Knotty Mouse

“Alice” was awesome!  I loved every  colorful, quirky, and nearly sensory overloading minute of it and I can’t wait to see it again! The costuming (layers and layers of costuming), sets (whether cg or real.. doesn’t matter), and gratuitous use of Tim Burton’s trademark stripes were so overwhelming that it nearly made you feel sort of drunk. Alan Rickman’s caterpillar & the (madly cute and equally bad kitty) Cheshire Cat were my favorite characters.

There were a lot of reviews out there trashing this version of “Alice” which I admittedly didn’t read before attending the movie.. I like to make my own assumptions. I’m a long time ‘Alice in Wonderland’ fan (I’m totally blaming this on hearing Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’ one too many times as a child) so seeing some of my favorite literary characters on an adventure makes me very happy.. regardless of what sort of adventure it is.  I should mention that I also really enjoyed the SyFy Channel  version of ‘Alice’ that was put out at the beginning of this year in all of its steampunk/post apocalyptic oddness. (I especially loved ‘The Hatter” in that one.. rawr.)

My only black mark on my viewing experience (besides the hateful little buggers that were seated in front of my friend & I who decided to pass food back and forth and talk loudly for the entire movie…..) was that I expected it to be a bit darker.  I didn’t realize that it wasn’t Tim Burton’s screenplay until I read a review after the movie.. so that sort of explains my only disappointment in the lack of crazy-mad, melancholy, tortured, gothic sort of characters that I expect from a Burton film.  Johnny Depp was awesome as usual and really made the Mad Hatter his own creation — though I could have really done without the dancing.

(Sorry this took so long to post.. I’ve had a terrible and unexplainable migraine headache on and off all week which has made me avoid bright lights & retreat to the darkness of the bedroom like some sort of silent film Nosferatu.)

Please don’t let me down tonight!! I’ve been waiting for a twisted Tim Burton “Alice in Wonderland” for so long!!!!
-Mousie(before anyone asks.. I have no idea where to find a shirt like this now. I’ve had mine since high school….  it says “I’m mad, You’re Mad, We’re all mad here” on the back. It was one of my favorite shirts – I <3 the Cheshire Cat.)

The days tend to sort of blend together here at Chez Mousie and I often realize that a whole week has gone by when I’m being asked for ice cream money “again”. (me: “Ice cream money… didn’t I just give you some?” munchkin:  “No, silly Mama- that was last Friday!”) I’m going to have to chalk that up to being one of the many ‘dangers’ of being a stay at home mom…

Last weekend I celebrated with Lady Deathwatch & Little Black Crow for the 2nd annual Internet Thankfulness Tea.  I’m thankful for many things this year…. including HEAT!! I’m also thankful that we found such a great house in a nice neighborhood. Everyone is very happy here in the new Chez Mousie.. especially the kitties! My husband has gotten some really good leads on some new business opportunities.. I’m hoping for a prosperous year!

I didn’t end up finishing my Liesl sweater for the Ravelympics..  I didn’t even come close, to be honest.  My hand/wrist started hurting and I started making stupid mistakes in the pattern because of feeling rushed with the time limit which made the knitting less than enjoyable.  I’m hoping to get it done in time to wear this spring though.. its a bit too cold here in GA for a lacey sweater.

I did however finish spinning some fiber that has been on my wheel since before we moved in November.. its from Spunky Eclectic (“grand opening 2007″ is its name) and is some sort of ‘wool blend’. I don’t have any idea of yardage yet b/c its still hanging out on the bobbin after plying. No plans for this yet other than the fact that its going to be knit up for sale.. the colors aren’t ‘me’.

Poor blog- totally neglected while the whole family nurses various illnesses and life speeds by!  I’ve really wanted  to start blogging a few times a week with various things I come across online and put more of the stuff floating around in my head into the blog but life is sort of disagreeing with these plans.

This weekend is the Second Annual Internet Thankfulness Tea Party – with actual tea, food and fancy dress- (not related to political mumbo-jumbo of any kind) – Please join Lady Deathwatch, Little Black Crow and myself  in a virtual tea this weekend!

In knitting news- I joined LSG’s Team Tweasel and am competing in the Sweaterboard Cross for the Ravelympics this year.  I decided that I’d make Liesl and I’m using Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Olive to make a 3/4 sleeve version.  I don’t know if I’ll have enough yarn or whether I’ll actually complete it but I’m going to try anyway.  I’m actually farther than this photo shows – I have a few inches to go before I separate the arms from the body… I put the sweater onto a second circular needle to try it on and nearly lost the whole center of the sweater when the needles slipped.

It’s yesterday’s news at this point but here’s some Friday Eye Candy in the form of the awesome snowman that Munchkin built last weekend.  It was a big deal snow storm for this region and we got about 4 inches here in North GA – it was NOT mixed with rain or ice this time and we had a proper snowstorm which coated the trees and was perfect for snowmen & snowballs.

5th Annual Silent Poetry Reading in honor of St. Brigid’s Day
(for more information..go HERE)

JABBERWOCKY

by: Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

‘WAS brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought–
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Calloh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

♥Today is our 12th  anniversary♥ – I’m calling for a do-over for our dinner/date another day because today has been rather bizarre  in a David Lynch sort of way… *sigh*

Twenty-six days after the new year and I’m finally getting to this re-cap post! Apparently just because you’re the sort of person who has a constant monologue (mono-blog?) in your head doesn’t mean that it will automatically post to the internet where other people can see it…  I’m very bad about that and definitely must work on it in the future!

Going back in my blog the following things happened in 2009:

• I  finished a few Woolly Wormhead hats and became obsessed with knitting snoods.
• I attended a virtual tea party (hope to do it again this year!) with Lady Deathwatch & friends
• I dreaded my hair (again) and began stretching my earlobes in an attempt to look on the outside like  I feel on the inside… an ongoing project for sure.
• I tried my hand at yeast dough making and started baking like a crazy person – first pretzels, then pizza dough, cinnamon bread, challah, cinnamon rolls & ranch dinner rolls.  I haven’t stopped yet!
• My blog turned FIVE, my kid turned EIGHT, and I became THIRTY TWO.
• We welcomed new kitty Captain Jack to the family
• We went to Florida on a family trip and found out while we were there that our rental house had been foreclosed upon.
• We packed up our house and moved to a new location in the middle of the school year and right before the Thanksgiving holiday with the help of friends.
• I learned a lot about what I am capable of handling and when I need to ask for help.

So far in 2010:

• I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the direction I’d like to go with my small business – I put everything on hold when we moved and figured it was a good time to do some thinking and future planning.
• Captain Jack went to the vet and came back …um..minus some parts… but more of a snuggle bug and less of an annoying screaming bastard who pees on everything.
• I’ve started to get a bit of a hold on  my fear of crowds and driving – I even managed to attend a movie on a Friday night with a friend!

Wishing all of you a Happy 2010!  Here’s to new beginnings!!!

From everyone here at the house of Mouse…  wishing you a happy holiday, whichever one you celebrate! (even if its just Happy Friday!)

Hello from the new Chez Mousie! We’re slowly digging ourselves out from under the mass of boxes and getting the new place set up for the upcoming holidays. The move went rather less smoothly than anticipated (and after all of the moves I’ve been through, I assure you that I didn’t anticipate a problem free relocation) due to miserable weather (heavy rain & cold wind), lack of the proper sized moving truck (stupid stupid rental truck company!!), and the fact that most of our moving help (scheduled up long in advance) bailed out on us at the last minute.

Munchkin left his old school on Friday and started his new school last Monday – he’s slowly adjusting to his new schedule & teacher. He’s taking being “the new kid” pretty rough.. but we’re trying to work through it. I’m sure the poor kid would be doing better if he had tv- its still not on after almost 2 weeks. I had thought ahead and scheduled up our satellite tv installation for the Monday after we moved into the house only to find out that we can’t GET satellite tv here because of the trees surrounding the house. *sigh*  Even though I lived without tv for years while we moved around the US, I have to admit that even I’m starting to have tv withdrawal symptoms.  Being without tv and internet did do wonders for me being productive and festive.. behold :

This is the living room of the new house.. complete with a 7 foot fake Xmoose tree.  You can’t see it well from the photo but the lights on the tree are two shades of blue and an awesome set of dark purple from Halloween – the rest of the tree is decorated with various toy ornaments and sparkly things from Target.  I love our living room..  its my favorite room of the house.

I’m actually really happy with our new house and I was very pleasantly surprised when we got all of our furniture into it with room to spare.  I’m currently typing this post from MY OWN ROOM!!! I am very happy to have an office/studio/whatever where I can store all of my yarn & crafty things so that the rest of the house isn’t a disaster.  My husband also has his own office (a huge room which is actually a converted garage) which is excellent because he works from home and has tons of stuff.   Munchkin has a really nice sized room with a huge closet and lots of floor space for playing with his pirate ships & legos. We’ve also got two bathrooms (including a master suite), a master bedroom, eat in kitchen (painted the most awesome shade of green..) and huge yard with a wrap around deck, wooden fence, and a large storage house.
Without a doubt the best thing about the house is THIS:

I can’t even tell you how happy having heat makes me after spending a year & a half living with space heaters and freezing our asses off.  One of the worst things about living in the other house was worrying about whether Munchkin was going to be warm enough at night and hearing how upset he was that he had to come home to a cold house every day.   Its clearly obvious from the drastic improvement in our health that the old house (which was also apparently growing toxic black mold) was very literally making us all sick.  I’m so thrilled to be out of there!!
Members of the family are reacting to the new addition of central heat like this :

ahhhhh….  (because really.. that face says it all!)

• We’re packing, packing, packing…  I finally feel like  we’re making a bit of  progress.
• The “big move” with the moving truck is on Friday and we’ll be sleeping in our new house on Saturday night.  Most of the utilities will be on tomorrow – the phone & internet will be hooked up on the weekend.
• Munchkin’s last day at his old school is Friday and first day of his new school is on Monday.  Lots of paperwork!
• Its chilly & raining here and I’m making homemade chili for dinner tonight. Its a great meal b/c it always provides leftovers.. which means tonight is the last night I’m cooking in our old house.
• Living in limbo is sort of getting on everyone’s nerves and the amount of stuff to do is staggering.
• I’m pretty sure that my new daily Ashtanga yoga practice (I’m attempting to do 5 sun salutations a day.. every day) is the only thing stopping me from killing people or curling up in the corner with  my teddybear.
• I need a new yoga mat – daily practice with a skimpy mat on a hardwood floor is very hard on ones body.  I decided that if I continue daily practice for a week or two that I would put out the money on a nice comfy thick mat – maybe one of the pretty Gaiam ones from Target. Our new house also has hardwood floors in the living room.. which is most likely where I’ll continue practicing.
• One of the major advantages of having dreads is that you never need a hair tie.  I just take one of the dreads from the under side of my head, wrap it around the rest of the hair and tuck it under to form a ponytail wrap… its very handy.
• We’ve removed about 12-14 trash bags full of stuff from the house and sent it to the Goodwill.   We’re on our third & final giant trash bin full of garbage. I could probably get rid of much more but we’re running out of time and the trash company is picking up our trash can tomorrow.
• The kitties have gotten completely clingy and I’m ending up sleeping with BOTH of them every night.  They smother me while I’m trying to read in bed and they’ve taken to getting in the cars & trying to stuff themselves into moving boxes. Clearly they’re afraid that someone’s going to leave them behind.
• This will definitely be my last post from the old house…  I’ll write again from the new place!

I wanted to thank everyone for the good vibes they sent our way because we found a new home! We will be moving to a new city and Munchkin will have to start a new school but we’ve found a house that seems like its going to be a good match for us. It’s smaller than our current home but it is in good condition, has HEAT, a nice deck & small fenced yard, accepts pets, is close to the new school, has 3 small bedrooms (no more desk in the living room!) + a large converted garage room which will be perfect for my husband’s home office. The house is also closer to friends & family and cuts serious mileage off of my husband’s travel time when he does work on location for his business.

The search for a new Mouse House was definitely stressful and we did have to give up ‘extras’ such as a fireplace & a more rural setting because there was nothing available like that in our price range.  Our new neighborhood is a family friendly established (aka: older houses) sub-division which is very close to a shopping area with tons of great stores & restaurants– something totally different from the other places we’ve lived.  I’m both nervous and excited to be moving to a new location.. and Munchkin is excited to make new friends in his new school and in our neighborhood.

In the last few days (we went to see the house on Saturday) I’ve already sent SEVEN trash bags of clothes, toys & household items to the Goodwill & my husband has filled our giant trash bin to the brim.  I’m usually a serious pack(mouse) but knowing that we’re moving to a totally different environment has sort of prompted us to do a heavy duty clean-out…  I think we’re all ready for a change and opening up space in our closets & cabinets is just one way of welcoming the prospect of new and better things into our lives.

Our current situation has prompted a lot of plans for change & shifts in ways of thinking.  I’ve noticed that thinking about the new house as “cozy” is a much more positive way of dealing with the fact that yes, we’re losing a whole bunch of square footage in this move – AGAIN.  In reality, its not a problem with the house, its a problem with the fact that we have more shit than 3 people reasonably should own.  Thinking again in matters of perception, I’ve also decided that I’m boycotting the words “throw out”, ” get rid of”, and “chuck” in favor of the word “edit” in regards to what I’m doing with my STUFF.   The idea of “editing” is much more suggestive of making things better and keeping only the best and most useful of items while letting the others go.

We have to be out of here before Thanksgiving and our big move is ’scheduled’ for the weekend of the 20′th, so I’m not entirely sure how much I’m going to be online  from now until then.  Judging from last move, we could be without internet & tv for a few days… but I’m going to hope for the best.

(*bullet post list without the bullets because the formatting was pissing me off)

–I’m going to bail out of NaBloPoMo  after tonight because I realized that with moving this month I won’t be able to post every day… especially if we have an internet hookup delay like we did last time.

–We went looking for houses today and should find out in a few days whether the one we wanted is ours.   Good mojo is needed for our application being accepted please!!

–After looking at houses we sort of realized how freakin’ lucky we were to find a house with such large rooms this time around.
We also realized JUST HOW MUCH SHIT WE HAVE.  I’m currently trying to get up the motivation to go through and reduce what we own by half if possible.

–One of the cats (I’m going to assume its Ms. Kitty) has taken to peeing in Munchkin’s bed.  Last night, it happened WHILE MY SON WAS IN THE BED.  Yes, my cat peed on my son’s feet.  I don’t know if she’s jealous of Jack being friendly with Munchkin or if she’s upset about moving (AGAIN) because she usually has a tear of bad behaviour and peeing on things before we move.

–I think I’m getting sick.

–My anxiety level is through the roof and I’m having trouble holding food down.  I constantly feel like I’m being chased by a bear.. its miserable.  This happened last time we moved as well…

–If anyone has any links for awesome decluttering help sites, I’m all (mouse) ears.

…brought to you by Captain Jack.

House hunting tomorrow.. good vibes needed!

On Monday we received some depressing news that our credit score was a handful of points too low to qualify us for the home loan that we applied for on my birthday. I have been pretty hush hush about the potential house purchase because I didn’t want to jinx anything and I’m sort of sad to have to announce the crap news rather than a happy house buying post.   We were really hoping that we’d get approved so that we could purchase something of our own from the massive amount of foreclosures out there because the mortgage on them would be HALF of what we’re going to pay for rent on anything not in a horrible area.

Unfortunately we haven’t had any luck finding anything to rent in a decent area or for an amount of money we can afford. I’ve been searching Craigs List, the Atlanta newspaper, the ‘local’ newspaper (which covers where we are now and where we intended to move), and have everyone we know keeping an eye out for anything we could live in. Time is ticking down – apparently we have TEN days to find another place to live so that we can notify the company that owns the house and they can prepare our check for the date our 30 days is up. That means that technically we never had 30 days to get ready to leave.. we had TWENTY. Our 30 days is up on Thanksgiving. Our 10 days is up on the 16th. I have to pack a whole house, find a place to live, figure out how to afford first & last months rent + security deposit + TWO pet deposits, AND move my kid to a new school district & school.

Oh yeah, the kicker to this whole situation is that on top of having to mow the whole lawn (the property is huge and its something we never have had to do) and clean the house before we leave that we also have to remove EVERYTHING from the storage building out back!!! When we moved in, it was chocked full of old car parts, chemicals, junk, trash, and covered in rat pee & tons of rat crap IF we want ANY money we have to remove all of this because the property has to be COMPLETELY EMPTY regardless of whether it was our junk.

Good vibes… I needs them.

Please excuse the lack of pictures in this post… it really has been a shit sort of day and I forgot to take photos of dinner tonight.  I almost thought of blowing off NaBloPoMo because I didn’t particularly have anything decent to say to anyone and then dinner came out of the oven and I filled my tummy with comfort food.

Janice over at Knitting w/ Dogs pointed me to the Budget Bytes blog earlier in the week and I was totally impressed by the fact that the recipes are actually budget! I get really tired of these websites that call themselves budget conscious or money saving and you go there and they’re patting themselves on the back for getting through the week on like $100 (groceries only, non food items and eating out are extra) for  2  city dwelling vegetarians.  While that’s great for them (and while I’ve got nothing against city dwelling vegetarians..) -it doesn’t really help those of us who for one reason or another aren’t vegetarians and don’t even have the luxury of the sort of weekly budget that they are “challenging” themselves to live on.  The other extreme is often menus that are loaded down with mayonnaise filled casseroles  and things that are deep fried… two things my family won’t eat.

We here at Chez Mousie  live on a very tight grocery budget due to being a single income family and honestly, I’m sort of proud of  how much money I can save us each week by shopping wisely and menu planning.  Of course I’d love to have more weekly grocery money and be able to buy ‘extras’ like snack foods or better cuts of meat and organic produce but there is a hot meal on the table every night and for that I’m eternally thankful.

Tonight’s meal, the Cheesy Shepherd’s Pie from Budget Bytes was tasty, filling, and even provided some lunch leftovers after the 3 of us gorged ourselves stupid. Because I buy our meat in bulk when its on sale,  omitted the cheese, and used bulk instant mashed potatoes instead of fresh  I’m pretty sure that I cut down the cost of the recipe (not to mention the prep time) from the site by another few dollars.. making this a keeper for our family recipe book.    I’ll even be able to use the open can of tomato paste for homemade spaghetti sauce in tomorrow’s dinner and I’ll freeze the remainder of the beef broth for another meal.  The meal was a big hit with hubby and also Munchkin, who usually doesn’t care for the beef stew I used to make  because the meat was sometimes tough (using stew meat) or ‘too stringy’ (beef roast) for his 8 year old taste buds.

Quick & easy ‘tawashi’ scrubber made from leftover Red Heart acrylic yarn & a size H crochet hook. I chained 4 and just increased in a circle (using a half-double stitch) until the scrubber was about the size of the palm of my hand. I should have used a larger hook because I wanted it a bit softer than this (I crochet VERY tightly) but otherwise I love it and it works great! I’ve become a big fan of using acrylic yarn for dish scrubbers/ cloths because they don’t “sour” like cotton yarns do in our humid climate.

Pattern: Panta
Yarn: Plymouth Encore
Needles: size 7 US
Mods: stopped before the last increase b/c it was getting too large. fudged the rest of the numbers to make the headband work.

Thinking about trying NaBloPoMo again this year…  we’ll see what happens. Life here at Chez Mousie is so up in the air with packing and moving – no new house has been found as of yet – that I might need something to keep me sane.

Hope everyone has a wonderful & safe Halloween!

Today I’m 32! Have a piece of cake with me!!