At least pictures going back to mid-2007 thus far. I have much more to do. And some pictures that appear to have not made the transfer, but most (at least until Jan 2006) seem to be alive and well.

And I’ve been knitting!

Possibly the ugliest socks I’ve made to date. The yarn is Lion Brand sock yarn, I forget the colorway (or I’ve successfully blocked it out of my memory because it’s so fugly.) The needles are sized 1 us (2.25 mm.) The first sock is finished except for that fussy bit of weaving in the toe and the second sock is underway.

I’m hoping that there will be just enough yarn to knit a teeny hand grenade out of it (the colors are appropriate.)

I have absolutely no clue why I would buy that yarn. None. What the heck was I thinking?

I’m also loving the font size, my eyes just can’t take teeny tiny ant droppings after a while and the restricted size of the last template was driving me crazy.

And now, the hard work is ahead of me as I try to sort through photo files dating back to 2003 (yes, I’ve been blogging that long) and try to figure out which photos go to which posts. Ugh.

Thank  goodness for hot coffee, faithful dogs, and latenight radio. I have the feeling I’m going to need to dedicate more than a few late nights if I want to restore my blog to its former glory.

I’m essentially ftping the contents of my laptop to a secure undisclosed location on one of my sites because the laptop is at deaths door and I need the hard drive backed up yesterday. Since I’m in a maintenance kind of mood I started updating my sites and thinking about replacing the themes I’m not quite happy with (like this one, it’s cute but not what I need.)

One good thing that has come from today is that I found oodles and gobbles of pictures that have disappeared in the last few upgrades and server moves so I can now restore them within the posts. Yay! More work! Yay!

Thank goodness I organize photos by date right?

They weren’t.

I’ve been Stumbled.

Stumblers ROCK! (But you already knew that didn’t you?)

Post most horrifying to knitters

I start anthropomorphizing my cats

I have a little too much irish cream in my coffee and write about the things I’d really like to say at craft fairs

This was probably the fastest overhaul of a blog theme that I’ve ever done, in part because I wanted to keep things simple, and in part because I’m starting to figure out what I’m looking at in php.

By no means does this imply that I actually know what I’m doing.

Okay so quick update on all the things I haven’t blogged about here:

1. My house broke, no biggie– we’re fixing it and doing a bit of remodelling at the same time.
2. I’ve started doing art work again
3. I’ve applied to further my education via an online college
4. The chickens are just getting past that ugly stage of chick-hood, now that their neck feathers are filling out they don’t look quite so much like tiny vultures.
5. I’m scaling down our major appliances in order to a) economize our space and b) stick it to the power company
6. The girl child is *completely* (Oh thank you God, thank you.) potty trained.
7. I’m doing what I do every night: Plan to take over the world

My confession is that I love being a mom and housewife, it’s the job that I was born to do, and it’s great– my big fear is retirement. When my kids are grown and off to college, I have the sneaking suspicion that my husband and I will be the parents that freak out, sell the house, build a yurt (or a ger) out in the desert and buy a herd of African hair goats (or are they sheep?) and a pet emu. At which point the kids may distance themselves a little from us.

More experienced moms pat me on the head and say “Wait until they are teenagers, then you’ll want them out.” While this might be true for them, I don’t think it will be for me. This is the first time in my life where I’m satisfied with what I’m doing, I think I parent well, and I am always shocked at how quickly the day goes. Not because I don’t have enough time to get things done, but because I really enjoy hanging out with my kids and being a mom.

I wish we were at the point of where, as a society, being a housewife and mother were acceptable and not looked at as a luxury or some kind of chauvinistic oppression tactic. My husband and I have a relationship that sings in harmony, my kids are confident and happy, even my dog seems happier and more secure in her world. And I wonder “Why don’t other people want this?”

And somewhere out there is Yednew (that’s the bizarro Wendy) who is asking why in the world someone wouldn’t like flipping burgers and interviewing babysitters.

I’m spinning mostly boring undyed Falkland wool that I bought last year, I shouldn’t say boring wool, because that’s unfair. It’s incredibly white, soft, low on the itchy scale, and quite lovely. It’s just not the most stimulating spin– although if I have anymore stimulation (as in the website debacle, the OMG-where-are-my-backups-?! stimulation, and the What-effin’-happened-to-my-kitchen-wall?! sort of stimulation) I won’t have a very interesting blog, since I’ll end up sitting in a corner of a quiet padded room, rocking back and forth, touching my forehead compulsively and muttering myself to sleep.

Stay frosty.

I like the shaping, I even like the color she used. I don’t like the yarn-over treatment of the raglan shaping and I don’t particularly like teeny garments in bulky. And I think that a bit of trim wouldn’t hurt. So after a bit of math I found and using directional increases instead of yarn overs I’ve reduced the gauge significantly (from size 11 to size 1 needles), swapped off for a gradient red yarn that I created, and started knitting.

Here’s a detailed shot of my increases.

So far I’m pretty happy with the results and so long as it doesn’t look like one of the kids has spilled Kool-Aid randomly on the capelet I think it might turn out nicely.