if you're not knitting. . .stash!

I know I've been blog-AWOL for awhile. "I'm growing a person" is my excuse for just about everything I don't get around to these days.

I actually have been knitting: swatching for the pumpkin hat I'm making for one of my friend's kids, linen washcloth (that was almost done and will have to be frogged, it turned out so ugly). But I did visit about 5 LYS's on our recent Oregon trip, and managed to get a few things (see stash in sidebar). The Prime Alpaca is for a muffler for my brother for Christmas, though he'll probably get it in February, since he just moved to China and won't be back for the holidays.

We got some news a week or so ago. Does this picture tell you what the news was?




Yeah, the doctor said, "If that's not a boy, I'll eat my hat. . ." It's early yet, but we've been having all these ultrasounds. I suppose there could be a surprise (it was a 3rd leg after all?), but doc seemed pretty certain. While I'm dying to blog his name (it's a really, really, really great name), we'll just refer to him here as Baby B. Or Sprout.

I'm starting to waddle already. Why should be evident from this picture, where I look as if I'm carrying not only my original heftiness plus a baby plus about half of Texas as well. The irony is, I've actually lost 3 pounds since I got pregnant (baby is growing fine, thank you!), but you wouldn't know it from this. I hope it's the oversized sweatshirt, which I bought in the Tillamook cheese factory, because I mistakenly packed for the height of summer instead of September on the Oregon coast. It is the sweatshirt, right???


And here's my sweetheart, the darling man who knocked me up:

2nd tri rocks

Thank the holy lord god for 2nd trimester relief from queasies and exhausteds and everything-smells-bad. And for the perinatologist and his lovely nurse, who said her job is to be a cheerleader and partner. And for my regular OB, who championed my referral out of HMO to specialist for the chronic medical condition. Pregnancy is turning out to be much more fun now that I don't have to face dead baby panic every doctor's appointment, or other dreadful and humiliating things resulting from medical incompetence and doctors who forgot to put on their human suit before coming in to work. I am beginning to feel like myself again, only with this new reality incorporated.

Here's my latest (humble) WIP: a half-done linen washcloth (no, not a warshrag):


I am once again addicted to all things yarn. This morning, the chill in the air promised fall. Soup, knitting, Halloween--some of my most favorite things in the world. I told my friend that I would need to measure her toddler's head this weekend so I can begin on the pumpkin hat in plenty of time for trips to the pumpkin farm.

This time of year, I miss Utah so much. B and I are leaving Tuesday for a brief trip to the Oregon coast, but I've been daydreaming about changing our plans and just heading out for the State of Deseret instead. My oldest friend could help me shop for maternity clothes (I actually split a seam in a pair of pants today), I could dawdle at the Needlepoint Joint (yarn nirvana), and we could go to the Christmas Shoppe at Gardner Village (they have a mean Halloween section, too--bizarre and ironic how the mormons love this little pagan holiday so). But we have promised ourselves that this--possibly the last baby-free vacation for a long while--will not be spent staying with friends, shuttling family around, or doing anything other than just what we want to do.

I haven't praised my lovely husband lately, but he's just amazing. At my doctor's appointment, I was reading a mother magazine, and they said the husband who did the dishes, cooked the dinner, and cleaned up while running a load of laundry was a myth. I can tell you it is not. How did I luck into this wonderful man? And, to top it all off, he's wicked funny and profoundly smart. I was telling him tonight we were having a quandary about the meaning of the word "plenary" at work today (don't ask). Did he know what it meant? I wondered. He couldn't explain it to me, he said, but he did indeed know. And then he proceeded to use the word plenary in every sentence (sometimes accurately, sometimes cleverly, sometimes just punnily) for the next hour.

Oh, I realize I forgot to show the birthday ceramics painting project I did with Friend A. Here it is (the bowl--the square plate I made in February 2005). I know it's a noodle bowl, but they didn't have another shape I liked, and I thought the cut-outs would work for serving spoons just as well as chopsticks.