Finally feeling better!

Yeah! I think most of my cold is over now...the worst part at least. I have not been that congested in a long time! I couldnt even knit because I always had a kleenex in my hand, not very fun.

Before getting real sick, I did finish my French Market Bag - just need to felt it! Oh, and the other day I found a K-mart closer to us and got a zippered pillowcase for $4! I was very excited about that. I was contemplating just using an old pillowcase and just rubberband/tie it real tight; but I couldnt pass up the $4 one.

Oh, and I checked out the charity Mel signed up for - Warm The World, and it sounds like an awesome opportunity to help babies, so I signed up too, and my yarn is on its way! I've been wanting to do something to help others, and this org does all the legwork for you - all you have to do is knit up the yarn they provide! How awesome is that! You can also crochet and/or quilt for them too!

Looking forward to the weekend, especially since I almost feel better! And yes, Gracie is much better herself now, she is like a day and a half ahead of me, so yesterday she was full of energy - and I had to catch every mini-nap I could ;)

Happy knitting!

Yucky Allergies

Ugggh...this is not the time for me to feel like I just want to sleep all day!!! I have things to do! Tomorrow starts the BIG COUNTDOWN to MOVING! Well, at least I get the keys a month from tomorrow; so I can begin the endless back and forth trips in my Focus of whatever I can stuff my car with ~ without burying Gracie. That's it, tomorrow I am getting some more Claritin.

I have been making incredible progress on my French Market Bag. I'm just not sure how much I'm liking the striping pattern I ended up working out. I tried to plan it, and then ended up winging it. I'm trying to be less of a control freak ;) I'll let you know how I do on that. I'll try to get some pics up. I just have to get the motivation up to get my camera out of the diaper bag, plug it into the pc, delete the excess photos, upload the ones I want to flickr, and then post them here - and my gallery for some finished photos. I must admit I was remiss in catching a photo of my mom's b-day present before she took it with her to Cali, I'll have to snag a photo if/when we visit there or make her bring it back in Oct.

The other bummer I'm dealing with is my Focus is ready to be picked up...which normally would be a victory, but I'm really going to miss cruisin' in the Jeep ~ I dont recall if I mentioned that the insurance for the semi that rear-ended John gave us a Grand Cherokee Laredo as a rental until our car was done at the body shop. Boy did we enjoy that vehicle...I cannot wait until we demolish our debt, buy a house, and then get my larger vehicle - may be as small as the Escape Hybrid, or we may get a diesel SUV... jury is still out on that one, but the SUV has finally won me away from the mini-van (for now at least - a woman is entitled to change her mind), and we definately will not be getting anything much bigger than what we just drove - I have no interest in being "tank girl". And I'm crossing my fingers that my car is really and truly ok! I dont care so much about the body work, my concern is whether it still drives the same...

Well, I believe I hear the baby calling...happy knitting!

Progress!

I am so happy and excited about my French Market Bag. I have finished the base and have finally started my 1st color - now to decide how/when to switch to the contrasting color. I have a ways to go before I have to decide, but I am really digging working in the round!

Miss Gracie is feeling much better today, but she's in that "coming out of the cold" hot/cold stage. She'll be giggling and having a good time with me and then the next second she's yelling and throwing her body around, and signaling she wants to nurse. So far each day is still getting better, so this should be over soon :)

I had started a blankie for Gracie with Homespun I had purchased when I was first pregnant and debating crocheting or learning to knit. I was too sick/unmotivated to crochet/scared to knit so it sat and sat until I caught the knitting bug, and I used 1/2 of the stash for a ponchette. But now I'm looking at this other yarn that I was going to attempt IK's Isis Wrap with, and I think I'll do the blankie with this stuff and get some yummy/more appropriate yarn for Isis after/for my birthday - that homespun can just sit for a little while longer ;)

I happened to be on-line long enough last night for an old friend to find me, it is often neat to catch up with someone from another "era" of your life...at least for me, generally. I had lost his contact info, so I was taken by surprise when he IM'd me. So, thanks, Daniel for saying hello! I look forward to keeping in touch with you! If I find Marie before you do, I'll let you know ;)

Sleep is pulling at me...I guess I'm turning in early tonight....Happy Knitting! ~ and I'll get those update photos up soon, I promise!

What a Mother's Day!

***Disclaimer: there is baby diaper content in this post, so consider yourself warned!***
So, as I was in the bathroom rinsing one of Gracie's baby dolls of the poop that leaked from her diaper; it occurred to me that this truly was an example of a true Mother's Day. Retail wants you to believe its about beautiful cards and bouquets of flowers, a lovely meal surrounded by family (that you do not have to clean up after), and your children are simply angels all day in honor of their mother. But in reality, your husband is randomly [and apparently honestly not on purpose] rude, your children make a mess, and you are lucky to eat your meal while it is warm [not that you know anymore what a warm meal tastes like]. I'm not bitter, I promise :), I am just a mom who has discovered that this is just another part of our "job". We will not get peace and quiet, or a warm meal, until we escape on one of those coveted Mom's Retreats - which I plan to sign up for the 1st one I hear of after Gracie is weaned ;)

Now, in Gracie's defense, she came down with a cold on Wednesday, started with a fever and ended with upset stomach and diarrhea. The interesting part is since she nurses, and once she got sick she would no longer eat solids - so now she's solely nursing - her stools have become an often indiscernible concoction of possibly diarrhea/possibly just returned to what she had before we introduced solids. The unfortunate part is, we just switched from the diapers that were 99% effective in capturing this sort of mess, to another variety (on sale) that is more suited to capturing what we had become used to from our solid foods eater. Thankfully, tonight her daddy was able to get her to eat a variety of solid foods, so this little adventure is hopefully soon to be over...if not, I may have to go pick up some of the "better" diapers before I go cuckoo.

In John's defense, he probably wasn't as rude as I was just sensitive today. Plus, we grew up a little different (my family made the most of the little things - his wasn't always conducive of "warm fuzzies"). So he "fairly" may not know yet how to allow days to be special...we (I) have been working on that, and he is improving.

I guess today was just a "landmark" day for me - my 1st Mother's Day - not that I was expecting angels trumpeting from the sky or anything, I just didn't want today to feel so much like any other day...
I did get a rose from our church this morning, that was pretty neat. And Gracie did wake up from her second nap almost back to her happy, healthy self; she also really enjoyed herself when we went for a walk and then made a last stop at the swing-set at the playground. That was my biggest most precious gift today...I moved behind Grace on the swing and John took over pushing, and to see them interact and laugh with each other nearly melted me to a crying blob right there on the wood chips [I managed to just beam at them and smile the misting up away instead - I didn't want to ruin the moment by concerning John]

So, now that I have a "truer" perspective on Mother's Day, I am ready to bask in the reality of it. I would much rather have my day blessed with my husband and daughter bonding than just about any material thing...if only we hadn't had the diaper incident, today wasn't so bad after all.
Now, my friend Melanie really had a day that makes my diaper episode pale in comparison!
Not that we are having a bad Mother's Day competition, but this mom's day was truly yucky, and she could really use a vacation about now!

Quick knitting tidbit: I have nearly completed the base of my French Market Bag! I have moved the project from my lovely, life saving bamboo double pointed needles to my trusty circular needle and I am ready to get rolling on this baby!

Happy Knitting! and Happy Mother's Day! I hope a few of you had a good restful one!

Being a Mommy...

What an awesome and amazing experience it is to be a mommy. It is amazing what we are able to do with what we have been given to do it with. I have never been more fulfilled and exhausted at the same time in my life before. I love my daughter more than anything, but those first few days are nothing I'm excited to repeat yet...time is fading those early days, so I'm sure she will get a sibling some day, but not in the near future if I can help it ;) It simply amazed me how tired I was at at time when I felt I needed to be the most rested and level headed. It also was the wierdest feeling to get in the elevator at the hospital and leave with our tiny precious baby, and no one was going to make us quantify our readiness to be parents. It seems to be assumed that if you can make a baby, you can take care of it.
Thankfully, there is instinct that kicks in...and thankfully I only had to get through a minor dose of "the baby blues" (mostly I was upset that we were going to be leaving my family a few weeks after she was born). I am thankful every day that my husband and my family loves me enough and is supportive enough to fill in wherever I am lacking, and that my daughter is young enough and trusting enough to not give me a hard time for all the little things that dont go as well as they could...of course we are in a learning process...and thankfully I have been blessed with a healthy baby, so we have not had to wade through any major crises yet.

I really think though that most of my strength comes from my trust in my Heavenly Father, who has truly been there to hold me when no one else knew I needed to be held, or how to hold me. As a new mother, I now no longer think it is a "fluke" that many moms and dads feel driven to get their children to church. There is something about the responsibility for my little one, that makes me desire to be closer to the only Truth I know. Especially in this day and age when there are at least two books for "every stituation a parent/child unit could encounter" and advice everywhere you look...it seems that this input overload sends me running to the only constant Truth I've ever known.

I also know that I owe a lot to my mom, who has been an awesome example of loving with all that you have. My mom is my other constant. Her steadfast love and support has gotten us through many valleys, and she has always helped us find the sun (and the Son). I am so thankful to have been brought up in a manner that I am able to appreciate the small things in life. To have a true appreciation for what we do have, and not be constantly focused on what we do not have. I hope that I am able to instill the same grounded sense in my children.

Well...I better get to bed, just had to share a few thoughts before I turned in :)

Happy Birthday Jolasoni!

Happy Birthday to my lil sis! I hope you have [had] a wonderful birthday!



Have a lovely lobster dinner and enjoy every delectable bite you lucky girl! I got a bunny for you, but she has to live on my blog (at least for now). Her name is Lila the Wonder Bunny and I will take good care of her for you here until you decide you may want to join us in blog-land.

Onto other news, I finished my Clapotis tonight and I am very excited about it. There is no reason for this project to have taken this long other than I am a new mother and we have lots going on around here lateley. Everyone is right, the dec section seems to go by very fast, which was fun and rewarding. I found that for myself the pattern as written makes a lovely shawl that isnt too bulky or in the way for my liking...in fact I am wearing/enjoying it right now! [I was too lazy to weave in the ends yet...I'll get to that tomorrow...I needed some instant gratification first ;)]
My next project should be the Isis wrap from IK Summer '05, as soon as I saw it in the preview I knew I had to make it...now to just find the yarn! This will be my treat as I make progress in moving; to take a break and dig into a pattern just difficult enough to keep me on my toes without wanting to stick my needle in my eye! (here's hoping anyways)

I have to let out an ugg on the moving front...apparently you need boxes to move - honestly I knew this already, having just unpacked 8 months ago. But we had planned on staying here at least 2 years. So, when my SIL asked if we had boxes when they were moving I gladly offered them and now have found out that she just gave all MY boxes to a friend of hers who is moving cross-country! So, now we are stuck potentially having to buy more boxes if the local stores (chains dont give boxes very freely) or freecycle don't come through for me (gotta love freecycle by the way) The good news [always gotta look for the bright side] is that since we are only moving about 7 miles down the road, and I will be moving all the small stuff throughout the week before the big guns move the large items, I am hoping to get away with using trash bags for items that dont require the structure of a box. So enough grumbling....I need to get to bed so I will be rested enough to handle weeding through our junk tomorrow ~ at least we have the freecycle outlet now for those things you cant stand throwing away but don't have the time to make it to a donation center.
Happy knitting! And I'll get some pics of my clappy up soon!

I'm back!

Ok, so sorry, hopefully I wont have to apologize much more any time soon...

For starters, I had a great visit with my mom. I REALLY wish she could have stayed longer, we were so busy with preparations for other things while she was here and now things have calmed down and she is gone :( Miss Gracie may be having a hard time with this goodbye. I dont think she really understands why Grandma is gone. Hopefully she will get through this quickly (I know this will depend on how quickly I process the end of her visit myself) but it nearly broke my heart when we got out of the car and she quickly looked over my shoulder and giggled for Grandma and the confusion crossed her face as she looked all around us and couldnt find her Grandma. Even when we got upstairs to our door, she looked back down waiting for Grandma to "catch up"....I must be strong, if not for me, then for my baby girl. I'm just trying to get through today, and then when I put her down I have a glass of wine with my name on it, I will relax and know that we can get through this, we have every visit before, and there are many visits to come! At least we will see her again in Oct for my best friends wedding, and I may get to go to CA this summer if finances allow....so here's hoping that I see her sooner, and at least Oct isnt that far away if not - my mom always taught me that it is easier to enjoy life if you do your best to see the glass half full.

Yesterday Grace was dedicated at our church, and we had some of our extended family there; then everyone came to our place for lunch. My first meal served to John's family went over pretty well. At least everyone was well fed and seemed to enjoy themselves. It was really nice to have everyone at church with us for the service, I'm so glad my mom was able to make it out for this.

The big news is that we are moving, yet again...thankfully not half-way across the country this time ;)

We got notice at the beginning of the year that our apartment complex was sold. And then the 1st week of April we were notified that we the option to buy our unit or move within 180 days. Although we rather liked living here, we were not interested in buying this place [too many problems] so we've been tossing around the eternal question of do we buy now or rent a while longer. As much as we'd like to be home-owners, the timing is not very good right now, and we'd have to get real lucky to find a place that we could afford/like/move into quickly. So, the apartment hunt began in earnest. We found one we could deal with, but the time-line had us rushing to check out our other options to make it by their deal "dead-line" and in the eleventh hour John found one more place just outside of our previous search zone and we love it!!!

This place is just a little futher south than we had planned, but the travel time difference should be negligible. It has a little less square feet, but a much more open floorplan and LOTS of closets! I will have storage for all our stuff now!!! Also, since we arent moving until mid-June I will have time before this move to purge all the junk so things should be much better around here after the move. Gracie will really have a room (right now her room is more like storage) with all her toys having a place and we can get her stuff out of the living room when she's not playing with it! I am very excited about that :D

Also, our bedroom will now have enough space for the desk to go in there instead of in the middle of traffic central (and no more presents for Gracie from the tower - she really cannot resist playing with the buttons and wires hanging in the back)

And did I mention that our kitchen is so big it has an island? Oh, I fell in love at first sight of the kitchen...so I'm hoping that everthing will work out once we move in, and come close to what I hope for. We will also now have a pool and a catch and release fish pond :)

On the knitting front I barely finished my mom's top before she left - far too many things going on around here for me to even think about knitting, how scary was that? And now I need to get going on something for my sister since her b-day is tomorrow...my how time flies! I cannot believe that Grace is nearly 1 year old and that we will be nearing our 1 year anniversary of living in Illinois!

Well, I better get organizing/packing, catch ya later! Happy knitting!!!