Author Archives: Jillian

Nothing But Blue Skies

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Wow, everyone. It’s been a busy seven months. Apparently so busy that it never occurred to me to blog!

My last posts were in November, so I will start my update there. We brought Marjorie to my parents’ house for a wonderful family Thanksgiving. She got to meet all of her great aunts, uncles, and second cousins, who all adored her and fawned over her. It was a wonderful reminder of why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday every year.

Unfortunately, right after Thanksgiving, Nugget developed a bowel obstruction and had to have a third surgery. It was really frightening, and everything was uncertain for a while.  She had to be in the hospital for nine weeks, bringing her total up to sixteen weeks total hospitalization in her first year.  Honestly, it was awful.

While Nugget was in the hospital, I interviewed for and got a great job in St. Louis.  Leaving her in the hospital with David while I came here to start work was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.  They finally were able to join me on Valentines Day, which seems appropriate!  The three of us stayed with my wonderful inlaws for a few weeks, and then at the end of March, 2 days after my birthday, we closed on our own gorgeous home.  Casa del Nugget is everything we wanted – including quite a few projects for us to do!  I’d love to be able to tell you that we’re all unpacked and doing lots of fun DIY, but nope.  We still have plenty of boxes to unpack, mess to clean up, and projects to finish.

Things are so much better than they were in November.  Marjorie is older, sleeping through the night, and is a happy and healthy little girl who loves to play with her mama and dadda.  She’s always chatting with us, and always on the go.  Even though she isn’t quite 11 months yet, she’s very close to walking on her own.  I know she certainly didn’t get that athleticism from me!

I will say that with moving, the baby, the new job, etc., my knitting has suffered.  I am finally finding time for it, so I look forward to posting some new updates on that front soon.

Rediscovering

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I’ve been thinking a lot about blogging. I know it’s silly to just interject that I want to blog more, after seven months of the blog being idle, but I do! I want to blog more consistently.

Expect to see a longer update in the next day or so.

But I Wanna!

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I desperately want to start new projects. This is my biggest weakness as a person, I think. I love to start things, and I very rarely finish. I start something, and then something happens to distract me, and I never make it back to what I was working on. I have a giant basket of unfinished knitting projects, a million partially finished to do lists, and a lot of things I would love to get around to doing around the house but I never seem to find the time. I’m great at planning, and awful at follow-through.

This is one of the many reasons my husband is good for me. David has discipline. He finishes what he starts. He doesn’t even procrastinate. It’s incredible to watch him work – when he sets a goal, he works diligently until it’s accomplished.

And David wants this sweater. He wants it within the next three weeks, before we go see my family for Thanksgiving. So I have no choice but to buckle down and get it done. Right now, I have 2 sleeves and about two inches of the body done. It’s mindless stockinette at the moment, which is totally my speed.

A Terrible Photo of Sleeves

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I finally FINALLY finished the second sleeve of David’s Guston. FINALLY. Even with my inlaws in town to give the baby all of the attention her little heart could desire, it’s been hard to get any knitting done. I have mostly been using my newfound free time to sleep.

Anyway, while the sleeves are drying, I’m working on Margie’s Baptism Bridgewater. I’m worried that the sleeves are going to be too big, so I didn’t want to cast on the body in case my gauge is absurdly off. Lace weight garter stitch is a perfect speed for me today.

There are Still WIPs

Posted in DC, Knits, NaBloPoMo, Thoughts, Works in Progress by

Of course, it wouldn’t be me if I weren’t working on something.  Or, more accurately, a lot of somethings.  I do have one big thing that I want to get done in November, which is David’s Guston sweater.  The poor man has been waiting for this for an entire year.  I have one sleeve entirely done and one sleeve mostly done.  I plan to finish the sleeve tomorrow, and cast on the body.  My in-laws are in town, so someone is around to hold the baby while I do these things.  It’s amazing.

I do have a few other projects that I would like to get done, but I’m giving myself permission to, you know, not.  At least on most of them.  Here’s the running list, with their current statuses.

My endless White Pine: Done with the body.  Needs sleeves, a yoke, and a button band.

Margie’s Monster Mobile: Oh lord, this is so cute, but it involves so much i-cord.

A Christmas Citron Grand: Only a select few are getting Christmas gifts this year knitted by me, and this is one of them.  The rows get so long on these things, but it really just needs a big final push to finish up.

Margie’s Baptism Bridgewater: See above note on incredibly long rows.  I love this pattern.  You knit a giant square in garter stitch on the bias, and then add a gorgeous lace edging.  I’m still on the square.  It’s a pretty major undertaking, and a lot of garter.  Hopefully it will end soon.

Those are definitely the big ones.  I also need to block my gorgeous Rock Island so that I can wear it.  And, naturally, I have a few things I want to start.  But I have decided that part of No-Vember for me is going to be a mini-project diet where I actually finish a thing or two before I start something new.  I know.  It hardly even sounds like me.

The baby is finally asleep, and the fraternity formal happening at the bar across the street has FINALLY been broken up by the cops.  The angry dudebros are going home, and I am going to bed.

No-vember

Posted in NaBloPoMo, Thoughts by

I am trying something new this year for November. In years past, I go crazy in November trying to knit a million Christmas gifts and doing National Novel Writing Month. I always travel. I’m always stressed out trying to catch up on all of the things I think I should be getting done.

This year, I’m saying no.

A big part of that is obviously having Marjorie home. Taking care of her is a 24/7 gig, and so obviously I physically can’t do all of these things. But another big part is realizing that I was not getting all of the things done anyway, and it was making me feel bad.

So, this November, I am planning to participate in National Blog Post Month. A post every day, no matter how brief. But that’s it. No other crazy goals.

Our Nugget

Our Nugget

After seven long weeks in the Georgetown NICU, our little girl is finally home with us! We could not be happier. She is gorgeous, and super smart, and we are entirely in love with her.

She was born on August 29 at 10:19 p.m. and she weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces.  About 12 hours after birth, she started spitting up green stuff.  It turned out that she had a hole in her intestine.  She had to be transferred from the hospital where I gave birth to Georgetown University Hospital, where she underwent surgery.  They weren’t able to entirely fix her the first time around, and so she had to stay in the hospital until she had her second surgery on October 4.  Then, finally, last week, she was able to come home with us.

It has been a pretty difficult two months.  Having a baby in the NICU is a miserable experience, even though the doctors and nurses try so hard to make it as easy as possible.  They really are wonderful (and some of them are knitters!) and we are eternally grateful not only that they saved our baby, but that they took such amazing care of her and us for seven weeks when we had to be apart a lot of the time.

I feel like I’m cheating a little bit, since this is supposed to be a knitting blog.  Well, as you can see, there is a FINISHED OBJECT in the photo!  I made Marjorie a Baby Surprise Jacket  out of Koigu.  I’m in love with the little bird buttons.  Fortunately, I made it a little large, so it should fit her for another fifteen minutes or so.  She is growing so fast!

Our Little Girl

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Our little girl, Marjorie Joan, was born on August 29.  I will post the full story soon, but for now, here is a photo.  She is having a tough week, but we are hoping that she will soon be fully healthy and home with us.

 

Marjorie Day 3

The Quiet

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It’s going to be quiet for the next week or so here, but I’m going to try and post later today.  I’m in St. Louis looking for an apartment.  BUT I have a FO coming off the needles today so there will be a FO Friday later!

The Hunt is On

Posted in Moving, St. Louis by

We are officially looking for a new apartment in the lovely city of St. Louis, Missouri.

I love, love, love looking at apartment listings, but I am petrified about actually going and looking at real life apartments.  I haven’t done it in five years, for one thing.  I’m really nervous that my expectations are unrealistic.  I am adamant that with a baby on the way, laundry needs to be free in the building.  That could be a washer/dryer in the unit, or one for tenants to use someplace else in the building, but we already spend so much on laundry where we are now.  It’s something like $3 a load.  With baby mess brought into the equation, that’s way too much.  Strangely, I’m open to buying a washer/dryer, just not paying per load to use one!

The one thing we aren’t really sure about is if we want a full two bedroom, or whether we’d be fine with a 1 bedroom with a den or something that could be converted into a baby’s room.  Morpheus is probably going to be sleeping in our room a lot of the time, if the articles are telling me the truth.  I would love to have a second bedroom for guests to stay in, but obviously we want to stay in budget.  So we are open to different configurations.

Any advice on things to ask/check on when we actually go to appointments and see places?  It’s been a long time for me.