My Only Sunshine

On the Isle of "looks pretty dang real to me"

I would like to thank Princapessa Doodle Bug for modeling the completed and nearly dry Fake Isle hat for me.  In return for her generousity she will be receiving her very own hat from the fake isles.

The Love

I forgot to mention something about Thanksgiving.  My family has a tradition probably similar to most thanksgiving tables where we go around and each say what we are thankful for.  This year, Bitty was in the seat that would make her last.  By the time we were getting within three people of her she was rushing us along.  She wanted her shot at telling the family what she was thankful for.  Most people said things like, "family, food, the earth." but when we got to the little Bit she said, "I'm thankful for The Love."  What a sweet angel she is, my Little Bitty.

Oh, I finally got the rabbit I made for her sewn onto her favorite jeans.

She loves it.  I like to make her happy.

Do you remember how I said I was sick, yesterday?  I wasn't kidding.  I went to the doctor in the afternoon and had a quick strep test.  It was positive.  Dude took Bug and Bit to the doctor after that in order to get them checked.  Bug has strep too.  Bummer.  So Buggy and I are both home today taking our antibiotics.  I feel terrible, but thankfully Bug doesn't have any symptoms, just a positive test.  She won't be contagious anymore by tomorrow and will be able to go back to school.

Being sick has given me more time to work on the Fake-Isle hat.  That Boogie, she's a genius.

Try not to look too closely at my boo boos.  I'll do better on the next one, which I may even be able to start today.  Gotta love fast knits, because I am by no means a fast knitter.  I did find one trick that helps me with this wonderful two color business.  I keep the two balls of yarn on different sides of my body while I knit.  It really helps me keep things from getting all twisted up and makes it easier to remember to keep one yarn always going over the top and the other underneath.  Oh, and Eunny's suggestion to spread the stitches out is really helping me keep my floats the right length.  Aren't all the knit bloggers of the world so wonderful?

Cousins, knitting, and a really big tree

I'm starting with a picture of my Divas.  Yesterday Bitty wrote the word "Diva" on one of her pictures and told me that it means, "someone who likes fashion like I do."  Yes, she's 5.

For Thanksgiving my family and I drove to Amarillo so we could have a big family Thanksgiving with the cousins.  We are very lucky that my cousin has enough room in her house for her family of 8, our family of 4 and the Nanas.

This is most of the kids, in their jammies, watching a movie before bed.  I cannot begin to tell you how much fun it was to have a holiday with all of us together.  My Girlies absolutely loved having so many playmates to run all around with.  Even Maggie the dog had a great time meeting so many new people.

The kids even built a tent city in the living room.

On the drive home I got some good knitting done on the Clap as well as starting a pair of leg warmers for dancer Bug.  Somewhere along the way I seem to have lost a couple of DPNs though, so it is going to take a while to get back to that leg warmer.

Since I couldn't continue on with the leg warmer until I did a little needle shopping I decided to start something new yesterday (well that and I'm sick as a dog and needed something to do while I sit still).  I am now working on my first ever two color chunk of knitting.  Yesterday I cast on for Amy's Fake Isle Hat from Magknits.

The knitting is going fast and I am loving learning something new.  You can probably tell in the picture that I have messed up a bit right at the beginning of the two color work.  I'm not sure how I got off track but I have decided to leave it as it is since I will probably be making many more of these wonderful hats.

Now that Thanksgiving and knitting have been covered you have got to see my pictures of our Ginormous tree.  We went to the hardware store yesterday and bought our usual Faser Fir tree for Christmas.  This year, because we have such high ceilings, we went with a gigantic tree.  It's over 10ft tall, which is nuts because our living room is not nearly large enough for such a big tree.

We should have realized that the tree was too large when we figured out that the tree is nearly as big as Dude's car.  We got it into the house anyway and it is a beautiful tree.  Now if I could only get up the energy to decorate it.

Seven year old included for scale.

Thanksgiving: A Link from Bob

It's almost Thanksgiving

I promised you boots

Here's my little Diva in her new boots.  I cannot begin to explain how excited she was to be wearing her boots to school.  She's "so fashion".

Bug wanted to show off how she looks in her new shoes too.
See, fifth position.

It's about time for me to head to the gym for my workout.  I hope you are all having a great day.

Busy Bee

Now that I am the chairman of the PTA hospitality committee and on the publicity, chaperone, and costume committees for the ballet company I have been BIZ-EEE.  I started by talking with the principal about my ideas for the new students.  One of my ideas was welcome bags for the new students that include a school shirt and water bottle and letters from the principal and from me.  In my welcome letter I invite the new families to call me so that I can match them up with a "buddy family" who has a child in the same grade so that they have someone to talk to and call if they have questions.  I hope my plan works.

As part of the publicity committee I have been contacting the local school districts to get approval to hand out the Nutcracker flyer to all of the elementary students.  It has been lots of work trying to find the right person to talk to but the delivery of the flyers is going to be much worse.  For the costume committee I have been doing the alterations and repairs on all of the little mouse costumes.

Bug's costume is in there somewhere.  That's half of the costumes, I've already done the other half.  Oh and we found out yesterday that Bit may be able to be in the Nutcracker too.  That's the big time for a five year old, let me tell you.  This is the longest running Nutcracker in the DFW area and she might get to be a Miniature Russian Doll in up to three shows.  She's beside herself with excitement.  There is a good chance that if she does get in I will be doing the costume alterations for that too.

Later I am going to try to get a pic of Bug in her costume so I can get a good photo of it.

On top of all of that, and working out every day, I haven't gotten all that much knitting done.  I did get a little work done on my second clapotis.  I really hope I can get the time to finish it before the Nutcracker so that Bug can give it to her favorite dance teacher for Christmas. 

The only other fiber related thing I have done is a little dying.  I had some merino fiber I wasn't using so last night I got it in a pot with two different reds and now it is drying.  I  am hoping to spin up some DK weight two ply in order to make a stole.  The pics I took of the fiber haven't turned out to well but I'll post one anyway.

I'm not sure the red is as deep as I wanted it, but we'll just have to wait and see once it is done drying. I've had a hard time finding foods to fit on my diet plans this week because I have been craving more carbs then I am allowed to eat.  I found a recipe that I thought might work out for me on Everybody Loves Sandwiches.  I took even more sugar out of the recipe than she did and added a little more egg for the protein.  Who knew baked oatmeal could be so good?

I've been enjoying that oatmeal all week. All next week the girlies will be enjoying their new shoes.  Bug is a faux croc addict.  Today we bought her a new pair which I think makes 4 pairs she has had.  She's been hunting for this newest pair for weeks so her Nana gave me money to buy them when I finally found them at Payless.

Bitty is such a fashionista that when she saw the boots she had to have a pair.  She does love the boots, just in general.  She looks extra fab in these and as soon as she is wearing them again I will get a pic of her in them.  For now I know her Nana will want to see them so I'll add them to my picture crazy post.

Transformation

I told you yesterday that I was going to make my next post about something big going on in my life, so here it is.

When I was pregnant (actually starting with my first, unsuccessful, pregnancy) I put on too much weight.  When we moved to Tulsa it was time to take it off so I started going to the gym, taking diet pills, and anything else I could do to lose weight, and it worked.  I dropped around 50 pounds and felt I looked really good.  The problem is that you can't stay on diet pills for the rest of your life and I also tore my right meniscus (knee cartilage).  The weight came back and most of the pounds brought friends.

Now that we are living back in Texas it's time to lose weight again, but more importantly, it's time to get healthier.  I've posted about my medical issues lately so it's not hard to understand why I want to be in better shape.  I found out that I am BRCA1 and 2 negative but that doesn't mean that I am not at the same risk as everyone else from getting breast cancer or any other debilitating cancer out there.  I don't want that so I am going to do whatever is within my control to prevent things like that.  With that in mind I have joined Ultimate Body. 

Ultimate Body is a small group personal training program that puts me through my paces in cardio, resistance, and food.  I go for an hour and ten minutes five days a week with the same 5 or 6 other people each day who are also committed to getting into better shape.  They call the program a complete body transformation and that is my goal.  Strength, fitness, health, and a great ass *chuckle*.

I've been going now for a week and a half and have been pretty constantly sore the entire time.  My eating has totally changed but I haven't found that part all that hard.  The cardio isn't too hard either though we do really work.  The strength training has been amazingly hard but I'm really enjoying it.  Won't it be fun to have Madonna arms (hey, it's ok for my goals to be lofty).  So that's my news, I'll let you know how it's going every once in a while. 

The Day After

We had a very pink Halloween at our house last night.  Bug was Sleeping Beauty, which is what she is every year.  We got a new costume for her this year though, she's growing like a weed.  Bit was a bunny rabbit, which is only right.  We trick or treated all around the neighborhood, even over to Bit's best friend's house.  She loved that part.

When we got home from our trick or treating Bit picked up the big bowl of candy by the front door and was ready to hand it out.

After a few minutes of no knocks on the door she asked me if she could go outside and check to see if it was still halloween.  It was pretty sad when nobody else came by the house.  We were able to distract her with candy though.

I have something big going on in my life that I have been meaning to post about but have been waiting to have some free time.  I promise to do that soon.