My achin' back

I've been waking up with a sore, tight back. Don't like it. It harkens back to another era. Kind of like my crazy dark mood of the other day did.

My body is speaking to me. Can I slow and open enough to truly hear it?

Creating comfort

I'm not quite at hindsight is 20/20, but I think I'm coming out of a tunnel.

This winter has been much less of a dark seasonal time for me than winters past. But, it hasn't been without its dips, apparently.

I've been comforting myself in a variety of ways. Cooking, eating, knitting, watching tv. Hey, wait a minute, those are my so called hobbies...

We have been staying closer to home this winter and personally, I have been rediscovering the benefits, and comforts, of having weekends at home.

I have been experiencing a higher degree of synergy in my thinking and actions because I am not as busy, internally and externally, this winter.

The truth is, I don't always feel like I'm behind the 8 ball. When I do feel that way, like the other day, it can be crushing...infuriating...paralyzing, but the reality is that it has been a pretty mellow winter in terms of my mood.

Last night I sipped my "Half Moon" miso soup (can you see the half moon slices of daikon?) at dinner. I had some dessert later on while watching Numb3rs (my guilty pleasure that I just won't quit)---a bowl of Cherry Garcia with gobs of toasted coconut on top.

This morning I made two lasagnas for Danielle and her family. Ground beef sautéed with onion and garlic and seasoned with oregano, basil, salt and pepper... Ricotta cheese mixed with eggs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg... Mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce... I don't make lasagna anymore, not since Gem started eating GFCF, 8 years ago. I'd forgotten how much I love it. (Making lasagna is like riding a bike, I discovered. Once you know how, you always know.)

This morning, the comfort came from cooking for friends who are very much in transition...just a little bit that I can do to help make this time as nourishing and yummy as possible.

And while I cooked, I received comfort from some Matt Pond PA. I hadn't listened to him in awhile. So many curlicues of comfort bounce and coil around us. What have you been doing to create comfort lately?

Sequence

Mummu (Cap's mom---"grandma" in Finnish) gave us the game Sequence for X-mas. Gem and I just played our first game and it was fun! I became so engrossed that I forgot to take a picture.

Making websites

The kids have been interested in creating their own websites for awhile. Honestly, it hasn't been a priority for me. So they did what kids do. They made their own.

They converted a Knex storage box into their hardware.

Sag's website is called CoolCreatures.com. Gem has made two: Urine.com and InvasionDolls.com.

They made "home" screens replete with ads and buttons to click to get to other parts of the site.

Some pages are "under construction" which I thought was beyond adorable.

Here's a Cool Creatures toy sword you can buy "for only 1¢!!!"

Can you guess which website's main page this is (the color of the page is your hint)?

Holding a baby

I had forgotten how time stops when you are holding a baby. And rocking him, holding him closer so that he'll settle back into sleep giving his mama some much needed rest.

Yesterday

Spent the day cooking yesterday. I am slow and steady in the kitchen.

I fed us and our co-op dinner friends some of my Japanese comfort foods: onigiri, tamagoyaki, miso soup with wakame and daikon half moons, spinach and kale with tofu and miso paste, steamed broccoli, and a giant fruit salad (apples, oranges, green grapes and pineapple) with toasted walnuts and toasted, shredded coconut.

The aroma of the coconut toasting knocked my socks off. Except it was more like pulling on the coziest pair ever.

And I made a cucumber and wakame salad that I forgot to serve.

Cap added brackets to the new shelf in the kitchen and decluttered some in there which made a significant difference to the feel of that patch of the room. He also cleaned, vacuumed, and took care of setting the table and washing dishes afterwards. A team effort.

I saw Vinny in the afternoon and felt great, but by the time dinner was over, I was fending off virus-y symptoms and my neck and shoulders turned to granite. I've got to hand it to my immune system though, I feel fine this morning. A little fuzzy from watching Lost and then Top Chef last night. Didn't fall asleep till 2:00 or so.

I finished Breaking Dawn, finally. It was great. I enjoyed the series a lot.

The Math Power book continues to tickle me. What a voice Pat has that comes through so truly in her writing.

I'm doing some intense knitting to finish the baby blanket for Leo, who was born on Saturday. I'm hoping to meet the little boy today.

My "shared items"

Does anyone read them? They appear in the green box on the left side of the screen... Just wondering.

Pardon

...my grousing.

My black mood is lifting.

I made some GF pizza for dinna (I like that typo---I'm leaving it in.) It only tasted a bit like freezer burn (a premade Gillian's dough I picked up awhile ago, apparently). With peas and cranberry sauce as sides. The kids were quite happy and wolfy.

I've got my Dr' Lu's digestion tea with honey, the kids' agreement to play in their room, and I'm going to sit down and watch my taped episodes of Battlestar Galactica. (The second half of the current (and final) season began airing last week and I'm doing a little re-watching to catch myself back up.)

Off my chest

I hate feeling like I am always fracking behind the 8 ball in this house.

What they're loving

Had us in stitches last night snuggled in bed.

They're learning how to play Solitaire.

Mazes. An old favorite.

The "art" markers from Santa. (All the artist trading cards are used up. Need to make some more!)

Star Wars, numbers, drawing.

Detail.

Making puzzles.

Peanuts in all formats.

And it begins

My birthday is next week. Next Wednesday to be exact.

Last night my sister called inviting me out to dinner with my mom and our sister-in-law, Lisa. Next week is Restaurant Week in NYC and we like us some gourmet-like vittles.

Today I made a reservation for us at Butter, a restaurant I've been wanting to go to for nearly two years.

I first saw the chef, Alexandra Guarnaschelli, on Iron Chef when she was beaten by Cat Cora in Battle: Farmer's Market. Though she lost, I was really impressed by her food and have wanted to go to her restaurant ever since.

And now I'm going! I love birthdays. I'll let you know if it is "like buttah" :-)

Math Power

I started Math Power, the first book off my non-fiction for 2009 list. What a great read so far! Pat Kenschaft, the author (and local resident/activist), starts off with a bang recounting research and stories which encourage the reader to acknowledge the not necessary relationship between parents' socioeconomic status and the mathematical success of their children.

Here are the five characteristics she thinks "math powerful" people have in common:

• enthusiasm for math

• ganas or persistence (which precludes the existence of hope, patience, productive skepticism. a willingness to begin over, concentration, and tolerance of frustration and failure)

• metathinking

• a tolerance of ambiguity

• a propensity to seek out similarities among differences

So interesting. I associate these characteristics with being life-powerful!

Nerd test

Cuisenaire rods and the such

Sag and I did some "table activities" this morning (code for school-y stuff). We started by playing the Ugly Doll card game (which has an element of the card game "Spit" in it---one of my childhood favorites). We moved on to "Toot and Otto" (which combines elements of Connect Four and Tic Tac Toe) and Gem joined in for some rounds.

Then Sag and I did some "Math" (in quotes because math is a naturally occurring element of so many things including the games we had just played) . I pulled out the Miquon Math work books.

I introduced Sag to some terms like: set, element, and collection. He used Cuisenaire rods to combine elements and realize that the combinations formed new knowable and familiar entities.


I taught him how to use tally marks to count and represent totals (he was familiar about the concept, but we worked on firming up the fifth slashing tally mark).

Using the information from this one worksheet, he worked on 1:1 correspondence which though "easy" on the surface really is a foundational concept which needs to be firm and secure in order to expand from it.

He also answered questions which spun him into the 4 operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) without his ever knowing it (you can bet I heard the words "but, I don't know subtraction!" later on...math phobia it can start early!)

Here he put together his nine cubes and the "nine" blue rod. (Looks like teeth! said he :-) Cuisenaire rods are a great visual and hands on (kinesthetic, my fave way to learn) tool for introducing/reinforcing mathematical, particularly numerical, concepts.

He then moved on to other pages of his choice in the workbook. He loves sequencing numbers.
I've decided for now to focus on him relearning some of the mechanics of his handwriting so that he is forming letters and numbers from "sky to earth" rather than from down to up.

He's not too happy about it, but there's something about imposing that order which is supposed to connect to neural pathways in the brain, making things, ultimately, easier.

He had a really hard time writing the number 8 this way today. It was fascinating. He couldn't get his head around it and his body had no muscle memory of doing it. His fingers, holding the pencil, was literally poised over the paper as his face scrunched up in frustration. He could not start for the life of him.

I placed my hand over his, with permission, and we made a few 8s together, and his hand and brain picked it up. Of course the whole "sky to earth" cannot be taken literally with an 8 because you have to come all the way back up with this number.

Gem joined us to play with the Cuisenaire rods. Here, he had illustrated (among other things, I'm sure): 10+0=10, 9+1=10, 8+2=10, 7+3=10, going to 5+5=10, and then back up to 0+10=10. Then he added the 10+1=11 border :-)



Sag moved on to some addition problems. He likes to know that he's done something "right". So when he looked to me for that stamp of approval, I handed him some rods and showed him how he could self-check. Cool.

The first day of the rest of my life and computer news

We spent much of yesterday cleaning out old and/or redundant files from our 7+ year old eMac yesterday. The next best thing to buying a new computer. And, honestly, better than buying a new one. (We can use Cap's work laptop to play the Star Wars lego game and have fun with Photo Booth :-)

Our method was part trashing (mostly me) and part backing up to external memory/storage (mostly Cap).

The computer feels happy to me this morning.

I went to bed at 10pm last night (actually a little later...I was glued to the drama of a player down in the Steelers-Ravens game). Good thing because my sick kid was up from 2:00 to 3:30 and then I didn't make it back to sleep till 4:30 or so. Then he woke me at 6:00 and 7:00, but I must have looked a wreck because he retreated till 8:00 when I finally awoke and arose.

I watered him and the humidifiers and he promptly fell back asleep. Sag is lego-ing and I did some qi gong for the first time in weeks. I am attempting to add some of that structure to our life I was inspired by at the start of the new year. Sh*t happens (and did happen) and I want to move on.

So, off the computer I go :-)

Sunshine

No sun here this morning. But, we do have some snow.

These are pictures I found cleaning up clutter on the computer. My dad took them in the spring of 2007. He was just discovering the joys of his new camera and we were soaking up the spring time sun in Central Park.

The photo of the hawk is worth looking at full size.

After breakfast and before lunch

While I was immersed in my yarn, the kids played and drew, and Cap hung a new shelf. Like a humming hive are we.

Who we're spending the afternoon with

Cataloging the stash

I started last night. No rhyme or reason to the timing. Cataloging my yarn stash was never high on my list of priorities. But, something true was percolating in my intuitive self because now that I am almost done, I am seeing, clearly, how helpful this bit of organizing will prove to be.

First, I entered my yarn info in my little plot of database on the Ravelry site (I cannot sing the praises of this place long or high enough). The name and brand of the yarn, where it was gotten, how much of it I have, the color, and any additional tidbits I want to note about the yarn (ie. which projects I have in mind for them, how much I love the yarn, etc.)

I was surprised to see that I have 80+ yarns in my stash (not skeins or balls..that would be more...)

The site makes it very easy to input this type of info. As well as, interface it with info you have input/linked to your account about projects (favorites, your queue, etc.)

For example, when you come upon a pattern you like, you can, with one click of a button, draw up a collection of all the projects in the site that use that pattern, that have been input by other Ravelers. Another click of the button and you can see what different yarns have been used for that one pattern/project by other Ravelers.

You can do searches by patterns, yarn, people, etc. It's a tremendous and amazing free resource.

This morning I have been photographing the yarn and am now in the midst of uploading the pics to Flickr. Ravelry interfaces with Flickr so once the photos are in my photostream, it's easy to upload them into my Rav account.

Grr. Unless you run out of free storage space for the month which I just did. So some of the photo uploading of yarn into Flickr will have to wait till February.

Anyhoo, having the yarn info joining the project info in my Rav account will help me figure out much more efficiently what I need for my next project(s). (I'm thinking I next need to input my needle info. And I need to come up with better needle storage/organization.)

In the end, I think this will help me in my quest to buy less yarn this year. I have plenty of yarn and I'm incorporating the tools at my disposal to manage the yarn I have, better. I am gaining more insight as to what I like about a yarn, what yarns are good matches for what type of project, what I like/dislike about a certain yarn. All this knowledge will lead to smarter shopping this year.

Here are some of my favorite yarns from the stash.

Malabrigo worsted in Tortuga.

Valley Yarns Shelburne. What I used for Roger's Thorpe hat.

Rowan Kidsilk Night. An anniversary celebration purchase that Cap helped me choose.

Noro Iro. Bought in Oakland and designated for a hooded sweater/jacket.

Noro Silk Garden Chunky. Probably will end up as fingerless gloves.

Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair. For a calorimetry. An indie yarn bought on a trip to a yarn shop local to Karen and Brent's.

Gem picked this silk skein out a long time ago. It is really lovely.

A hidden gem (I had completely forgotten I had this yarn.). Araucania Nature Wool Chunky.

My most favorite yarn of all at the moment. Hands and Notions Peaches and Rose sock yarn. An Etsy purchase. Very indie.

Colinette Jitterbug in Toscana. A souvenir from St. Petersburg. A sock yarn.

Malabrigo worsted in Bergamota. The color in real life is a true meeting of red and orange that is unbelievably luscious and deep.

Malabrigo sock in Terracota. I bought two skeins of Mal sock and brought them down to FL with me. I asked Wendy to pick one and so we have one each of a pair of fraternal twins. It was not an easy decision for her, not made till nearly the end of my visit. The other skein is much darker, with tones of eggplant and evening moss.

Noro Cash Iroha. Cash as in cashmere. This yarn is unbelievably soft. But with substance. The color "hot pink" is one of my favorites and I was so happy to find this yarn in VT during a visit with Anna and the kids.

Nameless indie yarn in Rosewood. Bought at the NJ Sheep and Fiber Festival. We had just moved here and still very much getting our bearings. It was a nice afternoon out in the country. Gem picked this skein.

Noro Kureyon sock yarn. I was like a moth to a flame. No, maybe more like a bear to a flying salmon. I saw this yarn and had to have it. From the yarn store in the same building as Barbra's old yoga studio. The colors in real life are truer. Much.

Pagewod Farm hand dyed sock yarn in Spring Brights. Another Oaktown purchase. The indie yarns have a lot going for them in terms of color and softness. The attention that these skeins get because there's less of them being handled during production results in a, for me, more attractive look and feel. Again, the colors are a bit washed out in the photo.

Sometimes

...I go here and just drink in the color combos. I love the names they come up with. My fave today was Christmas Balls. (It's different every visit.)