Lunch with the Kang Ladies

In my effort to lose the excess baby weight, I've added a new rule to the plan. No more drive-thru lunches. I'm ashamed to admit that this rule is even necessary, really. I've read Fast Food Nation. I know how horrible the fast food industry is on our bodies, our economy, our society, and really even our world. Somehow, I've gotten into a bad habit of once or even TWICE a week running through a fast food drive through, feeding myself some nasty sandwich and Julie some nasty fries. This is definitely not a habit I want to pass along to her for her lifetime, and it's not doing my body any good either. We almost always have healthy leftovers in the fridge, and that's what we need to be eating. Witness:



Julie is happily eating her spaghetti and meatballs left over from last night. Of course, she's eating mostly the noodles and avoiding the meat, but whatever. I scarfed down some leftovers myself, leaving me a few minutes to mess around taking photos for the blog. Notice there's a kitchen timer on the table there. Sometimes Julie takes so long to finish a meal that we set the timer for her and tell her "5 more minutes, then lunchtime is over". We didn't use it today, but she actually loves it when we use it and likes to play with it when we're not using it. Today, I let her mess around as long as she wanted so I could have some free time.




Here's Miss Sophie. She's already had her lunch and is sleeping it off. She loves sleeping in the car seat - I've really got to start putting her in the crib more often so she can get used to it.



Here's my newly finished alpaca scarf. I'm very happy with it, although I could have done a better job blocking it last night. I should have run scrap yarn through the edges instead of sticking it with a million pins. I'm meditating on who will get it - I have some thoughts, but no decision yet. Notice the scarf is camouflaging a basket of clean diapers waiting to be folded. Don't worry, I took care of those as soon as the pictures were taken.



This picture makes me a little sad. While I was washing my new scarf last night, I took the opportunity to give this little sweater a bath as well. I'm sad because that's the last time I'll wash spit-up from one of my babies out of this particular garment. I knit it up for Julie before she was born, and it was very cute on both of them. I could probably still squeeze Sophie into it, but the weather has warmed up and it's no longer necessary. I really am trying to savor every moment of this baby phase. It is wonderful to pick up your happy, squishy, little baby who will be three months old tomorrow and give her all kinds of crazy kisses and hugs.



Here's tonight's dinner marinating in the fridge. It's flank steak, and I'll cook it on the grill. I'm trying a new recipe - we'll see if it's any good or not.



Here's the view out the back window looking at the garage. See all those nasty shrubs? They all need to come out. Either I need to get some estimates, bite the bullet and pay someone to take them out, or Joe needs to bust a rump pulling them out himself. Joe worked hard in the yard this weekend, trimming some of the other bushes that we're keeping. We have a lot of work left to be done in our scraggly yard.



Here's the progress so far on my rainbow glittens. You know, the ones from my kool-aid dyeing experiment. I'd say they're a little more than halfway done. They're turning out cute, but very very loud. I hope I have the nerve to wear them when they are done. Especially since this pattern is incredibly putzy to knit up - not much fun as far as knitting goes. Did I mention I finally found the old ones? The ones I swore were lost for good? They were hiding in the pocket of my rain coat. The one I only get out when it's raining and cold. They are incredibly old and shabby anyway, and now I'll have an extra pair around.



Here's the progress on the most expensive pair of socks I've ever knit. The solid purple finally came in the mail, so I started the first heel flap. It's what I'm working on when I get sick of the glittens. Let's do the math: $20.50 for the original Cherry Tree Hill yarn. Something like $13.50 for the Gems Merino solid (after shipping). $4.00 or so for the reinforcing thread I decided to use since the Gems Merino is so soft. That's $38 for a freakin' pair of socks, and they're not even that great. Don't ask me why I do what I do - I can't explain it.



Here's the diaper-bag sock. It's grown a bit too. Every time I work on it I think of my friend Julie and miss her dearly. Notice the new diaper bag I bought at Yarnover a couple weeks ago. I'm loving it. I feel so hip carrying it, and it is just the right size and shape.



Here are the little toes for that last pair of socks I cast on. The ones for knitting along with my sock class. I know I'm not going to be able to keep up with the class for long - not with all the other projects I have on the needles. I have a thing about knitting things in pairs - I have to cast on both and work them alternately or it drives me crazy. The diaper bag sock is a singleton, and it freaks me out to be knitting it all by itself and hope that the mate turns out the same when I knit it up.



Finally, a couple of balls of yarn that somehow snuck their way out of the stash and into my knitting basket. They're begging to be swatched. The one on the right is some self-striping worsted weight wool that wants to be a sweater. The one on the left is one of the 40 (FORTY!) balls of fingering weight variegated wool that Joe's parents brought me back from Korea a year or so ago. Ok, maybe two years ago. It would be a prime candidate for machine knitting if I ever get my machines back out, but it's whispering at me to try it in some entrelac or other modular knitting. I'm not sure I'm going to listen to either one of these yarns at the moment.

Now I better go see if Sophie's waking up, and get us all back out the door. I told Julie I'd take her to the play area at the mall since it's rainy outside, and somehow she's managed to amuse herself without destroying anything while I typed this up.