Sick and whiny

Since I'll probably spend the vast majority of this post whining, I might as well start off with the good news we've recently received.

Brian got "the call" from New Start, so we're officially moving to San Francisco! I'm still apprehensive about the move and job hunt, but so excited that Brian found a church.

We got woke up the other day by a 30 second message on our answering machine from my brother EJ saying he got to Iraq safely and was okay. He'd signed off before I was able to get conscious enough to grab the phone, but praise God he's okay!

I received a lovely package from my Fiber Frenzy swap secret pal. She sent me a whole big ball (I think it's about six ounces!) of aqua superwash merino roving, and chocolate! (Alas, chocolate is apparently on Genghis' list of "foods that induce morning sickness." But as it keeps indefinitely, I'm going to save it for later. Perhaps the nausea will abate in a couple off months.) I'm too lazy to go find the camera and snap pictures right now, but the roving is lovely.

I've been spinning it up lace weight and plying it with lace weight silk that I dyed myself. The silk is in a nice complimentary teal color--I dyed it several weeks before I got the package, though. It's always nice when things work out so well like that!

The morning sickness has tapered off somewhat. The amount of Zofran I require to keep food down has steadily decreased over the last several weeks. (I mostly need to use it on nights I'm working. Who would have thought that being around puking people makes me vomit?) Unfortunately, I always seem to realize too late that it wears off after about ten hours. The sympathy I've received from my co-workers is nice, but I hate having to interrupt the end-of-shift patient hand off even more than the puking itself. I still haven't gained any weight over my non-pregnant weight, but the baby bump (Until we know it's gender, we're referring to the baby as "Genghis.") keeps on growing. (I lost about eight pounds from morning sickness, but I've gained them all back.)

But right now I've got a cold, and it makes my mood rather lousy. I was so happy to get through the winter without one after catching one every month we were in Nome. But I guess it's that time of the year again...

The stuffy nose doesn't really trouble me after having had one constantly for the entire pregnancy. The coughing fits, however, feel disturbingly like the first few volleys of "the old Dash 'N' Heave" of morning sickness. It hasn't turned into that yet, but I really hate puking.

I think I'll see if the Yarn Pixies (who seem to visit more freely when I take medication of some sort--perhaps there's a lesson here) were correct when they suggested that I could crochet socks if I tried hard enough.

Emtala Mackey?

It's been a bit since I posted anything more personal than vacation photos on this blog. As the Internet has unlimited potential for both good and creepy people to use it, I usually error on the side of paranoia when it comes to how much personal information to post on it. But now that I'm officially past the "magic" twelve week mark, I feel free to announce my good news with the Blog-o-Sphere (all six people who care enough to read my blog as (ir)regularly as I post on it).

I'm pregnant! The new fiber enthusiast is expected to arrive in early March. (Because I miscarried early with the last pregnancy, I wanted to wait until the first trimester and the greatest danger of miscarriage was over before I posted about it. Neurotic, but true.)

We received very good news from the New Start church in San Francisco over the weekend. Their church board voted unanimously (How amazing is that? I mean, how often can you get twelve people to agree on pizza toppings, let alone pastoral candidates?) to present Brian's name to the congregation for a "would you like us to ask this person to be our next pastor?" vote. So that's an important hurdle overcome in the church-finding/pastor-finding process. We really loved the people and the church, would be delighted to come there if they called Brian. So now we wait...

However, this does mean that if they vote yes (and he says yes) we will be moving with me five or six months pregnant. Our health insurance right now is through my work, and it's really hard to find a job in any field when you're heavily pregnant, but especially in nursing. With the national nursing shortage, I do have the added advantage of the fact that hospitals and clinics are incredibly desperate for qualified nurses, but mid-to-late pregnancy generally precludes the level of heavy lifting that nursing requires.

As I lay awake worrying in my insomniac moments, I am repeatedly reminded that God has been with us this far and He will not abandon us now.

I have also been encouraged by (cynical) advice from the other nurses at work. "Well, if you can't get health insurance by the time you're in labor, you can always name the baby 'Emtala.' "
(EMTALA is the Federal statute which stipulates that if you show up at an emergency room in active labor (or having other medical emergencies occur) you must be diagnosed by a physician and treated regardless of your ability to pay. Sadly, it's the closest thing the US has to "right to health care" concept.)

Even if I do have to invoke EMTALA to deliver the kid, I don't think we're going to commemorate the experience in quite that way.

San Francisco!

Brian and I went to San Francisco last weekend (the 11th, 12th, and 13th) to visit a church he was interviewing at. Brian is trained as a pastor in the Church of the Nazarene and he's been looking for a church to pastor for the last several months. Due to my evil work schedule (made evil not by the number of days I work, but by the recently rescinded rule that required me to work three out of every four Sundays) I haven't been able to go with him for any previous church visits.

The church is New Start Ministries, which is in the Richmond District of San Francisco. At the moment, they're sharing a building with Sunset Chinese Church of the Nazarene (in a jaw-droppingly obvious "Great White Tourist" moment, I tried to take a picture of their church sign just because it was in English and Chinese, and this blew my puny redneck mind, but it didn't turn out. Instead, here is the view from the corner of the church lot.)

The gentleman on the left is Dr. John Calhoun, the District Superintendent. (As I explained to the teens sitting next to me when they asked "who's the dude giving Communion?", he's a very high mucky-muck in the Nazarene hierarcy.) You can find a better picture of him and a brief biography here.

The gentleman on the right is Jack Jung, who not only made us feel very welcomed at the church, but also was kind enough to drive us around San Francisco for a few hours so we could take the usual tourist pictures. Here's a typical one, shot at a high speed from the inside of his car.

Brian shot this one:

And here's what Alcatraz looks like as you speed by it on the freeway overpass by Golden Gate Bridge:



A congregation of turtles at the Palace of Fine Arts:

I love mangos and all things mango, so you can imagine my delight when they served this at the after church potluck--mango ice cream!

The church arranged for us to stay at the Hilton, which is far and away the nicest hotel I have ever seen or stayed in. Here is a (bad) picture of their grand lobby:

And a final picture of Laura (Jack's wife) and John, one of the kids from the church. Aren't they adorable?

Couches Come in Handy

When we moved from Nampa, Idaho to Overland Park, Kansas (by way of Nome, Alaska) we did not bring our much-abused love seat with us. When we first moved to Nampa, one of the dear ladies in Brian's first church had learned that we were (gasp!) getting married without owning anything couch-like, and gave us a slightly-battered but very serviceable love seat.

After three years of life with college students, however, it was starting to look the worse for wear. So instead of carting it 800 miles cross-country, we donated it to Goodwill. Actually, we did that with most of our furniture. It was kind of fitting in a Circle-of-Life sort of way. "From Goodwill you came, to Goodwill you shall return."

This meant that we spent the first six months of living in Kansas without a couch. It was awkward at first to invite friends over to watch movies while sitting on our kitchen chairs, but we got used to it. Then, friends of in-laws of friends of ours decided to get rid of their huge couch, and gave it to us.


Brian's well over six feet tall, and it's very hard to find a couch that he can stretch out full-length on . So we're quite excited about this one. And, best of all, it has a fold-down coffee-table-like attachment in the middle. It has cupholders, but I generally use it for skeining yarn.

I'd wanted a warping board for some time, but have been too lazy to drive to Home Depot, buy lumber, saw it to the desired length, and sand it. So now that I know that the circumference of the pseudo coffee table is 44", I multiply that by the number of wraps in a skein, and divide by 36 to get the number of yards in the skein. It's not pretty, but it works for me.

This particular yarn is some Bonkers superwash merino. I spun it up for socks for Brian's birthday this month. http://www.bonkersfibers.com

Here it is drying in the shower:

I got 286 yards out of the 4 ounces of fiber. It was pretty close as to wether or not that would be enough yarn to make full length socks for my husband's size 12 feet, but I managed. I even finished the socks before his birthday, which is quite possibly a first in the history of me giving him birthday gifts.

I even had yarn left over.

To be precise, 75 inches of yarn left over. That was cutting it a bit close--I'll definitely buy an extra batt next time.

And here's a close-up picture of my current mystery project, which I hope to post more about in a week or so. For now, I'll only say that this is what happens when sleep deprivation and Debbie New books collide.

Betrayed by Mapquest!

The other weekend, we decided to take a drive to the Tallgrass Prairie, which is a national park two and a half hours southwest of us. Apparently it has some of the last remaining untouched grassland in the Midwest. We drove, and drove, and drove some more, faithfully following Mapquest.com's directions at every turn. We wound up here:

This is the historic courthouse in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. Apparently it was built in the 1850s or so, and now it's time for a rennovation. Let's see what it looks like from an angle with less construction fence:

So I did what I do best when I'm lost--try to look cute and helpless (although I think I have better luck with the helpless bit) and ask for directions. Thankfully, small town librarians see all kinds of clueless people, and they were more than happy to help out.

After turning around and backtracking for five miles, we did finally find it. As near as we can figure, Mapquest gave us driving directions to get to the park's post office box.

The park was pretty, but I must confess that I was expecting taller grass.

(Due to the signs from the National Parks Service warning against stepping off the path for fear of rattlesnakes, I have no pictures which show the scale of the grass.) But it comes up to mid-thigh on me, so that's about 24 inches. (60cm, for our metric friends.) I was definitely expecting grass that was taller than I am, or something a bit more dramatic. Still, it was very pretty.

Cranky 4th of July!

Growing up, I used to love Independence Day. And I realize that part of that is every child's fascination with fire and explosives and who can resist a holiday which is devoted to them? But Independence Day has always held a special place in my heart.

This year, however, I'm finding it very hard to summon up any enthusiasm for the Fourth of July holiday. I'm really not able to sincerely wish anyone a "Happy Fourth of July!" at the moment.

One of the downsides of working only three days a week (I'm going to duck right now before the stones start coming from everyone who has to work more often than that) and having a flexible schedule is that if you're not careful, you can wind up working considerably more days in a row than you'd intended to. Like in March, when I forgot that calendar months do attach to each other and wound up working the last two days of February followed immediately by the first two days of March. Working that many 12 hours shifts back-to-back-to-back-to-back was exhausting, and is not an experience I wish to repeat.

So I was extra cautious when I "finessed" my schedule to get the 19th through the 26th of June off, without taking any paid time off. This meant that in order to avoid working the last three days of last week and the first three days of this one all in a row, I had to schedule myself for the 3rd and 4th of July. Normally I don't mind working minor holidays--my hospital pays overtime pay for holiday shifts, and I'm always happy about extra money for yarn.

Unfortunately, when I checked the schedule yesterday, I was still the only RN scheduled to work tonight and tomorrow night. I'm really not looking forward to this Independence Day holiday.


But I've got a much more personal reason for why I'm not too thrilled this holiday.

I try not to use this blog as a platform for my political views too often. There are many good political blogs out there, and I see no reason to join their ranks. But at the risk of sounding unpatriotic and "letting the terrorists win," I'm going to indulge my First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

I'm not a fan of the war in Iraq. For a wide variety of reasons, ranging from I think we could spend 400 billion dollars in much more productive ways to some good old-fashioned paranoia about the Patriot Act and the role of government should have in the average citizen's life. But if you had to ask me why I hate the war in Iraq, I'd show you this picture:

Or perhaps this one:

Or perhaps this one, which is the most recent one I have:

This is my little brother, EJ. And I know the fact that he's 22 means that he no longer qualifies as "my baby brother," but I did teach him to tie his shoelaces! He's a Sergeant First Class in the United States Army, and I'm incredibly proud of him.

He called Sunday night with bad news. I've been expecting it for several months, but I still didn't want to hear it. He's "going on a road trip with Uncle Sam to Iraq" again, and he's leaving the 21st. And you'd think that after nearly six years of "The War on Terror" on the nightly news, four years of having him in the Army, and two tours of combat duty, I'd be less worried.

But I'm not. Iraq is not a pretty place right now, and the idea of people shooting at my brother is not one I want to ponder.

After getting wounded last summer, and going through months of grueling rehab, EJ's ecstatic to be able to be serving with "his boys" once more. He told me, "I don't want to be one of those people who lives to be 90 and realizes, "Man, I've never done anything." I want to do something with my life, and I think this is it." And if I believe that God called me into nursing, then I have to believe that God can call my brother into the Army and rejoice with him in finding his purpose. But I really just want him to go there, do what he has to do, and come back safe.

God of All,
Please watch over the troops.
Ours, theirs, everybody's.
Bless them all--I'm not picky.
Give them a boring war.
One without the need for heroism.
Or posthumous medals.
Or brave acts of self-sacrifice.
Make them instruments of Your peace
In spite of their job description.
Give them Your wisdom,
To best know how to mend this broken world.
Please comfort the bereaved
And gather up the fallen in Your loving arms--
Regardless of color, creed, or ideology.
Watch over the troops, Lord.
Until Your children finally
Learn to stop killing each other in Your name.
Amen.

So where's the camera again?

I've been working on a wide variety of projects over the last few weeks. I've got several different spinning projects going, as well as four different pairs of socks on the needles, all in different stages of completion.

And once we got the camera back from Jon and Lindsay, I used the opportunity to snap pictures of most of my assorted works in progress.

Unfortunately, at the moment, I can't find our camera for love nor money. Which means that I can't transfer all of those lovely pictures from the camera to this blog.

So, once again, I'm going to attempt to distract you with the pictures Brian took recently that are already on our computer.

The woman in the blue shirt is my sweet-but-occasionally-demonic former roommate Sarah Maddox, who just graduated from Trevecca Nazarene University's PA (Physician's Assistant, for those who have not been brainwashed by the medical profession) program. We had a lovely time when she visited last month, complete with many conversations (for which our husbands smiled blankly and nodded obligingly) about antibiotic-resistant micro-organisms.

I participated in Black Purl's May Flower Power Swap last month. Sadly, I have yet to receive my flower-themed accessory from my secret pal. However, I am incredibly proud the necklace I contributed to the swap, which I hope my person will wear with pride.

I had to work Memorial Day weekend. However, then I got four days off in a row! So Brian and I drove to Powell Gardens over the state line in Missouri.

Due to the questionable intelligence of the Missouri Department of Transportation (I could do a complete new post on how the Missouri road system is causing me to think that perhaps one shouldn't elect officials whose IQ is lower than that of chimpanzees.) we had a very difficult time finding the place (We're starting to think that Missouri is called the "Show Me State" because the roads are so confusing that you need a local riding with you to give you directions when you go somewhere.)

Brian spent much of the time we were there experimenting with something I don't completely understand in order to better photograph flowing water. I'm not sure I'd know the difference between a focal length and an aperture if one bit me in the behind, but the final results are stunning.

And I'll end the post with my favorite picture from the trip: