This Is Your Brain...

I just uploaded several pictures, and now I don't know what I wanted to say. I guess that'll give you an indication of what a weekend alone with three small children will do to you. They could do birth control ads with that in mind. Take out a cast iron skillet. Show a whole egg. You know the lines, "This is your brain." Crack the egg and throw it in to fry up... "this is your brain after children." The thing about drugs, though (and I'm not condoning their use or anything), is that apparently you get some amount of enjoyment from them, and it usually takes more than a weekend of them to totally fry your brain. It could be argued that a weekend alone with three children may not have such a good outcome. I am still intact, though, and hubbie will be home tomorrow morning, so I shouldn't complain.

Now let's try to figure out what I was thinking when I uploaded these pictures, shall we? The main purpose was to show you the finished Durrow sweater. I redid the neck, as I mentioned wanting to do. Unfortunately, despite having received a request in my comments to take a before shot, as well, I forgot. I wanted to get the sweater totally finished before my husband ran off (leaving me to fend for myself in this jungle) to a trade show in Northeastern France somewhere. I thought he might need it. Sad thing is, I didn't think to do it till the night before he left. I was in such a hurry, I forgot to take the before picture. I did, however, think to take a few shots before he caught his train out of here.

I really couldn't decide which one I liked best. Most of them were blurry (it was an early morning photo shoot, okay?), but a few were cute. There's one of the whole family minus the baby and the photographer (up top). They look very sweet and happy, the girl with her hair still nicely combed before heading off to school (she looks much more like the tomboy she is when I pick her up at the end of the day) and the boys with their recent military-esque dos. You don't see the sweater much in that one, though, so I threw in the cute one with the just the two boys.


Here, at least you see the cables on the arm a bit better. And, you can see that my job on the neck didn't turn out too badly, even if it's not a close-up. I kind of would have prefered ripping back to the point where the raglan decreases turned into shoulder decreases. That would have been a lot more work and would have made this into a raglan sweater, but Muttonchop really loves the shoulders like they are. That's his favorite style of shoulder. As you can see, he's not a tiny fellow, and he finds those most comfortable. Wanting to please the man, I just ripped the neck and picked up fewer stitches than suggested in the pattern and then did decreases at each side of each shoulder section on every round until I liked the length of the neck. That got the tightness I was after, and it doesn't look too bad.


The last shot of the sweater is just so you can all see why I married this man. He comes from a family of pretty serious intellectual types. I like the intellectual side of him, but what I love is the fact that, hiding beneath the stacks of books and his high-fallootin' college degree is a really goofy farmer. The man loves his tractor and tools, which he comes by honestly, since his dad's the same way. Cracking jokes, however, isn't exactly what his family does when they're hanging out together. My family is hardly what you'd call intellectual, though, I'd like to think we're a reasonably intellegent bunch of people. We may have our quirks and dysfunctions, but if nothing else, we laugh together. And, I like the fact that Muttonchop, despite his apparently serious exterior can ham it up with the best of them. This photo is my proof of that. Well, either that, or he's looking off in the distance at the train he's about to miss because of my desire to take a few pictures for the blog. Oh, the things this poor man must endure!



And, lastly is the gratuitous baby picture. What mother could resist throwing a photo of this sweet face up on the blog every chanc she gets? "Not I," said the fly. "Not me," said the bee - yeah, I could use a day just to myself to try to find any of those brain cells that were only misplaced and not completely lost.

Ooh, and before I forget: a few notes about my last post. First, I was so happy you were all so interested in the mystery object. I saw that picture on the packaging and just knew I had to share it with you all. A few extra tidbits of information on that thing: My husband's first question was whether it was a Scandanavian product. It apparently fits right in with what the French think of their culture. I read later on the bottom of the "horn" that it's made in Norway. Nice call, Muttonchop. Then, I've got a phrase to translate for you, because Disentangled mentioned in the comments that the model at least seems to be enjoying herself. And, indeed, the packaging carries a phrase in large red lettering that states, "Nasal cleansing is refreshing and enjoyable." Yep, you called it, Disentangled. Refreshing? It's like lemonade on a sweltering summer afternoon, is it? I also really love the brand name. "Rhino Horn." They are talking about rhino as in nasal passages, etc. but what about Rhino, as in rhinoceros? You think the pun was intended?

And one last little thing I wanted to share. You may remember I used the words "sex toy" several times in that last post. I kind of figured it'd get me some funny traffic on my site through weird Google searches. Not even one. I'm almost disappointed. Where were all the pervs? Probably molesting their Thanksgiving turkeys, I suppose. While checking my stats to see about any lude keyword searches, though, I stumbled across a very interesting question. Someone arrived at my site by Googling "Why spray paint on a sheep?" Yes. Why, indeed? Excellent question.