1 - I keep thinking about upcoming "anniversaries" in May. Next week will be one year since I came back to work after maternity leave. Somehow that seems stranger than celebrating Heather's first birthday. And later in the month is the 4th Anniversary of when blogless-Erin taught me to knit. And the obsession continues. :-)
2 - I could do a whole post about Heather, but let's run through the big stuff before I forget.
- She learned to sign at daycare! This weekend she started signing "more" and a friend said she saw the sign for food at brunch on Sunday, too. Just another link in our expanding ability to communicate. R is going to check with daycare and see if there are any other signs she knows that we should be aware of. :-) I tried doing the sign for "All done" after I looked it up and she gave me five...so I don't think she's picked that one up!
- Her eating is totally unpredictable. I'm not sure if it is related to teething or being a toddler. Last night she had toast and milk for dinner despite being offered a frittata that contained pasta, her usual favorite food. But a few days earlier she was eating with gusto and trying everything on her plate. The last time we got Boston Market, they made a mistake and gave us spinach instead of sweet potatoes. Heather ate as much of the spinach as she usually eats of the sweet potatoes, but the next day she wanted nothing of it.
- She would spend all of her time outside if we would let her. Saturday morning she went on a walk with Daddy and in the afternoon the three of us went to the botanical gardens and a nearby park for a snack and a carousel ride. Sunday morning she and Daddy went on another walk, but she insisted on a stop at the playground and spent so long on the swings that they never made it into the woods where R had intended to go. She was literally on a swing for 30 minutes.
- She seems to be a more reliable milk drinker than she was initially. Some of it has to do with thirst from all this outdoor activity, I'm sure. But it is a relief to not have to worry if she's getting enough.
- She very clearly seems to understand us quite a bit of the time. Certainly there are moments that she's choosing not to listen...but when she does choose to listen you can tell how much she is getting.
3 - I'm learning to crochet. Yep, you read that right. I bought the S'n B Happy Hooker book by Debbie Stoller and I'm taking the plunge. Part of it is just because I don't see any reason not to learn more ways to play with yarn and I've also begun to see patterns that I like. And it most cases those patterns are dependent on being crocheted and not something easily translated to knitting for the same effect. Those on ravelry might already have noticed the two crochet projects in my queue. Those are two of the reasons why I'm learning.
Saturday night I made a swatch with single, half-double, double, and triple crochet stitches. I don't have them all memorized yet, but I understand the basics and the structure of a crocheted piece. Next is an "in the round" swatch, increases and decreases. So far so good. Although if I really go far with this I'll need to replace my set of plastic hooks with something that doesn't squeak. ;-)
And for the record, my mom did teach me to crochet (at least the basics) a long time ago. My that knowledge was lost as soon as I lost interest in my first project.
4 - I'm knitting like gangbusters on Ivy again. I finished the first sleeve on Friday night and knit several inches of the second sleeve on Sunday. Given the recent warm, spring weather I might finish it just in time to put it away until the fall. But that's okay. That would be better than trying to finish knitting it in the heat of summer!
5 - I've finished a baby sweater and just counted that I now have five gifts to work on. Two for this summer (one started), two for the fall and one for the end of the year. And I realize that more could come up, so I don't want to dawdle. I think I'm going to make at least a couple of knitted toys for this group. Heather's tortoise was fun but she has plenty of soft toys to entertain her, so I think future knitted toys will probably only be made for her by request.
6 - I started a shrug for me, too. My SIL is getting married in June. Last week I found two dresses on my lunch hour, one for the rehearsal dinner (DH is a groomsman) and one for the wedding. The dress for the wedding is sleeveless and it is always cooler in the mountains of Johnstown, and the alpaca lace shrug should deal with both issues. I've only done two repeats so far, but I'm traveling for work later this week and in two weeks, and we're traveling to visit family soon, so I know there is lots of knitting time between now and the wedding.
7 - Work is still rather insane. Slightly more under control...slightly. The travel later this week is to interview for another job. Wouldn't have been my choice, but I wasn't asked. It's nice that they like me so much, but I was hoping to avoid another job involving overnight travel. But this will be the first time (if we get the job) that I'll be in on the process from day one, so that is a step up and a chance for a big increase in responsibility. Which is simultaneously great and incredibly scary, and something that would be much more welcome if I didn't have so much going on already.
I guess the good news for me is that the interview process was supposed to occur in February. So since the process is already behind, it seems likely that the job wouldn't get underway until at least July...and by that point my load should be starting to get lighter at least on a couple of fronts. Fingers crossed that that stays true and that Heather continues to deal well with my traveling.
8 - It seems like females keep getting killed off in the shows that R and I watch. Of course, in some of them, being killed off doesn't mean that you are done working on that show. :-) But as we were catching up this weekend on the programs in the DVR it finally looked like a male cast member was going to be lost instead of the female one in one particular season finale. But then the female got killed off, too. :-(
I don't know that this really means anything in particular. It just struck me as interesting. There are still female leads and major ensemble members on these shows, so maybe it is just a result of more and better roles for women in TV. Or maybe shows that have sci-fi or fantasy components are more likely to have more and better roles for women!
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I haven't thought of anything else to share with you while this post has been sitting on my desktop. That must be it for today. Congratulations if you made it this far. :-)
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