My niece once mistakenly referred to my migraines as “migrations.” I think that’s the first time I ever *really* laughed about these awful, debilitating headaches. Luckily, I haven’t had a migration in months and was feeling cocky. Wouldn’t you know it, though, one took hold last week and I am only now starting to feel better. Consequently, I’ve been spending the day catching up on my chores, like laundry and dishes, and haven’t had much time for the fun stuff.

I did, however, venture into the kitchen last night and made a roast beef. It looked and smelled divine.

The vegetables were divine. The meat was tough and stringy. A major disappointment!

While I was spending so much time propped up in my favorite armchair, I decided to work on a secret project for my mother. A couple of years ago, she had fallen in love with a sweater she saw at one of my local yarn shops. It’s a Norwegian design (Dale Tiur 11103), but I can’t find a picture of the finished item anywhere on the internet. It’s fairly traditional. It’s covered with eight-point stars and a pair of stags strut across the front of the cardi. Here’s the tiny bit I’ve done so far:

It’s going to be a MAJOR challenge for me. All that color knitting on tiny needles, cutting steeks… My tension is uneven around the hem, but I just can’t bring myself to unravel it all and start over, so I’m forging onward. I’m getting better at it with every round I knit. By the end of this project, I’ll be (a) totally insane and (b) a much better color knitter.

Thank you for all of the positive vibes you sent our way for Sam’s surgery yesterday. It went very well and he’s healing up faster than I can believe. He actually wanted to ride his bike yesterday evening. Sadly, I had to tell him “no,” since he’s not supposed to do anything very physical for 4-5 days afterwards. The next few days are going to be a challenge–in a very good way. I’m glad he’s not feeling listless or sick–and we still have a full bottle of the pain medicine.

I finished my third Stitchette (the girl with the umbrella):

I plan on stitching one more…and then…what? I’m not sure what to do with them. A throw pillow? A wall hanging? Frame them?

I also finished slogging through a set of photos I took at a wedding we attended last week. Claire was one of five flower girls. They were all very pretty and made the celebration really fun with their antics.

I wish we were able to take life at a slower pace these last few days before school starts, but we’ve got a very full agenda. The most important thing we have on our list is Sam’s surgery tomorrow. He has to undergo another round of treatment for his hearing problem. The tubes that were inserted a little over a year ago have worked their way out and his hearing has become significantly poorer since then. He’s also going to have his adenoids removed, which should help decrease the number of infections he gets in that area. I hate that my baby has to go through all of this, but hopefully, it will help him. He doesn’t want to be struggling to hear things in the classroom–it makes that already challenging environment even more difficult for him.

Of course, we had to get all of our school shopping done. The kids are now fully outfitted and supplied. Usually, I’d take Sam in for a haircut, but the short summer ‘do he got a month ago is still in good shape. Claire is the one who needed serious help with her hair. It had grown very, very long and was prone to tangling in the worst dread-locky sort of way. If she were a tougher kid, I wouldn’t mind combing it every day, but our daily sessions had turned into torture sessions. She agreed to having it cut much, much shorter.

Here’s the Long of It:

And the Short of It:

Pretty darn sassy, no?

In the middle of getting everything in order for the surgery, and taking care of all our chores, I’ve been working on a cute little jumper for Claire:

My goal is to use up a lot of fabric that’s just uselessly occupying space in my closet. The problem is, I often don’t have enough of things to use them without some fancy piecework. This jumper is going to have some unusual seams. I hope they won’t detract from the overall cute-factor or wearability-factor. We’ll see…

I’m also packing up a few things to keep me busy in the hospital tomorrow. I think I might take a little embroidery project to work on: