Spending 5 hours a day with 55 kids is slowing zapping the life out of me.

Lucky for me I have a new book at home.

I pre-ordered this a month ago and I have been waiting and waiting. I consider myself a novice sewer even though I have sown many Christmas dresses and Halloween costumes. I have only a half year of jr high sewing instruction, everything else I just make up on my own.

Seems like there are some good tips and tidbits in here. I will let you know when I actually find time to sew something.

Clean up

As I was tidying up, this morning, I started to wondering if my little OCD-style of cleaning is common. I always start in our laundry room doing specific tasks (taking clothes to the closets, sweeping the floor) and then move to the next room, the kitchen, then dining room, living room, bedroom and bathroom. I do the bathroom last because I hate cleaning it and sometimes I don't have time to get to it. I always clean in that order, I was just wondering if other people have a specific order or odd quirks about the way they clean.


This week I have been very successful in speading the knitting addiction. Saturday night, I taught two of my friends how to knit and they each completed a bookmark with minimal problems. I also taught a grade 5 left-handed boy to knit at my work. Knitting left-handed was a new experience for me, I had never tried it before.

I'm thinking of entering the Tour de France Knit-along in honor of my new bike, Red Racer.

Ravelry

I finally got my invite to Ravelry. It was worth the wait.

FO

I finally finished these Jitterbug socks. Will I be wearing them today? No. I finished them at the kid's swim lesson yesterday. My friend, who teaches the swim lessons, commented on how cute they were so I gave them to her. After a month of knitting them off and on I was sick of looking at them.

Girl Scout Camp

S and I spent all day yesterday at Girl Scout camp. We swam in the lake, learned archery, made some crafts, dug in the dirt, took a hike, learned some new songs, and practiced a flag ceremony. It was a very full day. I really love being at camp with S, being hot and sweaty together, learning new things together, making new friends together- we are really building a strong relationship to last a lifetime.

Prairie Days

Today was Prairie Day at Wichita Art Museum. We saw a ballet about the prairie, it starred a monarch butterfly and featured the ornate box turtle, barred tiger salamander, channel catfish, meadowlark, a herd of buffalo, a field of sunflowers and honeybees. These are all symbols of Kansas. T's favorite was the catfish, she's the shiny one second from right.

Blue Bell Creamery

Blue Bell Ice Cream is celebrating 100 years of making ice cream with a traveling tour. Lucky for us, one of their stops was Exploration Place. I think they have some of the tastiest ice cream around (not counting our homemade stuff). The kids enjoyed the free sample.

This place is a zoo

I haven't knit anything from Knitty in a few cycles but how could I resist this lion (Grrr). I have a large stash of cotton just waiting for projects like this. Of course, S wants me to make her a dalmatian washcloth, I think intarsia with this stitch pattern could be a challenge but I'm going to give it a whirl.

On the right is a little souvenir from our trip this weekend. There a toy shop near the Yarn Barn in Lawrence that is a must-stop for me every time I am there. It has all kinds of traditional toys and a large assortment of random toys. This is a little change keeper, the kind with a slit on the back, that says "Chimp Change."

Shiny Things

Lia and I traveled to KC this weekend for the Kansas City Women's Triathlon Workshop this weekend. It was very informational and inspiring.

The first presenter was Shandra Chapman from UltraMax. She was funny and honest. She had a lot of great information and advice.

My favorite sessions were on nutrition and training plans.
The nutrition presenter compared modern bars, gels and drinks with grocery staples like pb&j, chocolate milk, jello pudding, and Snicker's bar. It turns out that the grocery items have the same amount of carbs as the more expensive items and about the same amount of calories.

The training presenters described a plan with 3 "key" workouts a week, 1 hard run, 1 hard bike,
and 1 hard swim each week with the other workouts of that week being less challenging but still important. The progression of the weeks is a hard week, a harder week and then a recovery week then the following week it starts over with the first week being harder than your last "harder" week. It makes complete sense to me.

In addition to the long day at the workshop. We did a little shopping in Lawrence and Kansas City. I was happy to see my friend, Carrie. I am so proud of her. She just graduated from college and has a great career with the Department of Correction.