Knit Your Own Royal Wedding

For the ultimate royal watcher, I have just ordered the Knit Your Own Royal Wedding book. Too cool!!!

You may say I'm a dreamer...

I've never been a big fan of John Lennon or the song "Imagine." I discovered the song in 8th or 9th grade when I was going through my hippie stage so that was about 1988 or 1989. But I've been thinking about this song a lot lately with all the dreaming I've been doing.

Clara Parkes posted on her blog this weekend about her contingency plan if the knitting thing doesn't work out. At the end of her post she says, "All I can conclude is that even when you're lucky enough to live your wildest dreams, you still end up dreaming."

And a couple of weeks ago, we had a guest speaker do a program at the museum and I wanted to run up to him and hug him and kiss him on the cheek. He is a world reknown medical researcher who is going to change the spread of AIDS in the world and he is probably going win a Noble prize. He said that he is lucky to have found a profession that he loves and it was his dream at the age of 11. But he has a contingency plan. If he weren't a doctor, he would be a master woodworker. 

I'm supposed to be living my dream but it is more like a nightmare. Now, don't get me wrong - I'm just talking about work. Since my wonderful husband reads my blog, I want him to know that personally he is better than anything I could have dreamed. :) But professionally this is not the career I dreamed of having. I'm stuck in a job that makes me feel unfulfilled. I have no purpose for being at work and I'm bored out of my gourd. I'm a project person. I need something to give me a since of accomplishment. I don't need instant gratification but I do need something to work toward. But I'm so burned out where I am that even projects that I concoct are not doing it for me. I'm working on changing my situation but I'm scared that my idea is only a dream and the dream will not come true and I'll be stuck and devastated on top of it all.

So Clara Parkes made be feel better about dreaming because she is living the dream and is still dreaming. Maybe dreamers always dream even when the dream comes true.

25 Ways to Cut Back on Housework and Free Up Knit Time!!!!

Huckmom on Ravelry posted this the other day and I thought it was so funny that non-knitters might enjoy it too.

1. Use a every flush toilet bowl cleaner. Sure it makes the water blue, but you don’t have to think about it being dirty all the time.
2. Have cereal for dinner once a week. Choc full of vitamins. Let everyone know ahead of time to pick their favorite cereal. Saves you oodles of prep time.
3. Use paper plates for a week when you have to finish that special UFO.
4. Pay your teenager to grocery shop for you. Make them spot the sales. It is a great learning experience. Saves you the shopping, packing, driving and unpacking time!
5. Barter with the teen for a handknit…..he wins for sure!
6. Hang those towels up and reuse them a few times. After all, you are clean when you get out of the shower.
7. Invest in a dark colored kitchen floor. No one needs to know how dirty it is but you!
8. Clean the kitchen on the first of the month and don’t let anyone use it AT ALL for a week. This will keep the kitchen spotless. TV dinners were meant for a reason after all.
9. Invite people over if you must and close all your doors except for the room you are forced to entertain in. Make it the kitchen. See * 8.
10. Serve hot dogs once in awhile. Ketchup is a vegetable….
11. Hire a cleaning service……I didn’t say these were all cheap ways to gain more knit time.
12. Put the dog on the treadmill while you knit next to him.
13. Put the kids on the treadmill while you knit next to them.
14. Put the significant other on the treadmill while you knit next to them.
15. NEVER clean unless someone is home to see it and appreciate it.
16. Spray the shower down with cleaner a half an hour before you get in.
17. Teach your kids to do their own laundry early in life. My kids did all their laundry once I read that Martha Beck taught her child (with Downs Syndrome) to do anything he could once he was capable……
18. Consider a container garden…. easier to weed.
19. Soap the car up right before a thunderstorm. (yes I have actually done this!!!!!)
20. Cut the grass less frequently…it discourages weeds when it is longer.
21. Keep a broom handy, it is less daunting that hauling around a heavy vacuum.
22. Ask people to take off their shoes in the house…. they can show off their handknit socks.
23. Invest in a Furminator. You wont believe it until you use it. I’m a believer.
24. Find an orthodontist that your children can walk themselves to…….you’ll swear you live in that place otherwise.
25. Tell your son he needs to learn to cook if he wants to be a fireman….(don’t they all at one point?)

Cabinets are in...

Kitchen Remodel Update

Well, great progress has been made on the kitchen remodel.

We have tile on the floor,

paint on the walls and the cabinets have arrived,

 And a great helper to assist with the cabinet check in.

Cabinets will be installed next week and then all we will have left are the countertops and the trim work.