazing to see. It reminds me of when I was in a college class on languages and diction and the like and the hippie-chic teacher had us keep moon journals. I was thinking, what the HECK does the moon have to do with how different parts of the country pronouce words??? I did it anyway and it was cool. Must have fulfilled some ancient druid/back when women were priestesses thing in me as it was very zen-like. I know, it's late and I'm tired, and getting a bit woo hoo ish, but I thought now that I'm out every night with the dog, I may as well pay attention to my surroundings and all that.

Guess what else??? I got a box of GOODIES from Nyxxie. I'm not sure what I did to deserve this, or if it's part of a major stash relocation, but it was FUN opening the box and petting all the pretty yarns. Again, pics will be added tomorrow. The BEST part was these amazing little bags, they are COOL and then I realized, they're designed to look like little underwear...OK, it sounds weird here, but I'm telling you, they're CUTE AS HECK! I laughed and laughed. Thanks sweetie!

It's strange, I got into this blogging thing as a way to keep a record of my little day to day activities and thoughts and such so when I'm an old bitchy woman I can look back and relive my memories. (I have a VERY bad memory already, so was afraid I'd forget this stuff). Though the things I write are usually pretty mundane, that's usually more meaningful to me than the big official "event" kind of memories. What's amazing is I've found all these cool women and men that I just love keeping up with. In today's world it's hard to make new friends. After you leave college, you get those work acquaintances and the college friends drift away except for a few very close friends. I don't know what I'm trying to say exactly, except I have LOVED bringing you people into my strange little life and LOVE reading and commenting and keeping tabs on your often equally-strange little lives as well! It's like the old neighbors chatting over the back yard fence or at the kitchen table is taking place on our laptops, work computers and home pc's. I think that neighborly-ness is seriously lacking in our country and that bringing more of that back will help us as a nation and as individuals as well.

Ok, I've been without serious caffeine, chocolate and junk food since Thursday and I'm getting a bit sappy. I apologize for the gushiness, but it's true. I love you guys and thanks!

Weekend update: I completed the booga bag, it's amazingly cute, but it's also not so big. The pic makes it look like a major sized tote bag, but nope. I guess I could have READ the pattern spec's but ah well. It's a cute purse. I'm now making a bigger better bag, and it will be the "Tina's Tote". Also in the same color of noro, but bigger and I'm not sure how I'll do the handles as I'd like it to have a touch of style but haven't figured out what exactly yet. For now, I'm just making the dang thing HUGE and I'll figure it out what to do when I get near the end.

Sat. afternoon I survived dual play dates. I'm the WORST at paying back play dates as I get easily overwhelmed by too many children, so when I do it, I do it BIG and get it OVER with. Yes, I know I am wanting to go into education, but for big kids (high school), the little ones wear me out. Joey's little best friend came over at 11:30, just as I was taking the dog out for his lunchtime crap. I thought, oh well, I'll just send Miles out for a few minutes on his own, what could possibly happen in 5 minutes??? Got little Will and Joey set up playing with superhero action figures ("they're not dolls, mom, they're ACTION FIGURES!") Asked Beth to call the dog in, and he came in COVERED in FRESH DOG CRAP. I mean, it's a good thing he's a little dog, as every inch of him had CRAP on it. OMG he smelled HORRIBLE and he was tearing through the house, Will was screaming, Joey was trying to catch him, I didn't want anyone to get dog poop all over them with their friends coming over, it was pandemonium. Especially since I made a mistake and said "BATH" in front of the dog, which sent him into new levels of speediness. For something that small, with short little legs, he can FREAKING FLY. We finally corralled the damn dog into the bathroom, Beth didn't have the door shut well the first time and he was out again. FINALLY I have the dog inside a plastic tub in my bathtub, and am soaping him up, the doorbell rings, it's Beth's friend. I ask her to answer the door (after looking through the window to make sure it's acutally them so I don't have her let in a freak or anything) so she comes in with her little RICH stay-at-home-in-a-mansion-WITH-a-nanny-for-her-kids-and-a-housekeeper-to-clean mom walks into the bathroom where I'm up to my elbows in dog poop and bubbles. Yup, I fit right in with the Johnson County mommas. She is one of the cool moms, though, so she laughed and understood. It ended up being a really fun day. The boys played and built and drove hotwheels and created whole worlds out of cardboard and tape in the basement and the girls had school going with Beth's 52 stuffed animals. They had name-tags and numbers for each animal. It was a riot.

The kids dropped off to sleep early and I just sat and knitted knitted knitted and went to bed BEFORE midnight. OH, I forgot to mention I snuck out to the BOATS Friday night. My cousin came over hungry and poor to eat all my food and watch the kiddos. I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, so decided I'd take $100 and PLAY IT SAFE (yeah right) and sat my butt at the poker table from about 11:00pm till 1:00am. I ended up winning a little, losing a little, losing a LOT, winning a LOT and left with $150. On the way out, the craps table was calling my name.....Christine....make some money.....play......DO IT....so I thought, what the heck, my cousin's normally asleep by 11:00 anyway, what's a few more minutes going to do? LONG story short (I know this post is at least 3 pages long by now) I ended up at home at 3:59AM with $456 in my pocket after paying my cousin double wages to make up for the late night. I get home, get to bed, Joey's up at 5:00am ready for the day. I sit him down with a bowl of cereal, turn on scooby-doo and doze till 6:00am when Beth's awake as well. I not only survived dog poop and 2 extra kids on play dates, I did it on TWO hours of sleep. yes, I am amazing. Yes, I do have big-ass dark circles under my eyes and I'm going to BED. But I had so much fun and really needed the extra $$ as the increased child support thing has not yet kicked into the point where I actually get to SEE the money. Good night!