Wednesday, June 24, 2015

tranquility












 My Rosie-roo has just hit this amazing stage of development of making connections AND using language to begin describing it.  As a speech therapist I can see so many things that are just SO fun. I always forget how grueling and fun and exciting and challenging toddlerdom is!  Today before naptime we snuggled on the bed and I told her a few nursery rhymes, as I have been doing lately, and she asked for "Whole world hands?" (to sing "He's Got the Whole World.")  So then we sing away with her bright eyes alight and she so beautifully fills in the gaps with the right words.   Tonight, grabbing my face at bedtime with both hands, "Stay, mama!"  How could I say no?  Precious moments to tuck away for remembering the next time she is face down on the floor kicking her feet over some little thing or another.

We spent the afternoon at one of our favorite local places yesterday, The Arboretum.  It's so lovely and restful and the moment we step foot on the premises I feel stress and busy-ness melting off for a time.  We intended to sit with our books and my yarn and let the children run and explore nearby but we never can manage it, being too much interested ourselves in seeing the different trees and plants in the different seasons. 

I am still struggling with my knitting but am not as much a Debbie-Downer as I was last week!  I have made basically no progress on my Adama cowl because I have [weirdly] had to unknit the same four rows repeatedly but for different reasons.  I reached my limit.  I have frogged back to the last garter stitch row and will work the whole lace pattern again because I think I made a mistake 3-4 rows back and it is hurting my wrist to keep unknitting this lace pattern over and over. Ah well, such is... knitting with children interrupting.  The pattern is lovely so far and really not at fault, I am entirely to blame!  I am tempted to put it aside and pick up my Radiance shawl again which also needs some tinking for a couple dropped stitches that I can't figure out how to pull back up in the lace pattern.  Maybe I need to cast on something different and new for a fresh start and give the other projects just a wee rest! Casting on is always the answer, right?

I have mostly been listening this week:  to Sense and Sensibility and The Scarlet Letter, both on CraftLit.  I am reading Big Stone Gap a little bit and totally drooling over that cookbook pictured above.  Gretchen wrote about it months ago and for some reason it really stuck in my head; one of the recipes she shared looked incredible, for one, and something about the Midwest intrigues me.  Maybe it's that I have roots there.  Maybe it's that it is some over-idealized place in my mind.  For whatever reason, the thought struck me last week to see if our library might have a copy of the book, although being here in the Northwest, I thought the chance was slim, yet not slim enough!  There it was listed right in the catalog.  It is a beautiful book, not at all just a cookbook but also an ode to Midwest culture and community.  The pictures are beautiful and several of the recipes are really appealing to me.  (A handful are not, or seem too regional for me to have access to ingredients in order to make, but most look really lovely.)  I think I may try her fermented pickles this week, since I have everything on hand for them.  The recipe looks similar to the one I used last year (though I'm searching wildly now for the recipe I might have used!) that was a big hit with my family.  Fermented pickles have a bubbly lightness to them that I'd never had before.

Happy yarn along day!  I'm linking up with Ginny as I love to do and will be excited to make my way over to your places!

7 comments:

  1. I hope that you find the source of your errors eventually. I am knitting a lace shawl for my daughter and I grumbled when I came across mistakes. I was accidentally decreasing on the purl row because the stitches are so tiny! Now I know to watch while I knit and not the TV....

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  2. Lovely photos as always! They are gorgeous as toddlers, aren't they? My Mr Three just babbles on all the time, describing everything all day long. It is very cute. Hope the knitting fixes itself soon. Maybe you just need a break and next time you pick it up it will all go smoothly. Hope you are having a great summer so far.

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  3. Enjoyed all these lovely pictures! Your littles are so cute! :) Enjoy them (I'm sure you hear this often) they won't be little for long.
    I so understand your knitting frustration! Although I have not yet attempted a lace pattern! I'm a newby. Hope you get it figured out! Happy Knitting!

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  4. The toddler years are so full of new experiences and lots of joy (ok - and some tantrums too). I love the picture of the girls with that huge tree!

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  5. I have not even picked up last week's frogged project (my Brennan)...too frustrated and know I need to spend about an hour, all by myself, with no phone, no computer, no kids, no interruptions, so I can focus and get it going properly. :) Looks like a lovely and peaceful place to spend some family time, Sarah. Your photos are always a delight to look at!

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  6. Love my girlies! I vote for casting on a new project and putting those wips in time-out for a while. :)
    xoxoxo

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  7. I love the toddler stage where they are just figuring out words and thoughts. It is great to see their eyes light up when they were successful at communicating.

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