Sunshine, Sales, and Charitable Give-aways

There's one last chance to take advantage of the "Making, Not Buying" Sale!  The sale ends at midnight, Central Time (US&Canada) tonight, November 30th.
Get 25% off all my Ravelry knitting patterns with the coupon code:
Making

If you'd prefer to buy your patterns right along with the yarn, Loveknitting.com is having all sorts of great sales. Nearly all my patterns are available for sale there, and most are linked right up with the right yarns for knitting the patterns.  Instant, easy gratification!

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!
If you're a knitter who donates her/his work to charity, Yarncanada.ca is having a special yarn giveaway.  Enter your information here to be eligible to win a huge amount of yarn for your good deeds!
The home front:
We've had a challenging week.  One twin decided it would be fun to hide and disconnect all the landline phones, for instance.  (Things got fixed after Mommy freaked out and pointed out that no one could call out in case of emergency this way...)  And yes, I have a cell phone, but you're also inferring that it would be on my body, turned on, and I'd be able to focus to speak on the phone...none of which were the case at the time!
I wanted to snap a photo of my homemade cast-iron skillet cornbread.  True, we ate some slices for snack...but I could have still posted a photo as it continued to cool, on top of the back of the stovetop. However, I did something crazy and trusted my husband, the professor, both boys, and two dogs to behave themselves and manage the situation while I (ahem) went to the bathroom.  When I returned?  It looked like a bad news pie eating contest, gone horribly wrong. Most of the cornbread was gone. Crumbs everywhere.

Sadie the dog was making weird coughing noises. (Hint, this is what happens when you eat half a skillet of cornbread without benefit of butter or a glass of milk...) And no, I am not giving my dog butter or milk to wash down the cornbread she ate while no one was looking...  AHHH!

A day later, she decided to open her plastic container of dog treats with her teeth, and eat those, too.  Her tummy is maybe a little upset now.  Just a smidge.  And Sally, our old dog, is not 100% better yet herself.  Fun times.

I've just made a fudge brownie pie and an apple cake--we're going to Shabbat dinner at a friend's house.  I took precautions.  Sadie is locked in with me on the third floor-thank you, baby gates- and I sort of barricaded in the desserts with heavy jars, etc. so they could cool in safety.

OK, I am not going into anything else, it's too long a list!  Here's a quick look at the sun light pouring into our dining room after a big snowstorm passed.  Winter sunlight is the best, it really lifts my spirits!

On the making front here, well, it hasn't been the best week for wild bursts of creativity.  I've done the basics--written and edited some articles.  I'm knitting a solid black cardigan for myself (boring but necessary) so there's nothing to see there!  I'll leave you with this multi-colored piece of art, produced by a kid at our house.  (OK, he was kept inside for recess due to some seriously bad stuff he did at school, but whatever.  The art came home....)

I'm wishing you a peaceful weekend.  With lots of cake.  Maybe some snow, colorful art, and umm, did I say peace?  Yeah, please pass me some of that as well.  In the interim, I might just need more cake.

Embracing Patched Jeans

Hurray!  My first piece went live yesterday on CBC-Parents!

It's in the "Learning" category.
It's live, and on a national CBC website!
Here's a link:
 Why My Kids Have Patches On Their Clothes And What That’s Taught Our Family

In other news:
Sadie the dog had a little run-in with the leftover sugar from canning yesterday.  Rather, she was annoyed that I left home (She was saying, "The nerve of that lady!  Going out for some groceries! Leaving me at home with Sally the dog, the Professor, and both twins---  All on my own!") and decided to do some investigation of our kitchen counters again.  Everyone else was upstairs, getting ready for kid bedtime. This time, Sadie's adventure involved taking a 2 kilo bag of sugar (maybe a pound or .5 kilo was left) and bringing it to the living room, ripping up the bag, and spraying sugar everywhere.  Talk about a mess...OY.  She is paying for it today with a real tummy ache.

It was a lot to clean up but it was also pretty funny.  Oh, we have a big puppy!
Note to self: Do not leave stuff out on counters!  Repeat! (Read that note, again and again.)

She'll grow and learn, but it takes training and time...and I have to train all the other family members to keep better track of her.  (Cause sometimes I do leave home to do things...crazy, huh?)

Mid-career science funding

While we were playing outside in the sunshine at a birthday party for seven year olds over the weekend...This CBC article launched:

Why doesn't Canada support mid-career discovery-based scientists?

And yes, if you were curious, I wrote this while getting us ready for the big international trip.  Then I worked on editing it with a great CBC editor while we packed and unpacked, and I got 40 some cupcakes baked and iced, and I put together the boys' birthday party. It all happens at the same time around here.

In a quiet moment, I finally captured Sadie, our new dog, playing ball with her squeaky toy.  She is a blur of motion and it can be hard to catch a photo.  So here's a little video instead, I hope it works! (oops, it didn't work!)  If you have a moment, watch  Here is a still shot or two, just for the joy in playing and her enthusiasm!  It's great to have a big young dog around sometimes...if only to remind us to enjoy squeaky balls and play time.

Coping with loss

This article I wrote came out on Friday in the Jewish Independent in Vancouver. It's about helping kids learn about death, and leaning on religious rituals to deal with it.
 It's titled:
Rituals can help us with loss


I'm also in the middle of updating some patterns with new yarn selections over at Loveknitting.com.  If you'd like to buy a pattern and yarn at the same time, this is a convenient way to do it!

We're having a busy time around here as the Professor is off doing some field research. Sadie is making great progress in training and the exercise and warmer weather is doing us all a lot of good.  By warm, I mean highs in the 60s (18C tops) but to us it feels like a heatwave about now!  We're still occasionally hoping over icy piles of snow on our walks to the park.  I hope they finally melt soon!

Yak down and Dog training

 I've finished the tunic I was making for myself and am on to using some delicious Reywa Fibers Embrace yak down dk weight yarn that my brother-in-law and sister-in-law got me...a long time ago.  It will likely become a textured wrap design...and if you are at all interested in test knitting it and posting a project on Ravelry, do let me know! 

Knitting (and anything else that requires sitting down) has taken a back seat to some intense amounts of dog training.  Sadie is bright, eager, and active...and young.  She's also still forced to be on a leash for perhaps another week because she just got spayed.  She needs lots of exercise (we're doing three walks a day) and practice at following obedience commands, not tugging on her leash, not jumping--and being by herself.  If we do it right, she is happy to rest quietly indoors when we're done.

We've also had a big spate of "lost and found" problems here.  The blue Riverbend Garden Hat got left at school until I insisted on going through the very stinky lost and found bin by myself one last time.  HURRAY! We found it--but boy did it need a wash!

Then, it got warm out yesterday and this sweater did not make it home...we're still looking for that, we think maybe it got left on the school bus.

Finally, my professor headed out the door to administer a final exam (it's called "invigilate" an exam in Canada, as compared to "proctor" in the US) and discovered he'd lost his car keys.  He had them last night.  I have walked the neighborhood looking for them, and now I'm going to do more intensive searching in the house.  We seem to be losing things at an alarming rate here.

And this is why one occasionally needs exotic, sustainably raised yak down to knit, and enthusiastic young dogs--it keeps me from feeling discouraged!!

What's going on over there?

 Just before we got Sadie, I thought--I'm about to finish a knitted tunic!  (It's a Nutkin variation in navy Briggs & Little Tuffy yarn, designed to stand up to hard wear in our household.)  However, the tunic features pockets, and my house keys often wear holes in knitwear pockets.  So, I sewed two little pocket inserts on my sewing machine out of matching cotton fabric remnants...but the tunic isn't done yet.

Since getting Sadie, it's been all about managing our new dog, our new dog with our old dog, twins, and household.  Yesterday I did something crazy for myself. I went to my physio (physical therapy) exercise class.  I crated Sadie and left her at home for about an hour and a half.  When I got back, her brand new wire crate looked like this:
Shed pushed out the tray on the bottom, cracked and chewed it, bent the crate wires, and shredded towels and sheets that were both above and below the tray.  Oh, and she finished the peanut butter in her chew toy Kong, in case you were wondering... (Yeah.  Not good.)  So, we've got a dog with (note irony) a little separation anxiety and some crate issues.

Since yesterday: We've bought a plastic hard sided, smaller crate.  I've taken Sadie to the vet for a once-over, and for the short term, we're getting some nice drugs to help her calm down so she can be in the crate for a little while at a time, or to sleep in at night.  --Ain't no way I am leaving this dog alone in our house, free range, if she can do this to a crate.  We're doing more walks (vet approved, even though she just had spay surgery on Wednesday) and more training.

And last night, with the first attempt at calming drugs, new crate, etc., she was only quiet and calm on her own in the crate from about midnight until 5.  I am tired.

So, new dogs cost a lot of money!  Last month, I had a marvelous run of pattern sales over at Loveknitting.com.  I was so thrilled!  Then, April came, and drum roll....on both Ravelry and Loveknitting, I have sold a total of ONE pattern this month.  ONE!  So, when the fees are taken out of that?  It's worth about the same amount as ordering a single cup of coffee at a coffee joint.  I emailed the Loveknitting folks, and it turns out they wrote something in a March newsletter that encouraged people to do a pattern search--and this helped knitters find my patterns.  Since then, Nada.

To boost business, I took out a Ravelry advertisement for a few days.  Lots of people are clicking on these ads...So this is a pitch.  Are you a knitter?  Do you like knitting my designs?

If so, please share your projects on Ravelry, link to my design pages, and feel free to talk up patterns you like to your knitter friends.  ...Cause I have an expensive crate-eating dog over here....and I'm going to need more sleep before I can begin even thinking about writing more articles and patterns this week!

This Soft Basket, featured in this photo, is currently filled with dog toys at our house.
Stripe Freestyle, in the ad below, is currently in use--the 6 year old in the photo is wearing it today at school!