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.

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.

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

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.

No, seriously, guess.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!