A Good Day

Today? Today was a good day.*

Today is the day CJ made the honor roll in high school for the first time! I am so happy for him; so proud of him. He has absolutely blossomed this year, and it fills me with those bittersweet 'my baby is growing up' feelings.

Today I had lunch with the lovely and talented Eme of the incredible TellThem!, she claimed to find me interesting AND funny, but the joke's on her, because she's the one with all the interesting and all the funny!

Today one of my brothers, Robb, posted a photo of Trina, the Project Manager at DeliverGood, offering to give her paid time off in exchange for likes. The largest potential prize is every Friday off - forever - AND no expiration date for collecting the likes! What a nice guy. What a fun idea! There's so much joy in what he does, and it's contagious (update: less than a day and already more than a thousand likes!) Not too shabby! Please consider furthering the #FreeTrina cause by clicking 'like' on this photo, eh?
(Look, it's Canada, okeh? I can't help it, eh?)

Today I did stuff, I thought things, I had ideas, I helped people get closer to their goals, and it was a good, productive workday. A fun workday. I counted my blessings to be surrounded by such good people.

Today I reached 700 followers for my public account on twitter (@tryjen). These 700 people include my entire immediate family (even my dog!), my extended family, friends, my work accounts, and then somewhere around 650 people who obviously recognize schadenfreude when they see it.

Today I arrived home from work to find four great things: 1)Tim cleaned the house! 2)He set up our christmas tree! 3)A package arrived from Joe! 4)Meredith's finger didn't fall off - I checked and everything!

Today I wrapped it all up with a celebratory bulgogi trip to The Blue Cactus for Mr. Honor Roll and his friend Victoria, and neither teenager seemed even the tiniest bit horrified. I'm shocked. Awed, even. They didn't even try to sit at a table other than the one where I sat. Internets, I daresay they even enjoyed my company! I don't think CJ was even a little embarrassed to hang out with his mom and his friend at the same time, and that... well, that feels like a pretty epic mom win.

* I didn't even have to use my AK.

Duckface

Duckface, a photo by @tryjen on Flickr.

In which Mer taught CJ about duckface, and then they posed for ironic MySpace mirror-mockery shot. They make me so very proud.

Welcome To The Jungle

If you are a sixth grader 'round these parts, chances are you're going to have to produce a project for science class on the topic of one animal and one plant. Not one to be saddled with just any old animal or your run-of-the-mill Venus Flytrap, oh no indeed, Miss Merry chose the the albino dolphin (it's PINK! You guys! A pink dolphin!) and the Pitcher plant.






That's her albino dolphin... cake. FOR SCIENCE.

Pitcher plants are carnivorous; their prey-trapping mechanism features a deep cavity filled with liquid, known as a "pitfall trap". As you might imagine, Pitcher plants aren't exactly the easiest plant to find, here in the 'burbs of Columbia, South Carolina.

That's a Pitcher plant.

Well, you might imagine that a Pitcher plant would be difficult to fins if you don't know about Jarrett's Jungle !Jarrett's Jungle has been locally owned and operated in West Columbia since approximately the dawn of time. Okay, so really it's more like 30 years, but the point, and I do have one, is that they've been around awhile. They also happen to be within walking distance from our house, staffed by some of the friendliest folks you will ever have the pleasure to meet, and when you walk in you are walking into an actual greenhouse, and that is cool. In a warm and humid sort of way.

So, when Mer asked if I knew where we might buy a Pitcher plant, I remembered the pleasant shopping experience I had with Jarrett's Jungle when we bought the Venus Flytrap for CJ's sixth grade project in 2009, and I looked 'em up on facebook. I love it when I find a company not only ON facebook, but actively engaging with their customers and using facebook. So I left a comment on their wall inquiring about Pitcher plants.

Score! They had three in stock, going for about $35 each. Yep. Thirty. Five. Dollars. Each. As in actual people moneydollars. But wait! There's more! Right there in that same comment, before even giving me the tiniest chance to choke on my coffee at the price of a plant I would certainly kill in record time, they proceeded with an offer to cut pitcher for us - like buying a single rose, only a carnivorous and honestly, fairly creepy, single rose. No charge. Free. On the house. On the greenhouse! Just because!

Internets, this is how you do it. This is how you earn customer loyalty and word of mouth advertising. This is how you absolutely thrill an eleven year old kid, her mom, and her science teacher. Because it would have been the easiest thing in the world for those nice folks to just answer my question: Yep, we carry them. $35. But, instead, they took the opportunity to perform a little act of kindness, and that little act of kindness made a big impact.

Thank you, Jarrett's Jungle.  Here's Meredith with her project board, Pitcher included:






Science!
Contact Jarrett's Jungle:Via Email: jarrettsjungle@gmail.comOn the Web: http://jarrettsjungle.comOn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jarretts-Jungle/94055097418Business Hours: Monday - Saturday: 9am - 6pm

Location: 1621 Sunset Blvd. West Columbia, SC 29169 

Phone: 803.796.4670



Jarrett's Jungle offers a variety of services including: Horticulturist on Duty, Local Delivery, Custom Arrangements, Plant Maintenance, Funerals, Weddings, Altar arrangements for Churches, Repotting, Insect and Disease Diagnosis, Pruning, and more. Visit their site for more information.

I Was Wrong, or The Handbag Tortilla Test

As you may or may not be aware, I have long-held the opinion that giant purses are a signifier of The Crazy (diaper bags excepted. If you have a child small enough that you need a diaper bag you have my undying sympathy, I will gladly watch your baby if you need a nap, and btw there is a spit-soaked cheerio in your hair).

Which is not to say that carrying a giant purse automatically means that I would judge you as a Crazy Crazerson, but I would indeed assign a little check mark. In my head. Actually it is more that when a giant purse presents alongside certain other things that I will make my McJudgyface. Listen, I've turned 37 since last this blog was updated, and that means I am (a) old and (b) have lived long enough to collect some wisdom. With that wisdom comes the self-righteousness of passing judgement on teenage girls in hot pants with giant purses and roach clip feather earrings. Do your mothers know what you're wearing? I hope you grow out of this.

So anyway, you guys, I was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. I was WROOOOONG.

You see, a few years back I learned to knit, and since then it's become a thing for me, you know? I do it a lot, as anybody who reads this blog or spends any time talking to me at all would know. So I reached a point where my one teeny little do-it-all purse was still enough to be pursey, but it was not pursey enough to accommodate my knitting. This meant I never took my knitting along unless I was going someplace expressly to knit, thus I decided to suck it up and buy a Mary Poppins/kitchen sink/crazyperson purse. That was months ago. I've kept my eye out, but because I am cheap I could not abide spending $30+ on a purse. Most of the purses throughout my life have been $15 or less, because to me they are not accessories. They are just a means of transporting my stuff, I usually only have one at a time (I'll wait while someone gets the smelling salts for Erin :), and I carry it until it breaks.

Okay, so: that's the back story which brings us to last weekend, when I had to take CJ to the maul so that he could hang out with his ladyfriend. (Sidebar: I hate the mall) He ditched me immediately, like you do when you're 13 and someone you recognize might omg see you with your mama in public, and that was when Mer and I visited Claire's. I found an enormous bag of holding which met all of my criteria: huge, cheap, and able to handle my knitting.

I have been using it for 4 days now. In these 4 short days I have grown incredibly attached to this bag, and I'm about to tell you why. Ready? Tortillas. The purse is so large that I didn't even notice I have been carrying a package of tortillas around for three straight days (I'm going to make soft tacos for dinner at some point this week. That sound you hear is Tim cheering).

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So you guys, I'm here to say it. You were right, and I was wrong. Huge purses aren't the human baboon butt of crazy, oh no! In fact they are the peacock feathers of utility and function.

My future criterion for purse selection: Does it pass the tortilla test? Because the tortilla test is the purse test of AWESOME.

Pics Or It Didn't Happen: I Still Make Stuff

Wow. It's been nearly a year since my first "I Make Stuff" post. How can that be? I don't even know. But the Internet never forgets, kids, so here's what I've worked on in 2010:

In March, I made a pair of mittens for myself. I had been stalking admiring the ones made by mom blogging rock star Angela over at FluidPudding and finally worked up the courage to give them a try. They were scary because I had never made anything with terrifying words like "thumb gussets" or using the "magic loop method", which frankly all sounded like dubious sexual acts and/or contraceptive methods. I only managed to get a photo of them (the mittens, not the sex acts) while in progress, but I made another pair later in the year, so you'll get to see those later in this post. They are called "Bella's Mittens", because the pattern was inspired by mittens worn by the Bella character in the Twilight movie. Don't hate, y'all - the pattern is gorgeous.

In May, I thought I'd give felting a try, finally. I spent much time and energy trying to decide on a mix of complementary colors, and in the process learned that I am really bad at it. I did not know that about myself.

And then suddenly it was summer. If you're a parent too, you know that summertime for parents is the exact opposite of summertime for kids. This is because there are no buses or hot lunches and it's eleven million degrees outside and everybody has to be driven to seventeen different places a day, and yet I still had to go to, oh I dunno, work. It's the summer days where my office is truly a vacation, people.

But you may recall that I made a condensation sleeve for CJ to take to camp, in June.

And I vowed that 2010 would be the year that I got the jump on Christmas knitting, so naturally I started with birthday and hostess gifts instead. I ended up making two of the rainbow bags for Renee's birthday (which, TO BE FAIR: December) and the purple one for when Rachel and Thom moved to Maryland.

Also in June I got the bright idea to hand knit by hand with my own hands a set of grocery bags for everybody's favorite vegetarian bunny huggers (our dear friends Tracy and Aaron). I figured: How hard could it be? Turns out: Pretty hard. Not that the pattern itself was all that hard, it just took forever to make four of them and by the time I was done I was so very, very, done. I finished the fourth bag on October 17. You may have already calculated that the duration of time spent knitting these bags is equal to that of a metric shitload. Of time. At least they're pretty.

And then it was later in July, and whoa! Jonesy and Donna were having a baby shower in twelve days. Twelve days to knit a baby blanket? CAN DO.

Meanwhile, the grocery bags were ongoing, and I was losing my mind, so I started knitting warm washable hats for the homeless. See, my friends are really good people, and they gather up food and go feed people who need to be fed on Thanksgiving day, in a local park. We call it Thanksgiving in the Park. The hats were sent along, except climate change hates us, hates us ALL, and it was nearly 70 degrees that day. So nobody really wanted a hat. Sadface. Thom and Rachel took them back to Baltimore, though, to give away up there. I hope they are getting used. Meredith models one of the hats:

OMG, Christmas knitting! Teacher gifts! Friend gifts! Crap! Now I'm behind, but I'm still knitting grocery bags! September sidebar: The Bella Lana Reversible Cable scarf, holiday gift for Meredith's primary teacher Mrs. P. I'm told she liked it!

In October, the grocery bag project was ongoing. Still. Forever. Teacher gift #2: A set of Bella's Mittens, this time for Mer's dramatic arts teacher. Purple and dramatic are totally her. She likes them, and is thankfully not allergic to 100% wool (I was worried).

It's still October! It's still holiday knitting! I'm still knitting grocery bags because they take forever! With my hands, by hand! Also Ginny really liked the yarn color I was using for Mrs. P.'s scarf, so I bought some in worsted and made a Very Braidy Ginny Cowl for Christmas. It looks really great on her, if I do say so myself.

And then it's October 31, I'm finally done with the grocery bags (hallelujah!), and my cousin and his wife welcome a beautiful baby girl. My cousin Brent is the first baby I was really around with any regularity, when I was a kid. He holds a special place in my cold shriveled heart, and now he's someone's DAD. OMG. This blanket was pretty difficult, at first, but I eventually got the hang of it. I started it on her birthday, and finished it December 6. I think it turned out great, and just look at sweet baby Claire!

The last project of the year was a last minute, weekend-before-holiday-break scarf. Mer came home from school on a Friday and said "My teacher says you’re very talented, and could you knit a scarf for J (her 6 year old)? It should be greens and white stripes. Thanks." So that’s what I did over that weekend. Mrs. P. later clarified that she meant for Meredith to ask what I would charge in money dollars to make such a scarf. I couldn't possibly, though.

So that was the knitting in 2010. If history is any indication, I probably won't post about knitting again until 2012. If you want to follow along in real-time, you should friend me on Ravelry.

Parenting

A couple of days ago, Meredith comes to me in the kitchen and says "Mama? Mama, what's 'douchebag' mean?"

CJ was absolutely dancing with joy behind her, this utter glee seeping from every pore at his unbelievably good fortune that such a spectacle was unfolding in front of him.

Then Meredith goes "...Tim told me to ask you"*, and then the children experienced their first real taste of schadenfreude.

*There was a competitive cooking show on television, and one of the contestants had used the word. Tim thought it best that I handle it.

For Harsh Betty

6:40am. CJ is in the kitchen, making himself an omelet. I am in Meredith's room, digging through the six-inch-deep layer of books, clothes, toys, shoes, and who the hell knows what which always covers her floor, attempting to locate something she's lost. Which: I don't even remember what it was, but she was wailing about it.

My right pinkie finger ever-so-gently brushes against a small tackle box. Not even enough of an impact to register as "I've touched something", but enough to knock the tackle box from its precarious position, which happens to be " completely open and balanced atop one shoe and maybe a barbie head". The box is, of course, full of loose beads that scatter absolutely everywhere, far and wide. There are probably some at your house, in California, that's how many of them there are and that's how big of a more-mess they made. OMG.

So, during the course of the room-mess-digging, CJ yells "Mom? Mom? Mom?" from the kitchen. He never comes to locate and then speak to me, no, he just yells my name until he finds me or I appear. I yell back, "JUST A MINUTE!" and finish explaining to Meredith just how much she will be cleaning her room before she is ever allowed to go anywhere ever again.

I exit her room, and join CJ in the kitchen, where I see that he has extracted a single-serving-size package of cheese cubes from its bag and is attempting to mince the cubes with a steak knife so that it will approximate shredded cheese, and then he intends to add it to his omelet.

Let me take a moment to point out that child had to actually move shredded cheese and sliced cheese out of the way to obtain the single-serving-size-snack-pack-bought-for-his-godforsaken-camp-lunches-which-you-may-have-read-about-on-this here-blog cheese. He informs me that had I appeared when he demanded it to be so, he would have been able to ask me about appropriate cheese, but I didn't, so he was forced to use the only cheese he could possibly find: The snack packs.

I refer you to "child had to actually move the shredded cheese and sliced cheese out of the way".

I would like to add: OH NO HE DI'IN. But oh, yes, he did.

The top of my skull removes itself from my head. "THAT IS NOT AN INGREDIENT, THAT IS A SNACK!"* comes flying out of my mouth. CJ looks at me like I've totally gone round the bend - and I make a mental note to tell you about it.

fin.

* "That's not a snack, that's an ingredient" © Harsh Betty

Ten

My baby girl is ten years old today. Where has the time gone?

A Merry first five years:

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Her second five years:

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Happy tenth birthday to my Merry baby. She's a complete joy, and I love her so much. I'm so lucky to be her mom.

Pics Or It Didn't Happen: I Make Stuff

I've been knitting a lot, lately (as you may have noticed). I'm enjoying this, because I've leveled up my Skill of Understanding about how certain things work, and why. I'm still not very good at following patterns; I start off just fine, and then I completely lose it somewhere in the middle and do whatever I feel like doing, until I'm done. This is due in large part to my inability to keep track of where I am and what I've completed, in said pattern.

I'm working on that.

My knitting bender began with CK's Christmas gift, which I started (with much self-congratulation) early enough to complete in time for Christmas. And then I actually completed it in time for Christmas. Whoa. (I still almost can't believe that I stuck with it and met my self-imposed deadline!) I chose to knit it on needles which were smaller than recommended, and that worked out well for the scarf; poorly for my hands. This was slow-going, and painful; I could get four or five rows done and then need to stop for days. I spent those couple of months sporting pain patches and ace bandages on my hands during this project, and people acted like I was joking when I said it was a knitting injury. No, really. It was.

Anyway, I really for-real-this-time followed a pattern, though, and here's the finished product:

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Then I made a softer, one-cable version for Tracy, but I don't have any photos of it, and I don't remember what the yarn was. It was soft and pretty and purple, though, and I liked how it turned out. Hey, Tracy, take a good photo or two, wouldja?

Next came Brenna's panda hat, which was a baby shower gift for Meg and Travis. This is the kind of knitting I do most often - make it up as I go along, and hope for the best. Tim pointed out the cuteness of making a panda hat out of bamboo yarn... which was entirely unintentional because I'm not that witty: I just liked the softness. I thought it was pretty funny when I saw Meg tell someone on Facebook that Brenna gets her ears from me. Hee!

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Photo by Travis (used with permission)

Around the same time, we learned that CK was going to be a daddy, and then in February we learned that the baby is a boy, so I chose a socially-dictated gender-specific colorway and embarked upon my first ever baby blanket project - another success at pattern-following.

As of this writing, the blanket is drying on Meredith's bedroom floor, after last night's wet blocking. I'll add some photos of the finished project "soon"... here's one from last week's "in progress" shot for Ravelry:

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And last but definitely not least, Merry's Little Mitts. She wanted mittens, I want to learn mittens (thus, these were my first attempt at mittenyness), and then when she tried the first one on halfway in (thank you, Magic Loop), she decided she wanted them fingerless. She's quite pleased with the result:

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February: Old Age

Oh look: It's February. Lots of things have happened in the 10 days of February that have already elapsed. Here are a few:

• CJ and his girlfriend (!) were written up at school for kissing by her locker. I had forgotten that public displays of affection are outlawed at school. Honestly I was just glad that this time he hadn't been in a fight.
• I got into a hit and run crash on the 3rd. Very scary. My beloved Saturn VUE is going to be in the shop until at least the 19th.
• Meredith started in the gifted program at school, made it into the talent show, and continues to be so booked with activities that she has to consult her calendar before making plans. She's 9.
• We're in crunch-mode at work. I mostly enjoy crunch time, but not when it requires days worth of a most dreaded activity. I've developed a twitch in my left eyelid while doing said activity. I'm convinced it is psychosomatic, and that's hilarious.
• Tim has been coordinated by the lovely and talented Tracy, and there's apparently some to-do afoot for my upcoming birthday. We don't usually do a lot of to-doing as regards my birthday. I'm thrilled and nervous. Speaking of my birthday...

I'm turning 36 this month. Day after tomorrow, actually. I've been having a constant feeling of unease in the pit of my stomach regarding this, even as I fully recognize just how ridiculous that is. Age Aint Nuthin But a Number, (whatup ghost of Alyiah!) and all. I know. It's petulant and privileged, and oh my god, Becky, look at her butt (and that was two (count 'em!) TWO early nineties song references right there!) and everything, but there it is: I'm having Gettin' Old anxiety.

Starting sometime some number of years ago around this pre-birthday time (how's that for specific?), I realized that I remembered my mother being the age I was about to be. That was unsettling. I approached thirty with the idea that I was going to dread it, every minute of it... but that never happened. I love my early thirties. Or, at least, I've loved my early thirties. 30 turned out to be great. I felt like I finally "came into my own", as They say. I took charge of my own life, made really positive changes, and feel super proud and good about the result.

35, on the other hand, was upsetting. Suddenly I was being addressed by pharmaceutical companies and tv doctors and other forms of media in a whole new way. Not as a desired consumer, but as a warned consumer. "Women over 35 should consult their doctor before...", "Women 35 and older should not...", etc etc. If I want to have another baby, I'm "high risk". 35 was a whole new ball game.

And so now I'm about to turn 36. That's "late thirties" by any definition. Ugh.

We Love Halloween

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Justin, as Henchman 21 from Venture Bros.



Malav, as Beastie Boys' Sabotage Cop.



Meredith, as Mouse.



Me, as Yip Yip.

Summer Fun: The Gargantuan Photo Cross-post

Vacation at Myrtle Beach


Click through for full set

CJ's 11th Birthday


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First Day of Junior High and 3rd Grade


Click through for full set

Cozy

Less than a month ago, I brought a pair of knitting needles and white yarn with me to Luau, since Ginny had agreed to teach me the basics. As luck would have it, Mandy's charming new girlfriend was with her, knittery in tow. We all gathered round as I learned the basic cast-on and knit stitch.

Then I bought a book, and whipped up a few scarves while the children were away. When they returned for Christmas, they had Tamagotchi toys from their father, and difficulty keeping track of 'em.

Enter: The Tamagotchi Cozy!

It began as a sort of protective case for Meredith's Tamagotchi, Bob, after a minor injury; a red jobby with a white heart on the front, and a long strap with which to wear it around one's neck. Then, of course, one had to be made for CJ. That one was more involved, with a skull and crossbones motif, and was knit during the worst most boringest stupidest movie ever.

They wore their Tamagotchi Cozies to school. They came home that day with requests from two of their friends. Then another day, another request. To date, I think I've knitted a total of six Tamagotchi cozies in two weeks. As I dropped the children off at school this morning, I saw a little boy leap out of a truck to join CJ on the walk into school.

Around his neck swung one of my cozies.

I'm such a cool mom. Or, you know, a gigantic pushover.