Maybe I should call myself the bi-monthly blogger? I can't believe how infrequently I'm blogging these days. Now that my paperwork is all finished and I'm home for the summer, I'll have to remedy that.
Check out my word collage at the right. I created it on http://wordle.net. Definitely worth checking out. It's a great cyber play-date.
Happy Fourth!
7.04.2008
5.31.2008
holy cow!
I can NOT believe how much time I've let lapse since my last post. In the interim the whole family has been on vacation in Florida, and Ian and DH spent four days the following weekend in California. Such jet-setters.
Seth has had strep throat, I'm almost finished with the school year, and we'll be trading the fish in for an anole (Ian is obsessed with reptiles these day). Ian decided he was tired of everyone saying he looks like a girl and decided to get a "military" haircut for the summer. (It's not really army short, but there is a real difference. I'll post pictures soon.
Meanwhile, here are some images from the past two months:
Seth has had strep throat, I'm almost finished with the school year, and we'll be trading the fish in for an anole (Ian is obsessed with reptiles these day). Ian decided he was tired of everyone saying he looks like a girl and decided to get a "military" haircut for the summer. (It's not really army short, but there is a real difference. I'll post pictures soon.
Meanwhile, here are some images from the past two months:
Seth & Charles get acquainted with some lorikeets at Butterfly World.
Ian teaches an Everglades resident about good dental hygiene.
3 generations of Jacobs men. The boys clean up real nice when needed.
In knitting news, I took a break from the needles for a few weeks, and switched to hooks. Made the kids a couple of amigurumi octopuses. They're very cute, and I promise I will get pictures up by next week.
Ciao!
4.09.2008
how tasty it is!
Here's one of the (many) things I love about Brooklyn ...
My car was in the shop yesterday, so I had to take the bus to work. 25 minutes of nothing to do but listen to my iPod and look out the windows. In the not-quite 3 miles between my house and the school I work at, I took note of restaurants and markets with cuisine from more than 20 countries, including:
China ... Japan ... Pakistan ... India ... Russia ... Ukraine ... Vietnam ... Korea ... Italy ... Greece ... Turkey ... Israel ... Syria ... Jamaica ... Haiti ... Mexico ... Brazil ... Poland ... Albania ... Thailand ... Egypt ...
There were no doubt more for me to see, but at that point I was too busy planning which one of the shops I was going to stop in to buy food for dinner that evening.
I love to travel abroad, but don't get to do that these days. It's nice to know that so many little parts of the larger world exist right here within a stone's throw of my itty bitty little home.
3.29.2008
on a different note.
Lately I've been too unfocused to complete any full-fledged knitting projects. Hats, yes. anything bigger ... not so much. But what I have found myself drawn to is my old love of jewelry making, and a new-found love - polymer clay. I'm at the beginning of the learning curve with the poly-clay, and I'm having such a ball trying out various new techniques. Tomorrow I'm going to a clay day at the Polymer Guild of New York City, where I'm going to learn how to do art transfers onto clay. Can't wait!
The other craft I'm able to accomplish these days is making earrings and bracelets. They take so little time that I'm able to get close to instant satisfaction. That's real important when your brain is as attention-deficit as mine is these days!
3.23.2008
nice to be mice.
Ian's 3rd grade play was this week. "Fairytale Follies" was a really funny play about various fairy tale characters who take their grievances before the official Fairy Tale Council, and get advice in the form of song and dance. Ian (left) and his best friend, Anton (right), played Cinderella's mice.
For their costumes, the parents had to provide gray pants and shirts and somehow come up with ears and a tail. Well, I'm a knitter, dammit, and so knitting them was the only logical solution to me (even though cutting out felt would have been a helluva lot easier). I've got to say, though, the finished product was really cute, even if Ian's ears did keep drooping.
Now that the play is over, I know the ears and tail are going to go the way of all school play costumes -- on the floor of the closet, and eventually in the trash, but I think making these was more for me than for Ian. I started on the ears right before Ian wound up in the hospital on Thanksgiving weekend, and they really helped save my sanity during the week plus that he was there. I honestly don't know what I would have done with myself during those horrible hours of waiting and worrying if I hadn't had my needles and yarn -- and an optimistic goal -- to keep my hands and mind occupied.
For their costumes, the parents had to provide gray pants and shirts and somehow come up with ears and a tail. Well, I'm a knitter, dammit, and so knitting them was the only logical solution to me (even though cutting out felt would have been a helluva lot easier). I've got to say, though, the finished product was really cute, even if Ian's ears did keep drooping.
Now that the play is over, I know the ears and tail are going to go the way of all school play costumes -- on the floor of the closet, and eventually in the trash, but I think making these was more for me than for Ian. I started on the ears right before Ian wound up in the hospital on Thanksgiving weekend, and they really helped save my sanity during the week plus that he was there. I honestly don't know what I would have done with myself during those horrible hours of waiting and worrying if I hadn't had my needles and yarn -- and an optimistic goal -- to keep my hands and mind occupied.
3.14.2008
you never forget your first.
Last March I finally worked up the nerve to knit my first sweater (after 4 years of knitting scarves and other small accessories). Not to say I'm a slow knitter or anything, but I finally finished it this January!
I got the pattern and the superwash merino wool at my favorite LYS - Stitch Therapy in Park Slope, Brooklyn - along with the assurances that I really could accomplish this. And yes, it was true. It took some (a lot of) time, and it's got some (a whole lot of) glaring errors (a couple of bobbles in the back, sleeves that would fit a gorilla, real wonky neck ribbing), but it's still a real finished sweater!
Here's a not-so-great picture of Seth modeling it. It's hard to get a good picture of him. As soon as he sees the camera, he lunges for it. We have very few recent pictures where he's not in motion (unless he's strapped down in a high chair, car seat or carriage).
The pattern is a fairly easy one (would have had to be for me to actually finish it!). It's the Kid's Top-down Raglan by Gail Tanquary (Copyright Ann Norling). It's knit in the round, except for the sleeves. The one pattern gives you options for a crew neck or V-neck cardigan or pullover.
Of course, in the year since I bought the pattern I discovered Elizabeth Zimmerman and figured out how to design all those same choices myself.
But still ... the success with this first little sweater went to my head so much that now I'm in the middle of knitting the cable-yoke sweater from the Winter issue of Knit Simple for myself. I've got the front, back and one sleeve done, and although the sweater is in a holding pattern for the moment, it's still going loads faster than the first one did (and I'm a heckuva lot bigger than 2 year old Seth).
I'll keep you posted on my progress, and hopefully in less than a year's time, I'll be able to add a second sweater to my list of FO's.
I got the pattern and the superwash merino wool at my favorite LYS - Stitch Therapy in Park Slope, Brooklyn - along with the assurances that I really could accomplish this. And yes, it was true. It took some (a lot of) time, and it's got some (a whole lot of) glaring errors (a couple of bobbles in the back, sleeves that would fit a gorilla, real wonky neck ribbing), but it's still a real finished sweater!
Here's a not-so-great picture of Seth modeling it. It's hard to get a good picture of him. As soon as he sees the camera, he lunges for it. We have very few recent pictures where he's not in motion (unless he's strapped down in a high chair, car seat or carriage).The pattern is a fairly easy one (would have had to be for me to actually finish it!). It's the Kid's Top-down Raglan by Gail Tanquary (Copyright Ann Norling). It's knit in the round, except for the sleeves. The one pattern gives you options for a crew neck or V-neck cardigan or pullover.
Of course, in the year since I bought the pattern I discovered Elizabeth Zimmerman and figured out how to design all those same choices myself.
But still ... the success with this first little sweater went to my head so much that now I'm in the middle of knitting the cable-yoke sweater from the Winter issue of Knit Simple for myself. I've got the front, back and one sleeve done, and although the sweater is in a holding pattern for the moment, it's still going loads faster than the first one did (and I'm a heckuva lot bigger than 2 year old Seth).
I'll keep you posted on my progress, and hopefully in less than a year's time, I'll be able to add a second sweater to my list of FO's.
3.08.2008
happiness is ...
Reading DutchMoeder's blog reminded me that I never did my 100 Things That Make Me Happy list this year. A year and a half ago I created one in a scrapbook, and promised myself that I'd write a new one every year. But last year was a tough one for the family, and it slipped through the cracks. So here it is now:
- Charles
- Ian
- the ocean
- spending time with my sisters
- spending time with my friends
- patches of sunlight streaming through my window
- light violet
- tulips
- The Beatles
- Elvis Costello
- singing
- Austrian crystals
- making jewelry
- knitting
- Harry Potter
- brunch at Two Boots
- taking pictures
- knitting magazines
- buying books
- learning other languages
- polymer clay
- swimming
- music
- traveling to other countries
- the sky in Florida
- hearing Seth laugh
- seeing Ian smile
- Jennifer Crusie
- chocolate
- a clean house (as rare as that is)
- my mother-in-law's sense of humor
- pedicures
- Monk
- a good hair day
- Calvin & Hobbes
- diamonds
- jade
- freesia
- opals
- candles
- Park Slope
- smooth wooden boxes
- sunsets
- Top Chef
- Project Runway
- sterling silver
- diet cola
- wearing sandals
- the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens
- kayaking
- the carousel at Prospect Park
- bicycling
- not being sick
- the smell of newly mown grass
- Broadway musicals
- the Impressionists
- hugging Charles
- bubble baths
- getting private time in the bathroom
- blueberries
- sea glass
- snowball fights
- oranges
- when my students grasp a concept we've been working on for months
- Johnny Depp
- my iPod
- seeing my kids play with each other
- the Salt Marsh Nature Center
- Sandra Boynton books
- the Brooklyn Museum of Art
- pale yellow
- Cold Stone Creamery
- Minnewaska State Park
- catching tadpoles at the lake upstate with Ian
- rafting on the Delaware River
- crafts fairs
- Tiffany glass
- Egyptian alabaster
- Dr. Seuss
- snorkeling
- the sound of the wind in palm trees
- mourning doves
- the smell of clean cotton T-shirts
- spending a rare night alone with Charles
- dinner at Sahara
- day trips on my father-in-law's boat
- Christmas lights in Bay Ridge
- the Verazzano bridge
- Paris
- the feel of warm sand on my bare feet
- Bob Fosse's choreography
- fresh water pearls
- reading to my kids
- the New York Aquarium
- merino wool
- yarn shops
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