No news is good news?

I went to the doctor this morning, and despite some decent contractions last night, I'm still at 2cm dilated. Everything else was fine. I am so glad we've had cool weather here (I think it's going to be 75 today)! I don't have any swelling this week. I go back next Thursday.

So, now I can knit! Although I guess I was thinking "boy" when I bought this yarn. Every pair is going to be mainly blue. Oh well, Mary looked great in blue, and I am sure this baby will too.

Speaking of Mary, she's been such a sweet girl lately. Her mind is growing and changing every day and it amazes me! Last night she was telling John that one toy fish had a dark purple fin and the other had a light purple fin. This morning she told me that her PJ pants had light green and dark green frogs. She can sing "Where is Thumbkin?" all by herself and do the little hand motions too. She loves to sing it about a million times a day.

One down, three to go!

That's the yarn on the lower left in the previous picture. These longies are so super soft! I am about a quarter way through the next pair. One of my friends bet I'd get 1.5 pair done, and another was thinking 2 pair. If I get to knit tonight, I'll have 1.5 pair....hmmmm.

I see the doctor in the morning. I'll update when I get a chance.

It's here!

Nope, not the baby! Hopefully that post will contain an actual name for the baby. If we decide on one before he/she is born. Actually, we have a girl name. It's just the boy name that hasn't been completely figured out.

Anyway, it's here! My custom Purewool I have been waiting on for almost a month! I got a great price on it, and it was custom dyed for me. As much as I love dyeing yarn, I know I won't have time to do it this fall.


The eight skeins on the left will make 4 pairs of longies. The variegated will be for the main body/legs and the solids will be for trim. The purple on the bottom right is for a Christmas gift for our gift exchange, the white is in case I do get a chance to dye, and the reddish pink is for me. I thought it would be more red, but it will still work for me.

So, which will come first--4 pairs of longies or the baby? I have the yarn for the first pair in center pull balls already, and I just swatched it up. So I am ready to cast on the first pair tonight. Hopefully knitting ever spare minute of my day will keep my mind off these crazy on again, off again contractions I've been having every other day.

still here, still pregnant

I went to the doctor yesterday. Everything looks good. I am still feeling pretty good too, which is amazing if you ask me. I am only very slightly swollen at the end of the day, and wake up most mornings with it all gone. The braxton hicks contractions I've been having are working, I am 2cm dilated! Progress! I had several strong contractions yesterday evening and last night, but this morning I feel fine. They were strong enough to wake me up last night, but I kept willing myself to sleep. I knew I had to have at least a couple hours sleep. Finally around 12:30am I was able to fall asleep and stay that way. I heard Mary say my name a couple times, but she must have fallen right back to sleep. John went to check on her once, but she ended up sleeping all night long by herself in her bed. Yippie!

The good news is that with all this excitement, I got my hospital bag completely packed. I got the baby's stuff packed too. In theory, I want to use cloth diapers in the hospital. So I packed those, plus some of the little woolies I made and some of the shirts I dyed. I set everything out in the bedroom so we wouldn't have to dig for it in the closet when the time comes. I got the "sewing room" taken down yet again. I mopped the kitchen floor. Today I want to clean up the guest room and put on fresh sheets. I want to get the co-sleeper set up. And clean both bathrooms. I guess what's left is a mix of things for when I'll be gone and we'll have guests here and just trying to stay on top of daily chores.

I really, really need to go to the grocery store in the morning. So hopefully the baby will stay put for another 24 hours.

Nine years in the making!

The most amazing thing happened today! My "Aunt Gertie Plant" bloomed! The real name for the plant is a Hoya. I've had this bad boy for nine years, and it has never bloomed. My great, great Aunt Gertie had a plant like this when I was a child. So when I saw this plant nine years ago, I bought it because it reminded me of her. Today I went to water the plant and was amazed to see the bloom. If you've never seen one, they almost look fake. The flowers look like plastic. It's so pretty though. Here's a pic of the entire plant. It's pretty big. It was tiny when I got it.
I read up on how to get it to bloom when I first got it, but I never had any luck. I wonder what I finally did right. Maybe it's that it lives in the kitchen and I actually remember to water it once in a while. Mom is going to be so excited when she sees these pictures!

I got a decent amount of stuff done today, vacuumed 5 rooms of the house, dusted, did laundry and put some away. Tomorrow Mary is spending the afternoon with Grandma, and I am going to run the last of my 'baby errands.' I don't need a lot, but want to look several places, and it's hard to get Mary in and out of the car several times. It just wears me out.

Back to making progress on the super long list I made yesterday afternoon. Not sure what I'll do with myself if I get it done.

Before and after

Before:


After (all the ones from the pic of them stacked up in the rocking chair, plus some turquoise blue and olive green ones):

For Mary......and a real surprise!

I am packing a little bag of gifts for Mary for the hospital. That way, when she comes to visit me, she'll have some new things and also will have something to do instead of just sit there. My friend Karen sent me this link last October on how to use a plastic grocery bag as a pattern to make a cloth bag. I was going to make one for Mary for her birthday back in January, but the first trimester was in full swing. So I never got to it. I dug up the link this weekend and made the bag out of some material in my stash. It was really simple! I want to make a few more to stick in my car for when I go shopping for small things. So far in the bag I have 2 books, a pad of construction paper and some stickers. I want to get an 8 pack of crayons and put some white paper in there too.


Yesterday John started to clean out our shed and is in the process of organizing it and the garage. This project has been on our to do list for a year since we moved here. The shed is great for junk, but it's all just thrown in there and really impossible to get to anything. He had almost everything out when he found a guest!

He said he wasn't sure if the skunk was dead or alive at first, but then it rolled over and looked at him like "I'm trying to sleep here!" So, he put the project on hold. It was still there in the evening, but was gone after dark. I looked this morning, and it wasn't there today. I wonder if the skunk lives in there. The shed is super old and the doors don't close very well, so we won't be able to keep it out if it does live there.

I'm down to the last few items on my to do list! I am washing the car seat cover today, and we are getting the co-sleeper back from John's Mom. She borrowed it while she kept Mary's cousin Lucas for a few days. The very last think I hope to get to is knit some longies. I have my schedule pretty clear if the yarn shows up on time. I ordered it through a co-op, and it was custom hand dyed in Uruguay. The lady who ordered it for us has it and is now sorting through 250 plus skeins of yarn. Once she packs it up and mails it, I'll be a knitting fool! Unless of course Firecracker shows up early. Only 25 days to go!