Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real

{Pretty}

 Knut got me these beautiful flowers.  They were given at the perfect time.  On Valentine's Day, they would have been: "Here's the flowers I'm supposed to give you on Valentine's Day" flowers.  Just after Valentine's Day, they would have been: "I'm sorry you were upset I didn't get you flowers on Valentine's Day" flowers.  However, it must have crossed that appropriate line to finally be: "Here, I wanted to give these to you because I love you, and I know you like flowers."  Well done, Knut.  Well done.  They make me smile every time I pass them and adds some beautiful life to the house.

{Happy}

 Our chickens are gradually returning to the life of laying!  Last winter wasn't nearly this bad.  They slowed down by not quite half, but they didn't stop for months like this winter.  But with the molting, and the trauma caused by the bully-roosters (4 of whom are still in my freezer) they've been taking their time getting themselves pulled together again.

We went 3--almost 4 months with not one egg from any of them.  Of our 10 ladies, we know at least 5 are back on the nest now.  Perhaps 6.  We're getting 3-5 eggs a day and we're almost at the point of not needing to buy the white store ones anymore.  We're in the process of picking out new chicks for this spring.  I'd like 10-15 more.  It's looking more and more like we'll be getting some meat birds too.  If that is the case we'll be getting quite a few more.

{Funny}

 I don't know if this is funny, but it makes me smile.  David is working on a fort outside.  While digging, he was very excited to find the basketball hoop.  I told him I didn't realize it was lost.  It's the biggest/deepest fort yet.  I've been working on getting the Silje and David more scheduled, and I put on  their day 30 minutes of outside time when the weather permits.  Silje couldn't believe I would do that to her in the winter, but it wasn't so bad that day, and she had not been outside in days.  She ended up really liking it, and explored a few drifts in the yard.  I was hoping she'd stay out past her 30 minutes, but she came in and grabbed a library book and sat by the fire like nothing had happened as soon as she could.

{Real}

Self-portrait.  Ingrid's head isn't hanging as much as it appears.  Her chin was leaning against my chest. This is me most days.  Moby wrap and a baby over sweats, with a cozy wool sweater thrown on top, and my hair in a messy pony tail.  I love baby-wearing.  No one can see how big your belly still is.  They just see baby.

Linking up with Our Mother's Daughter blog today.

Winter

 Well, it  turns out it wasn't our internet that was broken, but our wireless router, which is now something else I need to work on today.  I know on Wednesdays I usually link up with the "Yarn Along" and chat about what I'm knitting and reading.  Well, I finished my "Post" cardigan last night complete with buttons and I'm working the final touches on the pattern.  It's taking so much longer than I'd like.  With all of these ski trips and suitcases around my house and trying to stay on top of everything else, it's gotten put on the back burner.  Now that the final ski race of the season is done, I hope I'll be able to actually finish something.

This was Knut's 4th year competing in the USA's largest cross country ski race.  He placed in the top third, which was good but he fears he will lose his spot in wave 1 for next year.  Having a baby this winter hasn't been the best for training.  Of course he didn't have the baby physically, but his sleep and time has been affected this winter, and that has made an impression on his time.  He's happy with it though, and he finished another year and that is no small thing.

 This year there were some Norwegian trolls walking around the finish line.  They let me take a picture of them.  They handed out Snickers, so they were nice trolls.

 When we got back on Sunday, it was stopping in on Knut's grandparent's birthday party.  (His grandma and grandpa share the same birthday.  They turned 97 and 94 I think.  Relatives, feel free to correct me on that.)  Then on Monday, it was trying to get everyone back on schedule.  Ingrid would not take good naps during the day.  She was just sleeping off and on every 5 minutes which meant I got nothing done.  The picture above is the drive to Silje's piano lessons on Monday.  In hind sight I should have been wearing more on my feet than my house slippers.  It's only a 1/2 mile drive down the road to her great-aunt's driveway.  Their driveway is about 1/2 mile long, and usually you can see the house from the road, but this day you could barely see the gravel driveway poking through the snow.  I wouldn't have ventured out except the wind was down so I knew there wouldn't be many snowdrifts.  The visibility wasn't so great, though.  These are all untouched photos.

 It got a little better as we approached their homestead.

 It's days of white like this that make you dream of Spring.  It's like a blank canvas.  I can close my eyes and remember days where the corn is growing up bright green, and the skis are bright blue, and the red tulips start popping up in the garden lilacs bring in purple on the side of the house and the dandelions sprinkle yellow across our yards, and the wild asparagus starts growing in the ditches.  I can close my eyes and remember the smells and the sounds of Spring.

 In college, we talked about a piece of literature having "foil" meaning an author would prepare you for something by showing you an extreme opposite to that something first so that a subject would appear even more grand when it appears.  I'm not explaining it well.  Maybe these pictures will explain it better.  This white perfectly "foils" the Spring to come.  It will make the colors that much brighter.  It will be a feast for the eyes after weeks of the white, sprinkled with brown and black, and occasional blue skies.

Here's the abandoned homestead between Knut's aunt and uncle's house and ours.  

Here's a picture of our "house" about 1/3 a mile away.  Can you see it?  Me neither.

Rapid Fire

Last night got late as I had a friend out to chat so I didn't get to bed until midnight.  Then Ingrid didn't sleep well.  She woke up at 2 am and wanted to nurse non-stop.  I kept feeding her until I had nothing left, and then forcefully giving her the pacifier until she could take it no more but at least my body had a chance to reload, and then feed her all over again.  Repeat that about 10 times until 6am without stopping, when I gave up, and woke up Knut and he brought her downstairs where she promptly went to sleep.

Knut let me sleep in until the last possible moment when he had to go to work, which was nice.

Since he waited until the last possible moment, he had to give me a list of things he needed done while he was at work in rapid fire fashion without giving me a chance to wake up.  That was not nice.

"You need to call about Ingrid's social security number."
"You need to call the kennel about taking Lena this weekend.  Can you see if they can take her early, and give her a bath while we're gone?"
"I need the receipt from your computer for the tax accountant before we leave tomorrow."
"I need you to pull together a supper to bring along to the cabin tomorrow.  Something high carb before the race.  Could you pull together some of those date and nut energy balls for the trip too so I don't have to eat a bunch of junk on the road?"

There were about 4 other things, but I'm going to have to call him for a reminder because I hadn't exactly opened my eyes up.

Before he left, I said,
"You forgot to add to the list: fold laundry and pack for 7 people, clean the house, do school, and make meals for today."

"Yeah.  Those too."

This superhero's first order of business is coffee and breakfast.  Then I'll find my cape, cancel school, and put everyone to work.

It's Birkie weekend starting tomorrow and it's time to pull together and get it done.  (For those of you who are new to the blog, the Birkebeiner race is the grandest cross country ski race in the USA held yearly in Wisconsin, and Knut (along with thousands of others) is competing in it for the 4th time.  It's like the New York Marathon...but on skis.)

It's go time.

Yarn Along

I finished my "Post" Cardigan, and it's blocking and drying right now.  I'm hoping once the blocking is complete, I will be able to bring it to the yarn store by Knut's ski race this weekend and pick out some buttons for it.

So I'm able to focus a bit more on this pink cardigan (and attempt some pattern writing in the evenings which is going slower than I'd like).  I'm calling the pink one "Summer Clarity" now until I come up with a better name.

For reading this week, I think I've spent the most time reading Riding the Pony Express next to a certain 7 year old during school time.  He's really getting into this book, and Sonlight's booklist, in my opinion, has a great choice of books for early boy readers.  Silje liked it too, but David is more choosy about his books, and this one he likes.

For me, I've been reading through some passages of Lies Women Believe which is a book my mother in law gave me a few years ago after she did it as a study at church.  I honestly haven't read it,  but when I got into a "practical theology" discussion with one of my friends through letters, she quoted this book a few times, and it made me pull it off the shelf and start reading it through...at least the chapter that was of discussion.

I find the book straight to the point, eye opening, and a bit opinionated at times, but there's a ton of truth in it.  I appreciate an author that just says it as it is with no disclaimers or apology.  It's pretty refreshing, actually.

Linking up, as always, with Ginny this week.

I'm Blessed

Good morning, friends.  This morning I'm exhausted, but in a peaceful sort of way.  I'm tired, but I'm used to being tired.  I think it's just the phase of life I am in, and it has become normal.  I have made my peace with it.

I feel as though I am making my peace with a lot of things these days.  I was feeling so guilty this last Valentine's Day because I had not planned anything fun for my kids.  I didn't even get them a Valentine or candy or anything.  I line with my current read (Desperate) I am "making a very conscious choice to be in the Word, eating the bread of life every day, and recognizing that I am not my bad days. I will not let the dark tell me who I am. I will give only God the authority to tell me who I am."  

 So far I am liking this book.  I'm not defined as a mother by how amazing our Valentine's Days are, or how many kids crafts I can squeeze into my day.  So out of love, and not any sort of cultural expectation,  I made a special meal for my family the day after Valentine's Day.  I brought out a tablecloth and the china.  We drank sparkling grape juice from goblets and I made cooked some steak for Knut and I, and I bought the pre-packaged chicken cordon bleu for the kids that they love so much. (Silje calls it "chicken cordon purple" because she likes purple better than blue.)  We lit candles, and I thanked each of them for giving me the honor of being their mommy.  We worked on fancy table manners (like which fork to use first) and how to do things properly.  The kids thought all the etiquette rules were funny and silly.

I'm so blessed to be a mommy, and it's so good to release the expectation pinterest and I have put on what holidays look like, and just enjoy where we're at.

I'm blessed by a husband who always wants to do fun stuff as a family, even though most people would see the craziness in it.  He wants our kids to be active and he has this dream that we will all enjoy skiing together.  Here's some pictures of our Sunday outing:

 (Solveig is wearing her Little Pearl Vest from last year.  Cozy wool!)

So Sunday afternoon, all 7 of us headed out to the ski gaard owned by some friends of ours for some cross country skiing.  Silje and David are old pros at it now.  Elias was on skis without poles, and he did pretty well for a 4 year old.  He was super slow, but he stayed excited the whole time, and learned how to get up from falling about 14 times, so that was good.  Solveig got a ride in the polk (sled) behind Knut, and Ingrid rode in the Moby that I tied on Knut.  For the most part, Knut with the 2 little girls attached to him skied with Silje and David.  Elias and I were far behind, working on the fundamentals.

I'm blessed to have this special time with Elias.  I'm slowly learning not to be frustrated with his slow, careful way of doing things, and use each time I'm helping catch him up to the rest of the pack as an opportunity to be with just him.  We talked about life, and cookies, and race cars, and whatever else was on his mind.  For this middle child, it was a special time, and when I stopped rushing, we could enjoy it.

It was insane, though.  With all 5 kids it was constant "go pick up your poles," "help her with her mittens,"  "Hurry up!" "I don't care if you want to read, you're going to ski with the family."  "How many times to I have to say..."  It was nuts.  It felt like all of our training with them was not working, and the kids were constantly interrupting each other and Knut and I, and there was whining from little kids who skipped their naps to come, and crying from a baby who did not like her breakfast from my body after I had chili the night before.

Cindy, one of the owners, pulled out some wooden blocks for the little ones to play with as they were done much earlier than the big kids.  Silje just wanted to read in the corner, and next to the old "Bob" the black lab out there.  It's hard getting her outside, and we normally have to say things like "You have to ski one loop of this trail before you're allowed to come in."  Reading is important, but so is exercise and playing outdoors.  She's so much like me in this regard it's uncanny.

I'm blessed by being snowed in again this morning.  Knut is home, we're in our sanctuary of a room by the fireplace and listening to the wind blow the snow hard outside.  After a day like yesterday, I'm in desperate need of some quiet, and that's what this snowstorm outdoors has allowed me.

God has blessed me this week with:

Knut's adventurous spirit,
special time with each of my kids, and celebrating our family love,
snow that slows down life and makes obligations seem to disappear.  With any luck we'll lose power to, and really get an adventure in peace.

Her Valentine

In true form, Silje made Valentine's for each of us, and put lots of thought into each one.  Mine has these beautiful glitter pictures, the boys have red paper doily ones that are double sided, and Solveig?

Solveig won't let go of hers for anything.  In fact, while I took this picture, she was screaming at me that it was hers.

It's a picture of Solveig, and her hero: Silje.  Her sister made her a special Valentine, and she's flying higher than the moon today.  She has not let it out of her sight for over 2 hours now.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone, and I hope your day is filled with love

Yarn Along

Well, I'm dutifully finishing up my "Post Cardigan."  I reach this point when the end is in sight, and my eyes turn to the next project, and I'm consumed with thoughts of the next project.  I'm a terrible finisher in attitude, but I'm trying to work on disciplining myself to finish.

As for reading, I have my little book study tomorrow night at my house again, as we're reading through Desperate together, which is a new book out for moms.  Really, it's some mom's like me getting together and chatting just because it's good for the soul, and if we get to the book, than that's awesome. So far I love the ladies who are coming over, and I'm really looking forward to them coming again.  Valentine's Day isn't stopping any of us!

I should get to finishing up this week's chapter today, as I actually got to sleep last night!!!  Ingrid has been sleeping with Knut and I pretty much since she's been born.  I don't sleep well when she's with us, but I don't sleep at all when she's in her cradle, so you get to a "take what you can get" point.

I know some people are die hard co-sleepers with their kids, and others fear it is not safe.  Sometimes the healthiest thing for the family is sleep.  I've experienced such a range of sleeping habits with my kids that I'm on the belief that as a mother, you do what you gotta do, you know?  Whatever gets you sleep.

The most I've ever gotten her to sleep in her cradle alone has been 30 minute segments.  Last night I laid her down in her cradle at 11:30pm, and she didn't stir until  5:15am.  It was the deepest sleep I've had in months, and I feel good!  That has nothing to do with knitting or reading, but I felt it still should be proclaimed.  Usually when she's sleeping with us she wants to nurse around 4:30, and that's all.  So she sleeps well...as long as someone is holding her.  A long stint by herself was just lovely.  I could get used to that.

Once again, I'm linking up with Ginny with her weekly Yarn Along party.

Beauty Inside and Outside

Here's a post-race shot of 2 of my guys and one of my little ladies.  David wore his goggles all the time just in case we said we could go to the pool again.  Knut was tired, and he may hate me posting this.  I think he looks pretty good for skiing 58 km in a blizzard only a few hours earlier.

Here's the finish line for the kids' race.  This was my practice shot with the first place finisher for that race, who was a 10 year old girl.  If only I had known this was the last shot my camera's battery could handle, as David was just a few moments behind her.  :(

Here's my new coffee mug that I bought on a splurge the other day.  It's just happy.  I'm a wild and crazy spender I tell you.  I bought a chicken mug too.  I feel as a chicken owner it would be sacrilege not to.

Here's my exchange from Quince and Co, waiting for me when we got back, along with a sweet note in return from whoever handled my order.  This bird-egg blue is just perfect in so many ways.

Ingrid is like me, and loves having her head rubbed.  This morning as she was falling asleep, I think she was trying to pet her own head.  In hind sight, I see she may have been trying to remove that large hair of mine that fell on her face.  At any rate, it didn't wake her up.

Here's a project almost ready for my tech editor, and then some testers.  I'll be calling for testers in a week or so in my Ravelry group if anyone is interested in that.  There have been some errors in 2 of my patterns I released last year even though I had them professionally tech edited.  Although they were really minor, it is worse than a pebble in your shoe, and so I'm going back to having my patterns tested before released, not just edited.  It will me a delay in the release, but if it means I don't have to deal with the horror of errata, I'm on board.

 Oh, and here's another design I'm playing around with.  The ivory colored sweater above just needs pockets and a collar, but I needed to let my brain rest on that project for a week or so while I made some decisions on exactly how I should execute those 2 things.  While my brain was resting on that project, it had to work on this one.  Now this one will be benched as I finish up the ivory one.  I really, really can't wait to get back to this pink one, though. It's turning out exactly like my sketch on my 2nd try only, and I'm getting giddy about it.  I have been taking that class on pattern grading, and I'm learning lots about writing out a pattern by numbers only before even casting them on for added accuracy.  This sweater is my first attempt at that, and I only got the numbers wrong the first time because I added a wrong number in one beginning equation and had to go back and fix it.  Now that it's fixed, it's working like clockwork and I'm super happy with this new spreadsheet version of designing that I'm trying out.  It's going to be much more efficient!

 I promised some outside beauty too, and so here's our rose garden.  It's sleeping peacefully, don't you think?

 Here's our driveway, with Lena.  For all you Downton Abby fans, you should settle down.  Just because you see a dog from behind doesn't mean the best show ever is about to start.  It's just more of this blog.

 The drifts in the yard are so pretty, and some of them come up to my shoulders!  I love a good snow like this!  Winter is hard, but it's harder with no snow.  If you're going to live in a cold place, it should at least have snow so you can at least have all the winter sports and play!

Here's the snow coming up to Lena's back.  She's our "little" black lab/German shepherd.  Again...Downton is not starting.

I'm Blessed

We are snowed in.  Knut was skiing the Vasaloppet 58km ski race this weekend, and the kids skied their first race, the "miniloppet" the day before.  David took 3rd place, and it was so exciting.  I'll come back to that.

We were just planning on staying in this hotel Saturday night with Silje, David, and Ingrid (Elias and Solveig got a weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's).  However, when it was time to check out at 11am on Sunday, Knut was in the middle of his race, I was looking outside at the sheets of snow coming down, I was looking online at how it was worse back home, and there was potential road closing, I was getting anxious about this whole idea of checking out of the hotel.  I packed up the van, anyway, because I know Knut is a die-hard stick to the plan sort of guy, and I have never, ever gotten him to pull off the road in bad weather before.  In his mind the safest place for us to be is home, so he wants to take us there.

So I called Knut's parents to see what the road conditions were like back home, and Knut's dad said very plainly that we should stay put.  This mid-western family doesn't always say things plainly, but beats around the bush a bunch, so I took his straight forward "You should not drive" very seriously, and with much relief.  If Knut were there with me to make the decision, the first thing he would have done was called his dad, and if his dad said we should stay, and having his backing made me feel like I could show Knut I had done my due diligence in making a wise decision.

I am so blessed to have had this time with 3 of my kids, and such a relaxing extra day of our mini-trip.  It has been pretty relaxing, and Knut did pretty well, considering that snow was coming down in sheets while he was racing.  I'm blessed he didn't have any injuries, and that our car didn't go in the ditch like several we saw on the 5 mile drive from the finish line to the hotel.  Knut was blessed that instead of being picked up from the long race, and driving several hours home in a blizzard, he got a shower and a soak in the hot tub by the pool.

There's just lots of blessings in this snow!

I feel so silly that I have no pictures to show you from our amazing weekend, unless you want me to snap some pictures of the kids sitting on the bed and watching t.v. right now.  I had planned carefully to bring my camera along, and I had cleared my camera card, and packed the charger.  When we got to the finish line, I took a few shots to check the lighting, and before I knew it, the 1st place kid finisher was coming around the corner.  We all cheered for her.  She was a 10 year old girl, and she knew how to skate, which not all the kids knew how to do.

We waited a small bit, and then we saw 2 boys come around the corner.  My jaw dropped as I squinted to see that David was the finisher on the left, and he was one of the first finishers...and we're talking over a hundred kids, and many of them a few years older than him.  I got the camera propped, but when I started trying to click nothing was happening, and I looked to see that my battery was dead.  I had packed the charger, but I didn't check to see if it needed to be charged.  Urgh!  So I was the only one to see David's pure face of glee as he skied downtown Mora, MN where they had trucked in snow to cover the main street, and cross the finish line and get his finisher's metal.

Knut found out that the parents were allowed to ski the trail with their kids, and so he was skiing with Silje and David before David pulled away from them and finished much earlier.  Knut was behind with Silje, and kept encouraging her, but he said about half way through their 1.5km track she sort of gave up, and didn't feel like finishing.  So he was trying to keep her going.  It's been a challenge with these 2 oldest who are extremely competitive to understand that it's okay for them to BOTH do their best.  If Silje excels in something, David doesn't try.  If David does well in something, Silje doesn't try.  It's so frustrating, because they don't understand that these ski races, even for Knut, are about pushing yourself, and beating your own score, and less about beating everyone else.  Most people don't run a marathon to beat everyone.  You do it to prove to yourself that you can do it.

So it's a touchy thing to praise David for putting his whole heart into it, but also making sure Silje knows that we're proud of her for doing the race.  Also, we want her to learn that it's okay to be excited that someone you love did something important to them.  We've seen Silje beat David several times in skiing.  She's just as good.  She's just not as obsessed about it as he is.  She just has it stuck in her head that David is the skier, therefore she isn't.  It's hard to know what to do with that as a parent.

Sorry, I'm getting off topic.  So I don't have a picture of these amazing races.  I could have taken pictures at Knut's race, but I was holding Ingrid, and trying to keep 2 kids patient as we waited for him in the wind and snow at the finish line, and my hands were cold and I didn't want to take them out of the mittens.

So you all have to use your imagination.  Take out a white sheet of paper, and stare at it, and it will be like a high definition picture of our weekend.  Lotsa white.

I'm blessed to be going home today.  I'm blessed with a sleeping baby who has gotten a stuffy nose this weekend.  I don't think it's from the snow, but from her siblings at Grandma and Grandpas who got a bit sick this weekend with their colds turning into fevers.  I think it's all the same bug.  Her cough is my biggest concern, because it just sounds so awful, but I keep watching her stomach breathing, as I remember watching the nurses do when Elias was hospitalized with RSV twice.  I've been through newborn colds a few times now, and I know the big warning signs, and her stomach isn't doing the work that Elias' did when he was sick.  Still this cough is not good, though it's not very frequent.  I wish I could run someplace and get a quick opinion, but I wasn't about to venture on closed roads in a snowstorm to an emergency room for a little cough that's probably nothing.  If it's still around tomorrow, though, I think I'll have her checked out.  She slept really well last night, and she's her smiley self this morning.  She's taking her morning nap right now and her breathing is 100% normal.  It's only when she coughs that my ears perk up and my body stiffens all over.

Now I'm really getting off topic.

I'm blessed with blog readers who are used to, and don't mind me getting off topic.  I love all the friends I have met through this blog, and hearing from you readers is such a thrill for me.

Yarn Along

I have gained back almost all of the body that I frogged last week.  I'm happily remembering how fast knitting in worsted is.  It's been awhile, as I feel like I've been stuck in either sport weight, or color work for awhile.  This (mostly) stockinette or ribbing in worsted weight feels like I'm knitting in light speed.  I'm doing much better at working on the written portion of the pattern along with the knitting portion, instead of leaving all of the writing until the end like I usually do.  I'm hoping to work my way into writing the complete pattern before I knit it.  I'm almost there.  Almost.

Now that Knut and the kids have finally finished reading The Hobbit in the evenings, in place of our normal school read-aloud times, I'm finally back to our school list.  We're reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond which is about a Puritan community back in the time of the English Colonies.  I am personally getting into it, although I'm not sure about the kids.  Silje understands most of it, but I wouldn't say she's "into it" yet.  So far there are no ponies or puppies or princesses yet, so that's a downer for her.  I really think it's a stretch for David, and I'm remembering that at the beginning of the year I was reading one chapter from his read aloud list and one chapter from Silje's read aloud list every night, and perhaps it's not good to just read from Silje's list.  I need to move a few grade levels down for at least part of our reading each night.

And that's all I can write about today.  I have about 10 loads of laundry ahead of me today.

Linking up with Ginny again.

Living Room Activities

 The kids always get such a laugh seeing Daddy open up our wood box and fill it up.  I can usually expect to see the older ones out there helping fill up the wheelbarrow, and the younger ones lined up by the opening to feel the blast of cold air and feel like they're outside, while still being inside.

 On a particularly good day, I asked Silje if she wanted to work on knitting again, since it had been literally months since our last lesson.  I'm not a very good knitting teacher.  This time, though was way better than last time, and I think some of the previous knowledge learned actually lapped into this lesson, and she picked it up quicker.  I think even a washcloth is too adventurous for my patience these days, so we're just doing a scrubby (aka a small garter-stitch square with cotton yarn).  

She wants so badly to make doll clothes.  We have a ways to go, and it's not because if her, because I think she's actually picking it up very fast.  It's just very hard for me to dissect and explain something I can do in my sleep.  When I think of my own knitting teacher saying her mom just handed her needles when she was 3 and she just picked it up.  With claims like that, I wonder if children or mothers were different "back then."  Teaching it requires much patience for both Silje and me.  At least I haven't squashed her enthusiasm yet.  That's a good start.

I'm loving having this new computer be just mine, and I thought I'd put a sticker on it, since I don't need to ask anyone, or annoy any shared users.  I found this vinyl decal on Etsy, and it couldn't be more perfect.  I'm not sure why, but it just makes me smile.  (Don't mind the messy couch with yarn pieces and open packages of cookies all about.)  For some reason, during the extreme cold snap lately, our wifi now magically works in the living room.  That's good, because I like to be near the fire.  However, I'm undecided about how I feel about bringing technology into this previously quiet space.

These days I'm back at pattern writing, and I'm going through the change of being familiar with Microsoft, but trying to figure out Apple.  So I'm trying to establish my patterns into a template in "Notes" and I'm trying to establish some sort of bookkeeping in "Numbers."  I'm finding them both to be pretty user friendly, but it's just taking me some time.  I'm thankful for my tutor named "Google" who is right there beside me when I get stuck.  I think I've got all the figures from my pattern business all documented from the month of January this year.  Now I need to attend to the pile of business receipts and pieces of notes from last year, and get it ready for taxes.  Boo...

I'm also taking an online pattern grading class on Craftsy.  It's really good, and I'm hoping it will help me streamline and simplify my math processing for various pattern sizing.  In all my previous patterns, I've done all of the size grading by hand and it takes me hours.  This class should help me figure out how to use a spreadsheet for my pattern grading, and it should cut my math time considerably.  It's been my new pass time when Knut is busy in the evenings.

 The living room is also Ingrid's favorite napping place.  This is her napping face.

This is her waking up face.

 This is her...um, pooping face.

Finally, this is her sleepy smily face.  We see this face pretty much whenever these eyes pop open.  Well, she actually has very many different smily faces, all of various degrees of excitement.  She's is a super sweet baby.  I love those cheeks!