A Busy Weekend For Us

Wow. We've been really busy! And it's been fun.

On Thursday, Jack and I dropped Lily off at school and then headed over to the butcher shop. I've probably mentioned that one of our money saving life changes was to purchase meat and fish directly from the butcher and fish market. The prices are slightly less and the product is so much fresher. Anyway, I go to both about once a week, and Jack always comes with me. On the way, Jack kept talking about the Book Man and getting frustrated because I couldn't understand him. When we got out of the car at the butcher shop, Jack pointed to the store and said "Book Man give a lolly?" Ah HA! Book Man equals Butcher Man! Jack always gets a candy or lolly from the butcher, so it's an event he clearly looks forward to. In fact, as soon as we walked in and I ordered, Jack grabbed my hand and said "Where my lolly?" One track mind.

After picking up some stew beef and ground pork for Jim's awesome chili, we went to check out the yarn sale at Michaels. I got some good deals on worsted weight wool, which I plan on using to make Jim a hat and mittens. I also picked up the yarn I'm going to use for Lily's pink cotton sweater, which will be my next project after I finish crocheting my blue sweater (I have a sleeve and a half left).

Once we got home, Jack played and I spent some time updating my Ravelry account. I love Ravelry! I put up photos of my works in progress and my yarn stash, and joined some discussion groups. I was thrilled to find out that there is a Monday Night Knitting group that meets a few minutes away from my house in Saugus. I'm probably going to head over there tomorrow night to (hopefully) make some new crafty friends.

I also got online and taught myself the continental style of knitting. I'm working on a felted bag that Jill (my sister-in-law) developed, which is all knitting since it is worked in the round on a circular needle. I've been practicing with that project.

Thursday night was my monthly scrapbooking crop. I didn't get much done, but really enjoyed hanging out with my girlfriends and gossiping about the goings on in Melrose. I hadn't seen my friend Kelly since before Christmas, so we had a lot of catching up to do. Apparently, one of the men working on the house next door to us walked outside, looked at Kelly standing in her driveway and then PEED right in front of her. Good to know, since the kids play outside when the weather is warm enough. I would prefer to keep them away from crazy construction workers who expose themselves. Yuck.

Friday morning, the snow started coming down pretty fast. We ended up getting at least 9 inches by the time it ended. Jim's office closed at 2pm so that the workers could get home before rush hour when the snow was predicted to be at its worst. We spent Friday hanging out and playing together as a family while it blew snow outside. It was a lot of fun!

Saturday, the kids played outside in the snow. I worked on some stuff around the house and made good progress on my blue sweater project. In the afternoon, we all went to the North Shore Mall and picked up some baby gifts for our friends John and Wendy. The kids each had some fresh fruit salad and a croissant for early dinner and then we headed home. Jim had to go to his annual fraternity banquet that evening. He ended up staying out until 3 am catching up with his friends from college.

Jack had a bad dream on Saturday night and was able to tell me about it. I heard him calling "Mama! Papa!" over and over, so I went upstairs. When I asked him what was wrong, he said "Fiahfucks! Fiahfucks!" (his way of saying fire trucks). I asked where they were and he said "Fiahfucks outside my winnow! They outside my winnow." Needless to say, there were no frie trucks outside his window or anywhere near our house, so he must have been dreaming. He fell asleep pretty fast after I rocked him and calmed him down.

Lily and I had a little Girls' Night after Jack got to sleep. We talked about the sweater I am planning to make for her, about kindergarten and some other things that Lily was worried about. The parents of her close friends just got separated and are living apart. Lily is very worried that Jim and I will stop loving each other or move into separate houses. I assured her that was not the case. If Lily is this concerned, I can;t even imagine how confused and scared her friends are! Lily and I drew some mermaids together and then she went right off to sleep. I spent a quiet evening working on my knitting projects and watching movies.

Today I went to my new hair stylist for the first time. She is the mother of one of the little girls in Lily's ballet class. Her hair always looks very cool and her salon is not as expensive as my current place, so I asked for her business card. I basically told her to do whatever she wanted with my hair and I absolutely love it. The color is gorgeous and the cut is exactly what I wanted -- and I didn't even discuss it with her. Not only that, but she got my hair done much faster than my other stylist so I had a little "me" time walking around the North Shore Mall, where the salon is located. I ended up picking up some clothes that were on sale at Gymboree. Lily apparently went almost directly from a 3T to a 5, barely pausing to wear size 4. All of her shirt sleeves are suddenly too short. Sadly, she has inherited my mother's and my monkey arms. She was also in dire need of new pajamas, which were also on sale.

We spent the rest of the day at home, playing with the kids. Lily is really into making up puzzle games right now. She draws a picture and hides either letters or numbers in the drawing, and then we have to circle the hidden characters. She's pretty creative in making them a part of her drawing. She also drew a picture of herself eating a purple plum, and wrote "POML," which she explained was the word "plum." We were very pleased that she basically got all of the sounds and we helped her figure out how to put the letters in the right order. Then she figured out hello by spelling "HLLO." She is getting very good at writing and spelling by herself. My favorite message was "Mama is the beast of all Lily," written when she was mad at me. The actual message read "MAMA BST OL LILY." I was very proud of her work even though she thinks I am the beast of all. Unfortunately, she also used her new spelling and writing skills to write all of our names in black grease pencil on the cloth seats of our dining room chairs. She wanted us to know where we were supposed to sit. She wrote Jack's name on his plastic high chair tray, so only three chair seats are ruined. Since I'm planning to paint the dining room anyway, I'll just add picking up some cloth to recover the seats to my to do list.

Jim and Lily are drawing up some plans for a garden. Her other new interest is drawing plans for houses, aircraft, playgrounds and other places. She draws pictures to explain how these things will be used. Maybe she'll become an architect?

Things I've Wondered About Recently

I look a lot of stuff up on Google. Both Jim and I often come up with strange questions that must be answered by a Google search. In the course of traveling and site seeing and talking with the kids this week, I've wondered about a bunch of random things. I thought it would be fun to share what I've learned!

What does the phrase "Lombard Street to a China Orange" mean?

This thought crossed my mind as we drove by Lombard Street in San Francisco. It's a phrase I've often read in British books, and I've never bothered to find out what it means. Lombard Street in San Francisco is famous for being steep and crooked, so I thought "Wow, an orange made out of china would definitely roll downhill and get smashed!" Then I thought "That can't be related to the phrase itself because I know the phrase was in fashion long before there was a Lombard Street in California." Today I googled it and learned that it means "long odds." It developed because Lombard Street in London is the center of great banking and mercantile transactions, so to stake the Bank of England against a common orange is to stake what is of untold value against a mere trifle. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but that's the explanation. I'm glad I know.

What is the difference between a buffalo and a cow?

This was a question that Lily asked. I had no idea, so I googled it. According to Wikipedia:

The biological subfamily Bovinae (or bovines) includes a diverse group of about 24 species of medium-sized to large ungulates, including domestic cattle, Bison, the Water Buffalo, the Yak, and the four-horned and spiral-horned antelopes. The evolutionary relationship between the members of the group is obscure, and their classification into loose tribes rather than formal sub-groups reflects this uncertainty. General characteristics include a cloven hoof and usually at least one of the sexes of a species having a true horn.

So, they are a different species from the same biological family. I'm not really sure what that means, mostly because I'm not up on species classification or genetics. I'm going to summarize it to Lily by telling her the cow is like a cousin to the buffalo.

What exactly is a "beast?"

I can't remember why this came up, but Jim and I mentioned the term "roast beast" as used in the Grinch and then started to discuss what exactly a beast was. He opined that it meant beef or red meat, and I opined that it meant anything alive. Jim then pointed out that insects probably weren't beasts. According to Merriam-Webster online, this is the answer:

1 a: a four-footed mammal as distinguished from a human being, a lower vertebrate, and an invertebrate b: a lower animal as distinguished from a human being c: an animal as distinguished from a plant d: an animal under human control2: a contemptible person3: something formidably difficult to control or deal with.

Jim was right. Insects are not beasts. Who knew?