So remember my list from last week of things I wanted to get done?  I’ve been slogging through, diligently.  Some things, like dying the yarn, I haven’t gotten to yet.  Not so much with the organizing existing yarn and needles either.  But I have done all the laundry, knit my little tuckus off, mostly set up the Hyena Cart shop (I plan to open it tomorrow, God willing) and, now, I have opened the craft blog.

Aren’t you all proud of me?

I’m sure there is still work to be done, kinks to iron out, plugins to install.  But for the most part, I’m pretty proud of the craft blog.  I hesitate to call it a knitting blog since I’m sure to stick other things on there besides knitting from time to time.

In the meantime, if you are interested in seeing what I’m doing, knitting-wise, please keep an eye on slackermama is a craftymama.  I am sure I will astound you all with my amazing knitting prowess.

It wasn’t but a few months ago that I could barely cobble together a baby cap without making a bazillion mistakes.  And now?  I can craft beautiful works of art in record (for me) time.  Yesterday, I finished a pair of small knit shorties in roughly 24 hours.  True, I barely did anything else besides change diapers and eat, but the fact is, I DID IT.  Tuesday night, I had started the waistband on this project shortly before going to bed and got about an inch of that done.  The rest was done yesterday.  I finished around 11:30 last night.  Okay, maybe it was closer to 12.  The point is I FINISHED IT.  And they are too adorable to believe.  I feared that since they were going to be a plain color, that maybe they wouldn’t be that exciting.  But they may just be my favorite completed project yet.  There’s something about the heathered yarn, the lush green colors, the cute smallness (without being UBER TWEE like the newborn longies were)… See for yourself!

Aaaand for those of you who are sick of all the knitting talk, I WILL get that craft blog going and I WILL keep posts like this to there (unless I have something notable to discuss in the realm of crafting).  But I just had to share my accomplishment.  Not only are they ADORABLE, but I finished them damn quick.  Go me!

I have to share with you what I “discovered” yesterday.  I’d like to say that this took a lot of forethought and planning and my super-genius mind crafted this all up with perfect intention.  But… not so much.  See, I often troll the knee-high section at Target looking for socks that I can turn in to baby leg warmers.  You’ve seen those Babylegs?  The little legwarmers that babies can wear up to their juicy thighs to keep their legs warm, knees protected, etc and so forth?  I love them but I don’t love the price tag.  I saw a tutorial online for how to sew them yourself and VOILA.  I had a couple made and was pleased with the results.  It’s a simple process that involves cutting off the heel and toes and taking the “foot” part to make a cuff that you sew onto the “leg”.

Well, yesterday while in the process of making up a few of these, I sorta fuxed up one of the cuffs.  Annoyed, I left the cuff off and pulled the bottom of the “leg” tight while running a zigzag stitch along it.  GENIUS.

And you should see how adorable they are when she’s NOT wearing Hello Kitty shippers (shoe+slipper=shipper).  But seriously… COME ON.  How cute are those??  With the lettuce-y edge?  And it took like TWO minutes to do.

I kill me.

Now, if anyone spots any bright rainbow striped knee-high socks, will you think of me?  I’m rather desperate for rainbow baby legwarmers.

***

In other news, I’ve been rather productive since yesterday’s post.  The legwarmers weren’t on the list but they should have been because they were definitely on my “to do” pile.  So what have I done so far?

• Craft Blog – well… I installed it.  Does that count?  I put a few plugins on there.  And that’s about it.  I need a design.  And, you know, POSTS.  Will keep you all tuned.
• Last minute customs for mom – I finished one of them!  The very cute and very twee newborn longies!  And I’m 2/3 done with the other, which are adorable small shorts.  These need to be recieved in the mail by her next Wednesday so I have to get these done ASAP so I have enough time to wash and mail them.  But check the longies:

• Finish setting up HC shop – Yeah… no.  Haven’t even touched it.  But I’ve thought about it.  Does that count?
• Post here every day – so far so good!  Hey, it may be a little on the late side but IT STILL COUNTS.
• Post to cloth diaper blog – GULP.
• Organize iPhone – YES!  I did this today while knitting.  I’m so multi-talented.  And now I can fit all my songs on there as well as podcasts, apps and ringtones.  Go me!
• Organize yarn stash – Nope.  Have not even looked at it.  This WILL get done.
• Organize knitting needles – Didn’t do this yet either.  But I looked through the needles my mom gave me last night.  Just need to track them all in Ravelry.  And then I can plan what needles I want to buy (am thinking I want 4-5 more pairs of Addi Turbos).
• Laundry – I’ve done some (diaper laundry), but the rest is still begging for my attentions.
• Dye yarn – Nope.  Still sort of waiting until I get a scale to weigh yarn on so I know how much I’m dealing with.  Believe me, that’s kinda important.
• Find scale – I saw a bunch on eBay but alas, my PayPal tree has run out of leaves.  I need to get cranking on these customs so I can get paid!

Whew.  Okay, it may not seem like I’ve got a lot accomplished.  All I’ve really done today is knit knit knit.  But if I can finish these shorts tonight then I will be able to get a LOT more done off this list.  Go me!

Have you ever felt that when things are really busy for you, that your attention is being pulled in fifteen different directions, that attention isn’t whole?  That your attention tends to fragment and splinter and so each issue, each project that is demanding your attetion only gets a fragment of it?  Because that is exactly how I feel right now.  For the last month, I’ve had more than a handful of different things clamoring for my notice and it’s almost made me become ADD or something.  I have a hard time concentrating on any one thing at any one time.  My brain is so full of thoughts that I am routinely forgetting things that I want to (or NEED to) do.

I’m not a fan of this.

I’m hoping to get things under control SOON.  And maybe, just maybe, once things are under control then I can start truly giving this poor neglected blog the attention it deserves.  I swear, the Blog Gods are going to come and take away my blog if I can’t start taking care of it properly.

I finished my first paid custom pair of longies late last week and they got shipped off in the mail on Saturday.  I am beyond happy with how they came out.  And I’m not even a fan of orange!  These pants are so bright and happy and fun that it truly was a pleasure to knit them.  I really hope their new owner loves them as much as I do.

Speaking of which, I’m thinking of doing a craft blog.  Okay, I just heard your brain explode over there.  I know it seems extremely foolish to start ANOTHER blog when I can’t even give the ones I already have the time of day anymore.  But before you chuck something at my head, I was thinking of having it be a ground-zero for keeping track of my customs list and posting pictures of my projects and maybe some tips and tricks as I think them up.  Yeah?  Good idea, huh?  So that’s one of the things that I’m trying to do but due to the fragmented attention, not so much yet.

I just got this fabulous diaper late last week.  It was one of the “SYOF” diapers (which basically stands for Send Your Own Fabric… sort of like a custom) that I was lucky enough to get in on.  It’s not my Holy Grail Diaper (that would be Wine Country) (and yes, I realize it’s fairly absurd to have a Holy Grail Diaper) but it’s way up there and I am beyond excited to have it.  Evie’s 1st Birthday outfit is sorta based around this diaper (provided I can concentrate long enough to plan/purchase/acquire the rest of the outfit!).

Harry has been having fun playing on my old-n-busted laptop while he’s on break from school this month.  And I thought this was too cute where the two little ones were clustered around him watching him play (Evie was trying to help, apparently).  I love these little moments where my three kids are coexisting peacefully together.  It helps make up for the times that Harry pushes Liam down or Liam chucks his sippy cup at Evie’s head.

Yep.  Those are my diapers.  All of the ones I have (so far) (I have at least two on the way), minus a plain one called “Iced Lolly” that Evie had worn to bed and was therefore sullied.  It’s kind of ridiculous how much I love these diapers, mostly because they work so damn well and look so damned cute at the same time.  (Seriously, ya’ll, NO BLOWOUTS.  EVER.)  Actually, I’m not sure I love Swords and Roses (the newest one and the one next to the pink kitty diaper).  But I’m trying to ignore that little voice that says, “SELL!”

On Saturday we drove over to Portola (about 30 minutes away to the north-west in Northern California) to hang out at a cabin with my sister in law and her family.  It was very snowy and pretty there.  I took this picture from the (dry and warm) back step.  I love my new camera and it’s bodacious zoom.

I love snow.  I love everything about it.  Well okay, maybe not driving in it.  But everything else for sure.  And I love playing around with the manual setting on the new camera, particularly the manual focus.  Hee!

Harry got a chance to go sledding while we were there and his feet didn’t freeze up and fall off despite the fact that he forgot to bring his boots.

It actually kinda kills me how big he’s getting.  He needs to KNOCK THAT OFF.

There has been a lot of snow and storm this weekend.  We were supposed to go back to the cabin on Sunday but they got like TWO FEET of snow so we decided OH HECK NO.  We stayed in town where we did not get two feet of snow but rather some cold and miserable “wintery mix”.  I think I would have rather had the two feet of snow.

And then yesterday was just a “free day”.  God, I love three day weekends.  Of course, now I’m going to be messed up all week long about what day it actually is.  Which doesn’t help my whole resolution to get things under control in my life.  This week I want to accomplish (in no particular order):

• starting the craft blog
• finishing the last minute special customs I’m knitting for my mom
• finish setting up my Hyena Cart shop
• return to posting here EVERY DAY
• post a couple things to my cloth diaper blog
• delete the Christmas songs off my iPhone to free up some much needed room
• reorganize my yarn stash and take inventory on what I have
• take inventory on my knitting needles and other knitting notions
• laundry and more laundry and then after that?  laundry
• dye the yarn I bought
• see if I can’t find a reasonable scale somewhere that will measure ounces and grams

Okay.  I think that’s all there is.  For now, at least.  So what are you hoping to get done this week?  I’m hoping none of you are feeling as fragmented as I am right now because it’s not a terribly happy feeling.  Happy Tuesday, ya’ll!

But I’m in business, baby!

Yeah.  Not much there yet.  Hopefully that will change.  But I wanted to get this up there.  The shop is very rough yet.  I think I have much to learn about selling on Etsy.  And I hope to expand from there.  There’s a lot I want to add and do and accomplish.  But this is a good place to start.

I’m scared and excited and nervous and hopeful all at the same time.

(oh, and in case you were wondering, your child doesn’t have to wear cloth diapers to appreciate wool pants!)