birthdays, designing, and general busyness

As always, I'm busier than I've ever been in my life.  Alex is starting the CAITS program next Friday to help with his behavior issues.  Dante is having his follow up with the psychiatrist, and is still regularly seeing the clinician.  Wednesday was Alexander's birthday (he turned 4), and tomorrow he'll have a couple friends over to eat cake and play outside with him and his new tee-ball set.  I start my new classes on Wednesday and I'm not entirely sure what I've gotten myself into with this particular set of classes.  My research methods class is sure to bore me to death (and therefore be tough to get through) and my statistic class came with three books (two the size of a phone book), and a DVD...so I'm seeing a ton of work with this one.

Meanwhile, I've been knitting a shawl for my friend Garner's wedding as I won't be able to attend.  It's actually for his bride, but you get the idea.  I'm knitting Jared Flood's Bridgewater shawl because it's lovely, and this can double as a blanket for their first child.  I think it's got the potential to be an heirloom piece.  It's not the most fun to knit right now (with a large center square of garter stitch) but I've made it to the decrease portion and it should pick up speed from here.  Next comes the actual lace.  Hopefully I can finish it before the wedding on the 15th, and get it in the mail...because I didn't really think about it until about the 30th of May.  I've known about this wedding for 6 months, and I wait until I've got 15 days to decide to knit a lace shawl as a wedding gift.  I must love pressure.

I'm also having some trouble sticking to the shawl right now, because I've dreamed up a beautiful and delicate mitten pattern that I can't say too much about right now, but I'll share when the sample is worked up.  It's going to be pretty, and there isn't anything like this out right now (to the best of my knowledge after scrubbing a three digit number's worth of Ravelry project pages).  I really want to start swatching, but I can't afford to take time away from the shawl.  When I'm not knitting, I'm reading Shutter Island, which a customer of the shop gave to me.  I really wanted to read it, haven't been able to find it in the library or in stores, and she had a copy she was willing to lend to me.  When I went into work, she wrote an inscription inside and gifted it to me.  It was a really sweet gift and I'm totally into the book right now.  I'm really having a hard time not feeling guilty that I should be reading the first chapters of my text books right now, but this book is just too good and I only get to read something non-school related once every 10 weeks. 

School is getting harder as I go along (who would have thought!...) and I'm working more and more these days.  It's just getting to be tough to balance it all.  If things continue, I might need to see about letting go of Saturdays for a little bit, or alternating with Denise because I just don't have the time to take care of family stuff, do school work, and work as many days in the shop as I've been doing lately.  And totally off topic here, but I think I need to knit myself a stole.  I've got my Raggedy Ann & Andy quilt draped around my shoulders like a stole to keep the chill off my arms and I'm extremely comfortable, but I'd really like to be able to stick a pin in it and keep is closed.  I guess the time's come.

Well, back to knitting and watching Alice in Wonderland (for the 4th time since yesterday).  This is quite possible one of the best adaptations I've ever seen, and I've seen lots of them...I love Alice in Wonderland.