What sound does Shamu make?

Doctor's visit today to check on the progress of the baby. The little one is healthy and growing strong.

Do not attempt to adjust your monitor! No, I have not swallowed a basketball! That's all me and the newbie.

A successful trip to the yarn shop today yielded three lovely skeins of fluffy cuddly cotton by Classic Elite Yarns called "Sprout" (Ravelry link). I liked the texture and thought it would be a nice baby sweater yarn. I don't usually enjoy working with cottons, but I couldn't find a wool at the store that I thought was both soft and sweet enough for a bebe and durable too. So cotton it is! It's a little bit heavier than I was looking for, but I can work with that.


I chose pale grey and cheerful persimmon to work. Since I've never really bought awesome buttons and that's a shame, I splurged for six cream colored antler buttons for this little piece of awesome. They are round and sensible but kind of wild in a subtle way. Perfect for spring toddles through the woods with Mom and Dad. When he outgrows the little version, I will feel no qualms about salvaging the buttons for a new "big boy" sweater.


I want him to have a nice sturdy sweater for his first fall and into his first spring, so I'll probably make a 6-9 month size. It should have classic lines and be easy to get into and out of. What does the peanut gallery think about the Baby Sophisticate? The main body would be the grey and the collar, button band, garter hem and cuffs would be the persimmon color.

I've been chugging away at the Tamarix blanket since finding out about the baby and am a little over half way. The yarn is the lovely Serendipity Tweed from Brown Sheep. They make such nice stuff! It's a mostly cotton yarn plied with a strand of wool for a little extra warmth and softness. It's starting to wear on my hands.


The pattern I'm using is graphic and neat. Unfortunately it was a little bit confusing at the beginning. Definitely the kind of technique you need to see to understand. The written instructions in the magazine on how to join each new mitered square while working are unclear and leave out pretty key information. I looked for help online and found some videos that the pattern's author posted but I don't think you could perform the technique with the directions as written.

I'm at the point in the project where the charm has dissipated. The yarn is nice, but not as sexy as it was when I fondled it at the yarn store. The first blush of casting on and getting to know the ins and outs of the new pattern has faded. Even the pleasure of working through the difficulties has come and gone. Now I'm slogging through lots and lots and lots of garter stitch. At least there are frequent color changes to keep things interesting.

As much as I like the color changes, I have decided I'm no longer really digging on the color combos. I'm going to try overdying the whole thing, probably with a blue. Dyeing the cotton may prove interesting. I'll practice on some yarn samples before I drop the whole giant thing into a dye bath.

closed...

The yarn store was closed when I got there. I tried to call the number on the gift card, but it was disconnected. I returned home and called the (different) number listed on the website but there was no answering machine/ voice mail box to leave a message with.

I'm a little baffled that you wouldn't be open at 1:30 on a Monday, wouldn't leave a note that, "the yarn shop will be closed today. Sorry for any inconvenience!" or wouldn't at least have a way for customers to contact you. I know it's a small operation, but still...

I'm probably just grumpy that I didn't get to fondle yummy baby yarns...

Waiting...

It is not warm outside yet. It blows and the wind is chilly. I still wear my wool when venturing outside, though I will swear up and down that the baby sucks all the warmth into my belly.

It's time to think about Spring though. At the farm, we're already planning events six months out, and hard at work on those coming in the next month or so. The maple trees are tapped and the weather is great for collecting lots of sweet sap to boil into syrup. It reminds me of New York, where suddenly buckets and plastic tubing showed up on someone's sugar bush. This time last year Honus and I were about half way through out 5K training program. I remember running my favorite route in the late daylight, snow still heavy on the ground and enjoying the damp smell of the air and the warmth of the sunlight.

At work, the farm has turned to mud and I just got my first seed order for the kitchen garden. I was very careful about the varieties and am looking forward to writing the garden manual for 2011. I'm always optimistic about a garden. Someday I will have time to spend the morning hours weeding and harvesting my own plot of dirt. I'm thinking about planting a little box of herbs at the apartment to share with the neighbors. I never harvest enough to keep herb plants productive, and how fun would it be to have an itty bitty herb garden for our little community?

I'm back!

I'm back to the world of the computer-abled! After over a month of being without the machine, Brett and I got it back last night.

I got pretty used to not having it and using Brett's i-pod to check email when I absolutely needed to. Every now and then there would be a moment where I missed it: looking up movie show times, looking for directions and train schedules, search for recipes, that sort of thing. But mostly I just didn't think about it too much. Now that it's back, I'm not sure what to do with myself.

The hard drive crashed, which was covered by the warranty I had purchased, but the data recovery was not. We bought a massive external hard drive and the guys at Geek Squad saved as much as they could. Haven't check that yet to see what they got. I also had to order the system back up disks to restore the operating system and now need to reload Microsoft Office too. But at least everything is fixed now! We even got a new battery and DC cord when we sent it off so hopefully the battery life will be a little longer than zero.

I'm looking forward to surfing the web for cute baby stuff this afternoon. I've been keeping a paper journal of thoughts and experiences, but I probably won't put much about the baby online. I'd like to keep things a little more private. Maybe that will change with time; we'll have to see.