Random Updates with pictures

We were up in PA this past weekend for our niece Sophie's 1st birthday party and christening! She is too cute, and because of this overabundance of cuteness, we didn't take a picture of ANYTHING ELSE other than her. Oh well. you know kids. She's at such a cute age, so fun to be around. Though I will say, Scott and I came home exhausted. Note: all comments that read "Ohhhh, just wait" will be deleted. :) So, Happy Birthday (Tomorrow), Sophie Monster!


And this is me, mid 25 weeks. Fall has arrived in NC, and it's a freaking blast! It's almost noon and still not 70 degrees here. I'm LOVING it! So this morning I got all ambitious and decided to go for a little run, but remembered, oh yeah, it's cool out! What does one wear to run in 60 degree weather? And once I zipped up the jacket, I had to take a pic bc... my oh my, it was tight. Also, as soon as I went outside I ditched it and went with short sleeves and pants. And ran 1.5 miles. Cause I'm still a rock star.

Things are going well with the pregnancy, this past weekend was the first few days where I really *felt* pregnant... like I had a belly that was observable and I've started this thing where I can't get up out of a chair or sofa without saying "uuuuuuugh." It's adorable, really. Stuff like that. It just felt more real and different this weekend. (Again, comments saying "Just you wait, missy" will be deleted. I. Know.) :)

After a really long weekend, I was kind of irresponsible and put off a lot of schoolwork, which I'm catching up on this week. School is going pretty well, and surprisingly hard with only two classes this semester. I love what I'm studying though, I was just thinking this morning about what my *favorite* class has been within my program and I'm not really sure! I'd have to pick at least 4 or 5, and I've only taken 9. So yeah, good choice, good investment, good use of time.

I love this semester also because with two classes and no job, it does give me time to keep up with life... like keep the house generally cleaner than I've ever been able to do before, and read! I'm enjoying it while it lasts :) Cause, you know... juuuust wait. I just read The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb and, though it was long, I ended up LOVING it. Absolutely love and recommend it.

One more random thing - I am getting a seasonal flu shot on Friday and have already started dreaming/nightmaring about it. I'm such a shot wussy, I'm screwed.

Hats for Sale! Get your Baby Hats!

So, as you all know, I'm getting really into the hats. I've made a few for various babies to hone my skillz and get the sizing thing down. That's the weirdest part! When kids are like... 15 or 16 months old their heads are almost normal sized! So odd, how did I not notice that before?

Anyway, I want to throw this out there that I'm willing and able (and excited) to make hats for friends and family for a small fee... I do have to buy more yarn, you know? :) I prefer to stick to folks I know or folks I "know" (for the internet friends ;) ) at this time. Email me if you're interested in getting a winter hat (or a photograph-able hat) for your child, or a Christmas gift. I'm cheaper than etsy, promise!

Here's what I'm able to do:

Newsboy for a boy:


Equal opportunity... Newsboy for a girl: (Maybe I'll call this the Title 9)


And the beanie + flower (though it could be done minus flower for boys)



I use excellent quality yarn, none of that acrylic crap. I mean, it's going to be right next to a baby's head, right?

Here's the Flickr album I've created to showcase the current projects and their models. If it sounds slightly lame in some of the descriptions, it is actually part of an assignment for my Social Media class, so don't judge! I intend to keep up with it. Feel free to comment!

Baby update

Here's two 23 week belly pics. I really think it shrinks for the pictures... like she has stage fright or something.

Here's me in my new dress, for Kyle & Laurie's wedding and Sophie's baptism. Oh, and maybe my shower. I feel obligated to wear it as often as possible... bc it's too cute.
And this is today... (Please ignore the laundry... I still haven't figure out how to get it to put *itself* away. Seriously, any one have any tips on that?)


So, we got our nursery furniture delivered yesterday - wow! We're just leaving it in the boxes though, until we can get the room painted, but that kind of makes it all feel a little more urgent. Even though we do still have a bunch of time... it's exciting. I keep seeing little babies out and moms are probably like "why is that slightly fat woman staring at me and smiling wistfully?"

Today we were watching the Eagles dominate the Panthers and Monkey was kicking up a storm... I think she's an Eagles fan. Scott said that better not mean she is going to be a cheerleader. (oh SNAP! there go all my cheerleader readers.) I think she is also very excited about usability, as she also tends to jump up and down in my Usability Studies class. So, a geeky football lover? Does that sound like anyone we know? (No paternity tests necessary.)

Babies in Hats

My niece Sophie in the earflappy hat! She looks so cute in it!

My friend Heather's son Luke modeling the blue newsboy :)
I love how it makes him look like a little boy... so adorable!

This one might be for keeps... it's a newsboy + BIG flower.
I am starting to like big flowers on hats.

What's that you say?

... the nursery fan HAS a dimmer???

OMG, I wish I was joking. Yesterday, when I was going to turn off the fan, I inadvertently held the button in too long. My jaw drops as the light, instead of going off, grows dimmer. Whhhhaaaa?

If you haven't visited our house, or have forgotten this teeny part of the one teeny room, here's what the super space-age light switch looks like:


We usually point it out when giving home tours... and I swear, each time we find a new function. The seemingly silly part is the up/down thinger you see is for the fan speed. And all the buttons along the left side are for the fan speed. Only by holding the big button in do you get the dimming function. It's the weirdest thing ever, and we've been living here for almost 5 months and just yesterday discovered this.

This is the mixed blessing of a new home that's actually quite old: we have a dimmer, woohoo. But it's a lame switch so is it even useful? If we accidentally turn the light on FULL BLAST and wake the baby, does that defeat the purpose? These are weighty questions... and I'm not allowed to have enough coffee to really think about them so early.

So What, I'm Still a Rock Star/I wanna start a fight

Sometimes I feel like this is my theme song. When I'm running, though I'm sure Scott would refer you to the "Na-na-na-na I wanna start a fight" part. Since he told me "I know you're all pregnant or *whatever*". I'll get to that part :)

First off, this song by Pink always jazzes me up so much when I'm running. Especially now that I'm knocked up and running all slow and feeling like each run could be my last. It's empowering, bc it says "I'm still a rock star." That's just the sort of thing I want to hear when I'm running, motivational and simultaneously a tad cocky. And while I know it's not like a SUPER mega rock star, running 2 miles at 22 weeks is way more than I ever thought I could or would want to do. And whatever, if I want to be a little cocky about that, I will. Cause I'm a rock star. And I don't neeeed you...

So, oh yeah, the "I wanna start a fight" part. It's not a serious marital spat or anything, just a point of disagreement we had yesterday concerning the nursery fan. You might recall, there is a fan in EVERY ROOM of our house. Which is great, energy saving wise. I'm okay with the FAN part. I'm not saying blindly rip down all the fans (a la Trading Spaces, circa 2000). But, they annoy me because they have lights on them. And look like this:
I crouched down to where I estimate the crib mattress will be, so I'm doing an impression of a baby. And I'd just hate for our child's first words to be "Ooooh, my EYES! Turn off the damn light." Cause we have the same light over our own bed and those are my last word every night :). And I was trying to get my point across yesterday when I was told I was "all pregnant or *whatever*" and might have said it'd make the child blind. I mean, I'm no opthomologist, but that is some bright light action that can't be good for the newborn retina. Or cornea... whatever.

In all seriousness, my point is it's TOO BRIGHT and the way the light shines down is just not nice. At all. I originally wanted to just take off the light part and put a cap overtop, keeping the fan. Now I kind of want a new fan, one that has a light that looks like this:


(and for those of you who might live in PA where all the ceilings are gloriously smooth, this is what popcorn ceilings look like. You can contrast it to the smooth beauty underneath the scary ceiling fan.)

So, that's my point. And I'm not saying it's a NECESSITY, but a dimmer would also help a lot.

If anyone is so brave as to weigh in, I'd love some internet opinions. "We're all gonna get in a FIGHT!!!"

A Freewheelin' Time

Appropriate words of wisdom from Jack Donaghy: Never follow a hippy to a second location.

So, this month's book club book was A Freewheelin' Time: A memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties by Suze Rotolo. I'll be honest, I was annoyed more often than not w/ the narrorator. She just seemed to have this air about her where she clearly thought she was awesome bc she used to date Bob Dylan. Which is cool, and I wouldn't necessarily write off someone w/ that description, she was just annoying. And also, he cheated on you, a lot. So don't get all high and mighty.

So, a synopsis. She was Bob's girlfriend then just good friend for much of the 60's, prior to his becoming famous and then when he got big. The book shares how he made it big and also some of the other stuff that was going on at the time. Also, did you know she invented bellbottoms? (rolls eyes) The most annoying thing was the name-dropping. I'm no 60's pop-culture scholar, ok? I pretty much know the names of the Beatles and Bob Dylan and .... mmmm, Elvis? So yeah, when you spend 5 pages talking about all the super awesome people you met at Gerde's night club, it means nothing to me and I'm not impressed. And I skip those pages.

But I didn't HATE the book. And at times I think she got caught up in telling the story of something big and THEN I really liked it. Like how she and some other badass college students thought the travel ban to Cuba was unconstitutional (our generation would call it "lame") so they decided to travel there anyway. That was pretty awesome. I've always thought the protesting and rebellion of the 60's was kind of interesting, and it was cool to hear it from one of the people who took part. Also, her parents were Communists, and that was an interesting perspective to hear on the whole McCarthyism stuff. It's perspectives like these that you don't get in your HS history class (if they even get to the lesson on the 60's before the end of the year... I know I never got a good education on some of this stuff!)

Belly Pic and some Baby Hats

Ok, so here's me in my 21 1/2 week preggo-ness. In a bathing suit, nonetheless. (This will come up in some interesting searches, I'm sure...) If you'll notice, the bedroom has some nice, SMOOTH ceilings. Not sure why, but many homes in NC - both the town home that was built in 2000 and our current home, built in '67 - have popcorn ceilings. Which I detest. So we've begun the process of getting them scraped and painted for us, a few rooms at a time. Yesterday we did the master bedroom and the nursery.



And, the baby hat crocheting continues... I'm having so much fun and finding them surprisingly easy to make - even w/ the flowers. The only question mark left is "will they fit a newborn?" In looking at some online sizing charts, it seems they will. I might have to take them with me in case some stranger would let me try them on their baby. "Scuse me, can I borrow your baby's head for a sec?"