Busy, busy, busy...

A good time was had by all at Avery's party on Saturday. We had the party at Catskills Laser Tag. There were other activities as well.

Avery and his friends Dylan and Aaren had a blast with air hockey:

(Maribel and I ended our game in a 4-4 tie)

Even Ian and Zeyda had a great time. Here they are tackling the rock climbing wall:



Of course there was more grown up fun on Sunday. Can you guess who I visited:


Hanging out by the pool for Kathleen's birthday. Here are Ann and Chelsea:



and Kathleen the action heroine:



It was a great day. Good company, good food (even for the picky eater that is me), broken glass of course and a lovely dip in the pool. The only downside was that I failed to convince the wonderful and charming Poe to come home with me. I tried to explain to him that he is a sophisticated dog, more suited for city life. The suburbs were too laid back for a playa like him. Yet he didn't climb into my bag to leave with me. I was devastated and after he nibbled on my ear so sweetly. Oh well...our love is just not meant to be.

I'm a bad blogger and a bad knitter. I've been too lazy to take pictures for your amusement and really my whole life should revolve around your amusement. I've also been quite lazy about the knitting. I still haven't picked up the needles since last Friday. I'm choosing to blame the heat for my lethargy. Who the hell wants to move a muscle, even a small one in this heat.

Here's a few pictures to entertain. Avery at the Harry Potter event:


he's waiting on line to have his face painted.

This is Avery at 1:00 in the morning when we got home:


poor kid looks beat, I looked worse.

Since I have so little to give you I will finally share my deep dark secret. We're buying a house!

This house to be exact:



The picture is not that great. There is a huge tree right in front of the house which makes it difficult to take good pictures of it. We haggled over the contract for something like 3 weeks. We even walked away at one point but in the end all was solved and we are hoping to close in a couple of weeks. Whoo hoo. The house has been completely renovated so everything is new. It's small compared to a suburban house but way bigger than an apartment. The yard, for the Bronx anyway, is freakin' huge. There is a deck and a finished basement. We're all very excited. The best thing is that it is only 10 blocks from where we live now so the kids stay in their schools and the disruption will be minimal. We're still near the same 2 train lines and all the buses which makes me very happy since I still don't have a driver's license.

Next week is vacation for Rinaldo and me. Ian still has school but Avery is home. I'll be keeping Ian home for a day or two for our annual Sesame Place excursion. Mostly vacation will be spent cleaning and beginning to pack for our move or really deciding what gets packed and what gets tossed.

My weekend will be pretty packed. It's Avery's birthday tomorrow and we are having a Lazer Tag party for the big 10 year old. Then on Sunday I will be trekking out to Long Island to hang with those insane women out there and to show Chelsea a good time. I have it on good authority that there will be knitting, a pool, drinks, carrot cake and possible glasswear being shattered. Sounds like my kind of party...

Have a great weekend everyone...

I finished Harry yesterday. I didn't have a chance to read it at all on Sunday. I had sent Rinaldo and Avery to the movies since it was Rinaldo's birthday and Ian wanted my full attention. When they got back from the movies Rinaldo's mom took us all out to dinner. All of this conspired to keep me from my book. I finally made up for it yesterday, thank god I had the day off. I enjoyed it more than the last one. Harry is a much more pleasant person to be around now that he is 16. Not enough Ron and Hagrid for me though. I cried my way through the end but I am completely hyped for the next one and yes Bron I am dying to know who R. A. B. is too.

The only knitting I got done was at the Midnight Madness party at B and N on Friday. May I tip my hat to my best friend, Maribel, as she and her store had a phenomenally well organized event. Tisha and I got there at 9, got our bracelets right away and went to wait on line. The line for reserves snaked around the perimeter of the store while there was entertainment in the kids section, clowns, balloon animals, face painting you get the idea. Both Avery and Aaren (Tisha's son) had a good time. They didn't get bored until 11:30 or so but by then we were in the home stretch. I usually leave these events saying to myself, "I will never do this again" but I'd do this again in a heartbeat. Tisha too and she's way tougher than me to please in this type of thing (and yes she was getting the book for herself too). When we left the store the reserve line continued outside of the store and down the block. On the other side of the door was the huge line for the non-reserves. I figured Maribel would be there all night but she told me the next day they were done by 1:30. Really amazing efficiency. Of course I was no where near the front of the line and I walked out around 12:05.

There was a knitter sitting next to me on the line (we were all sitting on the floor for most of the evening). She was working on 2 thin stockinette strips. She said it was the ties for a baby sweater she had been making. She was a bit disappointed she hadn't brought more to work on because she finished those off pretty quickly. I worked on Rinaldo's scarf since it's nice and mindless. If I got tired I didn't want to screw up a pattern repeat on Branching Out or Clapotis.

I did take pictures but surprise, surprise I never downloaded them, maybe tomorrow.

In case you didn't know how big a geek I am...

I thought I should make it clear by telling you that although I am ostensibly going to the midnight party at Barnes and Noble for Avery it's really a lie. I want this:



just as much or more than he does, we have 2 copies reserved.

In case by some freak of nature there is a sudden shortage of Harry and someone out there desperately wants to buy it at full price, don't forget my store. We do carry more than textbooks and we will definitely have Potter. We're not a chain so we can't discount but I know many of you can appreciate how cool it is that we're still an independent bookstore.

Have a great weekend, you know what I'll be doing.

Happy Days are Here Again

The NHL lockout is over. I frankly thought the NHL itself was over but it turns out not to be the case. I wish I could make some principled statement supporting or complaining about the players or the owners but I am just too damn happy that my Rangers will be playing again.

Michele sent me a lovely card:



Thanks Michele it really perked me up a bit when I found it in my mailbox.

Last night was my knitting group at Barnes and Noble. There were 22 people there. We have never had such a turnout. It was really amazing and only a handful were regulars. I'm curious to see how many come back next month.

Clapotis is coming along. I've dropped 3 stitches so far, that's my favorite part. Branching Out is a bit stalled but I'll get back to it. I feel like I should start a Harry Potter scarf for the Midnight Party at Maribel's store that I'm taking Avery to on Friday but that's a bit over the top I think.

The winner of the poll for the wedding afghan is, drumroll please:

Cream

Just a bit disappointed myself but I think I will buy a skein of cream and a skein of cinnamon (my favorite) and swatch them both up. At least this narrowed down the field for me. Swatching will give me a much better idea of which works and I can give the swatch to the happy couple as a preview of the gift to come. Thanks for voting.

I started my second Clapotis on Thursday. It's really quite lovely:



I can't wait to start dropping stitches. I'm a little concerned about how big to make it. I only have 400 yards of the yarn. I definitely want it much smaller than the first but big enough (don't you love it when I'm definitive). I just have to pay close attention as I go. I'm on my fourth increase repeat, but it's really the length I want to cut down.

This is the wedding afghan I want to make for my friend Brian. I am thinking of using Knit Picks Andean Silk. The question is what color? Tradition would have it be the cream, but I'm not exactly a person known for sticking to tradition. It should be light enough to show off the cables but I'd like something that won't show dirt quickly in case they actually decide to use it for something (instead of putting it away).

All this leads to my first ever poll! Which color should I use?




I'll post the winner on Wednesday.

Have a great weekend everyone...

London

I know I have a handful of readers in the UK. I hope you and all of your families are safe and well. Our thoughts are with you...

Dam, No Knitting!

Ok, I have to admit someone else came up with the title for today's post. It came about because this is where we celebrated the Fourth of July:



That's my good friend Leslie discussing something very important while eating Sun Chips. Behind her is the Kensico Dam (the picture was much lighter at home, sorry but pretty cool shot of the sky, no?). They do a concert and fireworks show for the Fourth.

Here is a pretty shitty picture of said fireworks:



There is also a playground so the boys got to go nuts for awhile before the show. Once it started they were tired enough to sit through it. It scared the hell out of Ian at first, because it was so loud but in the end he really enjoyed it. I did do a bit of knitting on the ribbed scarf but when I looked at it the next day I realized I screwed up the last few rows that I did in the dark...damn.

I've been plodding along on Branching Out. I'm just about ready to start another ball but I realized that this scarf is so not me. Which means, check it out, I have a holiday gift half finished in July! Wow, can you imagine. Yeah, I know it's just circumstance, not good planning but whatever.

I got a very sweet thank you note from the recipient of the log cabin blanket. She really loved it and appreciated it. Makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it?

I found out I have a party in the Hamptons to go to in August. I'm feeling very intimidated by this fact. Me, the Bronx Girl, in the Hamptons? Uncomfortable much? It's for my very dear friend Brian and his wife Tara so not going is not an option, but I'm hoping some of my good LI friends will be willing to make the drive out if I need bail money. Brian and Tara married last year in a small ceremony in Ireland. They are doing a big ceremony this month in Ireland as well (they have been living there for a number of years) but the August party is to welcome them back to the states. Do I dare try to knit the wedding blanket I've been wanting to do for them for the past year ? There really is no time for it but if I start now maybe it can be a Christmas present. I definately need to start my second Clapotis with the Empress Wu Zhao as it will be perfect for the party. Of course I'll have to buy a dress to match it.

Isn't it funny how just about every event in a knitter's life is only as relevant as the knitting project that is required for it?

Happy Fourth of July everyone! Eat drink and be merry...

For the holiday here is a cute little Blogthing that I ran into, I've edited it a bit to keep only the things that really applied...

You Know You're From New York City When...

You say "the city" and expect everyone to know that this means Manhattan. You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Columbus Circle to Battery Park at 3:30 on the Friday before a long weekend, but can't find Wisconsin on a map. The subway makes sense. You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual. You've considered stabbing someone just for saying "The Big Apple". You call an 8' x 10' plot of patchy grass a yard. You consider Westchester "upstate". You think Central Park is "nature." You've been to New Jersey twice and got hopelessly lost both times. You pay more each month to park your car than most people in the U.S. pay in rent. You haven't seen more than twelve stars in the night sky since you went away to camp as a kid. Your closet is filled with black clothes. You haven't heard the sound of true absolute silence since the 80s, and when you did, it terrified you. You pay $5 without blinking for a beer that cost the bar 28 cents. You have 27 different menus next to your telephone. Going to Brooklyn is considered a "road trip." America west of the Hudson is still theoretical to you. You've gotten jaywalking down to an art form. Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on your toes. $50 worth of groceries fit in one paper bag. You have a minimum of five "worst cab ride ever" stories. You don't notice sirens anymore. Your doorman is Russian, your grocer is Korean your deli man is Israeli, your building super is Italian, your laundry guy is Chinese, your favorite bartender is Irish, your favorite diner owner is Greek, the watchseller on your corner is Senegalese, your last cabbie was Pakistani, your newsstand guy is Indian and your favorite falafel guy is Egyptian. You're suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you. You secretly envy cabbies for their driving skills. You think $7.00 to cross a bridge is a fair price. Your door has more than three locks. You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression. You run when you see a flashing "Do Not Walk" sign at the intersection. You're 35 years old and don't have a driver's license. You ride in a subway car with no air conditioning just because there are seats available. There is no North and South. It's uptown or downtown. When you're away from home, you miss "real" pizza and "real" bagels. You know the differences between all the different Ray's Pizzas. You're not in the least bit interested in going to Times Square on New Year's Eve. Your internal clock is permanently set to know when Alternate Side of the Street parking regulations are in effect. You know what a bodega is. You know how to fold the New York Times in half, vertically, so that you can read it on the subway or bus without knocking off other passenger's hats. Someone bumps into you, and you check for your wallet..... You cringe at hearing people pronounce Houston St. like the city in Texas Film crews on your block annoy you, not excite you. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from NYC.

Get Your Own "You Know You're From" Meme Here



More cool things for your blog at
Blogthings

Thank you to everyone for the numerous birthday wishes. I really appreciate them all!

I owe you some pictures from the fabulous outing I had with my fellow knit bloggers. Last Thursday I hung out with this crowd:



That's Vicki on the left, Ann hiding behind, Jen writing in Vicki's book, Cara, Cassie crouching down looking in her bag (she managed to not actually show up completely in any of my pictures, she has a gift) and Lauren. We were all standing outside of the building where School Products is located.

Here's a shot of Habu:



See all the lovely yarns on the wall. It's a completely different kind of yarn shop. I really loved the layout of it. Very peaceful.

The weekend was good. We went to Bear Mountain on Saturday with Avery's school. We were able to pick up Tashie and Cheyenne which always makes an outing more fun. It was really hot so we spent most of the time in the pool. We went back to Tashie and Cheyenne's house after and hung out there for awhile so Ian could play with their little sister Zeyda.

Sunday I spent most of the day at home, Rinaldo took the kids to his grandmother's house. I already mentioned that I was spending Monday with Avery. The movie was really good. I was a little concerned because the theatre where we saw it turned out to be running the original Japanese version with subtitles. I asked Avery if that would be ok and he said yes. When the film was finished he told me he was glad he saw it that way. He thinks it was better than the dubbed version would have been. I have obviously raised him well.

Of course it being my birthday there were presents involved:



Rinaldo got me The Little Box of Scarves and the Stitch and Bitch journal. Maribel got me No Idle Hands. All very cool and much appreciated.

I took MIT's survey this morning. It was really quick, if you're a blogger go check it out, you even get your choice of a cool button:

"You say it's your birthday...it's my birthday too yeah"

Yup, it's my birthday so no real posting today. I did get this test from Snooze this morning and honestly I answered every question as truthfully as possible. I would only get this result on my birthday...




Go have fun today, in honor of my birth, it should be a holiday you know ;)

I had a great time yesterday hanging out with fellow bloggers, Ann, Cassie, Cara, Lauren, Vicki and Jen. Vicki was in town from Wisconsin so that provided a good excuse for the rest of us to meet up with each other as well. Sadly I was far too lazy to upload my pictures but I'll get them up next week. We hit School Products which is always fun, but I managed to restrain myself. The real reason I came out, aside from good company, was to finally go to Habu. It's really different. The yarns are on the wall or in baskets and you decide what you like. Then you tell the staff how much you want and they go in the back and wind it for you. I was actually a bit overwhelmed but there are definately things I will go back for.

Wow, a yarn crawl with no yarn to show for it. I am obviously losing my touch.

I gave up trying to do Branching Out in the lace weight cashmere. I will save it for either a simpler pattern or when I'm a bit more experienced with such fine yarn. I dug through the stash and came up with a mercerized cotton in DK weight. That means that June's Stashbuster project is well underway.

I think it's coming along nicely:



It's funny because I see the pattern definition much better in the picture than I do in real life. I'm hoping that blocking will bring it out more. The color really works for it doesn't it?

Tonight is dinner with Maribel for an early birthday celebration. Monday's the actual day but I am hanging with Avery all day. His school has Field Day so I will sit in the park and knit while he plays. Then he and I are going to see Howl's Moving Castle. Should be fun.

Have a great weekend...

Last week was a little crazy because Rinaldo was away on a business trip from Thursday to Saturday. I am really not good at the single parenting thing. Overall the kids were good though. I came through with my sanity as intact as it ever was (granted that is probably less than most people's) and both children survived therefore it was fine.

I rented Black Cadillac and Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love to watch while Rinaldo was away. They both feature guys on my top ten obsession list. I managed to watch Black Cadillac (which featured Jason Dohring from Veronica Mars) on Thursday night. It was much better than I expected. I thought it would be supernatural horror stuff but it was really just suspense and some interesting characters. It wasn't great mind you, but I did enjoy it much more than I thought I would. I didn't get to see Kama Sutra until last night, I passed out from exhaustion on Friday. It featured the devastatingly gorgeous Naveen Andrews from Lost. It was very good. I currently have an obsession with all things Indian so that helped a great deal. It was very beautifully filmed and the story and acting were good.

I managed to finished the pinwheel blanket this weekend. I won't show pictures here but you can visit the pinwheel along page as I sent Larissa a picture of the completed blanket. I cast on for Branching Out on Sunday. It has been ripped out 4 times already. The pattern isn't giving me trouble, it's the yarn. I'm using the lace weight cashmere I bought in Maryland. I am having problems with dropped stitches. Normally not a big issue but this yarn is so thin I can't pick them back up. It's very frustrating but I'm ploughing on.

I don't know what else to start. Branching Out is not good traveling knitting so I need a portable to take with me. I may work on Bob a bit but I'd like something a little bigger going on also. Four seems like a nice number of projects to me. I was thinking about starting one of the baby sweaters but I e-mailed Morehouse Merino about my gauge issues with my kit and I have yet to hear anything from them. I guess I'm going to have to call.

Just so I can say I showed you something here is the sweater Maribel just finished. It's this Five Hour Baby sweater:



The hat's adorable too, I can't remember where that came from, but it goes so nicely with the sweater.

Tomorrow there's a bit of a meetup of bloggers here in NYC. I'm hoping to sneak out of work to join in for a bit, but we'll have to see what happens. It's the quiet time here at work but I've been leaving early quite a bit I don't know if I can swing it tomorrow.

I have achieved!

You see before you a finished log cabin baby blanket happily blocking early this morning. Well in advance of the trip it will take tomorrow afternoon to it's intended recipient:


and a close up:


It gathers a bit in the middle, I'm pretty sure that's because I was trying to pick up the specified number of stitches in the beginning. It blocked out very nicely though.

Last night was knitting group at Barnes and Noble. It was our one year anniversary. Maribel provided cookies and cupcakes to make it festive. She even raffled off a few books and one of their summer totes. Sadly the fix was not in, so I walked away empty handed. It was a fun night. I had finished the blanket on the train, but I brought Bob as my back up, so I finished the bottoms of his feet. Now to move on to his head.

I brought the pinwheel blanket with me today, it would be great to get that done as well but I am planning on casting on for Branching Out this weekend regardless. I am so ready for something slightly more challenging but smaller than the blankets I've been carrying around.

As for my secret, it still remains, things are moving forward but there was a setback this morning and that's all I'll say. A summer mystery here in the Bronx...

Interesting happenings going on here at Casa de Mathews but nothing I want to talk about just yet. I am only here to remind everyone that Veronica Mars repeats start tonight. It's on UPN at 9 and then another episode tomorrow in it's new timeslot at 9 also. Tonight's the first episode so you can start at the beginning.

I've admitted I'm obsessed but I also hate that an excellent show is being watched by so few people. If you're not busy check it out, it's great to knit by...

The day really got away from me. I never post this late in the day.

There's not much to report. The log cabin is chugging along. I am on the second color of the last repeat. Work's been boring. Not much going on after work either. I've been catching up on some TV this week. We watched a mini Dr. Who marathon (Rinaldo downloads the new series because it would be torture for him to wait until they were aired in the states). We saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I can say was a very well written and well made picture, but I really didn't enjoy it. I did think the ending was the best part, since it was really stating that relationships are never perfect but that doesn't mean they aren't worth it. I also caught the Showtime version of the musical Reefer Madness which was hysterical but very, very odd. I thought it could have been shorter, and could have used a little less, blood, zombies and cannibalism. Yes, you read that right...

I did forget to share a purchase that I made at Costco on Sunday. I bought myself a new lamp:



It's one of those broad spectrum lamps. The light is really amazingly bright. I also notice particularly when I'm reading that my eyes don't get tired as quickly. It was a good deal, only $20, I'm happy with my purchase.


I will leave you with yesterday's Brenda Starr just 'cause I thought it was funny.

Have a great weekend everyone.

I have joined another knitalong, but once again I have cheated. I am already two thirds of the way through the project. Larissa (go visit just to see that adorable baby of hers) is hosting a Pinwheel Along. Which is in fact the blanket I am making for my cousin. Ingileif I am trusting you not to go visit this site, since there will be pictures of the blanket in progress there.



I have made great progess on the log cabin... really, I may actually pull this off. Katy saw it and sympathized with me about all the ends that will have to be woven in once I'm finished. That's going to be the issue once the knitting part is done.

Katy and I had a really nice lunch. I even got a manicure, in the middle of the afternoon, on a weekday. I felt quite decadent. I also managed to pay off the two summer camps that Avery will be attending so I was productive as well.

Ann is complaining that her stats are down and I have noticed that mine are down as well. I had put it off to a summer slow down. There actually has been a slow down on posting on my favorite sites which I attributed to the same fact. Ann has come up with some creative devices to help her numbers, they involve sex toys and excrement. I think I need to get creative too, but I can't see how I will beat her.

My cousin sent me this link, which I thought was hysterical.

A Graduation, lots of books and even a bit of knitting...

My darling Natasha is all grown up:



A high school grad, with honors no less.I am practically bursting with pride, hell I'm not even her mom. The day was lovely, the ceremony was not horrifically boring and Ms. Tashie was beautiful. I also got 2 blocks done on the log cabin blanket (the yarn arrived just before I left work on Friday) all in all a great morning.

Sadly we had to take pictures and run because Book Expo was going on without us. I managed to get there in time to get Stitch and Bitch Nation signed by the very friendly Debbie Stoller:



Although this picture isn't bad I have to say she looked much happier in person.

Later I got to meet another knitting Debbie, this one is Debbie Macomber author of Shop on Blossom Street and A Good Yarn:



She was also very sweet and friendly.

The rest of the time was spent collecting free books. I didn't get as much as I did last time but I did manage to pick up some good books for the kids. The lines for Nick Hornby and Bill Maher were too long for me to deal with so I missed out there. Tisha and Maribel both had 3 bags full of books by the time I arrived so maybe it was better that I arrived later.

Here's a link Maribel sent me with more pictures from the Expo. Scroll down about 2/3s of the way and you will find a somewhat mis-identified Stephanie with Pam Allen of Interweave Knits. Stephanie was there on Friday signing her book.

I'm taking a half day today to go hang out with Katy. Wow, a Monday I've actually been looking forward to, hard to believe...

So here I was bitching that I had nothing to talk about and then I remembered that I never mentioned the lovely lunch that I had with the crazy fiber lady, Risa. There was talk of knitting and other fiber related matters of course, but mostly mom stuff. It was really fun. I am hoping we do it again soon. It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is for me to sit and talk to a nearly complete stranger when they are a knitter. I am not a social person, which is undeniably odd since I work in retail and enjoy it, yet, I have never had a bad time meeting another blogger. I guess we are just a very cool group of people in general.

I actually had some bad karma due to my bitching also...very bad karma. I finished the baby booties and I went to my knitting basket to grab the log cabin so I could start working on it. The blanket was right on top with the current color I was working on (which it turned out was the wrong color but that's neither here nor there). I then pulled out the large plastic zip lock bag that the rest of the yarn was in, I keep all my projects in bags like this so I can grab them on the way out the door. Imagine my surprise (and disgust) when I found that the yarn had molded! Yes, molded.

See:



I cannot describe how I felt. It was nasty, disgusting and I was very upset because I need to get this blanket done. I have no real idea how the yarn got wet but the balls were extremely damp. There's a number of things that could have happened, there was an incident in Maryland when Rinaldo put an empty plastic soda cup in my bag and later I discovered that there was ice in it that had melted so the bottom of my bag was wet. The blanket was a bit damp but I dried it in the car and I find it hard to believe it actually got in the plastic bag full of yarn. I also worked on the blanket after the trip so I am sure I would have noticed. I know there was also an incident of spilled lemonade in that corner one day when I wasn't home but my mother in law is pretty reliable about this kind of mess I am sure she would have noticed if it spilled into the basket of yarn. And again inside the plastic bag!?! No other yarn in the basket was the slightest bit damp so I suspect it will forever remain a mystery. I did order replacement balls from Patternworks that are being shipped 2nd day and should arrive here at work any minute now, so I think it will still get done in time.

Tomorrow is Tashie's graduation from Cardinal Spellman High School. She will be attending Mt. Holyoke in the Fall. I am so proud of her and amazed at the wonderful young woman she has grown up to be.

Tomorrow I also go to Book Expo. This is basically a bookselling and publishing convention. Tons of free books and author appearances. In fact Stephanie is there today signing her book. Tomorrow I hope to catch up with Debbie Stoller and Debbie Macomber as well as a number of non knitting related authors. I can't wait. Mind you I still haven't read all the free books I got at the last BEA I attended, which was like 3 years ago...

Have a great weekend all...

Oh blogger wherefore art thou?


You know it's been a long blog break if Maribel is asking me why I haven't posted. The answer is...laziness. I'm feeling a bit of the summer lethargy coming on. Not to mention that I ain't got much to say. I am just finishing the booties I am making for a friend of Rinaldo's. Which is cool because that is my June Stashbusters project, and no the baby blanket for May is not finished, thanks for asking. I am actually on my third go round on the booties. The first one was made using the Morehouse Merino pattern. You will recall I was not getting gauge with the yarn in the kit so I decided (before I called them) to try the pattern with a different yarn. Did not work too well. I wanted to take a picture but I never did. The bottom half is really freaky. It's far too big. If you tuck it inside itself it looks fine but if you take it out it looks like it would fit a small balloon. So I used a different pattern. The next pair were far too small. Now I went up 2 needle sizes and I am nearly finished with the first one. I should finish the second tonight. I then have to go back to the log cabin because Rinaldo has to take it with him on his business trip the weekend of the 17th. Good luck to me.

Memorial Day weekend was uneventful. I took the boys to the Central Park Zoo on Saturday. Ian loved the Polar Bears and the Penguins. I then took them to a great little playground just past the zoo. There was a giant slide which they both loved but on the second time going up Avery missed the step and slammed into the decorative log. Ouch. He had a very nasty scrape and bruise on his cheek. He is however an amazing brother and did go up one more time with Ian before we went to the first aid station. He's very sweet. We got an ice pack from the zoo and he felt like quite the warrior with his scar. Sunday was spend running errands and Monday we just did a little picnic thing at Van Courtlandt Park. Very relaxing.

See I told you nothing was going on...at least nothing exciting...