Crazy For My Cozy Cowl!

This summer I stumbled across Anoka, a cute little town, which proudly proclaims itself, "Halloween Capital of the World" as you drive down the main -or the only-drag, which is Main Street.

Let's just examine that claim for one minute.  Halloween capital of the... world?!? The world? Really, Anoka?  Halloween, a holiday I actually quite enjoy mainly because it is situated at my favorite time of the year, and happens to contain within it some super fun dorky teacher activities, is not the epicenter of this story.

The real point of the story is that Anoka is also home to one of the coziest yarn shops I've been to in a long time.  It's situated off of Main Street in an old building with creaky wooden floorboards and a slightly musty, pleasant smell.  The shop sells yarn and candles so the air is perfumed with deep spicy floral and the earthy scent of yarn.  Sheperdess (shepherdessnaturals.com) is locally owned and lovely.  And even though I can't seem to finish the neck of two sweaters, I still bought some beautiful teal wool yarn without a plan or a pattern!

But since this was summer, I perused at my leisure magazines and websites until I found the perfect project.  Behold, the link to the free pattern.

http://madelinetosh.com/store/index.php/honey-cowl.html

Here's came out better, but she's a professional. Mine isn't too shabby.

It's long and loopy and extra cozy.  And now I'm off to finish those sweaters, I swear!

My Blog's New Focus- the Imperfect Life

 You may have noticed my blog has a new tag line, "Perfectly Imperfect."  The other day as I was stumbleupon-ing my way through the Internet I came across a website that detailed, across pages and pages of text, how to clean your house each week.  My first thought as I read it was, "ooooh I should do this."  My second thought was, "what the hell?"  I relish my role as wife, mother and keeper of the home above all other things in my life, but come on! Weekly toothbrush scrubbing between tiles in the bathroom?  I'm not doing that.  Probably ever, most certainly not weekly.

It's a common theme across the web; blog after blog of home baked goodies, intricate meals, hand knit sweaters, decoupaged end tables and mobiles made out of paint samples (5 of them, yo).  And I'm not knocking them, I admire these people whole-heartily, I just can't do it.

My hope for this blog is a place where you can find meal plans, parenting and working mom stories, something to think about or if nothing else a sense of superiority to my woeful attempts to knit Callah a sweater or make dinner every night.

Eventually I'd like to have horizontal tabs organized by cooking posts or mommy posts, but true to the nature of my blog, I'm not there yet.  In the meantime, stick with me as I embark on a blogging adventure fraught with mistakes and imperfections!