My poor niece will have to wait until tomorrow for her gift (her birthday is today) since it’s not quite ready but I don’t think she’ll mind. She’s been wanting some more of these since the first batch I made her well over a year ago. (These are not her entire gift; she’s getting more than underwear.)

These are boxer briefs in size 122 (traced a fraction larger to be almost size 128) from Ottobre (issue Winter 2004). The hem on one leg on the blue camo flowers needs to be ripped out and redone. I also need to fasten off the threads left over from coverstitching the leg hems. Instead of steaming the elastic and pressing the hems (I like them to look finished and pressed as opposed to "fluffy"), I may just toss them in the washer tomorrow; they were traced with washable marker so it wouldn’t hurt for that to be washed out too. Hmm… I started typing this short post about an hour ago. I guess I should get started on unpicking that one leg?

It was another gorgeous day here. At the risk of totally jinxing it all, it seems that the three months of rain we’ve just had has evolved into summer just in time for autumn. The rest of the week is forecast to be beautiful too. After growing mushrooms throughout my lawn all "summer", I may actually have to break out the sprinkler tomorrow and give my poor gardens a drink.

B had fun with his new easel this afternoon and then later in the afternoon he took a dip in his pool (an approximately 60", round, three-ring inflatable deal that I got for half price at Canadian Tire). We had a few fits and starts today but nothing crazy and nothing on the scale of what we’ve experienced in the past. Definitely a little more than what I’m willing to put up with but I’m attributing it to him being 3 and cutting out naps for the most part in preparation for school. We also introduced tomatoes back into his diet the other night; he had apple juice this morning and filched a peach yesterday. There will be no more peaches added to the mix and we’ll stick with just tomatoes and apples added back in for at least another week.

Tonight was the Prison Break season premiere, a two hour show. I got my boyfriend (S) to watch the season on DVD with me and we’re only about halfway through Season Two right now. I’ve picked up Season Three for when we’re done and my brother gets back into the country in a couple of weeks and is bringing all the House seasons he’d bought to take with him so we’ll have those too. I had been undecided on whether to watch (and, alternately, tape if I’m working) PB this season or just wait until it comes out next summer but it seems like my fingers on the remote made the decision for me. My problem is that I’m really bad at actually watching taped episodes and eventually just end up accumulating several on the tape until I either sit down and watch them all or say, "Screw it!" and rewind the tape to the beginning and use it for something else. But I only work two Monday nights in each seven-week rotation and B is going to bed at 7 now instead of 8 due to the aforementioned cutting out of his nap so we’ll see how it goes. It was definitely a good episode tonight and as far fetched as the plot sometimes seems to be, I really enjoy the storyline and the umpteen twists and turns. I’ll be sad to see the end of the series, though I do know that it can’t possibly last indefinitely.

While watching tonight I did something I haven’t done in what must be months. I picked up the pointy sticks.

Crappy photo - indoors at night with a flash. 

They are my standard toe-up pattern, original created using Judy Gibson’s awesome generator and since tweaked to suit me better. These particular socks are plain Jane stockinette all the way through, quite possible with a rolled cuff but if not, then just a simple 2x2 ribbed one. They’ve been on the go for awhile too. If I remember correctly, I finished up a pair of cabled Fortissima ones and cast on for these while at S’s parents’ house for the first time over the Easter weekend. The poor things probably won’t see any new stitches for awhile again.

B is surprising me lately. In the last month he’s decided that he likes lettuce most of the time when previously, he wouldn’t even look at it. One night when mom had him while I was working, she was making a toasted tomato sandwich with lettuce and he decided that he wanted a "lettuce sandwich" too. He proceeded to take his buttered bread, put lettuce on it, fold it over into a sandwich, and eat the whole thing, declaring it "Good!!" Since that night he’s also decided that he loves Caesar salad, which means that I’ll have to make or find a Feingold-friendly dressing. Yesterday, he decided that he liked "egg samwiches" (ie: homemade egg McMuffin) and ate one yesterday and today for lunch. I’m shocked. And makes me hopefull that with the right dip, he’ll start eating raw veggies, which will make school lunches a little more rounded too.

One more shift tonight at work and then I’m off for five days, going back in on Thursday. I’m hoping to start Stage Two of the Feingold program on my days off, introducing either tomatoes or apples first; I’ll let B decided which one he wants but tomatoes would be easier for me.

On one of my regularly-read blogs the other day there was a recipe for what the author calls "hot pockets", similar to calzones. The recipe as written makes six but I doubled the recipe to get twelve so I could freeze some. I figured if I had all the ingredients out and prepared, I may as well make more all at the same time. I think I rolled mine a little thinner than I was supposed to. I’m assuming that six fit on a regular baking sheet but I needed three sheets to bake twelve.

I just grabbed a few things from the fridge - roasted chicken which I diced, pineapple, mushrooms, sundried-tomato pesto, salsa, three kinds of cheese (marble, Monterey Jack, and white cheddar), zucchini diced fine, minced onion, grated carrot, and turkey meatballs which I found in my freezer. No two calzones are the same. Not all of it is Feingold, so I’ll have to watch which ones contain tomato. I didn’t mark them because I wasn’t sure how to keep track of them from going into the oven until packaging them up since they’re all so different. They taste pretty good. I used six cups whole wheat flour to two cups of white and it’s perfect; next time I may go 7:1.

They took a bit longer than I’d expected but I did double the recipe and I was also trying to deal with an intermittently uncooperative boy. I’ll definitely make these again. I just ate one now for lunch. I’d left it in the fridge last night (the others are in the freezer) so I microwaved it to get the chill off and then put it in the toaster oven to crisp up slightly and heat through. 

Borrowed from a blog I stumbled upon tonight while procrastinating on getting into the shower and hitting the pillow. I guess I’m technically still procrastinating. And I have to get up at 4:45 tomorrow morning. Ick.

1. Where is your cell phone? adjacent
2. Your significant other? working
3. Your hair? reddish
4. Your daughter? non-existent
5. Your son? exhausting
6. Your favorite thing? autumn
7. Your dream last night? forgotten
8. Your favorite drink? OJ
9. Your goal? satisfaction
10. The room you’re in? living
11. Your church? life
12. Your fear? dying
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here
14. Where were you last night? here
15. What you’re not? glamourous
16. Muffins? yes
17. One of your wish list items? renovation
18. Where you grew up? here
19. The last thing you did? eat
20. What are you wearing? jeans
21. Your TV? moderate
22. Your pets? imaginary
23. Your computer? humming
24. Your life? wonderful
25. Your mood? tired
26. Missing someone? boyfriend
27. Your car? aging
28. Something you’re not wearing? socks
29. Favorite store? gone
30. Your summer? wet
31. Like(love) someone? definitely
32. Your favorite color? black
33. Last time you laughed? earlier
34. Last time you cried? unknown
35. Who will repost this? someone

We went down to the waterfront this morning and B had a blast walking along the boardwalk and then the main pier looking at all the boats, birds, and ducks, before heading over to the carousels and train. I bought a 6-ride ticket for $5 so B and I rode the big carousel, we (B, myself, and my boyfriend, S) all rode the train, and with one trip remaining, S stood beside B on the smaller carousel. B insisted on calling the carousel a ferris wheel even though he knows what a ferris wheel is.

Looks like I need to work on my posture.

And classic good-mood B. He was displaying both his underwear, which he was supposed to change into (he was still in his pyjamas), and the keychain he made for me at the cottage. It spells out MOMYPEGGY.

From the spelling, I’m guessing his nearly-seven-year-old cousin told him how to spell mommy. The one on the couch beside him spells out my boyfriend’s name. B had told me on the phone while at the cottage that he’d made me a keychain but I was just unpacking his bag this morning and found it along with the one for S and one, minus the clip part, for S’s daughter. I thought it was such a sweet thing that he’d made one for everybody. I can totally hear him saying, "And now one for S too!" A couple of times when I was talking to him on the phone, he asked to speak with S, indicating, "But I need him!" Once, I was at S’s house but the second time I was at home alone. B was insistent that I call S despite the fact that I’d have to hang up with him to make the call. "But then you can call me back and I can talk to him," he said. Poor little guy. He did have a great time but he did miss home.

B learned to successfully ride his tricycle today. To me , he seems a little late to the game but in his defence, he hasn’t had very much opportunity for bike riding. He’s been on his trike before but today was the first day that he could pedal with relative ease, like his brain and legs were connected. He got the concept before but couldn’t seem to execute it for longer than one or two wheel rotations.

He looks so big on that little bike!

A pretty bad "cheeeese!" face.

Figuring out the brakes. The 2x4 was his do-not-go-past-it line. 

I miss my boy. He comes back from the cottage today but I have to go to work this afternoon so I won’t see him until my mom drops him off here in the morning.

It doesn’t help that when I phone him he tells me, "You’re my mommy. I miss you." This morning I told him "I miss you so much, honey; I can’t wait to see you tomorrow," and he replied, "I miss you so much too." He sounds like he’s having fun but I can hear it in his voice, nevermind his words, that he’s missing home. 

I’m not sure why my hair seems to grab onto red tones and run with them. Or why I seem to keep buying hair colour with golden tones almost as soon as I’ve gotten the previous red tones out of my hair. It’s like I just fix it and I break it again. Not that red hair is a bad thing in general but I don’t love it on me. And it doesn’t seem to matter if my hair actually has red it in or not. I can have my hair be ash brown and it still shows up with red tones in pictures. Anyway, I guess I felt it had been too long (a few weeks) since I’d last been free of red hair because I bought a Light Golden Brown colour at Shopper’s the other night and put it in today. If I didn’t have a huge patch of white-and-regular on the left temple-ish side of my head, I wouldn’t colour at all but I’m not ready to go white yet; I’ve had that patch for at least 10 years but it didn’t used to be so big. It’s hidden under my hair but the whites are wiry and after awhile they tend to make themselves far too obvious. Hence, the colour-in-a-box.

So, previous to today I looked like this:

Photoshopped quite awhile back to remove a very distracting background

As of this afternoon, my hair looks like this, according to my camera but not my mirror.

It is NOT this red; please, God, don’t let it be this red.

The colour in that second picture has to be a little off (I tried to fix it) since my skin is not that red either. In any case, my hair shows in the mirror as being lighter and a shade or two less intense. I guess I should be happy the greys are covered and that it didn’t turn out strawberry blond (nice colour, just not on me) as I feared when I looked at it at about the 10-minute mark. 

B is at the cottage again until Thursday. I’m back to work on Tuesday but took a little time today to sew some more on the baby gift I’m doing for a co-worker. I’m hoping to finish it all up tomorrow though I can work on it in the evenings a bit Tuesday and Wednesday and then Thursday morning before my night shift. I’d really like to get it done and delivered though. I have a list of things that I need to do around the house that are easier done without B underfoot.