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!

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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).

I ended up carding and spinning two ounces of the green batts with a much different ratio of silk yesterday, and it doesn’t look all that different from the four ounces I already had… tho’ it spun into a thinner, slightly denser yarn. And as I’m thinking about it, that may be because I plied it tighter. Hmmmm, interesting.

The one on the left is the “crayola spew.” The one on the right has a ton more green and a fraction of the red, yellow and blue that the first one has.

I do think they’ll look different from each other when knit up. They HAVE to!

So, this afternoon we’re packing up and heading out to my sister-in-law’s house for our yearly “cousins campout.” It sounds like it won’t be as well attended as last year, and the three moms that are staying overnight are all 6 1/2-8 1/2 months pregnant and already have multiple children.

I’m guessing there’ll be a lot of waddling (I’m the worst), resting, delegating to the older kids (poor Abby), and not a ton of ambitious events. (I’m going to try to knit some Green Tea leg warmers).

Still, I can’t help myself. I’m bringing the dutch oven (only one this year) and making a cobbler.

It’s looking like there is too much tweed in my green batts. I spun them yesterday and this morning, and the yarn is hanging to dry now. It’s all messy, I guess I got a bit carried away with the fulling/finishing so I’m not motivated to take a picture ’til it’s dry and I straighten it a bit.

I did get the 180 yards I was going for. Hooray!

Anyway, Nate said it looks like a crayola box threw up on it. Lovely image, no? I think that comment right there designates the yarn for leg warmers. I’ll still knit it up and see how the silk is. And I guess I’m going to have to card and spin some more to get the tweed ratio right.

Oy.

Wanna see something pretty?

I’m kind of smitten. Check out the side/back view. Makes me giddy. Nate wants a Vespa, and more power to him. He can get whatever scooter he wants and he’s the one “in the market”, but if I ever end up with one of my own, well, I’ll definitely try this baby out.