March 20, 2008

Teaser

P3200002 teaser pic

Test knitting continues apace.  Gives you quite an idea of it, eh?  lol
Posted by erica at 16:56:41 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

War is Hell

As they say, war is hell, but do let us keep our facts straight, folks.  From Wikipedia:
Rank  ↓ War  ↓ Years  ↓ Deaths  ↓ Deaths per Day  ↓ Deaths per Population  ↓
1 American Civil War 1861–1865 625,000 599 1.988% (1860)
2 World War II 1941–1945 405,399 416 0.307% (1940)
3 World War I 1917–1918 116,516 279 0.110% (1920)
4 Vietnam War 1964–1973 58,151 26 0.003% (1970)
5 Korean War 1950–1953 36,516 45 0.002% (1950)
6 American Revolutionary War 1775–1783 25,000 11 0.899% (1780)
7 War of 1812 1812–1815 20,000 31 0.345% (1810)
8 Mexican-American War 1846–1848 13,283 29 0.057% (1850)
9 Philippine War 1899–1902 4,196 5 0.006% (1900)
10 Iraq War 2003–present 3,992 2.35 0.001% (2007)
Posted by erica at 09:16:57 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

March 19, 2008

Bricks? Check!

P3190003b
Posted by erica at 13:57:23 | Permanent Link | Comments (3) |

March 17, 2008

St. Patrick's Day

P3170001c
Posted by erica at 10:09:20 | Permanent Link | Comments (3) |

Birthdez-Vous?

Yes, Thing Two is now officially seven years old.  Woot!  How did THAT happen?  Here are some pictures from this weekend's festivities.  Click on individual pictures for full-size images.  The entire collection can be viewed here.

P3150001P3150002P3150004P3150005P3150007P3150009P3150010P3150011P3150012P3150014P3150016P3150017P3150026P3150027P3150028P3150029P3150031P3150032P3150035P3150036P3150001bP3150003bP3150004bP3150006bP3150001c031508_19273P3170001P3170002P3170003P3170004P3170008P3170010

Tonight, we'll celebrate St. Patrick's Day/Thing Two's birthday in a traditional Irish way -- by going to Benihana for dinner, lol!  The girls have never been there; I think they'll really enjoy it.
Posted by erica at 09:50:19 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

March 14, 2008

Thing Two's Birthday

Her birthday has begun!  These arrived a few days ago, just in time for the rain:

P3130005 P3130006 Dontcha just LURVE her hair, lol?  She's growing it out and didn't want to do anything with it that day.
Posted by erica at 16:58:48 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

One Guess

I'll give you one guess why this young man is so happy....

jesse
Posted by erica at 16:55:12 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

March 10, 2008

Uh, oh....

Uh, oh.  We DEFINITELY need to postpone the installation.  Hubby did a test on the paint on the bricks an hour ago, and we've got serious lead going on.  Considering our house was built around 1944, this is not a surprise, but he doesn't feel confident in our ability to remove it safely, so we're going to have to get someone who specializes in lead paint removal to do it.  Cha-ching!
Posted by erica at 18:35:46 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Photos

Because Thing Two has chosen to have a Ratatouille birthday party, I've made her this for her birthday, to give her at her party:

P3100001b P3100002b P3100003b I really like the construction on this, but let me warn you if you buy one of the Morehouse Merino kits:  If you want to get gauge, you'll need to use MUCH larger needles than they specify.  Me, I just left it as is b/c I was making it for a seven-year-old instead of an adult.  For an adult, I would use size 8's, not the 5's or 6's they suggest.

From the yarn she claimed from our ACKD "Zen Night", I made this for her, according to her specs (the heart is a pocket and is made from leftover bits of Knitting Magic Girl's handspun, dyed by moi).





P3100002 P3100003 P3100004 The combination of the two blue yarns totally makes me think of faded jeans.  Oh, and 'Nette, thank you for the help with my brain fart about the handle.  It worked fabulously.  It took me several tries to find a way of sewing on the heart that I liked before I hit on this one.

Lastly, here's Michelle's Branching Out.  I have one more thing to finish binding off today, then I'll have my WIP load down enough to start blazing in my test knitting (never fear, Chrispy!).

P3100004b 

OK, I'm off for another round of paint-scraping...
Posted by erica at 11:22:06 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Updates

Adri's mom is doing much better.  They never figured out what was causing her problems.

Matthew is still in critical condition, but stable.  The doctors are trying to dissolve the blood clot in his brain with blood thinners, but so far it hasn't worked.  He's going to be out of commission for quite a while, and it's going to be some time before they know what sort of long-term effects he'll have.  If the stroke had happened only 5 minutes later, he would have died b/c Carmen would have already left for work, so he's quite lucky to be alive.  I can't even imagine how traumatic that would have been if he'd died and his little boys had found him when they woke up for school.  Please keep him in your prayers.

Hubby thinks we might have to postpone the installation of the fireplace insert just a little bit b/c it's taking so long to get the paint off the bricks.  First, there's the white layer.  Then the tan layer.  Then another white layer.  Then a black layer.  Then another layer.  THEN the bricks.  Despite what the label on the stripping product says, only one layer comes off at a time, so it's quite the job.

Preparations for Thing Two's birthday continue apace.  I can't believe she'll be seven years old in ONE WEEK!  Her party is this Saturday; boy has it crept up on me!  I'll have some pictures later today of some knitted birthday gifts.

Posted by erica at 07:41:16 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |
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