Out of the Mouths of Babes...

Okay, here's one of those "huh?" moments. The kids at school were talking about the really big puddles on the roads now that the snow is seriously melting. I told them that some of the street drains weren't allowing the melted water to flow through as they were still plugged with ice. One of the kids asked me if that was called "sewercide". After some questioning from me to determine what he was really wanting to know, he told me that when it rains really hard in a summer storm and water comes into the basement, he thought it was sewercide. The best I can conclude is that this boy thinks that sewer back-up is called sewercide. And, you know, if you've ever had sewer back-up in your basement, his word is a pretty accurate way to describe what you're feeling ; ) I assured the class that the puddles that they were playing in now were not the result of sewer back-up, just muddy water.

I have heard that the word "google" has now been added as a verb to the new dictionaries. Maybe "sewercide" (noun) should be the next addition.

I washed the FLAK back using the products that I have for my shelties, Bark 2 Basics shampoo and D-Mat conditioner, and it has softened up beautifully! I think that I'll be able to wear it as a pullover after all, mostly because of this great conditioner. Yay! I have a friend who breeds llamas and I know that she uses the D-Mat before grooming them for show so I figured that sheep's wool couldn't be that much different from llama fibre and dog hair.

The FLAK back is done! I will use the helpful advice from the FLAK listmates and wash and block this piece before deciding whether to make the front for a pullover or cardigan. It's a little scratchy for me now but a wash and rinse in high quality dog shampoo and conditioner might make it soft enough to wear next to the skin.

Still home sick but feeling more human. Apparently, this flu bug is hitting almost everyone around here.

I've had some time to work on the FLAK sweater and will finish the back in a few more rows. I'll try to get a picture of it then.

Winter does NOT want to leave! We're getting a bunch more snow today. It's quite depressing.

My husband came home with a high school story that I'll share with you. It provided me with a much-needed laugh last night. There's a student who has multiple inhalant allergies. She carries an Epipen with her at all times and needs it frequently. She had been having trouble breathing and went to the school office for help. The principal assessed her as being in distress and decided to give her a dose of epinephrine from her Epipen and send for help. He boldly administered the Epipen and realized that he had it backwards! As his thumb started to swell and he started having a reaction to the epinephrine, he was the one who went to the hospital for help. Both the student and the principal are now fine but he will have to listen to repeated advice from others ("hey, next time, pointy end down", etc.) for a long time, I'm afraid.

It was warm enough in the sunshine this afternoon to sit in my rocking chair in the sunroom. Harrison is happy that spring is almost here as this is his very favorite place to hang out. He can keep an eye on the birds and enjoy the sunbeams. The second picture is what Robbie thought of me playing with the camera instead of playing with him.

The south side of our home backs onto a large city park with a creek and biking trails winding through it. It's lovely even in the winter but most beautiful when the trees have leafed out and the birds are singing. Out of the sunroom, past where Harrison is lounging, is a hot tub that my husband Dan uses daily.

SO SICK!

No knitting or anything else is being done. I'm so sick that being vertical is a challenge. The doctors think it's influenza or possibly strep. I don't think that I've been this sick before. Yuck!

Here's another school giggle. It was supplied by the same child from the "I got lucky" story below. This kid is a keeper for sure! He's one of those that you could take home with you. My job-sharing partner Nikki was subbing for me one afternoon and was playing the Millionaire game with the leader-student-of-the-day. The Millionaire game is my version of TV's 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?'. The leader gets 3 questions and is allowed 2 lifelines: Ask the Audience and Ask A Friend. The option to Walk Away is also offered. Getting all 3 questions correct earns them 3 small prizes (usually stickers). It's a great way to reinforce skills, particularly math skills, and it lets me individualize the questions to the student's level. It's important that you understand that we also have "Chances" in our classroom. These are little slips of paper that students can earn for doing pretty much anything that we like. They fill out their names and put them into a draw for prizes. The draw happens once a week and the kids really, really like to earn Chances. But I digress.

During another student's Millionaire questions, this little guy went up to Nikki and quietly said, "3 chances says that she gets this one." Nikki said that she wasn't going to bet with him about the outcome of the Millionaire game. He replied, "All I'm saying is, think about it" and he sauntered back to his desk as she smothered a laugh. Not sure where he got that idea at his age!

You know, teaching may be a tough job, but it's never boring!

It's been like Christmas around here! My Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece yarn came in the mail on Friday and my Elann order showed up today. The Cotton Fleece is very pretty. It's Candy Apple - a lovely dark blue-red. I swatched it last night and my hands hurt but I'm not sure it was from the knitting as I spent the weekend grooming my dogs so my hands could have hurt from that. At least that's what I'm hoping as I find the cotton much more wearable than wool. I've washed the swatch and am waiting for it to dry so that I can check the gauge.

The Elann order contained two books that I've been waiting for: Viking Patterns for Knitting by Elsebeth Lavold and the Harmony Guide of Aran Stitches and Patterns. So many things to knit, so little time...

Well, March came in like a lion with a storm in Saskatchewan so it had better go out like a lamb! I think we would all like spring to come soon.

I haven't done much knitting this week. I've been too tired to pick it up by the end of the day and I've learned not to knit when I'm tired or I just have to spend twice the time the next day to fix the mistakes. I wasn't too tired to shop online though ; ) I placed a large order with Elann for some more Addi turbo circulars, a couple of books, and the Stitch and Motif Maker software. The orders always come so soon from Elann that my box of goodies should show up early next week. A blocking board that I ordered from the states from a PayPal vendor came and it's beautiful! I had to pay duty but it was worth it. I still haven't seen the Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece yarn that I ordered from a different PayPal vendor in the states yet but I did receive an email that it had been sent so I'm sure it will show up one of these days. I got it for a very good price although I may have to pay duty on it too which will make it a less good price. I have to admit that I love shopping for knitting supplies this way but it's effortless and so much fun that it could get dangerous to the pocketbook.

Update photo of the FLAK project. As you can see, the back is looking very nice so far. I wish that I had more time to work on it as it's quite addicting.

The weather hasn't been co-operative for taking good pictures the last few days and it's supposed to cloud over and bring rain/sleet/snow later today so I took the picture quickly when I saw a little sunbeam coming through the window. The sunbeam happened to be on the kitchen floor and the dogs thought this game was wonderful as I kept pushing them out of the way because they were creating shadows on the sunbeam. I think I was lucky to get a picture before Robbie snatched the knitting and took off with it!

Knitting late last night and realized that I had miscrossed a cable in the middle horseshoe a couple of rows back.

I decided that I would try to correct just the cable instead of "knitting backwards". I got out the Brittany double points, laddered down the four stitches, recrossed the cable, and knitted it back up.

This might not be a big deal for other people but it was huge feat for me and deserving of a celebration! Thanks to Janet and the posters on the FLAK list for giving great suggestions and pictures for this strategy!

I have a couple of teacher anecdotes. Both of them are from colleagues.

A teacher was working with her class to improve their language as many students were sprinkling their conversations with crude words. She was marking compositions and noticed that one fellow had written, "They were walking in the forest bum had trouble seeing as the trees made it pretty dark in there." She called the student over and asked him to reread his writing to see if he wanted to change anything. He read it and said, "No. It's good." The teacher then read his writing aloud to him to see if he could hear a problem. "No. It's good." She then told him that the word bum didn't make any sense in the sentence. He said, "But I thought it was more polite to say bum than butt."

Another teacher was supervising recess on the playground when some kindergarten students came running to her to report that some grade two kids were saying "swears". When asked what words were the problem, the kindergartens said, "Ooh, they were saying the X-E-X word!"

This is our newest addition to the family. His name is Robbie, WillowGlyn Serengeti Nights. Robbie is a very mischievous black tri sheltie. The baby picture was taken last summer. The picture below was taken in November. Robbie grew too big for the show ring (he went a fraction of an inch oversize) so is being trained in obedience.

















Our only Bichon left is Poke, multi group and puppy group placing Can CH Ajax's Amazing Hocus Pocus. Pocus is 8 years old and his main job in life is keeping the shelties in line. Unlike the shelties, Poke likes to pose for the camera : )







And, finally, we have Harrison, WillowGlyn Patriot Games. It's hard to get a good picture of Harrison unless he's sleeping as he is usually running around the back yard. Harrison is 5 years old. He didn't enjoy training classes and is content as a house dog and a walk-in-the-park dog. As you can see in this picture, Harrison is also a blue merle but he is a powdery blue color compared to Austin's darker markings (that's Austin being the chase-ee).

These are pictures of a couple of things that have been on the needles recently. The first pic is of a start on an Aran sweater back using Sirdar Denim Sport Aran yarn and pattern. After swatching for the FLAK I realized that I hadn't swatched carefully enough for this sweater and it is much too small. I am definitely not a loose knitter! I'll have to decide whether to redo it or choose another pattern. The stitch definition looks pretty good in this picture but not as good in reality. I may look for a pattern with bolder cables.

The second pic is of the FLAK project so far. The yarn is Elann Peruvian Highland in Victorian Rose.

Here are a couple of pictures of Austin, BIS UKC Ch and multiple group placing CKC Ch WillowGlyn Oh Behave. He is my current show dog. Austin is a 2 1/2 year old blue merle Shetland Sheepdog with the sweetest temperament. He loves the show ring and is always owner-handled.

A new beginning....

This is truly a new beginning as I have never made a blog or website before. I will share my thoughts and experiences as a teacher, a dog enthusiast, and a knitter.

I have been teaching for more than 25 years. This year, I'm teaching a grade 2 and 3 class in the afternoons. Most of the time, it's a very rewarding yet challenging career. I will share the experiences that make the job worthwhile and tickle my funny bone.

My dogs are a huge part of my life. I am currently owned by a Bichon and 3 Shelties. I train and show my dogs but I don't breed them as I have decided I am temperamentally unsuited to selling puppies. I think that the dog obsession is a genetic flaw; you either have it or you don't. When I was a child, I prayed every night for a puppy until my mother finally relented. My dad also had the dog gene and I'm sure he helped my cause. I thank my wonderful husband for his support of my hobby over the years. He even cheerfully dog sits when I go to shows!

The knitting is a new pursuit. I was looking for a way to lessen stress to help with my ongoing battle with fibromyalgia and diabetes. As I couldn't really picture myself meditating, I decided to take up knitting. I'm glad I did! I have been enjoying it to no end. I had dabbled in knitting before but my mom was a prolific knitter and when I got frustrated or bored with a project I would just it hand it to mom to finish so never really learned much. I also crochet and I used to do a lot of counted cross stitch but I'm finding the knitting much more challenging and rewarding. I'm not into the novelty yarns; I much prefer cable work. I found the FLAK project and dove in. I haven't done much of the sweater yet but I have learned so much from the FLAK yahoo group and my swatching. Knitting seems to be the perfect activity for those days when I don't have very much energy for more physical pursuits which happen more often than not this winter because of the fibromyalgia.

I live in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in the heart of the prairies. We have had a strange winter this year. We had a few cold days at the end of November but December and January were very mild. Last week, winter hit with a vengeance as the wind chill values were close to -50 C! We were so spoiled by December and January that people were kind of wimpy about the cold and we forgot what winter usually feels like in Saskatchewan. I figure that every nice day is one less cold day that we'll have to endure this winter. At least in February the days are longer so it seems easier to deal with the cold when there's more daylight.

One of these days I will get out the camera and post some pics of my FLAK project and dig around in the computer for some dog pics too.

I'll end with one of my favorite conversations with a student recently. A boy came up to me and said, "Know what? I got lucky last night." My response to this: "You did?" "Yep," he said. "I got to go to Chuck E. Cheese."