At Robyn‘s request, I’ve written a blow-by-blow of my day, yesterday (Wednesday).
0555: “Mama–can I go downstairs?” Jay is patting me on the head, trying to wake me up. I poke James in the arm. His alarm clock will be going off in five minutes, so he gets up and takes Jay down to have breakfast. I’m exhausted because I had stayed up too late the night before obsessed with having a few minutes at the spinning wheel. I couldn’t find my carders so that led to me not starting to spin until after midnight.
0730: “Maaaaaaam! It’s time to get up!!” Jay shouts from the bottom of the stairs. James must have just left for work. I get up, shower, and dress.
0800: Kids have breakfast, and I’m making lunches.
0830: We get on shoes and jackets and walk the two blocks to the school bus stop. Jay and I ride the bus with Selma for a couple of blocks then get off at his pre-school. I drop him off and then walk back home.
0905: Back home. Put on water for tea. Go start a load of laundry, pick up from breakfast and morning kid mess. Remember an e-mail I need to send first thing in the morning, sit down at laptop in living room. Send e-mail then check inbox. Check Ravelry for rav-mail.
0945: Remember about making tea. Turn water back on to boil (it’s an electric kettle with an auto shutoff, thank goodness.) Make toast. (I eat sprouted grain raisin toast every day for breakfast, this may sound boring, but it’s delicious!) While eating toast, I make my two regular morning calls to my mom and my friend Lisa.
1000: Make my long commute–down the stairs to my basement studio. Call the landlord about the furnace *still* not working. Call the military transportation office at Fort Belvoir to find out why our move hasn’t been assigned to a moving company yet, wait on hold for 20 minutes and three different people saying “can you hold, please?” Finally get someone on the phone:
Me: “Hello, I was wondering if a carrier has been assigned to our move yet.”
She: Oh, well, no. It looks like it hasn’t been started. Normally, you would just wait for us to e-mail you, but since you got me on the phone, I’ll start it right now. (I got the carrier notification the next day!)
1030: Call 2 yarn companies who are providing materials for classes that I’m teaching at the National Needle Arts Association summer conference June 5. Both agree to send stuff right away. Cross that off the list.
1100: Write a blog post about my house’s rebellion against me. Remember I need to send a crochet chart to a contract crocheter who’s working on a cashmere shawl design for me. Then forget.
1130: Work on tech editing some patterns for a friend’s crochet book. E-mail the completed edits to her.
1230: Stomach growls. Make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of soy milk for lunch. Wish there was something more interesting in the fridge. I do have a fond nostalgia for pb&(grape) jelly because I had it every day for lunch in grade school. While I’m eating, I work on a graphic for a button I’m making to give away at TNNA.
1300: More tech editing.
1415: Grab socks that need to be overnighted to magazine that’s publishing them. Weave in ends. Attach a tag and put them in a ziploc, grab mailing address and head to post office. Notice a group of high school kids all wearing polo shirts in a decidedly non-preppy way, is this a new trend? (UPDATE: I found out today-Thursday-that the socks didn’t arrive on time-is usps express mail always so unreliable?)
1550: Meet Selma at the bus stop. Make her a snack (peanut butter, honey, pretzels–her request, perhaps the peanut butter love is genetic).
1630: Pick up Jay at preschool. Take Selma to Yoga class. Jay and I connect with a knitting friend Hannah, who’s son is also in yoga. We walk into Old Town Takoma and I order takeout for the kids and me, and order Jay a lemonade. We chat a while, then walk back to the yoga center.
1745: Selma comes out of yoga and we eat dinner in the park. We are planning to go to the Art Showcase at Selma’s school. Jay has an accident, (very unusual for him, but I should have seen it coming since he just drank a whole glass of lemonade.) I’m not prepared.
1800: Call another parent: “Can Selma go with you to Art Showcase?” It turns out they’re already in town eating at the Mark’s Kitchen (where we got our takeout). Drop Selma with her friend Aaron and his Dad who take her to the event.
1830: Bring Jay home, get him ready for bed, brush teeth, story, rocking, put him back in bed after a “pop-up.”
1900: Begin work on a hairpin lace sample shawl that I’m making for a class I’m teaching on Saturday at A Tangled Skein in Hyattsville. Realize I love the Clover hairpin frame (I’d never tried it before, and it’s compact and has holes in the pins to hold your guidelines. Brilliant).
2000: Heidi, Emily and Lorraine arrive for craftnite. We were planning on making crafty luggage tags but I convince them to let me teach them Hairpin Lace so I can practice for my class. Heidi has brought ingredients to make a yummy snack–melba toast, pesto, and buffalo mozzerella. Emily brought brownie muffins. Lorraine goes into my kitchen to make tea and got attacked by tea boxes when opening a cabinet. I should have warned her that the house is out to get us.
Here’s the headband Heidi Made:
Heidi is an amazing crocheter and knitter–she’s an artist who ads her own flair to every project, and started designing the moment she got the hairpin lace in her hands. I taught her the most basic stitch, and she immediately added double crochets and back-loop single crochets as well as her own take on a crochet edging. Definitely take a look at Heidi’s blog and the adorable raglan tops she’s making–she’s made about 3 or 4 for herself in the last month and they’re all gorgeous.
2030: Hillary arrives and she learns hairpin lace too.
2200: Friends finally leave after another fun and funny craftnite. I continue to work on hairpin project until I get too sleepy.
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