Q&A!

Allison asks: "Do you live out in the country or in a suburb? Your mother-in-law lives on a farm, and you can drive over for Thanksgiving... I can do the math! :) And I have felt nosey asking. So... that is what I would ask. Country or city? Southern or northern California? (get ready... after that I'll be asking things like: Do you make your kids home-made breakfast or is it cereal?)."

We live in a small, 25 year old housing development on the outskirts of our nearly 340,000 population city in Southern California - about 2 hours north of Los Angeles. Our house is technically in the county, so we don't have to deal with all the city laws and such. Our little area is nice and open, so I don't feel suffocated, but we are within a few minutes of every convenience you could want. Being that we are in the county, we are zoned for 12 small animals so one day when I can convince Ben (read: hell freezes over), we'll have sheep and goats!  We can get to my mother-in-law's house in 11 minutes (I timed it once), and the funny thing is even though she lives on a farm she's smack dab in the middle of the city now. It's come up to envelope them.

Oh and I feed my kids hot breakfast most of the time, like eggs and oatmeal. It sticks to them better, puts them in a better mood, they don't cry for more food in 30 minutes, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than boxed cereal. ;)

From Beyond My Kitchen Window asks: "Because I admire your talent so, I would like to ask you this question. Who taught you to knit?"

My mom is the one who originally taught me the basics of knitting, around age 8. I learned to cast on and do the knit stitch. I knit off and on over the years, and picked it up again just before I started dating my husband. I had always just knit huge garter stitch blankets (advice: learn about gauge!) because all I knew was knit stitch. When we became pregnant with our twins I found a pattern book for baby things in the grocery store, of all places. I bought it, and then spent many frustrating, tear filled (hormonal) hours trying to figure out how to make a stupid purl stitch. After searching and searching the internet I finally found a video on how to do it (yarn goes in front, if you're wondering). I completed a checkered blanket and fell so deeply in love with this new facet of knitting, knowing a whole new world had opened up, that I can't stop now. It would be like tearing out my soul. I've taught myself everything else since then, via books, internet, or just trying, and love learning new techniques.

Allison asks: "I was just thinking about you and wondering how in the world you find a day to knit because your house is already clean... (previous post). How do you do it?"

Let me start off by saying: I have apparently done a good job in fooling you all! Muahaha! Having a clean house and a day to knit doesn't happen all the time.

A lot of times I'll forgo the cleaning (or do the bare minimum) and just knit. Especially in the winter when I have no drive to do anything but my favorite activity. But it's fairly easy for me because I keep a pretty clean house in the first place. Messes get cleaned up as they go, we make the kids pick up their toys every evening, the kitchen gets cleaned (almost) every night after dinner, etc.

So come Monday I usually just run through and vacuum, wipe down the bathrooms, clean the toilets, all that. And I can get all that done while the laundry washes. My motivation is that when I'm done I can knit, so that keeps me moving pretty fast. ;)

Thanks you two, that was fun! Anyone have more questions?

Meg