YEAH!

I knitted this blanket for Eva. When I gave it to her I tossed it over her head. Apparently, my stitches were large enough that she could see through them. She walked around the house with that blanket over her head for a long time. And never bumped into anything. Amazing.

Look at this.

Cute, huh? Got these jammies at Aldi for $10. I even washed them and they are still in one piece. . . or two pieces as the case may be.

One more thing. . .

This is funny. They both snore, too.

Oh, and guess what? Sharon bought a new G5 this week. We’re going over to visit the new baby on Sunday.

I’m not sure how to take that, but, of course, we were at the yarn shop. I finished Mary Defrees little hat. It is designed by Chey and CUTE CUTE CUTE! YUP! and I made it. All by myself. Aren’t you proud? And no, I am not making anything for you. yet. Too busy. Really. LOOK!

Doing a scarf swap with a woman from out west, ( I think) and she sent this stinking amazing handpainted yarn. It must’ve cost a pretty penny, and I think there is no blasted way I’d let a yahoo like me touch the stuff, let alone knit it to my heart’s content. YIKES! no pressure. really.

Ah well, gotta grow. Any suggestions for the scarf?

As well, Sharon needs some help being converted. MAC users unite. Help me bring our sister out of the dark.

the kids are fine. Lila is 4 now. she had 4 separate birthday parties.

i wish I was 4.

Eva is well and now says: “bye, more, mama, dada, lila, all done, hi, and uh-oh.” Cute little monkey.

I’ve started a poncho knit in the round, top-down for Lila. All other projects must wait.

School will be out soon. the 3rd annual Granroth family christmas party is canceled. So if you weren’t invited, no more fussin’.

I mean, quiet.

All right, you’ve caught me. But if you don’t leave me alone to knit how will I ever get your christmas present done? It’s ok to comment. It gets lonely here.

It’s sad really.

Grace Heikkinen: “Don’t you ever feel like there are just not enough hours in the day to eat all the food you want to eat?”

Me: “That is hilarious.”

So, I don’t feel like that. I really don’t. That is about the craziest thing I have ever heard made all the more amusing by the fact that Grace is easily half my size and has this love affair with food that is (in my life) unparalled. She’s a riot. Only a skinny person could say something like that with a straight face.

I have been knitting. I ” finished” Davin’s scarf last night. I don’t like the way it looks so I’m doing it again. No big deal. Seed stitch with cascade heathered maroon wool on 10.5 needles. Should be nice.

I want to start a “small group” of knitters/hand workers who do work for sick babies or parents of sick kids or poor kids or something. Some kind of save the world group that combines knitting or crochet or sewing (whatever the hand worker would prefer to do) and . . .saving the world. Any takers? I know that Sparrow hospital has specs for baby hats and booties (I have that already) and Shanna Brack at riverview is head of the compassion projects, so I am going to ask her if she has any good ideas of how to implement this project.

But since I don’t know how to make a bonnet yet this will have to wait. Just till next week (maybe this weekend). Shall we start there with the bonnets? We could also make hats for kids with cancer or soft blankets (like loveys) for kids at Ele’s place or something like that which would be pretty fast. What do you think?

Maybe we could get donations of single skeins from the yarn shops?

It’s hard when you are faced with full disclosure and is a blog really the forum for such transparency?

All right. I give. Just be gentle with me.

I’m coming out of the closet. In my own clothes. The ones I will make. In the distant future.

I’ve been knitting.

That’s right. Just like your grandmother. and I stinking love it! I’ll post pictures of all four projects that are going right now and the 1st one that is already finished. Lila was the first recipient of a Chey Granroth original. Don’t say I neva did nothin’ for ya, kid.

Davin has a scarf coming. I have a scarf in the works for myself. Eva has a soft blanket on the needles and my sister Rachel’s son Logan, who was born in July and who I have yet to see also has a blanket in progress.

So just to add more oddity to my everyday life, I now sneak into back rooms while working. In order to knit. It’s like a drug.

I do have a favorite Yarn shop, Threadbear on Waverly between Michigan ave and St. Joe on the east side of the road, across from Falsetta’s. They have couches and dogs and coffee in the shop. You can sit and knit all day long. I told them that If they were to go wireless as well, I’d never have to go into the office again. One can only hope.

-Andy, Triggermen

I’ve recently joined two “book groups.” I mean, we do read books but one of the groups is more closely related to a gab session and the other doubles as a knitting group. All of the women are older and most of them are not christian, some to the point of being atheistic. But, you know what, they are nice. Really nice, kind people who listen to me and seem to understand a lot of what goes on in my life. They offer insight without being weird and they do not seem to be afraid to say things that are hard to hear. But they also don’t seem to be frought with condemnation for me for holding the “wrong” beliefs or having strong emotions about what goes on in my life.

now, don’t respond to this with “unbelievers can’t be trusted” or ” the advice they give is always wrong” or anything to convince me that this experience is wrong and unwise. I am a big girl (in more ways than one, Ha Ha) and I canmake some decisions on my own. I can sift good advice from worldly advice with the help of the word. and the advice is often contrary to what the word says. That’s ok. I can know that and takei t for what it is. But really the thing I love is that they can say those things, I can hear them and it doesn’t become a “holier-than-thou, white canvas shoe, just bear up under the pressure convention.”

Believe it or not, sometimes things get bad, despite (or perhaps because of ) Christ. The badness of things does not have to negate my belief in Christ or my hope for a relationship with Him. It really doesn’t. and I like that these ladies agree with me on that. Sometimes I think life is more complicated than we give it credit for. And simply too, in that, my history with christianity has not allowed for feeling yucky, but sometimes, people do.

What do you think?

Nice. This from a kid, Joe, I think, originally from Chicago, who is now at MSU, in response to Noel’s message today on being in the world, but not of the world.

It was a good message. The quote was better.

I was just grading papers. Not really grading but reading and commenting. I don’t grade until they’ve had 2 or 3 chances at it. I’m tired of reading papers now. They are early and they are not so great. When my students comment or respond to prompts like, “next week you are going to teach the class. Tell me what you will keep and what you will change,” they are very interesting and candid. But when they respond to an assignment like, ” What is your core passion,” they are stilted and repetative. I guess it’s hard to think sometimes.

Anyway, Davin’s post about 9-11 didn’t get any response so I thought I’d throw my 2 cents in.

I was reading Plato (for school, clearly) and I had just gotten Lila to nap and off the phone with another mommy friend (Sarah Jackson, the greatest, she shook up the world, she shook up the world). Sarah called me back. I was a little annoyed because I had just told her that I needed to read this ultra boring book for class that night. But when she said, “We’re under attack,” I found that both hard to believe and alarming, becuase Sarah is not an alarmist.

I turned on the TV. And said, “come over. right now.” We hung up the phone, I think, because it rang again soon after. Kim Felcher was on the line. We were in awe and quiet desperation (the kids were still sleeping, mind). Have you ever been on the phone with someone and not talked but you cannot hang up. Finally, we decided on Lunch. If we have to be miserable, we’ll do it together, doggone it!

So the mommy’s came over and the kids played and slept and played and slept. We may have made a concession toward Sesame Street at some point but the news reigned the day. I don’t know if you can imagine having infant children, living 1/2 mile from an airport with phone lines jammed and husbands working and being alone. We could not imagine it. and so we did not endure it. The mommies were over for hours until we could go home and feel confident that we could do mom amidst this terror.

Sarah’s husband worked for the newspaper. I don’t know when he got home that night.

We have a collective history that, because of media most of the world shares. But the interesting point is where our individual history intersects with the collective. Believe it or not we are not all living the same life. Where were you?

“She couldn’t even pat a child on the head, he reflected bitterly, without breaking its neck, the kind of touch she had.”

Wow. What do you suppose that says about a person?