Waiting for Resurrection Morning

We went to Utah for Sarah's birthday this year.  It has been 11 years since she was born and some of the children had never been to her little grave before.

The last time we went to Utah was for my Grandpa Clayton's funeral.  Eric, Jules, and Russell came with.  Scott and Russell had never been to Utah and had never been to their big sister's grave before.

Every year I call and buy a dozen or so roses from a certain florist.  Then I email around to my cousins or siblings attending college, and see if someone can pick them up and deliver them to Sarah's grave.  I don't want hers to be one of the poor little headstones that just sits bare on her birthday.

It was so delightful to walk into the store in person this year.  I know they don't recognize me or even notice that it's every year on a certain date that they hear from me.  All the same, it was fun to go in and do it in person this time.  We all went in, and we let each child pick a stem of flowers from the case.  Jules picked a big gerber daisy, Scott picked tulips, I picked snapdragons, Eric picked spider mums, and Russell picked a big, huge, boufy hydrangea poof.  It was $10 all by itself, but it's what he chose for his sister's grave.

The children were appropriately sober as we sat for pictures.  There's not much to do.  We usually sit for a minute at Sarah's headstone and then walk around to see all the other little headstones and tragedies marked at the Babyland section of the Provo cemetery.  My saddest are the three little triplet brothers up under the trees.  One baby was hard enough for me.  I want to give that mom and dad a hug.

It was sweet to be able to go to our baby's grave on her birthday.  We were going to leave the children in Eric's care and go to the temple where we were sealed to commemorate the day, but ended up not being able to do it because Mark wasn't well.  We later found out it was pneumonia, and that's a whole other story.

We were able to take the children and go walk around the temple grounds, so that was nice.  There were three weddings that day and we were able to teach the children about our wedding and why it's ok for Sarah not to be with us right now.  We got her for eternity!!  I love being sealed to my family and knowing that Families Can be Together Forever.  Resurrection Morning is going to kick butt!!!!!!

Love you, little lady!  See you soon!

Pie!

I believe this is my second post about a good-looking pie made by me.  I'm sorry if you're pie-intolerant.  The story here, is that I made a delicious and beautiful pie.

I have a no-fail pie crust recipe that hasn't failed yet.  I can my own apple-pie filling.  I make a no-fail pie crust, I dump the homemade filling in, I sprinkle the top with cinnamon sugar and voila!  Instant deliciosity!

I have always loved pie, and I'm beginning to believe that pie loves me.

No-Fail Pie Crust

2 1/2 c. flour
1 c. shortening
1 t. salt
1 egg
1 T. vinegar
cold water

Mix flour, shortening, and salt.  Break egg into a liquid cup measure, add vinegar and enough water to make 1/2 cup.  Beat well.  Add to flour mixture, toss with a fork and gather into a ball.  Divide in two.  Roll out each half to form one 9-inch pie crust. (Wibnote:  I roll dough in between two pieces of wax paper.  Peel off the top one, flip the whole thing onto the pie plate, and peel off the other paper.) Bake at 400 for 10 minutes if needed.  (Wibnote:  don't bake it for an apple pie.  Wait for the filling.)

Apple Pie Filling

About 5 lbs. of tart apples (Wibnote:  MORE!)
10 cups water
4 1/2 c. sugar
2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. cloves
1 c. cornstarch

Peel and slice enough apples to fill 7 quart jars.  Pack the jars to within 1/2 inch of rim.  In a pot, combine 9 cups water, sugar, and spices.  Place on the stove over high heat.  Dissolve the cornstarch in 1 c. water and add it to the filling.  Stir until mixture thickens.  Ladle hot filling over the apples until the liquid level is at 1/2 inch from the rim.  Using a knife, probe down into the jar and release air bubbles.  Top off the jar with additional filling if the level falls below 1/2 inch from rim.  Clean the jar rim and seal jar.  Process in canner for 20 minutes.  Makes 7 quarts. (Wibnote:  This is from the internet, I assume.  I got it from my sister in law, Becca.)

One recipe of pie crust makes one apple pie. The more cinnamon-sugar, the better.  Don't forget slits for the steam!  Bake at 425 for about 40 minutes.  I have one of those pie-crust shields from P-Chef, but I never have to use it.

I Saw a Weird Vehicle

This isn't really news.  It's a picture of something funny I saw while I was out driving.

This is a weird vehicle.  The front part is conversion van.  The back part is pickup.  Altogether it was really loooong.  It's obviously not some kind of hillbilly chop job, duct taped together.  It's really well-done.  Fancy, even! It's just weird.

I'm also really proud of myself for getting the picture, sitting at the red light.  It's so seldom that I can get a camera working and snap the photo before the light changes.

Possible Cutest Thing Ever

Possibly the Cutest Thing Ever:  a Dad and his baby.  Dads that like their babies are awesome.  They're super sweet together.  They're both super cute. 

Our baby, Mark, has a habit of looking you right in the eye for a long time.  It's really sweet and super-endearing.  He also has a habit of just sitting with you.  Some babies are all squirmy and can't be bothered to sit with you and receive hugs and snuggles.  Not Mark.  Even now, he'll just come on over and snuggle into your legs, and then he'll just stay while you bend down and give him a big, long bear hug. 

So Dads, take the time to hug and snuggle your babies.  If they'll let you.  Because it is possibly the Cutest Thing Ever.

Photographic Essay: Mark in a Frog Hat

I don't believe I was the one taking these pictures.  I think it was a child.  The whole set together is charming.  This hat was a gift and it has two eyes out the top.

 It's interesting to see the results when the children get the camera.

 They tend to get more close ups.

 The pictures are usually pretty blurry.

 But you have to admit, the children have great taste in subject matter!

 And they do usually catch a couple pretty cute faces.

 These were taken when Mark was just about 10 months old.  Maybe younger.

 He's still just this cute, just bigger and taller.

This photographic essay brought to you by My Children and Me Letting My Children Use the Ipod to Take Pictures Nearly Unrestricted.

Best Steak Ever!

I love steak.  I love most meat (except organ meats!  Bleaah!), but I may love a delightful steak most of all.  My birthday is during tax season, full-on tax season.  I usually get stiffed pretty hard, unintentionally, on birthday celebration.  This year I said, "All I want is a really good steak and to go somewhere super-fun as a family."  My birthday was on a Monday.

Summit Steakhouse is right around the corner from Seth's office.  I made him agree to meet me there, even after checking out the menu and prices online.   These are no Sizzler Steakhouse prices.  It was all cool and dark-ish when we entered, and a little bit lodge-y and weird.  I ordered my steak medium-rare and with broccoli on the side, with a little cheese.  (on the broccoli!)  This turns out to be my perfect meal.  I used to go steak and potatoes but it turns out the potatoes are too much, and that kind of wrecks my steak-sperience.  Broccoli is just right.  We got there just at the right time, too, before a huge lunch rush that was going on as we were leaving.

This is not a very good picture, and it's not really very flattering, but it shows me enjoying the Best Steak I've Ever Eaten.  It was SO GOOD!  Literally, every bite was just as delicious as the first and more delicious than any other meat.  The bill was a little hard to swallow, but the steak made it go down easier.  Plus it's my birthday!  I deserve a steak!  A delicious, expensive steak!  Plus, Seth paid it!

And then, to top off the Best Steak Ever, I demanded that we take our family to Jumpoline.  It was nearly as expensive as the steaks, but since they were doing a little work, they gave us the Several-hours of jumping for the One-hour of jumping price.  I LOVE JUMPING ON TRAMPOLINES!!!!!  Scott and Russell went over to the special kids zone and immediately bonked faces and got bloodied.  That was our only incident.  Seth doesn't love trampolines as much as I do, so he was fine helping Mark for awhile.  And there weren't many people there, since it was Monday.

It may have been the Funnest Family Outing Ever.

I Dressed Mark as Cupid

It was Valentine's Day.  I figured,"As long as I already have a funny, fat little cherub, I may as well go all-out on this Valentine theme."

 I took him over to the elementary school.  We drove around the school distributing little boxes of treats I had put together.

 We also went over to Seth's office.  The accountants weren't as exuberant about a cupid-baby delivering treats for Valentine's day as the students and teachers, but I think they still enjoyed it.

He has a little quiver of arrows slung on his back, with heart-shaped tips.  I put them in his changing table after this, and since then, he found them and has been chewing the heart-tips off the arrows every chance he gets.  He's still funny and fat, and I'd do it again in an instant.

Ninja Party!!!

Russell's been getting the short end of the birthday party stick his whole life.  His birthday is only a couple weeks after mine, right during the height of tax season, and a week and a half before Jules.'  Plus when he was 2 and 3, I was having some bigtime medical issues around his birthday time.  This year, I decided to get right on it...and have his super Ninja Birthday Blowout Training Dojo just a couple months late.  We had his birthday party in May. 

But I really did it to it.  Usually my kids' birthday parties have a "Birthday" theme.  I was just coming off of Jules' "Flower" themed birthday party and it was the first time I ever wished I had MORE time with the kids at a party.  So I got ambitious.  Here are some of the things we did to Ninja-tize this party:

Daggers! Ninjas have to have weapons to fight evil.  This is from a pattern I got here. She made hers for invitations.  We had the boys practice writing chinese symbols.  When they were pretty good, we had them mark their daggers. 

Nunchuks!  We had a special outdoor practice session at our Dojo, specifically to learn to swing the nunchuks without smacking yourself in the face.  The handles didn't hurt if you messed up, but the plastic chain could leave a little mark.  I made these with a length of pipe insulation, black string, and some chain-by-the-foot from Lowes.  Each warrior marked his tool with colored duct tape strips.

 Throwing Stars! Used only to fight the Forces of Evil!!!  Not to be thrown at fellow Ninjas!  I enlisted my nephew Sam to make me a bunch of these after he mowed my lawn.  Thanks for coming, Sam!

The Hall of Flames!!  My friend Sharon helped me create the flames from tissue paper-type plastic gift wrap stuff, gold and red.  She hung them from the ceiling with thread and pushpins.  The Hall of Flames was much more imposing before most of the flames got knocked down.  We had the warriors outside learning stealth walk, crouch, and roll.  When they had all mastered the skills, we came in to test them in the Hall of Flames!

Ninja Sushi!!  It's a crappy picture, but a delicious treat.  My sisters helped me make rice krispy treats.  You make a log of the hot goo, by rolling up the pan's worth with some gummy worms inside (Swedish fish to be more Sush-y), which you then lay on a layer of fruit rollups.  Cut them in slices maybe 3/4 inch wide.  These went like hotcakes.  Every Ninja trainee needs a little refreshment after a hard training workout.

In all, it was a successful party.  The boys wore black.  We had "Kung Fu Fighting" playing in a non-stop loop in the background.  We gave the boys certificates at the end of their training.  They could have used a little more unstructured Ninja Play time, but whatever.  Russell was pleased to have ANY party at all!

Homemade Granola Bars

I brought these to the Cub Scout Bake Sale and a couple people asked for the recipe.  It's from the Barefoot Contessa's website, if you're interested in the original.  It's not too different from this.  I'm still trying different recipes but have had success with this one.


Homemade Granola Bars


2 c. slow oats
1 c. sliced almonds
1 c. shredded coconut, loosely packed
1/2 c. toasted wheat germ (I used quinoa instead because I didn't have wheat germ)
3 T. butter
2/3 c. honey
1/4 c. light brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 t. vanilla
1/4 t. kosher salt
1/2 c. chopped dates
1/2 c. chopped dried apricots
1/2 c. dried cranberries
1/2 c. M&Ms


Preheat oven to 350.  Butter an 8 x 12 baking dish (or 9 x 13) and line with parchment paper (or wax paper sprayed generously with Pam).  Toss the oatmeal, almonds, and coconut together on a sheet pan and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned.  Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and stir in the wheat germ (quinoa).  Reduce oven temperature to 300.


Place butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.  Cook and stir for a minute, then pour over the toasted oatmeal mixture.  Add dates, apricots, and cranberries and stir well.  (Let cool awhile if adding m&ms or chocolate chips.)


Pour into prepared pan.  Wet fingers and lightly press mixture evenly into pan.  Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until light golden brown.  Cool for at least 2 to 3 hours before cutting. 


Makes 8 enormous bars, 12 small bars, or up to 24 tiny bars like the ones you get from the store.

Dear Autumn, I Love You

You don't have to say you love me back, but I feel like you probably do.  I see you peeking around the corner.  I knew you were close by yesterday, when it was all gray and rainy in the afternoon and I wished I was wearing socks.  And when I woke up last week and found our heater running, because the window fans were blowing in so much fresh, cool air.  I knew that was you, too.

Thank you for coming to see me each year, Autumn.  I look forward to your arrival.  I truly love you!

Wib

Easter

 I don't know why the blog is putting the pictures immediately up top and not letting me insert text above them.  Anyway, We had easter at Will 'n Jodi's this year.  Cousins like crazy.  The big kids set up a hunt in the front yard for the little kids while the adults set up a super-hard hunt in the back yard for the bigger kids. 

 I love Easter pictures, with kids racing around in fancy clothes trying to find eggs 'n candy.  I forgot to color any real eggs this year (whoops!) but certainly remembered to stuff plastic eggs with candy.  We had around 150 plastic eggs for my family alone, on top of all the ones Jodi had gotten ready.  We also have a golden egg that we fill with money.  I think it was a dollar this year.  One year it was five dollars.  Jules has found it every year.  Eric was the lucky winner this time.

 We also had a big ham dinner with cheesy potatoes and the works.  Usually the big, outrageous dinner is what defines our family parties, but this event was defined by the big, outrageous egg hunt.  Over the top, is how I might characterize it.

 I keep meaning to get bigger baskets every year.  These plastic buckets from the Dollar Tree are so sturdy, though!  And they stack up so nicely.  It's fun when the children fill their buckets and have to come unload to finish the hunt.

 We made the big-kids hunt super hard.  They did a great job getting the more obvious hiding spots, but we really had to give some hints on the ones that were buried or inside scary cobweb holes. My son Eric may be fabulous in many ways, but he kind of stinks at looking for stuff.  I want to teach him to be super-observant like the dad on Psych, but so far it's not working.

To sum up:  Easter was awesome.  We did the Easter All Week that we usually do, with the spiritual part Sunday Morning.  We topped it off with a Cousins' Rager Egg Hunt.  We'll definitely celebrate Easter again next year.  It's my favorite holiday.

Daddy Daughter Sock Hop

 Warning:  Posts not in chronological order.  I'm posting things as I find the pictures I took.

Jules and Seth were invited to a Sock Hop activity for all the girls 8-12.  I don't think it's the last time I'm going to say:  it was ADORABLE!!  Jules brought the little invitation to her daddy.  She and I worked to get her ready.  I made the circle skirt using this here tutorial:  http://www.danamadeit.com/2010/09/the-circle-skirt-tutorial.html

Too bad Jules outgrew the saddle shoes she used to wear in Kindergarten.  The girls and their dads did several fun activities, aside from dancin'.  They had a "Pick Your Dad's Nose" out of a lineup activity.  The girls got to "Shave Your Dad" with shaving cream but no blades.  The girls got Wrist Poodles, as you can see in this second photo.  That little purse favor is actually a very fancy cookie.  The whole thing was super adorable.  We forced Seth to bring his letter jacket from high school.  He was hesitant to wear it (High School! Nerdy!), but ended up being glad he had it to set him apart from all the other dads in jeans and a white t-shirt.

I'm so grateful my daughter has a Daddy and that she knows he loves her.  I hope she goes on many more dates with her dad, that he teaches her the way she should expect to be treated on dates, and that they continue to be good friends for a long time.

What's The Deal With Conditioner?

I bought a big huge bottle of conditioner a couple months ago.  Jules needs it real bad for her long, long beautiful hair, which is a thick full head of fine hairs and tangles super easily.  I use it occasionally when I feel like it. 

The problem with the conditioner we bought is that it doesn't do anything.  It feels like a water and cornstarch mixture in your hand, but with mostly water and a little cornstarch to thicken it slightly.  I feel burning unhappiness whenever I use it on myself or Jules, because I keep expecting it to do something and it keeps not doing anything. 

Then I looked at the bottle and it says its primary job is "Moisture."  And then I started looking around at all the different products; maybe 60 percent of the hair stuff says it's for "Moisture." I'm not really into cosmetics too much.  I know people have dry hair.  But I am flummoxed by this intense focus on Moisture.  Really?! There are that many people whose hair is that dry, that we have so many products devoted to Moisture?  What does that even mean?  To me, moisture is when I've been out of the shower for awhile but my hair is still slightly wet.  Moisture is when it's too hot outside and your shirt gets sweaty.  Moisture is when your baby has had a lot to drink and it's evident by touching the outside of his diaper.  Moisture is when it's raining and the carpet in your basement starts to get whiffy.  That's moisture.

I guess I don't need moisture for my hair.  I'm just blessed that way.  What I need is Conditioner.

Response: This Morning's Paper

Seth sometimes doesn't want me to read the paper because of my strong responses.  I'm going to try to keep the stronger responses bottled up inside and only respond to the other stuff.

Scientists find extreme galaxy Washington>>Scientists have found a galaxy that gives birth to  more stars in a day than ours does in a year.  Astronomers used NASA's Chandra X-Ray telescope to spot this distant gigantic galaxy creating about 740 stars a year.  By comparison, our Milky Way galaxy spawns just about one new star each year.  The galaxy is about 5.7 billion light-years away in the center of a cluster of galaxies that give off the brightest x-ray glow astronomers have seen.

-First response:  We're not capitalizing the important words in titles anymore, Wire Services?  That's lame.  It's news, after all.

-Second:  EXTREME GALAXY!!!  The Tony Hawk Galaxy?  The Shaun White Galaxy?  Everything's so EXTREME! these days!

- Third:  ewww!  Galaxies giving birth to stars.  Too graphic!

-Fourth:  A Gigantic, Extreme Galaxy actually does sound pretty cool.

Bumbo Baby Seats recalled Washington>>About 4 million Bumbo Baby Seats are being recalled after nearly two dozen reports of infant skull fractures.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission says babies can wiggle out of the floor seats. 

-First response:  This is super lame.  Two Dozen?  That's it?  That doesn't sound like a dangerous product. This sounds like a case of irresponsible parents badmouthing a company/product that has helped millions of responsible parents.

-Second:  It says right on it not to use it on tables or chairs.  FLOOR ONLY.  I have five little ones of my own, and I will be the first one to tell you that babies are made of rubber.  Babies heads will be, what? 12 inches off the floor? in a properly used Bumbo.  From 12 inches off the floor, no baby is going to suffer a skull fracture, even thrashing the crap on out of that Bumbo.  Even baby Mr. Glass from Unbreakable.

-Third:  Parental supervision.  What does that phrase mean to you?  Yes, you, idiot parents?  That skull fracture?  Your fault!

OK.  It's getting a little heated in here.  Let's all just simmer down now.

And Lastly:  Letters to the Editor.  I can't get into it here.  These are the Forbidden Responses.  Much too inflammatory.  But I did want to say something about two things on the Editorial page.

Obesity is a parental issue [Denver Post editorial on topic of childhood obesity, government "roles" and parental responsibility]

-First response:  FINALLY!  Some sense on this personal and family (but NOT community!) issue.

-Second:  The Post puts a provoking headline and then spends the entire editorial piece talking about Government Commissions and Michelle Obama and then tacks one little paragraph on at the end about it ultimately being a parental responsibility and personal decision.

-Third:  Most things are a Parental Responsibility!!  As a Responsible Parent, I have to say, "Keep your government mitts off my child's weight, eating habits, nose-picking habits, and all the other things that are MY RESPONSIBILITY!"

Debating a new Walmart at former CU med campus

This one is about a series of letters responding to the zoning/public funds/NIMBY/development fight around the proposed new Walmart.  I hate Walmart, because it makes me feel icky.  But more than that, I hate a serious newspaper publishing letters to the editor that instead of intelligent debate, spew cynical, ironic, sarcasm to put forth their point of view.  Isn't that why we're so into public education?  Higher education?  To teach people to express their views using words, reason and logic?  Hmm?

And speaking of logic, it is a delight to me to find logical fallacies.  I find them in commercials, political ads, letters to the editor, tv news stories, and newspaper articles.  They're everywhere!  It's way funner than trying to debate topics with boneheads.  Just find the fallacy in his argument!  Done and undone!

And these are my TAME responses!

I Love Good Writing!!!

What I don't love is bad writing that gets published and made a big deal over. Seth was sharing with me just the other night the horror of opening a professionally published book and finding total crap.  He forced himself to finish reading it, because Maybe!  Maybe this will all be worked out and I can forgive whoever did this to humankind!  Bleeaaah!!  We shouldn't have to do that.  My other main point is, everyone's always saying how hard it is to get published...So, if this is what DOES get published, imagine the barf-on-a-page that gets rejected!!

Ow! My brain!

Anyway, I'm reading Middlemarch by George Eliot.  It's like a delightful breath of fresh air for my brain. Here are a couple lines that made me glad I can read:

"...she was spared any inward effort to change the direction of her thoughts by the appearance of a cantering horseman round a turning of the road."

"...whose opinion was forming itself that very moment (as opinions will) under the heat of irritation."

"Sir James interpreted the heightened colour in the way most gratifying to himself..."

Ah! Words!  You can be such useful tools. There's nothing special about these quotes, really, except that they are well-written. And they're all from the same couple-a pages. 

Pray for me to finish Middlemarch this time.  It has been my goal for the last 15 years to read all the classics...I plowed through Uncle Tom's Cabin and Madame Bovary, among others.  I already donated four or five dollars in late fees to the Aurora Public Library system the last time I tried to read a classic.

PS And one other awesome thing about reading the classics:  the authors are able to convey thoughts, ideas, stories, personalities, and themes without ever talking about crotches!

Finish Line

 It's called Barb Wire.  I am annoyed at the title.  Is it at least named for your friend Barb, pattern designer Grace McEwen?  I hope?

So the pattern says "The cardigan is a tighter fit...If you wish a looser fit you will want to knit a larger size to ensure the desired fit."  If there's one thing I don't want to do, it's spend a bunch of hours knitting a sweater that's too flippin' small.  So I took my measurements and went one size up from that. 

I guess I've also lost 15 or 20 pounds since I first began this sweater.  Anyway, it was a couple years ago that I spent all the driving time on our vacation knitting this up.  I was using the hilariously large needles required to get the suggested gauge.  I hated how loose and floppy the fabric was, but by the time I could tell I hated it, I had knit too much to rip it out.  Ha ha!    The above picture shows how much I knit before I realized there was no way I could use this garment if I finished it in this size.  It was GIGANTIC.  I measured it before I 86-ed it, and it measure something like 54 inches around.  I bit large...

Jules, Eric, and I spent about an hour ripping and ripping the yarn, trying to separate the two separate strands of very fine-weight yarn without breaking them, and then rewinding it all.  It was a stinkin' mess.  It felt strangely satisfying to rip out all that work.  I didn't have any regrets. What I did have was two extra balls of $8/ball yarn...

The pattern calls for six balls for the size I WAS knitting, but only four balls for the size I started knitting.  Oh well; there's a lovely silk and wool scarf, socks, or hat in my future, I guess.  So I heard about an event called the Ravelympics a couple years ago.  The knitting/fiber online community Ravelry has people who pick a project and knit the whole dang thing while sitting and watching the Olympics.  This is right up my alley.  I need a strong motivation to finish things, instead of setting them aside to start something new; I watch the Olympics almost religiously; and I needed to get this sweater finished, since this is The Summer of Finishing Projects.  The Trifecta!

Except I didn't have this undone and rewound by the opening ceremonies.  Instead I began and finished another project, a cardigan for Jules' American Girl doll, Julie Albright.  It's a cute little sweater, if a bit boxy. That was finished by Tuesday of the first week of Olympics.  Thursday of that week, I had everything ready and started reknitting Barb Wire, with smaller needles and in the smallest size.  It turns out I hate lace knitting.  Glancing every two seconds at the chart, always worrying that I'd made a tiny mistake that would doom all the rest of my work, and knowing that it can't be washed without a bunch of TLC.  Bleeeaahh.

BUT back to the project:  I had a lot of time to work on it in the back seat as my brother, sister, father, and I drove to Utah for a weekend.  I worked on it all week watching track and field events.  I was going to make a big push and get the dang thing finished on Sunday after church.  And then I discovered that I was Too Sleepy to Knit Anything.  I was almost too sleepy to watch the Closing Ceremonies.  I did not get the sweater finished.  I stalled out on the shoulders/sleeves, the most arduous part, because it has the most stitches - 200something per row.

Bump this, is what I decided about trying to finish Sunday.  Monday, though, was a beautiful cloudy day, the kind of day that makes Summer worth having.  I sat by my front window all day and finished every stitch of this sweater, in between making sandwiches, changing diapers, moderating arguments, and getting boys to clean up legos.  I FINISHED THE DANG SWEATER!!  I used two full balls of yarn and less than a third of the next two, so I have plenty left for another full project.  I'm not sure I like the fit of this sweater, but it's not blocked into shape yet.  The main point is, that in the Summer of Finishing Projects, I have gotten over a major hurdle.