The Sweater You Made

Here are those pictures of Baby A in the sweater you made. It is still a little bit big!





And here is a picture of Miss CAP all dressed up for the Author Celebration last week.

NEW - DIFFERENT MAY TITLE

Hello! I changed the May title to Body Clutter - yes that's the one by Marla Cilley and Leanne Ely. The new Flybaby Habit for May is Moving and Kelly recommends we read Body Clutter, so be it! I know I am looking forward to reading this more than I was the original book I listed.

Our baby is spending the night in the hospital receiving IV fluids. If anyone out there is reading this besides us, please add her to your prayers.

By-the-by - the prayer shawl is very lovely! And the fringe exquisite. :)

Look! I finished something!

This is a prayer shawl for church. Our knitters have made hundreds of shawls, but this is only my second. And it is the first one I made with:
Fringe.

Fringing was hard and tedious. Or maybe just tedious. But it looks nice!


Baby A made a fast turn around from this:

to this:

After 18 hours of vomiting/changing clothes she is sleeping soundly. The hardest part was knowing how much she wanted to nurse and having to tell her no. We would nurse for two to three minutes and then wait to see if it would stay down...and it wouldn't. She would have just nursed/vomited continuously if I had let her. Jeff stayed up with her through most of the night while I got a little break. Hopefully we've gotten through the worst parts. Now to get caught up on the laundry...

I Did Read - but am not blogging, yet.

How FLYLady Helped Me Find Jesus... and other news

So, how are you anyway? Now that I have my calendar figured out a little better and know what month it is and what book we're reading, I'm trying to get back to work.

CAP and I went to the Marathon County Public Library's 100'th Birthday Celebration yesterday. It was wild and crazy and we had a good time. We took a trolley ride around downtown. CAP thought that was great; I had fun, but was glad it was a short ride - too bouncy for a carsickie girl like me. I remembered to re-check out the April book. CAP had cake. She said she was sad they didn't have ice cream, but thought that might be too messy for a library party.

Our kitchen herb pots are doing well.

Several times during the past few Christmases it has been possible to hear a conversation like this at our house.

Me: Has anybody seen baby Jesus?

Confused Family Member: What?

Me: Has anybody seen baby Jesus?

CFM: You mean today?

Me: I just need to know where he is so I can glue him back on.

CFM: What?

Me: He looks like a peanut.

CFM: Baby Jesus looks like a peanut?

Me: Never mind.

This happens because baby Jesus has been missing. He fell off of Mary's lap, not to be seen again. It is unfortunate to look so much like a peanut because that means that possibly you have been tossed out with the trash, or eaten by a then three year-old. So, I have done without baby Jesus (on that particular decoration) for some time. It is sad really.

Joseph and Mary (missing baby Jesus)

Today I was decluttering in my laundry room (well, ok, it's really just the basement) and I found lots of things I wish I hadn't. Globs and globs of laundry lint, many more spider webs than necessary, gift bags from our first baby shower (more than seven years ago) and one yucky old peanut. I was tossing things like mad when suddenly I yelled "A PEANUT!!! THAT'S NOT A PEANUT, THAT'S BABY JESUS!!!!!" I was immediately glad everyone else was asleep or away at school.

I found the glue and fixed the little nativity. (Do you remember this one? It was a gift when I memorised the 23rd Psalm in December of 1983. I know this for certain because you labeled it for me.) Now all that's missing is Joseph's staff. I can hear it now.

Me: Have you seen Joseph's staff?

Confused Family Member: What?

Me: It looks like a toothpick.

Success

At the library sale we found these - which made us all very happy.

Inspiration + Action =

For the past few months, I've been reading some very wonderful, very crafty blogs. Somehow, they have given me the kick-in-the-pants I needed to move from just looking at pretty things to trying to make pretty things. Yesterday, with the help from this book, I made a clutch purse that actually looks like a clutch purse. It was quickly claimed by CAP when she got home from school, so now I have to make another for myself. It is lined and everything! Very, very exciting.

Today is tidy up the nursery day at our house and tonight we grown-ups are going out to dinner. There may be a quick stop at the library book -sale in there somewheres too. How about you - any weekend excitement planned?

In other news, the chancel choir is performing a cantata on Palm Sunday and their accompanist will be out of town, so I am filling in. It is one we've done before, so it should just be a brush-up job for me. It will be nice to play a little bit, and to spend some time with the choir. I miss the rehearsals, but not the late nights. Our director is arranging the time so we work on the cantata first and regular Sunday music afterwards so I can leave part way through. What fun!

End of January Update - Finally! :)

Here I am, finally - per your request - and my desire. I am enjoying Mark Twain's book much better now that he admits having so much trouble with the pilot Mr. Bixby sent him to - _______. I loved it that he would go to bed imagining all the ways he could murder him. I loved it even more when he finally pummelled him because the pilot was about the hurt the other cub. I loved it especially when the Captain called him in and actually encouraged him about it (off the record, of course). Now I can really relate to Mr. Twain and I find the book easier to read. He became real - genuine to me. Touchable. Approachable.

I requested our next book, and it is available from Enoch Pratt. I hope to have it within a week, but it gives me no indication of when to expect it's arrival. I am looking forward to it. We should pick our next two books. I love to look forward to them!

By Monday, I hope to add my WIPs.

Maybe??

I think I posted a picture!

Resolutions - Week 3

I read in a local paper that very few people make New Year's Resolutions anymore and even fewer people make an effort to keep them. This seemed odd to me because I have always made them, enjoyed making them and enjoyed the challenge of making them work or discovering how ridiculous they were in the first place. I try not to make too many at once and I try to work toward them carefully. Sometimes I plan too much and make no real progress at all. Sometimes I find out it wasn't really that important to achieve. Sometimes I pick the perfect goal, have the perfect amount of motivation, and really learn things about myself.

This year my resolutions are:

-To establish a daily habit of prayer and meditation. More than "Help me God!" when changing lanes on the freeway.

-Work diligently on my 30x30 list. This has been a resolution for the past few years and is going well. Only ten months to go!!

-Organise my children's toys. I think the first step here is to PURGE.

-Establish regular writing habits esp. correspondence and journaling.

-Learn more about food. Like the difference between a carbohydrate and a protein and how explain to my daughter why the all potato chips all the time diet is not a good idea. Also to make more environmentally responsible food choices.

-Continue to improve as a housekeeper. I do not want to be neurotic about this, I just don't want my feet to stick to the kitchen floor. At least not very often. Also I don't think using my ten month old as a vacuum cleaner is the best use of her potential.

Catch Up

Christmas, New Year's, one birthday, and a good long visit later...

Have you finished Mark Twain yet? I am sooo close to being done. My January/February book came in at the library so I really need to get reading.

In the meantime, I've been playing with that sewing machine. I finished one of the brown napkins and am working on binding the second one. I switched to the narrower binding to see if I liked the look better and only managed to burn my finger on the iron and not catch the fabric about 1/3 of the time. I'll rip it out and try again.

CAP was home from school yesterday with a cold. I interviewed her to find out what her current likes and dislikes are. There were some surprises, namely that she finds Bob Dylan scary. When I asked her why, she said it was because of that song she heard on the way to Grammy's house. It was the one where the dad shot his family and himself. Yup, we should have picked something different to listen to.

In other exciting news the miniswap I signed up for is going to be very fun. CAP will be excited to see that our partner is from another country.

Hope things go well with Grampy at the doctor today.