Hat fever

A good friend asked me to knit some hats for her. Sure, I said. I can do that, and I offered to do them for the insanely cheap price of $5 as I was going to use crappy acrylic that I have a ton of. It's not the nicest yarn, but it's actually pretty soft and Red Heart Kids has some cute variegated colors. So then she tells me she wants 6 of them. Gasp, if you will. I didn't blink an eye. Of course I can do that. How fast do you want them?
So I started the hats last week. Luckily I have this gallery of hats that I designed. She chooses 5, and tells me to pick my own design on the 6th. Well, after 3 hats all in one color (well, in one variegated yarn) I got bored. So I said "How 'bout I knit this great fair isle hat for one of them? It turned out so awesome looking that I said "How 'bout I knit another fair isle hat?" I ended up doing not 1, not 2, but 3 fair isle hats, all for the bargain basement price of $5 each because I was having so much fun knitting them. I think I'm hatted out for a while.
I started the Hyland Argyle Vest for DH today. It's going to be one of his Christmas presents (providing I get it done in time). It's kind of boring because there's a LOT (who am I kidding, a lot doesn't even begin to describe the amount of it) of stockinette. About a million inches and 308 (inceased to 312) stitches around, partly due to the extra pounds DH has put on since being married to me. If it would have been 12 years ago that I was knitting this pattern, I'd have been able to get by with a M. Now I'm knitting an XL. Not that I'm knocking on DH for gaining a few, I have absolutely NO room to talk. I'm just speaking in pure numbers here, the stitch count for a S was in the 250 range. 50 times a bazillion is a lot of extra stitches.
The boys had their last day of school at WGS today and when I picked them up their backpacks were full of the school supplies I purchased at the beginning of the year. At least it looked like all of them, there was so freaking much stuff I couldn't even tell you if it all came back. It took me forever to organize it, and stash all their work they've done this year so far. Tomorrow we'll get their school computer and the "school" area in the house set up for them. They are excited, but we'll see how they are feeling in about a month or so.
Two of my friends and I are swapping babysitting once a week. One person takes all 3 girls (all 3 years old) from 9:30-2 or so one day a week. It's supposed to be my week coming up but K. has volunteered to take my week again to help me get in the swing of school with the boys. She is a better friend than anyone could ever ask for. She has done more for me in the year than anyone I've even known that isn't family and required to do so.
We got a lovely notice from our mortgage company that we have a huge escrow shortage this year. We either have to make up $1800 right away, or over the course of a year. That combined with the new escrow payment will raise our mortgage about $350 a month, which is nearly the amount of money we were trying to save monthly. That really sucks. We'll find a way to manage but we really wanted to beef up our savings because we spent a lot of it last year buying the truck.