So, on the subject of wool...

I ordered some wool that I had been drooling over for quite a while...  It was Cestari wool and just about the most perfect colorway that there ever was.  I waited for months to order it because I wasn't sure if I could justify paying THAT MUCH for wool...  Finally, I just bit the bullet and put the order in.  I waited.  My husband had mentioned that it wasn't showing up on the bank statement online so I wrote the wool place and asked when my order would be shipped.  They said no later than Thursday.  OK, so on Thursday I checked my invoice status...  Processing, it said.  Great.  I checked Friday...Processing.  Not great.  So, it's now Tuesday, almost 2 weeks after I ordered it and it still says processing.  I wrote on Saturday asking them to cancel my order.  I had to.  The card I used was my debit card and my awesome (I truly mean that) husband lost it and so I had to cancel it and get a new one.  Even if they do pull their heads out of their butts, they still won't be able to run my card.  They haven't answered my email asking them to cancel anyhow.  It sort of seems like they're idiots who just happen to sell really beautiful wool.  I'm sad. 

Anyway, we're actually doing school right now.  One of them is doing language arts while the other does math.  E is 6 and she's learning about the have family contractions and silent consonants.  M is 8 and is just reviewing.  I'm tired and pretty run down today.  The baby thinks it's his job to get into everything and I'm so tired of chasing him around.  If he's not into things he shouldn't be, then he's picking little balls of wool from  his shorties and eating them.  I do my best to fish them out but it's an all-day job.

The sad thing?  I've needed to pee for the last 4 hours but haven't had a minute to go.  Even as I write this, I'm doing other things...  I guess I'm not THAT bad at multitasking.  lol

WIPs and why I'm not a knitter...

Well, most people visiting this blog will be those who already know me in some way or another.  What you probably know about me is that I have 3 kids, we homeschool and live in Texas.  What you may not know is that I do not finish crafty projects.  I’m a slacker.  I get that satisfaction of seeing that a project WILL turn out correctly and then I’m fine with never making the rest of it.  My kids have 1 mitten, 1 slipper and so on.  If there are 2 to be made, I make 1 and feel okay with it.  I made a stuffed panda for my youngest daughter and when my oldest daughter asked for one, I suggested they just share.  Yes.  Share.  This is no good so I thought that maybe if I started a blog to keep me motivated, I might actually finish the things I start.  In time, I hope to add another blogger or 2 so we can all keep this going.
My crocheting background goes back a long ways.  I started when I was about 12-ish.  I knew how to but I didn’t have a need to make anything until I got pregnant with my first baby.  That’s really when I learned the harder stitches and techniques.  My grandma taught me the basics and I went from there.  I hold my crochet hook like a pencil rather than the other grip that most people use so if I ever have any tutorials, that might be odd for the viewer.  We’ll see.  Anyway, I’ve always loved the look of knit but as I’ve found out recently, I’m no good at it.  I made one hat once and that turned out well.  Since then, I haven’t been able to capture the magic again.  Meh…  I’ll post the proof of that soon. 
I have a couple of friends who knit and they try so hard to help me and it just doesn’t work out.  I start out okay and then something weird happens…  For example, I went to make a pair of slippers and they started out well!  I didn’t know how that rectangle was going to make a slipper but I figured it would all work out in the end.  They didn’t!  I don’t know what went wrong but they’re not pretty (see below).   I can pretty much read a crochet pattern and know how it’ll work out.  Knit patterns are a big, fat question mark to me.  I don’t get them.

Knit/Crochet

Here is a perfect example of my terrible knitting vs. my fabulous crocheting.  On the left is my knitting.  Wow.  That’s really terrible.  It looks like I scooped the inside out of a blue baked potato and put it on my daughter’s foot!  Really bad.  On the right is my super cute little crocheted slipper that I worked with virtually no pattern!  See how well it fits?  She wasn’t even with me when I made it!  The second slipper (not finished, of course) fits just as well and I couldn’t even remember how I made the first one and they totally match each other.  See?  I should just be happy with crochet!
My other WIPs (works-in-progress):

Wee Bootie

More wee booties...

Wool Shorties

I finished a hat for my 9 month old last month that turned out really, really cute!  Did he wear it?  No.  He pitched it and we ended up having to pick it up off the ground a hundred times before we just put it away.

Hammy in his hat!

It turned out a little girlier than I had planned on it but whatever.  He needed a hat to keep his head from burning and he kept it on just long enough.  I also have some washies made out of cotton that I’ll share later on.  No biggie but pretty anyway.
I would love to start something really intricate like lace but my tastes are more modern and I’m afraid they would just go to waste.  We’ll see.  Well, there ya have it.  My first post in my new blog.  TA-DAAAAAA.

Back to school- EtsyBloggers Blog Carnival!!!

So, the subject of what 'back to school' means for you came up and I thought it was a good time to talk about it here. :D

'Back to school' is pretty much just another day at home. Since we're homeschoolers and we go year 'round, this is just something we say in the morning. Before we actually started our homeschool journey, I had a system in mind for how it would go down. We would start in the fall and end in the spring and then promote to the next grade level! No big deal!

We received our first grade curriculum on May 17th in the mail and as I looked through it, Madeline just got more and more excited to start! What do you tell a kid who is over-the-moon about learning? "No, you have to wait until the fall! The FALL is when you're allowed to start learning!" Um, no thanks. I have no desire to break a kid's heart. LOL I get a LOT of 'YOU MAKE YOUR KID GO TO SCHOOL OVER THE SUMMER??????' outrage, but they just don't understand how it is. I have a 6 year old who reads at the 9th grade level and comprehends at the 9th grade level. She's a stinkin' sponge! If I wait a little longer to get school started, I'm absolutely HOUNDED by her to get started! I had to convince her to take a day off on her birthday!!! LOL

Our youngest just turned 4 and will start pre-k curriculum in September. She's a different kid so she might need a different schedule and we'll cross that bridge when we get there. :D Either way, it's my life's passion to homeschool. It's my absolute joy and privilege. I'm good at it. No, I'm excellent at it! Hang out for a little while longer and I'll still be patting myself on the back. LOL J/K