200th post! ZOMG.

I didn't even think of it, until I went to blogger and realized I had previously written 199 posts.

Oh. Gee. Look at that.

Of course, that doesn't take into account my old blog on Livejournal, but no one read that anyway, so never you mind your wonderful head about it.

Anyway.

Hi! It's my 200th post, apparently. I wish I had pictures. Maybe I'll add some later, when I get home.

This was a fun and crazy weekend; B flew in from DC so that she and Melissa and I could all go bridesmaid dress shopping. The girls found great dresses that are similar enough that it won't look weird, and different enough that both of them look really beautiful. I'm also pleased to report that the world did not explode with my two best friends in the same room, which is fantastic, as I was a little...concerned.

Of course, Lucy had to put the final seal of approval on the dresses, which she did with happy gurgles. The sight of Mama in a veil and tiara apparently was too much, though, and the poor munchkin was reduced to tears and howls. I hope she was just hungry. :)

Before that, though, B and I had gone out for breakfast, and then to Kaleidoscope. I had mourned, in my current financial state, the inability to re-wardrobe my daughter for fall, and she's grown out of almost all of her handmade sweaters. B took on the challenge. We got alpaca-silk from Blue Sky Alpacas, Love It in one of their long-repeat colors, some Pure Merino Nuance, some Lamb's Pride Worsted, some Tili Thomas beaded for a new version of last year's awesome blue hat. The baby will continue to be well dressed. Very exciting.

Sunday morning, Lucy and I went to church with Grandpa Frank so we could hear him sing. I wasn't sure how well she'd do -- she's not exactly in a sitting still phase, and with her second tooth cutting through right next to the first one, her mood has been slightly less sunny, though I think only the most trained observer would notice, given her propensity for smiling at strangers -- but I was actually very impressed. I think she definitely enjoyed the first parts of the worship, the music and the call-and-response, but the message was too much for her. I listened to some of it from the back of the sanctuary, where I could rock her and walk her to keep her calm, but when even that wore through her patience, I took her down to the nursery, where she could bobble and talk, and I could still hear the message.

There was more I was going to say, but then the phones went nuts, and now I've forgotten. The downside of blogging from work.

Much love to you and yours.

Public Service Announcement

The baby is teething.

The fact that all of us have survived the last three days is mainly due to the development of Infant Tylenol.

Before I had a baby, I said there was nothing worse than mothers who drugged their children so that the kids would sleep and poor little mommy could get some time on her own.

Shows what I know.

It is, in fact, a self-defense technique. Because if you strangle the child, who is crying (truly through no fault of their own, but when they're making that sound I swear you don't know that) and crying and crying and wearing doesn't help and nursing doesn't help and thumb sucking doesn't help (because as soon as she drifts off enough to be careful, her thumb bumps the sore spot, and then the screaming starts again), if you strangle the child, you'll be sent to jail, and no one wants that.

Note: I'm trying to be funny. If it's not coming off that way, please blame extreme exhaustion. One sharp little corner of the tooth in question has already poked through -- any chance that means there's an end in sight? And I've already tried washclothes and cold teethers, she will have nothing to do with them.

In which there is practically no knitting.

Because what I've (mostly) been knitting is plain socks, and I just don't think you're going to care so much. Plain, DK weight socks. Yawn. I got really excitable and kept the ribbing going all the way down the leg -- but only the back of the leg. Yeah, see? Not exciting.

But look at this:



And this one:



That little yellow blur? That's a summer squash. It now has a buddy, and a likely looking bud on its other side.

And can you believe it?



There are already two baby chili peppers on the plants, and the bells and the chilis are COVERED in buds.

Norma, if I ever meet you in person, I'm going to hug you.

Someone want to tell me what I need to do with the chilis throughout the summer so that I can make hot pepper jelly in the fall?

Snatching a moment.

Sneaking in to say hello during a 5 minute break.

Training proceeds, no worries. I will very much enjoy the new tasks, and I'm excited for them.

Last night was rough, for some reason; Lucy went to bed with no-muss-no-fuss, and I turned in a couple hours later. It was all very fuzzy in my brain, as I was VERY tired from teflon-brain induced by too-much-learning-about-pharmacy-programs.

I woke up a few hours after I'd gone to bed; some part of my brain thought Lu might be hungry, but she was sound asleep and totally at peace. And it occurred to me that she didn't need me nearby to sleep. I was proud/sad/lonely all at once. I expect that feeling will occur often as the days pass and my little girl grows.

College is practically right around the corner.

Much love to you all.

Monday is fired.

You hear that, Monday?? Take that! You and your forgetting-stuff-at-home, busy-phones, stressed-out nonsense; I'm done with you! haHA!

In other news, I keep reading everywhere how the knitblog is dying, the knitblog is on its way out, beat our chests and rend our skin, the knitblog, o the knitblog.

Dudes. Seriously.

Perhaps I'm jaded or overtired or something, but it's just not that big of a deal to me. It feels like the blogs I read -- are distilled, somehow. Pared down. In a good way. Of course, since I started working, pictures have become something that happened to Other Blogs, so perhaps my perspective is skewed.

But then, I didn't get into blogging for the knitting. I always had the knittalk list for that, and when I got my camera, I was going to show off pictures, sure, and that was fun...but rapidly, what I liked more was the stories. The friendships. The people I keep in touch with that I would never keep in touch with -- much less meet! -- if it weren't for the internet. I know that there are those of you who wander over regularly to find out what Lucy's up to, what I'm mad at today, and, oh yeah, if I'm knitting anything. I mean, sure, it started all about projects, but woman cannot knit sock yarn alone, or something similar.

Really. I started reading blogs because of the Yarn Harlot, and I started blogging because I wanted to be Cool Like Her. But what makes Stephanie cool? Is it that she was The First (I have no idea if she was, I'm just saying). Is it that she knits like a demon when the force is with her? Or is it her take on life, her turn of phrase, her way of making you fall off your chair laughing?

Every time I go to the yarn store, Robb asks if I'm going to have a yarn accident. You know, where you fall down in the yarn store, and swipe your credit card on the way by? That's because of her.

Not because she knit the (admittedly beautiful) snowdrop shawl.

Because of her I realized that women still breastfeed, that women still have natural births, that there is recourse to other options than the one shown on TBS's A Baby Story. I could care about what she's knitting, but I want to hear about her children, her life, her friends, I want to hear about the singular way she sees the world, because it makes me want to be more like her. A crunchy, hippie mama in birkies with the courage to take on all the Muggles in the world.

The knitblog isn't dying. The knitblog is becoming mainstream -- which means that it's big enough to take in everything. Knitters who get distracted by gardens and babies and whatever else life throws at us.

Because we are all knitters. And just because that's what we started talking about -- we can diversify.

***

Saturday was for cuddles this weekend, cuz Mama had a fuckup. Lynne, if you read this, I'm not telling my mother because I will NEVER hear the end of it, and no one was endangered, so really, we're just letting it lie. But I'm writing it down here because I need to know that other moms have had oopses too, and to be told that I'm not a horrible mom, so please feel free to indicate this down where there's the little comment box, 'kay? You know what to do.

This weekend, we went over to Dad's almost all day for his birthday party -- Poppy turned 60 this year, and Lucy, Robb, and I went to help him celebrate in style. It was a grand time; and there were a lot of kids needing naps -- somewhere in the chaos of getting one kid up and another kid down, the monitor for the room that Lucy was in got turned off. I put her down at 6, sure that she was drifting off to sleep -- 45 minutes later, I was shocked that she was asleep, she never sleeps long if we're away from home. I decided to go upstairs and check on her -- and as soon as I got outside the door to the room (which someone had closed, to "protect" her from the noise), I could hear her screaming her head off.

I don't know how long the poor little bean was crying in there, all on her own, thinking that mama had forsaken her. I'm guessing somewhere between 15 minutes to half an hour. She'd thrown up all over herself, the pack-n-play, her blankie, her sweater. She had puke in her hair, down her front, down her back. And what really broke my heart was that as soon as I opened that door and got inside her view, she stopped crying and held out her arms. She'd just been waiting for me.

I brought her downstairs, all messy and awful and got her cleaned up while she cuddled as close as she could get. A couple people tried to suggest that I should put her down to clean her up so I didn't get messy (fucking idiots); I ignored them while I got her not-so-yucky, and then nursed her, right there in the middle of the public view. I had one aunt look like maybe she'd say something, and another aunt just kinda got in the way and started talking about the intermittent rain. Go Aunt Rachel!

The rest of the weekend was fine. I knit one entire sock out of some LL Shepherd Worsted in Jeans that's been hanging around for a VERY long time, and got all the way down to the heel of sock #2. My house is still full of moths, but I can't find any yarn that they're munching...could it just be eggs that were laid in the carpet that are hatching?

Very bizarre.

One of *those* weeks.

I don't know if I've even touched knitting needles since this weekend.

It's been a hectic few days emotionally, personally, workally, homelifeally...just all around. Rough. Busy.

Sleep schedule? Gone.

Laundry? Not done.

Cleaning? I laugh at you. I laugh hard.

This week, I have run around like a chicken with my head cut off, taking care of sick Robb, potentially sick Lucy (it's so hard to tell when she can't tell me where it hurts. Is she sick, or just the crankiest baby ever? Actually, that's never been true, a 10-minute crying jag is a REALLY long time for her, so I don't mean to complain), trying to ensure that both Lu and I have health insurance next month (and Robb will, for the first time since we've gotten together!) Next week, I go to training for the next level of my job. That will be fun, and possibly a knitting extravaganza. But if you don't hear from me, that's why.

I have no pictures of knitting to show you, but if you wanna see pics of Lucy -- check here. Part of Phanfare's new app is letting people see pictures without signing up. Hooray! Take a look. :)

Until then -- I just wanna nap.

In which Fate bites me in the heiny.

This Saturday past, Lucy and I decided to get off our butts and go for a nice walk. Well, I decided, and Lucy got to come along, because she's not allowed to stay home by herself yet. Not till she's at least two. (I'm kidding, call off the hounds).

It was a really wonderful walk; sunny and warm, but the sun was in the right way to keep it off the PaleRedheadedGirl, and there was shade at just the right intervals.

We went to the library, where we returned the extremely overdue novel by someone Harris that I couldn't read past the first page, and the less overdue Duma Key by Stephen King (loved that book, truly did, keep meaning to write a review, but it's just not in my brain of late). We then (of course) continued on to the lovely LYS so that everyone could tell Lucy how adorable she is (I keep telling Robb we need another child, just so that Lucy won't get spoiled completely rotten). I bought the new Norah Gaughan pattern book, and controlled myself admirably -- which is to say that I did not spend $150 on yarn that I can't afford, when I know that if I just wait out the cotton season, the DK room will once again fill with more affordable, workhorse yarns for winter. I did, however, succumb to one of these.

When Lucy and I got home (I'm sure I could think of something picturesque to say about this weekend if I tried, but too much Buffy this weekend has made it unlikely), I thought to myself, "Self, we should really finish something before we cast on for those Flat Feet socks."

I'd like to pretend that I had a long, internal monologue where I weighed the options one against the other, and finally lost the war, but struggled valiently, and got credit for trying. But really, I thought the above, and the internal response was:

"Who are you kidding? Grab the size 1s!"

So I knit all Saturday and most of Sunday, between bouts of Lucy cuddling. I did finish the final sleeve of her new sweater (one of these days I'll post pictures again, I swear). I thought about seaming and finishing it. I thought about finding the sewing needles.

I didn't do it.

So it was totally my own fault that the sock I spent two days knitting, and was halfway down the foot -- gauge was totally on, but WAY too small for my foot. And when I'd fiddled enough to make it fit, I then skipped the "Row 2 and all other even numbered rows" direction. For the next twelve rows.

Oops.

Ribbit, ribbit.

Blushing over here, already.

Thank you to everyone who had such nice things about my (essay? piece of quasi-fiction? mini-memoir?) yesterday. All through that day, I found myself wanting to share it, and wishing I had my camera. And then, Tuesday, regretting that I didn't have my camera so that I couldn't share that day with all of you.

And then I realized that I've come to rely too heavily on that damn camera. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I have it...but I started this blog because I love words, and I want to share the words in my head and my heart. I don't need a camera for that.

Maybe my writer's heart is finally healing from all that shit I went through three years ago. That would be nice.

Actually, I've been obsessed with writing lately (surprise!). This is actually what got me thinking -- I've been wanting to write children's books (nothing new there) but particularly picture books (very new!), and I'd like to somehow write picture books that would show a style of parenting more like what I'm doing instead of what a child sees in most picture books; something that would reflect the life that (I hope) she will have growing up. A world of breastfed babies and toddlers, a world with slings and wraps instead of strollers, a world where Mama makes baby food instead of buying it off a shelf in the store. But I don't know how to include that sort of thing in a story without being didactic, without being the illustrator and -- uh -- I can't draw. Not to save my life.

But the ideas I'm being drawn to -- a photoproject of breastfeeding mothers. Who aren't just breastfeeding newborns. A project that says that boobs aren't just for sex. A book of positive birth stories -- ones that include situations like mine, where I *did* end up needing an emergency c-section, one that only the most hardcore jerks say was caused by doctor distress. (Dudes. She pooped her water and they had to suction out her lungs. She was in distress). The anti-"A Baby Story". Where someone tells mothers who "aren't dilating" to get up an walk around for a minute. Let gravity help you, for pity's sake.

Would you be interested in any of these things? Let me know.

Meanwhile, my lesson-from-God today came from a very unexpected source. There are a lot of "semi-transients" in my town; folks who do have homes, if you call rat-ridden slum efficiency apartments "homes", and the "semi" coming from the fact that they don't always remember where their homes are. One of these guys I've known for years. He's the kind of guy who, if I didn't know him, and saw him in a place I was unfamiliar with, I might cross the street to get away from him. He's a bulky sort of man, and his clothes are stained, and his hair is unkempt. I passed him as I was walking in from where I was parked, and then we ended up at the same coffee shop this morning. I got an iced mocha; he got an iced coffee. And he was standing in front of the straws. I asked him to hand me one, saying I didn't want to lean over his coffee.

He smiled at me, handed me one, and said "That's what neighbors are for."

He's very very right. Thanks for the reminder.

I feel like light today.

Use your imagination

Because I don't know where the batteries are for the camera.

Here's the scene; a messy living room, small but lovingly decorated. All the furniture is Hand-me-down Chic, but none of it needs to be thrown out. A family lives here, you can tell by the brightly colored plastic toys in the corners the high chair strapped to a chair, the Exersaucer that is the middle of the floor for you to trip over, because there is nowhere else for it to be.

Crashed on the couch, wearied after a six month checkup and a frenzied effort to get Daddy out the door on time for work, is a pretty little red-headed baby, and her frazzled looking mother. The mother looks longingly at her knitting, which she hasn't touched since Friday, and looks realistically at the apartment (an utter disaster). You can see the thoughts on her face -- she could stay here all day, fighting the baby for time to clean, or she could cut loose, head over to her own mother's house, and let someone help her for a change...yeah, that sounds good...

She brings along two bags of laundry, because that's how she is.

Once the laundry is up and running (swirling), three generations of women head off to the local farmstand-with-garden store; one is an accomplished gardener, one wants a few plants in containers so she can make hotpepper jelly, and one is riding in a stroller and seems afraid of all the colors.

The women gather their purchases; bell peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, summer squash. Carrot and radish seeds. Potting soil.

Back at the grandmother's house, the mother tries to calm the youngest member of her family under the trees. Her hands are gritty with potting soil, it's not the same as dirt, but it's closer than she's been for a long while. Her daughter is tired, her legs are sore from the shots she got, but she won't settle down to sleep. They rock in a swing, soft humming merging with the strong breeze sweeping down from between the trees. It carries with it the promise of half a hundred more summers like this one, with dandelion wine and strawberry jam and hot pepper jelly.

If God is good.

Blogging from my brother's

where we just had a father's day celebration for BioDad, and partially to test out the keyboard on his Mac, which is most likely the next computer I'm going to buy for myself.

This weekend, there has been much with the knitting, as I went back and forth between Town & Country for myself, and the Nashua Blossom sweater out of PureLife for Lucy. I'll try and get my act together and actually post pictures this afternoon or tomorrow, depending on, well, life.

Yesterday was WWKIP day, and Lucy and I went to the Farmer's Market (not much produce that is baby-approved yet) and then camped out with about twenty people and knit. It's Vermont, we didn't actually stand out all that much. But it was fun.

Tomorrow, Lucy has her 6 month checkup; I'll let you know her updated stats, so you can appreciate how adorable she is. And then, in the evening, Mom is going to be moral support tomorrow, and we're going to set up a container garden for me. I'm thinking of cucumbers, peppers, maybe some carrots and radishes. It's part of Norma's Gardenalong, and it should be tremendously fun. I'm trying to choose things that I will either want to eat straight out of the ground, or else will help me achieve my goal of starting to make my own jams and jellies. I've been craving hot pepper jelly for three years; it's time to do something about it!

More later. I love this keyboard.

Where am I now?

I just got a very polite email from Joan asking if I had, by chance, fallen down the well, or if, perhaps, my staggering pile of WIPs had tipped over, burying me under them, leaving Lucy to be raised motherless, crying sadly in the middle of the floor until either my uninterested neighbors investigate, or Robb comes home to see one pale hand poking out from under a mountain of yarn. Can't you just see him, falling to his knees and crying out his rage to the gods as he gathered his poor daughter close, trying to spare her the horror? A knitter done in by her hobby...

Okay, so she didn't say that exactly. You know she was thinking it.

The truth is much more prosaic. The last week of any month at my job, apparently, is full of people saying "Oh, right, I have to pay for health insurance. Oops. Can you -- no, I don't want to be on hold -- no, I don't care that you can't help me, I'd much rather -- no, don't you -- no, you listen --"

Well, you know how that goes. I got sworn at for the first time today. Hooray, very fun.

Anyway, after a long week of that crap, I went home to a moderately more scheduled weekend than I've been allowing. This would have been fine, but I accidentally attempted to accomplish other things along with the scheduled events, while discounting the effect that the ridiculous ball of fire in the sky would have on my little winter baby. We had plans with Robb's mom, and they were good-and-fun, a new car seat was acquired, and baby care will be more evenly split between my mom and Robb's mom, good for all. I got a sunburn on my arm, and I think Lucy got a bit of a burn on her sun-side, plus she was just generally overheated. So Saturday night was one huge wash. She had a terrible time settling down for sleep, and kept me pretty miserable most of Saturday night.

Sunday was going to be my day to "get stuff done," and that's where I made my fatal error. Most Sundays, I've "gotten stuff done" but I've planned for things like "clean for half an hour." and "shower." This Sunday, I wanted to clean the kitchen, neaten the living room, clean the bathroom, put away the week's laundry, do more laundry, knit, watch a movie...yeah, if you have young kids, you know where this is going. I totally ignored the fact that Lucy had a miserable day on Saturday, completely refused to believe that this mood might carry over into Sunday. I spent Sunday refusing to accept the reality that I needed to give up on everything but my little girl. It got fairly ugly, and frustrated both of us.

I did start knitting the fronts on the Town & Country sweater, and in a fancypants move (stupid, stupid, stupid!) I decided to try something new and knit both fronts at once. Of course, I messed it up; I haven't made up my mind if you could tell from a galloping horse, which is how I'll decide whether or not to frog the darned things.

My big success this weekend was making my very own baby food; yummy tasty Braeburns, cut up and steamed, then put through the baby food mill. Mmm good. Well, I thought so; Lucy was not convinced. At all. HYSTERICAL faces she made; I seriously thought she'd try and pull her tongue out. Of course, then there was the coughing, and the nearly choking; that was less fun. I think the apples are still a bit too thick for her, I'm going to try thinning it with some breastmilk tonight, and report back tomorrow (who am I kidding, you'll hear from me next week if I'm lucky!). But the making of the food was way easier than I thought it would be, and I think it's something I can commit to doing, which is ever so good.

So, um, yes. Not dead. Or buried under wool. Though one can dream.

Also, Siren, I never heard from you...you won a present! Get in touch with me at kristine . lemay @ gmail . com

Someone has a case of the "Mondays".

And yes, that would be me. Stupid, stupid day.

I told Robb to set the alarm for 6:15, in an attempt to start combating my snooze-button habit. Unfortunately, I didn't remember that at 6am, when the alarm went off, so I got up 15 minutes later than I meant to. That normally would be fine -- I know myself well enough that I allow for such variations -- but on a morning like this one, which was a finely tuned machine of efficiency, we had a serious problem. Houston-style. Between those extra 15 minutes and having to circle the block twice to find a parking space (twice as far as normal, therefore walking to work took longer, and GOD do I miss taking the bus), I didn't have time to make the deposit I needed to before work. This means that instead of jetting to the post office and then eating lunch at my half hour break, I have to jet to the bank, and then jet to the post office, and probably not have time to eat.

Depending on my mood by 1:30, I might go to the bank, then run my risks of missing the post office this afternoon. Why the hell not, the post office raising the stamp rates every three second has already cost me $35, why not just wait until freaking FRIDAY to send my bills.

Grumble.

I hate trying to be responsible and failing. It gets me mean.

Plus, I have boulders on the front of my chest, instead of boobs. And, can we say ow? Another 20 minutes before I go to break/pump.

Knitting content! Knitting content here!

One repeat left on the back of Town & Country. I've been knitting so many socks and so much lace lately that it's a real treat, using worsted weight yarn and size 7 needles. It feels like I'm zipping along beautifully!

I'm wearing Austermann Step socks, and they are soooooooo sqooshy and compfy and wonderful. I want another 20 pair! (all in good time).

I turned the heel on the purple STR sock; and we have a winner! Siren416 most nearly guessed the time it took for me to give in and cast on for the purple sock, and given what Alison and Karin thought about my self-control, I'm really quite pleased with myself for holding out for five hours!

Blogger is currently being odd, so I can't link to Siren's blog...when blogger stops being stupid, I'll try again. :)

You guess.

If I tell you that the new Socks That Rock club colorway was shades of purple, how long would you think it took me to have 20 WIPs? Not noticing Karin's comment that at least two of the items on my list (if I even remember the list correctly) contained multiple items?

No, seriously, guess.

If you guess right, I'll find a present for you. It'll probably be sock yarn. :)

An honest accounting of WIPs

First off, what are the freaking odds.

Karin very kindly send me some Nashua Julia she had in a color she'd thought would look better on me than on her -- Deep Blue Sea. It's a gorgeous, deep teal, and I've got my heart set on knitting the military style cardi from Veronik Avery's Classic Style book out of it -- but I was a little worried that I'd need more yarn than I had. So, after a lot of debate, I figured screw dye lot, I'll get a few skeins at my LYS, and then if I need to, I can stripe the sleeves. I didn't even look for the dyelot, I figured I would have no luck.

I am trying to organize today, as a start to cleaning (and listening to the new 3 Doors Down album), and I combined the Julias. And realized the dyelots were an almost perfect match.

Because they're the same dyelot.

Who'd've figured??

So, what's on the needles:

1.) Town & Country, Cascade 220
2.) Nashua Blossom pattern for Lucy, Rowan Purelife
3.) Buckingham lace pattern out of Manos Silky Merino
4.) Waves in Square, CTH Sockittome in Cornflower
5.) Angel Pearls Scarf in nameless white laceweight
6.) Lily of the Valley Shawl out of purple Zephyr laceweight
7.) Ribbed socks in Austermann Step
8.) Ribbed socks in CTH Sock
9.) Ribbed socks in Koigu
10.) Sivia Harding sock club socks from TWO DECEMBERS ago (I need to find the other skein
11.) One of the Nancy Bush traveling socks in Blue Jean (LL)
12.) Worsted weight socks for Al, Blue Jeans (LL)
13.) Socks I'm designing out of Fiesta's new sock yarn
14.) Work socks out of Tofutsies
15.) Another Angel Pearls Scarf out of Cracksilk Haze
16.) A big blue mohair scarf in a rippley pattern
17.) Three different pairs of mittens from Folk Mittens
18.) Ladybug sweater
19.) Plain Pi shawl out of java CTH laceweight.

Oh my god. Forget stash busting; I need to WIP-bust. Jeez. I had no idea it had gotten so out of control!

If you have motivating suggestions, feel free to mention them!

This time, with pictures!

I'm taking Ayla's advice and resurrecting my photobucket account. It's just too unreasonable, the way blogger uploads photos. This also means I can post photos at home and blog from work. It's a good thing.

Recent projects include:



Washing socks. Very glam, I know.

Closeup on:



Work socks. I actually tried to make these match, can you believe it? I failed, clearly. Good thing it doesn't worry me. :)



Socks that Rock socks. In Green. clearly, I'm weakening in my old age, because these are my favorite socks except my Lenores.



Sweater for Lucy. In Rowan's Purelife. I love this yarn. It's cotton, and I love it. Let's not go into all the weird things that says about me.



The beginnings of Town & Country. I've now completed two repeats of the main body pattern, but my camera batteries died, so you get ribbing pictures.

Today, I was going to go downtown and watch a friend run a 26k marathon. Today, I woke up and...well, maybe after I do this. Maybe. It does look like a beautiful day out, but I just feel rather blah about the whole thing. Not because of Jim, but because my house is a disaster and I want to clean and...and...and...I don't know yet what I'm going to do. I'll definitely know by tomorrow. :)

Lucy Update!!

Someone has found her toes...



And started eating solid foods.

Grumbly bear

I am a whiny, bratty little bitch today. Feel free to smack me.

I don't know what is bugging me so badly. I slept reasonably well, Lucy didn't do her crazed wolverine impression, just woke up because she was hungry, settled down when she ate, and then was still asleep with Daddy when I left for work. I got a lovely message from my stepmother that she had finished and folded my laundry, and I could pick it up whenever, and I totally expected to finish it tonight. I got to see the season finale of House last night. And I got to work in time to get a cup of coffee and a bagel before I had to log on the phones. Really, what could be bad about all this?

I don't know.

I tried to upload pictures to Blogger, with the thought of saving a draft so I could add text when I got to work -- but blogger took fifteen minutes and was still working on trying to load the freaking things, increasing my belief that hosting my blog somewhere would be a good plan. Wordpress rocks, or so I hear.

The coffee upset my stomach so badly that I haven't eaten my bagel. I understand (now) that I should have reversed the order of these things, but the universe is not rewarding my understanding by making me less sick.

I'm too tired and brain dead to try and work on the Shedir socks, but I don't have any other knitting with me.

While I enjoy Ravelry for its organizational purposes, and I've joined a bazillion groups...I don't really find that I care about *reading* or responding to the groups. I'm bored with Forums. I did that in the 90s. I dunno, I'm just weird.

I'm revamping all my wedding plans to fit the revised budget I was given. I'm over the sour grapes portion of my psychology, and I'm even getting into the new and improved plans...but I'm a little bit sad and frustrated about some of the circumstances that led me to this place.

I want families to be simple.

And I hate telling moms that because they were responsible, and their kids were responsible, their kids have to not have insurance for a year before they can get help. And then, at the same time, I want to scream at them to stop covering for their damn kids and let their 21, 22, 23 year olds know that they absolutely need to get out there and get a job and get insurance through their job, because traveling Europe is cool, but it doesn't get you anywhere.

Don't ask. That's all I'm allowed to say about it.

See, I told you. Bitch today.

I'm going to go eat a cookie now.

I know you're all dying to know...

...whether or not Lucy got any sleep last night. I mean, I know that if I were reading this blog, it would be what I was most interested in. Not news about knitting or anything like that. No. Why would you be interested in waving two sticks around until I get a sweater? (note: it takes a looooooooooooong time.)

So, since it's what you're all here for, I'm more than happy to tell you!

Last night, Lucy went to bed earlier than I meant her to -- I'm realizing that an earlier bedtime (pre-8pm) directly contributes to the growling-grumpies at 4am. But she had lousy naps yesterday, and was an inconsolable, crying, mess of a baby by the time I got her back from Mom yesterday (not Mom's fault, we don't blame her), so when I finally got her to fall asleep at 7:30, there was no freaking way I was waking her up unless she woke up on her own. And she didn't, so...yeah.

I do not have one of those sleep-12-hours-at-a-time babies. She's an awake baby, as Karin once described her. She went two months without a proper nap; she would nap about 15 minutes after nursing, and then was up and at it again. The most she's ever slept at one time is about eight hours.

I'm peaceful with all of this. There are forces in my life who insist that I *need* to get the baby on a schedule, that I *need* to make her sleep more, that I *need* to do this or that or the other thing. I've spent five months getting very, very adept at smiling and saying "Thanks for the advice, but her pediatrician says she's healthy," or "That's an interesting opinion, thanks for that. I think we're good with the way things are, though," or maybe "That's interesting -- are you interested in why we're doing things the way we are?" I figure Lucy is on a schedule -- hers. She sleeps as much as she needs to (this has been verified by her pediatrician) and what I *need* to do is take care of my daughter and meet her needs as best as I can until she's better able to communicate them to me. Those needs vary day-to-day, and I best meet them by remaining flexible and making sure that I am not forcing her needs to fit some predetermined schedule. Sure, there's the big three -- hungry/dirty/tired -- but after that, it's often a matter of trial and error.

The biggest thing I've learned about my daughter -- she's not a book. I can't read her. So I have to figure it out, nice and slow. Which means that no one has all the answers -- not the AP folks, not the Cry-It-Out folks, not the baby-wearers...it's like diets. You need to take bits and pieces from everything, call it tools in your toolbox -- don't use a hammer to beat in a screw, is what I'm saying.

I'm rambling.

Anyway.

The only reason I'm considering transitioning Lucy to her crib at all is because I'm wondering if she might sleep better there than she currently is in bed with us. If that's not the case, I'm not going hardline on the issue.

Anyway again.

Back up at 4:30am this morning with the grumblies. Miss Lucy was REALLY resistant to everything this morning; I rocked her and bounced her and cuddled her, and she finally settled down around 5 am in her crib, and slept until 6am, when she got hungry, and came back to our bed for a nice relaxed breakfast. I could hear her moving around in her crib before she fell back asleep, and I heard a couple of toys being played with, but she seemed to feel okay. And she's learning to self-soothe, which is pretty cool; she had a hard time falling asleep when I first brought her to her crib, but I kept picking her up and rocking her until she relaxed, then lying (laying? I never know) her back down -- the third time I did this, instead of her little face crumpling up, she flipped herself onto her side, popped her thumb into her mouth (after weaving her little fingers through her blankie so that it was right there too, she's making her knitting mama very proud) and closed her eyes. Out like a light -- at least for a bit.

It seems goofy, I know, spending half an hour in the morning getting her to sleep in her own bed, so that she can sleep there for an hour, but it's working well for me; it means that when I fall back asleep, I sleep better, because she's not trying to attract my attention every few seconds, and I can actually fall asleep for even another half hour before the alarm goes off; it's a good division for right now.

I think we're a long way, though, from her really sleeping on her own all night in the crib. But that's not an important goal for me, so I'm okay with it. There are certainly a few -- ahem -- relationship based challenges, but hey. I'm a creative lady.

As witnessed by the Primavera socks! Completed, done, fini! I had to request assistance from the knittalk group to figure out how to kitchener without a tapestry needle, and I don't like the way the toe came out on that sock, but I don't dislike it enough to take it out and redo it. I'll try to get a picture and post it tomorrow.

Now I've cast on for the Shedir socks out of Tofutsies yarn; I'll show you a picture of those, too. Tomorrow. I hope.

Oh! And new cleaning strategy; I get home, get the baby settled in, and set the microwave timer for 30 minutes. And I clean until the timer goes off. Whatever comes to hand, whatever I feel like dealing with, but I do it every day. It's fantastic, because I'm pleasantly surprised by how much clutter can be cleared with a dedicated half hour of work, and I don't feel bogged down by the complete mess that my house is.

Go me!

Also update: remember the moths?

Yeah, freezing did zero good. Cooking them per Alison's suggestion was impossible -- it's Vermont, we don't believe in sun here. Ultimately, I've thrown out one bag of yarn (oh, my bleeding heart!) but the losses seem to be limited there. It was a skein of Socks That Rock in a colorway I hated and was not sad to see go (Monsoon -- grey and green. Ugh. Blergh. Yuck.) and four skeins of Louet Gems in the prettiest baby blue I'd ever seen -- but it was sacrificed to keep my Manos safe, and I honored it appropriately before pitching it out in the trash.

The rest of the yarn that was near those bags is still in isolation, but so far still seems unaffected. There is one other bag in DEEP isolation -- in a totally separate part of the room from EVERYTHING else because it is highly suspicious -- which contains a bunch of sock leftovers and the cone of mohair that Karin sent me a few months ago.

I figure if things remain as they are for a bit longer, I may consider reintegration. But I'm being hyper cautious. I think I'm going to go by the health food store and get a couple bars of strongly scented soap; my understanding is that lavender won't help once you have moths, but can help keep you from getting moths.

I'm tremendously talkative when I'm at work. I'll scamper off now. :)

Weekend, I love you; or, cabling with cotton is not for the faint of heart.

Ah, the bliss of a weekend. You work in retail long enough and you forget the luxury of Saturday morning, stretching and relaxing into the sunlight that comes through your window, moving like a cat into the ease of pajama day.

Well, other people do. My apartment is half in the basement. But I stretch, and pretend that there is sunlight. It's something.

Friday, I told you I was going to start transitioning Lucy into her crib. Didn't happen. Blame Robb. No, really -- I was ready on this one, and when I mentioned it to him, he gave me the saddest eyes and said, "Well, okay. I guess. If you think it's best." Turns out Daddy wakes up and checks on his girl a lot during the night, and he thinks he'll still wake up if she's not there.

So we decided on a hybrid plan. Lucy went to bed in our bed, as she has been, at about 8:30. We went to bed probably around midnight. Little girl was sound asleep, even slept through her midnight diaper change (I know it's probably silly, but it's stopped the 6am diaper blowout, so I'm fine with it. There's nothing like waking up with poop in your bed to start your day off right). Around 4am, she woke me up with her grumbly-growling. It's the weirdest thing; I'm convinced she's still asleep, but she growls and whines and groans and makes a ton of noise and jerks her body all around; she won't eat, she won't settle. Sometimes if I pull her onto my chest she calms down and falls back into a more solid sleep, but sometimes it wakes her up and she screams. I'm going to mention it to her doctor at her 6month well baby (which will be about three weeks from now, so no big deal).

So, at 4am when she woke me up, I offered her da boob; she didn't notice, just kept flailing. So I cuddled her for a minute, and then moved her into her crib. As soon as I picked her up, she relaxed, and she didn't even wake up when I put her in her crib. I stayed there for a minute, to make sure she wasn't going to wake up howling, but she stayed settled. I went back to bed, and all three of us slept for another three hours. She woke up, hungry and smiling, and I woke up happy and rested. Good deal, all around.

Sunday morning, she didn't wake up grumbly until almost 5:30. Did the same thing over again.

This morning, we were grumbly free. Hooray.

Kaleidoscope had their big sale this weekend, and I got some serious swag. Since I was too busy enjoying my daughter to take pictures of my loot, I will provide you with some links. :)

Cascade 220 in a lovely dark charcoal grey. This was originally going to be for the Fylingdale sweater out of the new A Fine Fleece book, but after swatching (I know, can you believe it? I swatched! TWICE!! IN ONE WEEKEND!!!), it was painfully clear that this yarn was NOT going to make that sweater. 5 stitches to an inch and 4 stitches to an inch...just not the same.

So, I did what any sensible knitter would do, when faced with a pile of yarn that is just not going to work for what they thought it was going to work for. I searched all through the book for a pattern that would work with the gauge and amount of yarn I had. And lo and behold, the Town And Country sweater has exactly that gauge, exactly the right amount of yarn -- guess why, because that sweater was knit out of Cascade 220. Sigh.

I've knit two inches of cabled rib, and I can already see why this yarn is on so many peoples' list of favorite workhorse yarns. It's sturdy and durable and I love it already.

I also got enough Rowan Purelife cotton for a sweater for Lucy. It's this soft, hazy grey color (it was a grey weekend, apparently) that I'm using to knit a little cardi out of the new Nashua Blossom booklet. It was one of those things -- I saw a sample knit up in the shop, and I marched myself straight back to the counter and informed Kalen that I needed to make that sweater, and now. It's pattern number 4; it's so cute! I knit the back and a sleeve over the weekend. Cabling in cotton...ow. I decided that I could cast on for the Town & Country cardi at the same time, because I needed something to give my hands a break. I forget how hard it is to knit in cotton!

But I'm weirded out. I'm going to have to rethink the entire concept of gauge in my life. I've always been a loose knitter -- drop down one to two needle sizes before I even swatch. For the Town & Country, my gauge was letter-perfect with the pattern needles, both row AND stitch. Then, for the cotton -- I actually went UP two sizes. I know! I nearly died of shock.

I also got some Baby ULL in a purple color for a winter sweater, but I can't track down the Dale link for the sweater so that you can understand how funny it is that I want to knit this sweater in purple (and that I'm considering doing one band in white or -- you guessed it -- grey, but we'll see about that), so perhaps more, along with the sale-swag, tonight. Or tomorrow. When I'm taking pictures.

Hooray. :)

Oh, and onto the foot of the work sock. Go me!

In case the title of the blog hadn't clued you in...

...I really love lilacs. They remind me of spring time, of my grandmother's house once the snow was gone, of playing in her yard, which was smaller and less substantial in every way than my parents' yard, but made better by novelty. They remind me of my cousins and the glory days of childhood. They remind me of the bitter sweetness of my grandmother's elderly years, her gentle decline into Alzheimer's, and those last few moments before we moved her out of the house she'd lived in for many, many years.

The lilacs are blooming in Vermont. I had been riding the bus to work for the past three weeks, and one of the reasons I was loving my bus rides was that I could open the windows near me and breathe in the sweet fragrance of the lilacs all through Chittenden county. They're almost too sweet, aren't they? They dance the line just near cloying -- but for me, they never cross.

Unfortunately, my bus rides have been canceled, at least for awhile; Mom's taking care of Lucy for us, so that I can work, and she's too tired at night to bring Lucy back home; it's completely idiotic to ride the bus all the way from Burlington to Essex, just to turn around and drive back to Burlington. I was getting home at 7, after leaving the house at 6am.

So I'm back to having a huge, depressing carbon footprint. :( I'm currently driving a 99 Taurus that my father is kindly paying insurance/any bills on for a year. I'm researching cars for next year, something that won't cost me $200 a month in gas (it's an estimate, don't quote me). I love that there are fuel efficient sub-compact sedans that are actually safe. I'm torn between the Chevy Aveo and the Toyota Yaris. Next time I bring our Focus in for an oil change, I'll quiz my mechanic, see what he thinks.

Meanwhile, my sock knitting has also been cut into severely. This, just after I'd signed up for that Summer of Socks thingy. Oh well. I'll survive, I'm sure.

Other than that, I'm just having a whiny Friday. I'm tired, Lucy didn't sleep more than a couple hours at a time after I went to bed, and I'm thinking of starting to transition her to her crib, to see if maybe she's one of those babies who sleeps better on her own. That means I have to clean the laundry out of her crib. Sigh. It was so much easier the other way, but even if it means that I nurse her before I go to bed and get up a little earlier in the morning to nurse her again -- I think I'm encouraging her to wake more frequently in the night by being there to soothe her back to sleep.

I do have the common sense to try out this little plan of mine over the weekend, rather than on a weeknight, when I really need the sleep.

Other whines include: I hate pumping, I hate people who don't listen, I hate bills, I hate money, and I hate clutter. However, I have to/am willing to live with all of these things, given that I have very little choice on some of them.

My LYS is having a huge sale this weekend. I suspect that will cheer me up immensely. :) I'm going to get yarn for at least one sweater for me, at least one sweater for Lucy...after that, we'll see what happens.

Much love to all of you.

Now that I have a new-and-improved shift-key

I am willing to post from work, since my attempts at shifting no longer look LikE THiS.

It stressed me out. I'm OCD like that.

Thank you so much, all of you, for being so nice about my humble little sock; I have to take some time to write up the pattern -- maybe Lucy will take a trip with Grandma for a couple of hours on Sunday, I'm not sure -- but I plan on offering it sometime soon. I hope. I'll probably post it for free, because...I don't know, because I don't feel like I can charge for something the very first time I do it. You can disagree with me if you want, but you probably won't change my mind.

I have another sock that I'm working on, but it's an at-home sock, and I've been playing with it a lot, so I haven't been showing it to you here. There's a kinda cool story behind it though.

See, my friend Jacquelyn lives down south now, and my friend Ashley out west, but we all went to college together, back in the old days, when life was good and the wheat was high -- but I digress. Ashley, when she got out west, got fascinated with spinning, and has gotten quite good, first with a drop spindle, and then with a couple of wheels that she's picked up in the meantime. If you need proof of this, check out http://www.artemisiaink.com/ . She's sent me bits and bobbles now and then, but I haven't had just the right project yet, so the yarn lingers about, eating bon-bons and generally behaving like the artwork that it is.

Meantime, my friend Jacquelyn has a friend who has moved away, and her friend loved socks. No, really, loved socks. Like we love yarn, this woman loved her some socks.

So Jacquelyn thought, between my friend Kristine and my friend Ashley, I can make my friend some socks.

So Ashley got commissioned to spin up some yarn, and I got commissioned to knit up some socks. I'm inventing that pattern as well, but it isn't so clear and lovely yet, so I'm not giving up pictures just yet. But soon.

I promise. Soon.

As soon as I think that I can handle my job and designing a knitting pattern at the same time. The other one was easy, I can read what I did clearly enough just by looking at the sock. This one will be trickier.

And I have to figure out how to describe the process I went through, figuring out how long to make the foot. It involves math (ugh). I may require wine. We'll see how it goes.

Hugs to all of you.