Being back from our summer California trip was crazy.  So much to do to get Jake ready for school and then we get into that routine and TJ gets a promotion and complete change in his work schedule.  It will give him weekends free for me and the kids again, how great is that?!?!  Now I’m caught up in “my thing” and even though it may seem like I’m being lazy, it’s a lot more work than anyone that hasn’t been there can possibly know.  I don’t feel like I have to defend it because it’s going to do wonderful things for myself, my husband and especially my kids.

The last few weeks, however have been mired in medical bullshit!  I’ve had gall bladder issues for at least 5 years or so; the worst of it being when I was pregnant with Connor (the pregnancy was too high risk at the time for them to do much about it, but it would have been nice to have two cuts, one healing time dontcha  think?  So anyway I go to the doctor about two weeks ago bc this pain in my URQ as they so quaintly put it (read:gall bladder attack) has me doubled over in pain with every breath.  I won’t even talk about the level of discomfort a simple sneeze caused.  It caused people to come and check on me.  Dr. P-S (not to be confused with my normal doctor, Dr. McK) did the physical exam, and yes she was gentle pushing on my belly,thank you Dr. P-S.  Confirming that it may, indeed, be related to the gall bladder attacks I’ve had on and off forever, she made an appointment for an ultra-sound for me.  Did that two weeks ago, results came in last week as all looking normal (read: no gall stones made an appearance in my gallbladder.) which is supposed to be a good sign, but still leaves me in pain and with nowhere to go.  Then Dr.’s office calls and says they are scheduling another test for me to take that involves an IV of radioactive something or another and seeing if my gb (as I’m starting to call it) is emptying effectively.  This test is on Tuesday and I have no idea when those results will come back or what we will do from there.  So I get to lay in bed in pain much of the time, worry about everything I put in my mouth and know that no relief is coming?  The silver lining here is I get to lose a little weight (God knows I need to) and that I’ve been told that usually even if they can’t find anything specifically wrong with the gb,  the doctor will still refer me to a surgeon so we can take the offending organ out.  My uncle had that surgery done recently, but it was a bit more complicated for him.  All I’ll say on that subject is Thank God Uncle Harold is better and well on the road to recovery.  There are some scary things that can happen with that (or any) surgery I think.  Surgery is NEVER my first choice (except in child-birth where it is not only the first choice  but the only choice in delivery options for this woman) but if a couple of incisions and removing an organ whose necessity is questionable at best is going to make me stop doubling over in pain for hours after almost any meal, I say cut away!!

So while I’ve been dealing with this.  The nights/days sometimes that I’m in bed in one of the few comfortable positions I can find at any given moment, I’ve been getting my Netflix on.  This thing is addictive.  Take Ghost Whisperer for example:  Here’s a show that, while on, I actively made fun of and refused to watch bc of some preconceived notion that Jennifer Love Hewitt was the devil or something equally stupid.  Now with all this time on my hands, I’ve started watching and am all the way through mid-season 5 with season one still to watch.  I jumped in with the season Jay Mohr joined the cast and go swept away.  Sometimes, though you need a break from that so I turn to my season 2 NCISLA fetish.  I’ve watched the first 15 or so episodes of the season in two days.  Does it mean you’re watching too much of one thing when you start seeing bits of it in your dream.  This morning I dreamed Hetty from NCISLA was my boss and I was telling people what a great boss she was.  Sure there’s that, but where I ask you is the dream with Chris O’Donnell in my bed waiting for me?  Maybe tonight?

Quick update on life.  Took a trip out to CA with the kids and Nan.  Drove my mother’s new HHR (Love that car) out to her and drove her old PT Cruiser (go hamsters go, I know you can run faster than that…LOL) home.  It was the first time I’d taken, or even attempted, a trip of that magnitude by myself.  Usually TJ is there to do the driving and organizing and keep the kids from going bat-shit crazy etc.  Not this time.  This time it was all me; okay that’s not exactly true.  My friend/Jacob’s old nanny, Andrea (who we call Nan) came with us for the trip.  She got a free trip across the country and I got help managing the road, the kids and my own fears etc.  It was an adventure that I will cherish forever and I would do it again in a heartbeat.  There are things I would do differently, of course.  I think we learned a lot about organization, how much to bring and how much yarn can really fit into an already packed car.  It was bound to be an issue.  We were gone for just over three weeks and it was a blast.  Not only did we get the car driven out and a nice visit with my mother, we also got to see TJ’s cousins Sherri and Danny (I gave her a spindle – her first – and some fiber and have hopefully pulled her over to the spinning dark side) and we also got to see Uncle Ron and Aunt Judy as well as Memaw and Bill.  Every time we get out that way at all, I try to bring the kids to see their great grandparents.

There were multiple yarn crawls along the way.  Colorado has some great little yarn shops.  The very best yarn shop of all, though, was in California.  It was called the Alamitos Bay Yarn Co. and it was FABULOUS.  I left a large majority of my spending money there and it was well worth it!!

There is so much more to talk about – the kids, my knitting/spinning etc. but that will come later, when I have more time. 

When I finished the BSJ I was struck by a problem I hadn’t had before; there was nothing on the needles to pick up and start knitting.  So out came the laptop, on went Ravelry and somehow I ended up in the shawl category.  I have tons of lace and fingering weight yarn in gorgeous variegated colors as well as solids and everything in between.  The problem:  I mostly have only one skein of each.  I used to just wander around my LYS and pick up one skein here and there of everything I thought was pretty; that, my friends is the danger of going to the yarn shop without a clear idea of what you want the yarn for.  So I have yarn for lots of shawlettes or scarves, but I’m finding myself more and more taken by the full-sized, lacy shawls.  I spent countless hours on Ravelry looking at yarns, patterns, other people’s images of their projects etc.  In the end, I’ve cast on a Forest Canopy shawl using Socks That Rock Lightweight in the Grimm’s Willow Wren (I think that’s the name, I always screw it up) colorway and the Vortex Pi shawl (knitting and math together – my dad would have been proud) in Jojoland Melody.  It’s a red/purple/greenish colorway and I think the really long repeats of Melody and the way they blend and feather together is going to look wonderful, I hope.

There are also several shawls on deck for Christmas presents this year to people  have been extremely nice.  A Birthday Pi, a Lady Eleanor and an Enchanted Forest (again, not sure about a name).  There are also a ton of socks that I want to knit and I’d really like to get back into spinning for relaxation.  We’ll see how it all goes.  Will keep you updated, gentle friends.

The one I’m currently working on is going to be a newborn/baby size (actually they will all be this size) for an old friend of ours back in the Detroit area.  Congrats on the birth of your little girl, Jimi, and THANK YOU for giving me the opportunity to use girl colors instead of yellow/green/orange etc.  I have a beautiful sparkly rayon yarn in a color called Pink Snow that varies from almost pure white to a light bubblegum pink.  Gorgeous!!!  I’m going to use a different colorway of the same yarn (this one has deeper shades of pink that go into rose shades and even some orange/rust shades) should be a nice contrast to the lightness of the other yarn.  We’ll see.  I’m definitely willing to pull out and start over if things don’t go right.

After this one I have one for one of my best friend’s in the world, Little Thumper I call her.  She’s having a boy around Labor Day and as she’s a rock and roll chick I’m thinking of a rock and roll color.  Black with shades of red and purple overlayed.  Such a pretty yarn.  If she wants something more traditional, though, I can do that too.  I’ll leave that up to her.

The final one is for Jacob’s 1st grade teacher who’s due in October.  I was trying to get that done by today, but an epic fail in the original knitting caused a ripping out and time crunch that was just not manageable.  For that one I used a thicker yarn (Calmer) in three colors:  a medium yellow, light lime green, and bright orange.  It really was a pretty sweater while it was coming along and will be again; when I get back to it.

That’s most of my summer knitting plans.  There are also random socks I want to work on as well as starting to think about the few gifts that I’m knitting this year for Christmas.  I’m trying not to over burden myself because then I get nothing done.  So here we go…

Today’s Goal:  C.O. and get the first 10 rows of knitting done, ending up with the correct stitch count at the end.

Right now I’m on my 3rd attempt at a Baby Surprise Sweater (Thank you for having a daughter Jimi D.) after the first two failed spectacularly.  The first one, I didn’t like the color so I changed it.  The second one I was about 1/2 way done with when I realized that I had missed an important increase back at row 9.  ARGH!!!  It was supposed to be for Jake’s 1st grade teacher who is pregnant right now and I was hoping to give it to her today.  So much for that.  So now I’m making this one for Jimi’s newborn daughter with a yarn that is a gorgeous pink (I’m not positive it’s just right for the pattern, but the color is perfect, so I’m willing to give it a shot.)  I guess I’ll know pretty quickly if it works or not.  Wish me luck.  Will update with pictures periodically.

Connor is, as always, growing and changing every day.  His favorite place to be/play is his “jump-jump” which, for you non parental type people, is a Jumperoo which is like a walker that doesn’t go anywhere with springs so he can jump.

Connor loves to hang in his jump-jump

Anytime you ask him if he wants to “jump-jump” he starts kicking his legs up and down.  He’s sitting up on his own now and he only falls over occasionally.  He doesn’t seem to have a strong grasp on that whole gravity concept.  He’s also rolling over from back to front (something I thought might never happen) but seems to have, in the interim, forgotten how to roll from belly to back so once he gets onto his belly he’s like a little beached whale with his belly on the ground, legs up in the air behind him and shoulders off the ground looking around and eventually screaming until someone flips him back over.  He still refuses to take any sort of decent nap, so I settle for the 30-45 minutes I get two to three times a day.  He is a good night-time sleeper, though.  He’s only getting up once or twice during the night and is easy to settle back to sleep.  As I type that I hear him moving around in his crib and making little noises.  We’re at the point where his pediatrician thinks we need to stop the middle of the night bottles, but he’s not to keen on her idea.  Of course the little porker doesn’t want his bottles taken away; how will he maintain his pudgy goodness?  Seriously, he’s not a fat baby by any means, but Jake was such a skinny little thing (only 6th percentile on the weight scale) that Connor seems huge.  He’s just about 18-20 lbs. now which Jake didn’t hit until after his first birthday.  Connor is also starting to put strings of sounds together.  Whenever he’s really upset he does this whining/slightly crying thing where he says “da-da-da-da-da…” over and over again.  I think he’s also trying to mimic the “hi” I always say to him first thing in the morning.

TJ is working his tail off, as usual.  He finally gave in to the “dark side”, though, and got himself and IPhone 4.  I’m so proud of him and I’m so happy to be able to text and send him pictures etc.

In knitting news:  Not much going on.  I’m working on a Branching Out scarf for a belated (very it seems) birthday gift for Brooke using Calmer yarn (which I love and have way too much of).

Happy very Belated Birthday Brooke

Since B.O. is going to take longer than I expected, I’m also planning a rather plain Malabrigo scarf (everyone should have something made from Malabrigo) using a main color and then the other colors I have for random stripes or else I’m just going to grab a few skeins of Noro Silk Garden and make a multi-directional scarf for her, which would be beautiful as well.  As I type this, I realize that I’m leaning strongly towards the Silk Garden.  **Update**In the hours that I have walked away from this blog I have fed Connor, read some Kay Scarpetta, and I’ve decided that I will, indeed go with the Silk Garden rather than the Malabrigo.  While all my colors of Malabrigo are beautiful by themselves, the colors I have on hand may not be so harmonious together.  Besides, like I said before everybody should have/feel something Malabrigo in their lives…LOL  I guess I at heart really am a yarn snob; bad, right.  I have half of the dpn pair almost done as well.  I just really hate working with dpns so very much that it’s difficult to make a ton of progress.  Not to mention I really don’t like the yarn, either.  This may be almost sacrilegious in the sock knitting world, but I find Socks That Rock to be one of the most annoying yarns on the planet.  I’ve tried it in both light-weight and medium weight and (for socks at least) it’s irritates me to use for some reason.  I’m much more partial to the woollier yarns like the Monkey Toes 100% merino and BFL sock yarn…the fuzzy stuff.  I think I’ll repurpose the STR for something else.  I have two skeins in medium weight that I plan to use for a shawl – hope I can stand knitting it…LOL   All that being said, I discover a real love of sock knitting (and wearing hand knitted socks) this past year.  I hope to pass that love on to my family this year.  :)

I haven’t really done much in the way of spinning.  Things have been so hectic that I’m lucky to get a half hour of knitting in before going to sleep.  I have a ton of fiber, dye, spindles and a wheel and I have plans, oh yes I have plans.  We shall see if they come to fruition…:)

I know it won’t be easy, but it might be fun, inspiring, awesome and wonderful. Therefore I’m promising to make use of The DailyPost, and the community of other bloggers with similiar goals, to help me along the way, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.

If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments and likes, and good will along the way.

Thanks,

Shannon