Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.
There is out in Salem today the HOTTEST FEDEX GUY EVER. He just came to my door, and I swear to God, I thought I was getting punk’d or something. Easily the hottest guy I’ve ever seen in real like, maybe 5′ 10", short dark hair, with a day’s worth of stubble. He brought a package to the door and I couldn’t even talk! Just thought I’d let the locals know.
Oh and yes Bj, this does mean your clothes came, and I still think you’re the hottest guy for me!
I still have a box of jars to wash, yuck. Then the lids, ah the lids, how I hate to wash thee. So instead I spun a little, you know mixing things up from the knitting groove:
Is that not fantastically yummy? I’m spinning it pretty thin so I can ply it together and still use it for baby things. This is from some awesome fiber I got earlier this year from the Hello Yarn Club:
That poof in front is pre-drafted into the softest bit of fluff. I will have plenty to choose from in terms of what to knit this stuff into. I got a few new books: Knitting Workshop, Boho Baby Knits, and Baby Knits. I also finally got The Vogue Knitting Book for seaming and stuff, no patterns, but lots of good info. Hmm what to start next?
P.S. Found my first stretch marks today… on my boobs! Ah well, I knew it was coming. And yes I have been using oil!
Okay I frogged it (knit speak for ripping it back, in this case all the way). Sciarrino came over last night and when I told her that I was bravely going to knit on she mentioned knitting the net row on a long cord just to check things out. I did and then put it on my head, where it slipped right down to my neck. So that was a no go. I figured out read in the very clearly written pattern that you decrease by 8 stitches for a smaller size. So I cast on 48 stitches which means I knit this adorable thing up in a couple of hours:
Here it is next to a tiny little hat Bj and I got to show size:
That green hat is part of little green and white jail break out fit Bj and I put together. Lord is it cute. But don’t worry! Sciarrino and I are going to sort all the clothes I have so far by size and it WILL curb my buying more clothes… at least in the wrong size. Oh and I’ve been doing a little research about the layette. 1-3 hats, 2-3 pairs of booties? This list was not made by a knitter. I was thinking 7 hats minimum! My baby is going to be born in the beginning of winter and I am still planning on taking it to get air everyday. Side note: I said this to Sciarrino or my mom, one of those witty ladies. She said, "Uh, adults need fresh air every day too" SNAP. But I still didn’t go on a walk tonight. I ALMOST did, then my tummy hurt. Anyway I’m going to dress the baby head to toe in wool of course. At least until I get the urge to take up the next craft… quilt of the day for baby?!?! Nappy sack in five color combos? Recovering V’s baby swing. Risky, but toile (sp?) is not my style. So many options. Stay tuned for more pregnancy induced crafty madness.
p.s. I just got this. Everyone is getting hats this year for Christmas. You’ve been warned.
Sciarrino-nator and I went to the X-Files movie. Sigh I love Mulder and Scully. No spoilers, no worries, but I loved it. I love going to opening night things with other people really excited because when something happens everyone gets it and the reaction is great. 
We made these shirts for ever ago. When I realized that Sciarrino had never watched an episode of the X-Files when we were living together we decided to watch the whole series (9 seasons). It took a couple years, but it was awesome. I was glad I still fit into the shirt! Oh and Bj came with:
He’s so cute. He thought the movie was a little long. To which Sciarrino and I pretty much in unison said, "we could have watched for hours more!"
Now on to the pregnancy part. I swear I can feel the hormones affecting my brain. There was this super creepy part of the movie and I could not shake the thoughts of it. I think I might be hyper reacting to things. Like today watching people rush through the yellow lights, and three cars through a red I just wanted to follow them and ask them why they were being so inconsiderate. Who wants to maybe get in a wreck just to get through a light? I don’t understand. So instead of my brain being filled with nice baby thoughts it gets filled with "why is the world annoying me so badly today" thoughts. And I don’t like those, I like to be more optimistic. Like pre-pregnancy I would say to myself what my mom would always say around speeding yucky drivers, "gosh they must be in a big hurry. I’m glad I don’t have to be anywhere in that big of a rush." And let it go. BUT I CAN"T LET IT GO. And it’s eating my brain. Well not completely I’m also knitting. 
I’m unsure if I’ll continue this hat. Oh it looks rad, don’t get me wrong, but the problem is that I think it’s going to be too big (probably for my head, and I was targeting this to baby size or at the biggest toddler size…). See my head is small. I think we’ve been over this, but ya, tiny. So these patterns never seem to work with out a little tweaking. But what do I do? Do I tweak first? Oh no, I cast on and knit like three inches, because I’m a slow learner. 
Looks small, deceiving because it’s smashed onto a 16" circular needle.
Oh and one more pregnancy thing. Apparently my uterus is more out of my pelvic cavity than before, so now it’s starting to spread out instead of just up. I know this because I had a total freak out, woke up in the middle of the night on my back (a pregnancy no no this late in the game), couple that with not feeling the baby yet, and I thought my stomach was deflating… So I had my reconnaissance man (Bj who was out washing a car) watch for my midwife to come home (she lives two houses down – score!). She came home and I called her, "Pamela, not that I’ve been stalking you or anything, but I noticed you just came home, can I come over?" So I went over so she could use her fancy equipment and check on the baby. And it was moving around beating it’s heart and everything. But she was nice about it (because we think maybe she’s one of the nicest people on the planet, top ten definitely). She felt around and told me about the uterus thing, and now I totally feel it. Like a water balloon or implant or something lodged down there. When I have to pee I swear I can feeling it whacking my bladder like, "go to the bathroom now or I will make you wet yourself!" And it’s not so much like oh my goodness I have to pee. It’s like, ouch! I have to pee. Weirdness. Plus like sitting with my knees tucked up to my chest is like impossible. Even though my chest has come out a bit (understatement I hate the big boobs, hate them). And now my hips are hurting. Sciarrino just got here to do yoga with me, as I have no discipline to make myself do it alone (I half ass it, what can I say, I’m lazy). I told grandpa today that he better watch out I was going to be a bigger whiner than him. Okay off to yoga.
Projects finished:
Cutie baby pants (Ravelry Link), that make up the rest of the cute little outfit:
Oh my goodness I can’t wait to see my baby! I don’t know what I’m more excited for, dressing the baby, nursing the baby, holding the baby and never putting it down?!?! So much to do when the baby comes. That’s why I need to knit… NOW. I admit I’m one of those girls who oodles over a newborn until someone lets me hold it, then my mom seems to swoop in, but not this time, baby you’re mine! Oh and I guess Bj can hold it some too. After all he has been doing his research. He was so excited about this book that he tracked it down off of a Christian Bookstore website after Amazon was sold out:
It is so beyond funny. But he is taking it very seriously, which might be even funnier:
Now for projects in progress:
Ack! I will be cleaning jars until a) I finish b) the skin on my hands get so dried out they crack or c) I can’t take the nastiness anymore. Because spiderwebs + dead bugs + gummy labels + who knows what = gross. I have to pre-wash, then dishwasher wash, than post wash. It’s a mess. But it will be fun to organize them, ah organizing, I love it. *If you still want to guess the number, I not near finished, just do it on the post below this one so it’s all together.
Also in progress:
Plans baby! For the upstairs, oh ya, super excited about that one. The guy who drew the plans ended up putting two bathrooms upstairs, he was very anti parents/children sharing a bathroom. I think this is going to work out awesome, I can even really picture it since we have the one tiny bathroom now and it really is working fine. The only thing that I’m not a huge fan of is that I don’t have a shower and bathtub in the master bath, and I love my bath. Also I want the walk in closet to fit one of those pull down ironing boards that hides your iron in there, is possible. But overall I really like the whole thing. I just am going to have to work so hard to pick materials that don’t make this look new. I couldn’t stand it if it looked like someone plopped a new house on top of our cute little cottage. This is going to be in combination with a few other improvements on the main floor: gas to the stove, and a new range as well as updating the shower in the bathroom we use now. If we ever want to put a fume hood in above the stove we have to do while the upstairs is still being framed, and the bathroom downstairs has to be demolished a little bit to get pipes upstairs, so we’re going to fix the tub situation while we’re doing that. Now before you tell me I’m crazy to do this pregnant, I know already! Totally crazy! I don’t know what I’m thinking! Well I’m thinking that there is no where to put baby stuff, like at all. What were you going to say I should get rid of my craft room? Some one suggested this to me and I blocked their IP address from my blog (just kidding, but seriously, what were they thinking?)
So let the crazy pregnancy remodel begin*
Oh man, that only took me like thirty minutes and I still have 322 until I get to see the new X-Files movie. WHY DOES TIME ALWAYS HAVE TO GO SO SLOW?
*pending financing.
Feeling pretty good today since I finally got a haircut. My hair has been brushing the top of my shoulders for weeks now, nasty ends, the works. But of course I had to go and sleep through my first hair appointment last week, so today was the first day I could get in. I felt oh so guilty for missing an appointment when she was squeezing me in that I had to get up and make the famous chocolate chip cookies, I’m not beyond bribery, I mean my hair is going to keep growing after all. Also I tip big. 🙂 She said they were the best cookies ever and I got the best haircut ever, so I guess we’re even now. And I learned my lesson and already scheduled another appointment for September… with an alert on my phone to remind me a half hour before hand. Genius.
Also genius? My blog readers, you guys have been being so sweet to me! LeAnn recently sent me this adorable book:
Do you see that, popular Empire and A-line styles. Oh little baby please be a girl. There are about three pages for a boy:
Pants, a coat? Cute but it’s no:
No that is cute. Thanks so much LeAnn! I can’t wait to use these tips, or at least drool over the book a while.
As if that wasn’t enough an astute local reader, Dianne emailed me a Craig’s list link for a truck load of jars that she "didn’t want me to miss out on." Nice catch!
Let’s play a little game, who ever gets the closest number to the real amount of jars (I have not counted them yet) will get a little scrappy prize. As in some scrapbooking goodies. I’ll pull together something cute. So guess away!
Oh and:
I know, enough about the powder! But seriously. I had to pee after picking up the jars (an hour and half away from me) so Sciarrino and I popped into an Albertson’s. I was looking above the aisles and there were signs for brands of makeup/skin care like wet n’ wild, and a couple other old ones. I joked to Sciarrino that if anyone was going to have a travel size of shower to shower it would be some place like this. We went through the aisles and sure enough travel size! Not only that but they even had my old Blossom Fresh, a scent I would like to remind you is not even made any more (when it wouldn’t ring up at the check stand I whispered to Sciarrino, "it’s because it doesn’t exist any more!!!"). I thought maybe they would have the big containers too, so we went to look for those. It was some where totally random next to like hemorrhoid cream or something. I think Shower to Shower must have the worst marketing department in the world. Anyway, check this out: Shimmer Effects. It’s so cool! You get a really nice shimmer from it on your arms, or where ever. It doesn’t really have a scent, and it’s not sparkly, just a light shimmer. I love it. I was all freaking out when we left the store. And rightly so, I mean totally out of the blue, and check out the size difference, you really do need a travel size of this stuff. And since I can’t seem to figure out that it will ever go bad I intend to stock pile it until I’m one of those crazy ladies with their sugar packets. My grandchildren will be moving me into a home going, "What is up with all this shower to shower powder?!?!?"
This weekend Bj and I headed up to Zig Zag (on the way up to Government Camp/Mt. Hood). Can you even believe I’ve never been up there before? Maybe my parent’s took me when I was small, but I don’t remember. We always had a cabin at Black Butte, so we went that direction (east) instead. We were going to camp out at Tex and Martin’s cool cabin the Bon Fir. I told them I would "link it like it’s hot" because they rent this awesome place. They have a beautiful cabin, and a bunch of us old crew girls went to camp out in their big backyard. I wish I had all of the pictures:
Like the ones they are looking at. But they are on Reid’s camera. I was wearing a truly hideous sweater (made by my own hand no less) so maybe that’s what they were laughing at. We all were supposed to wear old sweaters, but mine was especially bulky (size of yarn super ultra SUV chunky weight), so pretty funny. We were also kept toasty by Martin’s careful fire-tending:
Hauling around pallets while still holding the Busch, impressive. We circled up and played electronic catch phrase (perfect for campfires because the words light up). During the day we laid in the sun, went down to the way to swift river to look at it (not swim and risk death), and ate. We did that around the campfire too.
I think Tex was dipping into the nutella 🙂 I made my favorite camping dish: hobo stew. All you have to do is chop up potatoes (I used Yukon gold), onions (walla walla sweet – yummy), carrots, and celery. Sprinkle with Johnny’s and add a little water. Fold together in a double wrapped foil packet. Put on coals and pile fire on top. About 45 minuets later you have dinner. Yummy, yummy dinner. It had been a while since we’d been camping, and I got all squealy in the tent. Squealy excited I mean. I love camping. And every time we get in our little two person tent it reminds me of that monster road trip after college, 10,548 miles around the USA. The only difference was this time I had to poke Bj to wake up want walk with me up to the cabin to go to the bathroom. "bbbbbbbbjjjjjjjjj I have to go to the bathroom. I can’t hold it. Wake up, I don’t want to walk there in the dark. Bj, bj, bj, bj." hehehe. He was pretty nice to take me considering it was 3:45am. If you don’t have ten people staying, you could all be indoors and not have to worry about that. Did I mention their awesome cabin is for rent?!?!?
Now I’m currently working on a spreadsheet… on strollers. I am determined to do the most research and have the best one out there that will fit a tall person and a shortie. It will look cool, it will have a bassinet, and it will have a five point harness damn it! Oh and I hope to be able to pick it up and stuff it into the car. Wish me luck.
I finished the lovely little sweater just now. Knit most of it up over the weekend. I love it!
I have all kinds of tricks up my sleeve now for attaching those sleeves (read all about it on Ravelry). I have to make the little shorts that go with it now. I just finished putting up a list on my side bar that is a registry of sorts. I really contemplated putting Socks that Rock yarn on there, as it knits up baby things fabulously (and is easy to wash) – this is in lightweight, but I love all the weights of the stuff. So ya, you can see all the research I’ve been doing over on the side. Still have to pick out some of the big stuff (uh stroller – but we need to test those out in person due to our height difference). I did do some serious diaper research a few months ago. I have always planned on cloth diapers, the first kids I ever baby-sat were cloth diapered, and I handled that at eleven no problem (with pins!), so I figured, what’s the big deal? As soon as I started looking into it more I was amazed – there are choices! Like so many cute cloth diaper choices, it’s awesome. This is what we choose:
For our newborn these insanely soft (and insanely cute – they even have a snap down area for the umbilical cord stub!) cloth diapers. Kissaluvs size 0. I should mention that Bj gets a complete kick out of the names of all these diapers. We’re going with Thirsties covers:
That was the best combo that we researched for holding in newborn poo. 🙂 As our baby grows we got a one-size diaper. If you haven’t heard of these check them out:
Small…
Large. Genius. Actually Bum Genius 3.0 (the ones on the right) are the ones we’re going with. These are basically a cover with a wick away inside and a liner you stuff in. We also chose these for baby-sitters:
Or those with a cloth-diaperphobia. It’s all one piece, goes on like a disposable. Anyway so cute. And so is this. After I went and picked one of a dozen styles out to show Bj (there is a big cloth diaper store in Corvallis, a town near here) he picked one up and loved how soft it was. He told me he hated touching disposables, and never liked picking a baby up that just had a disposable diaper on. Well no excuses not to change one now buddy!
We also picked the theme of the nursery out. I have to find the old Martha Stewart magazine clipping I have that inspired this but it’s going to be space/travel. I added the travel part because I want to include lots of maps and globes and things. Of course I won’t get to decorate it until after the baby comes as the odds of getting the upstairs done before then are close to 1%. That didn’t stop Bj and I from getting this at a cute shop this weekend:
You can probably see it has a little scratch. Good thing I have like 50 million tubes of paint, so I can fix that. I want the babies room to be bright, colorful, and full of fun things to look at. No pastels for this kid. And speaking of the kid:
I’m making good progress on that too. I can’t wait to feel it move. Soon, soon I know.
V turned two recently and had a fabulous little party. So cute with little girls running around in party clothes. 
They played with chalk and bubbles, and ran around and ate mini cupcakes. It was brilliant. Here is the little birthday girl:
My little god-daughter just melts my heart. I know the baby in my belly will too, but just to hear her sweet little voice and watch her little movements. I love it!
And she was so tired after her party that she got all sweet and snugly when she hugged me goodbye. Oh and she’s calling Bj "jubba" now. Hilarious.
Now off to set in the second sleeve of the cutest little baby top. Update later!
Color me happy. Thanks for the tips ladies. I found these at a Rite Aid up in Washington (we’re visiting Bj’s parents). They had two more flavors but these were my favorite. Here is a note about this stuff: you can smell rank, put this on and the moisture and smell is gone, it’s fantastic (unless you’re Bj and you have to do the before and after tests).
P.S. First test post with new iPhone app. Hope it works!