Runaway October

So I’ve got this brother, right? Erm, this lit­tle brother I should say. And you all know how lit­tle broth­ers are. Are you with me on this?

I hap­pen to be super blessed in that Cody is stay­ing with us for now. He makes our lives full… full of all kinds of stuff.

Like girl drama. I’m glad I was never that way! Ahem.

And dirty socks.

And he self­lessly tutors my two inno­cent chil­dren in ways to get them­selves hurt or in trouble.

He’s a fine upstand­ing exam­ple of trouble.

See this?

Taran­tula Hawk

Cody pissed it off.

And this nor­mally placid flyer stung him. Ha! Poor guy, just mind­ing his own busi­ness when some giant gets all huffy about a sting and douses you in Car­bu­re­tor cleaner.

Or how about when he tries to show Declan how to ride BMX, like a pro yo.

This is what Declan comes back look­ing like:

Now, what do you think Cody looks like? After all, Declan was under Cody’s tute­lage when this dis­as­ter happened.

Are you ready for it?

No really, you should be prepared.

Let’s look at this more closely, shall we?

Click for larger version

Nice huh? And that’s just his face.

This is right before all the scabs came off.

Pretty huh?

I don’t have pic­tures of the time after that. He still has the scabs on his shins. Prob­a­bly should have got stitches.

So that’s a very small glimpse of Life with Cody. I wont even go into where I spent my entire Tues­day evening because of him. Stay tuned for more Cody adventures.

Okay, so, things have been quite busy here. Some good things, some bad things. Lots of pictures.

Where to start.…

Rowan now has two teeth and judg­ing by his level of irritibil­ity it seems he may be pop­ping out a few more. The first one was super easy and I didn’t even know it was hap­pen­ing. What a trooper huh? He’s been wear­ing his Amber Teething Neck­lace and just looks so cute in it! We call this his pirate face.

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We recently spent a morn­ing at Agri­topia with Grandma Ann and were blessed with an over­cast sky. Sadly it was humid enough to induce a full body sweat film, but we still had a good time. The food was won­der­ful as well. Rowan just adored the grass.  We don’t have a sin­gle blade at our house, because it’s a crappy rental. Declan loved being able to run wild while we sat and ate — Oh, to be a two year old again. Notice the shorts D is wear­ing? Made ‘em. Yep. I actu­ally made some­thing for a boy. Not as easy as you think.

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I com­pleted my Chromium Star Afghan for a very preggo friend, though it didn’t come out as expected. I don’t have the time, or the heart, to frog it and start over. It ruf­fles in cer­tain sec­tions, as you can kinda tell here. Before it ruf­fled so bad it wouldn’t lay flat. This is after wash­ing and block­ing. The points also curve but I kinda like it that way. I asked the pat­tern cre­ator for help a cou­ple times, but have got­ten no reply. If you break the star into sec­tions — you should see ten here — the sec­tion that goes from the val­ley to the peak ruf­fles up, like there’s way too many stitches. I’ve gone over the pat­tern time and time again and can’t fig­ure out what I did wrong. Any ideas?

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I opened an apple for the kids the other day and the seeds had started to sprout. How cool is that? We popped them in a lit­tle pot and look what we have now. One is a marigold and the leafier one is the apple. Funny how they start out the same size. The apple was organic and local grown so I’m hop­ing that it’ll will actu­ally grow since it’s most likely not some funky kind of com­mer­cial hybrid.

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My biggest news is that Matt has fully given me his bless­ing to really move on an Etsy bou­tique. I’d like to make some income from it, but Matt will be happy if I just cover the cost of all my fab­ric. I cre­ated a pat­tern for a sim­ple lit­tle jumper and match­ing dia­per cover and used one of my favorite girly fab­rics. It came out awe­some. I even made some labels that will make do for now. But then dis­as­ter struck! The reverse but­ton on my machine just kinda popped out in my hand while try­ing to do the last two but­ton­holes. I would have been fin­ished. But no! Matt’s mom had given me her old machine, so I can use that for straight sewing, but I can’t get the but­ton holer to work.

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Stu­pid me, I marked the but­ton place­ment on the out­side of the dress with an indeli­ble marker not think­ing I’d have an issue. Grr. Now I have a cute lit­tle jumper set that I can’t sell until I fig­ure out the but­ton­hole idea. I was so so so happy to be get­ting some­thing rolling. It’s cute though, no? Would you buy it? Well, if it was finished?

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I think I’m going to have my labels made by Spoon­flower. The ones I made myself were on muslin with fab­ric paint and I really like the soft­ness. No one wants those itchy pokey tags. Now I just need to come up with a logo and make all the ban­ners and avatars for my bou­tique. Any one want to help? I’ll make you cook­ies and water­mel­on­ade!

I’m think­ing of pay­ing some­one to do it for me. Maybe I should look into busi­ness grants? Any­one want to help fund my ende­vour? Or buy a new sewing machine!?!

Com­ments guys! I live for com­ments!! Seriously.

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I’ve been work­ing on this blan­ket for awhile now and while I’m pleased at how it’s turn­ing out I’m not pleased with the ten­sion issues I’ve been hav­ing. I also hate to admit it but I found not one but TWO dropped stitches and they’re quite a few rounds back. I’m con­tem­plat­ing frog­ging the whole thing and start­ing over. I think I would prob­a­bly cry while doing it, but I really need to reeval­u­ate my gauge again.

I just hate to use a larger hook because that means larger holes in the throw right? I hate that — makes it too drafty. Actu­ally I just looked back and it seems I may be using too big of a hook already?!

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In other sad news, it’s gonna cost us quite a mint to get the car repaired and the bank has decided not to help us with that as half of our income (mine) is gone. It looks like I’m gonna have to give up all the crafts and fancy recipes again for awhile. I just wish there was some­thing I could do at home with­out becom­ing the Evil­StressQueen of Har­well Street. I wish I was like Dooce and could get paid for each of the mil­lions of read­ers I have. Haha. Nev­er­mind, I think I have 3 but I love you all!

One — Your Meemaw really does read your blog. If you go too long she’ll send you a note ask­ing what hap­pened to your blog and if you’re sick. Yay!

Two — Don’t sew pins into things so that you can­not get them out of with­out rip­ping out stitches — espe­cially stitches made to with­stand the abuse of children.

Three — When your two-year-old tells you that some­thing is in the “ghar-can” he’s prob­a­bly not being funny. It really is in the garbage can.

Four — Get to work on my zom­bie plan. It could actu­ally hap­pen!!

Five — Yes, the couch does eat things — espe­cially cro­chet hooks and any­thing rubberband-like

10/30