I’m ready for fall, it’s my absolute favorite season.

I want the leaves to turn beautiful colors and change the whole look of things so it seems like I’m driving through a new and beautiful neighborhood instead of the same old streets. I want them to then fall to the pavement and cover the yards and crunch and crackle underfoot. I want them to make that whispery rustling sound when the wind blows through the trees.

I want the days to be pleasantly just warm enough and the evenings to be cool and bracing. I want my very comfortable favorite Eeyore sweater to be just right for a walk in the late afternoon. I want to leave the windows open just a bit at night so in the early morning hours I can snuggle down under layers and layers of blankets.

I want the soft darkness to come earlier and earlier. I want to spend an hour in the late evening outside under moonlight and streetlamps. I want the sun to rise late enough that I’m awake and I can take the time to watch it’s colors.

I want to search through a pumpkin patch and wander through a corn maze. I want a hayride and a campfire and roasting marshmallows.  I want fresh apples and cider. I want to hang colored ears of corn on my front door and build a scarecrow to sit on a bale of hay on my porch.

I’m done with summer, it’s time for fall.

You would think that I could get more done on the weekends. After all, V is home on weekends, and TR is around to help as well. I should be able to accomplish more.

Instead, weekends are two days of complete chaos. They seem to get in the way more than they help. I can’t completely figure it out. I give them lists of chores, they get a lot of them done. But I think that instead of getting my own stuff done at the same time, I spend every minute answering all their questions and helping out every time they get stuck on something. I never even approach half the things I want to do.

It has to be more of the playing dumb act. TR has learned it from his Dad. They think that by bugging me and pretending they aren’t capable of anything, they will make me nuts enough to not give them any more chores. It won’t work. I still swear, it won’t work.

When TR was born, the hospital gave me a little tube of Lanolin to use for breastfeeding discomfort. That little tube came in very handy for quite some time. I bought another one when SW was born. Lanolin has a distinctive scent to it, not unpleasant, but very distinctive. I’m sure to many people it, of course, brings to mind flocks of sheep, or maybe a barnyard scene.

To me, lanolin smells like elephants.

Weird, isn’t it? All these years I never figured out the why of that. But now again, with RM, lanolin is definitely a staple in this house. First for the early days adjusting to breastfeeding. And second as a treatment for wool diaper covers to keep them nice and moisture resistant. Working with new, quality raw wool yarns I catch the same scent and the same memory of elephants. Every time I wash out and hang up a diaper cover, I think of elephants.

These days I have the internet at hand and all the research tools I want, so I set about to see if I could make any sense of my odd association. And what do you know, I discovered that many zoos use an “elephant shampoo” that’s rich in lanolin to condition the elephant’s skin. It makes perfect sense now, as I also have a memory of a girl scout trip to the zoo so many years ago, and seeing the elephants getting their baths.

It’s always nice to solve a life-long mystery like that. It definitely makes me feel a little less weird too.

I remember Peter Jennings voice saying the second tower was falling. The sorrow, the hopelessness.

I remember trying to explain everything to my children.

I remember empty, clear blue skies.

I remember the very first image I saw, early in the morning, and how the scale of what was happening totally escaped me.

I remember not being able to get the words out over the phone to make V understand what was happening.

I remember people clustered together, gathered around televisions and radios, leaning on each other for answers that weren’t there, and for comfort that was.

I remember that there was politics and blame and anger, sides to take and arguments to make and discussion that would never end. But today isn’t the day to remember that part.

Today is the day to remember wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and loved ones. It’s the day to remember heroes, both standing and fallen. It’s the day to remember ordinary people on the most extraordinary day of their lives. It’s the day to remember people with so much to live for on the last day of their lives.

It’s a day to pay respect.

I really do wish I could knit. I’ve tried, many, many times over the years. But I just don’t have the patience to work it out I guess. I’m 40 years old, and I’ve been crocheting since I was 10 or younger, and I have to say I’m pretty good at it. I get so frustrating trying to knit something when it takes forever and doesn’t come out so well. I go back to crochet because I can accomplish what I want with pretty good results.

Knitting seems to be everywhere, and so are knitting patterns to make just about anything you want in dozens of variations. Crochet patterns seem to be a little harder to come by. I know a lot of people who say they can’t work from a pattern, they prefer to wing it. Personally I like to be able to do either. Being able to read a pattern is a skill, and I feel like it gives some legitimacy to my work. But being able to wing it is useful too, especially when you see a beautiful knit pattern and want to make something similar in crochet. It helps a lot when trying so hard to adjust a wearable pattern to fit right as well.

I’m making some progress on everything I have in the works. I’m loving the socks I’m working up from the yarn I got in the mail the other day. One case where it’s handy to be able to work from a pattern and to make adjustments: SW’s socks. The boy has huge, oddly shaped feet. I’ve done quite a bit of frogging trying to get a sock that will fit well and still go over his huge instep. Of course I ran out of yarn, and had to order some more, but I think it’s going to work out in the end. He seems pleased.

I’ve finished my shawl, and I’m putting the finishing touches on a pair of longies for RM. That pattern I didn’t like at all, and I’m too poor at the moment to purchase a pattern I’ve heard raves about, so my next pair will be a wing it one. Wish me luck.

One last thing that makes me want to knit is kind of silly. I’d heard, but didn’t really believe until lately, that there’s a superiority thing among some knitters. I honestly didn’t believe it until a couple trips recently to one locally owned yarn shop. When I mentioned crochet, the owners looked down their noses at me, and turned very cool. I honestly couldn’t believe it. You would think that business is business, but I guess not.

I ventured a little further from home to find a more accommodating place to hand over my yarn dollars. I found it at The Studio in Kansas City just off the Country Club Plaza. Even though they advertise “knitting” supplies, they were still as nice as they could be when I admitted to being a crochet person. And their selection of yarn was fantastic. I’m ready to go back as soon as I have about twice as much to spend as I did last time. Even the kids enjoyed it there. (I didn’t feel unwelcome with two rowdy boys in tow either.)

As soon as I get a couple more projects accomplished I’ll have to get some more pictures posted. Then maybe I’ll have to give one more try at knitting. Maybe.

I started out with this, for $2 from the thrift store:

I picked apart the seams, unraveled it, and ended up with this:

Then I got some drink mixes, and did this:

Which resulted in this:

Which when rolled up looked like this:

Then I brewed up some triple strength coffee in this:

Which gave me this:

And from all that I made this:

And this:

And this:

Just a few years ago, I finally resigned myself to knowing I wasn’t going to have any more babies. It’s not a simple thing to do. There’s a huge emotional impact in coming to terms with that. I love raising my children, each and every part of it. I also don’t like the idea of growing older.

I went through our storage room, pulled out boxes of baby clothes, baby toys and baby equipment. These things had been in storage for years, hidden away because of my reluctance to part with any of it. Every item seemed so special, brought back so many memories. Nothing was ordinary enough to make letting go if it easy, but I did my best. I made a small bag of keepsakes like coming home outfits, first Christmas outfits and the like, and proceeded to dispose of everything else.

I had garage sales, I listed things on ebay, and I gave a lot away. It was difficult, it made me very sad, and more than once I wanted to run screaming after an item to get it back. But the baby phase was over, I was the mom of half-grown boys, and life was good.

Then a crazy thing happened. Completely and totally out of the blue, I was pregnant. Sure, I know how it happens. But when it hadn’t happened in 11 years, I kind of let the possiblity completely slip out of my mind.

So I found myself re-acquiring the baby stuff. Age, wisdom and experience allowed me to keep the list down to a minimum. Knowing how quickly they outgrow things that are wants more than needs, we’ve done a good job of managing with a no frills approach. RM is well taken care of, comfortable, and has just what she needs of most things. Probably a few too many toys though.

She’s growing quickly, as babies do, and I once again find myself with baby things in storage. Not too terribly many, and a lot of already second hand stuff, but nevertheless there is a small but growing pile of boxes of no longer needed baby things. And I find myself facing the entire emotional adjustment all over again. I don’t want to let any of it go.

At 40 years old, and tired, and with a very full life, I really have no intention of having any more children. It would be very unwise for us in a lot of ways. Our already complete family is even more wonderfully blessed now, in RM we were given an incredible gift. But honestly, I am done now.

But no, you can’t have my baby swing, or that cute little pink outfit, or any of it. I’m keeping it. All of it. For now.

I’m not sure if I’m just a disorganized person, or if I’ve had disorder imposed upon me by life. It does seem that I spend a great deal of time cleaning, sorting and arranging things. I do a good job of getting things where I want them, orderly, and it stays that way for about two hours, three tops. After that, a horde of other people come in behind me and start digging through, pulling out, tossing around, and leaving things where they lie.

Getting things accomplished in the midst of the chaos is a difficult thing. Every task takes me longer because I stop to pick up toys, dirty clothes, pens, pencils, and random clutter along the way. At times, hours go by and I’m still working my way through the clutter towards whatever it is I was attempting to do in the first place. Behind me the mess is re-establishing itself as fast as I can clear it. I’m like a little island of organization about to be swamped at any minute.

Even tiny little RM contributes more and more to the chaos all the time. Yesterday as I was consolidating boxes of confiscated toys, (remind me to tell you about my failed system for prodding the boys to pick up after themselves sometime) she is sitting next to me, watching as I take items from one box and add them to another. As I look away for a moment, she removes the same items from the box I just put them in, and adds them back to the box they were just removed from.

I should be happy she’s observing, imitating and learning, I know. If only she grasped the entire concept already. She does occasionally throw a toy into a toybox. Twice as often she throws a dozen toys out. Her latest trick is to slide the back screen door open to the limits of the latch, giving her just enough room to stick one hand out. Then she proceeds to give the dogs whatever she can fit through the crack. They have enjoyed chew toys like duplos, baby shoes, markers, water bills and the like.

Perhaps I should just let her keep doing it. If I can’t create order out of this mess, feeding the clutter to the dogs might be one way to get rid of it.

Who else is there to clean your plate for you when you are just too tired to eat any more?

Who else is going to keep you company when you are in the doghouse?

I told you this site was a work in progress. I also told you I’m figuring stuff out as I go along.

My picture files were way too big, I knew that. I probably drove some people away forever with the load times too. Oops.

I “think” I’ve fixed it. Of course it took the purchase of software and re-uploading (is that a word?) all the photos to date. But I think I’ve fixed it.

So - anybody want to comment on if the page is loading better for you or not? A good test is clicking the link for this post and see how well it loads. And maybe how good it looks too; I hope I’m not sacrificing too much photo quality.

The photos are taken with two different cameras, so hopefully they will continue to be the better quality ones from here on. For a recent example, here is a Sumatran Tiger from the Kansas City Zoo. Isn’t he (or she) cool? He was posing for us, I’m sure of it!