How bout a Random Saturday?

1. The boys are camping this weekend. LaLa and I had a fun day - no chores. We had breakfast at McDonalds, looked for treasures at a new thrift store (LaLa got stuff for her baby, I got a few scarves and sheets to use for craft projects), went to Home Depot (got some projects for DH), went to the library, had a picnic lunch at the playground, did a major craft project (freezer paper painted shirts), played in the sprinkler, started a knitting project, checked in with work, and now I'm here.

2. As I get older, I've found that there are more and more movies that I just can't watch, or will only watch with DH. Not when I'm the only adult in the house. Actually, I have trouble watching CSI when I'm the only one home. Stuff that's potentially scary or disturbing, I need to have DH watching with me. Disturbing is a category that is broadening all of the time. I have no idea if this is a normal phenomenon. I worked for 10 years for a defense contractor. At about year 5 or so, I stopped being able to watch military movies, because of the Marines I worked with - I could imagine too much, I think. Then, after having a baby, I have a lot of trouble watching anything where a kid is hurt. So, it turns out that Ray is on that list too. Maybe I should have read a review or something. But I shut it off right before it looked like he was going to try heroin and stuffed it back in the Netflix envelope. And sat down next to LaLa until I was afraid she'd wake up.

3. Has anyone knit with Knit Picks Essential sock yarn? This is what DH's socks are. It feels a lot like burlap and was making the inside folds of my knuckles itch. I will say that I'm pretty fussy about "hand". I'm hoping that they soften up nicely when they're washed. I'm working them toe-up, so I can use up the whole ball of yarn, starting with a figure-eight cast on (is that what it's really called?) The color, I think, is grass.

4. The craft that LaLa and I did was inspired by this post at Angry Chicken. Now, she is a person who is not afraid to wield an exacto-knife and frames her own pictures. I, however, am pretty clumsy about anything that takes fine motor skills. No real talent for drawing free hand and hardly any ability to modify something digitally. But, still, I needed to try this! I bought a pack of onesies for my new nephew (I had room in a package that I was sending anyway) and a t-shirt each for my old nephew and LaLa to personalize. I was going to do something with a fish profile and hole-punch bubbles. About 2 minutes with the monkey's sketch pad put the kibosh on that idea. Instead, I found these icons from AIGA and printed them onto freezer paper. The good pictures are on my film camera. Here's a phone photo of one of the finished shirts. The onesies have the airplane, a big ship, and a suitcase. The older nephew gets the big ship, and LaLa gets the "city bus". I do have some lessons learned and I think I'll share them with my "good photos" later.

5. Last but not least, I got a prize from Melissa. Wonderful, wonderful stuff, and of course, the good pictures are in the camera still. I got 4 skeins of K1C2 Creme Brulee, a DK weight superwash Merino that is like butter, 4 skeins of Berroco Duo, I think it's in burgundy and am really curious to see how it knits up, and 3 skeins of novelty yarns in very pretty colors, each intriguing in it's own right. The package was the best piece of mail I got all week.

6. The other thing I'm thinking about is how the weekends when DH is camping, I've been doing much more stuff than I normally would to "take care of" him. For instance, during the April camping trip, I ordered a weeks worth of pants for him (found them online for $12/pair, and his old ones all had frayed hems). Also took LaLa all through the mall, on a quest to replace his treasured Rockports. Rockports that he got before we got married. Rockports that have been discontinued. Rockports that lasted longer than our Rockport store. Ended up finding them at RackRoom, but not his size, so we got a different style, but they just weren't the same. But, it got him to get around to getting ones he liked. Ended up with the ones I had scoped out, but he had to truck down to another shopping center to get them in his size. This weekend, I found him an enamel pot with lid for camping for $4 on our "treasure hunt", started the socks from the yarn I bought about a year ago for him (he picked out the color), and got the pajama pants that I started for him a while ago back to being ready to sew (the crotch seam had gone awry, so I had to rip it back to the intersection.)