red belt

This is going to be a short post because, well, I took down the ceiling in the dining room (yeah, I get to find even more knob and tube wiring - lucky me) but my computer is now on my bedroom floor and it is really hard to type sitting with my legs criss cross applesauce. I spent two hours last night trying to remove the sticky big gap filler from my hands (yes you are supposed to wear gloves). I got slimed when I cut into a piece of the foam, which I thought had dried. I basically flayed the flesh off my fingers with repeated bouts of goo gone, nail polish remover, baby oil and heavy duty hand cleanser all with a nail brush - my hands are still probably highly flammable from all that crap. I will never not wear gloves again, my lesson has been learned. Oh, but when will I learn my lesson about taking down ceilings...
So Owen got a red belt tonight, here he is breaking his board, he could have done it with his head but chose the more sedate elbow strike
Let's hear it for the boy! Oona clearly worships her brother and was cheering him on when she wasn't telling people that Owen was her big brother.
Owen gets his belt
Oona also found a new best friend in A-. When we left she was screaming her name like Stanley Kowalski screams 'Stella' inStreetcar Named Desire. Little A- is french and unbelieavably adorable, they played very well together during the belt testing - thank God!

lemongrass scarf

Here's the moss stitch scarf that I finished last night. I love the acidic green of this yarn, it's lion wool-ease thick & quick in lemongrass. Obviously I'm getting most of my yarn from Joann fabrics at this point. I'll read about all these exotic skeins that people write about on other craft blogs, it all sounds so lovely but with my newbie knitting skills and wee small portion of my income being disposable, I figure I'll stick to the cheap yarn until I feel skilled enough to branch out to the hard core, expensive knitting yarn. Although anything with wool seems to drive my neck crazy which is problematic in terms of me enjoying what I've knitted, oh dear. The moss stitch was easy enough to figure out how to do especially after viewing a couple different youtube videos, one was very helpful in recommending having an odd number cast on so you don't have to figure out whether to knit or purl for each row. I like knitting where the thinking is minimal. But my Mom would like a more lacey shawl type thing so I think I'm going to have to start counting stitches and paying more attention with the knitting, at least for whatever I make her for Christmas. Can anyone recommend a relatively easy lace stitch and/or shawl pattern? Hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend, I'll be panicking about how I'll manage Thanksgiving of me and the kids when I don't really enjoy cooking and the kids don't really enjoy eating. What to do what to do...

Here's a peek of scarf number 6 in my knitting madness of late. It's a boucle type yarn (by Bernat, courtesy of Joann fabrics) that is so so soft and itch free. The scarves I made with homespun yarn scratch me to much so I gave one to my therapist, she remarked on how lovely the color of the yarn was, hopefully she wasn't just being nice. God knows I owe her much more than a scarf worth of thanks, she's been super helpful in helping me adjust how I look at things, especially myself. Thanks to Kristi's envy inducing post I already learned the moss stitch, via youtube. I hope to have my moss stitch scarf completed by this evening, will post a pic when it's done.

In a venture I'm still questioning my sanity on... I signed myself up for match.com. Oh my. It's like high school all over again. It's a bit of a social experiment for me. I am pathologically shy and unflirtatious in the 'real world' so we'll see how I fare in this virtual circus. I'm not even sure that I'm ready to date at this point, it's more to see what is out there. It's scary, so far the person whose profile interested me the most was a girl who winked at me from Far Rockaway New York. She probably just winked as a joke but I winked back because she's one of the few who can spell and use grammar correctly, actually reads books (gasp!) and she looked cute, much cuter than 99% of the men who have winked at me. And let me tell you, some of the people on this site are downright sleazy here are three emails I received from one guy, I use the term loosely

1. hi can u text me a picture of your self? (sic)

2. are you real??? lol (I will admit in the written world I subconcsiously wind up penning usernames that could sound like stripper handles. At first I wrote Ameliaplum but I didn't want anyone to find my blog so easily by googling that name so I changed it to asweetplum, whoops. I did not mean to sound so suggestive. Now it's apositivedeviant, kinky yet I'm using it as a screening tool for people who might notice the double entendre or, at least, be willing to see if there's more substance beneath the surface.)

3. hi what part of city you in?

my response

Hi,

I'm not texting pictures to people who won't put a picture of themselves up here, but there are photos of me online now so the point is probably moot. In reference to whether I'm for real? Um, I don't really know how to answer that, in what respect do you mean? If you write back with a photo and something of substance I'm more than happy to have a conversation but I've got to tell you the notes you've written so far are really close to demeaning.

And this asshole's response was 'some people just don't know how to have fun' which I think I do, but I'd hit up the casual encounters section of craiglist (some real eye opening posts there) rather than match.com advertising an interest in a long term relationship. Yeah. So as I say, it's high school all over again.

sunshine

My daughter is trying to seduce me, and it's working. She turned a corner with her fourth birthday. She's much more even keeled and doesn't throw nearly as many temper tantrums. She'll still get upset about things and whine but it's a minor blip compared to the flare ups she used to have where she'd shriek in a way that must have instantly spiked my blood pressure to imminent stroke levels. But I road it out, miraculously enough, and she's still strong willed but so much more manageable. Now it's Owen that's throwing mouthy comments my way, sulking or stomping off when he feels I've wronged him, although he never gets far since he won't go upstairs without me or his sister also being up there. Of course it would work this way, when one's nice I'm on the other's shit list. Driving to karate this evening Owen was pouting because I said no tv for the night after he breathed on my sideview mirror and put yet another happy face on it. I sound like such a bitch, I know. But I've asked him not to do this at least half a dozen times, one of which was 45 minutes earlier when we were entering the gym. So he stared off in his back seat while Oona sang a song she made up, she's always making up songs.

I love you Mom
I love you Mom
You're my best friend
I love you Mom

I turned around to thank her for singing such a sweet song to me and then she started to sing You Are My Sunshine but put Mommy in for Sunshine. I told her I was going to cry that was such a sweet thing of her to do and then I had to explain what I meant because she couldn't get how I'd be happy and want to cry. Once we got to karate she did act up a bit; little fits, trying to get things out of my purse, she caught my neck zipping up my jacket, it's hard not to act upsitting for 45 minutes while her brother practices. But after her bath I read her a story and snuggle bunny (our term for cuddling) with her for a few minutes, and she falls asleep within five minutes. I know I can't get my hopes up too high, she's yet to hit her teen years but she's so so nice to be with right now. I'm just enjoying this sweet stage she's in.

sidelined

Well my career of cleaning houses has hit a rough patch. I seem to have a pinched nerve in my neck, at least that's the only explanation I've got for the pain from my ear to wrist along with the various aches along the right side of my back and the fact that my hands go numb at night. I saw a doctor yesterday, with the kids since they were off for Veteran's Day, what fun. And I got an X-ray of my cervical spine. So I'm supposed to take it easy and pop 800mg of ibuprofen and if I don't improve by next week I can start physical therapy - yeah! Nothing like squelching my source of additional income with an injury that will probably negate any money I made after the co-pays for all the doctors visits are paid for.

One thing I omitted on the previous post was that the woman who gave me the massage last week apologized for it taking a while to schedule an appointment with her. Apparently she had had three clients die within the past week. When she told me this my initial thought was, do I really want hands that seem to be a harbinger of death on my body? But then I swatted that superstitious thought away, I was just being silly. Now I'm not so sure. My entire right side, above my hips, is in pain. I've been dealing with some other pain too though. My Dad came to visit me last week and, though it was wonderful to see him, I think Jabba the hut is more active. Okay, that might not be fair, I picked him up from the bus stop and he was easily winded, he's having problems with his left lung and was supposed to get a chest cat scan this week.

But he stayed for five days and at this point in my life, which is more than a little stressful, if you can't help me out at all when you visit (okay he did do a few loads of laundry but that includes his own stuff) I can't handle the additional stress. I had driven to Home Depot for 15 minutes and in that space of time Oona took my knitting off the needles (I make it a point of impaling them into my ball of yarn), dumped the contents of my purse and drew cat whiskers on her face with my lipstick. When I came in my Dad was oblivious to this, which happened in the living room where he was sitting not 5 feet away from her. He would go up the street every morning to the Rite Aid where he'd pick up couple papers and spend the day on the crossword puzzles, followed by suduko and then he would read while I did my daily beheaded chicken dance of the beleaguered mom. I asked my Dad if he could leave a day early so I could gut my kitchen ceiling, yes I am insane. He did and we had a lovely last night out for dinner where he paid. I was going to treat him for his birthday but he insisted on paying, he'd come into money since winning in fantasy baseball - woohoo!

What am I doing up so late, again?! I've got to pop some mega ibuprofen, get to bed and hope I don't wake up feeling like elves have pummeled my back and torso during the night.

bite your tongue

I was all set to write a post about this woman I got a massage from yesterday, who is a little out there but her massages are incredible, truly. And she'll offer little plums of wisdom while working on knots, like the huge one lodged in my right tmj area (I can't wear my bite guard anymore because I've ground it into a serrated knife that hurts my tongue when I wear it, in seven months time) You're holding back on saying things tell me about it I managed to say. Oh. My. God. I'm a flipping people pleaser, I've held my tongue so many times I think it's why The Namesake appealed to me so much as a book because I could understand the characters so well, especially Moushumi Mazoomdar when she described her obedient, bookish, desperately lonely years in college. She had harbored lengthy infatuations, with students with whom she never spoke, with professors and TAs. In her mind she would have relationships with these men, structuring her days around chance meetings in the library, or a conversation during office hours, or the one class she and a fellow student shared, so that even now she associated a particular year of college with the man or boy she had silently, faithfully, absurdly, desired. I'm like that now but my imaginary conversations can be much more pedestrian, like just talking to people instead of being this mute dork who panics around men. I don't even need to be romantically interested, although that ups the dork factor exponentially, I just am a complete silent spaz around the opposite sex from ages 18 to 55. But I digress, I wanted to sing the praises of the masseuse but dropping the kids off at school today I bent over to help Oona out of her seatbelt and whacked my head against the car. I don't know how I managed this, it was like I suddenly was half a foot taller or unable to negotiate my body space with a coffee mug in my hand. I think I might have gotten a small concussion, I definitely have a bump (fortunately just where the hairline starts) but the worst was I wrenched my neck backward and any residual body yumminess from the massage just blew away with that blow to the head. Ugh. Oona is such a dear though, when she saw that I hurt myself she got all worried, making little whimpering sounds as she wrapped her arms around my legs hugging me. She can't bear to see those close to her in any pain, physical or otherwise.

So the bump might have affected me more than I know because this post isn't really following a coherent thought. As long as I don't wake up to find what I've typed to be illegible though I figure I'm okay. Here is documentation, as if you needed any, of my compulsive nature. Two weeks into knitting five scarves down.
Scarf prototype. I had this yarn for twelve years, it's a good colored scarf for the fall/halloween season.
I made this one for Oona, although she doesn't seem particularly interested in wearing it, which is okay because I remember some John Cheever short story about a girl wearing a scarf who is killed when it gets caught in the t-bar skiing, I think that's how it goes I read that story in college, gulp, probably twenty years ago!

I've had enough of my face. I like this green but I think I'm going to have to start making cashmere scarves, my skin is so sensitive my neck is getting really itchy from these soft wool blends. No real surprise, when I exercise after having gone a few days without my skin will itch (I can't believe some people can get anaphylaxis from this, yikes)

And here's a blue blend, double strand, chunky yarn and fat needles are the way to go for knitting newbies. This scarf was done in three hours.

This orange blend is just like the blue one above it (and you can see it hanging out as a skien in the loden picture). Lion brand homespun yarn from Joann, no frills. This photo doesn't do the many beautiful color variations in the scarf justice. I got some beautiful pale blue alpaca and another super soft (hopefully not itch inducing) wool in this lovely heathered wine color,This Christmas will be the year of the scarf, and I got a crochet hook because I really really want to be able to make afghans, Christmas 2010 might be the year of the afghan. Pittsburgh winters are cold and I'd rather have a bunch of pretty afghans than a bunch of snuggies for all. Okay now I really need to stop procrastinating and start studying for this Clep test. The academic monkey on my back, I need this done before my birthday (5 weeks give or take).

happy halloween

Oona was a kitty once again but instead of being bad princess kitty (what she deemed last year's cat costume which had a shredded Stevie Nicks type gauze skirt) she was pretty kitty, the costume was a bit racy for a 2 - 4 year old with a pink collar that had a heart shaped tag with Meow in script, but Oona doesn't do collars. She doesn't usually do barrettes, headbands or masks of any type, the kitty ears stayed on for about a half hour which is very good for Oona.

Unfortunately this was shot at a party we went to on Friday. It was a great party; my friend went all out with the food, decor, everything. But Oona still seemed rundown by her flu. She wasn't the perkiest cat & kept asking to go home (when she wasn't taking her hands out of her underwear to grab apple slices. My hygenic daughter, coughs in her elbow when she doesn't have her hands on her butt) so we were one of the first to leave, at 7. And she was still not feeling well for Halloween. Toby took her to a few houses but she just wanted to come home and lie on the couch. Her eyes get very glassy and sort of hangdog looking when she's sick, poor thing. Oona likes to snuggle when she's healthy, she's very huggy and kissy, but when she's sick she snuggles even more. She acts like my cat, Sam, trying to get on my lap whenever I sit down. Thank God my kids are affectionate snugglers. I love that I can hug and kiss them with abandon. But Toby called me earlier this evening to tell me that Oona is running a fever again, I hate when my kids are not well.

H- made a headstone for Owen and a couple other lucky friends. He had an awesome wolfman costume on. My friend's got a rope swing in her backyard, that was the hit of the party for the kids, you should have seen the line for it. But that swing can make my anxiety go into overdrive, what doesn't really? I went on it over the summer and the combination of the swing with the slope of the backyard, you can get some major height on that thing and I'm always holding my breath when I see Owen fiercely clutching the rope with both hands, saying 'woohoo' in a tight voice, like he's as adventurous as H- when clearly the kid got my anxiety genes.

Candy please. Let me tell you when I found Owen and told him we had to leave the party early because his sister wasn't feeling well he was not a happy camper. He had a mini moody tantrum but I stood firm. I've got to be on him with his recent hissy fits. I don't yell but I'm not backing down and I'm making it clear that the behavior is unacceptable, hopefully drilling this into him will be a good preventative from any teenage moodiness - I can hope. Fortunately, after his bath he was happy to have me lie next to him in bed while we read My Father's Dragon.

Hope everyones Halloween was happy & healthy!

catastrophic thinking: pencil impalement

Oona got this in a gift bag from a birthday party awhile ago. I was holding off on letting her use it because I was thinking it looked like the graphite equivalent of a syringe. Okay, now I realize it's not as long as a typical syringe but that pencil tip looks pretty darn pointy to me, maybe the pencil equivalent of the epipen? And with the way my children fight in my presence, which is especially difficult for me since I'm an only child and have trouble knowing what's typical and what's not, I don't want to make a trip to the ER with the pencil tip impaled in some body part.

sick

My Mom came out to visit last week and she wound up rearranging her flight back because Owen & Oona both got struck down by the swine flu. I was so grateful I could have cried, yeah Mom! I had 3 houses to clean this week but the one lined up for tomorrow has been rescheduled since the woman is pregnant, I emailed her about my sick kids because I didn't want to be the swine version of typhoid Mary, so we're on for next Tuesday unless I suddenly get sick. Cleaning these house I realize that if I was to describe myself in one word it would probably be fixer. I love to fix things, try to make things better, it probably explains why I'm going into nursing and my compulsion to learn things, so I can know how to fix it myself. I cleaned for this older Mother and son on Tuesday, the son smokes A LOT, when I walk in I feel like I'm entering a bar. But they are so nice and the Mom is so darn grateful for the work I do, she said I was a superb cleaner and worth every darn penny. She was about to hug me when I left but just squeezed my shoulder instead. I would have hugged her but she has fibromyalgia and I didn't want to hurt her. Oh, my heart swelled. I think how genuinely grateful I am for when I get positive feedback from the people I clean for. Yeah, I'm not changing the world but I'm happy that they're happy and it's much better than being in some corporate job where professional relations can make getting positive feedback so, well, weird and stressful and bureaucratic -ugh!

Owen has been back in school since Wednesday (he was putting his books away in his locker and a classmate ran over and gave him a hug, awww) and I think Oona can go back tomorrow but even with my Mom's help those two have sucked the life out of me. They're over their illness but still sort of tired and whiny and add to it my Mom being here, does anyone else's children act up when extended family is visiting? Last night Toby stopped over while we carved Funkins (I had such high expectations but the funkins aren't so fun) Owen flippped out over having to finish his homework; he ran into a corner and said he was going to strangle himself as he placed the back of a chair against his throat. I was like, is he being overdramatic? or genuinely experiencing suicidal ideation at 7? or is he really that fed up with grammar homework? I feel so ill equipped to handle their meltdowns, and they act up so much with me. Everyone will say they're fine until I walk into the room. I don't know you here the palaver about how kids let loose with those they can trust the most but then I often wonder if I have some bizarre malevolent force the unleashes the inner Chucky in my children. When I picked him up at school today he was great, until we walked in the front door; then he was alternately railing at me for being the worst Mom ever, whining for my help and bawling over the slightest provocation. I took an hour nap just to recover.

hooked

Or maybe I should say needled? I guess the hooked title might be more appropriate if I'd just learned to crochet, which I would love to know how to do. As it is I invited some friends over for beer, cheese and knitting on Sunday and learned the basics of how to knit. Monday I went online and found a youtube video to figure out how to cast on and this is what I've managed to do since Monday. I have had this yarn lying around forever, seriously it has a price tag with a date stamp that says 05/97. It wouldn't be my first choice in colors for a scarf but I figured this is my scarf protoype and once I feel good with my newbie knitting skills I can graduate to the prettier yarn that I just purchased. I should not have started knitting when there's so many half finished projects in my house but, oh well, it's too late now, I've succumbed to the addiction that is knitting.

I have no qualms in telling you that I photoshop the hell out of most of my pictures, at least when the photo calls for it and I allow myself this wonderful method of procrastination (which is what I'm doing because there is a baseball game on when I'm supposed to be watching House, why? it's not even the Pirates, so I don't know why a new episode of House got preempted. Anyhoodle, up top is a new banner for fall pending any better shots I might take when we go to get pumpkins this weekend. I love this tree in Highland Park, the thing is in my mind's eye I'm able to block out the surrounding tress and focus on the beauty of this one, not so easy even with photoshop. And I'm totally annoyed that the upper left hand corner is burnt out.


The biggest reason I photoshop is to try and recapture the light in my photos, it never looks like it does to my eye, try as I might fiddling with the various modes on my camera. On fall days like today the leaves almost glow, the way they're lit by the sun and I wanted to show that but can't do it justice. My absolute favorite light play in fall is when it's grey and rainy but the leaves look lit, amazing but I've never come close to recreating that effect.


Mais non. Oona, my breathen, told me that she doesn't like fall, the horror. On the way to Ikea yesterday, when I was pointing out the amazing colors of the trees by the side of the road she let out this bombshell, in a deep, well for a four year old deep, foreboding voice. She had her arms crossed over her chest and said that she didn't like fall; she doesn't like the leaves off the trees and the punched leaves (the brown ones) which, she says, look like they've been bruised.

name the song

you'll never watch your life slide out of view,
and dance and drink and screw,
because there's nothing else to do.

Oh my God, they just summed up my twenties - kidding.

hint: it's on my ipod shuffle so it's a song that is good for dancing/exercising to.
No googling to get the answer!

Personal record for posts in one night, I'm just a blogging fool. Actually I'm procrastinating from doing any home renovation projects that beckon; my bare windows, the stripped doors to hang, the paint waiting to be put on walls & trim. Not tonight. I was daydreaming, thinking that I'm going to get pumpkins next weekend with Toby & the kids, we can't go this one because Toby has to go out of town for work on Sunday. Anyhoo I was thought maybe I should wear something like this. How much flipping therapy do think this poor child will need having a trollop like this for a mother. The thing is, take out those implants, bring her hair back to a natural shade, scrape off 90% of the makeup and put her in sneakers & for God's sake an actual top and she'd probably look pretty, at the very least appropriate for pumpkin picking. Oh but this is Hollywood pumpkin picking, what am I thinking, I guess heels and stripper tops are de rigueur. In these photos this woman looks terrifying and I wonder what sort of psychiatric disorder she sufffers from to need attention from paparazzi that badly, my guess is narcissistic personality disorder. I used to poke fun at the Left Behind series of books Toby's Mom, Aunt & cousin read, never to their faces, but I found the whole series, well funny, especially when the video game of the Left Behind series was spoofed on the Daily Show (which I've spent the past hour trying to get a link to but it's been removed from everywhere). But looking at magazines in the checkout at the grocery and the crap on tv, I'm wondering if the rapture has already occurred .

sibling rivalry

Being an only child I really feel ill equipped to deal with some of the routine struggles that occur daily with children. The constant fights and jockeying for my attention, then the tears when I show I don't love them as much as the other. I don't know how to handle it, brush it off? ignore it? I usually wind up explaining, to Owen, that he should be nicer to Oona because she basically worships him and will do pretty much anything he wants to do, she's like the ultimate playmate for him. But he frequently can't be bothered to play with the likes of her, especially in my presence, or God forbid, if I ask him to try and get along with her. Are most first borns the hothouse flower of the family? I'm sure I'm to blame having fussed over him too much, pruned him into this high maintenance despot who whines his every command. But Oona is like those weedy flowers that break concrete. Owen can tease, taunt, pick, and hit but if Oona wants she can easily overthrow him.