The Mario Scarf Blog

Yay! Another year and a half to rack up student loans. That’s right, I got into graduate school. I”ll be attending the Atlanta campus of Mercer University to get a Master of Arts in Teaching for Secondary English and initial certification. Wanna hear something bizarre? My mom is currently a student there getting her M.A.T. for elementary education and we’ll be in school at the same time for awhile. She currently teaches kindergarten so she’s taking school kind of slow, but I’m hoping to get out by Fall 2010- we shall see!

And speaking of my mother, she somehow got some sucky malware on my parents’ home computer and I spent three hours this evening attempting to get rid of it. I tried nearly everything I could think of, but nothing worked and I sent my evening getting to the realization that nothing could be done for now. When I got home, I had an update from Nerd Merit Badges in my inbox and guess what their new badge is? “Family Tech Support.” Yup. Love it.

Babies and knitting go together like Nutella and my mouth. Like cherry and Diet Dr. Pepper. Like Cassie and a yarn store. You get the picture. So how stoked was I when I received a conversation from an Etsy customer with a picture of a baby in my knitwear!

Those cheeks! Please excuse me as I curl up on the floor in a sugar-induced coma from the sweetness of those pudgy cheeks.

I make lists all the time. While I was making this one, my best friend called me up, and in the course of the conversation she said lists made her feel bad because she can never complete all her tasks. For me, even if I don’t finish everything, at least I have everything on my mind in one place. List-writing is an important part of my daily experience and I have various notebooks and journals scattered around the house for different types of lists. And I’m happy to say I have several handmade journals purchased on Etsy.

Do you make lists? Are they graphic organizers or plainly written like mine? I love seeing how others organize and plan and how they work through the planning stages of the creative process. Send me pics- I’d love to see your lists.

I picked up my first Nerd Merit Badge the other day called: “Been Boing-Boinged.” I wish it sounded a little less pervy, but it’s a sweet merit badge to get, I think! My scarf was picked up on boingboing.net last year and at the time I had no clue what BoingBoing was. I had all these people commenting, “You’ve been boingboinged?” and I’m thinking, “uhhhh, did I miss something here?” When it arrives in the mail, I think I’ll have to finally fix my sewing machine and make myself a sweet Nerd Vest, just like when I was a Girl Scout.

I read in another blog this week about a little boy, Carl, age 11, who committed suicide because he was excessively bullied. The bullies tormented poor Carl calling him “gay.” Kids use that word so freely, but lately it seems bullies know exactly what is implied by that word and know how to use it to hurt.

A few moments ago I checked the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s website as I frequently do throughout the day and a story popped up about another little boy, this time in Decatur (just east of Atlanta) who committed suicide this past Thursday. Again, this little boy, Jaheem, was tormented by bullies and called “gay” and a “snitch.” So poor Jaheem internalized his pain and sorrow, never telling anyone the full extent of his situation.

My heart is breaking for these boys and for children who will face bullying at school tomorrow. Kids who are scared shitless about getting on the bus, getting off the bus, walking into the bathroom alone, afraid of going out on the playground, who fear walking down the halls between classes, who try never to stay out of the teacher’s sight, but fail. These kids are scared to tell, scared it’s their fault, scared no one will listen, scared of what other kids will say.

I was this kid every so often in middle school, but thankfully I have a pushy mother who doesn’t take shit and won’t let my brother or me take shit either. And I feel so thankful that she instilled that belief in me, so that no matter what, I politely stood up for myself and did my best to stand up for others. I still struggle with this, but I am not the kind of person who will let someone be rude to my face and get away with it.

I distinctly remember walking home from my middle school one day to follow a crowd of “popular” kids taunting and throwing small rocks at another kid, Sam. I’ll admit that I thought Sam was a total dweed, and I’d probably made a “not-the-best-choice” remark to him once or twice, but I rushed to his aid and yelled at the other kids. I screamed that I would go back and get the principal or beat the crap out of them with my viola case. Either way, they started railing on me and maybe even threw some pebbles at me, too. And Sam didn’t even say two words to me.

I probably have not been so noble since, but I occasionally think back to that moment and get sick to my stomach thinking about that awful bullying situation. Their words hurt me, too, and I even began to second-guess my actions. And it makes me think about kids who get the full brunt of bullying every day and how terrible they feel. They feel like they are to blame, like they must have done something wrong to deserve this. I think about the kids in the schools I substitute teach in and I wonder tonight how many of them are victims of bullying.

Bullying victims are not to blame. I blame the adults who do not do everything in their power to stop the bullying, those who know it’s happening. Teachers are so busy- middle and high school teachers see maybe over 100 kids a day, have lessons to plan, papers to grade, meetings to attend. Parents are busy with work, busy making dinner, busy with bills or their budgets. But we CANNOT deny children the opportunity every day to share their feelings and to give them EVERY opportunity to say what’s on their mind. If that means asking, “How was your day? Is there anything you want to tell me? I’m here to listen to you,” EVERY SINGLE DAY and with ABSOLUTE SINCERITY, even if means you won’t get a response, do it. Do it every day. Say something positive every day. I cannot stress the importance of positive reinforcement in a child’s life.

I rarely get into rants like this, but my heart is reeling. You think of bullying at this age as kids being mean and taunting, but not to this extent. It’s such an eye-opener. Something has to be done about effectively teaching children respect and kindness. About bullies getting the emotional help from school counselors that they need and being able to express themselves in a healthy and peaceful manner. And children need to feel safe to let adults know about bullying and to be sure that the adult will PUT A STOP TO IT.

I don’t know what else I can say. I know for sure that I will do my best to be a positive influence in all the young paths I cross from here on out, because you just never know. You just never know.

Isn’t it wonderful how the days you plan to be fun, relaxing days turn into crazy clean the house days? It’s my fault, really, but dang, what happened to fully enjoying my free day? I’m the type of person who lets things build up and then freaks out and tries to clean the entire house and do all the laundry in a single day. Suprisingly I got a lot done and I did get the chance to reward myself with more dyeing chaos.

My first experiment left me with super dark colors as a result of a lot of dye and too little wool. The colors in my pictures aren’t exactly accurate (much darker in person), but I like the results and could use the yarn in some sort of felted baby hat for little Baby James.

The left side is the best image of the real colors. And see the little white stringies in that picture? Look closely at the yarn cake on the right and you can see little white spots from where I tied the skein to keep it together. So for the sock yarn from KnitPix I made a few changes to the water to dye powder ratio and it turned out much brighter.

The yarn soaked up the dye immediately when I put it in the pot so the inner parts are much lighter. I haven’t decided if I like it or not and it’s still drying so tomorrow I’ll go check on it and see what’s up. And the red section of the yarn is supposed to be a much deeper red and not orange at all. Weird camera issues with red today. I only used “vermillion” dye in the pot for this one and not a touch of yellow, so I dunno why it’s so orangey in this shot.

Overall, I find yarn dyeing a bit underwhelming. I’ve always been kind of terrible with color design and maybe if I bought more dye colors I could mix and match and get all scientific testing colors and what-not. But as for now, the method I used is kinda, um, boring. I saw a blog post about dyeing using plastic wrap and empty ketchup bottles in what appears to be more of tie-dye-type dealie. And I also wish I had a Bunser burner or a Coleman stove to dye in my craft room and not get the kitchen all stinky with vinegar. Jason cooked up some tomatoes after I dyed the sock yarn and the house still smells like ketchup at 11:30 PM.

And here’s sock one of Nutkin! I’m using superfine alpaca sock yarn from Blarney Yarn. I luuuurve how soft and delicate this yarn is and you can be sure I won’t be wearing these socks around the house, no sir- shoes on for these lovelies only. Either that or I wear them with slippers out to the porch, sit in a chair, prop up my feet and ADMIRE. I want to go there.

Comics took over my living room this week and I’m sure some of you can relate.

These long boxes hold a mere portion of the Boyfriend’s whole comic collection. C’mon, the boy’s been hoarding collecting comics for over twenty years and I shudder to think what our house will look like in another twenty years. I have a feeling we’ll die a death by yarn and comic ink fumes. Sounds like a happy way to go.

And tomorrow on my day off I get to finish the experiment I started earlier this week: yarn dyeing! I bought some “blank” yarn and Jacquard dyes from KnitPix and started experimenting on a few of my light wool yarns from the stash. So far, I put too much dye in the pot and the colors came out really dark. I want to run a few more test batches before I use the nice sock yarn I got. Any advice from experienced yarn dyers? I think I reeeeeally don’t need as much dye powder as I think I do, but that’s why I’m going to turn the kitchen into a laboratory tomorrow.

Have you seen the Dork Yearbook yet? I looooove it and am inspired to go rummage through my parent’s house for embarrassing photos.

Anyway, this video was posted today and it seems totally appropriate to post here. It’s about when Super Mario Bros. first came out and it even includes tips for level 3-1!

Playing around with the toy I got in my Easter basket:

I thought I liked pastel jelly beans, but I was very, very wrong. Pass me a toothbrush, please.

I had a crazy Easter morning- worked from 6:45 AM to 1:00 PM in the church nursery! Phew! Thankfully most of the kids didn’t cry and my mom came to help and she brought chocolate. Yay for moms.

I drove down to Columbus, Georgia to meet my boyfriend and his family and friends for Easter dunch (dinner/lunch) and give the new baby knitted hats! Baby James is my boyfriend’s dad’s wife’s daughter’s first son. You follow? Basically, she’s my boyfriend’s stepsister, but they don’t call each other step-anything so I guess I’ll just call her Katie and be done with it. Baby James was born March 19 and I just now got to see him and shower him with handmade hats a-plenty. He still needs to grow into them a bit, but he wears them well!

Happy Easter!