N Style

Haven't posted in a long while due to a slight family emergency. I don't like to go into to many personal details, since this is posted on the Internet for anyone and everyone to see. However, I think it might not be a bad idea if I get comments back about people who have experienced a similar situation. There are positives to web sharing, as well.

In any case, a few hours after we arrived home from camping with the Cub Scouts (which I post about below), we did some TV watching together. Unfortunately, we had just started watching our recorded episode of Pimp My Ride (one of Clark's favorites, of course), and Clark is suddenly looking at me with horror in his eyes. The left half of his face was distorted with his eye twitching and his chin twitching and pulling to the right. At first I thought he was making faces, but the look on his face proved that he was frightened about what was happening. I recall screaming something like, "Clark, what's wrong!" Steve then looked over and thought he might be choking. He picked him up and gave him a small Heimlich. I was concerned that it was more serious than choking but hoped that was all it was. We kept trying to get Clark to talk to us, and then I started to realize that he really couldn't communicate or if he was we couldn't understand what he was saying. Suddenly, he seemed to snap back to normal as quickly as he snapped out.

Since he was fine so quickly, we weren't certain what to do. We contacted our "Ask a Nurse" line from our insurnance company, and they suggested that we take him to the emergency room at Children's Hospital. Clark and I promptly left, and Steve stayed home to watch Shea. We were all in shock - hoping for the best but fearing the worst.

Luckily, it wasn't too busy at the Emergency Room. We were quickly admitted and waited for a doctor. Once we explained what happened she said that she would request a CT Scan. Clark was very brave and did well. It took another 45 minutes or so for the results. The results came back normal, but the doctors diagnosed it as a possible partial seizure. It was also suggested that we have an EEG performed and a MRI, as well, to rule out anything else and clearly identify what happened.

It was shocking. I couldn't believe Clark could have epilepsy, since he plays so many video games, and we had never seen anything happen before. Plus, there didn't seem to be a history of epilepsy in our family. We were able to schedule his EEG for today, but we wouldn't be able to have his MRI completed until mid-August.

Steve and I both took a vacation day to take Clark to his EEG. It was pretty intense because we had to keep him up until midnight the night before and then wake him up at 4 AM. He needed little sleep to ensure that he could fall asleep for the test. Before falling asleep, the technician had him hyperventilate by blowing on a pinwheel. Then she placed the strobe light in front of his face and tested him with various speeds. Finally, he took his 20 minute nap. The technician had me lye down next to him for comfort during the tests, and I even fell asleep for a few minutes.

We're now anxiously awaiting the results. Still fearing the worst and hoping for the best. It is hopeful that the CT Scan would have picked up anything terribly wrong yet it came back normal.


Last weekend we headed to Lost Burro Campground near Cripple Creek, Colorado, for a fun time with Clark's Troup 252 campout. Our tent is the orange one in the middle.

It has literally been YEARS since last went camping. Steve and the kids convinced me to go, by saying, "It's only for one night!" It was a nice time. The campgrounds were lovely even if the bathroom was a 7 minute walk. (I don't do peeing in the outdoors very well.) The kids had a lot of fun. Shea joined right in with the boys on everything.

Here she is building her marshmallow gun.


We had some fun campsite neighbors who kindly shared their bubbles with us, too.


Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the kids playing with the campground kitty who promptly seemed to hang out at everyone's tents. We woke up a couple of times to find him/her cuddled up in our "vestibule." Such a tiny little, black kitten. It made the kids ask to have one, and I must admit that I'm seriously considering it.


Mystery Stole 2006 update - I attempted to start working on the second half of the stole. Unfortunately, my knitting was not cooperating. I decided to start working on the other side of Clue 1. There was way too much slack in the cast on that I needed to tighten up. (The knitty provisional cast on instructions were terrific, but I doubt I'll ever use two needles or a larger one to cast on over again. ) I ended up with about 2 feet of extra yarn. Yet I ran into a snag at the end because there was a knot! It may have been my first cast on slip knot, but whatever it was it would not budge. Since it's laceweight yarn, I just can't seem to get into the knot to lossen it up. I was so frustrated I decided to give up and start over. I never frogged it though in the hopes I might be able to finally work the knot out. However, the more I think about it the more I think I won't complete this stole. I'm not overly thrilled with the design and my bead placement.

With Mysterly Stole 2006 set aside I decided to take Shea's Summer Swing Tank to Clark's EEG. It's nice to work on something a little mindless after the lace of the Mystery Stole and Ella.

Here she is in all of her unblocked glory.




Pattern: Ella
Yarn: handpaintedyarn.com Lace Pure Wool double-stranded in Buscando Azul & Emaral Blue
Needle Size: US Size 8
Started: 6/11/06
Completed: 7/19/06
Special Notes: This was a simple lace pattern that remained challenging and fun to knit. I love the V shape of the shawl, and I think I may actually use it. I am rather pleased with how the two yarn colors blended together, but the Buscando Azul is much more of a royal blue color than it appeared on my monitor. I may knit Ella again in a different colorway some day. I'd love to try handpaintedyarn.com's merino lace, since I've heard it's softer than the Pure Wool Lace. Now if only I could get the energy to block her.

We just returned home from a fabulous weekend in beautiful Breckenridge, Colorado. We picked the perfect weekend, too, to head out of town for a couple days, since it was over 100 degrees here at home. We had such a fun time with our friends - the Browns. We stayed at the family condo of one of Steve's former co-workers. It was only a short walk to town and the brewery - perfect for beer and shopping!

We even brought our family dogs - Lilo and Charlie, the Browns' cute black shar-pei/lab/golden retriever mix. There was a dog park just across the street, and Lilo and Charlie had so much fun socializing with other dogs and running around. Truly, I don't think you could live in Breckenridge without owning a dog. (Sadly, no pooch pics to share.)

One of the highlights of the weekend was going down our first Alpine Slide. Of course, the boys loved to go as fast as they possibly could! Shea finally agreed to try it out and loved it, too, albeit at a slower pace.

Poor Shea she had a stomach bug that resulted in mostly stomach cramps all weekend, and I spent way too much time in numerous bathrooms in Breckenridge.

Regarding Ella, she is frustrating me terribly! Tried to make some headway this weekend, but after restitching the same two rows three times, I've decided to try to figure out where I made my mistake, and if I have to frog a four or five rows, then so be it.

Regarding Mystery Stole, I'm half way through Clue #1 on the first side. I'm uncertain if my bead placement was a good idea - can't decide if I like the beads at all. However, I'm going to keep on knitting. Since Clue #2 has now been released, I have to decide if I should continue on one side only, or remain a little behind and work on both sides.

So I woke up this morning with a very sore (like a pinched nerve or cramped feeling) right hand ring finger. I think it's from all of knitting I've been doing lately, and working with laceweight and stiff Boye's cables is not helping in the least. Plus, my back feels strained too. AAARGH! Since when did knitting, what I thought was the ultimate couch potato sport, become hazardous to my health.
Bummer, too, because I don't know how much it's going to hinder my knitting today. But like the knitting athlete I am, I will persevere, injury or no.

Woo Hoo the first clue has been posted! It looks to be fabulous! Can't wait to do some knitting tonight!

:Later:

I managed to complete the first couple rows, but it's not easy. I'm still struggling with the laceweight fiber. And now I truly understand why everyone complains about the stiffness of the Boye's interchangeables' cables. As I noted before, I'm attempting to use a cable as waste yarn to be picked up later. However, since it's so stiff, it's difficult to keep it out of the way. It's hindering my knitting, and it makes me grip everything too tightly. I'm hoping that once I get into a few rows of the pattern it won't be such an issue. I am a little concerned that I'm not going to be able to use my beads. I'm hoping to get more comfortable with knitting lace. Right now, I'm just frustrated.

And I haven't made good progress with Ella either. Somehow I've been off 2 stitches, and this after frogging 3 times! AAARGH!! (My pirate speak in recognition of the opening of Pirates this weekend. Me thinks we'll have to make it a point to see this one in the theater.)

It's so hard to go back to work. Gotta purchase lottery tickets more consistently.

Myth or Not - Biscuit Bullet

Don't know if you've heard the biscuit bullet story about a woman who thinks she's been shot in the head because a refrigerated biscuit container explodes, hits her in the back of her head, and she thinks the biscuit dough is her "brain".

Well, Steve left a package of crescent rolls dough on the counter with the intention to make it for dinner. It sat out for about 45 minutes and promptly exploded it's end, shooting half of the dough out of the container onto the counter and sending the other container half with dough shooting upwards and into a nearby box. Sadly we didn't take a photo as proof, and I don't even recall hearing any "explosion." Yet it would be safe to say that you shouldn't leave unattended dough containers alone on the counter . . . .

Now he just spilled a pint glass of beer all over our upstairs computer desk. I think the husband should not be left unattended. I don't even want to know.

And with that I think I'll do some knitting.

ETA - I finished the first side of Ella yesterday afternoon. I'm hoping to get her mostly finished before I start on the Mystery Stole.

Actually, only the sparkler variety. Typical of July 4th in Denver a huge thunder storm moved in right as we were getting ready to leave for fireworks viewing. There was even a Tornado Warning issued for Arapahoe County. Only the rain didn't start at our house until around 10:00 pm. We decided not to attempt to try to view any Aurora's fireworks display, since it seemed highly likely we would be sitting in the rain.

The tornado warning really spooked the kids, but once they started to relax, Steve broke out our stash of 4 year old sparklers.

Here's Shea modeling her 4th of July tee-shirt. Funny thing is she hates to wear tee-shirts, since she thinks they make her look like a boy.


Taking a computer break to play Tetravex, our latest family game.


Poor Shea she was still a little intimidated to try the sparklers, but maybe next year.

Love the 4th of July, if merely for the fireworks!! The kids always get excited to see fireworks. It will be a late night. Too bad I go back to work tomorrow.

Hoping to get some knitting done today, too. Making good progress on Ella even though the decreases look more like increases and I spent all evening reknitting what I thought was an error but wasn't. Oh, the craziness of knitting. I would post a photo, but it looks like a lumpy mess right now.

I am very pleased that I finally figured out how to complete a provisional cast using my Boye's circular needle cord for the "waste yarn" last night. This was an awesome tip posted by one of our Mystery Stole 2006 members. I can't wait to see how it works, when I start knitting on the "waste yarn" side. I looked for cast on directions at See Eunny Knit and KnittingHelp, but it was the article at knitty which really helped me understand how to do it. Put it this way, I didn't wrap the needle around the yarn. Instead I wrapped the yarn around the needles. Maybe not the most efficient, but I think it worked. In my mind this provisional cast on creates figure 8's around the needle and the waste yarn. Anyway, that's how I would describe it. We'll have to see if I did it correctly once we get the first set of instructions. Here's a photo of the cast on with one knit row. The bottom cord is the "waste yarn."



Have a Happy 4th of July!

There are blogs and then there are BLOGS. Sadly my blog remains only a blog. I envy blogs like these knitting ones:

See Eunny Knit
Knit-Errant
Athena Dreams

Funny, informative, and don't forget the beautiful photos. Oh, to be able to have such an awesome read. I must admit my favorite blogs I read are rather eclectic (and not all about knitting), and I randomly keep up with them at best. But they are fun to peruse, and you can't help but feel like some of these people are friends that you woule like to get to know better. I guess that's what I like about blogs. You get a glimpse of another person's life and realize that we all have something interesting we can share and maybe even some idiosyncrancies that are frustrating yet heartwarming in that they are idiosyncrancies we share with perfect strangers.

So with this in mind I've done a little blog updating of my own. Since I love to see lots of photos, I've changed my blogger design to a more streamlined one. We'll see how long I like the new look. If only I took more time to learn html and do some customizing, but how can I manage a beautiful blog, keep up my knitting, feed my children, go to work, and all of those other mom/wife/friend/employee type things? Oh well, at least I can vicariously live thorugh the lives of better bloggers than I.

Shea is so excited to go to Kindergarten. Since our Super Target now has school supplies out, I went ahead and let her pick out her very first backpack.

Six days off, and so far I have burned off two doing pretty much nothing. Even much of my Ella progress is heeded with knitting errors on my part and much frogging. I keep reminding myself that I originally took the time off for a trip to Minnesota, which we had to cancel due to high flight traffic. (Yes, maybe we should plan to buy tickets instead, but it's not an easy thing to budget for a family of four who is used to traveling non-rev.)

Tuesday evening Steve and Clark returned from Magness Camp.



They asked us to meet them at Red Robin for dinner. Since Shea and I had a little time between Shea's swim lesson and our dinner date, we stopped by Hobby Lobby. I purchaesd an additional set of Boye's US Size 4 interchangeable needles along with another cord. Plus, Shea picked out some Caron's Simply Soft in off white (looks like a pale yellow) and pink for the Summer Swing Top. Now I just have to finish Ella and squeeze in some time with Mystery Stole knitting to get it finished before summer ends.

I left work early/on-time Wednesday afternoon to catch Superman Returns with Steve and the kids. (Steve actually took two weeks off!) Overall, I rather liked the movie, and mostly because Brandon Routh is just too hot not to enjoy looking at. However, Shea got pretty bored - only one potty visit though. The story seemed to move very slowly, and there wasn't as much action as I would have liked. It concentrated on Lois and Superman's relationship instead of Superman's herorics. It didn't help that the movie is quite long. I think that Clark enjoyed it, but again the whole love story thing probably wasn't very impressive to a six-year-old boy.

However, that is about the extent of doing anything so far on my vacation. Thursday I spent with the kids while Steve ran errands purchasing items for this homemade saki he plans to start with a friend next week . We attempted to go to the school playground, but that was cut very short due to Shea dramatics (sobbing about everything) and the heat.

Yesterday, was my errand day. I've decided that since my Mystery Stole is in a pastel, I would attempt to make it more jewel-toned-like with beads. It will be my first time knitting with beads, and since I don't even know the pattern (why it's a mystery stole), it's probably not one of my brightest ideas. But once I get something like that in my head, I can't get it out. I purchased a smaller crochet hook to use with some tiny Mill Hill aqua beads. I, also, visited a terrific bead shop, Bead It, which carries a multitude of sead bead colors and varieties. Bead heaven! I bought some teal colored triangular beads. Should add quite a bit of sparkle. We'll see which ones I ultimately decide to use, if any.


I finally took some time to visit the new knitting store, which ironically replaced one of my favorite scrapbooking stores. It's called The Knitting Habitat. What a beautiful shop! The service was terrific! The owner Gina and her assistant Terry really made me feel at home! The yarn selection is outstanding with everything just calling at you to touch it. And the store samples are sooo inspiring! I plan to make it a point to frequent the shop often, even if my budget doesn't like it, especially since it is so close to home. ;) I purchased a mini Kacha for Shea's Summer Swing Top. I think this may be the best way to easily count rows.

In more knitting news I also purchased three (yes 3!) Noni bag patterns. Couldn't help myself when I found they were on sale at Diva Knitting. My sister was particularly enamored with my cable purse during her visit all the while giving me specifics on what she would like best - larger, wider, colors, etc. Since I don't particularly like duplicating anything, I think I'll knit a Noni bag for her instead. Now the fun begins with deciding which one and what colors, yarn, etc.