Plans, kids, and ex-wives

I made plans. Anyone who knows me knows that this is not something I do very often, at least not plans of any elaborateness because they invariably get fucked up. But I made plans for Valentine's Day, secret somewhat elaborate, romantic plans for M and myself. I was rather proud of myself for this and was looking forward to having some special time for the two of us next weekend. It seems like so far this year we've either had his boys on the weekends or he's had to work or we've been sick. We're both finally recovered from the nasty colds we had and we have his boys this weekend, so I thought everything was set. I was even going to arrange it so that he could stay out past 8:00 (it's a long story... he has to wear an electronic monitoring thingie on his ankle because he's been accused of something he didn't do. Even though the guilty verdict was thrown out he is still wearing the thing. basically it's house arrest from 8 pm to 7 am. Very irritating to both of us.)
I was busy today running errands. I got the yarn I am swapping with Pat mailed off after making the international shipping (it's just to Canada for chrissake, what's the big deal? Whatever happened to free trade?) far more complicated than it actually is. I also had to get some stuff notarized and faxed for another contest I won. You guys aren't going to believe I won this when you find out. I think I'm probably not supposed to say anything about it until it's officially announced, but it was a bit of a hassle with all the paperwork. Still, I got it done. That was before the post office.
In my defense, I have only actually been to the post office here one time. I have, however, driven past it on numerous occasions. It's right off the main highway through town, not far really from where I live. And yet, today I could not find it. I drove past it no fewer than FOUR TIMES before finally seeing it and getting Pat's parcel safely off to her.
So by the time I got home I was stressed and hot (over 70 freaking degrees in February! I hate this weather) and still needed to do the grocery shopping. But first I needed to relax and eat something. So I did. I had plenty of time since EB (elder boy) had a boy scout meeting tonight and M wouldn't be home with them until almost 9:00. Around 4:00 the phone rang.
I hadn't been home very long and still was on edge from all the driving and having to deal with people and the unknown and such. It was M. I rarely hear from him in the middle of the day, so I was immediately concerned. Turns out EB and, to a lesser degree, YB (younger boy) was sick. Feverish. There would be no boy scout meeting tonight and they would be home in about 3 hours.
I went off... why, if a child is sick, do you send him to someone else's house? That was unheard of in my family when I was a kid. If my brother or I got sick then all activities were cancelled and we had to stay in bed. Apparently their mom, who otherwise coddles them so much I fear they will shatter upon impact with the real world in a few years, thinks that sending a feverish 9 yr old out to infect his father and the father's girlfriend with whatever nastiness has been bred in him is more than acceptable. To me, that is bad parenting. The child would feel better at home, in his own bed. He didn't go to school, but he's fine to visit daddy and Eve. Lovely.
I was angry and I am less effective when I am angry. I didn't get the usual cleaning done nor did I get the grocery shopping done. I got the boys' room tidied up (it is my craft room when they aren't here and all my yarn lives in the closet in there, so it gets kinda messy) and the table cleaned off so that they could eat their fast food. Then they were here. And EB, all sick and obviously miserable, begins throwing a fit that there's no room for his food on the table. All he had to do was move his chair to where he usually sits or move the postal scale (it weighs less than a pound, don't grief me about it) or the small vase of flowers. But no. Instead daddy had to come fix it for him. He's sick, I know, and I should cut him some slack, but dayum, does he have to be even more helpless than his mommy has already made him?
It's after the boys have had dinner, and all is quiet. EB is laying down in their room and YB is on one of the computers in there. I had made plans for all of us to go to the nature museum on Sunday for the animatronic dinosaurs, but that clearly isn't in the cards for this weekend. I tell M that that's fine, we can take the boys in 2 weeks when we have them again. It will be the last weekend of the exhibit, so it's all good. Then he drops the bombshell.
"Or we can take them next weekend," he says, ever so nonchalantly. I look at him, puzzled. "No, we can wait. It's open until the 24th."
"No," he replies, "we have them next weekend."
...
...
... the tears weren't immediate and I think they were quiet enough that he never noticed I was crying. I did let him know that I had made plans for us for next weekend for Valentine's Day. He tried the old "does it really matter which day it is" spiel. Well, yeah, it kinda does sometimes. For example, unless their mother changes weekends again before then (which she doesn't do often unless she knows it's inconvenient for us) we have the brats on my birthday. Most days I am okay with having to play second fiddle to the spoiled and helpless fruit of M's loins, but on my birthday (which is also just 3 days before our anniversary) I'd like to be first in his affection. I know that if I don't mention it to him he will never realize it, and even if I do mention it he might not mention it to his ex-wife.
If for some reason things don't work out with M in the long run, I think any man with children, at least minor children, is off my list.

Just for fun, since this has been so bitchy and serious, let's try to figure out what I would look for in a mate. I have no intention of things with M ending, but life is unpredictable.

• No minor children. Period.
• Not a musician
  
• smart
• funny
• computer literate
• not a raging alcoholic nor a complete abstainer from spirits
• non-smoker (funny how just a few years ago this would have said "smoker)
• no more than 5 years younger or 10 years older than me
  
• not too tan, too buff, too 'metrosexual'
• has a job that allows a decent standard of living
• has at least one hobby that he takes as seriously as I take my knitting
  
• isn't squeamish when I want to discuss my girly bits
• likes cats

Those are absolutes. Then there are those qualities and characteristics that would make him my dream man. They go something like this:

• tall.
  
• fair skin, dark hair, dark eyes.
• long hair, worn in a ponytail while he is in a suit
• sense of style
• previously married, but only once and divorced for at least a decade
• enjoys the theater
• has similar taste in music to my own
• enjoys the same kinds of movies I like
• Understands my neuroses
  
• has had a vasectomy
• is from Massachusetts or Oregon and still has family there
• can teach me things
• listens
• allows me to fawn over him... and sometimes does so over me
• is a bit overweight
• has big, attractive hands

Okay, I guess that is enough for now. I may come back to this list as I think of more things. For now, though, I have M. And his brats. And a kitchen to clean before they can whine about not liking what they are having for breakfast. Grrr. I'm feeling a trifle under appreciated and maybe even somewhat taken advantage of. Some of it is PMDD. And some is anger and frustration. But I need to get all of it under control before I have to deal with M and the boys.

trouble with hat

I'm having problems with my hat design. I have the brim knitted and the first part of the first section, but I can't seem to figure out the decreases. I am almost certainly over complicating it, as I tend to do with just about everything. This cold/virus/whatever it is M and I both have isn't making it any easier. Maybe I should put off the designing until I feel better.
The winds are crazy. At least it hasn't gotten as bad as it did for a few weeks in the old house in Frisco. Man, that was awful with the howling of the wind for days on end... truly enough to drive one over the edge. This is just very strong winds. Fires have ravaged much of the surrounding areas and I think the governor has declared a lot of it a disaster. At least we didn't lose power again today.
I'm waiting for M to get home. He's having to work later the past few days and even mentioned maybe having to do some work from home this weekend. We've had the boys the past two weekends and now he's going to have to work this one and then we'll have the boys again... I miss my boyfriend. Now that I've finally been able to let go of the past to some degree (more on that someday, I'm sure) I find that I really do love M quite a lot. We don't have the sort of relationship I am used to and I think maybe this one would be considered more "adult". I can't say that I don't miss the passion and yearning and obsession that I went through with many of my previous relationships, but there is something to be said for comfort and stability, too. He is good to me and kind and we don't ask too much from one another. We get along quite well and rarely argue. I really couldn't ask for much more than that at this point in my life.

hats and blankets and freeform, oh my...

I'm sick. The winds yesterday were so strong they took my power out a couple of times, which was mildly annoying. Worse, they seem to have brought some sort of illness with them as both M and I are now sick. My throat hasn't hurt this badly since my tonsils came out when I was 10 and I'm running a fever of 102. Last night I asked M if he had turned up the gravity in the apartment as everything seemed so...heavy...
Speaking of the apartment, they left a note on the door yesterday saying they'd be coming by today for safety inspections, replacing air filters and checking fire alarms and extinguishers and such. They've been doing this on the various buildings all week, so why couldn't they provide a little more notice? So I had to do a quick cleaning of the laundry room and such. The rest of the mess they'll just have to deal with. I'm too sick to vacuum or throw all the yarn back in the closet.
Yarn... I joined up with Jenny Dowde's group on Ravelry (and also the Yahoo group) and am now participating in the Think Pink Challenge. I've had her book for quite some time, but had never really gotten the appeal of freeform knitting. Well, I actually tried doing some of it the othre day and it is so much fun! Strangely liberating and addictive to learn that I can just do it as I bloody well please and the knitting police are not going to show up and tell me I mustn't do it thusly. I'm doing it the way I want to and it's not wrong at all. How delightful. Here are some pictures of my first freeform fragments (the color of course is because the finished item will go to breast cancer research charities.)

This was my first one. It used a pattern from the book Freeform Knitting and Crochet by Jenny Dowde

This is my second attempt. No pattern here, just playing with the yarn.


And this is my 3rd piece. I think I grasp the concept now.


And this is all three pieces sort of assembled.

I think I could use this technique to make things my mom would adore, but it might be a little too much for me personally except in very small bits. Maybe a bag or even a scarf, but anything more than that would be overwhelming on me, imho.

I began the stained glass window hat last night while M was watching wrestling. My favorite cast on for hats is the tubular cast on found here. The cast on is all I managed to get done, but I have a plan... oh yes, I have a plan.
I have also finished the first hex for the baby blanket M promised a coworker of his. They are expecting their first in the summer and he volunteered me to knit a baby blanket for people I've never met. Of course I couldn't just do something simple, that would be too easy. So I have chosen the Mountain Laurel Counterpane. It isn't as hard as I feared it would be; I had M bring me a clipboard with a sliding ruler thing on the side to keep track of what line I was on and that made it even easier. I would have used the spiral bound index card trick again, but since this one will never be a travelling project (moving a project with 6 dpns in it is just begging disaster to strike.) I'm using Caron Simply Soft in red. I would have preferred a deeper red than the one I got, but they just didn't have the right color in a yarn soft enough and affordable enough, so this one will work fine.
I think I will change my Ravelry blog listed to this one. I haven't been to my livejournal site in so very long that I think it can be considered abandoned. And since I do hope to continue posting here at least once a week, this would make more sense.
I need to go lie down now. I'm feeling kinda woozy and the apartment people should be here soon.

...In which I contemplate designing a hat

Hats have always been a favorite accessory of mine. I used to have a lovely collection of vintage hats way back in my teen and college years. And I wore them unabashedly, proudly, even, with my bright red lipstick and all black clothing. I no longer have the hats nor would I be likely to wear them frequently as I did then, but I still love them. So it comes as no surprise that among my favorite things to knit are hats of all sorts. Hats are fun to design and, in most cases, the knitting process is straightforward and not too complicated for my basic skills. They can be made quickly and don't take much yarn. They also make great gifts. There is a pattern I found online for a hat called the stained glass hat. It's a very attractive hat, but it made me start thinking about designing one that more closely resembles actual stained glass windows, all arched at the top and brightly colored with black delineations... I think I can use the same basic shaping I used for the hat of much ugliness if I can find my notes. I told Mark it would be for Ashleigh, but if it turns out as well as I think it might then I may have to keep it for myself.

A new year is always a trifle intimidating for me. So much promise and so rarely have I capitalized on very much of it. This year needs to be different. It has to be. I can't continue to live in the isolation and despair that has threatened to overwhelm me for so long. While I don't expect to become widely read here or to make friends through blogging, I do need a forum in which I can release some of the toxicity that has been building up inside of me for so long.
Hopefully I'll stick with this one, put up some of my knitting patterns and have a place to share my rather skewed view of the world. Will I stick with it this time? I would like to, but sometimes the guilt and shame so overwhelm me that I can barely lift my head. I think that perhaps writing about it will ease some of that unwarranted self loathing and allow me to breathe more freely. Don't expect much.
I have been knitting a lot the last couple of months, though, and I've posted just about all of it on Ravelry. Oh, how I love Ravelry. I could wax rhapsodic about that site for hours, but instead I will just say that if you knit (or crochet, I think) and you aren't a member yet, you should really sign up. It's free and the images are linked through flickr, which is also free (up to a point).
I finished knitting a hat last night for my mom. She sent me a picture of a cabled, somewhat slouchy, cap with a brim and asked if I could make something similar but that would cover her ears. I finally settled on the Sam Hat from craftster and made some minor modifications that had some major repercussions regarding the final outcome of the hat. Here is the original









and here is my version
It is freaking huge. I used a tubular cast on with 88 sts and did the K1, P1 ribbing for about 2 1/2 " and then had the body of the hat at 121 sts instead of the called for 110. I also used 10s instead of 8s. It was my first time putting a brim on a hat and it was a bit tricky for me. I wanted to make it convertible, so that the brim could be snapped on and off, but I couldn't find my snap tool last night, so it just got sewn on. Not sure why I didn't pick up the stitches and knit it on per the pattern, but I didn't.
I really like the pattern itself and will probably make another one soon.