It’s very slow going, but I’m getting there. Part of the problem is that my house isn’t just messy, the main reason it’s messy is because we don’t have enough room for everything, and I need to purge and organize. Again. I feel like it’s all I ever do, and yet, here I am again. So I’ve spent the morning going through and filing/throwing out/recycling papers in the living room. Again. My hope is that if I get all the time consuming stuff done, then maybe Nate can come in at the last second and do the normal “cleaning” stuff. He’s good at working under pressure, and can tidy up and vacuum real quick when the clock is ticking.

Checklist-

Veronica’s room- done
Girls’ room- done
My room- in process, buried in laundry piles that still need to be washed
Living room- in process, getting close
Fish tanks- not done yet
Family room- major disaster area, not my job, girls will clean before they get to eat tonight
Dining room- full on scary
Kitchen- unfortunately, just as scary
Bathrooms- um, you don’t want to know

then there’s the hallway and Nate’s office. Lots to do. And I’m going to be gone all afternoon, back for a bit, then gone this evening. Mom gets in around lunch time tomorrow, so I still have tomorrow morning, and I’m gonna need it.

On the plus side, once I’m done, I’m not getting up for the rest of the week.

Although, as usual, I was dead in the evening. It was a nice time, though. On the drive down, I finished the Flower Basket Shawl.

As it turns out, the auction committee doesn’t want it for the auction. I’m sure they’d take it, but it isn’t the type of project they are looking for. They want the kids to make something hands on so that the parents of the class will bid against each other, the idea being that they’ll get more money. That seems a bit tasteless to me, trying to pit a specific group of people against each other, but I’m still new to public school, fundraising, and the like. I guess you do what you have to do. So someone is looking into the cost of making a mosaic bench. It has to be done and submitted this month, and I’m sort of in charge, so my stress level is rising.

I still think the doll idea rocked.

Anyway, since the Flower Basket Shawl was suddenly uncommitted to anyone, I decided to make it the size of the pattern, as opposed to adding a repeat, so I could try and wear it as a head scarf like we discussed awhile back. We’ll see how it goes.

My mom is planning to come into town with her new beau on Wednesday. She’ll be with us for her birthday on Friday. I am looking forward to it, however my house is not remotely fit for entertaining. If it was just my mom, I wouldn’t worry about it. I’d let her come and do “mom” type stuff (like clean my bathrooms and make me food) while I (the sick, pregnant one) laid on the couch. But this is different. We’re meeting Steve. And he’s meeting us. My recently adopted mode of entertaining, which is, “Yeah, just clear a spot off the couch so you can sit down” isn’t going to cut it.

And I have a number of commitments tomorrow, so I basically have today and tomorrow morning to clean everything. Um, yeah. That’s going to work great.

Needless to say, I will not be knitting today, but with any luck, I’ll be able to post pictures of a clean house tomorrow.

We’re off on a 2 1/2 hour drive to an all day wedding celebration, so I need to post real quick before we leave. I’m hoping I’ll make it through the day. Helping at the school from 9-2:30 yesterday about killed me, and I was sitting down for most of it, so I have cause for concern.

This week, I did an hour of weights and physical therapy on Thursday. It was great. My pecs still hurt, and I like it!

I weighed in at 228.5. This is a little high for me. I’ve been 226, pretty much since August, and I’ve made a sudden jump. It’s fluids, right? :-).

How’re you doing?

I managed to totally offend someone in the office at my daughter’s elementary school. Dangit. Hopefully, after speaking to her today, she understands that I wasn’t in fact mad at her. I guess leaving a voice mail when I don’t feel very good isn’t smart. She seemed to think I was very upset with her, which makes no sense to me, considering the content of my message. But I left the message last night, so I was tired, and sick, and probably sounded less than happy.

The problem is, you never know with people. We had a fine conversation this afternoon, but she may still think I’m a total rag. I kind of got that impression. Apparently, she was a bit hysterical when she called Nate today to follow up on my message. Fortunately, I dropped in to talk to her before I found out about her conversation with Nate, otherwise I probably would have gone in defensive. As it was, I was all smiles, as usual, and that probably disarmed a bit.

Maybe I’ll send her a note. I absolutely hate contention and will do all in my power to diffuse it.

That reminds me of a funny story. I meant to blog about it, but never got around to it.

Nate and I went to the Bellevue Arts and Crafts Fair over the summer. It’s a large, crowded assembly of painters, glass artists, sculptors, and a variety of other “craft fair” type booths, a bit on the fancy end because after all, it is Bellevue.

Well, I had my camera. I took a few pictures. I didn’t realize this would be offensive, and when I was in the booth of a weaver (a fiber artist no less), she full on attacked me. She proceeded to tell me how incredibly rude I was, and how it was HER work, and I had no business taking pictures and how any of the other booth owners would feel the same way, and how I should at least have the decency to ask first.

Ok, fine. I hadn’t thought of that. I apologized sincerely, told her how beautiful her work was, that I had no intention of copying it, and I appreciated her bringing it to my attention. I continued to peruse her booth, and she literally followed me around and continued to tell me how incredibly rude I was. And again, how this was HER work. I continued to apologize.

I told her that I admired her use of color and that her work was beautiful and I was very sorry to have offended.

This didn’t stop her from verbally abusing me. I complimented her one more time, apologized a fourth time, and left. Nate, who had been outside of the booth, but had been listening, was fuming. I could sort of see her point, but she was out of line and took it way too far. Nate on the other hand, who is in the art industry and is very familiar with the legal and ethical uses of art, completely disagreed with her argument.

As we walked through the rest of the fair, if I saw something I particularly liked (and I was mainly looking at color combinations), I asked the booth owner if I could photograph it. Without exception, they were flattered and gave me permission.

I couldn’t help myself. I had to tell them why I was asking, although I was good and didn’t tell them who had behaved so badly.

One lady said that an Arts and Crafts fair was no place for a “Diva”. Good point. Others just couldn’t believe someone would act that way. I was amused, Nate continued to be annoyed with the mean lady, and here we are.

I hate contention. I never intentionally hurt or offend anyone. I would rather apologize, even when I’m not in the wrong, than maintain a feud with anybody. We’re grown ups, aren’t we? And it is my experience that more problems are caused by misunderstandings than actual malicious intent.

So, I will send a nice, apologetic note to the lady in the office, who really does seem like a soft hearted, sweet woman. She will hopefully not hold a grudge, (although I know she’s already talked to Abby’s teacher about the situation, but I don’t know how far the conversation went), and our happy little life will continue as ever.

Some of you will think I’m a big weenie. And that’s fine, too. As for me and my life, I’m happier without the bad feelings.

For those of you who are new, this is the VCC.

Yup, back down to the armholes. I will knit another 4 inches, then begin them again. I think that this time, I’ll make the front pieces a little taller than the back, because the cable sucks up the length a little bit, and although the seaming sides on each piece are ribbing that match up nicely, the overall length of the front pieces aren’t the same as the back which is all ribbing. This time, I’ll compensate.

This is the VCC, frogged yarn, and my feet. I wound the yarn from the cardigan to the niddy noddy, and then skeined it. The skeins will get a nice, warm bath, and be hung to de-kink. Fortunately, I have 3 1/2 more skeins of this yarn, so I get to use FRESH, yummy yarn (Encore Colorspun, nothing exciting, but it does make a nice garment) to knit with.

I really did enjoy knitting this sweater, and I remember being a bit sorry it was over, so I should (theoretically) enjoy knitting it again. I hope.

A side note- my mom always taught me to look in the background of the pictures I’m taking and de-clutter. Thus, in most of my indoor pictures, you are led to believe that I live in a clean house. This is frequently a lie. My house is a mess, particularly now that I’m so sick. In fact, if you look at the last photo, and imagine a purple pile of Abigail’s pajamas and underwear heaped on the floor (top and center of the photograph), you will envision what I saw when first framing the shot. I stopped, picked up the clothes she left this morning (why my girls can’t change clothes in their room is beyond me, and it isn’t from my lack of reminders) and took the picture. If you look really close, you will notice the very large fuzz-bunnies that I didn’t pick up.

Don’t tell my mom.

Today, I’m going to go in search of pants that fit me. Mine don’t, and now that I’m trying to leave the house on occasion, my vast assortment of pajama pants aren’t cutting it. Besides, even they’re getting tight.

I’m 14 weeks now. The baby is about 5 inches long. I think I’m feeling movement, and this time, I think it’s legit because it’s down further in my abdomen, where the baby is, as opposed to the movements I was feeling some weeks ago, that were significantly higher. As it turns out, those were my unhappy innards grumbling around.

Aside from my abdomen pooching out, it’s starting to feel a little tighter and firmer, which is more fun that the previous feeling of incredible fatness and bloating.

I’m going to try to do some weights and PT before we head out today, so I might have a shot of shrinking into this gorgeous cardigan I’m re-knitting that as of right now, won’t fit me anyway.

I woke up miserable today, so I’m not doing much. I’ve unseamed the shoulders to the VCC, and have frogged the first side of the front down to the beginning of the armholes. Fortunately, I wrote down what cable chart row I was on when I started the armholes, because I wouldn’t have had a clue. I also had to swatch again, to make sure I was using the right needle. So, I’m ready to start knitting the additional 4 inches on my cardi before beginning the armholes once more. I hope it looks ok. Remembering the misery of re-knitting the sleeve caps with kinky yarn, I’m going to use fresh yarn on the sweater, and then skein and block the used yarn so it will be knit-able again.

Also, I wore my Cable-Eight while I was out and about on Monday. Everywhere I went, people loved my vest. Dangit. I guess I’m going to have to get over that. And on that note, there’s a really cute vest type thing in the current issue of Vogue Knitting that I actually like. I even think it’d be a cute pregnancy top. Who’d have guessed?

That’s right, I’m at it again. And this time, I’ve been sort of timing myself. I have received emails asking how long these dolls take to knit, and here are some general answers.

Complete and naked doll, stuffed, seamed, with appendages, sans feet – 3 hours.

The coolest pair of doll pants I have EVER MADE!!!- 3 hours, unblocked. They need to be blocked.

Now, before you all get in a tizzy, my usual striped pair of doll pants (see sidebar for many examples) take about an hour and a half. These doll pants were made with Noro Kureyon. I had to separate each color graduation, as well as the transitional graduation, and then divide them in half so the legs would more or less match each other. Towards the bottom of each leg, I had to spit and splice the color breaks together. Up towards the top, I left the ends loose on the inside.

I do not want to give these pants to my sister’s doll. I want to take the pants off of MY doll, and give her those. The problem is that Abby has made it clear that SHE wants these pants on HER doll, so they might as well leave the state on my sister’s doll, because I wouldn’t end up with them anyway.

Add it all together….

and you get about 6 hours.

I’ve made a top, but I don’t think it works with the pants. It’s too light, so the subtlety of the color graduations in the pants gets lost. Since the pants are going to be the shining star of this doll, that was unacceptable. So I tried the top on my doll.

And that’s where we’re at this morning.

Remember this? Well, it happened again, although this time, they smashed Nate’s car window and stole his Franklin day planner. Jerks.

So I’m in a hurry this morning to post, then we’re off to the glass shop. Again.

There it is. Abby’s Harry Potter Sweater. She’ll be wearing it for the next 20 years. It’s humongous, but I was going for oversized, so it’s fine. Her first response was, “It’s a FAT sweater!” Whatever. That being said, she didn’t want to take it off at bed time last night, and was bummed we wouldn’t let her sleep in it. And it’s on her body at school today, even though I haven’t sewn a “plea to return” label in the back yet. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that it comes home.

So, remember my rant on Friday about size? Well, I measured a fleece pullover that Abby wears. It was 33 inches across the chest. I knit the 32 inch size sweater (and my gauge is right on), and it hangs like a circus tent. I have no faith in measuring garments that already fit.

I’m glad she likes it.

Yesterday, I started on a doll for my sister. It’s completely groovy. I’ll show you tomorrow.

Ok, real quick because it’s been a busy day, and I have to leave soon…

I was able to do an hour of physical therapy and weights on Thursday, and I actually hit the treadmill on Friday! It was a pathetic attempt. I did a total of 35 minutes, and was never able to get above my warm up speed of 2.6 mph. But my heart rate was up, and I broke a sweat, so I know I did some good. It took ’til about 16 minutes before I felt any trace of “good exercising vibe”. I was just exhausted for most of it.

How’d you do?