A Mother's Voice

Knitting Slippers

mothersvoice — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:36:05 +0000

I am knitting a pair of “granny” slippers for my 9 year old. It is my first pair if knitted slippers. The only other slippers I’ve made were pair I crocheted without a pattern. So this is fun! I like blogging because it is a bit like a diary except somhow it is a little more freeing. When I write with a pen, the words somehow need to be more thought out. Here, I feel more like I am just thinking out loud to myself….even though there may be someone “listening”. I’ll let you know how the slippers turn out. I am a simple knitter, yet I do have an imagination. I will have to do simple knitting tasks as I climb my way towards creative freedom in knitting.

A Family Tree

mothersvoice — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 01:51:35 +0000

Well, my family tree gift turned out pretty well actually. It was quite a bit more work than I had imagined. See, first I had to gather the information. I found ancestors of myself and my husband for at least 2 generations and some I found up to 4 generations. Then I wrote them all down on a piece of paper to get them into the correct order. Then I had to get them all to fit in a “tree” shape with little branches. After getting a general idea of the shap of the tree I took a sheet of parchment and placed it over the rough draft and used a light table to be able to see the “tree” underneath as a guide.

Even so, I ended up making a few mistakes and leaving out people or leaving out a middle name or two. So I made 3 trees and they are all different, yet with the same information. I am quite proud of my homemade Christmas gift and think what a special gift it would make for anyone. Maybe I should advertise. I may try to get a photo up sometime soon if I can get my scanner to work, otherwise I’ll have to take a digital photo…which may not turn out so well. So, we’ll see.

Christmas is definitely over.

mothersvoice — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 01:44:16 +0000

Well, I guess it is time to take the beautiful tree down and put all of the ornaments away and get back to reality. I mean paying the bills and turning the heat down to 65 degrees so I have to wear my jacket inside. None of the kids want me to take it down. We completed the final Christmas ritual of finding the pickle ornament. The youngest child always finds it first on account that she is looking up at the tree..not straight on.

At the moment, I am contemplating what to make for dinner as I am no Martha Stewart. So it’s either going to have to be macaroni and cheese with meatballs and broccoli or the ever present burrito serve yourself dinner. Homework needs to be done, dishes, laundry, dogs fed, cats fed, check on the rabbits and the birds outdoors, lock up and then perhaps after storytime I can go to sleep.

The 12 Days of Christmas

mothersvoice — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 02:26:53 +0000

Here it is January 4th. In our house, we celebrate the 12 days of Christmas. This means there is a gift for each child on each of the 12 days. No, we don’t wrap 36 presents in wrapping paper and trash the planet. I might wrap a few for the first day…then I just re-use gift bags I find around the house.

Now, that sounds like a lot of presents. But we are by no means rich, and do not wish to turn our children into little consumers. We just spread the joy over 12 days. So some of the gifts are…socks, or personal care products or educational magazine subscriptions for example.

You get it..things that we would be buying anyway. So tomorrow , the 5th, is the last day…this usually ends up being the day they actually get something they might have put on a wish list at some time. Then on the 6th comes 3 kings day. The 3 kings of course do not bring anything that could be bought at a store. They bring a more spiritual gift meant to last a little bit longer.

This year the girls are going to be recieving a hand-lettered family tree. It took me awhile to figure it all out…with the 12 days of presents. I got the idea for the family tree from Martha Stewart’s website. Hers is white lettering on a brown background. I modified that idea by writing in black on a white sheet of paper, then cutting out the tree shape and pasting it to a piece of black scrapbooking paper.