Super Chunk

We got home from the library at 4:50.  We had skipped our midafternoon snack, dorked around in the children’s section for a good long time, and then played at the park for a while.*

I offered Adam a slice of Crenshaw melon: melon that was dripping down my chin and Becky’s, melon that I was actually MOANING about, it was so fabulous.  He was sitting on the floor in the doorway, in the first available landing spot inside the house.  And you know what he said?  This child who absolutely Must Eat On Schedule said, “After I finish Madeline, Mom.”

*Some of us played.  I hunted up a couple of Ed Emberley’s drawing books for Becky at the library, and she not only wanted to read while she walked from the library to the playground, she wanted to read INSTEAD of the playground.

Boy, that was fast.  I started Fetching mitts on Saturday night (and I had quite a time getting the stitches joined in the round — it’s been a while, and everything seemed upside-down and backwards), and I finished the first one Monday morning.  (Click on those photos for big; I’m still kinda working the kinks out of blogging images with my new computer, and I haven’t hit on an appropriate image size to use consistently.  Besides which, the pictures would take up a lot more room than the text on this one.  I think I need a new layout.)

This second photo has truer color than the first — it’s a raspberry color (Crystal Palace Creme, color 13, wool/silk, unfortunately rumored to be discontinued) and I LOVE it.  This pattern is great, and just what I needed — quick gratification, simple to knit but not boring, and quite pretty when done.  I don’t think I love the picot bindoff specified in the pattern, though — I think I’ll use a couple rows of 1×1 ribbing on the next pair instead.

Also, there is a huge gaping hole under the thumb where I had to pick up stitches (only on the one side, though).  This is a chronic problem for me, happens on every pair of socks I make.  I would welcome tips or suggestions from any knitters who are reading.

I have to go grocery shopping.  Adam says, “You forgot that you were typing that thing until 8:30!”  As it is now 9:12, I think I’d better get cracking on my Tuesday.   Y’all behave.

I read The Happiness Project sometimes.  Not as much as I used to — like everyone, I have more information coming at me than I can effectively process — but I still find it interesting and useful.  I like the focus on being thoughtful and intentional about the way we move through the world, and I think it’s true that those behaviors can influence not only our own outlook, but the way that others perceive and react to us as well.

So right now Gretchen has put a call out for “secrets of adulthood” — things you didn’t fully understand until you grew up. Here are some of mine:

• You can never get inside someone else’s marriage.  No matter what it looks like (positive or negative), there is certainly more to it than meets the eye.
• It’s a lot better to ask a seemingly naive question than to muddle about pretending to know things I don’t.  Other people have questions, too.
• Flexibility is easier when there’s an established plan.

You?   Whaddaya got?

Let me begin by saying that I have not seen or talked to enough adult humans in the last couple of days (or, indeed, this week), so I am a little owly.  All that aside, I have been knitting nothing but dishcloths for about six weeks now, and I am pretty sure the bloom is off the rose on that particular pattern for the time being.  I’m getting a lot of time to work on these during tee-ball (which is great so far, BTW), so I’m thinking that I need Another Project.

I try really hard to be project-monogamous.  I don’t get much done if I don’t focus on ONE thing (and this is not limited to knitting), but my God. How many times in a row can I run through this pattern without ripping out my hair?

(Six is the answer, incidentally, and it’s only because I am knitting these at the direct request of my mother that I am continuing to knit them at all.  I’m almost done with the green one, and I think I may wait a few days before beginning the blue one.)

So yeah, I’ve been bored.  Knitting ennui, you might call it: too many ideas and not enough motivation to begin any of them, really.  Also I’m pretty broke, which takes a lot of projects off the table.  Today I went stash diving (which doesn’t take long for me — I’m trying not to HAVE a stash) and spent some time on Ravelry, and now I have grand plans to make some of these and one or two of these and also a pair of these, and maybe one of these as well.  And there is always sock yarn, and none of this will cost me any today-dollars.

Wanna know what else none of this does?  None of this addresses the issue of State Fair knitting, which needs to be done by the middle of August.  It’s possible that one of these smaller projects will fill the bill, and I also have half a pair of very lovely socks that I wouldn’t mind entering if I can get the other one done (though I’m not really feeling like knitting socks right now).  What I really would LIKE to make for the Fair is a Nantucket Jacket (it’s the cover image there), but there is No Frickin Way I can knit that fast.

There is also every possibility that I will make a batch of truly spectacular muffins and take them to the Fair.  Competition is competition, right?  And competition that doesn’t make me completely insane can only be good.

1. 4:30 yesterday afternoon, Adam dismantles a pink marker (one of about eight in my house that are NOT WASHABLE) and squeezes the little ink tube till it bleeds.  I learn of this when he decides that he shouldn’t touch the bathroom faucet with such very pink hands, and he comes to ask me for help.
2. 9:15 yesterday evening, I notice that neither my bobby pins nor the bathroom drain stopper are where they should be.  I don’t even bother to ask questions before taking the drain apart.  I am surprised when a Very Large Clump of bobby pins falls out (I was expecting only the two that I could see in the drain, silly me), and I say something like, “That’s kind of a lot of bobby pins.”  From his room, where he is supposed to be asleep, Adam says, “Oh, I did that.”  Yeah, of course you did.
3. 2:45 this afternoon, Adam calls me into his room during his putative nap.  He beckons me close and says, “I made a new plan for myself that anyone who comes into my room loses all of their dollars and I’m keepin’ ‘em.”

(I should mention that I just signed up at Tumblr: ceburke.tumblr.com.  I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do over there, but I’m there.  See you around, maybe.)

It’s kind of amazing to think of the recreational opportunities around me that revolve around growing, living things.  The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum is a fantastic place to hang out (though I have much more stamina for that kind of thing than my kids do), and it started out as test gardens for the U of M Ag School.  There is, of course, the Fair (which, though not run by the Ag School, is adjacent to it).  And this past weekend, Adam and Becky and I took a little excursion to the Lyndale Rose Garden, which is officially part of the Minneapolis Parks system, but is apparently run by people from (you guessed it) the U of M Ag School.  I wasn’t sure the kids would enjoy it very much, but there were fountains to careen around (one with spouting turtles) and I let them take a bunch of pictures of the roses.
Many of these photos have been printed; I’m sending them to my mother, who would LOVE this.  Adam took the photo above.  Nice work for a five-year-old, no?
We paid 50 cents to park for an hour (which is about as long as five-year-olds can gawk at flowers, even when there are fountains and the occasional mud puddle to inspect).  There are other gardens in the immediate area, and some general-purpose park space as well.  It’s even a pleasant drive to get there, running through a leafy neighborhood south of Lake Harriet.  Definitely worth doing again.

Yesterday I wrote the final exam for my Internet Fundamentals and Design class, and now it’s OVER and I couldn’t be any happier about it.  I’m pretty sure I got a solid B in that class, and I think that’s perfectly fine.  Also it’s over, did I mention that?

I’ve been looking for a job, as you may know — it’s sort of important if we are to follow through with our decision to put the kids in private school –  and working for Hennepin County Library would be a dream job in many ways.  It’s big, it’s well-funded and well-run, it’s committed and effective in implementation of tech tools, and it’s a well-regarded library system on the national level.  They have not, unfortunately, been offering the kind of work I’m looking for (which would be the paid kind).

HCL took on MPL as of January one — Minneapolis has been plagued for many years with funding problems, to the point that three branch libraries were closed with their collections locked inside, and nobody could get to any of that stuff.  The merger allowed those branches to reopen, although there are a lot of details that still need to be worked out before the system is truly one integrated entity. Merging the two catalogs is a particularly hairy issue.

News this week has been that the merger was far more expensive than anticipated.  Follow-up coverage indicates that HCL may be looking at layoffs to cover the shortfall.  Which is why they are not offering me a job.  Sigh.  (Read those stories quickly; in about a week you’ll have to pay for them or get them from, ahem, the library.)

In other, more pleasant news, I’m in the process of applying for a district job in the district where I live (waiting for reference letters to finish that one up).  I’m still holding out hope for a PT Media Specialist job at a local independent school.  I applied for a PT Media Specialist job in a high school not too far away (though I am PETRIFIED about high school, this media license is K-12 and PT jobs are sort of rare).  And I finished an application for a Youth Services library job in the next county west.  So at least I have options, and the worst possible scenario involves temping or subbing, neither of which is all that bad.

Best of all: my class is over (I said that, right?), and now I have the rest of the summer to goof off and redecorate Becky and Adam’s bedrooms.  Yay.

Hi there. I seem to be spending more time doing stuff than blogging about stuff. Kinda leaves any readers I may have left out in the cold, but it’s working pretty well for me. Here’s something I’ve been working on (not just the elephant, also the website, which I built by hand). Enjoy.

It’s kind of a cop-out to be only about links, I know.  But my HTML class is getting fairly hard (also fairly close to over, though it will get worse before it gets better), and I’ve been making some toys from Wee Wonderfuls rather than keeping house or reading books or writing anything other than code.  Oh, except I wrote the first installment of a monthly column on kids’ books and activities for my local MOMS Club newsletter!  Will talk more about that later.  Also, one of the toys is the subject of my final website for class, so I will figure out where to upload that site and you’ll see the whole process in gory detail sometime after Monday (which is when the site is due).
Anyway, Wired has some good tips for making effective digital presentations today.  I found Buzzfeed thanks to Dan (not consistently safe for work, but mostly OK) — evidently Yahoo is shedding executives like dandruff, and there’s lots of other interesting stuff there.  I’ve been intermittently reading blogs like The Buzz Off at Alphamom.com, and Melissa Summers just linked to a huge kid-related to-do list for the Detroit area.  I’m thinking about creating that kind of list for here.  (Someone already made a list for Nashville, but I think it’s a little questionable.  The St. Louis list, on the other hand, looks excellent and might prove useful when we’re there this summer.)

OK, well, I’ve already taken more time here than I wanted to, and also my keyboard is on the fritz (I’m having trouble with H, 0, O, M, and P fairly consistently).  Have fun doing what you do.

In my pursuit of a relatively unstructured summer (and continued financial liquidity), I haven’t scheduled a whole ton of camps and activities for Adam and Becky in the coming months. I would deeply love to have the kind of summer that results in nut-brown, sun-bleached children and memories of everyday deliciousness rather than a string of Big! Exciting! Events! This does not, however, mean that we get to spend every day sitting around — for one thing, that doesn’t work for me when I’m in my own house, and also it’s only enjoyable up to a point. It just means that yesterday’s biggest plan was going to the library, and the rest of the day was about reading and playing board games and a tiny bit of backyard baseball during the few sunny minutes of the day. THAT kind of summer.

Today, my non-planning left me without a ready excursion. I asked the kids what they wanted to do; Becky had no ideas and Adam wanted to play more Trouble (under the dining room table, if possible). I popped into gocitykids.com with little hope of finding anything useful — sites like that are almost always poorly maintained — but there was a lot of good stuff! We ended up at a free concert by a duo called Alpha Bits at the Centennial Lakes Amphitheatre. Adam called a friend and invited that family to meet us there, so there were four kids and two moms and the Hokey Pokey and it was altogether a rollicking good time. For zero dollars. Which, since I took the kids out for lunch AND bought cheap yarn yesterday, was a VERY good thing.

Turns out the Edina parks people offer these concerts every Thursday, all year long — outside when the weather permits, but at the indoor park otherwise — and they are always zero dollars. Now, I know that this particular act isn’t very expensive to book (and I know this because the library loves them a lot), but still. Wouldn’t it be great if every city could do that kind of thing all the time? Thanks, Edina millionaires. My kids had a great time today.