PATTERN
US size 8 needles
At least 175 yds of worsted weight yarn : such as Cascade 220
Cast on 88 stiches (distributing evenly if using dpns)
R1 : Place marker and join in a round. Knit all stitches.
R2 : P1, K1 around
R3 - 8 : Repeat following P1, K1 rib
R9 : Knit all stitches.
R10 : Make sure that the first stitch after the marker should be a purl stitch. This row establishes the groups (right now there are 8 groups of 11 stitches).
So you will start by following ; P1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k1, p1, m1. Repeat 11 times, this should bring you back to the marker.
R11: P1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k1, m1. Repeat.
R12: P1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k2, m1. Repeat.
R13 - 17 : P1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k4.
Repeat R18: P1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k1, p1, slip two stitches to cable needle, hold to front and knit next two stitches. Knit stitches from marker. Repeat around so there are eleven groups of stitches, hemmed in by eleven cables. This group will be repeated seven more times so there are eight cable twists total
R19- 22: P1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k4.
Repeat R23: P1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k1, p1, slip two stitches to cable needle, hold to front and knit next two stitches. Knit stitches from marker. Repeat around so there are eleven groups of stitches, hemmed in by eleven cables.
Following the eighth row of cable twists: switch to dpns when necessary.
Decrease rows: 1 : P1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k2tog, k2. - Repeat. -10 stitches in each group or 110 total 2 ; P1, k1, P1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k2tog, k1. Repeat. - 9 in each group - 99 total
3 : P1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k2tog. Repeat - 8 in each - 88 total
4: P1, K1, p1, k1, p1, k1, k2tog. Rep (Note: the final decrease should steal the first purl stitch after the marker which you can remove if you haven’t already). - 7/ 77
5 : K1, p1, k1, p1, k1, k2tog. Repeat, - 6/ 66
6 : p1, k1, p1, k1, k2tog. Repeat. - 5/ 55
7 : k1, p1, k1, k2tog - 4/ 44
8 : p1, k1, k2tog - 3/33
9 : k1, k2tog - 2/22
10 : k2tog - 1/ 11
Break yarn about 12 inches away from work, running through all stitches and pull tight. Knot it off and weave end in. Key M1 : Make 1 stitch by knitting into the front of the stitch, then purling into the back of the same stitch before dropping it off the needle.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
The Un-Stepford Reality- darn writing classes
Gabrielle Calcaterra
The Un- Stepford Reality
As part of our final in my human relations class, we had to write a five year plan for what we hoped to accomplish. I remember fantasizing of owning my own restaurant, living in some far off place and starting a family. Newsflash, this was nearly seven years ago and none of those things happened.
Coincidently, two weeks before I could register for classes that spring quarter, my parents informed me that I would need to pay half my tuition. I had been living on * "Broke Food" for months and didn't have that kind of scratch lying around. My memory of that conversation is pretty fuzzy, but I must have informed my mother of my situation because she took pity on me, allowing me to move home for a while to pay off the credit card that I had been using to purchase youth bus passes and supplement my meager wages at the restaurant to make rent.
* "Broke Food" - a ratatouille of sorts with lots of garlic, mushrooms and corn, that can be served with pasta or thinned out for soup. One big pot usually lasts far longer that I can stand to eat the same meal for, usually about a week or so. This costs about $7-10 to make, including a $2.50 five pound bag of pasta and/or top ramen to mix it up a bit. I've always been far too proud to apply for food stamps; instead I make the sacrifice and live very modestly from time to time.
The plan changed...drastically. I enrolled in culinary school in order to gain useful skills and make contacts to obtain a better paying job, I would have never expected there to be so much struggle involved. Years would pass and I still hadn't gone back to school, I finally gave in to the fact that I will never make much more than minimum wage and possibly some tips in a restaurant. Around the time I made the decision to find a new job, my younger sister tells us she's pregnant, then a year later my brother and his girlfriend (with twins!). That was it, I knew that I didn't want that fate for myself - a drastic change was in order.
Genetically predisposed to be a collector, I tried to fight the urge by purging: kitchen appliances to friends and my siblings, art supplies to the children's art museum downtown, the rest to Goodwill. The guy at their donation center asked me more than once if I was getting rid of a bad roommate, I was tempted to tell him yes - myself. What I did I keep filled four plastic tubs, which were stashed in the crawl space at my parents’ house. One bin with nice clothing, the second full of books, another with cds and a few movies and the last with yarn and some expensive watercolor supplies, slowly acquired over the years as I could afford them. For years my mother had been trying to talk me into joining the military, telling me stories of people she knew who it had changed for the better. Maybe it would do wonders for me, make me less shy – and it was free, so I decided to at least give it a shot.
I packed a small duffel bag with toiletries and boarded one plane after another, bouncing around the country and finally arriving in Columbia, South Carolina. I had only heard of this place in books and movies, but I was stationed there for basic training. Pictures of nearby Myrtle Beach lead me to expect something strange, foreign I guess. Really, the town surrounding Ft Jackson didn't look that different from the valley near the town I grew up in, only there were beach grasses that seemed very out of place that far inland, and the pale sand that surrounded the cookie cutter buildings we were hurried between like cattle; everything was very concrete and seventies style, oak veneer and brown berber carpet covered every vertical surface.
The next couple of months were a blur of sorts. Scars on my elbows and knees from crawling around in the desert remind me of day to day events and disasters documented for posterity in handwritten letters that I sent daily to my family back in Washington. Afternoons spent hand scrubbing linoleum floors of the portable classroom the fifty of us women called home for ten weeks provided plenty of fodder to write home about. Though communication was better when basic training was over and I had my phone and access to the internet while I was stationed at Ft Sam Houston for medic training, I still felt very disconnected from my family. Missing summer barbeques, holidays and the birth of my nephew was not my intention. I shipped presents home hoping alleviate my homesickness let everyone know I hadn't forgotten about them. Although I missed my family terribly, I couldn't go back to living in Spokane. Moving back home would have been too easy; leaving the house was like attending a high school reunion. I had joined the military to make a change in my life, so after scouring the internet and comparing rent prices and local activities, I decided on Portland; it was close Seaside where my family used to vacation and I could put my knitting obsession to use during the mild winters. Assigned to the Seattle Armory, I would be able to commute for monthly drills and maybe squeeze in some shopping as a bonus.
I spent four days in Spokane after flying home from San Antonio after our AIT (Advanced Individual Training) graduation. In my experience, that is the amount of time I can spend at my parents house before they forget I'm an adult with a job and start assigning me chores and asking where I am heading. Loading the pickup truck borrowed from my father to transport my few belongings south to Oregon, I didn't even consider staying a bit longer, visiting my niece and nephews that I hadn't seen since Christmas. An exciting life was waiting six hours south, and a few snow flurries weren't going to deter me.
It has been eight months since that move; I've ditched the roommate that I was convinced would make it cheaper to live here (it didn't) and found a walkup apartment with large closets to stash my treasures, but still something is lacking. I really should have waited longer to go back to the job I was on leave from. It really isn't as fun, or even tolerable as I remember. I really thought that I would have accomplished more. It's hard to even look check Facebook, nine out of ten people I graduated with are married and most of them have kids. The most I can really lay claim to is that I escaped the black hole that is our hometown and have never received welfare benefits.
Maybe there was just too much "Stepford", not enough reality in my expectation of what my life would be like at twenty-six. My aunts and uncles had married fairly young - so I never expected to be this close to thirty with a yarn collection and not so much as a goldfish as a housemate. Each of my closest siblings (both younger) have a pair of kids, and I'm starting to wonder what the family says about me when I'm not there. About three years ago, shortly after my niece was born, I was at a baby shower with my mother and a bunch of her friends. Over mimosas on a Saturday afternoon, they were talking about their children. I just happened to be within ear shot when one of them motioned toward me, coincidently holding said niece, and they asked my mother when I was going to have kids already. I don't remember the exact quote, but her response was something to the effect of, I had some time, but my parents were going to start badgering me about it before too long.
My mother was the queen of casseroles when we were growing up, but there were some things that she didn't have time for raising us rambunctious four of us – from her I learned the basics: how to sew on a button, iron a dress shirt and calm a screaming infant Though occasionally I sew a button onto something I have knit, I don't even own an iron and the only babies I'm calming aren't my own. Yes, I am the baby whisperer, a beer in one hand and a formula bottle in the other. Occasionally it seems strange that my two younger siblings have children and I do not, but I have so much more freedom and I travel too often to keep a more than a fern, let alone a toddler.
For now, I occupy a tidy little walk-up apartment filled with handmade items and treasures from my travels. It is kind of nice to have the option to stay up to make jam at night and knit a few rows on a hat, without worrying of waking anyone. I can sleep in and go for a run in the morning. It may be three or four hours into my day before I speak to another human (until I can learn to order coffee by sign language that is). Someday I will have that place with canned fruit and veggies filling the cupboards, wool spilling from the closet and waves lapping at the shore. Until then, this place will do.
The Un- Stepford Reality
As part of our final in my human relations class, we had to write a five year plan for what we hoped to accomplish. I remember fantasizing of owning my own restaurant, living in some far off place and starting a family. Newsflash, this was nearly seven years ago and none of those things happened.
Coincidently, two weeks before I could register for classes that spring quarter, my parents informed me that I would need to pay half my tuition. I had been living on * "Broke Food" for months and didn't have that kind of scratch lying around. My memory of that conversation is pretty fuzzy, but I must have informed my mother of my situation because she took pity on me, allowing me to move home for a while to pay off the credit card that I had been using to purchase youth bus passes and supplement my meager wages at the restaurant to make rent.
* "Broke Food" - a ratatouille of sorts with lots of garlic, mushrooms and corn, that can be served with pasta or thinned out for soup. One big pot usually lasts far longer that I can stand to eat the same meal for, usually about a week or so. This costs about $7-10 to make, including a $2.50 five pound bag of pasta and/or top ramen to mix it up a bit. I've always been far too proud to apply for food stamps; instead I make the sacrifice and live very modestly from time to time.
The plan changed...drastically. I enrolled in culinary school in order to gain useful skills and make contacts to obtain a better paying job, I would have never expected there to be so much struggle involved. Years would pass and I still hadn't gone back to school, I finally gave in to the fact that I will never make much more than minimum wage and possibly some tips in a restaurant. Around the time I made the decision to find a new job, my younger sister tells us she's pregnant, then a year later my brother and his girlfriend (with twins!). That was it, I knew that I didn't want that fate for myself - a drastic change was in order.
Genetically predisposed to be a collector, I tried to fight the urge by purging: kitchen appliances to friends and my siblings, art supplies to the children's art museum downtown, the rest to Goodwill. The guy at their donation center asked me more than once if I was getting rid of a bad roommate, I was tempted to tell him yes - myself. What I did I keep filled four plastic tubs, which were stashed in the crawl space at my parents’ house. One bin with nice clothing, the second full of books, another with cds and a few movies and the last with yarn and some expensive watercolor supplies, slowly acquired over the years as I could afford them. For years my mother had been trying to talk me into joining the military, telling me stories of people she knew who it had changed for the better. Maybe it would do wonders for me, make me less shy – and it was free, so I decided to at least give it a shot.
I packed a small duffel bag with toiletries and boarded one plane after another, bouncing around the country and finally arriving in Columbia, South Carolina. I had only heard of this place in books and movies, but I was stationed there for basic training. Pictures of nearby Myrtle Beach lead me to expect something strange, foreign I guess. Really, the town surrounding Ft Jackson didn't look that different from the valley near the town I grew up in, only there were beach grasses that seemed very out of place that far inland, and the pale sand that surrounded the cookie cutter buildings we were hurried between like cattle; everything was very concrete and seventies style, oak veneer and brown berber carpet covered every vertical surface.
The next couple of months were a blur of sorts. Scars on my elbows and knees from crawling around in the desert remind me of day to day events and disasters documented for posterity in handwritten letters that I sent daily to my family back in Washington. Afternoons spent hand scrubbing linoleum floors of the portable classroom the fifty of us women called home for ten weeks provided plenty of fodder to write home about. Though communication was better when basic training was over and I had my phone and access to the internet while I was stationed at Ft Sam Houston for medic training, I still felt very disconnected from my family. Missing summer barbeques, holidays and the birth of my nephew was not my intention. I shipped presents home hoping alleviate my homesickness let everyone know I hadn't forgotten about them. Although I missed my family terribly, I couldn't go back to living in Spokane. Moving back home would have been too easy; leaving the house was like attending a high school reunion. I had joined the military to make a change in my life, so after scouring the internet and comparing rent prices and local activities, I decided on Portland; it was close Seaside where my family used to vacation and I could put my knitting obsession to use during the mild winters. Assigned to the Seattle Armory, I would be able to commute for monthly drills and maybe squeeze in some shopping as a bonus.
I spent four days in Spokane after flying home from San Antonio after our AIT (Advanced Individual Training) graduation. In my experience, that is the amount of time I can spend at my parents house before they forget I'm an adult with a job and start assigning me chores and asking where I am heading. Loading the pickup truck borrowed from my father to transport my few belongings south to Oregon, I didn't even consider staying a bit longer, visiting my niece and nephews that I hadn't seen since Christmas. An exciting life was waiting six hours south, and a few snow flurries weren't going to deter me.
It has been eight months since that move; I've ditched the roommate that I was convinced would make it cheaper to live here (it didn't) and found a walkup apartment with large closets to stash my treasures, but still something is lacking. I really should have waited longer to go back to the job I was on leave from. It really isn't as fun, or even tolerable as I remember. I really thought that I would have accomplished more. It's hard to even look check Facebook, nine out of ten people I graduated with are married and most of them have kids. The most I can really lay claim to is that I escaped the black hole that is our hometown and have never received welfare benefits.
Maybe there was just too much "Stepford", not enough reality in my expectation of what my life would be like at twenty-six. My aunts and uncles had married fairly young - so I never expected to be this close to thirty with a yarn collection and not so much as a goldfish as a housemate. Each of my closest siblings (both younger) have a pair of kids, and I'm starting to wonder what the family says about me when I'm not there. About three years ago, shortly after my niece was born, I was at a baby shower with my mother and a bunch of her friends. Over mimosas on a Saturday afternoon, they were talking about their children. I just happened to be within ear shot when one of them motioned toward me, coincidently holding said niece, and they asked my mother when I was going to have kids already. I don't remember the exact quote, but her response was something to the effect of, I had some time, but my parents were going to start badgering me about it before too long.
My mother was the queen of casseroles when we were growing up, but there were some things that she didn't have time for raising us rambunctious four of us – from her I learned the basics: how to sew on a button, iron a dress shirt and calm a screaming infant Though occasionally I sew a button onto something I have knit, I don't even own an iron and the only babies I'm calming aren't my own. Yes, I am the baby whisperer, a beer in one hand and a formula bottle in the other. Occasionally it seems strange that my two younger siblings have children and I do not, but I have so much more freedom and I travel too often to keep a more than a fern, let alone a toddler.
For now, I occupy a tidy little walk-up apartment filled with handmade items and treasures from my travels. It is kind of nice to have the option to stay up to make jam at night and knit a few rows on a hat, without worrying of waking anyone. I can sleep in and go for a run in the morning. It may be three or four hours into my day before I speak to another human (until I can learn to order coffee by sign language that is). Someday I will have that place with canned fruit and veggies filling the cupboards, wool spilling from the closet and waves lapping at the shore. Until then, this place will do.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Third Paper
Around the time that I turned seven, the two sides of my family merged. My father had grown up an only child and was the center of his parents attention until we arrived, us three kids were a bonus to marrying our mother. All of a sudden they became grandparents, and it was very different from the family that I had been surrounded by up to this point.
My father’s parents were very neat. The rancher style home that they owned while we were growing up was always decorated according to the season, not just storage for treasures like we were used to. Whenever we arrived at the house there always seemed to be something baking and had activities planned for us kids. The rancher style home that they used to own had a country kitchen homeyness to it, the antique furniture that they owned had been passed down in the family, and was well kept. They had black and white pictures in frames from when they were young and lived in Montana. Up until that point I never knew anyone who had cable television. I was used to waiting for Saturday morning cartoons, but they had a channel that played cartoons all day, it was awesome. My grandparents cooked meals from scratch and lived in a subdivision that we could ride our bikes around. Before I met them, I had never heard of spring cleaning, when you go through your possessions and purge.
My mother's family was quite a stark contrast. One of my first clear memories was following my grandmother around the farm to tend to the few pheasants she still kept. There was a collection of outbuildings that my grandfather had built when he was still alive: the a-frame, the tool shed and flat roofed delapated garage that housed my grandmother's treasures. I don't believe I ever saw my Grandma Mickey baking, save a tv dinner or two for us kids. She was no Betty Crocker, but she did own all of the cookbooks. Always a collector, my grandmother was always saving, tucking things away. Born in 1923, she and her four sisters were raised during the depression and saw many wars. It may have been some type of coping mechanism or just a habit that stuck after raising five children. If she was out shopping with any of us and saw something on clearance, she would purchase it, often in multiples. Once home they were store away, nearly always forgotten about.
The three of us oldest grandkids didn't go to daycare until I was in school. Instead we spent our days with my mother's overwhelmingly female family. My mother would drop us off at grandma's before the sun was up most mornings and we would watch the morning news while grandma made us instant oatmeal. She would stand in the back corner of the kitchen ironing, half-listening to the scanner and telling us stories about growing up, peppered with slight anger toward one of her sisters or a classmate, something that happened more than fifty years previously.
It was my grandmother who taught us about buttercups, willows and the other plants that blossomed around the property, about gathering aluminum cans that had been tossed into the ditches of the country road she lived on and recycling them for money. Grandma's house was a haven for things that had potential to be fixed, but rarely did they. There were stacks of fruit boxes that lined the hallway leading to the back bedroom, and that stack housed three Easy Bake ovens. This was torture to my five year old self, to see these boxes everyday, knowing that not one of them was in working order and I wasn't able to play with them. There was an unknown number of Barbies, collectors items we were told, kept in their boxes and never enjoyed. Thousands of books, stashes of art supplies, and tons of dress patterns filled these boxes. There are somethings that will always remind me of my grandma's house; Aquafresh toothpaste, Head and Shoulders (and the way it makes your scalp tingle), Irish Spring and the smell of Folgers instant coffee.
Aunt Rita would show up most mornings, before The Price is Right, to take my brother and I on an adventure. Usually it was work, disguised as fun; going on a hike around the property to scout out a fence that needed repair, figuring out what was wrong with the well, or loading up fallen branches or recycling. Rita drove the big blue pickup when I was young, teaching me to shift out of necessity, because my car seat got in the way and I was the only one who could reach second gear. She taught us how to fix things around the house, about making faces at strangers at stoplights, and how to suck helium out of balloons and sing Happy Birthday on people's answering machines.
When she wasn't working at the hospital, my mom's oldest sister would take me for the day. My Aunt Rocky lived out in the country when I was young, and along with grandma, had us convinced that the television only worked during certain times of the day; coincidentally during the news, MASH or Masterpiece Theater. She collected mystery novels and I would help her bake peanut butter cookies before settling down for the night and working on the ever present crochet blanket project. My uncles, my mother's older brothers weren't around quite as much but did take us fishing occasionally, stomping through the woods to get there, and pointing out which leaves were okay to wipe with. Most of my aunts and uncles didn't have children until we were a bit older, so us three were like practice children.
My parents are the grandparents now to my niece and nephews, and time has mellowed them considerably. The house is a mixture of the two sides; it's very neat, although I think my father only vacuums once a day now. There is lots vintage sports equipment along with pictures of the family, both from when we were growing up and some older photographs of our grandparents and great-grandparents. They purchased right before my sixteenth birthday, and they have nice things now, and white carpets. Both of them are collectors to an extent, but they have a garage sale nearly every year to keep the garage from getting out of control.
I can only hope that I've made the right decision, to move away from home and everything I knew. I hope that the time that spend with my niece and nephews will be enough and they will have funny memories of riding around in shopping carts or running errands with me and my youngest sister the way I remember my aunts as a child. Baking cupcakes with sprinkles or coloring pictures, I try to allow them to do fun things that their parents don't have the time or patience to do. I buy them the "cool presents" for christmas and knit them toys and hats throughout the year.
My father’s parents were very neat. The rancher style home that they owned while we were growing up was always decorated according to the season, not just storage for treasures like we were used to. Whenever we arrived at the house there always seemed to be something baking and had activities planned for us kids. The rancher style home that they used to own had a country kitchen homeyness to it, the antique furniture that they owned had been passed down in the family, and was well kept. They had black and white pictures in frames from when they were young and lived in Montana. Up until that point I never knew anyone who had cable television. I was used to waiting for Saturday morning cartoons, but they had a channel that played cartoons all day, it was awesome. My grandparents cooked meals from scratch and lived in a subdivision that we could ride our bikes around. Before I met them, I had never heard of spring cleaning, when you go through your possessions and purge.
My mother's family was quite a stark contrast. One of my first clear memories was following my grandmother around the farm to tend to the few pheasants she still kept. There was a collection of outbuildings that my grandfather had built when he was still alive: the a-frame, the tool shed and flat roofed delapated garage that housed my grandmother's treasures. I don't believe I ever saw my Grandma Mickey baking, save a tv dinner or two for us kids. She was no Betty Crocker, but she did own all of the cookbooks. Always a collector, my grandmother was always saving, tucking things away. Born in 1923, she and her four sisters were raised during the depression and saw many wars. It may have been some type of coping mechanism or just a habit that stuck after raising five children. If she was out shopping with any of us and saw something on clearance, she would purchase it, often in multiples. Once home they were store away, nearly always forgotten about.
The three of us oldest grandkids didn't go to daycare until I was in school. Instead we spent our days with my mother's overwhelmingly female family. My mother would drop us off at grandma's before the sun was up most mornings and we would watch the morning news while grandma made us instant oatmeal. She would stand in the back corner of the kitchen ironing, half-listening to the scanner and telling us stories about growing up, peppered with slight anger toward one of her sisters or a classmate, something that happened more than fifty years previously.
It was my grandmother who taught us about buttercups, willows and the other plants that blossomed around the property, about gathering aluminum cans that had been tossed into the ditches of the country road she lived on and recycling them for money. Grandma's house was a haven for things that had potential to be fixed, but rarely did they. There were stacks of fruit boxes that lined the hallway leading to the back bedroom, and that stack housed three Easy Bake ovens. This was torture to my five year old self, to see these boxes everyday, knowing that not one of them was in working order and I wasn't able to play with them. There was an unknown number of Barbies, collectors items we were told, kept in their boxes and never enjoyed. Thousands of books, stashes of art supplies, and tons of dress patterns filled these boxes. There are somethings that will always remind me of my grandma's house; Aquafresh toothpaste, Head and Shoulders (and the way it makes your scalp tingle), Irish Spring and the smell of Folgers instant coffee.
Aunt Rita would show up most mornings, before The Price is Right, to take my brother and I on an adventure. Usually it was work, disguised as fun; going on a hike around the property to scout out a fence that needed repair, figuring out what was wrong with the well, or loading up fallen branches or recycling. Rita drove the big blue pickup when I was young, teaching me to shift out of necessity, because my car seat got in the way and I was the only one who could reach second gear. She taught us how to fix things around the house, about making faces at strangers at stoplights, and how to suck helium out of balloons and sing Happy Birthday on people's answering machines.
When she wasn't working at the hospital, my mom's oldest sister would take me for the day. My Aunt Rocky lived out in the country when I was young, and along with grandma, had us convinced that the television only worked during certain times of the day; coincidentally during the news, MASH or Masterpiece Theater. She collected mystery novels and I would help her bake peanut butter cookies before settling down for the night and working on the ever present crochet blanket project. My uncles, my mother's older brothers weren't around quite as much but did take us fishing occasionally, stomping through the woods to get there, and pointing out which leaves were okay to wipe with. Most of my aunts and uncles didn't have children until we were a bit older, so us three were like practice children.
My parents are the grandparents now to my niece and nephews, and time has mellowed them considerably. The house is a mixture of the two sides; it's very neat, although I think my father only vacuums once a day now. There is lots vintage sports equipment along with pictures of the family, both from when we were growing up and some older photographs of our grandparents and great-grandparents. They purchased right before my sixteenth birthday, and they have nice things now, and white carpets. Both of them are collectors to an extent, but they have a garage sale nearly every year to keep the garage from getting out of control.
I can only hope that I've made the right decision, to move away from home and everything I knew. I hope that the time that spend with my niece and nephews will be enough and they will have funny memories of riding around in shopping carts or running errands with me and my youngest sister the way I remember my aunts as a child. Baking cupcakes with sprinkles or coloring pictures, I try to allow them to do fun things that their parents don't have the time or patience to do. I buy them the "cool presents" for christmas and knit them toys and hats throughout the year.
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