Friday, November 28, 2008

First lost tooth on Thanksgiving Day!


My daughter came up to me in a dark room to show me. She insisted I take her picture with my camera phone. She was so proud. All those little milestones! And on Thanksgiving Day, 2008, none-the-less! Congratulations Paige!

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Mini LAL Loom Knit Christmas Ornament Day 3

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! So sorry I didn't get this last video posted until now. I have been very busy the past few days. Enjoy!


Copyright 2008 Karen Gielen

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Glittens errata, and a new LAL video series coming soon!

If you purchased my Family of Loom Knit Gloves, please download a new file (if you still have your download link) or please download the Glittens Errata file here.



My Loom Knit Half Finger Gloves LAL video series was so popular and I received so many wonderful comments! I had a lot of fun doing it too! I am a visual learner and know how frustrating it is to read something over and over again and it just doesn't click! That is why I will be having another LAL right here on my blog! Next up, Glittens! Stay tuned!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Little Stinker!

Remember last week when I mentioned my soon-to-be three year old threw my contact lenses away? Apparently she doesn't want me to see at all. Yesterday she threw out my glasses! I had a heck of a time finding them since I am very blind without any sort of visual aid! I mean, I am blind as a bat! I have to put everything right under my nose to see it. How miserable trying to find my glasses without glasses! I had to ask my husband for help when he came home. He finally found them stuffed into the garbage! She must have grabbed them off of my end table while I was sleeping. What a stinker! Needless to say, my day wasn't very productive yesterday!

Monday, November 17, 2008

Toe Sock Test Knitter Needed!

Remeber a few weeks back I posted my toe sock prototype? I am almost finished writing up the first draft of my pattern and I would love to have you test knit it for me. If you are interested in giving this pattern a shot, please contact me for further details! You will need either a long yellow KK loom or the long pink KK loom, two sets of loom clips, a loom tool, a crochet hook, a tapestry needle, and a skein of worsted weight Lion Brand Wool Ease or worsted weight Lion Brand Wool. If you decide to make your toes each a different color you can do that! If you want to add stripes, you can do that too! Have fun with the pattern. Don't forget, I would love to see a picture! I really would like this pattern test knitted no later than Sunday the 30th of November.

Friday, November 14, 2008

The dog saga continues!

It gets better. My eldest stepdaughter called her mom as soon as she came home from school yesterday and asked her mother where the dog was and when she was going to bring it back. Her mom denied taking it. She even demanded she speak with her other daughter to tell her she didn't take the dog and that she was mistaken! I thought to myself, "Oh, that's a good one, first you teach them it is ok to steal, now you are trying to teach them it is ok to lie!"

I turned to my other stepdaughter and asked her what she really saw and she broke down in sobs. She said she saw her mom take the dog with her own eyes. She said she put the dog on her lap in the van and they drove off with the dog. She even said she begged her mother not to take the dog. She then cried out to me that her stepdad (her mom's husband) didn't want her mother to take the dog and said it wasn't a good idea. She clearly didn't want her stepdad to get into trouble too for her mother's actions!

When my husband came home from work, my eldest stepdaughter right away ran up to him and told him that her mom claimed she didn't take the dog. He said he spoke with the sherrif and that the sheriff spoke with the kid's mother. She said she knew she was lying. The officer said she believes the kid's mother gave her false information and if she does not return the dog she will be charged with that. The officer also mentioned she would stop by in a day or two to see if the dog is returned or not and question the children. This was horrific news for my stepdaughter that witnessed the theft. She dropped to the floor on her hands and knees and just sobbed!

My son handed me this yesterday when he came home from school:



He loved that dog! He used to come home from school and run around the yard and the field with her. On the weekends he would play outside with her for hours. When he handed me the artwork, he had a sad look on his face. He said he made it a couple days ago at school and now he doesn't have his dog anymore to play with.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

What do you think?

About a month ago we woke up and spotted a puppy out on our back deck. We asked around the neighborhood if anyone lost a dog and no one was missing one. We decided someone just dropped her off at our place in the middle of the night abandoning her here. She is a perfectly lovely dog. We blieve she is part Healer and part Coon Hound. She is still a puppy. We estimate her age to be around 6-8 months or so. She is already a big dog. I know dogs do not reach their full size for a year to two years. She is going to be much bigger and hasn't grown into her large paws yet.

The weekend after we aquired her, my three step-children's mother came and picked up her children for visitation. She spotted the dog and instantly wanted the dog. She insisted the dog was just what she was looking for. She kindly called us and asked if she could take the dog since the kids told her the dog was abandoned at our doorstep and we hadn't gone out and purchased the dog. At this point, we had already decided we were keeping the dog. The kids live with us and they see the dog daily. Their mother lives in a tiny little trailer in town with a very small yard. We live in the country on 40 acres. We didn't feel her tiny little trailer was anyplace to keep a dog, especially a dog with the potential of getting much larger than she already is. We told her no, she couldn't have the dog.

Over the course of the past weeks, my step-children's mother has made increasingly more persistent and nastier demands that we give her the dog. She even went so far as to leaving a threatening message on my husband's phone last weekend about the dog. She then left him a second message apologizing and saying she has no rights to make demands that we give her the dog.

Last night the children once again went with their mother for visitation. My husband and I had placed our three youngest children in the care of my husband's brother while we went into town shopping. We were not home when their mother brought the children back home. She promptly loaded the dog up into her van and took the dog home with her!

We were not made aware of this theft of our dog until this morning since the children were all in bed sleeping when we came home last night. It didn't occur to us the dog wasn't there when we came home. She usually would come running up to us wagging her tail in greeting. We got home late and we were tired. We didn't even realize she wasn't there.

My husband woke me up as soon as he heard the news from the kids this morning. We discussed it and decided we needed to call the police and report it.

At first the police officer didn't understand the situation. She assumed the dog was a mutually owned dog between the kid's mother and my husband. She assumed they had recently split up and that the dog was owned by them together. She tried telling my husband that there wasn't anything she could do and that there wasn't anything wrong with her taking the dog. He right away had to correct her. He let her know that they had not been "together" for almost 10 years! The dog was ours and we got her about a month ago. The kid's mother never owned the dog. He informed her about the threatening phone message the kid's mother had left on his cell phone and then the message after that apologizing for threatening him and saying she was going to take the dog.

So far we do not have out dog back. We felt calling the police and reporting this theft was the best message we could send to the children. We do not feel the children should be allowed to see their mother make demands on something and when she doesn't get it, to just go ahead and take it anyway. This message she was sending the kids is a very strong message that it is ok to just take something you want even if it isn't yours and you do not have permission to do so. My one stepdaughter didn't feel it was a problem. She got very angry at us this morning when we said we needed to call the police. I sure hope this situation works out for the better. In the past when we have had to call the police for things my step children's mother has done, she has gone nuts and has tried getting back at us and has tried making our lives a living hell. It really is unfortunate she made this move since over the course of the past few years things have really settled down between our two households. It was best for the kids and for both families.

What do you think?

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Not seeing very clearly...

...because my soon-to-be three year old decided to play in the bathroom this morning while I was doing chores outside and dumped the contents of my contact lens case somewhere, nowhere to be found, especially since I don't see very well with my glasses that are over six years old! Breath...1, 2, 3...breath...4, 5, 6...breath...7, 8, 9, 10...breath...

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Bad Habits - When your two year old get's nasty!

My soon-to-be three year old said to me this morning, "Mommy, you're stupid!" I did just what I wasn't suppose to do according to the article I read here. I swirld around from the toaster and asked her in a stern voice, "What did you say?". She grinned and said it again, "Mommy, you're stupid!". Of course I know where she got that, her older brother's and sister's are always calling eachother stupid. I hate it when they do that. No matter how much I get after them, they still treat eachother that way.

The above mentioned article also mentions something else my two year old is doing right now that drives me nuts. She insists on picking out her own cloths (inappropriate for the wheather they may be), I allow it. Lately though, she has become obsessed with tags. I don't think there is anything left in her closet that has a tag on it, but she still hollers and tears off all of her clothes and claims it is hurting her. She wants to run around the house in the buff! I personally don't know how she can stand it since it isn't very warm in the house since our weather has turned cold and snowy. Usually she picks out shorts and a tank top. Sometimes her swim suit. I just can't get the child to wear a sweatshirt or a sweater! I know I am cold, I know she has to be. But, according to the article, she is exerting her independence. Oh well, I'll concede for now. Too bad they don't stay independent! But, that's another story...

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Memory Lane

My digital camera is a Sony CD Mavica. A big beast of a camera my husband bought for me 8 years ago. It takes these mini cds that when you take a picture, the image burns right onto the cd. When the one-time-use cd is full (or when I am ready to get images off of the disc), I finalize the disc, pop it out of camera and pop it into my computer. Since I've had this thing for so long I have mountains of these little cds piled up in my office, piled up in my yarn stash closet, piled up under my bed (oops, did I say that?)...well, you get the idea. I usually am in a hurry to get the images on the cd onto my computer so I don't bother with writing on the cd what exactly is on the cd. In fact I am terrible at recording what is on the cds. After time I always archive the images I've placed onto my computer and shuffle them off somewhere without a label too (I know, I am terrible).

Today I sat down with the hopes of finding a recent picture I took (from this past spring) and starting popping one cd after another into my computer and reviewing the contents. What a treasure trove of memories! I found pictures from 6, 7 years ago...the kids were so young then! I sat and looked through pictures of my 5, soon to be 6 year old daughter's birth...pictures of my two year old's first steps...pictures of our puppies we had when we lived in our old house...pictures of a baby fawn my husband found curled up in the tall grass at our old place, lying so still, not moving a muscle, waiting for it's mother to return....





I never found the picture I was looking for. What I did find was a great way to spend my afternoon. I kept calling the kids into the office to come look at this picture or that. They laughed so hard at themselves. My two year old kept pointing at the cute little baby which was really pictures of herself :-)...

What memories have you uncovered recently?

Friday, November 7, 2008

Friday Fill-Ins

1. My blueprint for success includes a great deal of hard work.
2. A mini Milkyway was the last candy I ate.
3. The best facial moisturizer I've ever used is my own facial oils -- LOL, I don't need to use moisturizer.
4. Loom Knitting a pair of gloves, glittens, or half finger gloves can be good therapy.
5. I'd like to tell you about my alpacas if you really want to listen.
6. My lips are my strongest characteristic.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching the newest Survivorman, tomorrow my plans include test knitting my loom knit toe socks again and Sunday, I want to see my hubby when he gets back from hunting!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

My new toe socks on the knitting loom!

What do you do when you have insomnia for days on end? Well... I made a pair of toe socks on my knitting loom! Last year when I came out with my first glove design, Bethany over at GettingItPegged.com asked me if I could convert the design over into toe socks. I determined the design was too much trouble so I set the idea aside for awhile until now! Using the same technique I created for my new half finger gloves (and full finger gloves) on the long yellow Knifty Knitter and the new Loom Clips from Provo Craft, I sat down and quickly knitted up my first prototype:





Ok, now I need to put my glittens design back on my yellow loom and finish that pattern up!