Procrastinator!

All my fingers spontaneously turned to Twizzlers a few weeks ago and that’s why I haven’t been able to blog! Have you ever tried to type with licorice? Not easy, I tell you.*

Really, the excuses for my absence are duller than dull (worky work, Potter-mania, blah blah boring), and I’m so far behind on my blog reading that I finally had to just clean the Bloglines slate and “mark all read.” But hey, I’m back now. And Holy Shit the sockapalooza deadline is like 4 days away! How many days does July have? Crap. And so all of a sudden I’m knitting like a fiend despite a nasty case of trigger finger in my left hand. Send ice packs and Advil.

*What you can do with a Twizzler is bite off each end and use it as a cocktail straw for your bourbon drink. Thank god I went to law school so I could learn that valuable piece of knowledge!

Socks and Tag

Katie tagged me for the Wikipedia birthday meme

Type in your birthday month and day only. Post 3 events, 2 births and one holiday that occurred on your birthday.

Events:

1938 - Norway claims Queen Maud Land in Antarctica. (I have a fascination for all things Norse.)

1967 - The Human Be-In, takes place in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, launching the Summer of Love. Between 20,000 to 30,000 people attend. (Sounds great in theory, but in actuality was probably sort of smelly.)

1972 - Queen Margrethe II of Denmark ascends the throne, the first Queen of Denmark since 1412 and the first Danish monarch not named Frederick or Christian since 1513. (About time!)

Births:

83 BC - Marcus Antonius, Roman politician

1875 - Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian physician, Nobel laureate

Holiday:

Makar Sankranti in India. The event is marked by flying kites.

In knitting news, it’s all socks around here. I started these for my sockpal (Trekking XXL), whose sole request was for stripes:




Unfortunately, they’re not so stripey as one would have hoped. I popped over to Purl the other day before work and picked up some of their custom color sriping Lorna’s. So far they’re striping much more satisfactorily but, as you can see, little progress has been made.

Knitters on Mars?

The European Space Agency (ESA) seeks volunteers for a simulated trip to Mars. Volunteers will spend 17 months in an isolation tank on Earth, with little contact with the outside world. One of the main criteria for applicants is that they have the ability to stay sane while cooped up in a small space for such an extended period.

The ESA would be well served investigating the knitting community for potential applicants – who else relishes a long subway ride for that extra time to turn a heel? Sees a power outage as an opportunity to light some candles and finish the second sleeve? And what knitter wouldn’t relish the opportunity to shop for a stash that would last the trip?

Back to Reality

We’re back, and holycrapParisisbeautifulIwanttomovetheretomorrow. We had a lovely time in France, both in Paris



Excuse the hair, I'm soaking wet. Look at the tower!

And in the Dordogne valley



The trip was perfect – we kept busy, we relaxed, and most of all we walked. We walked all over Paris






And every part was as beautiful as the one before. Really, 90% of the city was startlingly lovely. I don't know what they do with their bad architects, export them to us perhaps?

Then we took the train to Bordeaux and drove east to the Dordogne Valley to see some pretty old and pretty amazing chateaux.



We ate ourselves silly.

I didn’t really knit at all.

The other big news around here is that I start back to work tomorrow at the restaurant and I’ll be starting a new position on the hot line. Pasta! I’m excited but also pretty nervous – in this restaurant, pasta is the toughest spot on the line and really physical work. I hope I don’t make a fool of myself!

Thank You

I’ve been trying to figure out what to write here on the blog and I’m just not sure what to say except thank you all so much for the love and support through this difficult time. I just cant tell you how much it means to me to feel surrounded by such caring people and even though I haven’t been emailing I’ve read every one of your comments over and over again.

Juan and I are doing ok, he took a short leave of absence from work so that we could be together, and we’re planning a trip to France just to get away for a while. This experience is by far the most difficult one either of us has had to go through, and we’re muddling through the best we can. I think it’s going to help me to get back to some of my normal activities, so I’m going to try to return to posting regularly on the blog.

I just want to say thank you again to everyone out there commenting or emailing or just keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.

Beth

Lucas

Last Thursday, April 12, our baby Lucas was stillborn as a result of an umbilical cord accident. At birth, Lucas was 38 weeks old, weighed 7 pounds, was 20 inches long, and was a beautiful baby. We miss him very much.

38 Weeks – The Wall

I’m officially at 38 weeks, one hundred million pounds, and 47 to do lists. Most everyone I know was like “Baby – get out!” at this point in their pregnancy, but for me, not so much. As a matter of fact, I find myself superstitiously unable to finish any of the baby sweaters for fear that FOs will induce labor. So it’s been all sunrise circle jacket, miles of orange tweedy stockinette with just enough increasing and decreasing to distract me from yet another episode of Mythbusters.

As of today our apartment now has two bedrooms and one significantly smaller living room. Here’s a photo before The Wall…



And after…



I nearly had a nervous breakdown throughout the installation process, as our renovations were not approved by the building and we were trying to be sneaky. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to sneak 8 foot pieces of sheetrock up the service elevator without pretty much everyone catching on. I think the only reason the management didn't stop us was their fear that I'd go into labor right then and there.

And hey, it’s Sockapalooza time again – head on over and sign up today!