And We Have a Winner!

Congratulations Lee, random.org chose you to be the proud owner of this quintessence of loveliness!

Send me your street address by the method of your choice: email, facebook, skywriter, whatever. Congratulations!

What These Hands hath Wrought- An Earlgirl Giveaway!

I realized this morning, that I tend to get a bit obsessive in my interests. I have equipment stored in various places all over my house for all kinds of skills. I love to sew, paint watercolors, draw, knit, blog, take pictures, cook, garden, make jewelry, etc, but I never do anything in moderation. If I knit, I knit for a month straight and then never touch it again for two years. I get on a sewing kick and sew ten skirts, then put the machine away. My husband is still waiting for all the beads he bought me two Christmases ago to be put to use.

I knitted a handful of berets as Christmas gifts this last year, and the day after Christmas, I thought to myself, "Earlgirl, what if you started knitting in January, and you just made a few hats every month. Just think of all the cool gifts you could make! You could save yourself so much stress and pressure come December!" So, for the last couple of weeks, I have been eating, sleeping, breathing knitting. And I've been having a ball! I've taken on cables and jacquard knitting (knitting with multiple colors at the same time). I love the challenge.

I'm definitely no pro, but I'm so proud!

Take a look-

I found this pattern in a knitting book, but the colors were red, white and black. I thought to myself, "Wouldn't that be perfect with a deep red, oatmeal with flecks and chocolate brown?" I knew exactly who it would be perfect for as a Christmas present too. Do you think I could keep it a surprise though? No. I'd only been done a few minutes before she'd seen it. The pattern I had was just a square, so I had to adapt it, see that star on top? That was my creation.

Yay! I love it.

I'll have ended up giving away most of my hats, so I decided to make one for my very own self. I'd done a square of knitting cables that go straight up and down, so I wanted to try making them go diagonal. There was no pattern for this one, I just made it up. See how it makes a swirl on top?

I'm never going to take this one off. Oh, and don't you love my snowflake jammies? I wonder how many times I've been seen on this blog wearing those.
Now, for the grand giveaway. One of you can be the proud owner of this baby:

I didn't know about traditional giveaways when I hit 100 posts. I was sewing skirts when I hit 200 posts. Try giving away one of those! But a hat, a hat can be done. So here you have it- I love brown, pink and yellow together. I like the tropical looking flowers. If this baby is meant to be yours, let me know.

Ghetto Beauty Tips by Earlgirl

Have you ever fretted over dull and lifeless hair? Is your regular shampoo just not working like it used to?

I have the answer for you!

Help is no farther away than your kitchen sink.

Strip away all that build-up and grime left by your favorite styling products with liquid dish soap. Just lather, rinse and repeat to have squeaky clean, shiny hair!

Just make sure your detergent doesn't have bleach.

'Cause that's a bummer. Really.

Lost.

No, this isn't about the TV show. It's about why I haven't posted in a couple of weeks.

Lost-
as in my cell phone after a weekend trip. As my husband helped me look for it, I felt like such a flake. He always has a 'place' for his. I was sure I'd left it in my purse, so after a quick search, I dumped out the contents of my purse on the dining table and did a thorough one. No luck. I looked all over. I tried calling it, no dice. Then I had a flash of memory- I saw myself turning it off, and zipping it in a little pocket of my purse I never use to keep it safe. Bingo! Earlgirl is a flake no more! Until we went to the bank.
My sweet husband set up a bank account without me, which is a problem because I do the banking, and they kinda like you to be on the account if you use it. They're sticklers that way. We were walking into the bank and he asked me, "You're sure you have your ID with you, I think I saw your wallet on the table earlier."
I did a quick scan of my purse. It wasn't there. I searched the whole house for 2 days. No wallet. No license, no recommend, no $100 in babysitting vouchers for the gym I've been squirreling away to be used at some future point. No cards, no medical ID, which is a biggie. If you're already stressed, you know how much a lost wallet will compound the problem? Last night, the blessed wallet was found. Half the contents were in Hercules' golden treasure box in his closet. The other cards were under a pile of toys I'd searched through before. All clues implicate a certain 3 year old. It's a good thing he's cute, I tell you.
Now if I could only find my keys.

Lost-
a library book I'd been searching for and enlisted the help of our friendly neighborhood library. They checked their shelves, I paid some fines, but we still couldn't find it. It was due 30 days before when I finally found it wedged between a book shelf and the wall. I turned it in, and checked to see what my fine was. Surprise, surprise! I owed them $10, and they sent it to collections. Yeah, I know. I was freaking out. The library supervisor couldn't tell me if it was an internal collections thing or real-life-destroy-your-credit collections. I needed to call a certain gal to find that out. I left no less than 12 voice mails with no response. I tell you, they were getting pretty creative too. I was about to set my messages to show tunes and sing them, or Dr. Seuss language, and pretend I'm reading them a story. It turns out, they were all out of the office, but I'm sure they were entertained by my messages. No damage to my credit either, I had 120 days to settle my fine before it did. It's a good thing too, because I was about to go "Library" on them, which is the same thing as "Postal", but quieter.

Lost- my dignity.
Have you ever been one of many guests in a home, and you have to use the bathroom, and there's this huge one inch space between the door and the acoustic-friendly tile? And it's one of those new toilet that can hardly handle any toilet paper and so you accidentally use too much because you live in a home where 'power flush' toilets are a necessity? And you plug the toilet, and you try to plunge it quietly while you can still hear conversation on the other side of the door? You're barely breathing because somehow you feel like that will lessen the "Blorp- Slosh" sound of the plunger that should be working, but it's not. Have you ever decided that letting the toilet paper dissolve on its own is a better plan than coming up to your host and whispering, "Um, I plugged your toilet. Sorry."? Me neither.

Lost- my sanity.
Have you ever obsessed about a parenting issue to such an extent that it grows and grows until it's all you can see? It's no fun, but it's easy to do. It's easy to think that by worrying, you can take the problem on yourself and solve it just by the sheer weight of how much you care. You can't, at least I can't. I realized last night that it's not that bad, and I'm already doing everything I can to help the situation. Worrying doesn't actually count as helping either. With that slap upside the head, I'm seeing the situation more clearly and I realized that it wasn't the huge, hairy deal it had become in my mind. Hooray! Sanity found.

So here's the scorecard:
Found:
Sanity
Wallet
Library book

Still Lost:
Dignity
Keys (I'll keep you posted)
Not bad for a couple of week's work, eh?

Now it's time for (drumroll) Siskel and....Earlgirl?

That's right folks, I have some new movie reviews for you. I don't know exactly how new these movies really are, but they're new to me. Both of these babies can be found under the "watch instantly" section of my beloved Netflix. (you can see my other recommendations here)

I love movies that let you inside the skin of someone from a different culture. I'm so curious about other people. It drives me crazy when I'm grocery shopping. I'll pass someone from Africa, or hear a family speaking Russian and I'll be just dying to sit down with them and hear their life stories. These movies are like being able to do just that, peek inside their worlds and walk around in their shoes.

I present to you: Arranged. An Orthodox Jewish gal works in the public school system, and ends up working in the same classroom as a devout Muslim gal. During a social studies lesson on tolerance, one of the kids spouts out, "What about this Jewish lady here, you hate her, right? Don't Muslims hate the Jews?" A really interesting friendship develops from this. Both girls are preparing for their arranged marriages, and the similarities in their lives become so much more important than their differences. The result is hilarious, fascinating, and very satisfying to my hunger for other cultures.

Don't be put off by the title of this one. It means 'guests' in Aramaic. In fact, the entire movie is in Hebrew, with English subtitles. Still, don't let that intimidate you. This story takes place during a Jewish festival that only sounds vaguely familiar to me from early morning seminary- Succoth. Moshe, a Rabbi in Old Jerusalem, is flat broke. He desperately wants to be able to provide a enough for his wife to be able to celebrate the holy festival. His wife aches to be able to have children. They decide to pray for a miracle. They're doing their best to live righteous lives, and they combine their faith in some of the most heart-rending prayers I have ever seen. What happens next is a miracle, and a test that takes on Abrahamic proportions.

I have to honest with you: religious movies sometimes have a schlock factor that repels me. When I feel like my emotions are being played, I get really cynical. The whole Work and the Glory series left me wanting to scream "Die Steeds, Die!" Isn't that terrible?
What I mean is, this movie wasn't like that. It was simple, profound and very moving. I dare you to keep from crying at the end.

Christmas 2008: the good, the bad and the ugly.

"So, are you having a good Christmas?"

I was asked this over and over by well-meaning relatives at our annual Christmas eve feast. They couldn't see that my smile was plastic and my eyes looked more manic than merry. They were just making conversation.

As they would ask that simple, innocent question, my mind would flash back through the last few days:

The stress, the huge projects dumped in my lap, the kids cooped up inside going mad with boredom, the mess, the roads too icy to drive on and too much shopping left to be done. I thought about the hour before the party when I'd had enough and cast my oldest out of the house into the snow and told him not to come back inside. I was nice and threw his coat out after him- that's a mother's love for ya!

"No, this is more like Christmas hell than anything." I wanted to say. I might have actually said it too, I don't remember.

All I know is, Christmas day made it all worthwhile.
We all slept in until 9.
The boys drew names for each other and some had saved for months to be able to give something really special.
I had all my sibs in town, so there was a lot of goofing off, singing while my brother played the guitar, Rock band, and karaoke.
I'd put in the time and slaved the day before on the mother of all feasts, so all the work I had to do was enjoy it.
I live for putting on feasts. I'm not fancy, I never have table decorations or anything like that.
I just love making lots of good food, for lots of wonderful people. When I've brined a turkey, mashed the potatoes, whisked the gravy, raised the rolls, baked the pies, and I lay all that in front of a crowd, it's nirvana, man. I'm in the happy zone. I can live on it for days.
Here are some pictures of the more memorable moments:

Playing a game at my Christmas day feast.

We've had crazy weather here. Usually we have snow for a day, then a warm wind will come the next day and melt it all. It was so cold for so long, the snow was too dry for building anything. Our beloved wind came yesterday, making the snow just right for making these babies.

Speaking of babies, this is my brother's first child. He's been frantic for the chance to show her off to all of us far away siblings. We got to just slurp her up for days, it was lovely.

Speaking of lovely, is there a more beautiful sight than a man in a frilly apron.

There's nothing frilly about the presents my sister's boys made for mine. Nothing says love between boys than hand-hewn weaponry. It seriously made me want to cry.

And how sweet is this? My bro doing the chords while my little guy strums.

I have to set the stage for this one. Ammon saved up and spent over $50 on this present for his brother. Can you tell how excited he is to see him open it? When I asked him what his favorite part of Christmas was, he told me it was the look on his brother's face as he opened the gift he'd sacrificed so much for.

There was a lot more that I didn't have my camera for: me freaking out and shoving my kid outside, me at 2 in the afternoonon Christmas eve in my pajamas with mascara under my eyes, frantically chopping veggies and trying not to cry, sledding, the family talent show, swimming, the video my sister took of me dancing through the house and singing "I will Survive" as my bro rocked out on the guitar, but you get the general idea. Christmas 2008- there was the good, the bad, the ugly, and the amazingly sweet.

Sundays Traditions Continued- Worm Racing Edition

It was another quiet Sunday evening. It must have been a little too quiet. My husband had some handy sheet rock tape laying around and decided to have a worm race. Ever seen a worm race?

Talk about a good time! Gut busting laughter is good for the soul, and for your abs. I'm glad there's a lot of that to go around over here.