Back to school, back to home!

Not much time for knitting the last few days... When I'm not busy sleeping (my allergies, current heat spike and PMS are joining forces to wipe me out!), I'm busy with my second favorite hobby... sorting through curriculum and lesson planning! I'll have 4 students home this year including 2 in Jr. High! This should terrify me but it doesn't. They're great boys (albeit very active, competitive and noisy) and as usual I'm going to approach this coming school year with an unrealistic, and quite possibly quickly deflated, sense of optimism.

One of my first goals is to work through the Young Peacemakers program you can see on the right along with our morning Bible study, which is going to help them to shed their selfish, temperamental ways and learn to peacefully and successfully resolve all their disputes with out fists or threats. (What?! A gal can dream can't she?) Seriously though, as my oldest grows up, I'm understanding more and more the importance of character development and the necessity of constantly plugging along with my efforts in spite of what often seems an impossible goal... Godly, well-mannered, compassionate young-men. In Christ all things are possible right?! I know it's not going to be done through my efforts alone!

Then there's the basics... They each have a great DVD teacher for math. My older 2 are both entering Algebra which thrills me to no end! Seriously, what could possibly be more fun than solving for x? I love math. Plus lots of reading, writing and thinking skills work. Most of our history and science is learned through literature. It's amazing how much a child can learn about a subject when let loose at the library to find books on a subject of interest! My sons put me to shame with their knowledge of wildlife!

So I enthusiastically sit down in the midst of this pile and begin to plan out the details cheerfully imagining peaceful days with children who love their workbooks, joyfully absorb the knowledge I impart, are thrilled to solve for X, and work diligently and seriously to complete their work in a timely and accurate manner. Of course this requires complete denial on my part of the threats and bribes it will take to get through each day... not to mention the amount of time I will need to invest resolving grave disputes over such issues as pencil ownership and who sat where first. Ahh, but I just know this year is going to be great... our best year yet! (optimism overfloweths)

As for knitting, Rusted Root is moving along. I picked up and ribbed the neck because I was concerned about how the lace was going to affect the ribbing and it looks fine. I think after a good blocking it will be great. I've also separated the arms and am moving down the body. I was able to try it on at this point and it's looking good (but I forgot to take a picture).


Anyway, I just got another one of these Rollie StitchKeepers in the mail today. They are also for holding Sock WIPs but I got these for holding my shorter 5" Brittany Birch needles (which I love). They are only $6 and come in a variety of sizes. The gal is great to work with too. The Lorna's Laces Daffodil in the pic is next in line... maybe.

Then there's my current obsessions... these three patterns from kpixie (I mean, not that I need or am even ready for a new pattern but for me the whole obsessing/longing thing is part of knitting)





I actually have the yarn for the shrug on the right (actually I probably have enough burnt orange tweed for a friend to knit along on this one. Anyone interested?) But the purse... oh, the purse! I love this purse but really don't need another... does that technically matter?? The cardigan is Blue Sky Alpaca Sportweight... I wonder if I could make it more affordable by subbing Knit Picks Alpaca yarn? Oh well, just dreaming about knitting for now.