he always forgets his napkin

out with the old... (and other newsworthy tidbits)

yep--that's right. i bought a new car. my car sales guy was awesome. i just went to look at it, but then--he gave me everything i wanted. i was forced to ask myself, "self? what are you waiting for?" the answer was that i was waiting for the car fairy to give me $20k so i didn't have to start paying for a car. and since THAT wasn't going to happen, i sucked it up and bought the thing. the good news is that my once-rather-damaged credit is now such that i was able to do it all by myself like an actual grownup. whoo hoo! and the new car is so far--AWESOME! it's a 2008 mazda 5, something like a cross between a car and a minivan. it's going to be great for wrangling the squeaker, and it's going to be awesome for road trips. in fact, i took it on one the day after i got it from the dealership. so much more comfortable than my sentra was, it's not even funny. my sentra served me well for 11 years, but it was just time for me to move on. always odly bittersweet for me--letting go of something that's been in my life that long...

anyway.

so yeah--i took the new car and went home to see my mama, whose quality of medical care has been pure total ass. my mother and father don't ask all that many questions of the doctors, so basically, we have no idea what the heck is wrong. she had a BP spike, was given meds that caused the BP to plummet, they thought she was having a heart attack, so they moved her to a heart clinic where there were tests and drugs that found nothing at all wrong with her. in the process, they gave her a blood clot, fucked up her arm, and sent her home with no charts, no record of what had been done, no scheduled follow-up, and a nasty case of foot and mouth disease. yay. the good news is that she feels better (after a week and a half!)--the bad news is that no one knows wtf happened to her. her follow-up's not till april fucking 9th. this is one of those times when i wish desperately that i lived closer to home so i could help her with this mess. or at the very least, keep her company. i went home for the weekend, but could not stay longer. and for the first time in my life, my mother said to me--i wish you didn't have to go back. this is a woman who asks for nothing from anyone. it made me so sad to leave her, and lord, but i wish i could go back for longer. but you know--pregnant--near the end--kind of need to stay around here. and oh, so much to do before the baby comes.

and oh yeah--he's coming all right. i am less than a month from my due date now, and oddly in denial about it. i hae to keep telling myself that i only have a few more weeks to work/clean/get ready. all those things i don't have from my baby registries, i need to get NOW. i am having weekly appointments with my doctors now, which is actually ok by me. because i have chronic hypertension, i get to have all kinds of extra tests here at the end, which is actually kind of great. they ahve added to my normal regimen (which is go in, pee in a cup, get weighed to find i have gained nothing or gained or lost the pound i keep gaining and losing, make them take my BP manually rather than with the evil machine, knit for 45 minutes, see a doctor for 5 minutes while they measure my belly, check the heartbeat, and ask me if everything's ok, then go to whole foods for a reward muffin and a bottle of water) a nonstress test. this, my friends, is the most awesome thing ever. they put a fetal monitor and a contraction monitor on me, lay be back in a big cushy leather recliner, turn up the volume on the baby's heartbeat, dim the lights, and leave me alone for 20 minutes with nothing to do but hit a little game show button when the baby moves. it's like going to a spa. the baby's heart rate rises and falls and he flails around and i listen and click my button and chill. i'd like to have one of these tests every day. the baby? he's great--super active. tuesday, he measured at 6 pounds and 12 ounces, more than i weighed when i was born.

time is just flying, y'all. i have more to say and no time to say it. there are hats. and pictures of hats. and baby sweaters. stuff about the cats. ultrasound pictures that need to be scanned in. i'll get to it at some point, hopefully... for now, i shall leave you with one final thing. check out the size of this belly!

news

1) feeling better. had an actual full night's sleep last night (not drug induced!) for the first time in like 2 weeks. still not 100%, but down to 1-2 coughing fits a day. pulled abdominal muscles healing at last. baby very kicky and mobile. good.

2) mother, on the other hand, not as good. she's in the hospital in charlotte and has some unexplained blood pressure spiking, and possible artery damage. she's in good hands it seems, but has had some pain and is exhausted. who knows when she will go home, probably tomorrow. but the scary thing is that it looks like they are not going to be able to figure out the underlying cause of her issues, which means--who knows when it could happen again. YUCK! prayers and good thoughts for my mama, please.

3) bought a new car. gonna get it tomorrow (if all goes well--they are shipping one in that's the color and trim level i want). more on this later. it's awesome though. i suspect i am going to pick it up and drive it straight to my mama, whether i am supposed to be traveling right now or not.

apologies for the sparseness of posts and the blah-ness of things. i've been knitting, but not a ton. i've been working, but that's boring as hell. i've been coughing, but you already know that. things will be better soon, i swear.

one of those days

so last thursday i left work and came home to escape my hacking coworker. by saturday i was sick. i'm still sick. most of this week, i've been sleeping something like 3 hours a night due to the massive coughing fits i keep having. the doctors keep telling me that this is not hurting the baby in spite of my pulled abdominal muscles and the fact that i have been coughing loudly and deeply enough to, on occasion, send the cats into hiding. bleh. yesterday my doctor called in a prescription for me for some codeine based cough suppressant so i could at least get some sleep. this worked remarkably well. it's ironic to me that when you are knocked up, you get reverted back to remedies that can only be called old school. they actually gave me a narcotic, people. and i took it--exactly as directed. and like clockwork, i woke up coughing 15 minutes before it was time for another dose all night long. i slept between doses like a dead thing. and today, my head is 85% more clear than it's been in a week. but holy shit, the migraine! the migraine i have had all day long was almost not worth the ability to breathe. and the hormones make me feel more sorry for myself than i generally do, so yes, there's been some weeping, too. YUCK! i am sick to death of being sick, people. i feel like i have traded a monthy period for a monthly headcold--one that gets a little worse every month. i am just DONE with this part of being pregnant, this whole no immune system thing. i know it's normal and all, but that doesn't change the fact that it sucks. a lot. anyway. i'm not so much looking for sympathy here as i am just venting. it's been a shitty week, and so far, a shitty weekend. that said, i think i am actually on the mend at last. we'll see--y'all be thinking some good thoughts in this direction!

dear sick coworker,

GO HOME! quit hacking up your lung in my healthy (for now) vicinity. i'm serious. get your shit out of the office before you give all of us the plague. have mercy on my weak pregnant immune system. thanks!

love,
jackie

finally, a finished object!

at long last, i have finished knitting a baby blanket for my own baby. after countless fluffy basket weave blankets (which i still love, by the way), i decided to knit something different for myself. this is a simple eyelet blanket from a pattern written by the owner of my LYS. the pattern has two versions, for worsted or chunky yarn, but the designer knitted it at a gauge that was just way too loose for me. i sort of combined the two, and knitted the worsted pattern with chunky yarn on needles that were kind of in the middle. this is 7 (i think) skeins of encore chunky on US size 10.5 lantern moon destiny needles. (love these needles, by the way, mainly for the way the cable swivels at the join. i bought them just to try them, but they are truly awesome, and now, i am afraid i may be hooked.) i am really happy with how this came out. i haven't washed it yet, but that's the next step. of course, it took about 30 seconds for fergus to claim it for himself.

contrast

1. i am with my sister. i am holding an ill-fitting oxygen mask just off her face to keep it from cutting her skin and watching her contraction progress on the machine as the fetal monitor plays for us the sound of her baby's ever-lowering heart rate. the contraction passes, and the heart rate stabilizes. nurses whisper in the corner. when my sister holds her breath, so do i. she won't let go of my hand--she is too alone and utterly afraid. they are getting ready to wheel her into the delivery room, which is separate from the labor room--a bad design. she won't let go, and her doctor throws a gown on me and i am dragged along. i watch her and touch her and talk to her as she labors, as she sqeezes the handles on the birthing table so tightly that the IV needle creeps out of her hand. the staff is worried. the get out a vacuum extractor and literally pull the baby out of my sister's body. the baby girl is bright blue--so blue she seems made of plastic and not flesh. they take her limp body away to the corner, under hot, bright lights, and she is surrounded by people. my sister and i are alone. my sister is almost unconscious but is weeping, tears sliding down her face as she begs me to tell her the baby is ok. long silent minutes pass, and i wonder what i will say to my sister if her baby dies. finally, a little weak cry fills the room and i am crying too--i can see the baby kicking and screaming out her anger at all the strangers touching her. she is ok. i can breathe, and my sister can breathe, because so can she.

2. i am with my friend, pushing back on her hand as she leans hard into me, trying with all her might NOT to push her baby out of her body. it's not quite time. she is focussed on breathing, looking past me into her husband's eyes for the strength he can give her. her face is a miracle. her sister has her other hand and both of us are doing whatever we can to help her. she is loved and supported literally from all sides. she is so focussed that her mind is not with us anymore--afterwards she will say that she hypnotized herself. the baby starts to appear--she has a perfect curl on the top of her head. the nurse runs for the doctor, who comes in just in time as the serious business of birth gets underway. the pushing is tremendous and powerful--more strength than i knew she had in her. the baby slides out in a great gush, and she is perfect. she cries for just a moment, and then is calm as they measure her. her father cries. the nurse does, too. it is a moment of wonder. my friend says that it was fun--she has endorphins going through her that would bring a million dollars if you could bottle them. the baby girl is serious and beautiful and sleeps on her mother as we leave the new little family alone to bask in each other.

a note on the kitties

many people have complimented samson's gorgeousness after the earlier post about him bring me presents when he was worried about my coughing. thanks, y'all--i think my kitties are pretty beautiful myself. their mother was a pure-bred show cat, a birman, and their father was God Knows What (aka, Something Grey). whatever he was, it worked out pretty well. the boys are littermates, and both were rescued from a scary man who was about to throw the whole litter (of seven!) into a river. it's a long story, but suffice it to say that someone i know was just in the right place at the right time to stop this madness and bring those little 5-week-old kittens home with her. i took two of them, and have never regretted it--they are beautiful and sweet tempered and soft, but they are just bad enough to be amusing. perfect pets (except when they break stuff or try to walk on my belly while i am sleeping or snag my yarn or steal my knitting needles or cough up hairballs on my couch). i try not to talk about them TOO much lest i become a crazy cat lady, but i sure do love them. glad y'all like them as much as i do. :)

too much to say

the past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind. we've traveled, had house guests, re-organized two rooms of our house, moved furniture and put new stuff together, cleaned and cleaned. is this nesting? the doula teaching our birth classes says it's not really nesting until the last couple of weeks, but it sure FEELS like nesting. over the course of this week, i will be writing some catch up posts, but right now, i just have some things on my mind i want to get down before they slip away. you guys understand...

friday was something of a mental milestone to me--30 weeks. 10 weeks to go. the baby is suddenly bigger and heavier and a stronger presense in my mind (and my lower back). maybe it's the birthing and baby care classes we have started, but i am thinking more and more about the birth that's coming--trying to prepare. maybe it's just because he's growing so quickly right now that i can see a time when he will no longer fit in his snug little hobbit hole. he's going to have to get out, and i am trying to figure out how that's all going to work. i was always like this: birth plan? i don't need no stinkin' birth plan! but after learning more about it, i think maybe i do. not something set in stone, but some list of what i hope for. i hope to have him naturally. i hope i don't need an epidural. i hope i can do it without drugs. i hope it goes well and that he gets from the inside to the outside without much intervention. i hope when he is born, they will lay him on my chest instead of taking him away. i hope i can breastfeed. i have learned that all these things are actually possible--if all goes well. but i have seen birth--i have seen it from two different sides, and i know many mnay stories of many other births as well. i know--i KNOW--that some flexibility is required. i know i can't get wedded to these ideas of what i hope for. i know they are just that--hopes--and that everything can change on the turn of a dime. and in the end, i just want a healthy baby and a healthy me. no amount of preparation is going to make it not scary. thank god for the hippie. thank god for his support and his love through this.

the sweet junipers have had their baby, and he is beautiful. and jim's writing about it is so poignant and beautiful that i can't read it without crying. i went today and i read the whole story of juniper's birth, their beautiful little daughter, and it was just amazing. her birth was natural and not easy, but it was also awesome and overwhelming. i am so grateful to them both for writing it out in such detail and leaving so little out. it's comforting to me on a level i can't explain. it's worth reading and as educational as any book i have seen. i hope i am able to record our story in this kind of detail. i feel like i am mentally retreating a little bit--maybe gearing up in some way. i am trying not to do that. it's hard for me right now to think or write about much else. i am keeping a paper journal now for the first time in years. i am keeping it as much for the baby as for myself, something i wish my mother had done.

i hope i am a good mother. i hope we are good parents. i hope we are a good family. the fear is almost overwhelming. so is the anticipation. i can't wait to meet him.

showin' me the love

every weekend the hippie sweeps and vacuums the floor. in order to do this, he picks up all the cat toys and puts them on the bottom shelf of our living room bookshelves. the cats know where they are, and retrieve them at will. we know from this what toys are the favorites and who likes what the best. the three most loved (or maybe hated?) slowly make their way from the living room to our bedroom. like good outdoor cats--they bring us their kills. this past week, samson has been freaked out by me being so sick--he comes and checks in on me all the time. am i ok? is that coughing thing still happening? where's the hairball? can he help? i guess putting his favorite catnip filled squirrel/ferret/chipmunk thing on the bed for me was the best he could do. i am still giggling about it. just look at how ferocious he is. are you not trembling in fear?

notes on the belly

i am a little in love with the belly. i admit it. i catch glimpses of myself in the mirror, and i see this body that's not altogether my own, and it's oddly thrilling. it's not somehting i ever expected, and certainly not something i expected from the hippie either. but it's true--he's a little in love with the belly, too. we've hit the land shark phase. the baby is moving around in there all the time, and i can see it as well as feel it. little jabs and hops and flutters that are just amazing to watch. it's bizarre, of course, and i feel a little like a character in alien, but it's awesome, too. my little guy is in there, rolling and kicking and turning, and letting me know he's ok. the hippie hugs me, and he hugs the belly. he asked me what he was going to do when the belly was gone. he lays his hand on me and he says, come on baby--kick your daddy. and the baby does.

on many levels, pregnancy sucks--i am so tired, and my back aches, and i have the immune system of a newborn kitten, so i keep getting sick and staying sick. but on another level, it doesn't suck at all. there is a joy in it, this growing of a life in my body. it's amazing and humbling, and i think some part of me will be sad and miss it when it's over and the baby is on the outside. it's still hard for me to believe it's happening at all, this surprise baby that's come to us when i am 38 years old and had pretty well given up on the whole thing. i am terrified of it on so many levels. but i am happy, too. finally, at this later stage in the pregnancy, i am starting to be less worried and more happy.

news from the couch

ok, so all in all, i have been pretty lucky in this pregnancy. i am healthy as a horse, and the baby is big and active as hell. i have had some hurling, but not so much as to make me insane. and i have been tired, but not disfunctional--i even manage to get to the grocery store and make dinner still. i'd love more sleep, but that's really always been the case. yesterday, i had the evil glucose tolerance test where i had to go in and drink a (warm) 10-oz bottle of what tasted like hawaiian punch with about 4 extra cups of sugar dissolved in it on an empty stomach. when this made me feel kind of off, i can't say i was surprised. but it seems that i have contracted a THING. a THING of the stomach variety that has required me to spend the day working from my couch and eating nothing but plain carbs, salt, and gincger ale. all i can say is, it better go away soon.

in other baby news, the doctors claim everything with him is awesome, and that he will be big. they tell me i need to register at the hospital soon, which freaks me out. we start childbirth classes in less than two weeks. we're entering the home stretch over here, and it's just still bizarre as hell to me. i have lost back the one pound i gained, so that's interesting. considering that my uterus weighs about 6 pounds, the placenta another 6 or so, the baby about 2 and a half or 3, the amniotic fluid a couple of pounds, and the fact that i have about 150% of my normal blood, that all means that my actual body is probably the lightest it's been in like 10 years. that just ain't right.

my friend emily reminds me to get as much done now as i can, as i will have a permanent houseguest coming in april. i love her description of having a new baby in the house:

Well, in truth it's initially like having a really inconsiderate college roommate--up all night, loud partying, never cleans up after himself...fortunately the cuteness factor and the "I made this person myself" factor ameliorate the bad roommate effects...

i've always said the cuteness is what saves them. thank god for that.

stuff on the sticks

so my camera battery charger is still MIA, so i tried taking some pictures of my kniting with my phone. and of course, they pretty much suck. however, in the interest of documentation and the need to talk about yarn, i am showing them to you anyway. bear with me.

i cast on for the foliage hat on sunday while snowed in (by which i mean, not snowed in at all, but rather holed up as though snowed in--you do what you have to here in NC to make winter happen for yourself), and i am through the crown and one and a half repeats of the leaf lace pattern. i am still a little stumbly with lace--just a lot to keep track of--but i made it through the last 8 rounds without having to back up and fix something, so maybe some practice is actually helping. the yarn is malabrigo, in a lovely silvery grey that's almost the exact color of fergus's belly and nearly as soft. love malabrigo. of course, i've lost the label, so god only knows what color this actually is. the hippie's making this hat, too, in green. it says something about us that i get gauge with this yarn on size 7's and he gets it on 9's.

also in the works is a baby bolero for kieran. this pattern is really cute, and it's the only newborn size thing i am knitting--i am 99% sure that we're going to have a 10+ pound baby, in which case, he will be lucky to wear this home from the hospital. i am using the yarn called for, which is blue sky alpacas organic cotton. the color is called willow, i think, but again--the lable is somewhere, so i can't tell you for sure. i can tell you that this yarn is wonderful to knit, and that i love how the ply of green witht he natural ply becomes all tweedy looking when it's knitted up. i am changing the pattern a little bit--i did the shou;der seams with a 3-needle bind-off rather than a seam, and i intend to pick up stitches and knit them from the top down rather than knit them as separate pieces as they are written. everyone i know who has made this has had issues with fitting the sleeves into the arm holes, so this seems a better solution. thanks to knitting betty for the suggestion to do them top down.

i knitted a third umbrella hat because i just wanted the pink yarn. (of course, the color looks all off here due to the lack of proper photography, but i am trying not to whine about that anymore.) i am sure i am not alone in doing that sort of thing. the umbrella hat from leigh radford's one skein book is just a great little satisfying knit. i love the little lace motif at the bottom--it's enough to keep it interesting. and then the stockinette portion of the hat is small enough that it just goes by in a flash. i took no in-progress shots of this project because it was over too soon! i have no idea who will be the recipient of this little hat. it's made to fit a 9-12 month head, so we'll see whose baby turns out to be the right size at the right time. :)

i also took some pictures of the green eyelet baby blanket i am making for kieran, but they came out too atrocious to post. ew. you're just going to have to wait to see that one till i can get the camera battery up and running again. the sam's sending me her extra charger--thank god! soon, i will be back in the game.

i am meeting my new S&B group tonight (if you live in cary or apex, come meet us! we're meeting at 7pm at the starbucks at 55 and high house.), so hopefully i will get the rest of the way through my foliage hat. it's cold! i need that thing!

when email's down at work...

...as it was this morning--well, that's a perfect time to go internet shopping and become that greatest of all things, an american consumer. today i ordered these two lovely items, both of which i wish would arrive right now. the first is a maternity t-shirt from an etsy shop--the seller's name is discobelly, and i have high hopes for her shop. this t-shirt is so cute, and sadly the same cannot be said for much of what's available out there for pregnant women. a lot of it's just frumpy and lacks all style. and you know, when you are starting to feel big and cumbersome and like maybe you are about to give birth to a whale rather than to a tiny (yeah, right!) baby, then the last thing you want to do is feel frumpy, too. so amyway--thank you, people like discobelly! i love this shirt!

the second item is the small bedford desk from pottery barn, after which i have been lusting for many moons. i have an enormous antique teacher's desk, which i love--it used to live in what is now the nursery. but since the baby's crap is going to take up a whole room, my poor desk was excommunicated and banished to the garage where it is destined to become a stained glass worktable. the problem? now i have no desk to use as an actual desk. and everything's just too damned big for my available space, EVEN at ikea. (i KNOW, right?) so anyway, this stylish little petite number (only 23 inches deep) is going to become my new little office-y niche in my studio. it should arrive in a couple of weeks, which is lucky, because--let me tell y'all--i am NESTING. i want everything organized, and i mean NOW!

in other news, i am still knitting up a storm (probably something to do with that nesting thing again), and i still can't show you squat because I can't find my camera battery. i started a foliage hat for myself this weekend, and i am still working on many other half-finished items. i also spent the weekend holed up at the house doing things like making 15-bean soup and corn bread and big country breakfasts, ironing massive amounts of bed and table linens, and trying not to notice that the baby being all in the front is starting apparently starting to crack my back in two. yep. nesting. all i want to be is home.

at random

why is it that i feel i need to have pictures in my posts? maybe because i like looking at other people's pictures so much. anyway--i don't have any, because i have not suddenly located my camera battery, probably because i have had no time to look. maybe i should start taking phone pictures again. this has been one of those weeks where i have been unaccountably busy. i have had something going on pretty much every night all week, and then i wonder why i have no time to get things done at home. duh. tonight i have a date with my friend emily, which is awesome. tomorrow i will prepare for the weekend arrival of my friend michelle. someday i will finish packing up the christmas ornaments--but don't ask me when. on tuesday this week, i knitted with strangers--we're trying to get a stich and bitch group going that's closer to where some of us live, and so far, so good. two people last week, four this week--if we keep that up, we'll have a good group going in no time. this also means i am making knitting headway even if nothing else is coming along for me right now. man, this is a rambly boring post. maybe i should throw up a random picture, just so you guys have something to do.

there--that's fergus at the vet earlier this week. (my phone does take ok pictures at least.) he's about as happy as he looks in that picture, but he's also perfectly healthy other than some residual anxiety over the loss of scout. what do you do for a cat who's trying to groom out all his fur? anyway, i'm going to shut up and try to finish my work so i can leave a tad early.

photography issues

i have all this stuff i want to show you, internet, but alas, i have lost my camera battery charger.

for example, jenn and i took an all day beading class on saturday (because i definitely need more hobbies). i walked away with 4 new pieces of jewelry i can't show you, one of which i really like and would LOVE to show. i made a lovely silver glass pearl bracelet with blue silk knots (wearing it right now), some chandelier type earrings with lots of crystals, a pair of copper and charcoal pearl earrings, and a stone necklace with black seed beads and some other glass beads as well. we learned knotting, crimping, and wire wrapping, and i am now all fired up to make more stuff. however, you can't see any of this because my battery is dead dead dead.

other things you can't see:
the pink malabrigo umbrella hat i made
the baby blanket i finished for my friend jennifer's new baby
the red felted bag that's ready to felt
the baby bolero that has a body and no sleeves
the eyelet baby blanket i am halfway though for my own baby
my pretty new yarn in my pretty new silk yarn bag

*sigh*

i need to find that thing...

all about the baby

i feel more pregnant than usual today. i am not sure what it is, but i just feel more cumbersome and large all of a sudden. maybe it's the fact that i am finally in the black as far as the pregnancy weight gain has gone--i am a whole two pounds heavier now than the day i took that first (of five) pregnancy test. maybe it's these jeans i'm wearing pressing just a little TOO tightly on my lower abdomen--ie, on the baby. maybe it's the the baby is really roll-y today. maybe it's that i can't quite seem to take a deep enough breath. but anyway--yeah--i'm definitely knocked up over here, folks.

i have reached the point where i am not throwing up (very much), and i actually ate some oatmeal for breakfast today with no problems. i feel mostly ok, although i am very tired. i am having really vivid dreams, and i wake up every time i roll over from one side to the other. i can't sleep on my back or my stomach anymore, which is also affecting things. i fell asleep at the kitchen table the other night reading a wikipedia page (reading about the baby's name) on my laptop--i didn't even know that was physically possible. i have had a couple of pretty severe headaches, but less than i have when i am NOT pregnant, so that's ok, too. i think maybe i am in the calm before the storm.

the baby moves all the time now--he's like my little constant friend in there. of course, the minute the hippie touches my belly, the baby becomes as still and quiet as a little church mouse. i think he likes the vibrations from his father's voice, a trend i hope continues until he is at least twenty. the hippie was fianlly able to feel him for the first time last night, which is pretty exciting.

actually, many things are starting to get exciting. many people have given us stuff for the baby already. we have enough baby clothes that i washed a whole load of them--i could not stop laughing as i was hanging them to dry--so tiny! and we spent a lot of time over the holidays working on the house, which means that the nursery is painted and has furniture in it. the nursery is a lovely pale, pale blue--almost white. it's cool and soothing, and it's the color i would have painted the room, baby or no baby. the hippie's worried about stereotyping putting a baby boy in a baby blue room, but hey--i figure, we like the color. it has nothing to do with the baby's gender for me. after all, my bedroom is blue, too! jenn and harry have given us a crib and a dresser with a changing table top, which is HUGE and has saved us a ton of money. plus that crib has held many babies who are now womderful children, so we are excited abotu its good karma as much as anything. i have been shopping around buying odds and ends, like a glider from craigslist ($60), the rug i wanted from pottery barn kids on ebay ($139including shipping!), a bumper pad ($30) and a little valance ($5) from a clearance sale at pbk, and a teddy bear ($14) at restoration hardware while i was christmas shopping (i just couldn't resist it!) i will probably end up spending more on artwork than on anything else that will go in the baby's room--that to me is the fun part. i feel like one of those people on the HG or the TLC channel decorating on a a teeny budget or somehting--it's like a game to me at this point. anyway--things are moving along. things are going really quickly. i feel like this baby is going to be here before i have time to blink twice. i hope he waits till his due date on april 25th. whew!

cupcake factory

what starts out as a neat and orderly pile of ingredients and equipment as you see pictured above quickly turns into a pile of flour and sugar and a fine coating of sticky over your entire kitchen when you start turning it into 72 cupcakes. this is what i did on saturday--i made cupcakes. all day long. and let me tell you, i can't think of many better ways to spend a day! i heart cupcakes. i love making them, and i love eating them--i consider them one of the Perfect Foods, along with bacon, biscuits, sauteed mushrooms, and really good ice cold gin martinis. (there are others, of course, but i am trying not to digress...y'all know how i am once i get going.)

for christmas, i received two cupcake cookbooks, cupcakes, by susanna tee, and cupcakes year round, by sara neumeier. the first is quite pretty and is great for inspiration and decorating ideas, but it isn't very practical for mass production of cupcakes. all of it's recipes make different amounts of cupcakes--one will be 12, one 16, the next 26, and so on. the other one, however, is awesome--every recipe i made on saturday came from this book, and all of them were fabulous. highly recommend this book! evey cupcake recipe is for 24 cupcakes, and every icing recipe is enough icing to generously ice all 24 (and then some).

i spent some time thinking about what flavors to make and how i wanted to decorate the cupcakes. i settled on 3 batches. 1) red velvet, because there's just something about red velvet that people like--it feels festive. 2) chocolate mocha because well--mmmm...chocolate. 3) carrot cake because i thought i should do something that had no chocolate in it for people who either don't like it or might be allergic or something. besides, carrot cake rocks. i made a big double batch of cream cheese icing, and then flavored it differently for each kind of cake. the red velvet got plain cream cheese icing, the carrot got cream cheese with lemon zest grated into it, and the mocha got crushed candycanes mixed in for a subtle peppermint flavor. (that was an idea from the cookbook, although they used buttercream as the base rather than cream cheese icing--they called them reindeer snacks. cute.)

i decided to individualize each flavor of cupcake by decorating them differently. i made white chocolate snowflakes for the red velvet cupcakes. this is easier than it sounds--you just start with good quality white chocolate ( i used ghiradelli), melt it over a double broiler, put it into a pastry bag, and then draw out the snowflakes. i put a piece of aluminum foil on a cookie sheet and drew them there. then i decorated them while they were still soft with silver dragees and put the whole sheet into the freezer. when they are frozen, just peel them off the foil as you need them. takes a little time, but it's worth it. the bit if white chocolate on top really adds a nice richness to the red velvet, too. for the carrot cake, i sprinkled the tops very lightly with cinnamon and added a sugared lemon twist to each one. the fragrance was awesome, and i think it added a bit of sophistication to these humble little carrot cakes. for the mocha ones, i just sprinkled them with a bit of red sanding sugar and added a few more pieces of crushed peppermint to the tops. simple and festive. i have to say, i was really happy with the results, and i am sad that all the cupcakes are gone. click on the picture below if you want bigger pictures and more detail.

on the 11th day of christmas...

i am finally getting around to posting something about the holidays. (and look at the time! it's ALMOST the 12th day of christmas already!) and really--that right there sums it up. i think i have been behind pretty much since thanksgiving. i am still behind. i have a handful of packages still waiting to go in the mail. my studio looks like a bunch of elves got drunk in there for new year's and left wrapping paper shreds and bits of ribbon and tape on every horizontal (and maybe a few non-vertical--who's keeping track at this point?) surface. in fact, a few of my gifts still aren't here yet. that's a long story involving someone else's holiday issues that i won't go into--suffice it to say, i feel her pain. but all of that whining aside--it's been a good holiday. i have been remarkably low-stress for all the lateness. i think i have just decided to chalk it up to being too tired to care and just make my one new year's resolution to do better with this stuff next year. wish me luck with that. we travelled little, ate much, saw many people we love and care about, watched all of season six of 24, knitted some, rested, worked on the house, took only a few pictures and generally chilled for the holiday. for new year's eve, we went to a party at the home of some dance class friends with our friend meredith, which was great fun--i even managed to stay up till 2:30am! (a minor miracle, considering that i have been going to bed at like 10pm...) i think i have opted not to make any real resolutions for this year, lest i start thinking too much about all the impending change and overwhelm myself. if i have any resolution at all, it's to try to take things as they come, one thing at a time, and just try to enjoy life more.

i had enough time off over the holidays that i actually got to do some knitting, which was nice. i finished a little pink baby hat and a couple of baby blankets that have been languishing on my needles, and i worked on one i am making for myself (pictures to come of that one). i also started a baby bolero for my own baby, made a crazy scarf for myself, and made fergus help with the whole mess. fergus, he's my knitting familiar. the bolero is from leigh radford's one skein book, and i am using the recommended yarn, blue sky alpacas organic cotton. the color name is willow (i think)--it's 2-ply with one ply each of ivory and pale earthy green--both are natural colors. this yarn is so soft and is LOVELY to work with. plus as an added bonus, leigh radford and i apparently knit at exactly the same gauge. swatches? we don't need no stinkin' swatches... the green scarf is a simple garter stitch thing on big needles from trendsetter. the yarn is dune, and god knows what color that is--it's a crazy green with bits of purple, black, and metallics thrown in. i bought it because it matched my green toenails, which i admit is a little insane. and while i love the resulting scarf, i did NOT love working with this yarn! it's 2-ply, with one ply of mohair and one ply of metallic stuff. the problem is that one ply stretches and the other doesn't, so that mohair ends up having a big lag in it--it separated from the other yarn and just kept tangling up and catching on everything. in the end, i had about 3 yarns of mohair left and none of the other ply. very, very annoying. the scarf's cool though. :)

in other knitting news, i took a little trip down to bella filati in southern pines with meredith and the hippie, where we all bought some yarn. the hippie bought enough to make himself an awesome dark green tweed sweater. i bought some yarn to make a little sweater for the beastie for next winter, and meredith introduced herself to the wonder that is malabrigo. i predict she will be an addict within the month. as are we all...

and now, all blog posting aside, my butt's got to go get into the bed. i am so tired, and i have been sleeping like boiled ass this past week. and tomorrow, i need all my strength to make 72 cupcakes for my company's holiday party. i'll definitely be taking pictures of that! i got two cupcake cookbooks for christmas, so those will be in play for sure. i really can't wait! y'all know how i feel about cupcakes!

i leave you with one last thing--the hippie insisted we take a belly shot in front of the christmas tree, and i admit, i am glad we did. this one's going into kieran's baby book:

death by email

crate and barrel has just sent me the eleventy-hundredth email i have received from them this holiday season. the first line is, in HUGE red letters, wwith many explanation marks:

ONLY 72 HOURS LEFT!!!

are they actually TRYING to kill me?