The End of an Era

Almost 16 years ago, a small black and white puppy entered the world. Today, she left it.

She was with us so long that I almost can’t remember life before her. I remember her chewing her way through a baby gate, so that we had to learn about crate training. I remember her mouthiness, so that we had to keep going to obedience classes. I remember her complete unwillingness to learn to come when called – something she refused to learn her whole life.

She was trial by fire – a tough first dog to raise, but one who prepared us to raise all the puppies to come after her. She was the dog who tried everything with me – obedience, tracking, herding, agility. Only agility stuck.

She raised 3 puppies, 3 children, and a cat. She was brash and independent and loving. She stole food, but only when you couldn’t possibly catch her in the act, because she was the smartest dog I have ever known.

That small black and white puppy grew into a beautiful black and white dog with great big cow spots and tiny brown flecks on her legs. A one ear up, one ear down dog with a big flappy tail and a heart bigger than the world. And eventually, an Old Lady with a muzzle more gray than black, a matriarch who ruled the house with an iron fist in a velvet glove.

She was Space Dog, protector and playmate of Universe Man. She was Super Dog, who put up with wearing a cape. She was unique in the universe, and we will never see her like again.

NA, NAJ, OAJ, CGC

the best black and white dog in the whole world

10 (of everything!) in 2010

So much going on, so much to say, so many pictures that don't seem to make it off the camera onto the computer.

Alright then, picture-free it is.

I've been thinking about ways to help get me out what sometimes feels like a crafting rut. It might or might not actually be a rut, but it feels like one.

Way back in December, people started talking about a 10 shawls in 2010 project. That sounded interesting, but a little bit too constrained for me. And I've always been an over-achiever, or at least someone who has eyes bigger than my stomach (in this case, metaphorically speaking. I'm not planning to eat any fiber or yarn.)

Alright then. Here's my plan:

10 shawls in 2010
10 sweaters in 2010
10 (pairs of) socks in 2010
10 (pounds of) spun fiber in 2010

I do nothing by halves.

And because I have a teensy weensy itty bitty little problem with longtime UFOs, I added something that doesn't start with S.

10 finished UFOs in 2010.

I set up my own rules, because I don't like to play by anyone else's. Longtime UFOs are ones that I started at least a year before I finish them. UFOs (even those younger than a year) can go into the 10 shawls, sweaters, whatever count.

As of right now, I've finished one shawl, and one sweater that was also a UFO. Oh, and I've spun 5 ounces of fiber.

I've got a ways to go.

Baby, It's Cold.... Inside

We returned from a weekend at my father's to a cold house. This isn't too unusual, because the house is almost always cold. Except for those few days of the year when it is unbearably hot. Only a few, in spite of the heat and humidity that are possible around here, which is probably how we continue to survive without central air.

So the house was cold, but that was in comparison to the car, which was so warm with 5 people and 4 dogs in it that we had to turn on the actual air conditioning about 2 hours into the trip lest Universe Man get carsick. Something we would really much rather avoid.

After a while, I'm still feeling cold and realizing that even though it's during the day, it's the weekend, so really, the house should be warmer. I check the thermostat in the kitchen, which appears not to be functioning. This isn't too worrisome since this thermostat is known to be.... a little quirky, and you can fix that with an override, or if that fails, some begging. (To be fair, given that the thermostat has been replaced twice, it is probably just fine and dandy and it is something in the wiring somewhere that is temperamental, but we live with it.)

I wander into the family room and look at that thermostat. Um.... room temperature is several degrees below set temperature. That's not good. I confer with the LSH. The good news is that the basement is not flooded. The bad news is that the thing which heats the house (AKA a "boiler") is not doing it's job. At all. As in, it's not even on. Uh oh.

LSH flicks the emergency oil shut-off. No dice. He pushes the reset button on the boiler itself. Boiler turns back on. Water in the system starts to heat up. Checks a few minutes later. Boiler has shut itself off. Tentative diagnosis: control system (or some part of it) fried.

What I'm wondering is, karmically speaking, what did we do to deserve this? We already had an appointment to have the boiler replaced. On Tuesday. When the heating guys came for their annual "checking to make sure that nothing will blow up, catch up fire, asphyxiate you, or flood the basement," they decreed that, for a variety of reasons, we needed a new boiler. But it wasn't an emergency -- sometime this winter, better sooner than later, but it was a matter of months and not weeks.

Turns out they were wrong. The temperature in the house is 63 F and dropping. It's going to be a very cold couple of days.

The good news is that the hot water still works, and so do the oven and the stove. I'm thinking of running a load of laundry just because the dryer generates some waste heat. And it's a school day tomorrow, so it'll just be me freezing my nose off. Unless I decide to decamp for warmer climes. Possibly the library. Probably somewhere with coffee.

Nonsensical

I haven't been spinning much lately. Except that I feel like I have. It seems like I spin a little bit all the time. What I haven't been doing, even though I only have one project active on one wheel, is finishing anything.

It seems like a lot of my spinning time has been taken up with fiber processing. Two fleeces washed, into the third, and then I have to pick and card two of them. The third is much cleaner, with long, lovely locks, and I'm planning to spin that one from the lock.

So after taking nearly a month to spin 8 oz of wool as a sport-DKish (still not dry and haven't checked the floof factor yet) 2-ply, I decided I needed a nice, small spinning project for instant gratification.

I decided on 2.6 ounces of lovely, wonderful batts (from Corgi Hill Farm) in "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," and started spinning. A very, very fine laceweight singles. Because that should be a nice, small, instant gratification sort of project.

Pencils. With Erasers.

I think I need a T-shirt that says "I survived parent-teacher conferences."

'Parkle Girl's conference this morning was wonderful. No surprises there. She had the same teacher in the afternoons last year, and Mr. Personality had this teacher when he was in the pre-school. She undestands my kids.

Then, this afternoon, I spent TWO AND A HALF HOURS seeing 8 teachers. The boys actually have 10 teachers between them, but I talked to one teacher when I was at school on Monday, and I skipped another teacher because, well, there was nothing to be gained by seeing that teacher.

The most interesting thing I learned is that none of Mr. Personality's teachers knew how old he is (which is younger than all of his classmates). Sometimes that difference makes itself felt in his emotional maturity (or lack thereof, at such moments), and it's helpful for the teachers to be aware of it. Or so they told me. One of his teachers is concerned about how hard he is on himself -- he is a total perfectionist, which is something we knew about him and something his teacher worked on last year. All I can say is, "Good luck." In this personality trait, Mr. Personality is very much like my father, who is still very much a perfectionist. And everyone here at the SuperM household is awfully hard on themselves, so I don't see much hope of that changing either.

The big complaint? He doesn't bring enough pencils, the kind with points and erasers, to the class he has right after lunch. Also, he's very wiggly in that class, which seems a strange time to be antsy to me.

I was very nervous about Universe Man's conferences. Until the beginning of this school year, he hadn't had a single test in his entire school career that wasn't one of the end of the year standardized ones. He went to a school with no grades. At all. If he didn't finish his homework, he finished it at school, or fixed his mistakes. That's all different now. Just getting through the school day has required a level of organization that we thought might actually be beyond him.

Turns out it's only sort of beyond him. His locker is apparently a complete disaster. (I will be stopping in to organize his locker for him once a week until further notice. I can't wait.) He is chronically late to class. Nearly every class. The teachers feel this and the locker issue are related. And he often lacks.....wait for it....a pencil. Evidently this is a family trait.

In spite of all that, every single one of his teachers told me that academically he is doing fantastically. Even though he's missed a few assignments entirely (that whole lack of organization thing), his grades are excellent. They're all pleased with him and his work and his transition to a more typical school environment.

Now we just have to work on organization and the social things that come hard to him. Which may very well consume nearly all of our attention while he's blithely going about his school life.

The take-home message LSH got? Universe Man's language arts teacher is really excited about the way he writes. The teacher wondered if Universe Man might be the next S.E. Hinton. That's what LSH took out of the conferences.

Of course, he didn't have to stand around waiting in lines for two and a half hours.

Brief Shining Moment

For a single, wonderful moment on Sunday afternoon, there were no dirty clothes in the house.

Well, except for the things waiting to be handwashed or drycleaned, and those don't count. At least, not to me. I'm not sure when the last time this happened was. Usually, by the time I get through all of the wash in the sorting basket thing, there's more piled up in the hampers in the bedrooms.

But not on Sunday. Admittedly, there was a load in the dryer, and another load still in the washer, but when I looked into the sorting station, it was empty. Completely, totally, and utterly empty.

It was a beautiful thing. A wonderful moment. (Evidently worthy of noting publicly).

Then I found a dirty sock.

And now there's more laundry to be washed.

But for the moments it lasted, it was wonderful.



(Oh, and I finished Ladybuggy, but I have to get some halfway decent pictures. 'Parkle Girl loves it, even though she can't really fly when she wears it.)

Ladybuggy

'Parkle Girl needs a new 'tettie. (Except she doesn't say that anymore. She says "sweater" now. Another one of those bittersweet moments). I was all ready to make her a little swing cardigan and had even bought some pink yarn, when Ladybug appeared on the scene.

I showed it to 'Parkle Girl and she was just as entranced as I was. A couple of very lovely email exchanges with the designer and I was all set to find the perfect yarn for a fantastic sweater for the 'parkliest girl.

The sweater has been taking me a while, mostly because the black yarn I needed was backordered. Well, and also because I just don't have that much knitting time and I decided to make the size 6 so she'd be able to wear it for a few years.

'Parkle Girl has been watching her sweater take shape, and last Thursday there was enough of it to try on.


That's a dark picture of a little girl wearing pajamas and a sweater with part of a sleeve. I've finished the first sleeve and started the second, and she's starting asking the same question every morning.

"Is my Ladybuggy sweater done yet?
"Where are the wings?"
And then she says, "When it is done, I will fly and fly and fly like a bird."

I'm not sure if she's pretending (she is an excellent pretender) or if she really thinks a Ladybug sweater will make her fly.