It's a boy!

Keeping with the latest pattern of mine - I'm getting in my one blog post per month. Tons more to say, but even now that I have a brand new laptop, I still find my time is taken up with other things and not really writing about it all. But enough about all that...



Emilia and Fred had a healthy baby boy last night! His name is Duncan, just a little over 8 lbs. I chose the picture of the whole family to share as I belong to the oldest sibling club. I know this is (or rather yesterday was) Duncan's day, but still want to keep Griet in the picture too. Apparently it took a little longer this time around, but from what I can tell, not that bad - 3 hours of labor, although 14 hours total in the hospital up to that point. Anyways, glad to hear everything is good and can't wait to meet the latest addition.



Another thing of note here, do you notice the pattern. When I was visiting last easter, pregnant Emilia was talking about how they were trying to figure out names, and realized they had inadverntly created a pattern. If you look, their names are concurrent in the alphabet: Emilia, Fred, Griet (her real name is Marguerite) and even their dog Hana. Well, Duncan fits perfectly in the pattern.



I've had a lot in the baby department lately, as my friend Cece is 11 weeks+ (I think) pregnant. I spent the weekend with her and it was fun sharing some of the thinking and planning that goes on with pregnancy. The focus right now is on the ridiculous cost of quality child care. It is really scary but everytime I start worrying about it, I realize it's not my problem to deal with yet.



And finally, I had a nice day off Monday which I spent most of the time wrapping up the online course I was teaching (got all the grades in) which was a wonderful weight off my shoulders. I drove out to Leominster to meet up with my dad and an old collegue of his Frank. His son who I'm friends with and is my age, had just had a new baby this past February, so were sharing some baby stories. As you can see, I'm unindated with cute little babies.



And of course, instead of taking this opportunity to start knitting ridiculously cute sweaters, I've started yet another "me" project. I'm almost done one sock that I have just fallen in love with. I'm not really a sock knitter. There are a few I've done in my time, and after all I learned how to knit by knitting a pair of socks, but the charm hasn't really revealed itself. Anyways, I can't wait until this pair is done. Completely forgot the name but will post with a picture one day, hopefully in the near future. The one thing to note now is that I'm using my first Knitpicks yarn. I'm usually a Webs girl and figured for the cost of Knitpicks yarn, the quality probably wasn't so good. Well, I've been impressed with their Essential sock yarn - I have two balls in grass green. Gorgeous and soft. Well, back to work, and then off to yoga (I bought a 3 month membership as part of my turning a new leaf - already my back is starting to feel better which was the immediate reason to join).

On the Other Side of the World

Yet another quick post. This last weekend I finally made the plunge and bought myself a new laptop. The old one had died last year and I had been trying to convince myself I didn't need a computer other then the one at work. No need to get bogged down with all the technology gadgets. Well, that only worked for so long, and it's been getting harder and harder. I was able to save up for an ultra lightweight laptop. And I can't wait for it to arrive. I ordered it direct from the company (they were having a sale). I keep checking on the status and it looked like I wouldn't get it for awhile. It would take a good 2 weeks for them to configure it before sending off. But then today, only a few days after I ordered it, it's on the move! I have the UPS tracking device, and instead of dealing with the complete backlog of work stuff from being off these past couple of days with family*, I've been checking the status.



The first surprise was that it was coming from a place called HK. That's right - Hong Kong. I don't know where I thought the laptop was coming from, but apparently not the other side of the world. The only funny thing is that all this travel is happening in the future. That was this morning. Just now I checked, and Larry is now in Korea I think (although at 10 pm - nine hours from now - eerie). We'll have to wait until after we meet to see if Larry is the proper name for my new laptop. Larry is now in a place called Inceon, KR which is just outside of Seoul. Where will he go next? Will he travel west or is he off to California. Either way it looks like we'll be meeting up early next week! I can't wait. I love new toys. Theoretically Larry will fix all my problems including being able to miraculously increase my blogging rate (granted I still don't have internet at home, but one can dream). Until next time, and perhaps from the keyboard of Larry who will soon be state side.

*Side note: Family visit this last week or so. Mom and Nick came in to Boston last Thursday and we were able to meet up with old friends and go down to CT to visit my cousins, who are now currently visiting me. It's been a hectic week (and I'm off to VT tonight for one day) but fun seeing everyone. And since I am a true sister, I must leave you with a picture of Nick from Christmas time with a pose that is becoming eerily regular. Plus I think he doesn't read my blog anymore so get to take more liberties with his image. The picture above is from Christmas, the pictures below are from a year ago in India. He's been working on his signature pose - I think we all need to develop one. Now what could mine be... (other then always having my eyes closed in pictures).

Flat Stanley

I am just sneaking in and getting a post in for the month of March in the nick of time. (I just realized I don't know how to spell nick - is it "nick" or "knick"?) Anyways, back on point, a quick message to say that I have tons to post but little time. However, I give you Stan the Man in the interim. He's from my cousin in CT and I'm documenting his adventures. He's part of the Flat Stanley project that a lot of school kids partake in all over the country. Check out his blog which documents his adventures and concidently also matches my latest adventures too!

Winter Time

It's funny how lack of pictures causes me to stop blogging. I still haven't gotten that system down yet, but vow to blog a bit more. To be honest it's not so I can deliver more wonderful essays to my large viewing public (as neither terms are correct - essay, large), but frankly believe it is cathardic and fun to rediscover in years to come.



I had my birthday this month and as we appreciate the wonderful day of leap year it got me thinking and evaluating things in life. I'm much older now (it's amazing what one day can do) and I've basically boiled the results of all my musings down to two key items:



1. I'm more calm and accepting of things. This might be a bit of a stretch, and I'm not quite there, but am heading in this direction. As I'm around young ones more and more - their energy of putting right all that is wrong - from systems to the world, made me realize there is a lot of energy put into yelling the loudest. If you work with the flow and realize nothing really matters, you can focus much better on things that matter most to you (and spend some time figuring out what that exactly is - it can't be everything).



2. The other realization is that I'm old and my body is starting to break down. I'm not one to take good care of it other than to eat fairly well, not smoke or drink heavily (that's not bad), it's starting to take it's toll. I'm a stiff crinkled up person now. Mainly because I slept weird last night so have a stiff neck and can't look right. But in addition to that, my back has gotten worse over the last couple months (year). The stress in the upper back is fine. It's the lower back that has gotten so bad that when I sneeze it hurts. Also, I've never had skin issues. The teenage years had been kind to me and chocolate and I have a very friendly relationship. But the end of last year I got a skin condition and it's not gone away. So, the conclusion, I'm old. I need to pay more attention to things.



My answer to it all? After more thinking and evaluating and searching, I came up with my two quick fixes (us American's love our quick fixes). They are quite simple, harmless (hopefully) and fairly inexpensive:



1. Water. I don't drink enough. Studies show 65% of americans don't (got that one from tv). That could be the answer to everything for me - from headaches, to low energy, to skin issues, to forgetfulness, to not being able to find a mate, to conquering the world! But really, it's a good thing. The bad thing, and why I've always proclaimed that I'm not much of a drinker is simply, what goes in, must come out. I don't like the bathroom - the toilet, showering, brushing the teeth, etc. I don't mind doing it all, but if I don't have to, I'd rather not. But I'm trying. If I must pee 10 times a day to be healthy, than, so be it. There, I just picked up my water three times while writing this. I might have to take a quick bathroom break soon.



2. Yoga. Not any old normal yoga, but dahn yoga. Frankly, I thought yoga was yoga. Although I knew enough to stay away from the b.. yoga - the kind that people go to a really hot room and sweat (crazy people). This one is nicely located near home, and I was running late this week, so ended up having a nice little jog there (well, half of the way - don't forget, I'm out of shape). It ended up being perfect for what I need right now. I'm not sure if I'm up for the normal yoga. This one is more emphasis on centering the inner body and stretching. The stretching I absolutely need so that I can straighten out hte back issue without doing damage. The centering bit seems a bit far fetched. But I gave it a go. And guess what, by the end, we were doing this exercise and I could feel the magnetic repelling between my hands - and before the instructor talked about it so no sublminal message there. Even though it was so low key, I still had trouble. I have some defecency in my muscles (I'm hoping it's water), as I tend to shake. Since I'm not normally still, you (well really me) can't notice. But standing in place for a long time, I had a hard time keeping my legs from shaking. A little strange, but hoping that by doing this every week, it'll get better (I'll see a doctor if it doesn't - no worries).



So that's that. We'll see how it goes, but considering yoga was my news resolution am feeling pretty good (we won't mention that it was a 2007 resolution, water is 2008). Rereading this just now, I will mention that I've been hosting a Spelling Smackdown at work. It's great fun - we're doing one a month and I get to host since I'm such a horrible speller. However, since I put together the word lists, I'm getting better as I learn more words.



And finally, in knitting world, I'm itching to start a new sweater... of my own design. I'm still all over the place, but think it will finally happen this year. Some patterns I follow and I think, "I can't believe I paid money for this". So hopefully that's a good sign. Nothing ventured nothing gained. I've finished a few projects, some worked, some didn't, but updates on those when I have pics (this weekend?).

Bumper rant

I don't often rant (at least I hope I don't) on my blog, but yesterday, driving down to RI, I was stuck in traffic because of an accident on the highway going the other way. It reminded me why I dislike SUVs so much. It's not the environment issue which you might think (althought don't get me started on hybrids), but it's the safety issue. I can't believe that still to this day, someone hasn't stepped up and told the auto industry they have to address at a minimum the bumper height issue. There's more information on this at this site, not the best one probably, but the first one I found.



The accident I witnessed was a simple tailgating accident. Three cars. Except one of the cars was an SUV. The middle car was wedged underneath the SUV. It looked like noone was injured but it was just ridiculous that because people buy these unsafe vehicles, the rest of us are forced to either have a riskier time driving or break down and buy an SUV as well to be safe too. If we all drove car based vehicles it would be a lot more reasonable. If you need a truck or an SUV that is fine with me, but my guess is that 90% of the people driving Escalades and F-350s don't need that type of vehicle really. They've just been convinced by advertising they do.



Unfortunately, I don't think much will happen as America seems enamoured with these silly vehicles regardless of the consequences. But seeing an accident like that yesterday, that didn't need to be like that just got my goat. I might also have had a particular affinity to the middle car as it was a Saturn as well.



In other news, I've been getting tons of knitting done. Started a knitting group at work and have introduced a handful of people to knitting. I should be getting more knitting done this weekend and maybe wrapping up a few projects to report on next week.

Sardines

Well, I can't seem to catch up on things lately, including by blog posts. But skipping everything I was going to write and old drafts, I'm going to report on this morning's adventure.



First, let me preface that my daily commute is quite pleasent - lot's of reading and knitting and puzzles and listening to old NPR podcasts get accomplished. I'm on one of the more civilized lines.



But today, I was hoping to catch the bus that would bring me to the end of the subway line, therefore ensuring a seat. No such luck, it was too cold to wait for such a bus and so I took the first one that arrived. It brought me through slow traffice to a subway stop which was several stops further down the line. I get down to the platform and even though there was a train waiting there, the platform was packed with people too. Unusual. There had been an incident at the next stop delaying traffic. So I don't bother trying to squeeze in on an already full train, but wait for the next one that soon arrives. But even this one is fairly packed, but I'm late getting into work so no more waiting. I squeeze on and am packed in like a sardine (we didn't need the people pusher's like in Japan - above, we did it all on our own).



So that would be a good story on its own. It's something out of the ordinary in my daily routine, it provided comradery amongst the strangers you were sharing your breathing space with, it has elements of the weather worked into it. But no, the funny part was that we get to the next stop, the doors open, people try to squeeze out, more people try to squeeze in. We move on to the following stop, and.... nothing, our doors don't open. But sometimes they are delayed, but not this time, after a few minutes the train starts moving again - on to the next stop. People start to talk now. Some had needed to get out. This isn't good. There's some talk that we might end up having a very long train ride to the other end (which is way down south of the city - far). But no worries, there is always the next stop. We arrive, we see movement. Others are exiting and entering the train in the other subway cars. It appears ours is the one that is broken and noone knows. We move on to the next stop. The talking gets louder people start shouting to use the intercom. Wild comments are thrown out. We finally get in touch with the conductor (is that what they are called?) and he asks a simple question of which car are you in. Of course there is a plethora of responses, the funniest of which is "god knows" and "the one whose doors are broken". Some numbers are shouted out. And soon thereafter, the doors, with a heavy sigh, release and half the people tumble out.



All this while, I'm trying to read a report that is literally inch (not inches) an inch away from my nose, while not banging the ladies head in front of me with the papers as I turn the pages. The saving grace was that it wasn't an overheated car (sometimes the case in winter) so was quite a pleasent little adventure all in all. And really, not that much of a delay for me as I didn't have to retrace my steps (I still had two stops to go).



So that was my morning. We'll see how the rest of the day plays out!

Tuesday List

Well, yet again I've fallen behind on my blogging - sorry all ye faithful reader(s). In the consideration of time and trying to capture recent events, I will be conducting this blog in list form with no particular order in regards to importance or chronology.





1. My saving grace against the evils of Ravelry (an amazing database/community of knitters and yarn and patterns) is that my yarn is at home and my computer is at work. If they happened to be in the same place I don't think I would ever move and have thousands of knitting project's I'd be working on. I'm discovering an infinite amount of lovely patterns and even whole new worlds of knitting styles and subsets.





2. Continuing with knitting, project status is:



2a. I finially finished the Simply Marilyn sweater - sewing in the ends. Although, I still want to press it some more to prevent the bottom from rolling up so guess I'm not quite done yet.



2b.I finished the beautiful teal Jo Sharp cardigan which has become my favorite sweater (hand-knit and store bought). More info later when I finally get pictures.



2c. I'm almost done knitting my purple Oslo sweater. Having trouble finishing the neck and still have to sew it up and press it.





3. I visited dad this last weekend as I had a meeting in Springfield (western Mass) so was fairly close for a visit. I spent my giftcertificate money on a new book Loop d Loop. More fun projects, still trying to figure out which one gets to be first.





4. Bought more yarn at Webs, in Northampton. Again, it's good this store is just far enough away.