Socks for Cathymom

My camera is still out of commission, but I discovered what an awesome camera phone I have! Allow me to present...socks! (Can you tell I'm excited to be able to post pictures?)


Pattern: Niblet Socks by Kathleen Taylor
Yarn: Cascade 220 and Galway Highland Heather

Modifications: My mother-in-law has wide feel that swell often so I needed to make these socks bigger. I started by casting on 60 stitches instead of 45 and when I did the heel I picked up an extra loop on the far side of the slipped stitch and k2tog to eliminate the holes I was getting with the psso. Much prettier.

To add some fun to the top (and use up some pretty scraps) I added some variegated yarn for the cuff and a few stripes. It's the same yarn I used for my father-in-law's slippers' cuffs so now they have matching feet!

I ran out of yarn on the second toe but picked up some Galway Highland Heather that color matched with the Cascade like nobody’s business.

These socks were received with enthusiasm and I have one sock of a pair for myself done. Mine will be red instead of brown and as the nights get chillier I am looking forward to wool socks for me, too.

Happy Anniversary!

Since I was so peeved when I last posted I neglected to mention anniversaries.

Last post was my 200th (can't believe it's been that long and that I actually have had readers for 3 years) and last Thursday was our 4th wedding anniversary (can't believe we've been kissing and loving for 7 whole years now). How time flies. I realized that next month I turn 27...which means 30 is just around the corner. Just yesterday I was patting myself on the back for being such a well-accomplished 26 year old and as of next month I'll be creeping up on 30. Wow.

To commemorate the occasion here are my top three favorite moments from the last 4 years of my life:

(I was totally going to do a David-Letterman-style top 10 but when I got writing I realized it would be a veeerrry long top 10.)

3. Walking out of the conference room after presenting my research project to my committee to finish my Masters. I worked through some of the hardest times of my life (the deaths of my friend, cousin and sister, the estrangement of my mother and a hard fight to find balance in my relationship with Morgan) and managed to come back to UW to finish grad school. I will always be proud of myself for accomplishing that feat...and I grew a baby at the same time. Go me!

2. The minutes after giving birth to Emma. It was such an amazing moment to have her in our arms that I cried from relief and Morgan squeezed out a few tears, too. Labor was finished! Nine months of waiting to see our new baby had passed and there she was, healthy and real. (Also, the epidural was still working so the pain from giving birth hadn't set in yet.)

1. Our wedding was a happy day but it's almost a blur. The greatest moments were not those in front of friends & family in that church but the quiet times to follow, those times when we have truly inhabited a life together have been my favorite. They were mornings on the porch in the sun with coffee, others have been playing with Emma, and the best tend to be quiet nights that we sit and talk for 3 hours. It's not one special moment, but the accumulation of years of love that have come in precious pieces.

Politics

I tend to stay away from political issues since this is a sugary-sweet type of blog that deals with nothing heavier than cotton vs poly-blends, but I just read an article and now I'm outraged!

I'm a Democrat and that's no huge secret but this latest bill from the Bush administration has left me seething. The cover issue is that this bill will allow medical providers room to follow their conscience but it will come at a cost. And surprise, surprise - women will be the ones who pay the price. This bill will allow any medical worker in a facility that receives federal funds - receptionists, volunteers, nurses and doctors - to decline to assist in any services they find objectionable. On the surface that seems fine, but let's think about how this will work in practice.

Scenario 1: Doctor or pharmacist decides that birth control is a form of abortion and simply refuses to inform the female patient of options available to her - or the pharmacist refuses to fill her prescription. Who are they to determine who should and should not be allowed to have access to family planning? They are not the ones who will be raising my children that I will have without birth control and not the ones who will shoulder this responsibility. Why should they be allowed to make this choice for me? Who are they to prevent me from having access to health care?

Scenario 2: Receptionist decides that he/she objects to homosexuality and refuses to book an appointment for a man seeking an AIDs test.

Scenario 3: Nurse refuses to administer emergency contraception to a rape victim in the ER.

You can see where I'm going with this. I firmly believe that individuals should have the right to make decisions that follow their own beliefs but what about when that decision is paid for by someone else?

What happens when your rights infringe on mine?

Are my doctors beliefs more important than mine?

Should my freedom of access to health care be optional?

Thank you for reading.

10 minute post

I am blogging from my office, what a bad girl I am. I have about 10 minutes before I need to head downstairs so I thought I would update the blog a little.

1. I am finally in my new office, having moved around many heavy pieces of furniture all by myself thanyouverymuch. This great feeling of calm has settled over me (stop that laughing, Suzanne) and I think it's because I've decided to stop freaking out about whether or not I get into the AF, I am simply going to act "as if". So much in life can be accomplished with just a little bit of backbone. My current peaceful feeling may also be attributed to the semester having started and my office now being in an orderly fashion. I am such an organizer freak (not that my house reflects it, that's communal space and under a different category in my world) that I need to have ends tied up before I can breathe normally.

2. I am/was training to run a 5K on September 6th. I say was because on Tuesday I ran 2.3 miles and yesterday I stubbed my pinkie toe and ripped it open pretty badly so shoes mean bleeding foot right now. No doubt I look silly going to teach my class tonight in a dress and flip flops, but nothing else I had to wear on my feet would keep the pressure off my gash in my foot. Depending on how quickly my toe heals up I may or may not make that 5K next week.

3. I really need a new digital camera. This blogging thing is getting boring without pretty pictures of all the fun things I've been making lately. *sigh*

...and that's all the time I have for now, folks!

Quiet Moments

I often am torn between writing a blow by blow chronological account of my life and writing where I am at the moment. If I'm not really in context, will any of this even make sense? Here goes anyway.

An experience that stood out to me this week:

Getting onto a plane, I had a moment when I brushed against how deep and precious life is. It was nothing huge that triggered it, I was just watching all of the passengers ahead of me step through the threshold of the aircraft. We are all being packed into this small vessel and the accumulation of all those lives peeked at me. A wedding ring, two friends talking, a favorite book in hand. Our plane could fall from the sky, a metal capsule brimming full of people who have loves, children, ideas, words, aspirations, strength, songs and years of life behind them. What an aching loss it would be to the world to have even a relatively small slice of people disappear. Life is always from a first person point of view, but for just a second there I saw it from many points of view. How precious and amazing we all are.

Now go listen to this song. Achingly beautiful.

Candy

While the child is away, the parents will play. Emma went to visit her Auntie and cousins last Friday and since then Morgan and I have been running amuck, staying up way past bedtime, sleeping in, going to movies, going out for coffee, enjoying long morning bike rides and trips to antique stores. Today we made a pretty cool find; a local candy factory!

We were out for a long bike ride this morning and ended up riding right past the Startup Candy Company. They were closed then so we went back a few hours later and discovered this cool candy that only they make (because one of the earlier Startup men invented it around 1900) called Magnolias. They're little candies that taste like flowers!! I am soooo buying some of these for Grandma's birthday. :) They mostly focus on doing wholesale and internet sales these days and their tiny shop front is only open from 12 - 2 Monday through Thursday. If you're in the area or feeling adventurous I highly recommend trying these candies. Enjoy!

Word Art

Cute! Word art from Wordle generated from this blog. :) Click on the picture to make it bigger.

Peace Time

Did you all hear that?

It was this massive sight of relief in our household. We caved and gave Emma back her pacifiers and since then she's been napping, sleeping and even eating. Who knew? And we figured out what's up with Miss Fussy Pants. Yesterday I discovered that she has a molar breaking through. Also, after a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Household we think her "try and make me" attitude has a lot to do with her adjusting to life with Dad home all the time. Mom she knows to a tea and knows just how far she can push me, but Mom+Dad and Dad Alone are whole different animals.

Bottong line: we think she's testing the waters and with a new molar coming in and a lack of sleep she was having a riot in the house. Thankfully, peace has been restored and we are all much more well rested and happy. :)

Seriously.

I have no idea how to gauge my sleep deprivation at this point. It's been a rough week and Emma is really starting to try on her "You can't make me" and "I'm going to throw a screaming fit every time I don't get what I want" shoes. Holey moley. Oh, and she's not sleeping well and refuses to nap.

I met with my Air Force recruiter on Monday and it was our first face-to-face meeting. She must have thought I was the strangest person she'd seen in a while because I was operating on five hours of sleep and two cups of coffee. Bad combination. In an attempt to compensate for the lack of sleep I went to bed that night at 7:30 with Emma...only to have her throw a screaming fit around midnight so I wound up fully awake in the dead of the night. Boy, a girl can do a lot of filing and paperwork between midnight and 3:00 AM.

Emma's going to go visit her Auntie and cousins for a week pretty soon here and I'm wondering if it would be possible to let my sister-in-law keep Emma longer...like until she starts kindergarten. Because we need the sleep around here and this has to end. Seriously.

Yesterday

Two great things about yesterday:

1. As we held hands at the dinner table and talked about what we are grateful for, Emma took her turn first and said," I'm grateful for Emma, family," took a short pause, looked me in the eye and said, "and I'm grateful for Mommy who is my friend." I kid you not. Those were her exact words. I had to get up from the table and wipe my eyes.

Her vocabulary is moving at warp speed this week but I was shocked by how well she put that sentence together. The other amazing thing is that these are concepts she came up with on her own. Morgan and I say we are grateful for each person but we don't say family in the general sense. We were both floored and talked about it more last night in the dark before sleeping. Those are some of the best conversations of my day.

2. I went to a baby shower for a neighbor who is due with a little girl in a few weeks. The night before I made this nursing pillow for her.



The pattern I had in my stash was actually for a pillow cover but I improvised a bit and made the pillow itself. My mother-in-law mentioned a cool trick that I used and it was totally worth it. I lined the two pieces with quilt batting to keep the pillow smooth and I basted the batting down so it would stay in place when I stuffed the pillow. It was a very well recieved gift and I feel pretty good about it.

Wild Adventure!

Last week we went Into the Wild! Well, a bit of wild anyway. We decided (Morgan and I) that the three bears needed to get out and about so we bought a very ugly but cheap camper and headed out. First stop, Northern Utah, close to Bear Lake.



We found an awesome campground next to a stream and Emma had a blast. The next morning we went on a gorgeous hike and I was amazed by all of the beautiful wildflowers in bloom.



On the hike back we saw a deer, lots of butterflies and Emma met a horse. Pretty cool stuff.



Next it was on to Bear Lake and then Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park. Like the picture of the Tetons?


We took it from our canoe...shortly before it capsized. Yep, the water got choppy as we headed back to the marina and the wind combined with a wake from a too close boat tipped us over. The amazing thing is that the digital camera and cell phone both survived the swim after drying out for a few days. Totally crazy! The down side is that with the camera out of commission for the next several days we have no pictures of our trip to Yellowstone. :(

Hope your 4th was great, too!

Slam dunk

Me? How am I? Well, it just so happens that I ROCK! Thank you for asking.

I took the GRE yesterday as part of my application to the Air Force and let me tell you, I feel awesome. Five years ago I took the test and got a 1200 on it. Not exactly Einstein but not too shabby either. Good enough to get me into grad school and help me secure a stipend. Yesterday I managed to better that score by 30 points. Go me! When I got home later that night I did a happy dance.

What did I do to study for the GRE? A few hours with a book during the week before helped me brush up a bit. The night before and the morning of the test I made this:



The Cotton Shop was having a Shop Hop sale so I went a little wild with the $.88 fat quarters. This is my second Turning Twenty quilt and I love how fun and simple they are. Now all I have to do is sew it up. :) Have a happy weekend.

Past the first checkpoint

Great news! I passed my Medical Exam that I took yesterday for part of my application to the Air Force. Yaaayyyy!!!

Strangely enough, I think I was more nervous about that part of my application than any other part. The GRE looms ahead, scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, so there's plenty left to do and lots and lots of paperwork ahead. I feel like this is the right thing for us to be moving towards and it's interesting how when your feet are on the right path, the steps seem to come smoothly. Not that everything is suddenly easy, but there is a rectitude in your actions.

I would love to sit and ponder at this keyboard for a while but it's getting late. Perhaps more later this weekend. For now, it's off to get a good night's sleep before I go crack the GRE like an egg. Grrrr!! :)

In the news this week...

In our world:

*My boss called and offered me 3 more classes to teach this fall on top of the 2 I already have. Not only that, he offered me a one semester contract as a lecturer. Let me translate all that: more work and a whole lot more money! Yippie!! In about 4 months I will make what Morgan pulled in over 6 months. This is great news because his back is recovering but we're coming to realize he may never be the same again and his wrenching days are probably over.

*The pacifiers will soon sleep with the fishes. Daddy and I pulled a fast one with the scissors and now they no longer provide much sucking pleasure for Emma. Our hope is that she will ix-nay them very quickly now that they're "broken". We keep telling her she's a big girl now and big girls don't use pacis.


Emma's big girl room is now done and covered in faeries. Too cute. We spent a few days painting and one late night stenciling faeries. She loves them!


*We just bought new swimsuits today (no pictures, very sorry...ha ha) so next week it's water park here we come!

Enjoy your weekend.

Thank Heaven for Daddy!

As Emma has grown, so have Morgan and I in the quest to become good parents. Being a family is one of the greatest joys of my life and the times we spend together I will always cherish.


One of my favorite things is to sit back and watch Morgan and Emma play together. He has the ability to point out the new, simple and special joys that Emma thrives on. We went on a hike a few days ago and it was Daddy who took Emma up the rocks of the waterfall. I pointed out a shallow stream and Daddy showed her the best way to splash with rocks. A little green caterpillar crossed our path and Daddy helped Emma hold him gently and then put him back on a tree to go home to his Mommy and Daddy.


Morgan is far more than a father, he's a Daddy. The one who kisses boo-boos, takes her to the potty in restaurants, lifts her high with one hand, lets her play with sooooo many of his tools, teaches her how to make new funny noises and convinces me to buy the Teddy Grahams. He is a wonderful partner and an excellent Daddy.


Happy Father's Day, Morgan!

A little distracted...

I totally meant to post this about half an hour ago but I got sidetracked by the Summer issue of Knitty that just came out this morning. I can't wait to knit this and this and this. Patience has never been my strong suit so as soon as it comes out I have to tear through the whole issue immediately like a kid on Easter morning intent on eating all of her candy RIGHT NOW!

Moving on...Yellow Duck is done! At long last, he can make his official appearance in all his fully-limbed glory. He was meant to be an Easter gift for Emma but she discovered him before I was done so I lost my motivation to finish him.



When our friends, Ben, Erica & Nick, came to visit (way back in April) Mr. Monkey teased Yellow Duck to no end about not having arms. After that I just couldn't stand to listen to his pitiful little quacks as he begged for arms. He just wanted to be like all the other stuffed animals, he said. Two weeks ago, his day came.



Pattern: Duck from Knitted Toys by Fiona McTague Yarn: Red Heart Sport
Mods: I knit the body in the round and the body and head in one piece to avoid that whole floppy neck thing that sometimes happens when you sew the head onto the body. And, of course, Yellow Duck has a red heart stitched on his chest, just like Mr. Monkey.

Steps

The future makes me anxious. Mostly it's because I have no idea what is headed our way. Morgan's job has been in a state of change or uncertainty for a long time now. A job that pays you on commission is rarely constant and can be hard on the nerves. With this recent round of medical problems has come many questions about our future. What kind of job does Morgan need? What kind of job does he want? How on earth are we going to get him from point A to B in this career pursuit?

Another opportunity has presented itself and I'm having a hard time deciding if it's a brilliant idea or an insane one.

Here goes. I'm thinking about joining the Air Force.

You heard me. I grew up while my father was in the Air Force and it gave us a really interesting life style that seems even more appealing when you factor in pretty decent pay, great benefits and the chance to travel all over the world while serving my country. Same reasons that I wanted to join the Foreign Service...I just couldn't pass the entrance exam.

The anxiety comes from wondering how well my husband is going to adjust to being a stay-at-home dad and how much I am really going to miss spending my days with Emma. I love her more than sunshine and for the last two-and-a-half years my hours have been occupied by her presence, voice, smiles, tears and hugs. How will I live without that? The mere idea makes my heart ache.

On the other hand, I can learn a new skill set, apply my degree, provide for my family in a substantial way. There is the possibility that my new job could take us far away to travel around the world. The Air Force would give us good enough health benefits to have another child, something we want but are not sure how to get anytime soon. And I can't tell you how nice it would be to have enough leave time and money to actually go on a vacation...all while building a career. Last but not least, there will also be the chance to serve my country, which is no small thing. I can imagine my father would be proud of me for seriously considering this option.

Last night I watched a video clip about Officer Training and when I was walking to work this morning I became aware of how my body moves. I walk with my shoulders back, my eyes up and a firm heel-toe foot fall. This is how my father walked, so distinctive that I knew who had just come into our home by the way the footsteps sounded. This is how my brother learned to walk and how I, too, walk. I realized today that I might as well be marching in formation, for all the way I carry myself. In the echo of my footsteps down the sidewalk, I was sure I heard my father's right beside me.

Cookin'

We are alive and keeping rather busy around here. Emma's taken an interest in cooking with me these days. We made potato pancakes the other morning and since them Emma keeps telling me "I need to cook some eggs." I gave her a bottom drawer in the kitchen where she keeps all of her cooking utensils and she drags them out daily to help me whip up meals.



While my in-laws were visiting I spent a fair amount of time sewing with Cathymom. Behold, the newest edition to Emma's wardrobe. Emma keeps telling me she needs a black dress every time she sees me get ready for work. Instead of a black dress (a bit warm in the summer, wouldn't you say?) I found her some adorable white fabric with black graphics and topped it off with adorable red poppy buttons. The bottom half is a bit sheer so she has to wear white bloomers under it, but no worries.


So far, it's been given the Emma stamp of approval. The pattern? Er, um, kind of improvised. The bodice piece was guided by a super-old book of How to Sew Clothes for Children and I changed all the rest was made up as I went. Not too shabby.

Until next time. I have at least three more projects to show you this week. Oh, and a test to draft, too. Blah!

All is Well

Morgan had a very smooth surgery that went down last Wednesday. His parents drove all night to be here a few hours before we went to the hospital so we were very lucky to have their moral and physical support. I feel so fortunate to have a loving and available family who could be here for us.

Morgan is healing but needs to be taking it easy. He's going to be out of work for about 6 weeks but his boss is amazing and we are grateful that he has a job to return to. The funniest part is watching Morgan drop something and the look of distress on his face is quite comical because he realizes he can't bend over to pick it up.

Just wanted to let you all know that we are doing well and appreciate your good wishes!

Deep Breathing

I'm doing my best to keep busy busy today to keep my mind off current family events. Morgan is having surgery tomorrow to relieve a pinched nerve in his lower back that has been hurting and getting worse over the past 3 months. I'm pretty freaked out and I'm not even the one going under the knife. :::deep breath::: I'll keep you all posted though I am sure the surgery will go smoothly and all will be well. My in-laws are on the way like a pair of amazing angels and will be here sometime very o-dark early tomorrow morning to see us before Morgan goes in for surgery around 7:30 am.

Keep us in your prayers please.