Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Of pink glitter, sprinkles and other reflections on five years old

I am down with the flu and have been sleeping much of the past few days.  But still, I have these observations to make that will otherwise slip me by.  Esme is growing - I see her long limbs as she folds up next to me with her white round face staring at me - pleading at me with blue eyes laced with green stripes (she loves to comment on those in the mirror now) - it is daytime get up no more with the sleeping.  She still has her cough but her fatigue and fever were only the first two days and now she is bouncy and ready to take on the Universe.  I am glad for that, but also glad Mark can distract her away from my leaden self as she bounces around my head like Pinkie Pie pony trying to get me to play games.  And I came back from sleep with these beautiful thoughts : She is so much the classic little girl in her ways - sprinkles make everything better, Daddy put sprinkles on her donuts in the night just to see how surprised she would be in the morning - but it takes three times longer to eat because with sprinkles, you have to enjoy the view as well...  clothes that are too tight to wear are struggled on because they have glitter and glitter makes it pretty - glitter and rhinestones are prerequisite now for clothes, and eyegashing colors of neon pink and green and purple.   She is pink and purple and My Little Pony girl - who will run screaming across the grassy field being chased by imaginary alligators (who must be fed strawberry water to appease them) and come back covered head to toe with mud, puppy beside her - ready to go for another round after a hot bubble bath... have to have bubbles.. everything is better with bubbles, too.

I'm just glad to be awake for a few hours.  I received a few new patterns in the mail and Mark has got the new Kindle.  My particle physics book came - and it has been notated in by an interesting previous reader as well - I'm reading the notes as much as the book...  Esme has went to her grandma's and I am trying to keep enough energy to do something besides sleep in between large bowls of soup and tea.  I carried so much stuff up yesterday I felt like Leelu in the Fifth Element sans the whole chicken after her regeneration.  I do feel better than yesterday - but it is only in degrees.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

green raglan sleeve by the instructions...



 Simplicity 7228 - c. 1960s size 6
in progress

This is not the droid I was looking for - a pattern along the same line, though - maybe.  I am trying it out actually following isntructions for this plain green fabric we bought on clearance.  If I like it - it might be expandable into another design with the red and gingham fabric.  I also ordered two much more 'modern' dress patterns - the frilly layered shirred ones that all of the girls are wearing that look like broomstick skirts layered one on top of the other.  Esme saw a friend wearing one and then another girl on the computer when I was looking at fabrics, and she expressed she wanted one of those - was it too expensive?  No, but not something I have at the moment - or feel confident setting out to design at the moment... so cheap pattern it is - and it will probably be here next week, with lots of time to try my hand at them before summertime.

done - it looks about the right size, will have a try on later.
I laid it out over the blue dress from November and it seemed the same size, sleeve length and just a bit longer in the skirt - so hopefully? 
The back facing to zipper area was very fussy, and I made the cuffed sleeve version which is unusual for my style of sewing -- and I think it worked out okay.  There was a point I wasn't paying attention I spent ten minutes trying to attach the yoke upside down..and then righted myself and continued.  I used a fancy stitch on the machine to give a bit of extra to the otherwise plain color - Mark said I should stitch a symbol of the Dragonborn on it for Esme as we are playing Skyrim as of late and it does resemble some of their clothing.

Later:  Esme is running a high temperature after coming home from school with a stomach bug - she ate lunch and played at Grandma's but was home and sleepy over dinner, falling asleep by 6...  an hour ago (10 pm) I gave her some tylenol and a bath and it brought the fever down for a while... seeing if it will hold.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

run by posting

I have been on a blog hiatus lately - partly the season, and the time of week with work... and the fact that I haven't done anything photo worthy in a while.  Now we will have two days off and Esme is in bed with washed and combed and braided hair for school in the morning...

 I got a call on my voice mail the other day from my dad - saying my mom is not doing well again... she is in the hospital and they are running more tests.  She was very tired when I spoke to her a few days before that - could not stay awake.  I have been trying not to think about that, in truth.  I still have thought some about it - about how she has not seen Esme and I should do that to be a good daughter, but how dangerous the last trip was and not wanting to put Esme in that danger... feeling torn but Mama Bear at the same time.  It is hard.  And there is always work, and then 'recovery' from work, and work again... this was my seven day straight week and I am glad that it is done.  I have buried myself in my books and have also been playing Skyrim with Mark and Esme fighting dragons and vampires and sneaking around the countryside in the game with my bow and arrow, which is very satisfying. 

Esme is doing very well, happy - learning about lots of things and was very happy to advance to a new 'see behind your head' car seat in our truck ;)  She was very proud of it, and being able to see more things.  This morning she and Mark drove me to work and she said the sun was on the ground - it was just rising for the day.  She commented on that a lot all the way to work.  She was reading a lot of signs today in traffic and in the store - she is picking things up pretty well.  She was out with Mark all day long and they came to pick me up afterwards, at which time we bought her a toy at the store - a Nerf type soft dart gun - which she found a small toy dog at our house and rammed it inside the barrel -- almost ruined it but Mark fixed it. I have no idea why she thought that was a good idea... I even heard her talking about the toy dog going in there but it never dawned on me until too late what she was actually saying she was about to do...

I am laying out fabric for a few days of sewing - Esme picked out some ladybug fabric she wanted at the store.  There is also a good store of fabric still left from the box Sharon gave to me which has come in handy for several pairs of pants this past week.  I have some red gingham and plain red for a possible dress, some red with thin white lines that could nicely become a raglan robe coat (like her fish one) and several other fabrics that can become pants.   There is that yellow, red and green gingham I bought last year for a dress but have not yet brought myself to make -- as if I am saving it for something special?  Or maybe because it is just so much yellow...  the plaid reminds me of what my Mom dressed me in for my Kindergarten school picture, it was like something out of the 1950s....  I wondered again if I would still be making Esme's clothing for Kindergarten coming up... and I find that I really don't know and probably won't until it happens.  The last few days she has been wearing the dress tops I made in November, and they are still fitting well.  She tried on the velvet dress she wore at Halloween (store bought handmedown) and it barely fit at all..

Saturday, February 16, 2013

a movie night for Esme

Esme went for a movie night with three other kids at G's house, and she had fun but also a hard time.  None of the children watched the movie very much.  There were tears and chases and toys everywhere and lots of power struggles.  Esme was 'third wheel' a little, because the other two girls go to the same school, and the little boy rebelled and decided not to play with her or the other girls for a while as well.  Towards the end there was no point where someone was not crying - because the younger girls were getting overtired.   Esme had a lot to think about this morning.  She asked about why the other children did not want to play with her at times - and also tried to pull off the same attitude as she saw the other children using on each other - but Mama and Daddy did not find it acceptable.  I told her the other girls were little and she was big - and we expected her to have a better attitude.  She had to sit down and think about that for a while before I left for work.

I wonder often if she will be a 'deep thinker' when she is older that I see forming now.. but then she has me as a Mama, it might not be something she can turn off.   I have a hard time with that at work, also.  The book I am ordering soon is particle physics and it excites me to know it will come in the mail.   I tried to read Munowitz's KNOWING the past few months but it just wasn't deep enough for me - this one I'm planning on buying is perhaps too deep.. perhaps between the two of them I will find a pond to swim in. We are also considering buying a Kindle to share so we can take ebooks and not just physical books with us in the car and to work etc..  If we like it, we might get another one and not share ;)  Mark has plans in the works right now to expand our Skyrim game with an expansion pack.  Geek family plans more geek fun, news at eleven ;)

In other news - there was a huge error in ordering that happened yesterday while I was not at work.  I had to fix it this morning as soon as I had arrived. I had to shake my brain out on that one as well - how does 30+30+15 = 61 to some people?  I just had to stare at the order screen and then look back to the customer - ok, I will ask it this way - what DID you want to do, because this order cannot work the way I see it here...  I just hope Monday/Tuesday rolls around and I don't get told 'sorry you can't cancel' by the vendor now.  It is all in ordered 'in my name'... and I do not support that when I am not there to check things. And yet, it still happens.... 

Friday, February 15, 2013

Most zebras run really fast

I'm catching a little uptick in Esme's language again - she is adding some more words and doing it well.  We were playing blocks and she told me that 'most zebras run really fast', which is a combination I can't remember hearing before - and a good one.  I tried to turn it back to her in the tub later 'Most Esmes really like bubbles' etc.. and she gave me the eyebrow...  I have caught her playing games with counting numbers and 'joking' with losing count and doing things out of sequence etc.. there is a lot of thought there.  She spends a lot of time with the decorating interface on Skyrim moving things around the house, balancing things, putting things in other things -- and then just knocking them all around the room for the fun of it.  She has been trying and sometimes succeeding to put containers on people's heads. 

There has been some attitude, too.  I asked her to clean her room, and she said that kids don't know how to do that.  She did it last week... and did a good job.  I reminded her, and said she could have her ice cream afterwards if she did it right.  Ok, off to clean the room.  Did a great job.  Fell on the stairs going back down - not hurt.. just dirty hands and upset about it.  I asked her to wash her hands and she starts doing the 'my hand is an annoying duck talking and talking and talking' routine at me... Why are you doing that?  Because you're talking and I want to play in my room and not wash my hands.  Ok, no washing hands - no ice cream though with dirty hands.  (oh the political dramas!)  Tears and upset and apologies and why you so mean to me... then I explain again.. and she washes her hands and eats the ice cream - then we play blocks in her room after that.  Our little five year old is definitely a master of drama queen.

We have today off - Esme has been invited to a movie with her friend G at her house tonight.  I have been feeling slightly under the weather but maybe can beat it...

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

we beat the sorcerer

We geared up and beat the sorcerer in the game last night - it didn't make Esme that happy - because then she had to go to bed.  She washed her hair extremely well though - hardly any fuss.  She was very upset I wouldn't let her wear her school clothes to bed... well, we still have problems with that and it isn't a good habit to get into.  I have to wake her up and brush out her hair before school today - here we go... work and school both for Mark's chauffeuring service, what a Wednesday!  (please make it buzzard free - ie: when I hit one and broke the windshield)... buzzard-free Wednesdays has become a meme around here now...

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

finished gloves and meantime

I finished these gloves a while back - maybe a week ago. I put a little brown stitching on them the other day while Esme watched Little Ponies.. and I blame Pinkie Pie for the crooked one, or the bouncing she induced at the very least. Esme needed no help in learning that, she already knew how to bounce incessantly around the house ;) The stitching is mostly to denote right from left - they 'wear' a certain way, even though in truth I knitted them for the opposite hands... strange how that goes, and good thing I didn't knit a pattern into them in the first place.  The grey scarf is from quite a while back also, it has become a favorite of mine and is also wool.  I'll wear the wool while I can and soon enough it will be summer... right?


I always hide the spines of my books at work to keep from having to explain them instead of read them... I don't have to do that here. This is from the 1960s and we got it sometime long ago at a book sale according to the inner pages. It is nice to turn to your bookshelf with an idea and there is something there on exactly the obscure subject you were contemplating... truly, that is an awesome feeling, even if the book is 50 years plus in age, sometimes especially if the book is that old, because it helps 'solute' the ideas - what was known then, what is known now?  How do they differ?  Why and how did we learn those differences?

 I had forgotten there was a Rankine scale of temperature.... Listening to the online lectures and then coming back to the text things come more into focus than just reading the text alone or listening to the lecture alone... All of the things I have no idea why I am studying - but they keep coming round and round, opening more little crannies related back to each other - there has to be something in here that I am wanting to understand, even if I don't know it myself. And it seems to settle more after a while 'soak' etc... I ask myself questions in dreams or suddenly at some moment when I am down on my belly crawling under the deck to reach a faucet box that has slipped behind the thought comes to me for words to search together - ideas to try to connect - and then I am looking for something else to fill in that gap... and yet I can't do the detail math so why am I reading the theories and trying to understand the overall 'geometry' of it? Maybe it has to do with knitting somewhere *joke*... it will come together if it needs to.  In the meantime....time.

Homefront Notes : After her bath last night Esme and I played Skyrim into a scary dungeon.  She was upset that I stopped (after being killed several times by the magician) and said we would sleep on it, regroup tomorrow and think of a better way to fight him.  She cried that we were not strong and I would not win and would not go back to the town tonight etc...  I said we were strong, but we had to think - and it was after midnight and time little five year old girls (and their mamas who need to work) should be in bed.  She insisted we drink milk so we had strong bones today to fight with.  Ok....  And that we need a magic shield and it will protect us.  We'll think about that.  Her new line lately is 'do this before time is running out', and also 'fine then, you won't play at all anymore' ...  The other big development is Pollywog cat had five kittens in Esme's bed night before last.  It was messy - and very late at night.  We cleaned it all up and they are in a box upstairs as Esme can't resist the temptation to play with them.  Mr.Frog suffered through it all and survived the washing machine, so Esme is happy about that.

Monday, February 11, 2013

bits in head space

Lots going on again, days flying by... I'm absorbing some science knowledge, making pants for Esme, made a book pillow for Mark to keep his bones and the many many books he reads separated some for comfort's sake... Esme is in the bath swimming in bubbles.. I'm listening to Turn by Great Big Sea that Mark put to the overhead speakers for me. It is sweet, smooth and complex in language and instrumentation. I got this CD way back when must have been 2001? It has memories of when I first went to college.. I tried to play mandolin back then but was never very good at it. I am waiting to hear 'roll me over next to the wall' to remember what the questions are she asks him to answer... they were going over my head while I was sleeping last night, along with some of the science questions of fluid mechanics, density of turbidity currents and differential pressures from the book I was reading. All in the flow, see what new ideas come out of it. I just remembered my Mom was trying to call me... I didn't want to call her back - I should tomorrow. I took charge and did a lot at work today - see what if anything shall come of that tomorrow. For tonight, I am listening and it is nice.

Friday, February 08, 2013

A Yard of Donkey Fabric



I ordered a yard of this when I saw it online... without any idea of what to do with it.  It is called 'Senor Burrito' by Alexander Henry.  That isn't all that usual for me...getting fabric without having an idea of what will be made from it.  I'll have to think hard for it....  I have a yard of green that was gotten on clearance at the fabric table that could be used with it...

Other projects on the table : finished the wool gloves but may put some other yarn decoration on them... Making a yarn bolster pillow for the bed with the scraps leftover from the full size afghan.  It is white with grey and navy blue stripes.

Esme is having a great time watching a new My Little Pony show.  She went to town with Mark today and she was very good.

Geeky girl time: thermodynamics and lectures and one more for later

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

k meeting, awesome toy and purple shirt

We had Esme's meeting at school today. It was less than an hour long and quite formal. I think we got across that we are very very glad for the progress she made this past year, but that she has gotten to the point she will be 'ok' in a regular kindergarten, sans some adjusting time. She will continue to have some speech and language services, but hopefully 'screen out' of the speech after a few months in K. She had already reached 80-100 percent on all of the goals for her IEP during this year.


A forest log playset for Esme, based on something we saw online. The bunny can fit inside the log to sleep.  She says it is an awesome toy - and all of the scraps were already in my workstation. The green is the skirt cut off of her daffodill dress from a few years back - which was almost entirely recycled into other projects. Other toys she wanted me to make : a 'fireplace' set with logs and fire. A whale with a stomach cavity that could swallow things and cough them back up. We bought her lincoln logs a while back but she wasn't interested in them then - but she is getting very interested in them again, now.


This is more of a tunic shirt than a dress - but it is the same as the last few I had made - Butterick 3600 circa 1960s with a 10 inch skirt instead of 20... seeing how tall she is getting I should advance that up to about 14 inches for the next thing I make for her.

Sunday, February 03, 2013

finished afghan, circle horse quilt patch

 Experiment from yesterday with circle patterns... not the best example of the type of work but I had never tried it before and it was a great learning experience.  I think the patch took me off and on about four or five hours so not something I'd want to do many of... and yet, maybe they would get quicker once I knew what I was doing and had all the pieces worked out beforehand.  My own pieces cut from printer paper, some 'guesswork' involved as well.  Appliqued onto the white background and topstitched down.

Esme minecrafting this morning, wearing her sweater as she was cold.
She has also discovered SpongeB games now, and has been playing those as well as making her fireworks in Minecraft and new houses everywhere.  

The finished '2 person' afghan.  Mark says 'husband shown for scale'.  I finished it up last night and it was on the bed all night.  Very warm.  It measures about 80 by 72?  It was 273 stitches wide on the circular needle and that was the maximum width I could pull off - have been working on it since mid-October 2012.

I am back at work tomorrow early.. and Tuesday.  Esme's IEP meeting is Wednesday.

Saturday, February 02, 2013

a bit here and there over the weekend

I woke up with an idea for a circular brick pattern for quilting... of course, it will be difficult to even attempt. That is how these dreams are - show me something I like and then when I actually think about it - it turns out to be a mathematical experiment in cloth. Ha. This is the image I made this morning to start with - and then quadrupled in size, made a line drawing and printed out. I'm staring at it now wondering how to go about the task - probably in pillars, not in courses.
The circular brick quilt idea for a pattern. It would be placed around a central circle cut out of something else and probably surrounded with something else as well... I'm not thinking huge quilt here, I'm thinking - look what I can do small thing or a throw pillow. I ordered some pretty fabric the other night with some Etsy money - and it might be a great one to do this and draw the colors out using the brick pieces.

a trial run with some scraps on the table

I caught a blog post to a 'Glorious Applique' quilt as well. I think her colors really made the show on it, and it showcased her work all the more. I wish I had the patience for this - and this is me saying this! Glorious Applique house and horses quilt. It is very folklorical, which suits my tastes at the moment. I have something else in my mind for a dress for Esme, but I don't want to go digging through the fabric pile for it at the moment. She asked me for more t-shirts last night.. clothes without zippers or ties, she can take off by herself (but still not quite get on). It's happening... I told her Mom would have to get a bit more money before we could go and have her pick out some.

As for other things - it is extremely cold, and I have the weekend off. I didn't realize I had the weekend off until yesterday halfway through work - so it was a nice surprise. I have the 'gift' that I can forget my schedule as soon as I write it down... That is actually a big thing, considering my memory for visual information. I think it helps me not worry so much that the week is going on and on and on..., but once in a while it also begets nice surprises.

Esme is going to bounce awake soon - maybe.. she went to bed very late after playing Skyrim a bit and having a laze around in a bubble bath she did not want to exit. I am almost done with the bed afghan - I keep saying that.. really I think I am almost done! The pair of gloves is down to two fingers left to go - I wished I had them done yesterday morning as I chipped ice off the windshield!