Lettvint

Today was one of those days that we live for out here on Nesodden: 20+ degrees celsius, glorious sun and soft breezes. We were outside almost all day. KE needed a little break so he walked down to the marina for the first fishing of the year. He came home with a nice little cod:

We're not huge fans of cod (KE was hoping for mackerel) so I just made an improvised fish soup out of what we happened to have in the vegetable bin, which is to say onion, parsnip, potato, a little tomato, and a little spinach:

Turned out pretty good, actually.

I tried a couple of times to get going on the lace curtain for the bathroom but I just couldn't get the lace pattern to come out right. I wasn't super committed to the pattern anyway, so I gave up and ripped it out. I've been having the urge to crochet for the past few days, so I decided it was time for a really basic crochet project from Helt enkelt hekling. Tove Fevang gives patterns for dishrags using different crochet stitches. Each one has a different edging, which of course you can mix and match. I think I have enough of the Louet Euroflax to make three dishrags. I went for the easiest possible pattern first, since I was feeling incompetent after the lace curtain failure. Here's the end result:

It's the plainest of things, so I staged it on one of our rag rugs to keep the snapshot from being too boring. The rag is about 50 stitches of plain single crochet, edged with one row of single crochet and one row of what Fevang calls "krepsemaske" (crayfish or crustacean stitch). It makes a very firm edge.

In a moment of brilliance (if I do say so myself) I decided I could probably find a piece of old lace that would fit the bathroom window from my stash. I inherited a big stack of doilies from my great grandmother. I have no idea who made it all, unfortunately. As luck would have it, there actually was a table runner in exactly the right size:

It's a great old piece of crocheted lace, with the medallions crocheted separately, then joined with motifs in between. The beige color looks great with the unfinished wood window frame. Unfortunately some of the motifs between the medallions are coming apart. Not sure I know how to fix them, but for now this works perfectly and KE will no longer feel embarrassed when he's in the shower (I'm too short to be seen).

Just a couple of tasks to complete at work tomorrow, then it's packing, and away we go, off to the states. KE's nephew will be staying in our house while we're gone, which is very reassuring.

Lysere tider

I finished the garter stitch "square" for the Bridgewater shawl, and it is the wonkiest thing I've ever seen. I have finally decided to just throw the whole thing out. I hate the color and I obviously shouldn't have switched from straight to circular needles halfway through, since it seriously affected my gauge. I know I will definitely knit this pattern, as I absolutely love it, but just this once I'm going to splurge and get the perfect yarn for it instead of making do. I've seen some spectacular versions of this on Ravelry in various warm grays, so I'm aiming for that. It will be fun to look for the perfect lace weight yarn while in San Francisco, Eugene, and Seattle. In the meantime, KE has been nagging me to knit a small curtain for the bathroom window, so I started that last night, though I only made it to four rows.  It's a free pattern from Knit Picks called "Dappled Lace Café Curtain." I'm using Euroflax in a color that I think is called Oatmeal.

The last few nights I've been going to bed right after I tuck E in, since I've been so tired from work. Today we finally finished up the marathon of oral exams (four full days!). I am so impressed with our students--at least the Norwegian ones. It was sheer delight to hear some of them talk about film in such nuanced and engaged oral presentations. I have one more day of major paper grading, then I think I'm done and can go on vacation with a clear conscience.

E seems to be in much better shape. I think he has really enjoyed being home with pappa, and KE has been doing a great job of adjusting to being full-time dad now that E is out of preschool. I'm hoping that a summer of lots and lots of close family contact will help with the issues E is struggling with. I hope we can all be kinder and more sensitive to and supportive of each other over the next few months.

In between all the grading and exams I've been sneaking a little time to read up on Henrik Anker Bjerregaard and his drama, Et Fjeldeventyr, which is the subject of my next conference paper (in August). I am getting really excited about the topic. I think it's going to be a fun paper, if I can just squeeze it in somehow.

Barnepsykologi

We're still struggling here in the Kverulantinnen household. I'm kind of at the end of my rope, and I think E has really been having a tough time dealing with the rambunctious kids in his preschool group. I'm not sure if he's being picked on. He definitely hasn't been very happy there. Thankfully today was his last day. The teachers put together a nice collage of pictures and a portfolio with his artwork. It will be a long summer--he won't start in the Steiner preschool until 16 August.

He's at a stage where no matter what we do it's wrong. If I try to help him with a zipper he yells at me for interfering, and if I don't help him he yells at me for not helping. He's been wetting the bed almost every night. I've been getting up at the crack of dawn and carrying him into the bathroom to pee, but even so sometimes when I go in to get him at 4:45 or 5:00 or whatever he has already peed. The very worst thing though is that he seems so unhappy with himself. If he feels that he's being criticized he just kind of falls apart.

I feel terrible seeing him struggling with self-worth, perfectionism, and maybe even depression. It's a horrible feeling as a parent. For some reason my response this past week has been a kind of paralysis. I feel so bad about it that I can't focus. KE and I try to give him as much positive feedback as possible, but I know we are hypercritical, even when we make a concerted effort not to be. We are both so uptight about so many things. Sometimes it feels like all E hears all day is "no." That can't be good for a kid, especially one with hypercritical and perfectionist tendencies. It saddens me to think of how tough things are going to be for him emotionally, basically for the rest of his life.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a biological mix of KE and me would turn out neurotic, but I wasn't prepared for the sense of responsibility and sadness that I feel about it.

Det sømmer seg

This was a hard week. I was feeling pretty down, and the whole household was fairly cranky, plus I had to inflict oral exams on my students, with more to come next week. Let me just say how much I despise assigning grades, on principle. I especially hate doing it face to face. Shudder. Only three more days.

I got most of my bad mood worked out this morning over breakfast, and am feeling like I can face the world again now (though I did eat an entire package of Pringles as my "lunch" while reading a MA thesis today, so it's not like I'm all that functional...).

I had to send off a FedEx package to the US today, and it turns out the only place that accepts them is Mailboxes Etc. in downtown Oslo, and since I had to get it dropped off before three o'clock, I left work early and did some shopping. I bought a guide to San Francisco. We'll be staying there for three days on our way to Eugene. I'm so excited to show E and KE around, since neither of them have been there before, and my mouth is positively watering over the prospect of decent Asian food again. Finally. It has been far too long. I would say Asian food is hands down the thing I miss the most about the US.

I also acquired a new helper. Meet Jack, my (seam) ripper:

Notice the little droplet of blood on the spike (kidding, really). For some reason my sewing machine didn't come with one of these, so I finally remembered to stop by Sømsenteret and pick one up. I'm thrilled with it (and very easily amused). I didn't know what it was called in Norwegian so I had to ask, and it's a sprettekniv, not to be confused with a sprettkniv, which turns out to be a variant of springkniv, which is to say a switchblade. Glad to get that terminology sorted out.

I immediately started ripping out the seams of some linen clothes I have that don't fit very well. I thought I might be able to use the fabric to make some of the projects in Akiko Mano's Linen Wool Cotton, which finally arrived the other day:

I have been letting my plans to do more machine sewing peter out, but I'm hoping the arrival of this book will get me started again. In the meantime, though, I'm still plodding away at the Bridgewater shawl. I'm still really enjoying knitting the central square, though it got caught on something, leaving a gaping, sickening hole that I'm not sure I can ever fully repair.

Brovann?

For some reason I wasn't very motivated to launch into knitting the front of the brown aran sweater, even though I'm pleased with the way the back turned out. I decided I needed a little mindless knitting as a break. I toyed around with a couple of different projects before I decided to go with my first project from Jared Flood's Made in Brooklyn. Even though Bridgewater has a very difficult knitted on border (well over 600 stitches around), the body of the shawl is plain garter stitch. I figured I could just work on that part, then put it aside for a while. I love it because you start by casting on one lonely stitch, then increase row by row all the way to 205, then decrease row by row all the way back down to one stitch again. No casting off at all--how totally cool.

So far I'm up to a little over 130 stitches. If you recognize the yarn, it's because I've tried knitting these three skeins of Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud (in the color called Stream) twice before, once as a Reversable Ribbed Cable Stole and once as a Whisper Cardigan. I ended up hating both of them. It may be that it's just the color that I'm not happy with. It's actually less intense and slightly darker than it looks on my screen right now (don't know about your screen, of course), but I'm discovering that I'm not as much of a fan of blue as I used to think. I do like how the lace weight yarn is knitting up in garter stitch on 3.75mm needles, though.

Sakte men sikkert

This is a three-day weekend in Norway because we're supposed to commemorate the day on which the holy spirit entered the disciples of Jesus. We haven't exactly been doing that here in the Kverulantinnen household, but we have been trying to relax. E has the highest energy level I have ever seen in him. He wakes up early, ready to yell and run around, and doesn't stop until he falls asleep two hours after his bedtime. The kid just doesn't stop!

Meanwhile, I'm trying to make it through all of André Bjerke's crime fiction in preparation for evaluating a MA thesis. So far I've read Nattemennesket (1941), De dødes tjern (1942), Døde menn går i land (1947), and Skjult mønster (1950). The thesis is actually primarily about the late novel Enhjorningen (1969), which is next on my list, obviously. So far, much to my delight, cabins and summer houses play an important role in the first four, which confirms my suspicion that Bjerke needs to be in my cabin book. I have a definite preference for the two with Bernhard Borge as the narrator. He's such a fop and a perfect foil for psychoanalyst-detective extraordinaire Kai Bugge.

I've been plugging away at the aran sweater. Yesterday I finally finished the back. It feels like it took forever. According to my project page on Ravelry, I started on 9 May. At this rate I won't be done until the end of August. I suppose that's a good thing, since I strictly speaking don't need any more sweaters! ETA a much better snapshot of the back being blocked:

I'm pleasantly surprised with how it has turned out. I didn't think I would like it, for some reason. It makes me really anxious for the Jamieson & Smith yarn to arrive so I can start working on Fulmar. I'm not entirely convinced it will actually ever arrive.

ETA: We found out a couple of days ago that one of our elderly next door neighbors died this spring, and that her husband has been moved to a nursing home. KE was talking with their son, who has to sell because he and his sister are in a dispute and can't work out a compromise. I have to admit, we're both very tempted to try to buy the place. It's a very funky old house that has been added on to rather willy-nilly over the years. It has a pretty spectacular lot, almost twice as big as ours, with an annex a cool old stone stairway and a very strange stone root cellar. We've actually had our eyes on a different old house in the neighborhood for years, but with the news that this one would be coming on the market, we got very excited. I think I'm going to go to the bank and get a reality check this week. We should do that any way, so that we can be well positioned in case the other house becomes available. It's better to know exactly where we stand than to expend endless amount of energy fantasizing about something that isn't realistic...

Vel overstått

Hurra! Happy constitution day. The weather held today, and we had fun watching the local parade, eating at the Steiner school (hot dogs, ice cream, pop corn, and cake!), and hanging out at our neighbors' annual syttende mai party. The kids loved hanging out in their wood fired hot tub, and since most of the people there had been at last year's party too, we actually had people to socialize with (as opposed to the après-dugnad party on Saturday).The food was great, and even though I'm tired I'm not decimated and drained. Maybe I can handle this socializing thing after all?