Welcome home, girls.

I got the yarn, needles, and color cards from Knitpicks.com last week. The sock colors don’t go together quite as well as I’d hoped, so I’m going to order a light tan that I think will blend them well. The brown is kind of scratchy. It’s their Essential sock yarn, and the first time I’ve knit with superwash wool. My original thought was to do stripes of the brown and turquoise, with brown diamonds in the turquoise stripes, but it looked very southwestern, which isn’t what I was going for.

Nate wanted to know what I expected from brown and turquoise, and I have to admit, that was pretty short-sighted of me. But we both agreed that adding a tan would help.

I’m glad I bought more than one size of needle, because their 1 feels a lot bigger than my bamboo dpns in the same size. The swatch I got with the 1 seemed loose and messy.

and the swatch I did with the 0 was very tidy, and felt like a good fabric.

I think I’m just going to do stockinette and wild, mis-matched stripes. Nothing too exciting as far as technique goes, but they’ll be cute.

I finally picked a color palette for our Christmas stockings. YAY! For those of you familiar with Wool of the Andes, it’s

Red
Hollyberry
Rain
Winter Night
Evergreen
Avocado
Daffodil
and Cloud

I’m going to order them today. I also think I want to make Nate’s Echo Lake Cardigan out of the Andean Treasure in Cinnamon, but that has to wait until we pay for our bathroom and assess our financial standing.

That being said, we’re going on a double date this afternoon with some friends to the Fluevog store in the city. Remember what happened the last time we were there?

I’ll show pictures.

Here’s what I can tell you. I didn’t eat well on the trip last week, and this week has been too crazy to do very well. And I can feel it. My energy level and physical strength are shot. I started blending my shakes again Thursday, and it’s helping a little bit.

I’m having trouble with milk production. I think it’s because of the lack of eating and sleep on our trip. So I’m supplementing Clark with 4-8 ounces of formula per day. He enjoys the bottle, so that’s nice. And I’m trying to drink a lot more and eat better.

As for this week, my main goals are to eat really well and get re-hydrated, and to get my house back in order.

If those happen, maybe I can think about resuming exercise in two weeks, when school starts up again for the girls.

I can’t believe how fast this summer has gone, and the disparity between how I’d imagined it’d be, and how it actually was. It wasn’t bad, but I’d wanted to be much more social then we were.

And I’m dying to knit. It’s occupying much of my thoughts. I need the therapy, the relaxation, the creation, the color. I need to touch it. But Clark doesn’t let me set him down very much.

We’re back and weary. And I’m too tired to give much of a report. There’s so much happening between the trip we just took and the contractors still parading through our completely disheveled house.

Basically, last week was fun and exhausting. There wasn’t time to sleep, eat, or take pictures, so I’m relying on other people to send me their photos. The girls were beautiful and adored. Even though the third bridesmaid dress never showed up, it all worked out. The wedding was beautiful. The groom is awesome and his family is fabulous. I’m very happy for my sister.

My house is a wreck. We at least got to sleep in our own beds last night, but Clark made sure that I could only think sleep. He did great last week until Thursday, and was very fussy from then on. He didn’t get any of his usual long, deep naps, so when we were finally able to spend the afternoon and evening home yesterday, he slept most of the day and kicked, clawed, bit, scratched, pulled my hair, and screeched like a banshee all night. Unless I let him suckle. Which, after a few hours, I just couldn’t do anymore.

It really was a nice trip. The kids behaved very well. It was just hard. And we’re in the thick of things at the house.

And I’ve got to run.

Fun fun fun. We have to leave Seaside in a few minutes, and the sun just came out for the first time since we’ve been here. We’re at our friends’ house now, and everyone want the fun to continue. We’ll have to come back.

I’m tired of road food.

I’m wondering how our floors are going.

Clark has been a dream.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with my hair tomorrow at the wedding, and it’s starting to stress me out.

Good morning. It’s the calm before the storm. The girls are still asleep in the dining room on an air mattress.

Their rooms are full of furniture and boxes. The counters are still a mess and there are still piles around the floor that need to be moved. I need to move Ilsa’s tank and our bedside tables before the floor guy gets here.

We’re packed for the trip. We’re going to go to Wild Waves today, then we’ll sleep at my in-laws’ cabin in Belfair before heading south to Seaside, Oregon, where we’ll spend a couple days on the beach. On Thursday, we’ll go back inland to McMenamins Edgefield where my sister is getting married on Friday.

She’s hosting a golf tournament for the entire wedding party and guests between the ceremony and reception dinner. I haven’t golfed since the car accident. We’re really excited.

We will hopefully be home on Saturday, where there will be no beds or clean laundry, and not much of a way to get either of those things easily.

Health Group-

I did a little this week. It’s been crazy-busy. Basically, on Tuesday I did treadmill and weights, and on Wednesday, I went for a walk and did physical therapy.

The baby’s crying. Gotta go. Have a good week. We will have internet access in Seaside. Wednesday night if nothing else, so I might-maybe post then.

The wall between our tub and what used to be a shower is bare and wobbly. The floor is ripped up, and will probably end up being removed. We’re having visions of knocked out cubby/shelves in the shower and along the back side of the tub, at $200 a pop. YIKES!!! There’s dust everywhere and spider webs in the walls.

On the plus side, (and it seems like I’ve posted about this already, but I couldn’t find it), we found the Heaven-On-Earth rocks for $9 a sheet as opposed to the original $20.

And with rocks, I don’t have to worry about quality or durability. They’re rocks. I’m not concerned about them being off-brand.

The glass mosaic we talked about earlier isn’t going to work because it’ll double our labor costs, so we found some 1 inch travertine mosaic we like instead. Come to find out that 1 inch mesh backed tile is going to 1.5x our labor costs, but it’s what we like, and we’re going for it anyway.

Happy Christmas to us.

So, white rocks on the floor and white mosaic travertine in the shower and around the tub. And on a wall. With a few cutout shelves. Lots of white. Lots of money.

I never thought I’d willingly pay money to end up with a white bathroom. How boring is that? But with the white being all stone… well… it’s just better.

Our wood floors are being refinished next week, and my sister is getting married in Portland on the 11th, so we’re not going to be home all of next week. The remainder of this week is going to be spent trying to get ready for the trip and re-packing and moving out of the main floor of my house so the floor guy can refinish it.

Yes, it really sucks. No one should have to pack and move more than once in a year, either.

At least I don’t have to empty my cupboards. But we are going to have to disassemble our new dining table, and somehow find room for an entire floor of furniture, including my bedroom, somewhere else in my house. Namely two bedrooms and the basement.

So I may post, I may not. Depends on time, my mood during all of this, and if I can come up with anything interesting to say.

I really want to knit some socks.

Oh, and one of the cutie swim instructors at the pool said that both Abigail and Olivia are going to be champion backstrokers. He said they’re amazing. And I found out that he’s starting college mid-September in Central Washington.

Yup, creepy old lady.

Knitpicks finally got their Wool of the Andes color cards in, so I ordered one. Plus a color card for Andean Treasure. Plus some yarn for a turquoise and chocolate brown pair of striped socks. Plus a set of 32 inch circulars in sizes 0, 1, & 2 to play around with magic loop. I can’t wait!