6 to 12 inches of snow

It is, in fact, snowing in these pictures; taken just now at about 1 pm. I'm not sure I'm glad or sad that the predicted snow didn't come. L said the cutest thing today when she looked out the window. "Mama! Why are the clouds covering the nice blue sky?" Today, the kids and I went to the library, where we arrived a bit early and were pummeled with a freak onslaught of sleet. We took refuge in the Army Navy Surplus store, which I hadn't been in since high school. They have quite a selection of odd things. We even ended up with a pair of J size fake crocs ($10!) When the sleet subsided we made our way back across the street, where we were STILL a few minutes ahead of opening, so we waited with some other people for the library to open. Don't get me wrong, I love libraries, I read practically every book in my elementary school library before moving on to junior high. So imagine my dismay when I overhear the librarians complaining about us standing out front?! Saying things like, "They should know when we open!" and "Well, they'll just have to stand out there!" I almost mentioned to them that some of us had walked to the library (as many people do because of the serious lack of parking in Old Town) and had not timed it exactly right, but I figured letting it go was probably the better thing to do. My wise sister-in-law once said to me that negativity is like carrying around a bag of rocks, so I decided not to carry around an extra rock (and just vent in the blog instead. :) ).

I'm still working on the nonstripey vest but I'm not going to take a picture because so far the front looks identical to the back. I have about 4 1/2 more inches until I start the increase for the steek. Eek! :)

Books? You mean there are books not made out of cardboard?

Once upon a time, I used to read.

Look at the list of (100) books below. Bold the ones you’ve read. Italicize the ones you want to read. Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in. Movies don’t count.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Well I'm better read than I thought I was but I think most of them were read prior to 2002.

The Importance of Diction

So I was at rehearsal last night and I think the kids performed really well considering they were just on Spring Break. There was, however, a problem with diction. Every once in a while, something just gets me giggling until I'm laughing so hard I cry. Last night was one of those nights. After hearing them off to see the Whizzer, I truly lost it during the Tin Man scene where all of them seemed to have a problem with the word "axe". By the third time the "enchanted a$$" was mentioned I was pretty much useless. I'm amazed I made it through the Tin Man's song.



On a different note, J cracked us up last night by using his fishsticks to eat ketchup, putting them aside when there was no more breading on them, like they were a utensil.



On the knitting front, I'm still plugging away at my non-stripey More Stripes. I've a couple more inches on the back before it's finished.

Happy Easter!

We're off to church for the first time in over a year. Heh. J is melting down, but he looks awfully cute in his Easter outfit. My mom sent the kids very cute outfits that unfortunately the weather is not cooperating with.

Break for Spring!

A good friend of mine was on Spring Break this week and so we maxed out the Stay At Home Mom fun stuff to do! Tuesday we went to the zoo. See my dear monkeys? The sleepy monkey to the right is my adorable nephew.

J is sporting one of the first hats I ever made. It's his favorite. Heh. And of course, the quintessential Mom shirt.


I've been listening to the Rent soundtrack in the car and apparently L is paying more attention than I think. The other night she started singing, "Today for me! Tomorrow for you!", which Rent o philes know is actually backwards to the lyrics of the song, but oh such a statement on the 4 year old psyche. The best part was when we had ice cream later and it became, "Chocolate for me! Chocolate for you!" My little broadway star.

Today we braved the Children's Museum. I need to go there once a year to remind me why I don't go there. It's a very cool place but super expensive and very crowded. I was proud of the monkeys though, they did well. L was very sweet, polite and kind (until we got to the parking lot, but no one needs to know that. :) ) and J had a ball until he thought I'd left him forever when I made a quick run to the car to grab our lunch, leaving my poor friend with wailing boy who then tried to beat down every door in the play area looking for his wayward Mom. Everyone recovered. The last cutie is my friend's son. Love his hair!

On the knitting front, I am probably 3/4 of the way through the back of my nonstripey vest. Size 5 needles are tiny!

Funny.

Take the Quiz here!

Who knew? I always fancied myself Elizabeth Bennett, but then that's probably because that was my favorite Austen book.

Heh.

Crown Hill Park and More Stripes

In an effort to be more active this year, my husband and I took the kids and the dog over to Crown Hill Park for a walk around the lake. Unfortunately the only way we could get L to walk was to bribe her with Animal Crackers at every 10 mph sign and that only worked for about half of a mile. *sigh* Bad Mama bribing with food. Oh well. At least they were Organic Animal Crackers. Heh. Sadly the one that really wanted to walk was J (and the dog) but I was afraid he would run right into the lake. For someone who looks like he's going to crash every time he runs, he moves pretty fast. And he rarely crashes. Except when the dog is trying to take his Organic Animal Cracker.

So, on the knitting front, I've been working on http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEspring07/PATTmorestripes.html from the most recent Knitty. I'm not using Noro, just can't take that price tag, but I did have some funky colored Patons that I don't remember why I bought and it seems to work just fine. I even made a gauge swatch! Heh. No pictures to prove it though. It's not going to be stripey though because I don't have a complementing yarn to stripe it with. I tried striping with two balls of the same yarn (hopefully this doesn't sound dumb) to see if the colorways would make a stripe but it ended up looking the same as when I just use one ball. So, I'm not going to have a stripey vest.