Somewhere over the rainbow there's a shrug.

The shrug is indeed complete. And thankfully, the princess is pleased. She requested to wear her "roach" today. I chose to take that not as an insult but rather as an indication of her questionable vocabulary skills.

Her brother has had his own struggles with vocabulary recently. As part of his Word Study homework, he needed to create sentences with his spelling words. This prompted the following gem: "The hobo wrote a libeled story." That sounds pretty high profile for a hobo, if you ask me.

His goal was to be a Tae Kwon Do Black Belt.

...and he's done it!

When I grow up I want to be a knit wit.

This is the post wherin I bore you with knitting stories, or as Lex used to say, "yarning."

For my mother-in-law's birthday, I decided that part of her gift would be homemade dish towels because they would be both do-able and useful. Don't judge me for my practicality but applaud me for my handicrafting skills. I completed four different patterns, including a really nice diamond cable pattern. I don't quite have my cabling technique perfected yet, but I like the challenge.

Actually completing a project inspired me to pick up a long forgotten shrug for Alexa, and (after detangling the rat's nest I left the skein in) I fairly quickly got through the body. There are two more steps: seaming the arms and picking up stitches to make an edging. This is where my compulsiveness kicks in. I measured and remeasured and compared to the pattern. Then I measured Lex...and remeasured her. Then I held up the shrug to her. And I decided that she would not be able to wear the shrug for very long. So I frogged (ripped out) the cuff of the arm and made it longer. I am more comfortable with the new length and will redo the cuff. I am setting a goal to have it finished by next week. Then, hopefully, I will post the fruits of my labor to prove that I can be a successful product knitter and don't have to settle for process only.

My next project will be to organize my large knitting needles, patterns and yarn stash so that I can actually find things and have an idea of how many unfinished projects I really have and how many I should just abandon and put the yarn to other use. I'm hoping I get clever enough one day soon to come up with Christmas gift ideas that would use up my existing yarn supply. Being that most gifts will go to Louisiana, scarves are not really an option. They're pretty boring too. If you've got any ideas, speak up, please. My goal is to become known as That Crazy Knitting Lady (Ooooh, I should record my needles clicking for my signature ring tone).

I think that I would like to become a master knitter and get certified and the like. But what is the usefulness of that? It's not very, unless I plan to work at or own a knitting shop, which is a lovely little thought but probably not a very profitable one. Andy has talked about opening up a little cafe near the VRE. We could turn it into Crafting Coffee so I could serve cafe au laits and pasteries and knit in my down time. I don't think it would catch on, but I surely would enjoy a place like that.

Anyway, that was my yarn for today. In the meantime, always remember to check your gauge and keep smiling.

It stands to reason that mice publish good cheesecake recipes.

The boy child is into a series of books about Geronimo Stilton, a mouse detective (and not the same as Disney's The Great Mouse Detective). From what I can glean, a bespectacled and well-clothed brown mouse solves mysteries. Meanwhile the typesetter of these stories experiments with selecting random words to display in a variety of fonts of a variety of colors. So the lesson of these stories, apparently, is that kids need their books to resemble lengthy ransom notes in order to be interesting.

Also, you can generate interest by devoting the end of the book to "Tips for Organizing an Exciting Cheesecake Party." Although I am dubious as to how exciting a cheesecake party can be for a nine-year-old boy, I must admit that the chocolate cheesecake recipe looked quite enticing. I must begin a search for my cheesecake pan.

I've been reluctant to begin baking in earnest over the last few weeks because, let's face it, who is going to eat all this fattening food I could potentially make? However, the mouse detective cheesecake is just too wacky of a concept to let pass. I will let you know how the cookie crust crumbles when it is done.

English is a hard language...

...for some more than others.

Today in first grade homework, Lex picked a book to discuss her favorite part of the story as she is learning about concepts like characters, problems, connections and such. Lex's response to How Grandmother Spider Got the Sun: "I liked the part when the spider got the sun. How can inea one get the sun? The sun is faerie hot." Though encouraged to practice second-grade sentences, which are longer and have more detail, Lex subscribes to the writing philosophy that less is more.

Lex, having made quick work of the assignment, demanded dinner. She ate while accompanied by Noah on his newly-tuned piano. Noah also made quick work of his piano assignment, realizing that his sister was eating. Once dinner was over, Noah praised the "details" of the chicken (?) and then engaged in a literary discussion of a new tale Lex is creating about houses that walk when the moon is blue. It sounded far more intelligent to me than anything I've heard in the last few days, which was an immediate alarm to my senses that I need to get out more.

She ain't afraid of no ghost.

Well, if you remember the kind of September during which I suspended blogging...you can forget about it. The blogger's back.

I recently watched the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, which chronicles the rise of street artist Mr. Brainwash. And, yes, it's as offbeat as it sounds but adds to the discussion of popular art, unspoken "rules" of creating art and the commercialization of art. And since it deals with derivative artwork, it made me want to post one of Lex's latest creations. She snagged the concept from her brother who had written and illustrated a very brief tale about a ghost who liked to play dead. Although it stylistically resembles Noah's original drawing, she has revised and embellished in true Lex fashion. In particular, I adore the one-legged princess ghost wearing the LSU hat. I used to think that age six was just awesome. It turns out that seven is pretty awesome too: