Mon Aug 10, 2009

Going to Oregon

Be back Friday.

Made blueberry crepes on Saturday morning. They were my first crepes and they were perfect. I used my 8 inch cast iron skillet. I love my Lodge.

Fri Aug 7, 2009

So much for the nap

Yesterday was spent helping the girls sew their quilts from 2 birthdays ago, when their friends came over and made squares that I intended to sew into quilts for them.

I think it’s cool that they’re old enough now to sew their own quilts. The girls and their friends glued fabrics cut into flowers/butterflies/suns/etc onto white background squares and then wrote on them with colored Sharpies. I bought coordinating fabric for the background to sew the squares to. This was all done in the spring of 2007, I believe, and it’s been sitting in a laundry hamper in my craft storage room ever since.

Yesterday morning, the girls sewed the fabric shapes down to secure them to the white squares. I’m hoping that when we wash them, the edges will fray and look cool. Next, we cut background fabric to connect the squares into strips,

quiltsew

quiltiron

now we’re sewing the strips to background strips, and sewing those together.

The sewing machine and iron were going all day, and the girls were in heaven. It was a nice day despite my lack of the intended make-up sleep.

Poor Clark had a fever, so he was mellow. I didn’t get much chance to knit on my shawl. I didn’t cook much of anything, except

and maybe I’m totally behind the times on this, but Nalley makes turkey chili! If you recall, Nalley chili has been my rock-bottom-I-need-to-eat-something-and-everything-else-makes-me-sick food. It’s not something that I normally consume, I have to be pretty desperate and have to not look when I’m eating it because canned beef totally freaks me out. Anyway, I was at the store and saw the turkey chili. It was on sale for $1 a can, and I bought 4, feeling optimistic. Half a can served as my lunch yesterday, and while it is a bit bland, it’s totally edible and I got some protein!

So that was nice.

Thu Aug 6, 2009

Rough night

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.

itsbigger

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.

Wed Aug 5, 2009

Knitting and loving 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.

philshawl

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.

philshawlhand

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?

Fri Jul 31, 2009

“Flying colors”

That’s what the nurse said on the phone tonight. I didn’t think I’d hear back today, and I certainly didn’t think I’d pass… but I did, and apparently with flying colors. That’s great news.

Nate asked what color my “flying colors” were. Blue, red, and yellow, baby!

250px-superman_shield

I did end up getting a roast beef and turkey sandwich on wheat bread at Subway. Ate and recovered somewhat at my mother-in-law’s house before coming home and sleeping. Now, we’re off to the pool to let the kids swim and cool off. Have a great weekend!

Fri Jul 31, 2009

Done

I fell asleep the last 10-15 minutes or so. Now I’m going to drive carefully to Subway and try for a sandwich unless I see something enticing on the way.

I expected to cry, but didn’t. I wasn’t expecting the nausea. I’m not sure if I’m going to be worth anything the rest of the day. And now that I’ve typed it, a sandwich isn’t sounding that good.

Crap.

Fri Jul 31, 2009

Three of four and an ultrasound

Thirty minutes left.

I saw him stick his tongue out. It was really cute and it looked like he was smiling. We got to see his face really well. I haven’t had an ultrasound at this stage before. He looked like a baby, not a skeleton or an alien. He’s 3 pounds, 7 ounces right now, measuring a little big, but not much. I’m 29 weeks and 5 days and he measured 30 weeks and 2 days.

I knew he was growing, and I can feel that he’s sucking me dry of any and all nutrients.

I’ve been laying in a room for an hour or so. I feel so sick, and I hurt in various puncture spots. Dennis was right, it wasn’t all that bright of me to drive myself here and home again.

I’m passing the time by trying to decide exactly what I’m going to eat when this is over. I haven’t eaten today since this is a fasting test. Food should help make me a little stronger. Any suggestions?

Fri Jul 31, 2009

That makes two

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.

Fri Jul 31, 2009

One down

I’m at the hospital. I’ve had one of four blood draws, and I just drank the wretched glucose. The normal 50 gram dose isn’t that big of a deal. It tastes like flat Sprite. This one was 100 grams. It was yucky.

I forgot to bring the power cord to my laptop and this battery doesn’t last long. So we’ll see how long I last.