Child Care Conference this weekend

I've been having a great weekend!  Friday night I started to cast-on my new purse pattern.  I ended up frogging it 3 times, as the stitches were way too tight when it came to doing 'purl 3 together'.  I couldn't jam the needle through, so I ripped it out and tried again, and again.  I couldn't go to any larger needles (they were the largest I have) so I tried to knit as loosely as possible.  Not easy to do, as the faster I go, the tighter the stitches.  Strange thing is, when I am crocheting the stitches get looser if I crochet faster. ???  But I am so thrilled to find that my work is started to look just like the bobble thingies in the photo (only in grey yarn).  I also realized that the ball of yarn I am using from my stash is large enough to make about 5 purses, or a sweater!  I'll have to find another project for the leftover yarn - it's just plain polyester I'm guessing.  Nothing fancy.  Good for practice projects, but not very soft so I wouldn't make a scarf out of it.

Saturday I went to a local Child Care Conference, and attended two wonderful seminars. The first one was an Early Literacy make-and-take workshop on making fun educational games to extend phonetic awareness. These games can be easily made wit the children during craft time, and can be modified for age and subject, like math, shapes, colours, spelling, etc. We made our own preschool version of Go Fish, Old Maid, Concentration, and Monopoly. In the afternoon, I attended a seminar entitled "Resiliency: Reaching In, Reaching Out." It's focus was on training both adults and children to become more resilient in their lives, and to give children the tools to succeed despite what might normally be holding them back.

I spent the evening knitting the first part of my new purse pattern and I'm so thrilled that those little funny bobble things are actually turning up like in the picture! I'm doing it!!!

Last night my husband and I cuddled on the couch and watched a comedy together. The boys both fell asleep early, so we had the whole evening to ourselves.

Today I got some great news; my secret pal from the Defeat the Winter Doldrums dishcloth swap has received her package! I was so thrilled to find out she liked her goodies! I'm so glad to have participated in this. There have been NO winter blahs here this year! It really worked!