I'm no Fox

I'm currently working on a jumper for Jai from a book I called Easy Kids Knits and so far it's living up to to the book's name. We'll see though because it has independent sleeves which will involve sewing. I reserve the right to change my mind about it's easiness. Also I have a horrible feeling I didn't buy enough yarn. Jai is a skinny runt, but he's got a long body so the yardage may even itself out or I'll have to buy another skein from Kitpicks.com and lets face it, you can't just buy one and that'll mean blowing my 'Cara's Entertainment fund' for this month after berating MrD for going over his by $3 in Feb which, I'm sure you'll agree, is just scandalous, I mean $3 is almost a gallon of milk. Selfishness.

I also finished my poncho, come cowl, come thing I put over my head and round my neck. It was too big as a poncho itself (the word poncho just screams Ugly Betty at me) so I folded it around itself and got this.

I asked my son (currently home ill from school and so needing to be put to good use) to take a full shot and this happened:

I knew I should have taken one yesterday when I looked like this:

Pretty Awesome

You know the one thing that moving to America has allowed me to do?
Use the word 'Awesome'
And that in itself is pretty awesome. It's not a word that gets used back home unless you're a gnarly skateboarder dude or you say it sarcastically in a really bad fake US accent. Now I can say it all the time and even my 3 year old has adopted it as word of the week.

We Brits take the piss, it's what we do and by 'take the piss' I mean 'take the mick', 'take the mickey', 'take the Michael' 'rip the piss out of'...
You see this is where two countries that speak the same language don't speak the same language. Some people just haven't got a fecking clue what I am saying! And bejesus does it work both ways!

For example. The other day I'm at this lady's house (my son playing with her son) and I say come on Jai we need to go home for tea. She then politely asks if I take milk in it. Well yes I do in tea, but I'm mean tea, you know as in tea, tea. Penny drops, I mean dinner!
Now I know this is a regional thing in the UK and we use the word dinner and tea interchangeably but to me dinner is posher and I would only really say it if it was just me and MrD going to a restaurant.
Now I use it just to see the confused faces. I'm a meanie.

Equally there are many words that I am coming across now that I have to think about, like pocketbook means wallet, right? Here I live in a Town House that only has two levels, it would have three in the UK (excluding the attic or basement) and there I lived in a semi-detached house, that would be a Duplex here, god knows what a Condo is! I thought I was getting some really fancy self-cleaning/bird poo repellant glass when I read 'window treatments' in the house brochure, to say I was underwhelmed by the resulting papery pleated blinds is an understatement. I also got very confused when the back of the food packet told me to broil, that will be to grill then.

Because there is too so much US tele (see, we say tele/telly, it would seem it's purely TV here) on the tele in the UK that us Brits kinda know that when you say garbage/trash can you mean rubbish/dust bin. When you say yard you mean garden, faucet/tap, diaper/nappy, pacifier/dummy, fall/autumn, ass/arse, and when a guy mentions his fanny, well we know that that doesn't mean he is transgender, but we do have to pick ourselves off the floor after the laughter. We also get that when you say Britain you usually mean England (not the same thing Mrs 2nd grade teacher of my daughter)

I'm not going to go into pronounciation, because well, I'm just not going there (but 'erbs!!, really 'erbs?, like nails down a blackboard *shudder*)

Today the postman mailman delivered my parcel package of wool yarn from the shop store, I said cheers thank you, I won't be buying anymore for a fortnight two weeks unless the jumper sweater I'm knitting goes pearshaped wrong.

Totally awesome.

Not extinct, just dormant.

Don't you just hate blogs that lay dormant for months.

Yeah, me too.

Good job this one hasn't then hey?

We've been across the pond for 4 months now. I am still and always will be MUM regardless of the fact my 8 year old daughter is sounding more and more like a native Jersey kid by the day. It grates slightly on the elocution nerve that runs through my Received Pronunciation psyche, but at least she still pronounces her Ts. Water will never be Wadder and thank god will never be Wahher.

Homesickness comes like waves of pregnancy nausea. Eating helps that too. Thank god Cadbury's Creme eggs are in season, available and almost as tasty because quite frankly Hershey's tastes like the regurgitated sour sick. Chocolate always helps. So does wine.

Now I feel a little more settled as less like I'm on holiday and the feeling of temporary suspension is lifting I feel like writing stuff down again. I should write stuff down again. I will write stuff down again.

So prepare for more inane posts about what my needles are clicking (atm a lacy poncho for moi) about my three english kids who are slowly turing american, and life as an expat, staunchly english wifey and how I cope in the U omitting, S replacing, Adverb losing USA.

What bloody fun!

On a very side note, as this blog was intended to be about knitting, I have since created:

4 Cozy Coupe wheel covers

3 pairs of socks

3 hats

2 dishcloths

1 pair of gloves

1 teddy bear in a bag

1 poncho

1 vest

1 cardigan

1 bolero

1 Tic Tac Toe game

1 swiffer duster cover

Knit on!