Nate has a play-date over right now.
Don't have to go get Kelly (which is a good thing - I don't think I could extract the two boys away from the Bionicle Lego and the Triops 3.0, anyways), because she's going to a friend's house after school. I hope there's food at New Friend's House... I just found Kelly's lunch kit in the back of the van, so she's probably hungry, although she's such a social athlete, she's probably stuffed from all the 'sharing' that happened at lunch when her myriad of friends found out she was lunch-less.
Don't have to get Skip until later, as it's StarCraft Club afternoon.
Ah. A little blessed peace as I sit at the computer amidst the wreckage of No Housekeeping For A Week.
I finished the Book Bags for Nate's first grade class. The teacher has them in her hot little hands. And I'm kicking myself because I never took a photo of the finished product.
Oh well. Note to self: Photograph this next set of bags you're making for Ms. Farthing's first grade class.
Joann's Accident:
I gave my kids until bedtime last night to tell me what they wanted to be for Halloween. That gives me exactly a week to put together costumes, and I really didn't think I could cut it any closer than that.
So, Kelly, in a "oh, sigh, well, I don't REALLY want to be this, but I can take one for the team" sort of way, says, at supper, "I suppose I can be Betsy Ross again."
SCORE!
And on the way home from Youth Group last night, Skip FINALLY confides that he thinks he'd REALLY like to be Gandalf in this Last Year of Really Dressing Up.
Um... not-score?
Actually, it's an OK score. Skip was going to just wear his old green fleece cloak that I made him in 3rd grade, until I pointed out to him that the thing barely cleared his knees. And it was GREEN, and Gandalf is known as Gandalf the GREY.
SO I told him that I'd see what I could find at the fabric store today (with my COUPON, and my GIFT CARD, and their Super Deluxe Midnight Madness Sale [on until Sunday])
Score!
A pattern for a BUCK! McCalls actually has a pattern with a picture on the front that looks EERILY like Gandalf himself.
I love patterns for a buck.
And then it was off to the clearance aisle, because ALL clearance fabric was HALF PRICE.
I found a fairly nice drape-y grey suiting marked down to $2/yard. Unfortunately, there was only 6 yards. Now for ANY OTHER COSTUME, that would be PLENTY! But this Gandalf cloak????? It requires TEN FREAKIN' YARDS of fabric. (and then, in a move that could easily give a costume-wearer heat-stroke, it suggested using FLEECE or VELVET. Can you imagine how heavy and HOT 10 yards of fleece or velvet would be????)
After angsting over the thing for far too long, I decided that close-enough was good-enough, and I found a flannel that was CLOSE in colour to the suiting, and that'll be the sleeves. Or maybe the yoke. Oh, who knows. It's a costume, for crying out loud.
But I'm gonna be playing with Felt this weekend. Skip wants a Gandalf Hat, and the pattern comes with one of those, too! This is gonna be sweet.
I had an hour before I had to be anywhere, so I thought I'd take a chance, and went off to another Joann's, hoping that I might find the same suiting on sale there, too.
Alas, the Joann's in Redwood City looks like a bomb went off in it. (And they JUST had this big swanky renovation, too!). The clearance fabric zone was like chaos wrapped in sloth. There was NO WAY I could find anything in there...
Well... anything that I really NEEDED, that is. I found a TON of stuff.
And it was all 50% off.
And we know where this is going, don't we?
But, in my defense, I now have 3 Christmas presents for Kelly, and some more storage, and some REALLY nice fabric-lined baskets for the hearth, and a WALL-E iron-on applique for a shirt for Nate, and some Rainy Day craft doo-dads (for a BUCK!), because I'm thinking ahead to when the play dates are going to be here, and it's gonna be pouring down with rain, and I won't want them out in the yard. OH, and!
AND!
My best score, possibly, of the entire day. Week! Month! Year!
Some of you may have an inkling that I am a bit of a knitter. And that maybe, JUST MAYBE, I bite off more than I can chew. And that I have horrible Start-itis.
But one thing that I have been lusting after for nearly a YEAR is this great sweater that's been making the rounds on the knit-blogs, from an old Patons leaflet. And if it had a HOPE of being found in a knit shop, it was probably scooped up by the million and seventy two knitters who ALSO wanted to knit the contents of the leaflet.
And that leaflet is NOWHERE to be found. Trust me. I've checked.
But!
I was walking through the SECOND Joann's of the day, with my arms FULL of discount fabric, when I saw, just SITTING THERE ON A SHELF, MIS-FILED AND EVERYTHING!!!!!
Pat me on the back, though. I bought NO YARN, even though the Patons Classic Wool was $4.50 instead of $5.99.
(of course, the sale is on until November 1st. There's still time to break the bank. Erk!)
On the other hand, I have easily enough Cascade 220 to make one of these... it is in dark orange, though. More Skip's colour than mine, I will admit.. I wonder what I *do* have that I could knit one of these up in...
This is what is calling out to me...
I think I would make it a wee bit longer, though. It would be SO GREAT for the chilly mornings... of February. Because let's face it, folks, even if I *DID* have my act together, and even if I *DID* have NO OTHER PROJECTS that were crying out to be started, and even if I *DID* devote myself to this one thing, it would still take me MONTHS to make something this wonderful.
Moving on...
There's a big fancy-schmancy fundraiser shindig happening next month for the school district.
Skip has been invited to be part of a small combo that will play background jazz at the beginning of the event.
I'm pretty tickled.
If it's not Scramble, it's Pathwords.
This playing solo so I can make my standing higher and higher? It's sucking the life out of any free time I may have had. And it's sucking the life out of the time I'm supposed to be maintaining the house, too.
Intervention, anyone?
Oh, for those of you playing the "Will she ever go back to work" home game?
I passed the CBEST exam.
Now I'm just waiting for the official score, and I'll be cleared to start the application to the school district.
Do I really want to do this?
Other people's kids make me nuts.
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