Odds and Ends

The day after I last blogged, Ian decided to walk! He was 13 months and 1 day old. He has a pretty wide stance, so it's really fun to watch him. He still does what I would call the Russian crawl half the time. He crawls by sitting up with his right leg jutted out which he uses to power himself forward. Hilarious!

For Halloween, Marie went as Ariel and Ian went as a lion (in the stroller, of course). We actually made it around the entire block this year (Last year, Marie got scared after the first two houses...). We still have a nice big pumpkin that never got carved. We're still going to do it since Marie isn't old enough to be disappointed by the fact that we didn't carve it before Halloween!

I almost got back with the program last week: I went running. Sometimes, not often, I get cabin fever along with a feeling of desperately needing to decompress away from those around me. Some days I'll go to the bookstore. Some days I'll go to a coffee shop. Some days I feel like running, even when I'm not even doing it regularly. It felt good, that's for sure. Now I just need to go again and often. I have a friend that has three kids, her latest born in May. She just ran a half marathon. Like me, she had trouble losing baby weight the second time around. She said that running for 60 minutes rather than 30 really helped shrink her waist.

Knitting news? Oh yeah, that's right. This is a knitting blog, isn't it? Well, I finished Central Park Hoodie and another pair of longies. I'll do a separate post with pics for those. Right now I'm finishing up a one skein gray toddler vest for Ian. I haven't gotten much further on my other WIPS (Tangled Yoke Cardigan, My So-Called Scarf, Los Manos Locos socks, and my strawberry latte socks). I keep finding pants and other things to knit for the kids!

Speaking of projects for the kids, I just got some Knit Picks Shamrock in Hennessy and some black WOTA to make Ian a hat and mittens. I also bought EZ's Knitting Workshop, primarily to make either the hybrid or shirt-yoke sweater for Jared. I've been reading through it and am really enjoying it!

One more piece of knitting news. I bought a battery-powered fabric shaver from Knit Picks. The first item I used it on was my bulky alpaca Alison's Scarf by Annie Modesitt. What a difference that made in eliminating the fuzz! It looks brand new. Just tonight, I used the shaver on my CPH for the first time. It took FOREVER, but the end result is nice. Hopefully, I won't have to shave it as much after this. The only gripe I have about the shaver is the battery life (I'm already on my second set.) and the numerous times it stops working and requires you to remove the blade and dump the shavings.