Still Alive and Kicking

Things are slowly getting back to normal here.  I'm still uber-tired and am in bed before 9pm every night, but I'm weaning myself off of the daily nap(s).  Last week I started driving again, like everything else it makes me tired. While FFM enjoyed riding to and from school with his buddies he's happy to have Mom back in the saddle again.  I still can't bend down to reach things on the floor and I will have to sit lounged back in my chair like a guy for another four weeks, but I can walk reasonably well, if not fast.  The nerves on the outside of my thigh are repairing themselves from the trauma of surgery so my leg feels like it raw and on fire most of the time, but it doesn't hurt to put weight on it.  It's not stable enough to hop around on, but I can take short walks in the neighborhood without too much trouble.

Other than putting my leg up and watching entire seasons of TV shows from the DVR and reading endless books I haven't done much of anything the past couple of weeks.  FFM is in class plays next week and he started getting nervous when he realized I hadn't started his Big Billy Goat Gruff costume. He's had enough on his mind lately so I started on it right away.

Since my excursions are limited, I looked around the house to see what we already had.  I used the same concept from his lion costume that we did a couple years ago.  Luckily I am very well stocked in yarn and we had a spare headband from St. Patrick's Day that I could cannibalize.

 I knit a tube and attached two ears to it.  Then I cut about a zillion 7" strips of various colors/textures of yarn and used a crochet hook to pull them through the knitting on the headband. I used about half a zillion twisted brown pipe cleaners to make the horns and a knitted triangle "pocket" for the chinny chin chin. If you're on Ravelry, find the pattern here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lion-mane-with-ears

FFM is in two plays (I think most of the kids are) and his second role is narrator for The Gingerbread Man.  Luckily this role requires no costume, but FFM dug out a sparkly gold top hat from his dress up bin to liven things up.