I picked up some chocolate today and am MUCH more coherent. I think yesterday sucked mostly due to the weather, but the lack of chocolate was NOT helping.
We did have cocoa, but I don't consider that chocolate. It's GOOD, but it's never gonna soothe me like a bar of chocolate would.
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The Goober is learning to read. She's now decided she WANTS to read, and we've gotten further since Monday now that she's in the mood, than in any given three month period since she was born. We're doing flash cards, working on 'sight words'. You know, the words you should recognize on sight without sounding out. Now that I'm teaching the kid, I'm realizing I read almost entirely by sight words and context; I can remember a whopping two phonics rules learned over forty-two years of life. It looks like the Goober's going the same way. She can't remember phonics rules to save her life. So, fine, I'll just hammer it into her the hard way. It's not nearly so hard now that she WANTS to learn.
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Today I acquired a Vogue Knitting. There've been MANY requests for me to do another discussion of modeling poses and draw all over the pictures, so that's what I'm doing. But that takes at least one more day of prep work, so patience, all.
There are some REALLY pretty cable-knits in this issue. If they were in Interweave, I think they'd become instant classics like Owls or Tangled Yoke, but there's a big disconnect between people buying Vogue Knitting and people actually knitting stuff out of it. (Srsly. Go do a Rav search; there's almost nothing by VK in the first dozen pages of most popular patterns. Even allowing for the idea that more offline knitters knit Vogue patterns than other magazines', that's strange.) At any rate, if I hadn't sworn this year to get serious about designing more, I'd be sorely tempted to knit some of these.
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It snowed today. A lot. I am horrified by how badly people drive in snow around here. They can't ALL have grown up in Florida.
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I finished the first of the Cat Bordhi socks; I'll get a photo as soon as possible. I celebrated the finish by buying more sock yarn. Gotta quit that. It's getting ridiculous, even if I AM actually finishing socks.
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13 comments:
Florida people are good drivers in the snow because they are mostly from up North. We live here because we used to drive in the snow and shovel snow and we got smart and left. Now when we go back we carefully avoid the northerners who think they know everything about snow and ice.
LOL-- it's weird how sock yarn accrues like dust buffalo... seriously-- it just seems to multiply! And yeah-- Squish isn't inclined to learn yet-- that's why I'm siccing her on public school... I'm not proud, but I think it'll work.
Emergency chocolate fix when you have cocoa is the 2 minute microwave fudge!
My kiddo is a sight-reader, too. Has NO patience for sounding things out, and often rushes through and gets words mixed up (as in replacing the word in tghe sentence with another, similar, word.) Often hilarious, as the context changes SO MUCH!
I didn't learn to drive in the snow and ice properly, even though I've lived in Michigan most of my life, until I visited the Upper Peninsula in the dead of winter. I learned fast. Especially after having my vehicle pulled out of the 4' snowbank where I slid sideways while parked in the driveway...oops. Learned how to get myself out of all kinds of situations I never should have gotten into in the first place. And how to avoid those situations, but not nearly as well as I should have.
It's the sort of winter you can tell the grandkids about.
Hooray for the Goober for learning to read! So much handier to read for yourself, rather than try to find someone to read to you.
That's very interesting about the vogue patterns. Do you have any thoughts on that? The one or two VK patterns I've knitted in my 12 years of knitting were riddled with errors. Is that the reason why?
Phyllis
:)
We have no real chocolate except for a bag of chips which will become cookies today since I have another snow day.
I don't think I've made anything out of VK. I'm afraid of the many errors and that I won't catch them and get frustrated.
I'm so happy chocolate does it for you!!!
Every year, every flippin' year, my mantra is that its just snow people and I am appalled how people forget how to drive in it. I was I-71N heading into Cleveland and the accident waiting to happen was driving in front of me. The freeway was wet. Not snow covered, not icy, just wet and she was going 35 mph in the high speed lane. I digress.
My kids did both sight/phonics. My DH teaches 2nd grade and has taught 1st (for 12 years). He said that phonics is not the rules but the sounding out, which I point out to him doesn't explain why people in different parts of the old US of A, all talk differently . . .
I look forward to your Vogue commentary. Always enjoyable.
I have never knitted anything from a vogue and I subscribed for quite a few years.
Kathryn's school do the whole phonics thing. In fact I think the whole school system here does it, and all the books and so on are written assuming phonics. She's got a class mate who's about the same level as her, though and they both compete to see who can be moved up to the next box of books first. They're both improving in leaps and bounds and are the top two of the class. Never thought I'd actually be happy with her competitiveness.
Cocoa does not count as chocolate. Good luck with the reading. The big plus is she wants to.
Chilton manuals would be great fun for decoding practice.
may i suggest a large dollop of dr. seuss? "one fish two fish red fish blue fish," "the cat in the hat" and "green eggs and ham" are so much fun. i've read them with three generations now -- little sis, dd and grandgirl, all of whom adored them. so did dyslexic ds.
they're phonics-based, but they're also good sight-words. and unlike some of his later works for slightly older kids, they're not full of made-up words -- no sneeches and loraxes for the littlest readers.
chances are that the goober will catch onto decoding at some point soon, and then there'll be no stopping her. for now, just let reading be fun. cuddle up on the couch and read to each other. (yes, her "reading" will be memorized at first, but confidence is a big part of the battle, according to my tutor-training.)
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