homemade vs. storebought

i ask:

is your child's halloween costume homemade or store bought?

this inquiring mommy mind wants to know!

lots o bloggy goodness...and a HAPPY CLAPPY

i have a lot to blog about, mostly just blah blah blah stuff, and debated on making little ones or one big one. guess i'll make it a big long newsy note.



first off, i finished 2 scarves for the special olympics. i made a moebius scarf with two freaky twists. i didn't pay attention to twisting my cast on stitches, so now the scarf's wonky. oh well.

i also made a long scarf with a different color rows, knit longwise. i never knit a scarf that way but always wanted to. basically i wound off a bunch of yarn, cast on stitches and just knit with alternating blue and white rows, cutting the yarn at the end of the row, tying on the new strand, until i ran out of the white yarn. the scarf's shorter than i prefer, but maybe they'll give it to someone who's small. the scarf's really cool tho.

i sent these off with a little notey from me, wishing the person luck and love, telling them i was proud of them. knitting those 2 scarves made me feel really good which was good cos it was during a sucky week. i love doing charity knitting.




i also finished my koigu gauntlets. they are like wearing butter. they feel sooooo good. and naturally now that it's been cold, i forget to wear them cos i left them in my knitting bag.




our new stores have been open now for a few weeks. i am totally loving having a target a few miles from my house. as a result we are a lot poorer. the good news is soon the novelty will wear off and i'll only go there a few times a month, just like my walmart runs. i am really enjoying the new giant store too. i like the variety in the organics department and just products in general. i like that i can weigh my produce and get a price sticker for it from the scales. weis used to do that too but stopped a couple years ago. the meat is so much fresher too.




i need to shop in my own closet and drawers instead of buying new clothes. i started going through drawers for the church rummage sale and found all these cute short sleeve t's i got last year and becos they were squirreled away i forgot about them. really cute peasanty shirts. i'll put them in the short sleeve drawer and hopefully i'll remember to wear them next year.




i am onto cycle 4. i o'd this past weekend (got a faint line on the ovulation kit) and now am in the midst of the 2ww. i hope we get lucky this time but i'm just not feeling it. however, my boobs hurt and i've been crampy for the past 2 days. don't think they're symptoms tho, way too early. and i think the cramping could be a pee infection. i really should call the doctor and test for it, but can't be bothered.

i think i had another chemical pregnancy. i was 3 days late with symptoms but had a negative test and then got my period the next day. the period was really weird, short (2 days long compared to 4+ days), heavy, painful, and i got a killer migraine at the end, not at the beginning. just weird.

it's halloween time. one of my favorite times of year. also one of my saddest. we lost our first baby on halloween/all saints day 6 years ago. and now we have another baby to mourn this year. i so hope i get pregnant before xmas. i am so not looking forward to the holidays and if i was at least i'd have something else on my mind than the fact that we don't have a baby. i'd be about 7 months along now.



i'm making another prayer shawl for myself. as much as i love my 12 patch baby blanket, i can't carry it around like lars. of course i'd have to have a rubber doll too, but that's another story. so i started knitting a clapotis on monday and am about a third of the way through. the pattern's pretty easy, easier than i thought it would be. dropping stitches has been liberating. i have 3 dropped now and the scarf's taking shape. it's such slow knitting, i feel like i'm slogging. i decided to name the scarf HAPPY CLAPPY so it helps me feel better. i hope i can get it done before sunday but i can't count on it.



i also made the boy his bat cape for his batman costume. i used fabric glue to make hems and basted together the casing for tie. it looks wonky but it's the best i can do without a sewing machine. i wish someone made good cheap sewing machines. i'd love to have one.



i'm hungry for turkey so i'm currently roasting a turkey breast. i'm jonesing turkey sandwiches with mayo and cranberry sauce. also for some inexplicable reason i'm jonesing chili, which normally i hate becos i hate beans, but i found a healthy version of it from ellie krieger. i'll just mash the beans up a bit and hopefully it'll fix my jones.



i think that's about it. funny, but i thought i had a lot to talk about.

not a normal mommy

today was the day that the boy had his halloween party at school. he dressed like scooby doo (brown fleece pants, brown shirt, knitted tail, collar and hat and brown shoes). so we watch the kids parade around the hall. my kid's the only one with a homemade costume. the rest were princesses, wenches, butterflies or costumes that otherwise meant plunking down some greenbacks to make the kid look cool. and then there's my kid, looking like i slapped his costume together in 5 minutes.

whatever happened to making homemade halloween costumes? i'll admit, i had store bought costumes back in the day (princess, wonder woman, witch) but they were those boxed costumes with the plastic bodysuit and mask shell that didn't cost an arm and a leg (and prolly would have incinerated me if i got near an open flame now). mom supplimented these costumes with matching pants/shirts/jewelry/homemade accessories (like black pants/shirts for the witch, pink pants for the princess legs, etc). when i got older i made my own costumes (greenish dress and homemade crown/torch for lady liberty, sloppy pants/shirt/hooked nose/lipstick/wig for quasimoto). punk/clown/witch costumes were so easy to make homemade.

once i priced costumes when the boy was a baby...$30 for a pumpkin costume just seemed too much. since he was born, he went as snoopy (he was only a month old and i had sewed sparkly black ears to a white skullcap), harold and the purple crayon (he was half bald and looked like harold, he just wore blue fleecy footy jammies and carried a paper towel tube covered with purple paper), a red devil sweatsuit that i paid a fortune for at babies 'r us when he was 2 (and he still wears around the house on cold days), a baseball player at 3 (he wore baseball jammies) and this year homemade scooby. but does making a homemade costume instead of plunking down the plastic mean you love your child more? or make you more practical? or is storebought just the lazy way out or was my way the lazy way out? anyone else still do homemade?

we also could take treats for the kids so i sent leftover bags of pretzels and taped a piece of licorice to the bag. the boy comes home with SWAG - bags full of pencils, stampers, stickers, toys, candy, etc, etc. i can't imagine what these kids' birthday parties are like. so next time should i give a bag of swag too? or go homespun?

when did being a parent become so complicated?!?!

then i took the boy to the new playground to work off some steam before library. he chased some kids around for 20 minutes while i worked on mom's purse (which i must finish soon, it's been hanging out since early summer).

then we went to library. it was full today compared to other tuesdays. there's this one kid that i can't stand. she never shuts the fuck up, and she's a know it all. she goes to the same preschool as hubby's best friend's daughter and i must ask him if all kids from that school are as obnoxious as her of if she's just an exception. the last time we went to storytime the librarian gave the kids little pumpkins and they did a counting story with them, except my kid got into a snit and refused to do it and the brat TATTLED on him. today the craft was a candy corn magnet and the kid announces that "she's not allowed putting magnets on the fridge." and during story time 2 stories were read, and the boy picked a book for the second story but L said it was a bit long, so she picked another book (that the brat emphatically wanted). i don't know if the boy was snitty about that but the brat says in a snotty tone "i'm sorry she didn't pick your book and she's reading mine." OMG. a grandparent brings her and never tells her to stop. i can only imagine what she's like at home. i can't wait till she goes to kindergarten next year and she won't come to story time.

i always feel inadequate when i go to story time. the moms who come have like 10 kids, are usually preggers or hauling a baby around, don't have c-section guts, wear designer jeans and clothes and carry high end purses and diaper bags. and here comes me and my kid, me with my life is good bag (which i swapped back to when i found everyone else carrying my red plaid vera bradley pattern), a sock or something WIP, black yoga gear (praying it holds my sagging c-section gut), handknit socks, clark sneaks and glasses. we walk, while everyone else drives mom vans/suvs/high end cars. and i drive a piece of shit baretta with peeling paint. i stopped going to MOMs group becos i felt the same way (an old plymouth breeze amid a sea of suvs and vans). i know i shouldn't judge. high end is not my style (except for yarn and even there i try to reserve myself). i try to remind myself that these people may have a high end debt to match the high end lifestyles they are exhibiting. whatever.

on a good note the boy and i found a crippled praying mantis in the alley behind our house. i think it got hit by a car. it's arms were moving around but the abdomen was dark, i'm assuming full of blood. i found a leaf and carried over to the grass so it wouldn't be injured further. i talked to the boy about how rare it is to find a praying mantis (i've only ever seen a handful in my life) and that it was a shame that it was hurt. when we walked back from the library we found it in the grass, barely moving. prolly looking at the big white tunnel. anyways, it was a neat moment to share with the boy, even tho it was a bit morbid.

i finished my BIL's ice scraper mitt (altho had some trouble with the pattern and botched up the hem. no biggy, but i was really frustrated with how the pattern was written. very confused). i'm now working on mom's purse (noro) and added some rows to MM's shawl. i'd like to get them done pretty soon. i'm making pretty good headway on my xmas gifts.

after posting **twice** and emailing **twice** i still haven't heard anything about getting a ball of vickie howell's yarn. my guess is that somehow the email's stuck in nogoland and i'm shit outta luck. oh well. not the first time i've met disappointment. quite well acquainted.

pushing daisies with knitting needles

i finished the boy's scooby hat, complete with ears, plus the tail and the collar. good mommy.

philly sounds like a go. can't wait.

has anyone been watching the abc show pushing daisies? the show is absolutely hilarious in a six feet under/wizard of oz/twin peaks surreal kind of way. did anyone catch the fact that emerson the detective KNITS? he has rows of yellow socks in his desk drawer holding his reward money. and he uses a knitting needle to free himself, ned and chuck from the body bags. how bloody cool is that?