My mind, and the places it goes

-- Bad word choice or the AP making a subtle joke? Belgians continuing to "waffle" over their government.

-- Philosophy from my juice drink (courtesy of mishloach manot): "Don't worry if your tasks are small and rewards are few, remember that the mighty oak was once a nut like you."

-- Muffin and Squeaker are adding to their word list very quickly, though they don't always choose the right word. Our babysitter uses "woogie" as a term for what I call a ponytail holder/ponytail elastic, and when Muffin wants one, she asks for a "pengin." "Pengin" is also what she uses for "penguin."

-- This year's big Pesach cleaning related task? Hunt down all the Cheerios. it's the Great Cheerio Hunt, Charlie Brown!

-- And speaking of Pesach... Dear weather, today is Rosh Chodesh Nissan, the beginning of the month containing the "Holiday of Spring." D'you think maybe we can stop with the wintry weather? Thanks.

-- Hooray for sewing skills. For under $17, I made two sets of blackout curtains for the girls' room, whereas each set of curtains is "on sale" online for $38.

-- Last night I knit a banana. Pictures once I've taken them. Now looking for other food oddities to knit, since the girls now have a play kitchen but as yet limited food.

-- Chodesh tov, everyone! In 14 days, let's all give tiny-tiny packages of food to one another, read one chapter of Megillat Esther, get vaguely tipsy, and give minimal amounts of tzedakah to people. :-)

-- Welcome to all the new folks around here. Any questions, feel free to ask. Things are odd around here on most days, filled with random ramblings about knitting, language, food, or all of the above.

-- OK, so, after being convinced by multiple folks, I have a Ravelry account. Now what do I do with it?

-- Because of a conversation with eireangus in madknits' comments, I've been thinking a lot about my frumkeit and my religious lifestyle. There may be some thinky posts coming up on that and related subjects.

-- Anyone out there who sews: Is there any (relatively straightforward) way to replace the little plastic doohicky that holds the two parts of a bra strap together (other than, say, a safety pin)? Every way I can think of requires more effort than I'm thinking this is worth.

-- I did the first half of my Shabbat cooking yesterday. I think this is the earliest in the week I've ever started Shabbat cooking. On Thursday night, I'll do the rest of it.

-- I took the quiz at glassbooth.org, and I'm not sure I agree with their assessment of who I should vote for. It's an oddly limited number of questions they ask, which makes assessing my politics (which lean fiscally conservative but socially liberal) really hard.

-- I keep planning posts in my head, but for one reason or another they don't seem to make it to the screen.

-- I owe at least one person a language poll; I'll try to get it done by the end of the weekend, if not before.

-- Speaking of the screen, mabfan and I finally got our anniversary gift of the full series of Stargate: SG-1 on DVD. We've been checking each DVD to make sure it plays well. This tends to mean running through the eps on fast-forward, but I've been stopping to rewatch random episodes here and there. I'm up to season 4, so last night I rewatched "Small Victories," "Crossroads," "Divide and Conquer," "Chain Reaction," and "2010" (mabfan was out at Town Meeting, and I was crawling around on the living room floor).

-- Why was I crawling around on the floor last night? Well... it has to do with those things one learns from one's parents that one does even when one feels like a goofball doing so. I am making lcmlc a skirt, and when she first taught me to sew (when I was about 14 or so), she taught me the value of ironing the paper pattern pieces before cutting. She also taught me the value of Do-Sew or the functional equivalent, and since my best cutting surface is our living room floor, I was crawling around tracing out the pattern pieces in the proper size for lcmlc and then cutting out the resulting pieces. Tonight, I'll preshrink the fabric and (with luck) cut it out.

A friend of mine is trying to find someone to make her some clothing. My friend will supply the fabric and pattern plus pay for any notions needed and will pay, as well, a fee for the sewing itself.

Anyone out there know of anyone in the metro Boston area who fits the bill?