if we shadows

on a lighter note

a meme stolen from minnie 

1. Do you like blue cheese? is there anything that blue cheese can't go on?
            yes, immensely. i particularly like it on fruit (strawberries, figs). and yes, i am sure there are combinations that blue cheese should not be part of.

2. Have you ever smoked a cigarette?
        yes, intermittently in high school and college. now i can't stand to even be near smoke.

3. Do you own a gun?
        no, but i am moving to a place where bears (yes, bears) are a problem, even in town so i am seriously considering getting one (and shooting lessons of course will be required as i have never shot a gun before either)

4. What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic?
        i don't go to sonic

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
        no

6. What do you think of hot dogs?
        they are not really food BUT i do love me a grays papaya with the works in NYC (about twice a decade)

7. Favorite Christmas Song? 
        i love 'o holy night', and 'have yourself a merry little christmas', and several others

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
        hot tea with honey and milk

9. Can you do push ups?
        not without severe bodily harm

10. Favorite movie?
        i have no idea, it depends on my mood i guess

11. What's your favorite piece of jewelry?
        my wedding band and diamond flower earrings that were my mother's

12. Favorite hobby?
        ummm, knitting, maybe? :)

13. Do you work with people who idolize you?
        i have no idea, that would be weird. respect, i hope, though

14. Do you have ADD?
        no, i am hyperfocused, detailed oriented and plan everything and i am very good at multi-tasking, all of those things to a fault as well.

15. What's one trait that you hate about yourself?
        i have a short fuse and a low tolerance for slow, stupid people. i have to get better about cutting people some slack

16. Middle name?
    my maiden name. i never had a middle name before i got married

17. Three thoughts at this moment:
        how can this kid be hungry again, i just fed her < 1 hr ago?
       annoyance at having to rip back and re-start (again) the purple pull-over for finley
        wondering where my hubby and son made off to, and what they are bringing home for dinner

18. Three things you bought yesterday.
        since i didn't leave the house, i don't think i bought 3 things yesterday, although i have recently bought (online) new baby bottles, a toybox for sam and yarn (duh, of course)

19. Name 3 drinks you drink regularly.
        tea, water, milk

20. Current worry right now?
        my daughter recovering function of her injured arm

21. Current hate right now?
        i don't know, i am trying to be more positive about things

22. Favorite place to be?
        home with my family

23. How did you bring in the New Year?
        i worked in the ER

24. Where would you like to go?
        maine coast for a nice seaside retreat, for about, oh ever

25. Name three people who will complete this.
        ???

26. Who's answer do you want to read the most?
         ???

27. What color shirt are you wearing?
        peach

28. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? 
        no

29. Can you whistle?  like a bird
        no

30. Favorite color?
        right now, green, but i change alot

31. Would you be a pirate?
       arrhhhh

32. What songs do you sing in the shower?
        i don't sing in the shower

33. Favorite girl's name?
        finley :)

34. Favorite boy's name?
        sam :)

35.What's in your pocket right now?
        a pine cone (a gift from my son) and a tissue

36. Last thing that made you laugh?
        sam

37. Best bed sheets as a child?
        fresh off the clothesline cotton sheets

38. Worst injury you've ever had?
        i broke my ankle several years ago. recovery from this last c-section has been pretty rough, though

39. Do you love where you live?
        not in the least.

40. How many TVs do you have in your house?
        one functional, one not

41. Who is your loudest friend?
        i can't think of anyone particularly loud. several are snarky and opinionated, but not really loud

42. How many dogs do you have?
       two

43. Does someone have a crush on you?
        i doubt it

44. If you could marry a movie actor/actress who would it be?
        they are all nuts, i'm sure, but i wouldn't mind a date or two with orlando bloom

45. What is your favorite book?
        i love books, my house is full of them (and i've owned and read hundreds more) it is impossible for me to choose one favorite.

46. What is your favorite candy?
        dark chocolate

47. Who is your favorite sports team?
        red sox

48. What song do you want played at your funeral?
        i have never thought about it. i like ani difranco's version of 'amazing grace'

49. What were you doing at 12 AM last night?
        likely nursing, finn is still confused on the whole day-night thing

50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up this morning?
       i can't believe i slept 2 whole hours without interruption!

that is all

untitled

so my sweet infant daughter has been diagnosed with erb's palsy, a brachial plexus injury that occurred during her delivery, which has caused her left arm to be partially paralyzed. many children do recover partial function so we are hopeful. she will need intensive physical therapy and if she still has significant deficits at 3-4 months, then surgery to try and re-attach or graft onto the damaged nerves.
she is otherwise healthy and alert and gaining weight normally so i know we should still be grateful for her overall health but it is hard not to grieve a little for her injury.
i just hope and pray that she can recover enough function to do what she wants in life.

welcome!

waiting

so after 12 hours of monitoring on wednesday, and hours and hours of early labor, we were sent home to continue to wait; with the change in the weather (a low pressure system) as the cause of my early labor. weird, huh?
but the contractions have lessened in intensity and frequency so i am basically just hanging out at home, waiting for things to rev up again.
otherwise we are scheduled for a c-section on monday afternoon. although i did have one with the first pregnancy, it was unplanned and i was too exhausted physically and emotionally to get too nervous about it. plus at that point it was kind of an emergency to get the kid out. of course this time i have all weekend and most of the day monday to get all nervous and worked up about the surgery. i know i am just being a control freak, but i am finding it hard to relax about this.

i have been knitting, and finished the lace-edged cardigan for the baby. it is my own pattern, top down, raglan sleeve, and essentially seamless. i cast-on and bound off in picot edging which i think looks really cute. i made some i-cords to tie the front together in 2 spots. the lace panel at the bottom is snowdrop lace from traditional knitted lace shawls by martha waterman.
all in all i am pretty happy with the way it turned out, it should fit her this winter.

...and then there was light

so after  >48 hours with absolutely no electricity thanks to mother nature and 90+ mph straight line winds that tore through omaha on friday we are back online.
we had heard rumors it might take some areas until next saturday, and i was absolutely dreading that.
now i realize much of the world lives without electricity in their homes (or indoor bathrooms, or safe water, etc) but i am a spoiled american and i was going a little nutty at night with no lights.
tv i can live without, i was missing email an awful lot though.
not to mention the whole cooking thing. now until we moved to omaha, my last several residences had a gas stove. great, who cares if the power is out i can still eat warm food. but we have a crappy electric stove in this house so no warm food for us.
now dear hubby and i (especially dear hubby) are ok with eating cold pizza....the 13 month old, however, is incredibly picky eater to begin with and has standards for food preparation that rival 'top chef' and 'the next food network star' (did i say i didn't miss tv? ok, maybe just a little)
but we cooked out tonight on the grill, so everyone got a warm meal just as we were cleaning up, low and behold <<<<BLING>>>>> on came the light!.....and the AC and the radio and the half a dozen other things we had apparently left running during the black out.
we did lose quite a bit of food out of the refrigerator and freezer, but luckily the small storage freezer i have in the basement kept very cold and most of the stuff was actually still frozen solid so it could have been worse.

anyway, no more knitting by candlelight for me.

i have most of the body and 1 and 3/4 sleeves knit on the baby lace cardigan (pictures to come later). i did one lace repeat, but i think i am going to rip back and re-knit it in one needle size larger just to open the lace up a bit more. i am trying to bargain with her to not arrive til after it is finished though since Lord knows i won't have a single free minute to knit afterward.

one (two) especially nice things that occurred over the weekend was i got to see annie modesitt at string of purls. i went friday night to her talk, mostly about her new book coming out in the fall, and mostly her just talking about her life and her husband, who has been quite ill, and knitting of course. it was a very nice time.
this afternoon i went to her lace class. it was nice, i did learn a few new tricks i that are pretty slick and will help my lace knitting alot. i do think thought that a class like that should specify the ability level of the knitter, since although she was able to share some neat tricks with us, i think there could have been more of that if she hadn't had to spend so much time with a couple of people who we much more novice knitters than the rest of the group.
now i'm not saying i am some wonderful, mega-advanced knitter, but i have the basics down, have knit lace before, read charts before and i guess i thought the class was actually intended toward a 'non-beginner' group.
of course maybe i am wrong and just being a yarn-snob.

it just irked me a little that a woman (a good, decent person in all respects, i am sure) showed up to a lace class with superbulky yarn and size 15 needles. she needed near constant attention to figure out how to knit the lace pattern with this stuff (and it wasn't a terribly complex lace pattern at all). this of course meant that no one else was getting any teaching
now i am a fan of heavy lace and have knit shawls out of non-lace weight yarn (DK, worsted, even aran) but wow, superbulky!
did i mention it was acrylic too?
ok,. ok i am a yarn snob.  but we all paid 45 bucks and i think a little equity would have been nice.

but ms modesitt was lovely and very entertaining and i am really not complaining since i did learn some neat stuff.

well, off to watch a movie (cause we can now!) that is now severely overdue to blockbuster and knit some more on the baby sweater.

Ultrasound today

so baby girl is growing right on track. no signs of the placenta crapping out like it did with sam. she is 6lb 5 oz on today's US (50th percentile), so we have been blessed by the perinates and shouldn't have to see them again for the rest of this pregnancy.
and no more bedrest...(woo-hoo!) of course i am still limited by how i feel, since i start contracting walking into the kitchen...no marathons for me anytime soon. but at least i can go to the grocery store and play with sam a bit more.
of course today i overdid it a bit as immediately after the doctor's appt, we went to target, babies r us and gymboree. so now i basically can't walk due to the pain and pressure.
oh, well. i'll take it slow tomorrow.
i feel a little lost without going to work everyday, even though i have been working a bit from home and keeping myself busy with some knitting, surfing the web (and tv of course). it is just weird to go from working 50-60 hours per week- mostly out of the house, to working about 10 or so (from the couch on the computer).

as a total nonsequitor, i am flippping through the channels and 'charmed' is on tnt...alyssa milano has totally had a boob-job.

that is all for now

sock wars!

i have finished my detonator socks and they are in the post on their way to my target. i feel kind of bad killing her off, she seems really nice on ravelry, but hey this is war right?
the game got all screwed up since th moderator decided to call it all quits a few days ago with about 350+ 'warriors' still alive. no one really knows her reasons since she has not piped up about it on any of the message boards on ravelry, yahoo groups or the sock wars forum. anyway, some other folks have decided to continue to play on until the game's natural end which is cool.
i will be killed off soon, though, since my assassin has already emailed and let me know that my socks will soon be on their way (from australia!), i am totally ok with this, as i really don't want to play any more and with the baby coming soon, i won't have time anyway. plus the pattern is kind of sucky and i really don't want to have to knit it again.
anyway, here are the socks

summer is here!

storms are over (for now) and today is a beautiful, sunny, breezy day. of course i am on house arrest and my butt has a couch shaped appendage....at least until we reach 36 weeks and then i am freed. it won't be as big a concern then if i deliver a bit early. of course the longer she stays in the better, until term, but we need to get to at least 36 weeks (10 more days)

anyway, we had opportunity to play in the pool last week

and the garden is growing (despite its recent drowning with the storms).

those are actually vegetable plants there in between the weeds :)

we have peaches!

nothing on the cherry trees, they didn't produce anything last year either so i guess we are stuck buying cherries again this year.

i have been knitting my socks for 'sock wars 3' and this is the fourth attempt. i could not get gauge with the first 3 sock yarns i tried. the pattern sucks, and they did not email the errata. the pattern changed from a 9 stitch repeat to an 8 over the gusset, but unless you check the blog entries for sock wars obsessively you would have missed the notation about that. also my assassin is still listed as alive, but i got an email about a week ago form someone else saying she was knitting my socks and wondered how far along i was with my target's socks so she knew how much she was going to have to knit. well, confident, huh? so i am confused about my assassin but at this point i don't really care all that much about who is following the rules or not.

actually i am hoping she (someone) finishes my socks and kills me off soon, since i really don't want to knit these socks anymore. i am halfway through the foot on the first sock and would have been done had i not had to re-start 4 times and rip back due to pattern error. ugh. here they are:

the yarn is araucania hand paint in 'Ranco multy' and i love it. i made the baby a hat from it as well. i got it a little yarn store in penticton british columbia during our trip there.

Anyway, that is all for now. hopefully i can convince my husband that 'bedrest' includes sitting on the patio furniture :)

dear john

above is a picture of my brother john and me. i am about 4, i think. he passed away unexpectedly last sunday and left all of us heartbroken.
he was  a loving father, brother and son, always the diplomat, the handyman, and above all the comic of our family.
every time i picture him, he is smiling and laughing.
he was taken from us much too soon and i am in disbelief...as well as a bit angry and deeply sad. i will forever miss him
i love you, john

bedrest sucks

so pre-term labor returns and i have been placed on (temporary as long as the contractions stop) bedrest for the last 2 days. i have a shift tomorrow evening, (and monday) my doctor says i can try to work, but obviously need to leave if i start going downhill again. (much easier said than done)
obviously i want to do whatever is best for the baby, but it is really difficult to just 'call in' or to leave work early when i am working a shift. there is no one else there to cover, and someone needs to be called in. we are a small group and already over scheduled due to someone leaving in december, and just being chronically short staffed.
not to mention that sitting on my ass (or rather laying on my left side) for 2 days on the couch sucks. not being able to play with or take care of my kid sucks, tv sucks, i already read a book now my eyes are tired and it is hard to knit while lying on my left most of the time.

we leave on wed am for 10 days in canada. traveling across from calgary, alberta to vancouver, bc. i have 5 job interviews and so despite the issues with the pregnancy i am still going. my OB said it was ok as long as i am resting alot and nearby to hospitals (both will be true) but none-the-less i am incredibly nervous about this trip. i am dreading so much time in the car, i am worried about how sam will handle the trip, traveling with so many people will be difficult (5 adults total + sam).

i will be much less stressed once we get back. hopefully all in one piece! :)

anyway, dear hubby will try to get the plantlings into the garden before we leave so they don't die of neglect on the kitchen table. i am hoping we don't have any more cold snaps, they really couldn't handle it.

alright enough complaining.
should have lots of pics to post when we get back.