blog filler...

cuz i don't have any new photos of the shawl to share. honestly, i haven't been knitting all that much lately. i've been feeling too blah to seriously work on the shawl. so unmotivated. if i could stay in bed all day i would.

that... and last night i timed how long it takes me for one row... 22 minutes. yes, i knit slow, but dude, that's a long time for a row. and the shawl isn't big enough to wrap around my shoulders yet. by the time it gets that big i'll be working an hour on a row! yikes!!

so instead i have some photos of my newest yarn from RubySapphire. it's their Luster sock yarn again (LOVE the stuff), it's called Juliet. sweeeeet.

a shot of the fun stuff sent along with the yarn... a magnet, some candy (yummm), and a coupon for 10% off. lovely :D

a picture with the flash so you can see the lovely sheen of the tencel:

and now i must put it away... up high... because this lovely fur ball is a girl after my own heart and is also loves yarn:
i'm trying to kill some time while i'm waiting for my bangs to bleach blond. from black (i just put the black in a few days ago... if i had thought ahead i would have left the bangs so they'd bleach faster). it's gonna take a while. it's been almost an hour already and i'm just at the ugly orange stage. Juliet is rinsing the bleach out of her hair as i type... we're putting pink streaks in her hair and "vampire red" on my bangs... so i'll resemble the photo of me you see on the right there again. now that this blog post is done, what shall i do?

i could clean, but no thanks. i have a job to do for John, but that involves going out to the garage and i'm not going to do that with goo in my bangs.

i guess i can pick up the shawl and do a row... that'll fill up at least 20 minutes and maybe my bangs will have gone from orange to yellow by then.

oh my lordy. the tweens have hit:

so... we found this video on the camera this morning. the tweens have certainly hit around here. i guess this is the new version of lip syncing to your fave songs in front of your bedroom mirror with a hairbrush, huh ;)

Pop Rocks...

freakin' adorable. she's about 9 weeks old.

and John didn't freak out when he came home from work yesterday to find a new kitten has joined the family.

not a great week.

my eyes are puffy from crying... they're not used to it... i don't cry often.

i look mahvelous dahlink. yuck.

seriously. there will be no more children in this house. i'm pretty upset about it. i'll count the two blessings i have already more often and hope i forget someday that i really want another kidlet.

my parents are coming over for the birthday party. they'll be here in just a little while. i can't wait until they see how awful i look. i don't want to have to go through telling them there will be no more grandchildren today.

anyone have a super de-puff beauty trick?

... must move on. i'll give myself a day or two to "mourn" and then i won't talk about it again.

just playing around a little.

over at meez.com. here's my meez. for now. my living room isn't that messy, but it would be if i didn't run around picking up after my messy bunch ;) i found the link through Shorty, who commented on my last post :)

the problem with shawl knitting...

is that it's really unbloggable. boring. photos all look the same...



even when your adorable, but extremely pesty, 8 year old son gets in on the action, the photos still look the same...


Jennie tagged me for a chain game... List/talk about 7 facts about yourself. Anything you find interesting that may come to mind. i'm supposed to tag seven more people, but the only person i can think of tagging is Tracy (don't worry Tracy, if you're not up to it, i really won't mind :).

so here ya go, 7 random Zeenesses:

- i don't usually eat breakfast. my tummy just can't handle food after sleeping.

- i am obsessed with Lost. i admit i've even spent time trolling around fan sites to read other people's theories, ideas, explanations... i hate that there are more questions than answers, but it's like a train-wreck... i just. can't. look. away. must. watch. more...

- ssshh... i secretly and quietly check out a few celebrity gossip sites every afternoon. gah, i know!! it's awful! i hate that the paparazzi stalk these people... and yet i'm part of the problem because i keep looking.

- i worry that my kids are going to be really screwed up when they're older because of their upbringing. with the un/homeschooling thing... are they learning enough? is it right of anyone to force education on anyone else? how do i find a balance between them leading in their own education and me leading so that i know they know things? there's no one else to blame but me if things go wrong and i worry about that... a lot.

- i forgot to order Juliet's birthday cake yesterday while we were out grocery shopping. so we have to go back out to Zehrs today to do that.

- i really, really, really want another child.

- i watch a lot of history shows on the laptop while knitting... about WWII, the Nazis, etc. about Great Britain, the monarchy, its history. a few about Canada (there aren't as many well made ones out there about my own country as there are about Britain... hrmmm). i watch many of the good ones over and over. i think it drives John a little batty... so i try to watch them over only while he's at work.

- one more, cuz i can. i really wish i were more fluent in Dutch and German. i have a computer program to help teach both these languages (and french) that would help, but i have to find it. gah. we got it for the kids, homeschooling ya know... we just haven't used it yet nearly as much as we should have. occasionally John will say something to me in German and i'll answer back in Dutch and then we'll both kind of laugh because we sound like an old old married couple reverting back to our respective ancestral languages.

mmmkay. now i must spend 25 minutes on the exercise bike (i'm so impatient to see the damn results), take a shower and get over to Zehrs again.

Lovely!

this arrived for me yesterday:


it's from Jennie... she even included adorable stitch markers!! it was like it was my birthday yesterday :D i LOVE the colours in this yarn. i'm *so* tempted to put down the shawl and start yet another pair of socks!

thank you so much Jennie! what a great little gifty/prize :D you made my week :D

yesterday was a great day :) the kids got ice cream (after my evil tooth was *finally* removed), had a "birthday" water fight with the neighbourhood kids, Juliet opened her gift from John (a pink Nintendo DS), and chose to eat out at Montana's for her birthday dinner. after dinner John wanted to stop by EB Games, so Juliet chose another game for her new DS (she has Hamsterz Life and Animal Crossing).

Saturday she's having her party... we're going to the movies to see Shrek 3 and then she's having a sleepover. gah! i hope i survive! she's only invited 2 other girls (and my mum!), but that's what worries me... 3 girls is bad... one always ends up getting left out. thank goodness my mum will be here, i'll have someone to lean on ;) of course, we have a *small* house... my poor mum is going to end up sleeping with me during the sleepover. lol.

anyhoooo... i better boogie. we've got to go order the cake for the party and do some grocery shopping. :)

Jennie... i will do the game you tagged me for as soon as i have a little more time :D

Eleven!!

where does the time go?!

just *yesterday* she looked like this:




pardon the photos of photos... i don't have any baby pictures in digital form. the top one is Juliet with me (gah... i was a mere 21 at the time and i look it!). the bottom one is Juliet sleeping with my father. i LOVE that photo :D

Happy Birthday Juliet!!

i can't believe it's been 11 years already. i just can't imagine life without my (not so) little angel :)

Happy Mother's Day!

yupperoonees. that's what i got for mother's day. a cell phone. guess John was really tired of me not answering our home phone ;)

i stayed up way too late last night downloading ringtones and such. gah. i've been bitten by the cell phone bug.

this is going to be a bit of a test for me. i have phone issues... i cannot answer the phone. it's really hard for me to do so. i don't know what causes it, but the thought of talking on a phone makes me panic. so i don't do it often. thankfully the new cell has text messaging, that'll come in handy. and i'm not going to give out the number to many people, in the hopes that knowing only a few people have the number will cut down on anxiety when it does ring. and for those who do have the number, if i don't answer, hopefully they'll understand and text me :)

Happy Mother's Day mums!! :D

more soap....

i know, i know... but i have nothing else to post and the photos turned out pretty good:



maybe i'll have to have a contest of some kind for bars of soap :) of course, i'll make the contest bars myself with supplies i've bought, i won't "steal" from the kids ;) anyone interested?

slowly, but surely...

the Harmony shawl is coming along... i do a row or two every day. it's a little harder to concentrate while high on Percocet, but if i go slow i can manage without too many dropped stitches:



Juliet's been busy! the purple hearts are our new Honeyed Apricot scent. it is DELISH!! it's a candy sweet (not sickeningly sweet) mix of refreshing apricot, sweet sugar, a dab of sweet grapes and a touch of honey. love it!


the orange triangles are Vanilla Bean:

last night was not a good night.

you may remember i talked about the evil tooth that was supposed to be pulled... but wasn't because my blood pressure was high?

it struck again.

i went back to the dentist to have it pulled... he *still* wouldn't do it because i didn't think to get a note from my doctor saying all was well. so i'm going *back* to my doctor tomorrow to get that, then back to the dentist on the 15th. i am BEYOND frustrated.

thing is, the infection came back. in a bad way.

in such a way that i ended up in emerg in extreme pain. i tried the after hours clinic... it was full. i called my doctor's office, was told to call TeleHealth... they couldn't help much. the dentist's office was closed... and i could. not. wait for help.

people, i have to say, the pain of labour and birth seems like a breeze after last night. at least while in labour you have a few minutes to catch your breath between contractions and you know that at the end of it all you'll have the best thing you could ever hope for.

tooth pain is not like that. it's constant, with pangs of super pain shooting down your neck and up the side of your face.

thankfully the doctor was very kind and understanding. i was given a percocet while there (along with a double dose of antibiotics and anti-inflamatories), two extra percocets to take home to get me through the night and prescriptions for all of the above to fill today.

if the fucking dentist doesn't pull this fucking tooth at the next visit i'm going to lose it. i will *not* do this again. there are people who need the space at emergency much more than me.

i am seriously at the breaking point. i even considered popping a LOT of tylenol 1's and getting John to just pull the tooth for me. desperation is an evil thing.

Lovely shawl... awful Jelly Beans...

the Jojoland Harmony Feather and Fan shawl is coming along nicely. slowly, but nicely. the colours are really pretty! i took a couple of photos without the flash, you can really see the pattern better in those. and one with the flash, which shows off the colour changes in a different light.




and the awful Jelly Beans?

are you a fan of Harry Potter?

than you've heard of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean?

yes... then you might know that Jelly Belly made 'em.

in...

every.

flavour.

here's the list from the back of the box: Bacon, Black Pepper, Blueberry, Booger, Buttered Popcorn, Cherry, Cinnamon, Dirt, Earthworm, Earwax, Grape Jelly, Grass, Green Apple, Lemon Drop, Rotten Egg, Sardine, Soap, Toasted Marshmallow, Tutti-Frutti and Vomit.

We spent our drive to and from Ikea today "testing" the beans. We each got a couple of gross ones to try. Somehow John only managed to get one gross flavour... vomit. I tried Black Pepper (not terrible), Booger (blech), Grass (not pleasant), Soap (yuck) and Rotten Egg (so. friggin. disgusting). Juliet nearly puked trying Sardine. Jake did NOT like Earthworm. Juliet claimed that Dirt wasn't nice, but not too bad either. i can't remember who tried Earwax.

hrmm... look at that list. those buggers made me try quite a few of the gross ones, didn't they?!

we laughed *so* hard eating the gross beans though, it was so worth the yucky tastes for the laughs.

not much else to show you...

so i'll post some soap the kids made yesterday. for hours my house had the alluring, yet rather strange, scent of a mixture of Honeydew Melon, Nag Champa, Patchouli and a pinch of Strawberry.

Harmony Shawl progress

so i decided to just use the freebie Feather and Fan shawl pattern with the Harmony to see how it knits up.

this is worked on size US2 addi circulars. it's very very very light... like, blow away in a slight breeze light. summer shawl light. it's slow knitting so far because everything is so fine. but i'm really liking the way the feather and fan pattern is turning out in the Harmony better than it's turning out in the dark green mystery lace yarn from my dad.

(you can click on any of the photos to make them bigger)