if we shadows

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.

ahhh...i'm mrs darcy at last :)

Take the Quiz here!

in need of some green

so the 2 days of warm weather was just a total tease as it was 30F and grey all day today. i am sooo looking forward to this winter's end. i am in need of some green! so much so i even spruced up the blog a bit...like it?
i finally also got rid of some old and dead links as part of my renewed effort to post more often.

knitting: started the left front panel of the purple baby cardigan. back and sleeves are finished. so not too much longer now until the dreaded seaming begins.
i am really, really, really going to try to burn through the WIPs i have before starting new stuff. i know i have terrible knitting ADD, but after the great stash move of 2008, i realized i truly need a 12 step program for my fiber issues.  (this was also very thoughtfully pointed out by my husband who after moving the umpteenth box of stuff down to the basement simply said, "you have a problem, you know")
BUT (you knew there was going to be one, didn't you?) i really want a sock knitting machine. really, really, pretty please....they are like 2 grand, so um, NO.  but i can still want one, right? i blame judith, since she brought in a whole mountain of socks made by one of these wonderful  inventions that were knit for her by a gal in california.  maybe someday...

spinning: i started a baby hat with some stuff i quickly spun up. if i could find the camera i would take a picture and post, but maybe tomorrow. anyway, it is white, pink and fushia.

baby stuff: the nursery is pretty much ready (again sans pics for now) except for baby of course...she is my best WIP right now...and i promise to get her finished:> although i think things are pretty much (hopefully) on auto-pilot in some sense for that.
Sam is still a bit confused by the whole room change event, even though all of his furniture, toys, stuff, etc is in his new room, he still wanders into the nursery (his 'old' room) and looks a bit puzzled. the furniture and rug are different, but the changing table is still there as well as the green curtains, and of course the winnie-the-pooh border around the top of the room. i think he sort of thinks he has two rooms now.
i was pretty productive today though, sewing new curtains for sam's new room and moving a rug into to nursery.

office: still a wreck after the move downstairs 2 weeks ago or so. papers, books, craft supplies are everywhere. ugh. plan to take some time tomorrow to try to create a tiny bit of order from the chaos.

gardening: sprouts!....we have sprouts! tiny little green shoots have emerged in the tray with the brussels sprouts and the edamame. i saw one lone pioneer in the tomato tray as well. so now i can only hope to keep most of them alive until i can transplant them into the garden. (again, if spring would only get here already!)

pictures soon!

warming trend and BC calling

so it was finally warm here the last 2 days, i know it is supposed to cool off again, but this little reprieve has been great and much need in the winter that just doesn't seem to want to end. i realize it is march and it will likely freeze and/or snow again before winter finally lets go but it is nice to hope.
i started some seeds already, brussels sprouts, edamame, tomatoes and the three trays are taking up half my kitchen table. it is the only large flat surface in my house next to windows. i am hoping they will get enough sun there, otherwise i will need to invest in some grow lights.
the peas, beets and beans can be directly sown into the garden so don't need to be started inside. some of the herbs are perennial (thyme, sage, oregano) but i will re-plant some basil plants and probably some lemon balm.
i really can't wait to get out in the warm sun and dig in the dirt!
i am excited for sam to get out there as well, his papa took him outside for a bit yesterday and he was a little weirded out by the grass and the bark on the trees, of course he was tiny last summer and has no memory of the outside when it was warm and green. he only knows the whites, greys and browns of winter. summer will be a real treat.

we are planning a trip up to canada at the end of next month and i have 3 definite and maybe a 4th interview set up for an EM job in british columbia. i have spoken with 3 of the head folks from the respective EDs, and my caller ID says 'british columbia calling'

wow a whole canadian province wants to talk to me :)

3 are strictly community emergency depts, the 4th is a bit more on the academic side. it should be interesting. i am very excited about doing something new and in a new place. i am sure i will miss some aspects of my job here, as it is intensely academic, but right now i am just so tired and burned out i am willing to give it all up. i certainly won't miss the administrative aspects or the 50-60 hour work weeks, but i am sure with time i will miss the teaching. right now it is a nearly daily task, so it is getting a bit old.
the money is better, for fewer overall hours, but the cost of living is also about twice as much.
of course i will get to live in a beautiful place with more temperate weather, mountains, lakes and a whole ocean relatively nearby.
i am trying to convince my mother to come with us on this trip but she is resisting coming out of her shell.

tomorrow is busy, with m&m, i am giving a grand rounds and later in the day faculty meeting. 12 hour shift on friday at the satellite ED we cover (ugh) but the weekend is free so far. i am hopping to get the curtains for sam's room sewn and hung as well as clean up the space downstairs that is my new "office" there are piles of papers, books, knitting and spinning supplies, etc all over the place. not to mention the TV in the middle of the room and the futon that is still in its bed form. it is a very odd mish-mashed space down there right now.

i am just about to start the neck shaping for the back of the purple baby sweater, then all i have are the 2 front panels and she'll be done. we bought some bedding for the nursery and it is a mix of different purples so i was thinking of a baby blanket with some dark-ish purple yarn uncovered from the stash with the recent move.
i will try to find some time this weekend to go through some stitch dictionaries and find a nice pattern. it is a bulkier yarn, so maybe an open pattern would lighten it up some.

i just finished 'jane austen book club' which was an airport bookstand impulse buy, not a terribly good book but i felt obligated to finish it. i have charles baxter's the soul thief on my nightstand and i just (finally after being unable to find it at any local bookstore) got the newly released collection of poems by robert creeley and i am eager to get into that as well.

that is all for now