The Goober!

Let's talk something positive, huh? This blog is starting to read like next I'm going to fake my own death or start asking donations so we can shoot Sekhmet's ashes into space. (Which would actually be cool. But let's be serious.)

Right.

The Goob started "real school" this fall.

Yes, that's an Angry Birds back pack. There's a matching lunch box.

She's thriving, but not learning shit. Apparently, that home-schooling thing everyone was worried about? She got a perfect score on her reading placement test and is pretty well sleeping through, phoning in assignments, and pulling down As.

This is EXACTLY what I did not want to happen. (It's what I did, and my study habits, by the time I got to a level where I needed them, were non-existent.) There's a parent-teacher conference November something, and we'll talk. The gifted student program doesn't 'start' until second grade, and the only thing I can see to truly challenge her is to move her into second grade now, and that seems pretty drastic to me.

Essentially, all the shit I worried about, with the school stuff? It's happening. GLORIOUS.

Yes, yes, I know, I get lots of talk about "enrich at home" and we do. But school should be more than being warehoused for seven hours. I still think she should be learning THERE.

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Tonight we carved the pumpkin.

The Goober emptied out the goo, I drew on the pattern (that the Goob had picked out - Angry Birds were vetoed) and the husbeast did the hard work and did the cutting. He used a serrated combat knife. He is now wearing a Hello Kitty band-aid.

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Fiber-wise, I've been parked on the couch, coughing, and knitting. I'm finishing up my third Wingspan, two going for Christmas gifts and one for me. I also did these for my niece, who had a kid at the beginning of October:

That's a Baby Surprise Jacket (of course), and a Swallowtail without the nupps. (I am not fucking with nupps at my stress level.) I knocked them both out in a week and a half. That's when I clued in that I may just be knitting so I don't kill people.

Anyway, the Swallowtail was knit with Madeline Tosh DK, and size six needles. That yarn is so gooshy, it was like knitting a marshmallow. But it is REALLY soft and warm, to the point I'm wondering if I want one.

Next thing after the Wingspan, I'm doing mittens based on the grille of that Duesenberg I saw back in September for my FIL. Then I have to figure out what on earth I'm making for my brother-in-law; he lives in the south, so most knitwear is unneeded. Maybe a scarf.

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That's about all that's going on. Besides all the drama, we've been huddled down, sick. At one point all three of us were on antibiotics. The further plan, I think, is to just keep on keeping on.

I'm really damn ready for 2012 to be over.

And then.

We found out yesterday that Sekhmet has gastrointestinal lymphoma. The vet gave her from two weeks to three months, but seemed to think we were closer to counting in weeks. I'm pretty much wrecked and crying a lot.

Operation Spoil Sekhmet is in effect, though. Tonight I'm roasting a chicken so she can have the gravy and juice.

I'm really ready for this year to be fucking over.

Right then.

So I've been dealing with drug-resistant pneumonia for the last month. With asthma for an extra dose of excitement. First I was out of it from the fever, and then the drugs. Good times. I'd just about shaken off the Prednisone side effects, and, well. My brother died today. It's probably gonna be a week or two before I start blogging again.

But, that's where I am. Just imagine me sitting on the couch, huffing on an inhaler. With the cat on me. Cranking out yards of garter stitch.