Ah….life with 3 intense children.  I get caught up in taking care of everyone’s needs and before I know a week has gone by.  Brownies started up for Neve and Emily 2 weeks ago.  At first I was dreading the 4 nights a month at an hour and a half each that I’d be unable to be productive at home, but then it dawned on me what an incredible blessing it actually is.  I find a good parking spot near the front door, let the little brownie out, put a movie on in the van for Oona, and as long as she doesn’t fidget too much to get out of her seat (mostly she naps) I get that whole time to knit.  Hooray!  I got one sick nearly finished (and I can tell already I am suffering from second sock syndrome.  I totally am not looking forward to doing another whole sock just like this)

Of course then there’s the numerous play dates and birthday parties they are forever dragging me off to which take huge chunks out of my afternoons and weekends, but they’re only kids once, right?  Hopefully they’ll be grateful for all the personal time I gave up when they’re older. It’s certainly been a challenge keeping up.  Every day’s a new and different mountain to climb.  Today I changed a particularly wet diaper while upstairs and to prevent Oona from chewing on it (don’t ask!) I tossed it down the stairs to throw away after I was dressed.  Unfortunately it was heavy enough that when it landed, it exploded. Pee soaked absorbency crystals everywhere.  I stood in shock for several moments before foisting the baby off on Emily to clean it up before Pippa ate it.  Here’s the thing:  absorbency crystals (a tapioca – like gel substance in diapers) don’t wipe up well.  They further disintegrate and smoosh further into anything you try to wipe them off of until you want to bash your head in.  It took me an hour to get it mostly cleaned up to the point where we’ll be able to scrub the pee smell out of the wood floor.  If you’ve never tried it, it’s a *great* way to spend your time!

Speaking of giving up your time, last weekend I gave up to painting the upstairs bathroom and hallway.  It’s a lovely blue which I have yet to capture an image of, so alas it’ll not be posted here.  It’s a good thing it came out so well because we ran into a snag with the new couches.  You see, we used a can of brown dye to see if it would be the color we wanted, and it was perfect so we ordered a larger can to complete the project.  However, when we had the love seat done it became apparent that the larger can was a completely different color.  It was marked as the right color, but clearly it was not.  It was very much a burgundy color.  Yuck! So that will have to be exchanged and re – done.  Hopefully we’ll get around to it before the holidays!

Speaking of holidays, I have a ton of cleaning to get done and organizing to accomplish before everyone descends upon my dirty house for Thanksgiving.  I also have lots of projects waiting to be started.

Lots of fabric to be sewn, lots of socks and sweaters to be knit, and this, my latest obsession:

Yippee!!!!!!