GO Check this girl out…

I don't usually do this but I'm going to tell everyone who reads my blog that they must go check this fiber artist and soon to be ACAD grad out! What I love about her is she has a quirky, unique and off beat vision and her art is knitted. It's very cool. Suzen… you are awesome!

Why can't we all just get along?

So I started my Next pair of toe ups. I went with the Collinette Jitterbug in Jay--I love this yarn!! Lornas Laces is lovely but Jitterbug is Da Bomb! It is so vivid and has a great feel, it knits up perfectly and evenly and is just the nicest sock yarn I've worked with so far. Nicer than Trekking, nicer than Reggia and Sorry LL I love you but nicer than Lorna's Laces too (those are the only sock yarns I've tried so far although there are others yet to be tried in my stash)

I fell so in love with Jitterbug that I bought it in two more colours: Fruit Coulis and Bright Charcoal, thinking of course of more socks. Now that I have it, I am thinking it might make a really lovely Chevron Scarf from "Last Minute Knitted Gifts". The colours complement each other beautifully. What do you think?

I do have quite the hoard of sock yarn now. In with my order for Jitterbug, I also ordered one skein of Louet Gems in "Carribean Blue" to use as toes and heels with my left over Lorna's Laces "Lakeview"and some Zen Yarn Garden sock yarn in "Pacific Grove". I liked the idea of a sock yarn that comes with the co-ordinating toe and heel colour and being from the West Coast, the name holds a certain appeal. I also joined two sock clubs. The Make One Sock Club which starts in May and the Sweet Sheep (the source of my most recent sock yarn mana) sock club which started in March. So far from the SS Sock Club I have received Sweet Sheep's own "Spring Tulips" and All Things Heather "Spring Fling" I love the colours from the Sweet Sheep Club, they are springy and bright and oh so girly… they make me think of brightly coloured flower gardens and little girls skipping rope… and the yarns feel lovely… and they come with lovely little extras… like a sheep stitch marker and several samples of S.O.A.K. yarn wash but so far… the colours aren't really me. However… the whole point of joining two sock clubs was to try yarns I normally might not so I am not complaining. Sweet Sheep has fantastic service, very quick turn around and a lovely personal touch.

Other than that, thanks so much to everyone who has commented on my recent troubles with the boy and his school. I am finding the whole process painfully slow. There aren't enough professionals in the area of children's mental health and that means a lot of waiting.

The school has done some good things, accepted that they have to make more effort too. The boy wasn't getting the right accommodations for his ADD and that was contributing to the anxiety. They've set him up with a mentor which seems to be a good thing.

I am using some strategies that work. An incentive program for a good week at school, accepting the realities of my son's anxiety, if I can calm the situation and bring the levels of anxiety down sometimes we can stop it in it's tracks. Getting him to look down the road to a good weekend helps get him past the one bad day. Sometimes humor works: if I can lighten things up and get some laughter going. Making sure the boy gets enough sleep, eats properly, takes his meds, gets some exercise (Rugby starts tomorrow)--all that routine stuff seems to help--reassuring him that we are going to figure out what's going on and make it better.

The worst possible thing is when I give in to my own fears, raise my voice, loose my temper. When my X was here he was making noise about taking the boy to live in ON because in his opinion, "What else do you expect from him with you for a mother". Then as he put it "You can fork over the money every month". In my X's opinion the only thing wrong with our son is my lousy parenting (this despite a history of anxiety and/or depression on both sides). I let my fear completely overwhelm me. My anxiety went through the roof and anxiety feeds on anxiety. There was a lot of recovery work to make up for that. The boy doesn't want to live with his Dad, he dreads seeing him and I have to reassure him that unless he wants to, he doesn't have to. The boy has been talking to his Grandma as well (my X's Mom, a decent and smart lady) and hopefully she will help her son see that what he is doing is wrong.

Here are my dog and the X's cat (now mine) asking that age old question: "Why can't we all just get along?".

Good weather for knitting…

One finished pair of socks! I felt it was only fair that I cast on for another--Jitterbug Jays (you knew I would) they are so much faster on the bigger needles! I am not going to start any larger projects until I finish a few things first.


There was quite a bit of LL left over… what do you do with left over sock yarn? I think there might be enough for another pair if I get something to co-ordinate for the toe and heel or is there something else I could do?

I got my Applelaine Apple Pie sock yarn from Wool-Tyme. If anything it's even prettier in person and very soft. To me, it looks like dappled sunshine. The "Army Surplus" colour way is quite lovely--it's name does not do it justice as the colours are quite intense and look more like foliage with the sun shining through it and the "Winter Dawn" is very suited to it's name, pinks and browns and blues and golds all flecking together. I look forward to trying it.


It's good weather for knitting here as you can see.

I worked around the house most of the day Sunday and will do the same again today. What I can't bring myself to throw away, I am moving to the basement. Hopefully we will have a yard sale this summer and get rid of a bunch of stuff. Or I may just skip the yard sale and call a charity to come take it all away. My main concern is to remove the clutter… where it goes doesn't bother me that much.

It's Spring Break this week.

Prepare for a rant about school. You can stop reading here if you are only interested in the knitting ;-D.

I met with people at the boy's school Friday. I got the distinct impression that the VP there is an idiot.

• First, he was going to cancel because some other parent had barged in and was insisting he talk to her NOW! I pointed out that I had scheduled my meeting and taken unpaid time off work to be there and had no intention of cancelling (he should get a back bone for crying out loud).
  
• Second, he wasn't prepared. He had anxiety mixed up with OCD (quite different and not an issue for my son). The guidance counsellor had to explain the difference.
  
• Third, the VP was immediately wanting to send my son off to a different school (one where the kids focus more on being employable). Great, lets take an extremely bright kid with a learning disability and anxiety and teach him how to drywall. Yeah!!
  
• And finally, he didn't know about the special needs school that operates within the CBE. It's a wonderful school that only accepts students of above average intelligence who also have either ADD or learning disabilities or both but can only keep them a maximum of two years. I pointed out that they did not recommended the current school willy nilly. They obviously feel the boy is capable of doing well there and I certainly don't want the doors of academia being closed in his face in grade 7.
  

It was all most exhausting. However, at this point I know that a calm, polite, yet firm manner wins over calling someone a moron every time (although the latter is always tempting).