Ok.  I am ready to cast on for my first pair of socks.  From page 28,  “These are so named for their attractive wheat sheaves stitch pattern. ”   My favorite dpns are the Knit Picks Harmony needles.  They are so smooth and pretty, and they just feel good in my hands.  So needles are ready to go.  I chose some yarn in my stash, because if at all possible, I want to use yarn from my stash.  Although I am not sure that I have enough sock yarn to even be throwing around a word like stash, but I do think I have yarn that will work for this.  That would be Kertzer’s On Your Toes Bamboo in a really light green.  I think it is called “Rainforest Dew”.  That does not conjure images of  wheat sheaves, but let’s see how it goes.

I have not tried to knit socks with bamboo before.  I hear it can be splitty, but I did knit a scarf earlier this year from bamboo, and I had no problems with that.

Those are the details.  Now to cast on 68 stitches.  I can handle that.  I always find myself defaulting to the long tail cast on.  I need to challenge myself to use different cast ons, but I figure I have lots of time for that!  I can also deal with the k2p2 rib pattern.   It’s the modified wheat sheaves pattern which follows which may require me to lock myself in a small room with no stimuli so that I can concentrate on this pattern!

I’ll get back to you to share how it goes.  Oh and the yarn!

And now about Davey:  He had a wonderful time in Texarkana yesterday.  He went to to Chuck E Cheese, where he played lots of games with his Pa.  We went to the park, although it was just too hot to stay for too long.  We went to Target and Davey wandered the toy aisles for an hour.  He is really not that interested in actually buying any toys, he just really likes checking them all out and playing there.  We picked out a few things though.   He got “Don’t Spill the Beans”, but he instead plays a game called “Please do Spill the Beans just as Fast as You Can”!

It’s Tuesday morning, and we are getting ready to go see Pa in Texarkana.  It’s hot here in Arkansas.  Hot and humid.  My hair is just barely long enough for a stubby ponytail.  It’s not glamorous, but it keeps the hair off my neck somewhat!  (except for all the straggly pieces hanging down.)

I am considering a new project.  It might be kind of crazy!  I checked out the knitting book The Joy of Sox by Linda Kopp last week.  I love it.  There are the best sock patterns, and there are such a variety of them.  I am thinking about knitting my way through the book.  I could just learn a ton about all different kinds of socks, and I like nearly every pattern.  The thought of taking some of them on is kind of scaring me, but the challenge would be great!

And no blog post would be complete without mention of Davey.  He’s excited to go to Texarkana.  Chuck E Cheese here we come.  I am taking my knitting!

I haven’t posted in forever!  School is out and our summer has begun.

I am tired this morning.  David and I stayed up late watching the Lost finale.  It was crazy.  There were parts about it that I just loved, but there are still so many unanswered questions!  So we stayed up late watching that, and then I dreamed about that darn show the entire night.  Then Davey got into bed with us after he had a bad dream.  So then a good part of the night was him not rolling me off the bed. 🙂

Yesterday we went to see Papa Jerry and Pearl.  We had a nice afternoon with them.  It had been too long since we went out there.  We hope to go back this week and fish with them.   There is this pretty little community lake right outside of Glenwood.  We took Davey there on our way home yesterday.  He loved throwing rocks.

Will put up a few pictures.  We also spent yesterday morning working on our front yard.  The gravel on the walk is done.  We mulched.  We planted some flowers.  I lined the front bed with rocks.  David added a 2×8 board ledge and stained it.  Davey played with his water and pots and pans!

Davey loves cooking with me.  He said today:  “Mommy, I want to bake a cake.  Do we have all the ingredients?”   Last night he helped me mix up Irish Soda Bread.  (First time I had made that.  It was really good!)

Earlier in the week, I made a pork roast.  I cut up the potatoes, carrots, etc., and he drops them all into the crockpot for me.  He loves to help.

We were making too many sweets, so the other day I had him help me make dog biscuits.  Those went over great with the dogs – no surprise there.  We actually need to make those again.

Trying to get Davey to take a nap.  He was up late last night and up early this morning, but he is having trouble settling down.  Right now he is in there screeching like a monkey!

We had, as David puts it, about 74 flakes of snow yesterday.  Davey got to experience it just a little bit:

Christmas Eve.  Home with Davey.  We are starting our own traditions (carrying some forward from when we were little.) Today, I have made green bean salad, we have ham from “Heavenly Ham” which is heavenly!, and I am going to make warm potato salad.  (I have not made that before.  I hope the recipe is a good one!)  We will have rolls too.

I made some yeast dough today, and it was not rising.  I had to throw it out and try again!  I don’t know what I did wrong, but it just wasn’t right.  I have to make plum cake because Mom always has it on Christmas morning, along with cinnamon rolls and butterkuchen.   For a short while, I was afraid I was not going to find any plums here.  I did find them though at Brookshires after looking and looking!  (Canned plums are with the pie fillings in case you need to know.)

Davey helped me decorate Christmas cookies.  He does all the sprinkles.  He did a great job.  He also applied some of the chocolate chips.  Before bed, he will open a gift.

Tonight David and I will  watch Elf!

We wanted Davey to take a nap today.  He really did not want to.  He will say that too sometimes.  “I really do not want to eat that, or I really do not want to take a nap!”   Finally he was kind of quiet in there.  Then we heard, “This is so hard.  This is so hard!  I am working hard!”  We thought he was being dramatic about trying to sleep, so  David goes in there, and Davey is practically naked.  He announces that he wants a bath.  He has never totally undressed himself in his life.  He has always been happy to let us do most of that.  Well, off to the bath he went.  He loves baths, and he avoided a nap!

It’s December!  December with a 2 year old.  He is getting so excited about Christmas.  I am looking forward to getting the tree.  I almost wrote that I can’t wait to get the tree.  But I can wait, because I am just enjoying every moment of the Christmas season with Davey and David!

We went home for Thanksgiving and had just a fun trip.  We went to an alpaca ranch – very cool.  Alpacas are incredible soft and so sweet.  We went to Arcadia Lake where it was very windy, but Davey built a tower with these great small flat rocks.  We went to a fun restaurant with Karen, Kevin, Mikayla, and Jadyn.  It’s called Pops and is on Route 66.  Every kind of “pop” you can imagine!

I taught Karen, Mikayla and Jadyn to knit!  I didn’t get a single picture of us doing that either, but we had such a fun time.  We went to a yarn store, and then we stayed there to learn to knit.  We sat on two couches.  I got them cast-on, and off they went garter stitching away.  I think they all enjoyed it, and they are still working on their first scarves.

Of course we ate two much.  We add basically two Thanksgiving dinners on Thursday, but it was all delicious and irresistible!

Davey spent a lot of time reading in the car.  I just keep hoping to put that DVD player off for as long as possible.  Forever if possible!