Real. Live. Knitting.

Where does the weekend go? Before I know it, it's Sunday night and I'm doing laundry for Monday morning. Time flies. It was a pretty good weekend. Saturday morning Jack and I met Kim for coffee and knitting. Jack was fascinated with Kim's bright red toenails. And Kim gave me a really cute felted bag as a b-day present (thanks, Kim!!) From there, we headed to my parents' house to hang out. I got a fair bit done on my sock (Monkey). You girls are right...it IS a fun pattern.

Catie spent the night, so we headed back this am for breakfast and to pick her up. I used my mom's washer to felt this:


It's the Marsupial Tote from the Stitch N Bitch book.

Funny thing about both these projects--they're both Christmas presents. Unfortunately, they're not because I'm so far ahead for this year. Oh no. They're from 2005 for the socks and 2006 for the bag. Just a wee bit late. But at least I'm getting them done.

If only there were more hours in a day. Or I could live on less sleep. Like 4 hours. Then I could get everything done I wanted to and still have time to hug on my babies. I'm considering cutting back on my work hours in a few months, but until then, do you think I could get one of those time traveling things like Hermione had in one of the HP books? I think it was the 3rd one. Then I could be in 2 places at once. If only...

Why do I always apologize?

Well, it's been a month since my last post. I always apologize and vow to do better. Then I post a bit more frequently for a week or two, then it's back to sporadic posts. I'm not going to apologize or feel badly. I've been busy. 2 kids. Working 70 hours a week (or more). A trip to North Idaho for a wedding. Time to drop that Catholic guilt thing. (If only I really could.)

But there has been knitting. Some spinning. And even a little sewing. I've been doing more reading too. I have a tendency to read non-fiction. I'm happy to report that in the past month, I've read 2 fiction books. And a couple of non-fiction. I've read the obligatory Harry Potter, but I read this too. A nice piece of fluff for a Saturday night.

Sunday G took the kids and I got to have an afternoon to myself. I think it's the first time since Jack was born that I haven't been at work or with one kid or the other for more than an hour. I met Kim, Margene, and Judy for coffee at the Flying M in Nampa. I started a new modular scarf, and tonight I started a new pair of socks.

The camera battery is dead, and we're out of AA batteries, so you'll have to make do with some kiddie pics that are already downloaded.

Here's Catie and her cousin Hannah at the wedding reception
And Jack sitting on daddy's lap just before the wedding. Hard to believe he's almost 6 months old.

I finally got my Mystery Stole started on Friday night. Oh..the saga. I had Friday afternoon off. So I went to the craft store to get beads. I picked out some very pretty ivory beads. Then rushed anxiously home to get started. I busted out the crochet hook I bought last week, just for thi purpose. Unfortunately, the hook was 13 cm long...not size 13. It's a size 12. The hook wouldn't go through the beads. So I decided to go ahead without beads. I got a few rows into it, then fell asleep. We went to Joann's yersterday, but they didn't have a size 13 hook, so I'm resigned to the no bead look. If I waited until my next day off to get a smaller hook, who knows when I'd get any more done? Here we have a whopping 35 rows of the stole.

I'm definitely not one of those people who has the clue finished within a day or two of it coming out. But eventually...

And in food news, this is our local meal of the week.
Tortillas: local tortilla factory in town
Eggs: bought at the farmers market in Nampa from a farmer that lives here in Caldwell
Veggies and potatoes: from various booths at the market.

Thank god for the Nampa Farmers' Market. I go basically every single week, and we load up on goodies. We have this little routine...walk partway through, then stop and have a lemon/blueberry scone, then carry on. I tend to frequent and support the same few booths each week. I hope that the Caldwell Farmers' Market will eventually take off and become as successful as the one down the road, but it's on Wednesday nights from 4-7. Right now it's way too hot to be an especially pleasant experience.

And now, Jack's happy with daddy. Catie's in bed. I best be getting to knitting.

A Perfect Sunday/One Local Summer

What a great day. I was on call last night, and busy until midnight. Then things settled down, and I got some sleep. This morning we got up and went out to breakfast, went for a drive in the new car, then went to Ste. Chapelle for their Jazz at the Winery. We got there early, so were able to get great seats in the shade. As we listened to some blues, I was able to knit my swatch for the Mystery Stole. Then I read a bit. After we got home, I was tickled to find my invite to Ravelry. I'll have to somehow find a way to keep from spending ALL NIGHT on this site. I have no clean clothes for work tomorrow, plus I need to work on a project for the residents. I need to find some self-discipline.

I also am desperately behind in my posts for One Local Summer. This is our meal from a few days ago.

Roasted red potatoes and onions, a salad and fixin's, all from the farmers market in Nampa. I must admit, the chicken isn't local. Unfortunately, the same day I signed up OLS, we discovered our freezer in the garage had lost power, and we lost all of our meat. This is some chicken we've had in the freezer in the house that we needed to use up. But the pesto on it is from our local Coop. It's a start. We need to find a source for local beef/chicken. I'll keep working on that.

And now...the dilemma...laundry or Ravelry. HMMMMM....

G's Lucky Day

7-7-07. The day thousands of couples want to get married, as they'll have good luck and long and happy marriages. Well, today is the day G turns 38. So in honor of his birthday, we went to the yarn store. We walked out with $110 worth of yarn, none of it earmarked for him. See...isn't he lucky? His comment as he carried the bag out of the store was "YAY. Happy Birthday to Me!"

I felt guilty.

So I bought him this:


Just to qualify this...we've been contemplating buying a new car for a few months. And we'd done a fair bit of internet research and pretty much knew what we wanted. It's a Ford Edge. We bought it off the showroom floor. I've heard about this before, but never knew anyone to do it. Weird, huh? But this car is sweet...and now Catie and Jack's car seats won't be right next to each other. And we won't have to say things like, "Catie, get your finger out of your brother's mouth. Quit poking him in the eye." At least until they're older. Hopefully by then, he'll be big enough to fight back.

Back to the knitting, though. I have to admit to being a joiner. After I told myself I wasn't going to do any more knitalongs. I signed up for the Mystery Stole 3 after reading about it on Stephanie's blog. Me and about 2 billion other knitters. Including the girl at the counter at the yarn shop where I bought the yarn today. Misti Alpaca laceweight, in ivory. I'm on call tonight, but I'm hoping to get my swatch done in the next 24 hours. I'd like to use the beads as well, so I need to find a place to get those as well. But we'll start with the swatch and go from there.

But for now...we're loving that new car smell.

A New(ish) Look...Sans photos

I decided it was time to clean up the blog. Get rid of some of the outdated links/buttons on the sidebar. Maybe change the template and color scheme. Well, I deleted a bunch of stuff. On purpose at first. Then some other stuff that wasn't on purpose. So now I've been trying to put some stuff back on. So please bear with me as I try to jazz this thing up a bit over the next few days/weeks.

I'm also late for my One Local Summer post from week 1. Along those deleting lines, we had a moment at our house Saturday night. I had started to post about our local meal, and couldn't find the pictures anywhere. Just before that, G had deleted a bunch of pics from the camera. Something about too full or too slow or something. But alas...no pictures of the meal. And even worse than that, no pictures of Catie's birthday party.

G: "I thought you saved them."
Me: "No, I thought YOU saved them".

I'm happy to report, that as of midnight last night, the pictures are back. The local meal. Catie's birthday. Old pics from months ago. All of them. We had to download some free software and buy a $20 card to read our camera's memory card. But it worked...we somehow recovered our accidentally deleted pictures. Best damn $20 we've spent in a long time. Thank goodness for Best Buy.

So, that's about all for now. I'm going to try and learn how to spice this site up a bit. Any tips?

2 years ago today...

Here's what the first day of summer means at our house:

2005:
2006:

And now 2007:
We'll have a party on Saturday at Grammy and Boppa's house. But today's the big day...

Happy Birthday Catie!

Am I being fickle?

I have a new love interest. Yes...I'm contemplating cheating on knitting and spinning with a few hobby. Here's a hint:
Lately I've been enamored with sewing. Or at least the idea of sewing. Granted, I haven't actually SEWN anything yet, but I went shopping today. I went to the local quilt shop here in Caldwell. Cindy's Quilt Shop. What beautiful fabric and colors. I was overwhelmed. Kind of like the first time I went into a yarn store. I walked around for probably 30 minutes before I decided on these 2 fabrics.

I bought a yard of each fabric, and think I'll start with a tote bag. Way back in the day, I took home-ec in 4-H, and I had a brief stint with quilting a few years ago, but it's been awhile since I've even taken the sewing machine out of the case. I am on this kick where I want to make the kids' clothes. Yeah. Right between my 12 hour days and 14 hour call nights.

Basically, what this is coming down to is I think I want a lifestyle change. I love my job most days, but I would love being home with my kids more. I want to be home to fix them lunch and dinner and bake cookies with them. There's no way I could quit working, but I would love to scale back and be a "homemaker/mom" type. 8 or 10 years ago, I would have died if I could hear myself saying this. And now my priorities have shifted more than I ever though possible. Mommy guilt? Reminiscing for the the "good ol' days" when I was a kid? I don't know. I just know that I wish things could be different right now. Any advice from working moms out there?

Since I finished the socks last week, I didn't cast on anything for several days. I finally decided on one of the hand towels from Mason Dixon Knitting. It's in white Euroflax yarn. I'm a whopping 10 rows of so into it...not enough for a decent picture. It called for size 5 needles. I had some Addi Turbo Lace needles sitting around that I hadn't used yet. Dang, those things are sharp!! I definitely need to find a good lace project to put them to use.

I've been spinning more lately. I've been spinning up some Targhee wool that was dyed by Mountain Colors. I bought it last summer when we were in Montana. I've only had it on the wheel for 10 months. Sheesh. I'm horrible, aren't I?

And in kid news, Jack is now over 14 pounds. At 3 months old. He's 27 inches long. Well over the 100th percentile for length. The problem is that he's now over the recommended maximum length for our car seat. So we're gonna have to go fork out some bucks for a new convertible car seat. Check him out...doesn't he look so serious?










We went to a wedding Friday night. Here's the pair of them all dressed up and ready to go:


and here's Catie looking up the church steps. It's her movie star look, I think.




Doesn't it make you sick how crazy proud I am of my kids?

Belated yarn purchases

I think I go through blogging spurts. Obviously this is a spurt, as there's an unprecedented 2 posts in 2 days. I never got around to posting pics from vacation...So 6 weeks ago, right before I went back to work, we went to Portland and the Oregon Coast. We spent several days in Depoe Bay, a little town between Lincoln City and Newport. One day, we went shopping in Lincoln City. G went to the kite and toy shop, and I went to
Nestucca Bay Yarns across the street. When I'm on vacation, I try to buy stuff I can't find at home. So I bought several skeins of 2 ply from Imperial Stock Ranch, in Kingfisher Blue.

My plan is to make the Neck Down Jacket from Knitting Pure and Simple. Yes, yet another pattern from them. I swear I'm going to branch out, but I keep coming back to their patterns. Simple and easy to follow directions.

The same day, we also visited Yarn for all Seasons in Newport. There, I picked up a couple of skeins of Socks that Rock in Downpour.

Vacation was wonderful, and I hated to come home. My sister and her little boy came from Portland to spend a few days at the beach with us. Here are Catie and Danny enjoying the weather and the beach.
















Next trip, we're pondering it being a "grown-up only" trip, and leaving the kids at home to stay here. But which room to choose from??

Time flies. I think it hasn't been too long since I posted, and I look back and it's been 3 weeks. I just finished a week from hell. We rotate a week at a time working in the hospital, and it was my week. My first since coming back from maternity leave. Lots and lots of patients and admissions every day. I'd come home and my mind would be racing for a couple of hours. So I'd try and knit (when the kids cooperated), just to try and settle down.

Goldfinger was sheared this week. Unfortunately, I was at work, and so couldn't get any pictures during the process. But since it's over 90 degrees, this week, I'm sure he appreciates the haircut. I'll get some pictures of him with his new haircut soon.

But I DO have pictures to show. I actually finished something. For real!! There hasn't been a lot of serious knitting time since Jack came along. But here we have it:


Vital stats:
Pattern: Bed Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks
Yarn: Socks that Rock in Red Rock Canyon (lightweight)
Needles: Size 2

It was a fun and easy pattern, once I looked up a better way to knit 3 together. Trying to actually knit 3 together was killing my hands, and I seriously thought about giving up on the pattern. I googled "knit 3 together". I can't find the link now, but basically you knit two together, slip it back to the left needle, lift the 2nd stitch on the left needle over the one you just slid back, then slip the stitch back onto your right needle.

And in other news, Jack is getting more and more fun. The smiling and giggling and cooing is just too damn cute for words. Well, except maybe these words:

I found this shirt on etsy and HAD to buy it. I actually bought 2 of them...one black and one white. Makes me smile every time I see it on him. Both because it's funny and because I'm proud of nursing him into one chunky healthy boy.

Happy Mother's Day!

This is my second mother's day as a mom. Last year I got pearl earrings. This year, we loaded up the truck, rented a 2-horse trailer, and headed north to Yakima, WA. Catie thought she'd try and drive. Unfortunately, she couldn't quite reach the pedals, so G was forced to drive. And I was forced to knit. The horror.

Anyway, Yakima is where G's mom and step dad live. And their friend Diane, with her herd of...

ALPACAS!

Yes...we have entered the world of alpaca farmers. Diane made us an offer we couldn't refuse. We'd never get a deal like this again. So without further ado, meet the boys.

First we have "Handsome"
And then "Goldfinger"
And "Thunder Bear"
And last, but not least, "Imperial Gold"
Here they all are in the trailer before we took off.

We all survived the trip home in one piece. The alpacas are settling into the pasture nicely tonight. The sheep are a little freaked out, but they'll survive. I think G and I are more freaked, though. We've been thinking about doing this for a year or more, and now that we've gone and bought them, I'm nervous. Noy true buyers' remorse. Just nervous about the unknown. There'll be a steep learning curve, but it'll be worth it. Just think of all that lucsious fiber.

Happy Mother's Day (what's left of it) to all you moms out there.

Brief updates

It's been about a month since I've posted. Sorry, but life intervenes.

I've been back to work for just over a week. Blech. It sure is hard leaving Catie and Jack every morning, but we're incredibly fortunate that G can stay home with them and be Mr. Mom. I think he probably has to do more adjusting than anyone. Work is going well, and he brings Jack every day at lunch so I can nurse him. So I still get to see the kids quite a bit.

We had a great time at the coast 3 weeks ago. We went to the Newport Aquarium, had fun on the beach, and bought some great yarn. I'll try and post some pics over the next week.

This weekend, I have this afternoon off. So we're headed to visit G's mom and stepdad in Yakima, WA. But that's not all we're doing. Check back on Sunday/Monday for the full update. Lets just say...the sheep will have some company in the pasture. Kim and Heidi know, but noone else does. Hmmm....

More kiddie pics

I haven't been knitting much at all. But tomorrow we're headed out on vacation, first to G's mom and stepdad's in Yakima, WA, then to the Oregon coast and Portland. G drives and I knit. It's quite the arrangement we have worked out. So I wound up some new STR to start a new pair of socks on the road tomorrow. I've lined up a couple of stores to hit while we're at the coast. Plus we'll head to Powells (the best bookstore EVER...I swear). I'm really looking forward to this trip.

But in (sort of) knitting-related news, Catie has "learned" to knit. It basically consists of her sticking needles into the ball of yarn, but it was too damned cute to not take pictures.

And in Jack news, he's continuing to eat . And eat. We're now up to just over 11 pounds.

Doesn't look like he's missed too many meals, eh? If only he would figure out he ought to eat more during daylight hours, and use those night time hours to let mom and dad get some sleep. He's still a little backwards of the sleep schedule, but we're getting there. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

Another fun-filled Saturday

The Continental knitting is progressing. At least the knit stitch is, anyway. I'm getting much better at it, though am still having problems with tension and getting the yarn to slide through my left hand easily, but not with too much slack. The purl stitch, though, is a whole other story. I'm continuing to struggle with that one. When does it "click"...both with my fingers AND my brain?

Today G taught his Boot Camp for New Dads class and took Jack with him, so Catie and I had a "girls day". Well, a couple hours at least. We went to McDonald's for lunch. I know, I know...but I thought she could play on the playground, which I thought was indoors. It wasn't, and it was a little chilly. She proceeded to drink apple juice and suck the ketchup off her french fries. I don't think she took a single bite of food. From there, we headed to Barnes and Noble. Where we split a chocolate chip cookie. Well, I ate most of the cookie and she picked out the chocolate chips and would only eat those. Is this going to be a trend? Then we looked at books. I wanted to buy this, but they didn't have it in stock. The website LIED! So we headed home after a bit, and are spending yet another Saturday night knitting and reading. Exciting life we lead, eh?

Because I have no knitting pics for you, unless you want to look at my Continental knitting swatch, here's a couple of kiddie pics for you.

Catie in the bath: and Jack snoozing after a long night of nursing. NON-STOP. Exhausting. For both of us.

When did I grow so many thumbs?

Tonight my mom and I took a Fair Isle knitting class at Drop A Stitch in Boise. I'm decidedly an English knitter. So for me, it was a lesson in Continental knitting as well as Fair Isle. And apparently I hold the yarn all weird in my right hand too. So tonight I'm trying to learn:

1) a new way of holding the needles and yarn that's in my right hand
2) to knit Continental
3) to work with 2 colors at once, all the while...
4) doing all this using both hands at the same time.

Good Lord! I haven't felt that uncoordinated in years. Hence the "thumb" title above.

After 2 hours, I had this


And a close up.I started out with a pattern, but couldn't even master the technique. So I simply proceeded to alternating back and forth between the two colors...every other stitch one row, every two stitches the next, etc.

I think I might like knitting Continental. I've decided to try and master that first, then move on to more than one strand. But it was fun. This is going to open up a whole new world of knitting for me!!!

Shearing Day

We're all well at home. Jack is growing by leaps and bounds, and probably weighs close to 10 lbs. already. He's gaining a pound a week. Outfits that were way too big on him when he came home now fit almost perfectly. Catie is being a great big sister (most of the time anyway). I'm having a great time staying home with them. If only maternity leave could last forever...

On Friday, the sheep shearer came. I wasn't sure how it would go. We have a big open pasture, with no smaller pen to put them in. So we brought the sheep into the back yard. He simply walked up to a sheep, grabbed it, and got to work. This is Aran getting her haircut:and Lacey getting hers:

Oh..this feels so much better. Now I have 2 garbage bags full of wool, anxiously awaiting a date with the bath and carder. Time to get busy and start spinning all this up.

And finally, a couple of mother/daughter and father son pics...awwww

New bathroom pics

We're settling in nicely at home. Jack is doing great. He had his check up today...he's gained an amazing 9 ounces in 3 days!! Further proof he's a little piggy, and I'm a cow. Just call me Bessie.

So our bathroom is 98% done. We're waiting for a part to extend the showerhead, so we can't use the shower yet, but everything else is pretty much done.

The pedestal sink, new lighting, and new medicine cabinet...

And the best part...the clawfoot tub (made in 1894, and salvaged from my grandparents' house in southern Oregon), and new tile floor. The contractors tried hard to talk us out of tile, but I've had my heart set on this type of tile since I bought the house 5 years ago. More costly, but it's what I wanted. Unfortunately, the subflooring was all rotten, so replacing that was a pretty extensive (i.e. expensive) project, but now, we have an incredibly stable new floor. And I can soak in the bathtub every night after work.

Now it's back to Jack...he's waking up. Eat. Sleep. Poop. Repeat. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Home at Last

So I fully anticipated staying at the hospital until Saturday. This morning we got a great surprise when the doc said we could go home today instead. So G, Jack, and I loaded up and headed to my parents to pick up Catie. They didn't know Jack had been discharged, so were surprised, to say the least, when we showed up with the baby. Then after a little "adjustment" time between Catie and the new baby (alternating periods of her kissing the baby and then crying because she wanted to sit on someone's lap, but Jack was there), we headed home.

I haven't been home for about 5 weeks. So I got to come home to a nice clean house with a brand new bathroom and brand new baby. I got to take a nap in my own bed. I got to sit on my own couch and nurse Jack. Splendid!

So without further ado, let me introduce you to Jack Edward Decker.


After he was first born:Our first together shot before he was whisked off to the nursery:
I love this picture of G's and Jack's hands:
Holding Jack for the first time in 4 days...2 tubes out, 3 to go.

All snuggled up and ready to head home:


Catie meeting and kissing her brother for the first time:

Life is good.

It's a...BABY. Okay...a BOY!!

Well, it's been a rough past few weeks. As you may have read (though I don't have too many readers, I'm so sporadic at posting) the preeclampsia set in the beginning of February. So I spent one night in the hospital, and then got to go home on bedrest. The just after my last post, the blood pressure shot up again, so I spent a week in the hospital. Where I did manage to get a whole lot of knitting done.

Then it was back home for a week and a half. And through all this, we've been staying at my parents' house because the bathroom remodel wasn't done. I was scheduled to be induced on Wednesday, Feb 28. But Tuesday night, I went into labor on my own. So I was up all night contracting. We went in to the hospital Wednesday morning, and I was 4 to 5 centimeters. My doc broke my water, and off I went.

Jack Edward Decker was born at 5:05 pm on Wednesday the 28th. He looks a lot like his daddy, and is so much darker complected than compared to Catie. He was 3 weeks and 2 days early. But still managed to come in at a hefty 7 lb 4oz. Had I gone all the way to his due date, he probably would have been 9 lb. Ouch. Unfortunately, he had some respiratory issues, which we hoped would resolve. But they didn't, so at about midnight, he was transferred to the NICU in Boise. He was intubated before they left our hospital, and stayed on the ventilator until Saturday morning.

So Saturday morning, they took out his breathing tube. Today they took out one of the IVs from his belly button. And this afternoon we got to hold him for the first time since the first couple of minutes he was born. I was quite teary. Hopefully I can actually start to nurse him tomorrow, and I'm crossing my fingers we can go home by Wednesday or Thursday depending on how he does.

The bathroom will be done tomorrow. I hear it looks great, but since I haven't been home in a month, I can't say. But boy does that clawfoot tub sound good right about now.

We're staying at the hospital, and I'm using the terminal in the waiting room to post this. I have no way to get pics on here, but will as soon as I get home. Take my word for it though, Jack is pretty damn cute.