Category Archives: Thoughts

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 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!

Where Does the General Keep his Armies?

Posted in Baby, Knits, Thoughts, Works in Progress by

….UP HIS SLEEVIES!

For some reason, as I’ve been knitting two sets of sleeves basically nonstop for a while, that joke became way, way funnier.  That’s probably just the Monday punchy exhaustion talking, but I am making good progress on my White Pine sleeve.  I should be done with the ribbed cuff by the end of the day today, and starting the pattern/sleeve shaping.  Since I will be visiting my mother’s glorious yarn shop this weekend (YAY!) I wanted to have the sweater well on its way so I could select some buttons.  I am thinking plain shell buttons for the White Pine, and maybe some wooden or leather ones for David’s Guston.  I want them to be a little rustic, but not too hunter-gathery, or David won’t like them.

I had an amazing weekend.  On Saturday we went for a barbecue at our friends’ apartment, which overlooks U Street in DC.  It was the Pride festival this weekend, so there were a ton of people out in great costumes, and the weather was gorgeous.  Yesterday, my sister took me to the Red Door for a prenatal massage.  The way that they do it is really clever, for those of you wondering.  Basically, when you have a massive pregnant stomach like I do, they have you snuggle a body pillow on your side, and do the massage that way.  You switch sides partway through.  It was glorious.  I think it was the first time since I got pregnant that my shoulders haven’t hurt.  And, thankfully, the gift card I used still has enough for another one!

We also went to Target, where I bought a bunch of new maternity clothes.  I think since this is my first kid, I grossly underestimated how large I was going to get.  I’m 7 months along, and I am outgrowing most of the stuff that seemed impossibly large six months ago.  I bought two maxi skirts, a few t-shirts, a dress, and a maternity swim suit.  If the weather clears up, I’m planning a nice long bob in the pool after work.

Westward

Posted in Baby, DC, Moving, St. Louis, Thoughts by

Hello!

I re-started this blog because I thought it would be fun to write about our last few months living in Washington DC before our daughter is born, and our subsequent move to St. Louis, Missouri.

If anyone is coming to this blog from a non-me-linking-you source, I’m Jillian.  I am married to a wonderful human named David, and we live in Washington DC.  We met on our very first day of law school, and got married last October.  At the moment, I am seven months pregnant with our daughter, whom we are calling Morpheus.  Obviously, that is not her real name-to-be.  You’d be amazed at how many people stop asking me questions or trying to touch my stomach as soon as I mention that we’re naming our baby Morpheus.

My very favorite activity in the world, besides sleeping, is knitting.  Even if you don’t see me knitting at the moment, I guarantee you that I have yarn and pointy sticks within the immediate radius of my arms.  I just feel better that way.  I’ve been knitting for fifteen years (eek), and yet at the moment I am working on completing my very first sweaters.  What can I say?  I have been less than ambitious.  But David is a wonderful audience for knitwear.  He actually wears it, and he tries really hard to remember the talking points about why the item is special and required quite so much cursing while I was making it.  Because of that, I will happily knit size 13 mens socks for him.

Our timeline for the move at the moment looks like this: in two weeks, we are heading to St. Louis to visit, and to hopefully find an apartment to rent starting in August.  My last day at my job is August 16th, and Morpheus is due on August 21.  We plan to have the baby here in DC, and stick around for around four weeks until I’m feeling better and the baby has a chance to adjust to a world with sunlight and a distinct lack of intestinal noises.  Then we are packing up our things and heading west.  David grew up in St. Louis, and he is really looking forward to going back.  I have loved it there every time I have visited, and I’m excited to become a full time resident!

I will say that my father in law gave me a lovely digital camera when they were here last year, and I very much intend to use it to take pictures for the blog.  At the moment I don’t have any, but maybe I will have some Finished Object pictures for you soon!