Stash Amassed Beyond Life Expectancy

The Beatrix Cardigan is written and I'm just waiting until I can get photos on a real baby. I still need to write the captions for the steek tutorial, but that will be pretty quick. Here's a teaser photo of me cutting the steek:



I'm making great progress on the men's sweatervest. Working title: The Professor. I know, that's lame. I'll come up with something better when I'm ready to show the world. It's going to be a real basic textured buttondown vest. Not for real fashion-forward kind of guy.

I took the boys to St Paul on Monday. Let's just say that it was not a successful trip. It was great to see my old friend Nora, but my kids were beastly, especially the older one. People make all these public assertions about how modern parents are failing to instill manners in the next generation. Well, I am guilty as charged. BUT I also want to say that I see well-mannered kids all around me. Kids who are trained to help around the house, be grateful for the food they are offered, say please and thank-you, be nice to others, sit at the table until excused, participate in conversations without interrupting or hijacking them. And my kids seems absolutely untrainable to me. They are a constant embarrassment. They don't sit still for meals, they interrrupt, they fight, they're ungrateful, they always feel they deserve more than they have. They don't clean up, they don't help out, they drop garbage on the floor. I am absolutely guilty of inadequate parenting and I don't have any idea how to do it differently. Every day is a constant fight and I find myself wishing I had never become a mother. I'm counting down until they leave home, only that's years away. I'm just treading water waiting for the next 8 years to be over with so I can throw out all their stuff, clean up my house, and enjoy a moment of peace.

In other news, Scott has removed a lot of stuff from the end of the basement which will soon be my space. I need to line up an electrician to install a few more outlets and put up the oversize shelving for all the boxes of yarn. I'm very excited about this.