Project Mania

Projects have recently taken over my life.  I think I am trying to do absolutely everything I have ever wanted to do before I have to start teaching again.  So, making things has been the name of the game during Nathan's nap-times.  The list is something like: one skirt, one baby toy, three wreaths, one loaf of Victorian Milk Bread, 10 half-pints of strawberry freezer jam, two dozen peanut butter sandwich cookies with marshmallow cream, and five pounds of potato salad.  I planted some lettuce, a tomato, and a squash plant.  Signed up for VBS (the missions rotation for the elementary kids).  Currently about to go out of town for Mother's Day.  Joined a church.  Yeah, so busy.

Sometimes, when I get craft projects in mind, I can't think about anything else.  I'm not interested in eating, bathing, or generally living, until I get it finished.  Add to that the stress and general discombobulation I feel when my house is out of order, which it inevitably is when I have a project going, particularly a sewing project, and I have a deep desire to fly through the process, just so I can then clean everything up!

Nathan has been busy too.  He has cut two teeth, learned to roll from his back to his stomach, and started sleeping through the nights most nights.  He is funny about rolling over--he can get onto his stomach, but can't roll back onto his back, and doesn't particularly like being on his stomach, so he rolls over and then fusses until we rescue him.  A turtle on its shell, but in reverse!  I love this boy!

The peanut butter cookies are very good (and happen to be gluten- and dairy-free).  I am taking them (along with an obscene amount of potato salad) to a cookout with my family on Mother's Day, and allowed Jordan and myself to sample only one each.  I am hoping the rest survive the trip!  We are planning to stay a few days, spend time with the family, and do some hiking (and Jordan plans for some climbing/bouldering, too).  Should be a nice adventure.

Easter Things

Easter was lovely.  I spent the Thursday before baking Hot Cross Buns, but they didn't turn out quite like I expected--more dense, like a bagel.  I will tweak the recipe a bit for next year.  While I baked I had the film Chocolat on in the background, which was seasonally appropriate.  I also dyed eggs that day, using a plain Paas kit that was on sale at CVS.  I always like to see the "imperfections" in the dying--the whirls and splotches, that I think are more beautiful than most things you would purposely do.  Nathan's little Easter basket didn't have any candy in it this year, but he did get some new pacifiers and plastic link toys, which he has been enjoying very much.  

My skirt came out nicely.  It has box pleats and pockets and a lining, and I will be making more.  We spent Easter weekend back home with our families, passing Nathan from one grandparent to the next.  Sunday morning was church, and then dinner at my grandmother's.

The week has been nice, but not very productive. Jordan and I have been catching up on past seasons of Mad Men, which we had not seen in a very long time.  That show is depressing and funny and provocative.  

We had doctor's appointments on Wednesday, where we found out that Nathan is indeed a big boy, in the 98th percentile for height.  Afterwards, I stopped in at JoAnne's Fabrics where Nathan very sweetly napped and let me wander around for a very long time.  I ended up getting a fat quarter of fabric, some jingle bells, and jump rings to make a mobile for him.  I also bought pinking shears, a purchase I had to agonize over a bit, since they were shockingly expensive, but, like my mom said, I'll have them for the rest of my life.

Today, I attempted to jump back on the productivity wagon.  I stopped at a local store to get some fresh strawberries.  Oh my goodness.  Nothing like the kind from California that you get in the grocery store.  These will mostly become freezer jam, and the rest will probably be eaten out right.  I also got in some work time, editing the course I am teaching online this summer.

All in all, a good week, but I can't believe how fast the days are going.

Staying Home and Making Bread

When I was in graduate school, I told someone once that if the whole academic career thing didn't work out, I would like to just stay home and make bread.  And while I am not saying the academic career hasn't worked out--it has just taken a different route--I am currently staying home and making bread (Strawberry Banana Bread, to be specific).  And I am sewing.  And planting a garden.  And watching a sweet baby grow each day.  My house is filled with trays of seedlings, fabric scraps, and stacks of burp cloths.  While this new life has its challenges, I am reveling in the activities that I love, but haven't previously been able to tackle as passionately as I would like.  

And, lucky, blessed girl that I am, I still get to pursue that academic life as well.  I know that the role of adjunct is absolutely fraught in the academic community, but I am thankful for the flexibility that it provides.  I I am lucky to have a husband with whom I have planned our budget and expenses to allow me to work like this.  I am lucky to have a department chair willing to work my schedule around Jordan's.  I'll be teaching online this summer, and then going back for a main campus class in August.

In the meantime, I am happy to have grading disappear from my to-do list.  I have a new planner/notebook that I am loving and have spent way too much time making customized planner pages and meal-planning/grocery shopping lists.

Friends coming for dinner tonight.  Homemade pizza and apple crisp on the menu.

Waiting for Spring

The weather lately is enough to drive anyone crazy.  Saturday was gorgeous--low 70s and sunny.  We worked in the yard (more on that in a bit) and generally enjoyed ourselves.  Yesterday, it was snowing (again)!  It didn't lay, but the rain, sleet, snow mess was rather depressing and made the doctor's appointment/ grocery store run fairly miserable--I don't like being wet and cold and I certainly don't like for the little fellow to be wet and cold!

He has been getting so big!  He is holding his head up more and more and reaching during tummy time.  We have begun to let him sleep unswaddled, and when I go in to him in the morning, he smiles (his smile is just like Jordan's--minus the teeth!) and puts his hand on my arm, and I am left a melted puddle in the floor.  When he yawns sometimes he lets it out as a little yodeling coo.  And he sings.  I kid you not.

So, the work in the yard.  We are re-doing the flower bed in the front yard.  It is an oblong island with a lamp post on one end and a bird house on the other.  When we moved in, it contained a crepe myrtle (which we moved a while back), zebra grass, lavender, Mexican heather, blackeyed susans, daisies, Chinese fringe flower, a yellow bell, an azalea, a butterfly bush, a rose, and a camellia.  And it was a mess.  So, we spent Saturday removing most everything--sickly shrubs and weeds were rooted up.  We still have a bit more extracting to do, but in the end, there will only be the Mexican heather (which is thriving--I think it like the sandy soil), the butterfly bush, and the camellia.  Then, we will replant with lavender, peonies, blackeyed susans, cone flower, and irises.  Pretty, pretty.

I am particularly keen to have this bed looking nice because it is what people see when they drive up, but, more importantly, it is what we see when we look out.  I chose flowers in the hopes that our little population of birds will appreciate them.  We have a whole community of cardinals and blue jays (who like hanging out in the Bradford pears), house sparrows (who have taken over the bird house), and house finches (who foolishly try to build nests on our porch each spring--really, we don't mind it, but they knock the nests down themselves when they fly off).  The sparrows are feisty little things--I have seen them defend the bird house against intrusive starlings and squirrels twice their size.  By the way, I found a neat website that helps with bird identification here: What Bird.

Easter is coming, and I am preparing my Easter dress.  Which won't actually be a dress because they are too difficult to nurse in.  I decided to wear a skirt this year, but couldn't find anything I liked when I went shopping--an excellent excuse to break out the sewing machine, and a skirt is so easy.  I am not even really using a pattern--I found so many good tutorials on Pinterest, and some lovely fabric on sale at Joanne's (I couldn't choose one, so it looks like I am making at least three skirts!).

The wrap pictured above is Avocado Egg Salad.  I know that this will disgust most people--Jordan couldn't believe I ate it, but I thought it was delicious.  I found the recipe from Never Homemaker on Pinterest as well.  It is tasty.  And seems right for spring.

Part-Time Nomads

Last week was spring break at the university, so we planned an epic trip--probably not that epic by most standards, but since this was the first vacation with a baby, it seemed pretty epic to us!  We spent the first part of the week in our hometown--we go home at least about once a month, and divide our time between Jordan's parents and mine.  We got to see all of our grandmothers as well as assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins.  

On Thursday, we headed to Hanging Rock State Park.  Jordan and I had visited a couple of times previously, but this time we were going to stay overnight.  The park has several cabins.  In the summer, they are rented by the week only, but during the off-season, you can rent by the night, with a two-night stay minimum.  We had never seen the cabins so we weren't sure what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised.  They are cute, spartan little affairs, all golden pine boards and high ceilings.  No TV.  No cell-phone reception.  Heaven.  We had expected some bad weather in the form of rain and a bit of freezing rain on Thursday night--we checked the weather report just before we left.  However, just after we carried all our stuff into the cabin, flakes began to fall. And fall, and fall.  It was still snowing when we woke up the next morning and continued for most of the day.  Absolutely beautiful.  We watched DVDs on the laptop, played Rook (where Jordan beat me soundly) and Scrabble (where I returned the favor), and read.  Jordan read Mockingjay out loud while I fed Nathan, and then I snuck in some time with my current book, Edward Rutherford's Sarum, which, judging from its size, I will still be reading when Nathan starts kindergarten (it's too big for me to read while nursing!).  

In the afternoon on Friday, the snow stopped, and the skies began to clear.  We bundled Nathan up as soon as he woke from his nap, and went to hike to Tory's Den--apparently the site of a skirmish during the Revolutionary War.  Since we hadn't been expecting snow during the trip, we had only brought sneakers--not boots.  I solved the problem by wrapping my feet in grocery bags and tying them around my ankles before putting on my shoes--not cute, but effective: no wet feet!  We finished our hike and then drove out to see Moore's Wall and then the park lake as the light was dimming and the shadows lengthening.  

The next morning, we got in another hike at the Lower Cascades, before heading north.  My niece was celebrating her first birthday, and we went to her party where everything was pink, polka-dotted, and sweet.  Nathan did wonderfully considering we traveled a few hundred miles total, slept in three different locations, and saw dozens of people in the course of a week.  He has the makings of a champion hiker, and he already has one state park and two waterfalls under his belt.  We are looking forward to new adventures!  

"They Grow Up So Fast" and Other Truths

A little over two months ago, I had a baby.  One thing I have discovered about being a parent is that all the platitudes and cliches are true.  Everyone always says, "they grow up so fast, enjoy them while they are young."  They say, "The days are long but the years are short."  They say, "It's the best thing you'll ever do; your life will never be the same."  When I heard those things as a non-parent, and even while pregnant, I would think, "Well, of course."  I could appreciate the idea that children grow up fast--my niece and nephew seem feet taller every time I see them.  So, really, I always understood that these things were true--obvious even--and couldn't understand why everyone felt the need to repeat them endlessly.  Now I get it.  Not only are they true, but they are now central facts about my life.  I have a son.  He is growing.  Too fast.

This leads me to the other thing I have discovered about parenting--for every emotion, there is an equal and opposite emotion.  I feel my entire experience has become a paradox.  On the one hand, I am delighted that Nathan is growing so well--and by well, I mean almost off the charts.  After each doctor's visit, I call my mom and crow about how much weight he has gained.  I spend his awake time each day helping him learn to hold his head up, smile, reach for things, and we proudly show off his progress to Daddy when he gets home.  On the other hand, this is all entirely devastating--how can he change so fast?  And why can't I drink in each feature of his little person quickly enough, before it's gone and transformed into something else that will be equally wonderful, but not the same?  I wasn't prepared for the confusion of emotion that comes with parenting, and I wasn't prepared for the intensity either.  His sweet, slow smiles bring tears to my eyes, and (again, the paradoxes), his cry, moments after I put him down thinking he was asleep, pierces me like a red hot poker of despair.

Our days are pretty quiet, red hot pokers not withstanding.  Feeding, changing, dressing, playing, reading, singing, and napping (if I'm lucky).  He loves music, so I sing to him constantly--"This is the Day" for when he wakes up, "Alleluia" when he is going to sleep, and "Arky, Arky" and "This Little Light of Mine" in between.  My favorite is "Give Me Oil in My Lamp"--he likes it, I think, because it is quick and has some high notes; I like it because it is a true prayer for me--I need all the oil in my lamp I can get!  For books, we are liking Dr. Seuss and The Poky Little Puppy and Little Blue Truck.

I have been doing some reading myself, since it's something I can manage to do while he is feeding--at first, it took him upwards of 40 minutes to eat and he ate every two hours, so I had to have something to do!  He's become much more efficient now, taking only about 20 minutes, but I still sneak in some reading.  Over the past year, I have been working through my bookshelf, committed to reading all the books I own but have never read before.  In the process, I have made some wonderful discoveries and can't understand how I never got around to some of these books before.  Ironically, three of the books I have read have had to do with the coming of age of boys: Lloyd Alexander's Taran, Wanderer, Forrest Carter's The Education of Little Tree, and the one I finished today, T.H. White's The Once and Future King.  All of them sad, in a way (I read Little Tree just after Nathan was born and wept hot tears onto the top of his head at the end), but all good.

Knitting, cooking, and cleaning (and laundering cloth diapers!) round out the rest of my activities.  The knitting project is a sweater I started at the end of my pregnancy, and is by far the most advanced thing I have ever tried, but it is coming along pretty nicely, with beautiful grey tweed yarn I salvaged from another sweater.  I have been making lots of dishes using rotisserie chicken.  I hate cooking chicken, so having that part already taken care of is wonderful, and it is so easy to shred the chicken and use it in chicken salad or casseroles or soup, like the one pictured above, a new favorite: Moroccan Chicken Stew with couscous and zucchini and sweet potatoes.  We have been eating it with pita bread torn into triangles, slathered with olive oil and salt and toasted--oh my goodness, so crisp and chewy at the same time.

The days are long (and wonderful and exhausting)--but, they are good days.

Some things about pregnancy....

1.  Weird symptoms nobody mentioned before: nosebleeds (hydrogen peroxide is great for getting a blood stain off of a shirt; not so great for getting it off of a book); freckles and splotches; cracks in the corners of my mouth; insatiable hunger.  I have an area on my stomach just above and to the right of my navel that is completely numb, like I got a shot of Novocain.  Apparently, that too is normal.

2.  What it feels like when the baby moves: this was something I was afraid I would miss out on, as I was told at a 17week ultrasound that my anterior placenta would probably hide his movements.  Not the case.  This kid moves constantly, and I feel it all.  I first began to notice the movements for sure around 20 weeks.  They felt like small muscle spasms in my upper abdomen; as a runner, I am used to feeling these little twitches, so it took me a bit to catch on.  Over the next weeks, I could feel the baby getting stronger.  He gives little kicks; sometimes it feels like he is rolling over or flopping about; sometimes thrashing rather wildly.  My favorites are when I can put my hand on my stomach and feel a little hand (foot?  knee?  elbow?) rubbing back against me, in a kind of exploratory way.  He gets the hiccups.  I first noticed these at 29 weeks.  Tiny, regular little blips.  They never last for very long, but he gets them sometimes two or three times a day.

3.  Clothes.  This is so hard...well, relatively, I know there are much worse things in life than trying to dress yourself and a 30 lb protrusion in the middle of your torso.  At the moment, even maternity tops are not fitting--nothing is quite long enough, so I am constantly pulling on the bottom of my shirt, hoping that I am not exposing baby belly while trying to teach Modern British literature.  The horror, the horror.

Maternity jeans, I found, are a joke.  At least for me.  Most are made so that they are real jeans, but instead of having a waist band with a button, they have a stretchy piece with elastic that rises anywhere from 2 to 6 inches.  My problem is that I can't stand pulling this fabric up over my stomach--I feel squished and uncomfortable--so I bunch it up around my hips, just under the bump.  However, this leads to the issue of my jeans then sliding uncomfortably down my hips.  Denim is heavy; gravity works.  My solution (you'll never believe this): Pajama Jeans.  Remember the commercials when they first came out?  They were incredibly cheesy, and I remember thinking the whole thing was a joke.  I am not joking now.  These things are seriously great.  They are lightweight and stretchy, so they put up a better fight against gravity.  They have an invisible drawstring waist.  They have pockets.  They are dark with gold stitching down the side, so they actually pass for real jeans--at least no one has yet seemed to notice.  And, they are comfortable.

Why am I not wearing dresses?  Well, I am, but more rarely.  These were great over the summer and early fall.  I had several in stretchy jersey that fit beautifully.  But, since it has gotten colder, I am faced with the dilemma of determining what goes over my legs.  Tights are no longer an option.  I got them on a few times, but the last time I tried, I got them all the way up one leg and half-way up the other before I fell over on the bed like an overturned turtle.  Jordan had to help pull them back off.  Leggings are better--for some reason, getting them on is not as much of a hassle.  But, I have never quite figured out what to do about my feet.  It looks weird to wear socks with leggings, but going sockless makes for some chilly toes.

Only three more days of dressing for work--then I am unashamedly embracing the Pajama Jeans, sweatpants, and Tshirts.

Nevertheless, this whole thing has been a wild but pretty fantastic ride.

Baby Bliss: Things I Have Learned in the First (Almost) Half of Pregnancy

Our baby is due in mid-December, so I am just a couple weeks shy of half-way there.  Here are some things I have discovered over the last few months.

1)  Tired.  So tired.
I had been warned that the first trimester would make me exhausted, but I wasn't quite prepared.  I felt like I had been drugged.  I could lay down in the floor and go to sleep at almost any time.  I napped sometimes three times a day.  As I described it to Jordan, I was too tired to stand up, too tired to sit up, and laying down was pretty exhausting.  If there was something less physically demanding than laying down, I would have done that.

I am incredibly fortunate that most of the first trimester was after spring semester ended.  I have been teaching an online class this summer, so I have been able to grade, write, email, and then nap.  One of the funniest tired moments was at about 9 weeks.  Jordan and I were vising our parents for a week, and we decided to hike in Linville Gorge.  All was well until the return trip, which involved hiking up out of the gorge.  I had to stop and rest about every 100 yards.  At one point, I sat down on a rock in the middle of the trail, put my head on my knees, and dozed off.  We finally made it out, and Jordan was very relieved that he didn't end up having to physically carry me out of the wilderness.

2)  There's a fine line.  And I have no idea where the line is.
Believe it or not, exercise actually gives you energy.  Unless you do it too much, and then you are comatose for the next 12 hours.  I tried running through the first trimester, and I actually did pretty good until the last couple of weeks.  By that time, my 30 minute trot meant  my nap time would quadruple the next day.  So I switched to just plain walking.  Last week (week 15/16), I started ramping things back up a bit.  I go to the gym three times a week and do ten minutes on the bike, ten on the treadmill (mostly running, with a bit of walking), and ten minutes on the elliptical machine.  On the easiest settings.  This seems to be working, as I don't get too exhausted, but I still feel like I am getting a workout.  I am hoping to get more running in before I get too big in the third trimester.

On the same principle of the fine line, stretching is good for you.  Everything I have read extols the wonders of yoga for pregnancy, and since I have been doing yoga for several years now, I have kept it up with a bit of light practice at home and a class once a week.  The funny thing about pregnancy is all these hormones are circulating in your body.  One of them, called Relaxin, relaxes ligaments, which is good news for when you are giving birth.  The bad news, for me anyway, is that it means I have pulled more muscles from over stretching in the last few months than I have in years.  Even doing very basic yoga moves that I have done thousands of times before can cripple me for the next few days.  Like I said, it's a fine line.

3)  I am incredibly happy.
Before I got pregnant, I was worried.  I was worried about how worried I would be once I was pregnant.  (Does that even make sense?)  I was anticipating being overwhelmed with anxiety (the sweaty-palmed, heart-racing, cold-creeping-down-your-neck kind of anxiety) once I knew that birth and parenthood were inevitable and impending.  I was worried about this future worry right up until I got pregnant.  Then what happened?  It went away.  I am not overwhelmed with anxiety.  That's not to say that I won't be closer to delivery.  I have always been rather terrified of childbirth--the anticipation of pain sends me for a loop.  But for some reason, I have been quite calm and philosophical about the whole thing.  It will hurt.  I will practice pain-relieving methods and then get an epidural. I will be fine.  I know I am being very nonchalant about the whole thing, and I don't know if it is the hormones or if it is just resignation or if God is granting my prayers that I would be strong and calm (I lean toward the latter!).  But my overwhelming emotion is just plain old happiness.

Baby Bright Afghan

Although this afghan began life as a different project, it became clear pretty quickly that it was just meant to be a baby blanket.  Although the pattern isn't difficult, it does eat up a lot of time--mostly because I agonized over each color combination for each block (I really didn't want any repeats).  I have seen a few afghans like this where the outer rounds are all the same color (or two colors) and I really like that look as well.  This is a great project for using up your loose ends; just don't give yourself a deadline for this or you might go crazy.

One innovation I introduced with this afghan is a slit in the middle (look at the pictures again, you'll see it!).  This feature was actually requested by my brother-in-law; they like to throw a blanket over the baby's carrier, but he says that it is hard to grip the handle through a blanket--so, voila!  Dad can grab the handle and baby stays warm.

The other neat thing I figured out while working on this was how to organize the rounds as I was working.  All the little bits had a tendency to disappear into my work basket, so I strung them onto one of the flexible cords that came with my interchangeable knitting needles and put the stoppers on the ends.  This way I could add and subtract without any problems.

Well, clearly there is now a knitting/crochet void in my life.  However, expect an update sometime soon featuring knitting with Cool Whip bowls.  Yes, I kid you not.  It is pretty awesome.