Getting Settled

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Miriam

What a strange couple of months it has been.

I realized yesterday or the day before that I’ve been almost off the internet for almost a month now, aside from the occasional tired/lame twitter post. Basically what happened is that we finally found an apartment, we moved in, and unpacked. We, or rather I, managed to unpack the house in under a week, fueled mostly by determination and willpower. I just couldn’t stand living around piles of boxes and feeling so temporary anymore. While I was acting like a whirling dervish, Jeff had this weird thing called a full time job where in they expect him to do stuff during the week. Apparently sometimes people have to do this thing called work, or something like that? I don’t know.

In any case, after most of the boxes were gone we started trying to find some level of normalcy, and started doing weird things like cooking and other long-lost domestic pursuits. I even had plans for taking Eleanor to story time and to museums and whatnot, and maybe getting out and meeting people, or being social. Which would all have been fine and dandy, except that I got the stomach flu early this week, and am now on my bazillionth day of thinking that food is my worst enemy. Ugh. Today Jeff came down with whatever I have. Can we not have a normal week around here?!

While we battled boxes and flu, Eleanor learned to walk. Seriously. She’s walking around the house on her own now. She’s not 100% steady, but she no longer requires mom and dad’s support at all. She just heads off. This has led to me weepily looking at pictures and videos of her from months ago when she was just a tiny baby who was learning how to smile. (Honestly, sometimes instead of weeping I hyperventilate thinking about how hard those newborn days were.) Next week-end she turns a year old, and I suppose now that she’s walking she’s a toddler, not a baby any more. Sniffle. My baby is growing up. I can honestly say this has been both the shortest and longest year of my life. Funny how time works like that.

I feel as if I should mention crafting since this is supposedly still a crafting blog. I have been steadily embroidering when not unpacking and being sick, and am almost done with the second pillowcase I was working on. In the middle there I started working on a crocheted dress for Eleanor, which I frogged three days later because it was so darn ugly. *sigh* They’re not all winners. Meanwhile, I also came up with an idea for a whole line of embroidery patterns, and started thinking maybe I’d pursue that since I’m not working right now. I’ve always wanted to do something like that, and while I’m caring for Eleanor full time it would be really great to have a couple of creative projects to work on, a goal to get myself thinking, etc. We’ll see.

Whew. Cross your fingers for me that we manage a normal, healthy week one of these weeks.

While She Sleeps

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Miriam

Greetings from a variety of places in Oregon! We've been here a couple of weeks now and wow, what a couple of weeks it's been. You may be able to tell we've been visiting waterfalls. We've taken the opportunity to do a bit of sightseeing along with the moving, and as it turns out there are a lot of waterfalls in Oregon. We haven't even been to the state park that apparently is the Mother Lode of waterfalls, too (Silver Falls or something like that). Above is part of Multnomah Falls (part of the beautiful Cascade Gorge), and below is some falls from somewhere near Crater Lake that I can't remember the name of. Don't judge. There's been a lot to do.

So I had to check to see when I last posted to my blog. It actually hasn't been that long, but it FEELS like it's been about six months. We successfully moved out of our apartment the last day of February and have been moving and traveling and in temporary housing ever since. I won't bore you with the details, but moving has been pretty difficult, finding a place to live in Portland pretty difficult, getting settled pretty difficult, finding me a job pretty difficult … anyway the list goes on. I can't say that I expected all of it to be cake, but it's been harder and more unsettling than expected. At least there have been some decent sunsets in the mountains:

Plus I have a baby to care for in the midst of it. Anyone can tell you I am a PRO at moving (I have moved an astonishing number of times in the last 20 years), but moving with a baby? Oy. Plus, it's moving a baby who has learned to both crawl and walk WHILE WE WERE ON THE ROAD. It is ridiculous. She is now refusing to sit anywhere, and demands to walk and stand at all times. Plus she's picked up a few more consonant sounds. So essentially we have a staggering baby who sounds like an Ewok on our hands. Zub Zub.

And to top it all off that baby's response to moving/traveling has been to refuse to nap. She will now ONLY nap when she's in the car. At first this was kind of a mini-tragedy for me. Any mother will tell you that nap time is super extra precious important time because it's that one tiny slice of day when you can Get Things Done. Or take a nap. Or have some time for yourself. Or really, time do anything but watch the baby and make sure she isn't sticking her fingers into the cat's mouth or the nearest electrical socket. But lately, I've realized I can still do this while she naps:

Because if you remember to bring along your crafting bag (OF COURSE I had a travel crafting bag while moving, what do you take me for?), and you have the presence of mind to remember there are available projects to work on(I don't always have that presence of mind), you can actually keep your fingers and mind busy with tiny pink cardigans and embroidered pillowcases while the baby naps in the car.

Because why wouldn't you sit in a random parking lot while your baby sleeps and embroider pillowcases? Amirite?

Anyway, that's what I've been doing. I can't pretend I don't get some strange looks for crocheting and embroidering in my car in parking lots, but that's because people don't understand that the Baby Must Nap No Matter What And I Am Tired Of Being Bored While She Does. So there. Actually, when I realized I was overlooking all that available time to craft things and do hand work, I wanted to smack myself. It's a fact of my life that I never seem to have enough time to do the kind of hand sewing and crocheting I like to do, and there I was, just wasting available hours! Derp.

So that's what I've been doing. And you?

Posted with Blogsy

Plans

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Miriam

And so it goes.

First, an announcement. Jeff, Eleanor and I are moving to Portland, Oregon at the end of February. We’ve been noodling and dithering and hemming and hawing over the (ever-multiplying but probably mostly insignificant) details for some time now, and we have finally pulled enough strings to say OK.

THIS IS IT. Time to get on with it.

As is our practice when we relocate, we have begun the process of re-visiting favorite California locations before we leave (as evidenced by our recent trip to Santa Cruz, above). The packing of boxes is in full swing. Our house’s hominess and coziness has been disrupted, leaving an echoey emptiness. It was a somber day when we took down the nursery decorations, leaving a small, white, empty room. I know, I do!, that I will put together a beautiful new space for her in our new place, but it was very sad to deconstruct her first space. We put it together with such love and hope.

Meanwhile, I’m also still working on convincing myself to stick to a decent diet and avoid the (lovely and tempting) chocolate cakes of the world. I have been diligently reading blogs like Skinnytaste to get inspiration, and my mom sent me a subscription to Cooking Light (or Healthy? something like that). However, I think most of the new recipes I’ve found recently have been through Pinterest (which has become way too much of an addiction lately). Recent additions to our menus include:

Cheesy Spaghetti Squash with spinach (via Skinnytaste)
Chopped Winter Salad with butternut squash, apple and feta (via Real Simple)
Buffalo Chicken and jalapeno pizza (we like hot stuff!)
Taco Pie – a layered casserole with taco ingredients I made up
Curried Kale and Butternut Squash Soup (via Naked Vegan Lunch)

Also meanwhile, I’ve been working away at some crochet projects in my spare time (that flighty, elusive space between packing, looking for a job, working, and taking care of Eleanor) and am slightly embarrassed to admit that my latest finished project is a Christmas stocking for Eleanor. It’s a HUGE stocking for stuffing many presents into. Now, you’d probably think it makes sense to do this in November or December when one is normally thinking about Christmas, but I know myself too well to do that. I will be too busy then with Things and Important Stuff like presents and travel, and so I wouldn’t get around to it then, and so another year would go by and no stocking for Eleanor. So: January. In January I finish Christmas projects I didn’t get around to, and that way the next year I can pleasantly surprise myself with new finished objects. As you see, Eleanor likes her stocking, further evidenced by her attempting to wear it on her head after this picture was taken:

Currently I’m working on a hot pink lacy cardigan for Eleanor for spring/summer. It is in the 12 month size, which she is almost in (although she’s not even 10 months old right now). I dithered over which pattern to make way too much. I think I went through every cardigan pattern that exists on both Ravelry and Pinterest, an already exhaustive search that I supplemented by a largely frustrating search via Google Images.

Unfortunately at the current juncture the cardigan is still in a largely unfinished state because my brain has been too full of too many things to really work correctly. I crocheted the pattern repeat wrong four or five times and kept having to redo the first four rows. I’d probably be done with the darn thing by now if I hadn’t completely failed to read the pattern right so many times.

And that is all the news from my side of the world.