The Wayfaring Wordhack

Neither J nor I have ever been big News Year's Eve celebrators, so it is rare that we do anything special.  On NYE, J was in bed by 22h00, but the kids were still awake and excited.  We went up to their room and read lots of stories, and Ti'Loup longingly expressed a wish to set off fireworks (prompted by Bobby's 5th birthday with his Grandpa Bob in the book Now One Foot, Now the Other by Tomie dePaola).

 "We have sparklers," I said.  "This is a special occasion; let's use them."*

Which, as you can imagine, was met with great enthusiasm.  Except by J, who did not want to get out of bed to come sparkle in the New Year with us.  :P  The kids danced in the snow in front of the house with their sparklers, then we went to the cross that is set up at the entrance to our hamlet and said a prayer for the New Year.  We are blessed to be alive, to be together, to be healthy, to have shelter, to have grace:

 I am one of the first to grumble about insurance policies, about the idea that you always pay but it isn't so easy to get the insurance company to come through on their end; however, let me tell you, when it comes to the insurance policy on Farmer Boy's glasses, Ho Boy! has it ever paid off.

We have had to have them (seeing glasses and prescription sunglasses) repaired at least 10 times in the last two years with no cost to us. I kind of think the optician might regret having sold us that particular policy. :P (Seriously though, the staff there have always been gracious and understanding whenever we take the glasses in.)

So, yeah, if you are considering insuring your kid's glasses, go for it. :P


That is Farmer Boy, aka Junebug, in the icon, also. My how they grow.

For some weeks now, I've been feeling really puffy and moonfaced. Just the other day (no points for observation for me) I noticed that this puffiness is in my legs, too. I'm feeling stiff and sore for no reason.  So, I've decided that I'm going to go off gluten for the remainder of the time we are here. Not because i have a proven sensitivity to it, I just want to see what my body does without it. I'm also cutting down on carbs* overall, especially those in a processed form. I'll still eat veggies and fruits that contain them. I haven't decided on brown rice, etc. yet. Of course thinking about what I put in my body makes me more aware of the lack of exercise I get. I'm going to change that as well. To get rid of the edema, I'm drinking lemongrass infusions; juices with celery, parsley, ginger, lemon...; cutting back on salt; elevating my legs; and giving myself massages to move the fluid. I'm going to do some yoga for lymphatic flow.  If it doesn't go away or comes back again, I'll have to go to the doc to figure out why I have it and try to get it under control before flying out.

I hope to be a lighter in body and spirit when we get to our new place.

Speaking of weeks, the kids and I are without J as he spends two weeks working at the French consulate in Alexandria. We had planned to go see him this weekend, but some unexpected work on his end and the fact that Alex is even louder, apparently, than Cairo and is not kid-friendly to navigate, we've cancelled that.

This separation is a foretaste of what our lives will be like in France, and so far the kids are sort of OK. Junebug, however, seems to be a bit needier than usual and is more set on persecuting Sprout. "It's the age and the stage," she stoically tells me. This comes from me telling her that she also went through this when she was younger. Junebug's issues are exacerbated by Ti'Loup's presence in his life. He loves his baby brother and is often affectionate towards him, but boy does he dislike Ti'Loup being near me when he, Junebug, is tired or in need. Ti'Loup just turned 11 months old, but he already senses the rivalry and is starting to glare at Junebug. :-/

Now back to my cleaning and packing...

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* Carbs are a no-no of sorts for me because of my PCOS.

Finished the sweater!  Woot!

No photos yet because the model is in bed, but hopefully I can post a couple tomorrow.  The pattern, as I've stated many times, needs serious work, and I don't know that I have the time or energy to put into "fixing"* it and making a tutorial to help out any other people who might like to try their crochet hooks at it.  I would have loved to, though. Priorities, priorities.

Glad to have that project off my hands.

Come Sunday I hope to have writing progress to post here.

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* By fixing it, I mean not only make the directions clearer but adjust measurements to fit kids as I know (have) them.  I made the 18-24 month size, and it is understandably a bit long for Junebug, but Sprout, who is 4.5 can wear it. I can barely button it around Junebug's waist, even after adding rows to the buttonband. The sleeves were also too narrow at the wrists. I upped the size to the one for 36 month-olds and STILL had to add rows up the sides to make the sleeves big enough...

I accomplished zero draft of my children's book this week. Some of the entries are fairly polished and may make it into the next draft, but many need tweaking.

Revision and further research are in my future.

This week, however, I need to focus on getting Junebug's sweater finished.  I know he will need it in France. I really need quiet and time alone to make progress, two commodities in short supply around here. :P

While I predicted this past week would be a wash on the creative front, I secretly hoped it would not be so.  I even took the time before our trip to download a scad of reference photos to my hard drive so I could work on my children's book illustrations.  'Twas not to be, though; I only managed one sketching session with Sprout while Junebug napped on our second to last day.

This is a view of a succession of terraces at our hotel as seen from our terrace.  The perspective was so cool that I started to do a very precise sketch with pencil and then realized I wouldn't have time to finish something accurate and detailed. I defaulted to a charcoal stick. Sadly, I had only my "cheap" sketchbook with me; its smooth paper doesn't have any tooth to hold charcoal so it is very smudgy and loose:

Is anyone on my flist a crocheter?  I started making a hooded jacket for Junebug (before Christmas) but petered out on in because of (to me and obviously a lot of other people, judging from the comments) unclear instructions.  I need help understanding something and would appreciate it so much if someone could make sense of it for me.

The excerpted instructions are as follows:

Shoulder:
Place a marker 9:11:13:15:17:19 sts in from armhole edge to mark inner edge of shoulder seam leaving 14:15:16:17:18:19 sts unworked at front opening edge.

Here is what I have so far, to which I should apply the above instrustions:



Where do I start counting from? In which direction? Any ideas?

I keep saying I'll take photos of what I'm doing so that I can make a decent snippet post, but we've taken other pictures of late, which I'll include under a cut.

On the creative front, I've been crocheting a sweater for Junebug.  Given the shortness and mildness of Egyptian winters, I'm making for 18-24 mo, but I don't know if it will be big enough next year. I've also been doing some sketches, working on a suitable style for a picture book idea I have. And baking: galettes, pizzas, bread. Baking counts, right?

So photos:
( family time )

To paraphrase from The Princess Bride, There is too much; I'll sum up...about our trip to Oklahoma, that is.

For three weeks:

We rested, following the sun's rhythms pretty closely, not bothered at all by the yapping of coyotes, which is so much more melodious as it rolls down hills and creeks, echoing off oaks than is the barking and snarling of the wild dogs that run the concrete labyrinth of this city.


( Rest of the trip, this way... )

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* Has anyone else been in proximity to an armadillo? There was one funky smell in its wake, and we don't know if it was the creature itself or something it had come in contact with. It smelled like skunk and wild garlic/onions.