 October 31, 2006
Sew Hip Update
I have been thinking a lot about sew hip recently and the direction that I want it to take. While I was convinced that I wanted to stock some of the yummy fabrics that you cant easily get in the UK I am not sure that I want to commit to the minimum orders of 10 to 20 metres of each colour. That means in order to have even 10 different fabrics on the site I would need to spend a lot of money up front. I would love to concentrate on vintage pieces, on one off lengths of fabric that you may not be able to get any where else. On fabrics that are now out of print, hard to find or otherwise available in smaller quantities and more fun. That is also more hip than an ordinary fabric store, dont you think? There will also still be patterns to support the fabrics on sale and lots of other goodies thrown in for fun.
The first 2 pieces of fabric that I ordered for the shop are here and are pictured above. GORGEOUS Oilily prints, dont you just love them? I am hoping to have the site set up in time for Christmas, dont worry though – you will all be the first to know.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:59 AM
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October 30, 2006
Weekend Knitting
Please excuse our wiggliness, we have not been blocked yet! This weekend I knuckled down to some book knitting and finished these pinky pink sleeves out of Scaheffer Miss Priss which is an aran weight wool. The first sleeve was knitted while watching Gattaca on Friday night and the other one was knitted in dribs and drabs over the weekend. The yarn is lovely to knit with, its my favourite tension ever to use and its pink. What more could you ask? I'm doing pretty well with the writing of the book, the pages are coming together and although I keep going back and changing parts of it I'm pretty happy with the way its all looking. The one area that I'm not as far with as I'd like are the patterns! There are going to be around 30 - 40 designs if they are all completed on time, about 6 are from other designers and the rest are mine! Now according to my spreadsheet, we have 10 completed, 10 in progress and the rest drafted in pattern form but not swatched or knitted. Seeing as I have until the end of the year that's not tooooo bad but I'd like to be a bit further so this week is dedicated to the knitting of the book projects. Next week may well be dedicated to the begging of the friends to help knit pieces for the book but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I also started to knit a Jaywalker sock out of some of our sock weight cashmere, this was supposed to be a sample to take to Harrogate next month to show how well the yarn and the pattern work together. I got this far before I realised I had way too many other things to knit for the magazine and the book to be worrying about samples for the show so I cast it off and figured that I'd leave it as it is. You can still see the pattern and the colours, right? Back to school today after half term, Brooke spent the week with mum, dad and Jenna and we picked her up at the weekend. Cameron didn't seem to have missed her that much while she was gone (I think he liked the extra attention he got as an only child for a few days) but since she has been back he hasn't moved more than about 3 foot from her side. It's lovely to hear them playing and laughing together, although Cameron is the noisy one of the 2 the house seemed so much louder this morning when we were all getting ready. Imagine what its going to be like this time next year with a baby added to the mix. Glorious chaos I should think!
Posted by Kerrie at 08:28 AM
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October 27, 2006
Big day
Yesterday was a big day in our house. Little Cam moved from his cot into his big boy bed complete with Bob the Builder duvet cover and pillow case. Can you see him just peeking out of the corner with his white teddy? He used to look so huge in his cot and now he looks really small again. He is Bob mad at the moment, not sure when he became such a little boy but even as I write this he is sitting next door in the play room wearing his jeans, vest and hard hat watching Bob on DVD for the millionth time. He laughs before the jokes are made and sings along with all the songs. My little man. Wayne and I were prepared for a sleepless night last night but he wasn't too bad in the end, only one fall out of bed all night. That didn't even wake him but when we went through to check on him at about 4am we found him fast asleep on the cot mattress that we had put down on the floor next to him ready for the falls and we were able to move him into his big boys bed without waking him. He still doesn't have the hang of getting up in the morning though. This morning he shouted for me and when I went through he was sitting up in bed and told me "finished with sleep now. Get out my bed please?" I wonder how long it will be before he realises that he can just climb out?
Posted by Kerrie at 08:05 AM
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October 26, 2006
Not impressed
Edit - phew, everything seems to be working OK now. Keep your fingers crossed for me.. We have some serious website problems here that need to be resolved this morning. The HipKnits domain expired yesterday and after lots of conversations with the support team about how to renew it under my own account details (where this site, yarn forward mag and various other bits are registered instead of under a control panel all of its own) I followed their instructions to the letter. The reason that I wanted all my sites together under one control panel was just to make it easier on me and save me having to log into 2 different places every time I wanted to do anything. I now find myself with a domain that doesn't work. No emails in my mailbox and a support team who tell me that I didn't follow the correct procedure and therefore its out of their hands. If I could get into my emails I would be able to show them their email telling me to do what I did but of course I can't. Ironic huh? Their suggested solution at the moment is just to rebuild the site and forget about the 50 or so emails I had in my inbox. How helpful is that? The emails were to remind me to do things, people to chase up, customers to add to the newsletter list, orders to place with suppliers. Not impressed to have lost them all. Not impressed with being told to "just" rebuild the site. Even less impressed with being told that there is no way I can phone them or they can phone me to discuss how to resolve this, all communication has to be done via email. All the time this is going on, I'm losing money and probably customers as well. Did I say that I am not impressed with the whole thing? Lets hope that by some miracle it all gets fixed this morning otherwise I can feel my blood pressure beginning to rise and that's not going to be good for anyone.
Posted by Kerrie at 07:39 AM
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October 25, 2006
Dress for Brooke
I bought this cardigan for Brooke the other week from H&M, I love the deep deep pink colour. She wore it to a christening but the colour of the her dress didn't 100% go with the colour of the cardigan, it was close enough for a 6 year old to get away with though. I kept thinking that I was sure I had something that matched the cardigan properly and then I remembered this floral fabric. Don't you think that a sleeveless dress made from this fabric would be perfect with the cardigan? Don't you think that I should get on with it and make it this weekend and then take pictures to show you all? I do think that and I hope I manage to find the time to make it. I've been a little ebay happy recently. Some new fabric, a new mobile phone and a 300gb external hard drive. All the essentials that a girl can't live without. I know I'm odd, no need to tell me that!
Posted by Kerrie at 02:30 PM
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October 24, 2006
Who do you look like?
Ever since the first minute that I met Wayne he has told me that I look like a particular celebrity. I never really paid him much attention because I just couldn't see it and also because I'd never really felt she was that attractive. (I mean, if you are to be compared with someone famous it needs to be someone stunning and famous, right?) Occasionally I'd see her in a film and think that there was a vague resemblence but nothing more than that. Once every few months we have one of our "oh look, you're on TV" conversations which I usually counter by singing the theme tune to Fresh Prince of Bel Air to him as for the last 9 years everywhere we go people have stopped Wayne and commented on how much he looks like Will Smith. It drives him mad. It was only when I pointed out to Wayne that most of the pictures you find of my apparant look alike are, how shall I put this, undressed from the belly button upwards (don't ask me why I googled for pics of her recently, probably to prove the look alike theory wrong) that he made a point of finding some pictures to back up his theory. All I have to say is firstly OH MY GOD and secondly SHE STOLE MY NOSE and thirdly JUST WHO DID I THINK I WAS KIDDING. Her mouth is very different to mine but even I can't deny that a lot of the pics here (especially this one) look a lot like me. I don't know if that is a good thing though. I have been in denial about the resemblance for 9 years. Can I cope with telling him he was right all along, what kind of floodgates is that sort of statement going to open? So go on, make me feel better. Who do you look like, with links to pics if you can!
Posted by Kerrie at 08:24 PM
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October 23, 2006
Busy weekend
The main project for this weekend was to buy myself a new car. I love love love my little Corsa but it only just fits the 2 kids in the back, there is no room for a third one, and when Wayne and I are both in the front with the kids in the back and weekend bags in the front we're all a little squashed. So, with baby number 3 on the way it was time to get something a little larger. There wasn't really any huge rush to get the car now apart from the fact that when I set my mind on something its hard to persuade me to wait and also that dad and I were planning to hire a van to take up to Harrogate for the show. With a bigger car we would be able to take that and save ourselves the van hire cost. What better reason than to drag the kids and Wayne around East London all Saturday looking for a car? In the end I found exactly what I was looking for and only went £50 over my budget. Not bad. I'm not afraid to barter with people and pushed my luck for asking for £500 off the asking price and ended up getting a £300 reduction which I didn't think was too bad. I'd probably have paid the asking price if he had really held out but don't tell him that! So a lovely Zafira is now mine. It looks something like this, only not brand new. I did feel very slightly as though I was driving a bus (this is my old car, slight difference!) but I soon got used to it. Brooke is very taken with the fact that as its a 7 seater she can sit in the boot, funny what appeals to a 6 year old isn't it? I also finished a simple little scarf for Brooke from one of Nic's scarf kits. I bought this at Ally Pally and had intended it for me however it was a little more pink and sparkly than I had thought so I just used exactly half the yarn and gave it to Brooke instead. Isn't it cute? Only took a couple of hours as well which is just the mindless kind of knitting I need at the moment when I'm not knitting up projects for the book.
Posted by Kerrie at 09:29 AM
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Help needed
A cry for help. Do we have any machine knitters or weavers who read here and would be willing to help me out with a HipKnits project that I have in mind. Its for a January deadline so if you think you might be able to help drop me an email and I'll explain all to you.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:40 AM
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October 20, 2006
Pure inspiration
I spent much of last night flicking through 2 gorgeous books that I've been lucky enough to acquire through the last few days. The first one is the Crafters Companion which I was selling at Ally Pally (and still have a few left which are on the patterns page at HipKnits) Almost more importantly than the patterns in this book are the interviews with the designers together with the gorgeous photographs of their work spaces, projects and inspiration. I loved reading all about some of my favourite bloggers and seeing their work. The projects themselves are gorgeous and the sewing machine is going to be working hard on some of them over the next few days. Scarves, purses, quilts, houses - all are going to find themselves a home here very soon. Yesterday the postman also bought me Amy Butler's (new website, new website!) new book, In Stitches. I am in love. The photos are as perfect as you would expect from any Amy Butler pattern, the fabrics and colours she has used are just gorgeous (the front cover is one of my favourite fabrics in her Gypsy rose collection which I still have a coveted metre of) and the projects are lovely. I am desperate to make the Kimono wrap and trousers for myself, the beaded scarf and many many of the other designs. I was so excited about the book that I kept showing some of the pages to Wayne but he wasn't as enthusiastic about it as I was. Wonder why? So expect lots of sewing around here soon. I'm still working behind the scenes on the Sew Hip website, that is slated for early next year now. Lots and lots going on which is just the way I like it to be. Apart from the Cameron induced early mornings though. Although I get more done when I'm up before 6 it still is not my first choice!
Posted by Kerrie at 06:57 AM
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October 19, 2006
19 weeks
This pregnancy is just flying by! I can't believe that in the next week or so I'll be half way through.. I think I'm around 19 weeks now, maybe a few days less. That's the terrible thing about the 2nd and 3rd pregnancy I've found, with Brooke I would have been able to tell you to the day how far gone I was. Now its more guesswork. I think I have too many other things going on in my life for this baby to be the only thing I'm thinking about all the time. I'm doing really well this time around though, I manage to fit in an afternoon nap most days which means that I don't feel as tired as I remember doing with Brooke and Cam. I also haven't really been sick at all this time, my blood pressure is fine and I'm trying hard to exercise a reasonable amount (living in a 3 storey house makes that a little easier!) and eat healthy. The result of that has been that although I have a MASSIVE bump (as you can see in the picture and as many people saw in real life last week) I actually weigh almost 7 pounds less than I did before I was pregnant. That makes me happy. Just to clear up a few myths, there is only one baby in there. I am only around half way through ish, give or take a couple of weeks. I am this huge just because that's the way I am when I'm pregnant. I looked pretty much exactly like this with Cam at around this point and to a slightly smaller extent with Brooke as well. I don't mind having a very definite baby bump, I really enjoy being pregnant. I could do without the comments all day every day though about how HUGE I am and how am I sure that its not TWINS or even TRIPLETS. Sigh. Why do people feel the need to comment on every aspect of someone's pregnancy? There was no blog post yesterday and few emails sent out as I had my chairperson of the school PFA hat on and was busy rushing around organising printers and fireworks for our village bonfire night celebration. Today I'm back into HipKnits / MagKnits / Yarn Forward mode with a little mum / housewife / proper day job thrown in for good measure. Just the way I like it!
Posted by Kerrie at 08:18 AM
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October 17, 2006
Cameron..
For those of you who are needing a Cam hair update, here is a pic of him Saturday morning before he made it to the show. When he arrived with Wayne, he ran around like a mad child for about an hour before falling asleep in Wayne's arms and charming people with his sleepy self looking over his dad's shoulder in the same way as I showed you last week. Isn't he growing up? Proper little boy now, even with all that curly hair. I love him in this top and any other ones where he can wear a short sleeved T shirt over the top of a long sleeved one, he just looks so adorable I think. Almost as adorable on his own as he is when he is with Brooke, just look at the 2 of them asleep in the car on the way back from the park the other day. All together now, Awwwww.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:18 AM
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October 16, 2006
Ally Pally - now with photos!
I'm back, and I'm exhausted. Dad and I had a brilliant few days at Ally Pally, it was lovely to meet so many customers who I knew from the website and so many new customers who I'm sure I'll see or email again. The yarns sold really well and we ended up with not much left to bring home, once more the best seller was the laceweight cashmere and wrap pattern - we couldn't keep the laceweight in stock long enough and have now totally emptied the shop. Time to place another order I think.
The Magazines arrived! And people seemed to like them! I gave away over 200 to shops who wanted to stock them. And received lots of interest from designers and advertisers. Oh, and was given lots of goodies to use in designs and review. I can't tell you how much of a weight off my mind that was. Friday night was the first proper nights sleep I've had for a month, no nightmares about the magazine, no laying awake dreading what it was going to be like. I have learned a lot from this first issue and will be making lots of changes before the next one but I'm glad that its here. The Knitterati, Glitterati contest was judged by Aneeta, Kate and I. There was a unanimous winner which I can't wait to see in MagKnits and all of the other entries were great as well. I didn't buy very much at all, spent most of the time on the stand selling apart from the odd break to get chips for lunch and to go and gossip every now and again! Oh, there was a sneak peak of some pics that you'll all get to see next year. The real thing in March but maybe some online pics before then. All I can tell you is that it made my heart explode with happiness and I CANNOT WAIT for you all to be able to see them as well. In other news, the shop looks a lot better since Mandy and I had a good tidy up this morning. Can you imagine what 10,000 magazines all dumped in a pile looks like? Well, as soon as I get my camera back you won't have to imagine. You'll be able to see! For now, lunch and then a nap is on the menu. I'll share pics of the shawl project I've been working on, my AP purchases and other fun shop / stand type ones throughout the week. Its good to be home!
Posted by Kerrie at 11:57 AM
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October 11, 2006
All about the baking
With autumn on its way and a crabby couple of weeks, I've been craving some comfort food recently. Here are a few of my favourite recipes that I've been relying on to get me through the last couple of weeks : Soups - I love my slow cooker (crock pot) for making soups and stews. Tomato soup is a favourite and I recently discovered this recipe for roasted veggie soup which is just gorgeous. We eat lots of stews and casseroles in the autumn. There is nothing nicer than spending 20 minutes in the morning filling the slow cooker with meat, chopped veggies, stock and spices and then magically 8 hours later having a gorgeous warm stew to eat. The kids are obsessed with cous cous at the moment which is the perfect stew accompaniement and so easy to make and it seems that no matter how many dumplings I make we just never seem to have enough. I was in the mood for rice pudding the other night and fancied an experiment. I made a gorgeous one with risotto rice, whole fat milk, a little sugar and vanilla extract. It took a lot longer for the rice to absorb the milk than a normal savoury risotto but was worth the wait. I just made it in the same way as a savoury risotto, adding more milk to the rice a little at a time and stirring stirring stirring until it was ready. Then I added a little sugar to taste and a teeny amount of vanilla extract. Yum. I added jam to mine and the kids ate it plain. Next time I'll try it with pudding rice instead of risotto rice. Chocolate Banoffee pie. I haven't tried this one yet but as Banoffee pie is my all time favourite ever dessert I fail to see how adding chocolate to it can be a bad thing. Next week I'll be making this and I'll be sure to tell you all how good it tastes. I also found a couple of interesting slow cooker recipes from Lori Smith's blog Its a shame that I'm the only one in the house to eat oatmeal because I really like the idea of the apple oatmeal one. Yum. Today is all about setting up at AP. Dad will be here in about 3 hours and we'll be packing up and heading off. I'll try and share pics tonight and after that I'll be back on Monday.
Posted by Kerrie at 06:26 AM
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October 10, 2006
Shawl that rocks
I wanted to play around with some of the socks that rock yarn at the weekend but didn't need another pair of socks on the needles so I decided on another recent obsession of mine which is the top down triangular shawl. I wanted to do some solid stocking stitch at the top and then move onto a lace pattern at the bottom in a similar way to the Gypsy shawl that I made so many of a couple of years ago. I started the lace piece last night but am going to rip it out this morning, I think that trying to watch Spooks and concentrate on making up a lace pattern at the same time was just too much for me. Its not what I'm looking for. I'm not totally sold on the colours in this skein of yarn. I'm not big on orange, yellow, peach or anything similar. I love the mint green and the pinks and purples in this skein but the peachy orangey colour just isn't doing it for me. Good job this shawl is not going to be for me then isn't it? I'm not totally sure who it is going to be for yet but I'll work that out when its all done. Now I just need to decide on a lace pattern for the bottom that won't be totally lost with the vivid colours and choose some beads for the edge.
Posted by Kerrie at 09:30 AM
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October 09, 2006
Tired are we
This is pretty much how the whole family felt last night when we got home from our busy weekend filled with shopping and baptisms. We stayed over with Waynes mum on Saturday night and neither Wayne or I got much sleep. My reason was that I shared a bed with Brooke and had Cam on the floor in his travel cot. Both of them wriggle around all night, Brooke pulls the covers off every few minutes and they both talk in their sleep. Oh, and they both sleep with their eyes half open (like their dad) Can you imagine anything more spooky than laying in between 2 kids with half open eyes who are chatting about nonsense in their sleep? It doesn't make for peaceful and relaxing sleeping that's for sure. Wayne on the other hand went out with his mates and I think ended up home just before the kids and I got up at 6. So a sleepless night for him also but for very different reasons. By the time we made it home from the baptism and party afterwards yesterday, it was just gone 6pm. Wayne and I were shattered and the kids were hungry so I made them a snack and then went upstairs to lie down for a few minutes leaving Wayne and the kids watching TV. I woke up at 7am this morning, that's over 12.5 hours sleep! It seems that Wayne had dozed on the sofa before coming to bed at 8 with the kids and we all had a good big nights sleep! The photo above was taken of Cameron as we walked around Tescos the other day doing a spot of grocery shopping. Wayne was carrying him and he just curled up on his dad's shoulder and fell asleep. Times like this make me think that he really is still only just a baby. Shame there aren't more of them though, most of the time he is definitely a little man. Big day today, the magazines are due to arrive at the shop. I'm not sure if I'm more excited or nervous, I have a lot invested in these boxes that are going to arrive today - both financial and reputational - so its going to be nervewracking opening the first box. I had dreams about it all night where either the front cover was printed upside down or all the pages inside the mag were blank. Gulp. Lets hope that none of them come true! Edited to add at 3pm - of course the magazines are not going to arrive today, how silly of me to have thought otherwise. It should have been obvious to me with all the stupid things that have gone wrong so far that it wouldn't be that simple. I mean, the email said "please confirm delivery address for a Monday 9th dispatch" I should have known that that meant they would be with me on Wednesday 11th. Probably just as I get to Ally Pally to start setting up. Of course, how silly of me to think otherwise. Must not moan. Must not scream. Must keep repeating last 2 phrases until calm. Must go now!
Posted by Kerrie at 06:43 AM
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October 07, 2006
Rockin post
I have to admit that although I had lots of nice offers to trade socks that rock yarn the other week, I decided to be good and limit myself to trading with just 3 people. I love swapping sometimes, its so much more fun than just buying stuff and you get to make new friends at the same time. Perfect. So, the 3 skeins that you see here are Rainforest Jasper (browns and greens) and Fairgrounds (wound into a ball) from Cari and Dutch Canyon from Chrysanthi. Aren't they gorgeous? I think that Dutch Canyon and Fairgrounds are my equal favourites although I'll probably knit fairgrounds first as its already wound into a ball. I have one more trade underway with Teresa so I can't wait to see how that skein looks in real life.
Posted by Kerrie at 01:31 PM
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October 05, 2006
More complaining...
The last couple of weeks have been officially weeks from hell. After my little tantrum last Wednesday where you all send me lots of lovely emails and links to make me smile (thanks so much) life took another couple of steps down but I think (touch wood) that I’m back on track now. So, in addition to the last list here is another list of stuff thats happened in the last week. If you ever have a run of bad luck like this you are entitled to announce that you have also had a week from hell. - More doubting of parenting abilities as Cameron has descended deeper and deeper into the terrible twos. I bought this book Raising Boys in the hope that it would show me where on earth I was going wrong but as interesting and useful as it was the book concentrates on older boys rather than 2 year old ones. Cam has had a few good days in a row now so I think that the rest of the world was right and rather than me being a terrible mother it actually was just a phase he was going through. Who would have known that the rest of the world could be right and I could be wrong? Unheard of! - A small fire related incident that while it left no damage and no-one was hurt still threw me out of synch for a while. Seriously, it was borne of a simple mistake that anyone could make and that has been made many times before but we were so lucky to walk away with the minimal impact that it had. No more details, I’ve dwelled on it more than is healthy, time to move on. - My laptop, the love of my life, the one piece of hardware that I rely on more than anything has spent the better part of a week as a very expensive and not very attractive paperweight. Hence, no emails, no blog updates and no contact with the outside world for Kerrie. I have been filled with horror at the thought that it wouldnt be resurrected but here I am, back on line again and seemingly back to normal. It was a backup wake up call though. Do you know that the last time I backed up the docs on my hard drive was 15 months ago. That is BEFORE I bought HipKnits. Scary huh. Guess who is rushing out to buy a memory stick tomorrow to start backing up? Yes, it is the smoke ridden bad mother woman. - The magazine has suffered yet more delays. Pah. The less said about this one the better. I have heard that it will be arriving with me on Monday though so anyone who has subscribed or pre ordered should receive their copy mid to end next week. Nervous? Oh yes… - More arguments and general disagreements with the same person that I mentioned (or didnt mention) last week. All sorted now although not in a way that either of us would have liked. No more to be said on the subject here. - Autumnal colds. The whole family is sniffing, coughing and feeling sorry for themselves with seasonal colds. The only difference is that Wayne is able to take Lemsips and Nurofen and the kids are dosing up on cough medicine and Calpol. Me? I’m just being brave as there is seemingly absolutely nothing that pregnant women can take to help a cold. So sore throat, ear ache, headache and blocked up nose are apparently here to stay for a while. I made myself a hot honey and lemon drink the other night which looked and smelled disgusting but helped a little. Wonder if its possible to overdose on it though? So thats all the complaining that you will hear around here for a while. I promise. Its Ally Pally next week so I am going to try and find some lovely photos of our new and exciting yarns that we will be launching there to show you. More photos, less complaining. Thats my new promise to you, what do you reckon? For now I have the kids to pick up from school, a few PTA related activities to work out and then tonight when the kids are in bed I promise to email everyone who has emailed me and not heard back over the last week. I won't go to sleep until I'm caught up. Deal?
Posted by Kerrie at 03:05 PM
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