Time Warp

Isn't summer the time of the year when time slows to a crawl and one relaxes in a hammock with a nice cool drink? Maybe it's the lack of hammock in our lives, but summer has sped up the rate of time, not slowed it. Even though my calendar clearly states the month is July, I can't completely comprehend it. We've had so few weekends at home or unschedule this summer and we've been blessed by visits from family and friends, I haven't really had the time or the energy to blog, but I've had the time to snap a few shots.

The Little Princess has been growing since her introduction to the world in early June.

From Family

Little Clover is completely enamoured with her and has claimed her as his. He's already started a list of "Things to teach the Princess." His list includes but is not excluded to:

• How to throw a baseball


• How to throw a football


• How to catch a frog


• How to fly fish

Princess or not, he doesn't want her to be "useless" when she gets bigger.

Italian and I had the chance for a grown-up night in the city with some friends. We attended a Farmer's Market dinner on the rooftop of the The Madison. Not only was the food prepared from local ingredients wonderfully delicious, but we had a spectacular view of the sunsetting on the Mississippi.

From Irish Clover

It's things like these that remind me of how great Memphis can be. The Madison hotel offers valet parking, which I think may be free for dinners at the restaurant. They take their valet service seriously. When we left the hotel, our friend turned in his valet slip. Even though the car was parked directly across the street from us, in plain view, a mere walk of 20 feet, the valet attended insisted we stay put and drove the car to our spot on the sidewalk. Now that is service.

Finally, we had an awesome Fourth at the cabin on the lake. We saw fireworks, spent time with friends and family, and I got some knitting time in. Now we are resting up before our next and last great adventure for the summer.

All work and no play

leads to one very scary winter break if you are with someone named Johnny in the middle of Colorado. It can also result in a very grumpy stressed out snappy knitter who is too tired to knit sometimes. My team has been rushing towards a deadline at work and I've had my fair share of meetings and training coursework to keep me hopping from one day to another without having any real idea what day of the week it was. After three weeks of "asses and elbows" at work, I finally schedule a lunch out of the office with a coworker. We took the opportunity to have some sushi while another lunch buddy coworker was out of town since she prefers to have her food fully cooked.

That lunch on Wednesday was just down right fun. We joked and laughed and blow off some steam and I got back to the office feeling a lot less stressed and all round happier, so happy in fact, Italian commented on how he could tell I was unwinding at home because I was getting hyper. I let Little Clover stay up late indulging in his latest obsession:

From Irish Clover

Clue: The movie and the latest Clue board game, Clue: Mysteries.

The fun continued Thursday when Italian took Little Clover to basketball practice and I got to go to my LYS knit night. There were moments when I laughed hard enough to cause my cheeks to ache. I love my LYS for many, many reasons and knitting on Thursdays is just one of those. These ladies are amazing and cover a wide range of people, but boy do we have some good times. Plus, I'm making awesome progress on my Noro sweater. Behold! More than half a sleeve!

From WIPs

Friday, we kept the fun going by lounging in the streets with our neighbors. We have neighbors who are close to our ages, on similar career tracks, and who have similar interest. I supplied the six pack as we talked outside in one of the yards while our kids played. I feel very fortunate to have this type of suburban life. Unfortunately, I wasn't cooking up the dinner for our friends who were coming by that night. Hopefully, the didn't mind the delay. It gave me extra time to spend with them.

Saturday, Italian and I treated Little Clover to Magic Tree House the Musical. I love little people theatre! The excited is stunningly palpable and the buzzing as the lights dim is just adorable. These kids were excited to be at the show and the performance did not disappoint them. Little Clover had a ball and afterwards, we headed to the Kooky Kanuck for dinner and S'mores.

Finally, Sunday, Italian brought me doughnuts from a great little local pastry shop, Oh! Susannah's! I'm so not telling you what my favorite pastry of their's is because they go quick and I want more for me.

From Irish Clover

You gotta have a goal

Even though the Christmas season is technically over, a couple of friends came by this weekend for a little Christmas cheer. We had a hardy winter dinner of purple mashed potatoes (I had no idea that purple skinned potatoes are actually purple potatoes), meatloaf (doctored up with basil, provolone cheese, and sun-dried tomatoes), and roasted carrots (covered in maple syrup and sage). They even brough along something to go with my socks.

From Irish Clover

The scotch was very yummy and had a smoky roasted caramel apple flavor, quite nice. While the girls sipped on our wine, the guys enjoyed the scotch. We all enjoyed the company.

With the Christmas celebrations finally over, the decorations dismantled and put way, and approximately one thirty-sixth of the New Year done, I might as well publically announce the resolutions I will strive to follow, but will not be completely successful in accomplishing. Nothing like an optimistic attitude to start of the year right? In all seriousness, Italian and I know this year will bring some mild stresses but will also have a few large joys. We have some home improvement projects queueing up, and although the end results will be quite nice, the interium mess, disorder, and financial costs will be an experience to say the least. Thank goodness we have wine and yarn.

Resolution 1: Save money and shop mindfully
I have to be honest, the improvements we would like to make to the house will require an investment of capital, so the "saving money" portion of the resolution might be a little harder than we would like. It will really be more along the lines of make the improvements with the lowest impact possible, by eliminating all other forms of discretionary spending. Thank goodness I have a stash of yarn in my closet and plenty of board games to entertain us on the weekends we are not improving our nest.

As for shopping mindfully, I only want to purchase things that have a purpose in my home and bring me joy. I'm pretty picky, so hopefully, this means I won't be buying much, which leads to saving money. I also want to put supporting local business first in my shopping, so my time will be spent at locally owned stores and farmer markets when I can. I might pay more, but helping my locally economy is worth the extra price.

This resolution also means, I'll be knitting from my stash. I have some wonderful yarns in my stash and they deserve my time. I won't completely stop buying yarn, but when I do, it will be something wonderful and heartwarming.

Resolution 2: Organize and declutter the house
Overall, my home is a happy place. There are patches, though, that have more potential for joy, like the ceiling in our bathroom that is missing plaster and paint, and the soffit outside needing replacing, and the mass quantity of things on shelves and in closets we never use. I need to declutter our home and send some things into the wild to bring joy to other people. We also need to help give our home a facelift in some spots to bring out its beauty. I figure I have twelve months, and if we get one thing done a month, we're better off at the end of the year than we were at the beginning.

Resolution 3: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants
The two books I read last year by Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma and An Eater's Manifesto, made a huge impact on me and how I view what I eat. Because of this, my goal is to improve my family's health through eating foods processed as little as possible and as fresh as possible. There may be a home garden in our future.

Resolution 4: Focus on learning Korean
I will spend sometime on learning Korean each week. It may be two minutes, it may be an hour, but each week, I will do something to further my knowledge about my Korean heritage. I owe it to my mom, to myself, and to my son. This resolution really comes out of Spinning Sundays. No matter my mood, I spend sometime at my spinning wheel each Sunday. The structure seems stifling some weeks, but when I put the wheel back in its place after spinning, I'm always satisfied with the investment I made. My goal is to do the same with my Korean.

So there you go, a little sample of my year to be. My hope is to end this year a better and more thoughtful person, making the world better in some way be spreading good karma.

Veni vidi vici

(or, "Honey, toga up!")

It was a victorious weekend for Little Clover. He had his last soccer game Sunday, and the tension was thick as he and his undefeated team entered the field to face off the only other undefeated team in his league. Not only were the two teams undefeated, but Little Clover's coach's son was playing for the other team. After spending the entire season playing for two teams, the coach's son had to play against his dad. One team would walk away, still undefeated, while the other would have a long ride home.

Little Clover, the future diplomat that he is, tried to negotiate a tie. The ref would have none of it, so the game began and the two teams played hard. Both teams scored one goal each in open play, but our team managed to score one extra penalty shot. With each goal Little Clover made, he held his arms out like an airplane and zoomed across the field, just like he has done since he was truly little. The best part of this season is not really being undefeated (although it is nice) but rather, Little Clover's oblivion to how much his scoring helped his team. When he was asked who has scored the most goals, he genuinely replied, "My team has." I, being the proud mama bird, will easily tell you, my baby scored more than half of the team's goals. I think, his response is better.

I should probably explain the subtitle of today's post. Italian and I had the pleasure of spending some time with our neighbors Saturday. In college, I began thinking of what kind of neighbors I wanted and what would adult life be like. The vision of close knit neighbors who actually hang out together seemed to be a nice idea but also, slightly antiquated. Italian and I found our current neighborhood a few years ago and began to notice more and more houses popping up for sale. The buyers were couples close to our age, mostly with small kids. This looked like it had potential.

Our neighbors have had small social gatherings a few times and for one reason or another, we were never able to make it, until this weekend. When The Pilot and The Pilot's Wife coordinated a progressive dinner, we were thrilled to actually be in town. Now, for the catch, it was to be a progressive toga party, and yes, I have pictures.

From Irish Clover

Everyone was a great sport, wearing togas and embellishments. We walked from house to house with each course, ending at Clover Field for desserts of tiramisu and panna cotta. I can only imagine the looks we must have gotten traipsing through our yards and streets.

Happy Birthdays

The sweater for Little Lolli Lolli Lollipop is almost finished. I've seamed together all the pieces and I've even completed the crochet edge. I only have to complete the corsage flower and the teeny tiny sweater will be done. I am completely on schedule for her September 4 due date. Unfortunately, she's not on track for her due date. She's an early bird and was born on Friday August 24. Welcome to world Lolli Lolli Lollipop! I was hoping she would wait until yesterday so we could share a birthday, but I guess it is much better to have one's own special day.

Now, I'm sure Foxy is wondering how in the world her little person received the name Lolli Lolli Lollipop. Little Clover gave her the name. When we were talking about the new arrival and I mentioned her name, he looked at me with complete shock and said, "They named her already?" I told him yes, and he was a bit disappointed. He told me he wanted to name her because he loves naming babies. I told him he had to wait many, many, many years and then he could have his own baby to name. I offered him the chance to pick her name for the blog. We tried out Munchkin, Monkey, Bay Bay, and finally settled on Lolli Lolli Lollipop. After typing it a few times, I think we should have picked a shorter name.

So, what did we do to celebrate my birthday? We had beer and nachos at a baseball game.

The Iowa Cubs were in town and we arrived in full force wearing the appropriate clothing.

The sight of the Italian family all wearing Cubs gear shocked two of my friends who don't follow baseball (or the Cubs) as closely as we do. I think we scared them a little. They did manage to enjoy themselves in spite of our shenanigans. I hope everyone has this much fun on their special days.