well, i've completed my first fingerless mitt except for the thumb... but i think i'm going to need to rip out the top part and redo it, because it's too long. it covers my pinky finger, instead of stopping right at or below the bottom knuckles on my fingers, like it's designed to. somehow i made 6 cable twists instead of 4, like i was supposed to! oops! :) i'm so happy that i was able to knit cables and use dpns to knit in the round, though - this was my first time using both those techniques. i'm waiting for either mama or katherine to help me with ripping out the top part of the mitt - i'm not confident enough yet to do that on my own. i'm afraid all the stitches would just slip away, and the whole thing would unravel before my eyes. i haven't been able to meet for knitting group for a while, since i started working on the weekends. and this weekend's free time may just need to be dedicated to 24...

the new season has begun, and my dad has the 4-hour (!!) season premiere taped at his house, waiting for me. i'm thinking i may head straight over there after work on saturday or sunday and watch it. although, i will have to deviate from the 24-standard chicken stir fry that my dad fixed for me every monday night last year.

i have decided to stop eating meat for a while. my first day back at whole foods this past weekend, the team members in the cash office were talking about an animal compassion class they'd just been required to sit through. every once in a while, WFM has these classes and seminars to keep everyone on track with our philosophy, the reasons behind our quality standards, etc. the team members were discussing the footage they'd seen, and the array of alarming conventional and factory farming practices out there. i got this sinking feeling in my stomach as they were talking, and was struck with nostalgia for the way i used to eat and think and feel about such things when i first worked at WFM, before micah was born. for some reason, i just decided right then to take a break from eating meat, and i went home that day with some tofurkey and gimme lean meatless ground beef in my shopping bag. i made our staple dish, goulash, with the meatless ground beef the next night. rowan and i LOVED the new recipe, but josh and micah were not impresssed. josh says that he would love to reduce the amount of meat that we eat, and to introduce more vegetarian meals and fresh veggies, but he's not interested in eliminating meat completely from his diet. he was a vegetarian with me before micah was born, and i think he enjoyed it, but we're pretty sure he's hypoglycemic now, and it's become extremely important for him to get enough protein. neither of us are educated or disciplined enough to make sure he gets enough from plants and beans and nuts, so for now, meat is still on the menu for him. we're just making a committment to buy it all from WFM, now that i have a discount again. the kids, i'm sure, will continue to eat meat, but, again, only organic from WFM.

speaking of food, i've been on a huge amish bread kick. it seems to be all i want to eat. healthy, huh? i'm such a good vegetarian...

my first attempt at cables is successful, so far! it looks like it's supposed to! i'm so excited to wear these things. i took a picture of my progress with my dad's camera, but forgot to download the pics to the computer before giving the camera back to him. knitting group was really fun on sunday. and yesterday was a nice day off from school and babysitting; the kids and i just hung out and kept the house clean. this morning i took micah to school and she had a little bit of trouble, i'm guessing for two reasons: it'd been three days since she'd gone, and she was really sleepy. she woke up early yesterday morning and didn't nap, but for some reason i couldn't get her to go to sleep until around 10 PM. i'm going to try to get her down much earlier tonight. i also need to get her up a little earlier tomorrow morning. she seems to do better at drop-off if she's had a good 30-45 mins of awake time with me at home, eating or watching a movie or something. i'm learning, i'm learning........

last night i knit something from a pattern, from start to finish, without any help. i was so proud of myself! i made this little heart, for a pin for grandmommy. it's for her birthday/valentine's day. i'm picturing her wearing it pinned to a denim jacket, or maybe a bag. i hope she likes it! i think i'll make pins for micah's two teacher's for V-day, too. they are so easy and quick!

i think micah is actually allergic to the adhesive on those bandaids. she has a big red welt on her thigh, where one of them was. i'm going to take our own bandaids the next time we have to get shots.

this has been a fun weekend so far. yesterday we woke up early and cleaned house, something we've been badly needing to do. we got everything straightened up from the room switch we did last week (we switched our bedroom and the computer room). i mopped the kitchen and entryway tile. it felt good to get everything neat and orderly. after we were done with our chores, we took the kids for a bike ride around the neighborhood. then we headed to gabriel's 1st birthday party - gabriel is josh's dad's step-grandson. the party was fun - we watched an adorable video of the birthday boy, played a pin-the-nose-on-the-elmo game, and swung at an elmo pinata in the front yard. we left the party early so we could make it home in time for my dad and vesta to come over. they watched the kids while josh and i went on a date! it was so nice. we had plans to eat at olive garden, and use the gift card josh got from his sister for christmas. we ended up not leaving ourselves quite enough time to eat there before our movie began, though, so instead we ate at charley's, a grilled sub shop. it was....... not good. our sandwich tasted all right, but it left both of us feeling nauseated. from there we walked around world market (we were at the firewheel shopping center) for a bit, then walked to the AMC movie theater. we saw 'sherlock holmes'. i had been warned against it by my dad and my stepdad, my dad saying "it has nothing to do with the real sherlock holmes story!" (he's a HUGE fan of the holmes stories and has been reading/telling them to me and my siblings all our lives, so he's a purist and wasn't going to settle for anything less than a perfect, idealistic representation of sir doyle's eccentric characters), and my stepdad saying the acting was okay but the story was stupid. i tried to leave these preconceptions in the lobby. it worked - josh and i both loved the movie! i laughed a lot, jumped and squirmed in my seat, and drooled sufficiently over robert downey and jude law. we also saw several previews for movies for future date nights. i think firewheel is going to be a frequent destination for our dates - it was really fun walking around from restaurants to our favorite stores to the movie theater. it made me feel like we were in new york or something. :)

i'm going to knitting group this morning! i'm so excited. i didn't try cables yet, as i earlier posted, so i get to do them today under the wise guidance of my mom and katherine. :) i should be successful.......

micah loves school. my attached, spirited, quadruple-gemini little firstborn loves school.

day one: cried

day two: no tears, a bit wary...

day three: let go of my hand, took off down the hallway with backpack, didn't look back

i'm really, really, really glad it's going well - and i'm having a surprisingly fine time letting go and embracing this change. i'm ESPECIALLY happy that we did this first, before making the switch to full day kindergarten. that would've been hard on her, and on me. i'm glad that i'm gradually weaning myself away from spending every waking moment with her. :)

took micah to her pre-school this morning, only to discover she was lacking two vaccinations. so we made an early appointment with the pediatrician, got those taken care of, and continued on to target (after a fast-food breakfast) to get her a backpack. : ) i wasn't sure if she needed one, but at the school this morning i noticed all the kids had them, and i want her to feel prepared and taken care of. upon arriving on the backpack aisle she immediately notified us that she would only accept one of those backpacks on wheels with the handle that you pull along behind you, like luggage. we looked around a bit and finally found this one in our price range. i wanted her to have this one, but it was too expensive. maybe for kindergarten. speaking of kindergarten, i just found out two things that make me nervous: one, i'm scheduled to work at whole foods the day of micah's test for admittance into the GISD's gifted and talented program so she can go to the academy for excellence near our house for kindergarten - so josh will have to take her instead of me (which may turn out to be a good thing...); and two, kindergarten is full day. from 8:00 to 3:15. i was not counting on her going to school for 7 hours at the age of 5. that just seems like too much........ goodness.

anyway, after backpack shopping we came home and did our normal stuff. it was nice enough outside for us to play in the backyard for a while, which was wonderful. our friend jake came over and played too, for a while. he brought some cherries to share, which made me long for summer even more. the sun was shining and the air was warm enough for micah and rowan to just have their light sweaters on. micah watched 'sleeping beauty' (she can't get enough of the disney classics lately), rowan played with his race track and his swords - until bathtime rolled around. i convinced micah to peel off the two bandaids she recieved at the doctor's office this morning. our pediatrician's office buys super-duper industrial strength bandaids that would probably be the last thing standing on a completely dessicated human being. they are the stickiest, most stubborn bandaids i've ever encountered, and micah HATES the moment when they have to be removed. last month i let her leave those suckers on there until they were literally hanging by a tiny thread, at which point i "accidentally" caught them on her pants as i was helping her get undressed for bed. after they were off, though, i noticed the skin where they had been was red, irritated and almost bruised-looking. i told her we wouldn't be able to leave them on that long anymore. tonight, i reminded her that we needed to take those things off before bed. she asked me if she could do it herself, and i said of course. i didn't realize she meant that she would sit and methodically, with the steady hands of a pre-school surgeon, pick and pluck at the little fabric bandaids, millimeter by millimeter, until they were loosened from her skin. i was going CAH-RAZY watching her do this, so i left the room. when i came back to check on her a few minutes later... she was asleep, sitting up, with her little fingernail hooked under one edge of the bandaid. i gently scooped her up and placed her in her bed in her room - yes, as of the night before last, she's sleeping in her own bed (ch-ch-ch-ch-changes).

i'm making progress on the fingerless cabled mitts i'm knitting for myself. tomorrow i'll attempt my first cable, without my knitting buddies to walk me through it. wish me luck!

i enrolled micah in pre-k today. i'm freakin out a little bit. the florence parons pre-kindergarten school is right down the street from our house, and i noticed it when we moved in. it looked like it was part of the public school system. i didn't really think anything more about it then. then josh and i had several conversations over the summer about whether we wanted to homeschool or send the kids to public school (since we obviously can't afford private right now). i've had this overbearing sense for a while now that i do not want to homeschool. i would love nothing more than to spend every waking moment with my children... but i am not a teacher. i do not have the patience or the self-discipline to make sure they're getting the exposure that they need to ideas and concepts, and i don't have the knowledge or the skills to expose them to it in the right manner. this is all probably kinda amusing to my older friends, who've been listening to me bash public school and sing the praises of homeschooling since micah was born... so i guess i'm just gonna eat a little crow here. i can't help it, i have just completely changed my mind.

she seems excited. we left the house early today to drop josh off at work so i could use the car, and she said, "are you dropping me off at school today?" and her tone wasn't scared or apprehensive, it was excited. when i said no, she said, "oh" and sounded bummed. i explained that we have to get through today and the weekend, then she gets to start on monday. i'm bracing myself for a tough first week, but i hope things get easier after that.

january feels really good this year! i absolutely adore the holidays and the time spent with family, and i'm usually a little blue after it's over - but this year, january feels like a deep, clean breath and a fresh start.

although today, it's a little colder than i can stand. 16 degrees with a wind chill of zero!!!!!