Family and Christmas insanity

In spite of the fact that so much snow has fallen on the Willamette Valley that snow chains are required to drive in downtown Portland, this is the largest amount of snow that my back yard has seen so far this winter. Thank God!


The other two "B's", Billy and Brad, came to visit a couple of weekends ago for the annual computer game festival. Now that everyone has steady jobs and significant others, it's a bit more difficult to find time to get all three of "the boys" together, but it's well worth the effort when the plantets and everyone's schedules align.

I love it when family comes to visit! And while I enjoy spending time with (most) of my and Brian's assorted relatives, there's no avoiding the fact that some visitors are more enjoyable than others. I love it when Mom and Aunt Tig visit, but life is just a bit wilder when Billy and Brad come calling. (Most of this is no doubt due to the fact that my parents do not stay up until 2am with us, swapping ribald stories and watching offbeat movies.)

They introduced Shirley to soda. No, no one let her drink any. But she had a blast playing with a full can of Fanta. If you refrigerate them, the rounded bottom rim of the cans make great teething objects.
She has also reached the "security object" stage of development. Specifically, the Mimi has developed a bizarre fascination with my socks, especially this one. (As though I wasn't feeling guilty enough about going back to work!) So she spent much of the morning crawling on the floor, soda in one hand and a sock clutched in the other chubby fist.


Now that she's walking by holding onto things, decorating for Christms has become a major challenge. We decided against a Christmas tree this year, but I did hang stockings and make the house look more festive. (What? You're saying that you don't have a dummy covered in chain maille to decorate for the holidays? Poor deprived souls!)

Contractions hurt!

Everyone who reads my blog title and has children is no doubt laughing their heads off right now at my grasp of the obvious. (If I were a superhero, I'd be "Mistress of the Obvious." I'm not sure if I'd have a cape or just wear a sparkly leotard. Perhaps both.)

I started having contractions at work yesterday. I was able to finish my shift without too much problems, but have you ever considered how awkward it is to call the obstetrician on your lunch break while you're surrounded by nurses? However, I did get more offers of help the second half of my shift, as well as some very interesting tips on how to tell the difference between false labor and real labor.

"When you go home, put up your feet and have a couple of glasses of wine," one of the most experienced nurses advised. "If the contractions stop after that, it's not real labor."

"Brooke, I don't drink," I replied.

"Oh, then make sure you buy the good stuff, not some rotgut." (Methinks Brooke and I had a bit of a failure to communicate...)

So when I went home, had put my feet up, eaten something, had a nice drink (of herbal tea) and was still having contractions every twelve minutes, I knew it was time to call the doc again. (At this point, I didn't care if it was "real labor" or "false labor." I just knew that I'd exhausted my bag of tricks for making them stop and it was time for professional help.)

He told me to go to the labor and delivery floor's triage to get checked out. They slapped a monitor on me, and told me that both I and Shirley were fine, but yes, those were contractions. Then they gave me some drugs to stop the contractions, told me to call the doc again this morning, and sent me home. Total time in MPHS' L&D: one hour, 45 minutes. Those gals are efficient!

I spent most of today resting and trying to ignore the periodic random contractions that were still happening every hour or so, but was strangely comforted by the fact that Shirley did her regular dance routine as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

So tomorrow I get to see the doc/nurse practitioner/somebody who can deliver babies and have more tests run before I find out if/when I can go back to work. I'd planned to work until 38 weeks, but we'll see what happens. If I have to go on maternity leave early, at least I'll get lots of spinning and knitting done.

Brian spoiled me rotten for Christmas. Let's see.. the brown bag is baby camel roving, the yellow bags are buffalo roving, the one with the pink label is 50/50 Mongolian cashmere and mulberry silk, and the little white baggies are yak. I've no idea what I'm going to make with any of it, but I'm sure I'll have lots of fun.

I am not nocturnal!

I've officially started working nights at a local hospital. And once again, I am forced to confront my own mortality. No, not in any deep philosophical vein of thought dealing with death. (I'm far too sleep-deprived to even begin contemplating such a profound topic.) No, what I speak of is the frailty of my own body. Specifically, the fact that it refuses to function on less than six hours of sleep.
Left to my own devices, I will go to sleep at ten in the evening and wake up at eight. Why? Because when God made me, God apparently said to the angels, "Hey, let's make her need ten hours of sleep--just to do something different for once!" And the angels nodded their heads and chorused back to God, "Good idea, Boss!"
Unfortunately, this example of questionably Intelligent Design means that if I stay up past midnight, my head turns into a pumpkin. I develop a searing headache and my capacity for rational thought goes through the toilet. In five years of college, I never once pulled an all-nighter--because I knew the end result would probably lower my grade more than skipping the assignment.
I worked Wednesday and Thursday nights. This meant that in the thirty six hours from 8:45am Friday to 8:45pm today, I slept for about twenty three of those hours. It's nice to have a job, but the idea that working nights means that I won't have a life really is taking some getting used to.

I get so much more knitting accomplished when I'm not working. (The flip side of this is that jobs help me pay for yarn, so I suppose that there is some merit to gainful employment.)
The burgundy cabled socks I started on for EJ are not going to be his gift after all. When I tried them on to check the length, I realized that the cables made the sock pull in far more than I'd anticipated. And if I can barely get them on over my size 8 women's foot, there was no way they'd fit my brother's size 10 men's feet. So, rather than rip out four day's knitting, and start over, I think they'll be a gift for one of my female friends. One of the ones with small feet.
Which means... I have no idea what EJ will get for Christmas. Maybe a learn-to-knit-yourself-socks kit? I think this Red Cross commemorative one comes in a suitably masculine bile green color.

Yarn stashes and short attention spans

The employee orientation for my new job began earlier this week. And for sitting still for eight hours a day listening to presentations on scintillating topics such as "the Corporate Code of Conduct," the pay wasn't bad.
Unfortunately, due to the the vagaries of corporate payrolls, I won't get paid for another three weeks. Which means that buying more yarn will probably have to wait until after Christmas, when we're a bit more on our feet financially.
As any knittaholic knows, Christmas is the biggest gift-giving occasion of the year. I may knit other things, but when I'm in doubt as to what to make for someone, I have an old-standby. In the words of Meegan, my sis-in-law, "Socks! Socks! Socks!" make a great gift.
While my grandma has adorably small feet and it's easy (and quick!) to knit socks for her, the men in the family are a bit-more big boned. And at this point of Christmas knitting insanity, I'm not sure if I have enough sock yarn that's all of one color (or even enough yarn of coordinating colors) to do a pair of men's socks. (And convincing my brother that I made him socks that are pink with purple stripes "because I love you" might be a bit of a hard sell.)
And then I found the box of extra yarn I'd packed in April before we moved to Nome. (With my short attention span, it's like visiting the yarn store, but with someone else footing the bill!)
While most of it is leftover worsted-weight acrylic from a smocked sweater I finished in March, I did find this:

And while I have no idea what you're supposed to use sport-weight cotton crochet thread for, the Knitting Fairy visited me last night as I sat
watching reruns of Lois and Clark and bemoaning the amount of turkey I'd eaten.
Clad solely in skeins of Lorna's Laces, she flitted through the living room, doing a few pirouettes as she gaily waved her hand-carved rosewood needles. "You hate doing doilies!" she reminded me, using a needle to secure her bun of flyaway graying hair. "And it'd be silly to waste good yarn doing a project you despise. But..."
She let the words hang in the air as she added the other needle to her bun. "It's the same weight as your beloved cotton from Knit Picks --wouldn't it make lovely men's socks?"
And with those parting words, she cartwheeled out of my apartment.

So I decided to start work on this:
Cotton tends to be a bit slouchy for socks, but it's always a nice option for people with a wool allergy. Between my and Brian's families, about 75% of the relatives I like well enough to consider making socks for them are allergic to wool. (And I can never remember which ones are in the lucky 25%.)
I've had varying degrees of success with knitting cotton socks over the years, but I know cables will solidify any cuff that's at risk for sagging. Just in case, I twisted all the ribbing stitches, and threw in a heavy 5-rib cable on both sides of the cuff for stability. I'm not sure how durable this mystery yarn is, but if my brother EJ wears out these socks, it won't be due to a flaw in the construction!