Scarf turns blanket

Tunisian crochet is slow. It is slower than crochet, certainly. But, I almost feel like it may also be slower than knitting. To be fair, I'm new at it, so of course it's slow.  Once upon a time - like even two years ago, crochet seemed to take me forever too.

But, upon working on the Tunisian scarf for several ours and having less than a foot done, I stared at it and realized... It's way too wide to be a scarf. Mr. River tried to comfort me and say it could be folded in half.

Thanks, dear.

I promptly cast off, finished off, and decided it would become a doll blanket for Blue's dolls. I'll add a pillow to it, perhaps. One Christmas gift down!

But I still need to finish that scarf. And since the knitting attempt I started was going too slow for my taste, I am back to the drawing board on the pattern I will use. I may just wing it.

Crochet/knitting/yarn aside, life has been hectic. I'm reading a good book called How to Write a Lot. The name sound silly, but really it's a useful book about building practical, productive, efficient writing habits. I need such habits. To emphasize this point, I am mostly reading it on the Kindle (on the iPad) while I nurse Baby Bear at night or for naps. That's how scattered my work habits feel. I do get a few hours of dedicated work time each morning, so I need to make them work better.

And to add to this, my touchpad on my laptop is on the fritz. Ok, not just on the fritz, it's been labeled Legally Fritzy and is on the verge of being committed. The cat splashed a few droplets of water on it. A few droplets. But apparently that was enough. After several days of hoping it'd straighten up, I have disabled everything it's supposed to do (and would disable it entirely if I take the time to figure that out), and am now using a normal mouse. Which means working on a laptop isn't feeling very mobile right now. And because the touchpad isn't completely deactivated, but is still all Legally Fritzy, whenever I try to work at all the touchpad decides to drag windows, close things, randomly tap and highlight and delete. You get the idea.

Yes, minor stuff. Just annoying.

Whining aside!  We have had a few great evenings. I took the girls for a nice hour at the park the other day, and they had a blast :) Baby Bear just loves and loves that she can crawl around the playstructures now. And the park we go to has a really nice "toddler" play structure that is perfect for her.

We also made some delicious chickpea soup, found on pinterest :) I added a few chicken breasts, did not add any chili, and then shredded the chicken when it was done. It turned out great! Even Blue liked it :) The first night, I gave Baby Bear just some mashed chickpeas and pieces of shredded chicken. I couldn't figure out how to give her the spinach, though soft, without it being a problem. 

So, the next day, into the food chopper the soup went! And she loved it! chickpeas, chicken, spinach, cauliflower, onions, tomatoes, oh my. It made a ton of food! We had leftovers for two days of it. I put the rest in the blender, froze it in our minimuffin tray, and popped the individual servings out into a freezer bag. Now we have 24 servings of chicken and chickpea soup for the girls!

Fall reading

We hit the library this week to check out some books about fall, seasons, and of course, Halloween. We have a few books about Halloween and fall, but I've been wanting to add in a few more to read. Plus, it was very hot - 92F - and we don't have air conditioning at home. So the library was a nice place to go for the afternoon.

Over the summer, we went to the library a lot. The visits kind of decreased in frequency as the end of summer approached and we were busy in the chaos of other things. It was good to go back though. The local library is amazing - they have great kids programs (a reading program in almost every language - really! Even  Russian and Chinese), a lot of seasonal events, and a great children's room complete with coloring pages, puzzles, and some toys. 

Wednesday was our first time visiting during the schoolyear, though. The children's area had a ton of toys out! I don't know if they've added more toys or just bring  out more during the schoolyear, but it was great! Blue put on a puppet show for Baby Bear, and the baby loved their Zany Zoo.

I found several great books about fall and Halloween. We also found some books about owls - something Blue has been having a lot of nightfears about.

Between those books and the fall and Halloween books we already had, we have a great assortment of things to read. And just in time, too, as a nice fall storm came in and finally broke the temperatures! So we've been enjoying some great fall afternoons, snuggled under blankets and reading while the wind and rain blow outside.

Baby Bear also found a book she loved at Target about Halloween. It's our first Katz book (aside from a Potty book we have) and baby LOVES it! She lifts the flaps, squawks at the pictures, turns the pages, and claps whenever we read it. I think we may have to add a few more of these books to our future library trips :)