Month: June 2004

What a Weekend…

Sarah General

OK, so, I know I haven’t blogged in a while. It’s really a long (boring) story, mostly involving the fact that my house was (still is) a disaster and it needed to not be. To give you an idea, we haven’t had furniture in our family room for the past 5 days…but that’s a story for tomorrow…

To start with, Lisa had her baby on Saturday. I was originally the designated baby sitter for Henry, but then I became the designated driver-to-the-hospital for Lisa. Which was cool, because I got a sneak preview of the whole admissions process (boy, do they ask a lot of questions!) and where to go – and how to get to the hospital in the first place – for my turn in October.

Jenny had a second wedding reception Saturday evening at a local art gallery, which was a fun little party. (Mmm. Candy sushi…) Unfortunately, by that time of the evening, my feet hurt too much to take advantage of the art gallery tour.

We also bought a car on Saturday. In honor of Sammy’s birthday, we got a blue car. Actually, it’s a 2005 Subaru Outback wagon, and it’s atlantic blue. (And it’s my very first new car!) We just picked it up tonight, and if I hadn’t been so busy driving it around, I may have gotten home enough before dark to take a picture. Oh, well. You can go here to see it on Subaru’s site. This car is replacing our old Ford Escort wagon, which we’ve only had for 2 1/2 years. It needed lots of work, and it’s a ’97, and, well, we figured we needed a larger family car that we could trust for long haul trips. (Hear that, baby? We bought you a car already!) Anyway. Bye, little blue (green) wagon, we’ll miss you. Sort of. Well, the new car is much nicer, so we probably won’t miss you too long…

Can You See This Now?

Sarah General

Good.

That means that the DNS switch between my old hosting provider and my new one worked. If things are broken for a couple of days, you’ll all forgive me, right?

There are lots of things to blog about from this weekend, but they’ll have to wait for now…

Start Buying Pink Yarn!

Sarah General

This afternoon, we found out that we’re going to have a little girl!

The very first dream I had about this baby was right:

When I was a little less than a year old, my mom, my grandmother, my great-grandmother and I all had our picture taken together. It’s one of my most treasured photos, despite the fact that it has turned pink over time. About two or three weeks after I found out I was pregnant, I had a dream that the picture was framed next to a similar one – one of me, my mom, my grandmother…and my daughter. She had a mop of curly auburn hair, and was the same age as I was in the original picture. Now we’ll have to see if she turns out having those auburn curls…

Denis has been predicting that it’s a girl since Valentine’s Day. Note that we didn’t even know I was pregnant until a whole week after that day – so he was right on both counts! (Mark this day on the calendar!)

This puts Anouk on the top of my list of things to knit for the baby. Oh, and what do you think of this little sweater?

Stash Overload!

Sarah Crafts

I’m in the process of cleaning my craft room again…and the guest room/soon-to-be nursery into which more craft supplies have somehow crept. (I swear they got up and walked there by themselves!) In the past week, I’ve realized that I could easily not walk into another craft store anytime in the next, oh, maybe 3 years or so (maybe even 5), and still be able to happily knit, cross-stitch, quilt, spin, bead, draw, paint, crochet, scrapbook…

And this is despite the fact that I’m even getting rid of some of the yarn I know for sure I will never, ever use. (Someone out there must really love acrylic baby yarn in lemon yellow and variegated green, even if I don’t.)

Of course, we all know this isn’t going to stop me from walking into another craft store, right? After all, although I have a fair amount of supplies, I don’t exactly have batting for quilts just laying around, or buttons for finished sweaters. I’m not going to go on an all-out craft-supply-buying ban. But I am planning on being a little more careful about what I buy, and try to knit/stitch/quilt from stash first. Hopefully, this will prevent my craft room from taking over the whole house.

Be Kind To Your Web-Footed Friends…

Sarah Music

…for a duck may be somebody’s mother…

Oh, sorry, those lyrics to Stars & Stripes Forever will forever be ingrained in my head. Too many cartoons when I was little or something…

Our outdoor concert last night went, well, ok. It went from gray and rainy to pleasant and sunny just in time, and it really was a nice night to be playing outdoors. The performance wasn’t the best we’ve ever done, though. It’s hard to hear each other and balance when you’re sitting in the great outdoors. I did make it through both Sousa marches we played without hyperventilating, though!

I’m a little sad – I won’t be playing again for several months. Band doesn’t start for the next season until late September, for the holiday concert. Somehow I think I’ll be a little busy for most of those rehearsals. If I’m feeling up to it, though, I’m going to try to go back for the spring concert, since rehearsals for that start in late January. (Of course, in the interim I’ll be practicing on my own so I don’t lose my chops, really I will…)

Quick Baby Note: Today marks 20 weeks of being pregnant. If you go by the standard 40 weeks (which can be off by 2 in either direction) I’m halfway there! Oh, dear…there’s still an awful lot to do before the baby comes…

This is News?

Sarah Dogs

Study finds dogs understand language. Well, of course they do, as anyone who has lived with dogs will tell you. Molly and Murphy both recognize toy words – “ball”, “bone”, “dolly” – and can follow simple requests to get a particular type of toy. They know the difference between “deck” and “outside”, and will go to the appropriate door when you say one word or the other (in a phrase or not). We spell all kinds of words, especially “dog”, “cat”, “food” and “out”, to avoid crazy doggie behavior. They actually picked up on “f.o.o.d.”, so we now spell it “f.u.d.”. I would estimate that they know about 100 words and phrases. I actually suspect they know a whole lot more than that, but they aren’t letting on!

Potential Problems…

Sarah General

In preparation for switching hosting providers, I’m transferring my domain name registration to another service. Supposedly, nothing should change. If you don’t see this, though, you’ll know why! (It’s like those test emails I love, “Let me know if you don’t get this message.”)

I Really Do Knit!

Sarah Crafts

At least, occasionally… I’m actually done with the body of Rosebud. I finished the three needle bind-off on the shoulders Sunday. It only lacks sleeves. So, why am I not working on it? After all, it’s a maternity top, right? I need to finish it if I plan to wear it for this pregnancy, don’t I?

I measured. Not only once or twice, but about a dozen times. I did complicated math to make my off-by-a-fraction-of-an-inch gauge match up with a good stitch count. I planned extra length in the torso and a smidge (like 1/2″) extra room in the bust. And I’m swimming in it. Except in the torso, where it doesn’t cover the maternity panel on my jeans. What happened?!? My gauge, measured in random spots, still matches my original gauge, so it’s not that. Did I measure myself wrong? All twelve times?

I don’t know whether to finish it, wear it despite its flaws, hope that being cotton it will stretch lengthwise (or force it to stretch with a bit of judicious blocking) and just be done with it, or if I should toss it in the corner and glare at it for the rest of its natural life. I’m afraid to frog it, since the yarn sheds quite a bit, and it might just look awful when I go to re-knit it.

Well, I guess I’ll toss it in the corner for the rest of the week, anyway, since it’s just too hot to knit right now.

Suspense

Sarah General

Is it killing you yet?!? There’s a clue in this dream I had over the weekend:

I was at a Mommy and Me group even though the baby wasn’t born yet. One Mommy came in with her two-year-old, dressed from head to toe in every color of the rainbow. I couldn’t tell whether it was a girl or a boy, so I said, “Oh, what a cute kid!”. The mom said, “Well, don’t you want to know what it is?”, and I replied, “Sure, why not?” Then she said, “Actually, we don’t know. We haven’t looked yet!”

Remember my warning about having a modest child? The baby was not in the mood to have pictures taken. He or she was folded at the waist, with his/her legs crossed at the ankles above his/her head. Thankfully, they couldn’t get all the pictures they needed to anyway, so they told me to come back in two weeks! So, everyone, including me, can keep right on guessing!

In non-baby news… Jenny’s wedding was lovely, but I’ll let her blog about it when she gets home! The bed and breakfast we stayed in was very comfortable and was in a great location. If it hadn’t been raining Saturday afternoon…well, we probably still would have been lazy and hung out in the parlor knitting and reading! It’s nice to be home, though, and not in the car anymore.

Edit: for all you funny people who predicted twins or triplets…sorry, there is definitely only one baby in there. (Not that twins or triplets wouldn’t have been fun and all, but I’d like to start with one, thanks!)

Exciting Weekend!

Sarah General

With any luck, we’ll be finding out whether we’re having a son or a daughter this afternoon…but I won’t be around to blog about it until late Sunday or Monday. We’re leaving straight from the appointment to go to Jenny & Aaron’s wedding. I’m not looking forward to the 6-7 hour car ride, but we’re staying in an old victorian mansion-turned-bed and breakfast which will more than make up for it. Besides, it will give us ample time to reopen the baby name debate…whether we find out or not.

Get your guesses in now! For the record, I can’t tell yet if I’m carrying the baby high or low, the heartbeat has consistently been over 140, I did have morning (well, all-day) sickness (although I never actually got sick, I just felt sick all the time), my dreams have pretty consistently been girl – although I’ve dreamt boy a couple of times too, I’ve had more food aversions than food cravings, and my hair seems to be about the same as it always has been – thick and unruly. Have I missed any old wives’ tale indicators?

Have a great weekend!