Short post, then back to work.

Thanks everyone for the comments/emails about my food rant. Its nice to be able to blabber on and have someone actually “listening”! I really just get so annoyed with all the stuff they try to sell us as “food”. D read and article the other day in the NY Times that said if your great, great grandmother wouldn’t recognize it as food you probably shouldn’t be eating it. Guess that sums it up pretty well, huh.

I got a new vacuum cleaner yesterday, finally. I’ve hated the one we’ve had for years now. D picked it out and used to be in charge of using it but since I’ve been a SAHM its been my job. We’ve had a really big clunky canister vac with a giant power head for carpet. Trouble is we have really small rooms and lots of big furniture so dragging that thing around was next to impossible. I’d vacuum one side of the room then have to move stuff and the canister to do the other side. And every time I’d use it I’d manage to get a new bruise.

Yesterday, after a couple of weeks of reading reviews on the web and talking to others about what they have/like, I finally just went out and got a new cleaner. I spent more than I really had wanted to but I went to Oreck and got their package with a really lightweight upright and their small canister that has the attachments. I came home and tried it out and it works great! The rugs are clean, I’m not bruised and I don’t feel like I’ve been through a wrestling match to get the job done. The canister has a shoulder strap so you can just carry it around to do the little stuff, like getting the fish crackers out of the sofa at the end of the day and the bare floor brush will pick up crumbs from the rug so I can just run around quick at the end of the day with the canister to pick up the day’s mess. And its quiet enough that it didn’t wake the baby when I ran it during his nap. The upright is louder and probably would wake him but that’s okay, I just won’t use that part after he’s asleep. So the house is cleaner and we’re all happier and even D admitted that if it helps me to keep things better picked up it will be well worth the $.

Fiber content

I got to do a little more on Fern last night after a few days off. I did about 4 rows. I’m using the technique I got from Wendy’s blog for doing cable stitches without a needle and it certain makes this faster and easier. Even with the added speed of this techinque its slow going since I keep getting interrupted by pets, husband and baby and since I’m doing both the front and back at the same time that slows down each row. I do think in the long run it will work out faster than doing them one at a time and means they should actually match! And you can be sure I’ll be doing the sleeves both at the same time as well. It really is the only way I seem to be able to get sleeves to be totally identical.

I really am enjoying working on Fern. Its a more complicated pattern than I’ve tried before with 5 different charts and I’ve gotten to the point in the pattern where there are 3 different row numbers to keep track of. You can bet I’m writing down pretty much every row as I do it! I took a picture of it a couple of days ago and if I get the chance to get the pics out of the camera I’ll post it later.

I also learned yesterday that D’s nephew and his wife will be having their baby early. She has diabeties and is having a tough pregnancy and they have apparently decided that the baby’s best chances are to be delivered early so he will be arriving at 28 weeks! Which, by the way, is next month!!! MIL wasn’t sure yet when the shower will be but expects to hear something soon. Guess I’ll be putting Fern aside for a few days to work on baby gifts. We also have a friend who is scheduled to deliver her little girl next week and I’m planning to whip up a sweater for her as well.

Speaking of baby gifts: As a knitter, how do you decide when someone goes on your list of people to knit a baby gift for? Do you keep it to family and very close friends? How about people you are more distant friends with or friends of friends you see at dinner at your mutal friends house? And what about knitting small gifts for mothers who are expecting in your child’s play groups?

You see, we’ve recently signed back up for the playgroup that we were in briefly last year. Now that we have a 2nd car again . . . we are finally getting out more often. Several of the Moms in the group are expecting. At least two of them are women that I got fairly friendly with last year when we were going to the group and could see myself being friends with. One also has a son close in age to mine and they have a blast together. I’m debating knitting newborn size sweaters for them (One’s due in April, the other in September so they can probably actually use sweaters) but I’m wondering if I’ll hurt feelings of anyone else if I don’t knit for other Moms in the group. This is a fairly big group and their are always 2-5 moms expecting it seems so I’d have to keep up a steady stream of sweaters to knit for them all, and most of them I don’t really know well yet. What do you think? Would you knit for the 2 moms and give them the stuff on the “sly” and just hope no one got upset? Would you knit for all of them? or would you just have a not knitting for playgroup policy?

I’m also working on (had trouble falling asleep last night while thinking about) a gift that will be relatively quick and easy but fun as an “older sibling” gift since at least one of the babies I know I’m definately making something for has an older sister and I don’t want her to feel left out. I can’t share what it is yet as it will be a pattern I’m designing for Inspirations Yarn but I can tell you its going to be a whole lot of toddler fun!

I’m hoping to dye up just a bit of sock yarn today. I want to do a couple of “Solo” colors as I prefer socks that are mostly one colorish. So I’m off to wind some sock yarns from cones to skeins so I can get working. I’ll post the new batches once they are photo ready.

Off to the salt mines ;)