So, the doctor appt took most of the day. Nate was there for the ultrasound, and they were running extremely late, despite the fact that we had a morning appointment.

So Nate was stressed ’cause he had to get to work.

We ended up flipping the dr appt with the ultrasound, and at the doctor appointment, my blood pressure was high.

It’s NEVER high.

So I got to have my blood drawn. Again. My levels of what-ever-they-were-looking-for were a little high, but not enough to deliver me immediately. Thank goodness.

The baby’s heartrate was low. So after the ultrasound and appt, Nate took Clark to my mother-in-law’s so I could stay for a non-stress test. The baby passed just fine.

At the ultrasound, the technician measured and said the baby was already 9 pounds. Her eyes popped out of their sockets. I was expecting it. Even though I’m not big enough to look full term, I knew he was big. He’s just cuddled up in my body, squishing all my organs to heck.

I’ve effaced 50% and dilated to 1 cm since last Wednesday, which is huge progress for me. I don’t tend to progress fast before I’m in labor, so who knows if I’ll make it ’til Monday, when my induction is scheduled?

That’s my news.

I’m sicker today than I was yesterday, probably ’cause of the long day and stress yesterday. I’m going to try to rest today. I have a bit of work to do for Nate on the computer still, then I’ll knit more on the Goldfish socks. I think I may have started the gusset a little too late and may need to rip it out, but I hope not.

Well, almost.

A friend of mine gave me a bunch of fresh ginger yesterday and told me to slice it thin and simmer it in water for a really, really long time, add a tea bag, milk and sugar, then drink it. She was vague as to amounts, so I used a third of it and made a very strong infusion with an herbal tea bag and some sugar, drank a couple sips, and threw up.

So I diluted it by about half, added more sugar and some cream, and it really did make me feel better. I’ve done the same this morning and my head is clearer, my throat doesn’t hurt. Yay!

This morning, we’re going to the doctor for an ultrasound to see how big the little guy is, and I’ll get checked again. Maybe we’ll schedule an induction, I’ll let you know.

I’m sick. I’m really sick. I have a sore throat and sinus infection. I was just on antibiotics last week, so I’m not too excited to start more. I may not be too coherent in my post today as I’m very stuffy in the head and too tired to think straight.

Baby is moving around a lot. In fact, I’d say it feels like he’s trying to force his way out. I don’t know what he’s so excited about, he’s usually pretty soft.

I’m once again liking the name Gilbert. Nate doesn’t. Our conversation last night went something like this-

“I still like Gilbert.”

(silence)

“What’s wrong with Gilbert?”

“Blythe?”

“NO, just Gilbert.”

“I just answered the question.”

“Oh, whatever.”

I stayed home from church yesterday, being sick, and started a hat for baby using a lovely skein of yarn dyed by Carol.

It’s pretty much the same as the hat I made for Clark, but bigger. Clark’s was too small. 1×1 ribbing. I cast on 120 stitches instead of 100, and I’ll go a couple additional inches.

Since I had the camera out, I figured I’d take another picture of the dark swatch on a dark background as was suggested in the comments awhile back to see how it turned out.

It’s a bit better. It really is a gorgeous color.

Wow, this baby is beating me up today.

So, I’m going to rest. Drink lots of water or herbal tea. Try to finish the baby hat and start on my Goldfish Socks…

Oh yeah, and oodles of laundry.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to make the ultrasound and dr appt tomorrow. I have a call in to them to see if they want me to come in sick.

So, assuming that I will be induced two weeks from today, I guess I’m starting to come to grips with the fact that I’m actually having a baby.

That may sound nuts, but it’s been difficult to wrap my head around this pregnancy. I’ve focused on how sick I am, how loosey goosey my joints are, etc. But the baby part… kind of been in denial or something.

Right, so, 2 weeks.

I’ve made a list of things to do. As for today…

-I’d like to get my kitchen islands cleared off. Mountains of papers to deal with.
-I need to wash all the bedding again (lice, remember?).
-I’m meeting a friend at the mall around lunchtime ’cause we want to visit and she’s lice phobic. While there, I’m going to look at pajamas for the hospital. That was one of my favorite things I did with Clark. We had to stay the extra day because of the Strep B thing, and I dressed him and myself in pajamas instead of wearing the dumb hospital clothing. It was so much more comfortable.
-I hope to begin cleaning out the crib.

I should probably stop there so I don’t burn out first day. But there is another thing, and I need your help.

Remember the Goldfish socks? Well, they’re my first toe-up pair, and I’m halfway through the first heel. I’m not enjoying this heel, which is why they’re not done yet. I’ve heard of a toe up heel flap, and I’m wondering where to find it? Is there a good reference online? I Googled and found a couple, but didn’t really know where to go. I’ve also heard there’s a book by Wendy somebody…

If you have a suggestion, I’d appreciate it. I’m pretty sure I started the heel too soon on my one sock, so I’m going to rip it out anyway. I’d love to take them to the hospital with me. I’ve made a habit of delivering in cool socks, but never handknit socks. Seems a shame, considering.

There is a problem, however. I can’t remember the last time I donned a pair of socks. Reaching my feet to try it on as I go isn’t going to be easy or comfortable, and I’m somewhat doubting it’s even possible at this point. :-). But I’m gonna try.

Last night was unbelievably bad. To spare you from truly unpleasant imagery, I’ll just say that I couldn’t sleep. My stomach was not cooperating, and after waking up multiple times over a couple hours in a dead panic because I was choking/couldn’t breathe, I gave up and by 2 am, was knitting in the living room.

I went to bed again at 4:45 am, and as you can imagine, I’m exhausted.

Fortunately, the house is clean enough that I can relax today and we have food so I don’t need to go anywhere. I’m going to make every effort to take a nap.

Before attempting to sleep last night, we had a great time at the girls-in-law party. There were 8 of us total, and tons and tons of food. I made a blueberry crisp that was delicious. I doubled the topping. It seemed pretty skimpy when I was assembling it. There’s still half of the crisp in the fridge.

We have a potluck tomorrow night that I’m going to try a new cobbler recipe for… blueberries, crushed pineapple, and lemon cake.

Thanks for all of your blueberry suggestions. I’ve Googled Blueberry Buckle and it looks good. I’ve never made blueberry muffins. My attempt at blueberry pancakes a couple weeks ago was disastrous :-). So there’s some baking experimentation in the near future for me. And it seems I need to look up blueberry jam. I’d never heard of it.

I’ve missed knitting, and I’m a bit disenchanted with my carding and spinning tests right now so I went to the only project I have on the needles that I don’t hate.

The Philosopher’s Wool shawl, which I’m knitting in a cone shape and will cut open and fringe when it’s finished. I did the math and am about 22-25% done. It’s a delicious dose of color and a nice break for me. I was pleased that after so long a hiatus, it was so easy to pick up where I left off. The top of my hand is where I started a couple days ago.

We’re having some cloudy mornings, which are really nice. Yesterday, the kids and I went with Grandma, Aunt and cousins to pick blueberries. I have about 20 pounds now and have to figure out what in the world to do with them. You don’t make blueberry jam. Or blueberry pie (I don’t think). I thought about trying to borrow someone’s ice cream maker, because fresh blueberry ice cream sounds delightful. I’m going to try to bake some blueberries with my granola and see what happens to them after 6 hours at 175 degrees.

I know you can freeze them, but then what? Blueberry smoothies aren’t my favorite, and once we froze the berries last year, I didn’t do much with them.

My sisters-in-law and dear M-I-L are coming over tonight for a girls night and I want to make something… any thoughts?

She drew out of my hand the second time. It really hurt and I’m really woozy. I think I’ll be ok though.

I brought that stupid hexagon shawl to knit. I hate it so much. I was getting a little dizzy so I didn’t knit for very long, but I’m going back and forth between the shawl and the laptop to keep form getting completely bored.

Nate passed his motorcycle class. All he has to do now is take his little certificate into the DOL to get his official endorsement, or license, or whatever it’s called.

He had a really good time, said it was lots of fun and that I’d love it. While he’s heading towards Vespa ownership, I can’t help but check out motorcycles. I love the look of a nice cruiser bike, but I’m not a Harley girl. I think they’re obnoxious. I’ve nothing against Harley people, more power to ya’, but they’re not for me.

So I looked online at good bikes for beginners, and then went to Craigslist (reminding you that I’m NOT in the market, just browsing) and saw these lovelies. (I’ll sneak in one more).

I wanted to include a picture of Nate in his gear when I posted, however I haven’t even seen it. You may be aware that we’re having record heat. 100+ degrees and no air conditioning.

It’s really hot.

And muggy.

He’s not feeling very motivated to don the gear for a photoshoot. I don’t know how he survived the two day class in record heat.

I have seen him try on his riding jacket. It was way weird. Riding gear is not a look I’m used to on my husband. It took a few minutes for me to like it. But I do. He looks good.

I’ve knit a bit with the green yarn.

I don’t know how I feel about it. You CAN’T see the green. You just can’t. Even the one with tons of green in relation to the other colors. I think it’s muddying up my light green base. If I drop it completely though, it doesn’t give me what I wanted out of this colorway.

Super annoying.

It’s probably one where I need to just get over myself and put it out there because someone will like it. I know some of you do.

In other news, I failed my glucose test on Tuesday, which means I get to spend 3 hours tomorrow getting blood drawn.

Can I tell you, or even remotely communicate to you how much I’m dreading it? I have exactly ONE good vein. One. They’re going to have to draw blood four times. From the same little vein. I already have two holes in it from Tuesday, when the lady didn’t read my chart and see that I’m RH negative and was due for another blood compatibility test.

She’s not on my happy list right now. She also said I’d probably bruise since I (and I’m not making this up) splurted a bit when the needle went in and that usually results in a bruise.

Are you serious? Splurted??? Do you think that maybe, just maybe you shouldn’t mention to someone who is quite obviously looking as far away from her arm as possible and taking deliberate, measured breaths that blood splurted out of her arm? For heaven’s sake.

Veronica was watching. She ended up horizontal across two chairs in the lobby, taking small sips of apple juice.

That’s my girl.

Anyway, there’s a 75% chance that this more controlled blood torture-I-mean-test will clear me of gestational diabetes. I’m not holding out much hope, though. I’ve felt like crap, and I can tell it’s related to food.

So that’s that. I already had an ultrasound set for tomorrow because I’m not gaining much weight or eating enough and they want to make sure junior’s growing alright. I think he is. He’s found my ribs and mercy, this kid is strong. And I’m curious… when he does what can only be a full bodied summersault in there, why do I feel like I just went upside down on a rollercoaster?

Just curious.

Warning- This is a long, completely rambling post in which I wax somewhat sentimental. It will also sound like an infomercial for Lodge Manufacturing. But it’s what’s on my mind this afternoon, and what I feel like writing about.

When I was a teenager of dating age, I tended to like the long haired guys that weren’t officially troublemakers, but looked like they were. It drove my mom nuts. We were living in Central Oregon at the time, where we had a little bit of acreage and a small ranch. Horses and pigs mostly, and two dogs under the porch :-).

My mom would frequently “scout out” clean cut country boys for me when she’d be out and about. I have to say that in my experience at least, the country boys had a much harder time keeping their hands to themselves and respecting the word “no” than the long hairs did. Night and day.

As a result of my mom’s efforts, I sort of, kind of dated this guy 16-17 years ago. I think his name was Tim. Tim came from a feed store, rather, he was working at a feed store when my mom spotted him and asked him if he’d take out her daughter. Being a hottie herself, her requests were usually well received.

(I have to say at this point that Liv is reading over my shoulder and is somewhat horrified that my mom “found” my dates. She just said, “please tell me you aren’t going to find MY dates?”).

Fortunately, Tim was a pretty nice guy. Nate (who has ALWAYS had my heart since I met him at 15) was due back from New York in about 6 months when we started hanging out. Nate and I weren’t in a relationship yet, but I had every intention of pursuing him when he returned from his 2 years in New York, so I told Tim up front that I’d be happy to hang out and have fun, but he shouldn’t expect a serious relationship because I had a guy in the wings. He was cool with that and for a few months, we had some good times.

When Nate and I got married a year+ later back in Seattle, we received a package from Tim. He sent us a full line of Lodge cast iron cookware as a wedding gift. A griddle and 4 skillets. I was shocked. And I have to say that almost 16 years later, I love, love, love my cast iron. It’s totally true what they say about cast iron getting better with age. They’re amazing.

A few years ago, I bought two Lodge dutch ovens with feet for camping, the cook table, mitts, and other such stuff for camp cooking which I used over the weekend at our cousins campout. I made a peach cobbler and it was perfect and yummy. I didn’t take a single picture of our campout, unfortunately.

Yesterday, I hauled my skillet out to my sister-in-law’s house for a family potluck and made some fabulous grilled sandwiches*.

This morning, when I got a Lodge Manufacturing email with their current promotion, I clicked on the link to the site and went browsing. There are all sorts of things I could totally use, this among them, which would be completely cool for my grilled sandwiches. Aaaaand, lots of other stuff. I’m going to need to save up for an online shopping spree, it would appear.

Having a very positive Lodge cast iron cooking weekend, and an enjoyable window shopping excursion on their website today got me thinking about my skillets, and Tim, and how I hadn’t even heard of cast iron before he so generously bought it for me, and how glad I am that he did, and I felt like writing about it.

My mom really liked Tim and kept in touch with him. Sadly, he was later in a bad horse accident in an endurance race and ended up in a wheelchair, losing permanent use of his legs. My mom said that in true Tim form, he had the most positive outlook and attitude about it. She had a phenomenal amount of respect for him. Some of those clean cut country boys are really great guys.

*Ciabatta, turkey, tomatoes, spinach, havarti, and Heavenly Horseraddish sauce. (You have to scroll down to get to it, but here’s the label).