I have decided to move my blog to another site. I have been pondering it for a while now, and now seems like the right time to go ahead with it. If you are interested in my new blog location, feel free to ask and I will send it to you.

Thanks

First up is some catch up on my knitting. The last few weeks I haven’t had much desire to be knitting at all. But, I suddenly have new vigor and have been quite busy with it the last few days. The sock that I started about a month ago…well, it still isn’t quite done, but I have turned the heel and am making progress on the foot now! YAY! Hmm…I wonder how long it will take before I have a PAIR of socks.

For mother’s day, my mom gifted me with 4 balls of yarn. It is 100% Hungarian hemp fiber. 2 balls were a dk weight and 2 a worsted weight. They are both blue, though 2 slightly different shades. I hadn’t mentioned to her that I had been wanting to get some hemp yarn, but I was very excited that she gave them to me. I have been wanting to make a bath washcloth for some time, and the one that we currently have (that is nearly 5 years old!) is made from hemp and is the most wonderful thing!

So, when I saw the yarn, I knew I had some washcloths to make. Then, I just came across the Knitty pattern Branching Out, and instantly thought: That would be a great pattern for a pretty washcloth!!

So, here you go! I started this late last night, and am almost done.

I am really enjoying the pattern too.

During my short hiatus from knitting, I was busy making curtains. Our new house has lots of windows, but only those basic pull-up shades. Those don’t do much for personality of the house, so I am slowly starting to make curtains for the house. First up was the living room. We have 2 big windows that are almost as tall as the walls they are in. I used a total of 9 yards of fabric, making 4 big panels. I still need to make the ties for the curtains so we don’t have to pull the curtains to the side everyday to let the light in.

On Monday (was that just yesterday? Wow, it seems like days ago already!), R and I trekked up to our local state park. It is about 15 minutes from us. The weather was SO SO SO hot and I figured it would be nicer under the shade of a tree than cooped up in our house. I gathered up some food, and we had a nice picnic under a hazelnut tree. We didn’t hike very far at all into the park (it was too hot for walking!!), but we had the whole place to ourselves just about. It was glorious! We are going to try to go back again Thursday morning before my busy afternoon of prenatals.

Here are some pictures, some taken by me, others taken by R.

In German, a real book for kids…

http://www.planetdan.net/pics/babies/index.htm

So, I have realized that I really need to make some friends locally. I am feeling very isolated on the days when I stay home (when there are no prenatals scheduled), and want to be able to chat with other mamas occasionally.

The thing that makes it hard, I guess, is that I am not a very out-going person. When I meet new people, I probably even come off as being cold. I have a hard time opening up to new people. For this reason, when I go to a group of moms, I have a hard time making a connection to anyone, and usually the people I end up befriending take the initiative to get our friendship going. I guess I feel rather self-conscious in many ways, thinking about how other people perceive me, feeling rather dull and boring with not much to say. W. laughs when I tell him this, because he says that when I am with him, I can’t stay quiet for 15 minutes (unless I am sleeping ).

The whole friendship this has always been something that I have struggled with. Sure, I had friends while growing up in school. But it always took me such a long time to weld those friendship bonds. My oldest friend and I have been friends since the 8th grade, and we were very, very close through high school. We still talk occasionally, but we are walking down such totally opposite paths, that it is hard to even have much of a conversation these days. I still love her and care about her, and if we were to never talk to her again, I would still feel that way. And, honestly, I think that the time is approaching where we drift our own separate ways, maybe to reconnect 10 years from now when we can relate to one another more. She is single, goes out to parties and bars almost every night, drinks a lot (she is Russian, so when I say she drinks a lot, that is putting it lightly!). It seems like she is so very jaded by life at this point in her life. I love her very much, like my sister, and I wish that we could be closer right now, both physically and mentally. But, she has her path to walk and I have mine.

Well, that was quite a side-track. But, relevant. The point being, I would like (love?) to make some friends with whom we can relate to one another. Of course, we will have our differences, that is what makes a friendship fun! I really dearly miss my friends that I left behind when we moved (you know who you are!). But, I think that it would be very good for me to meet some people locally, you know?

The only mama function that I have been to was the local knitting group. I went once about a month ago. It is on a weekday evening, and something has always come up to keep me from going again. Very frustrating! Sooooo, I am trying to think of OTHER ways to meet fellow mamas. There is no La Leche League here, so that option is out. I looked on the meetup.com website, and there are no local moms groups here either. So, any ideas anyone?

It has been a few days since I have been able to think clearly enough about what to blog on.

Let’s see….

Well, another beautiful baby was born a few days ago. Such a short and sweet birth! Mama went called us around 2:30 with the news that her water had broken, but no real contractions yet. 1 1/2 hours later, her husband called, and said that it was time to come…she was moaning through contractions in the background. When we arrived around 4:45 (they live very rurally), she said she felt pushy (and we could hear her pushing a bit with contractions). No vaginal exams, no interruptions. So nice! Very soon thereafter, we saw wht looked like some hair when she pushed…turned out to be the amniotic sac! Pretty soon, there was a bulging bag of waters, which looked dark because of some older meconium that had passed. 10 minutes later, the baby crowned, BOW still intact. It was the most beautiful sight! The sweet baby, on his mama’s perineum, still within his amniotic bag. With the next contraction, out he came, and we could see that the BOW had indeed ruptured, but up near the baby’s legs, so that this mama still got her dream of having her baby born ‘in the caul’! During the birth, I got the honor of taking pictures, per the family’s request, and I am so glad that we got some shots of the baby as he was being born! Truly amazing!!!

Her baby was born just before 6pm, so we were only there for about an hour and a half until the little guy made his appearance. Mom bled very little, but her placenta took about 1 1/2 hours to be born, and in the mean time, this first-time mama decided it would be nice to take a stroll outside around the big yurt, babe at the breast, placenta inside uterus…GREAT! So, around we went for a little, me tagging along with a bowl in case the placenta should choose to make an appearance. It was fun! Overall, a very sweet birth.

Today, R and I have made some homemade playdough, been to the park, and spent a good while blowing bubbles. Right now he is dozing. Tomorrow and Thursday are full of prenatal appointments. I am looking foward to them very much.

On the stove right now is some home-made seitan. I haven’t decided what I will do with it tonight, I have to wait for the inspiration to hit me. Oh, and to answer your question Vegan Knitting, yes, I am a vegan, though only via diet. I do still knit with animal fibers. That tofu ricotta recipie that I used in the lasagne was actaully from the Moosewood New Classics cookbook. I will dig it out again and type it up soon. It is really very good!

Well, I often think of taking delicious pictures of all the healthy food that I spend so much time preparing…but, I only remember to do it after we are all full and satisfied and the food is gone! Oops!

But, tonight, was some lasagne. Sans the cheese, of course. And, of course, with whole wheat noodles. The sauce is homemade (though the tomatoes that I used were canned). When I make homemade red sauce, I always make double and freeze the left-overs so that I have some “instant” sauce when I need it…such as for making lasagne. I had an eggplant and zuchinni that I roasted a bit in the oven first, as well as some fresh spinach.

I made the “cheese” out of tofu, garrlic, herbs, olive oil, salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast that I mixed and ran though my food processor. Here is the beginning of the layering.

I *almost* forgot to take a picture of the finished product. Yikes! So, here is a side image of the layers, because that is always my favorite view when cooking in glassware.

And, for your art-fix for the day, here is R.’s latest masterpiece, with his new paints that he has been asking for for days now and was very excited to finally get this morning….

(Did everyone skillfully notice my red kitchen in the later pictures? Yes, the counter-top in my kitchen is RED, which I don’t think I would choose to do if I were designing a kitchen, but I kinda like it now. It is different, kind of makes me feel like I am in a different period of time, not the 21st century.)

Please check it out, and pass it along as you see fit:
www.oneangrygirl.net

I was at firt turned off by the name “angry”. I am a pretty straight-up feminist myself, but the angry feminist movement has always turned me off. I just always think that we get much farther without anger and resentment. But, I really think that a group like this one can help spread awareness about a very serious topic.

My favorite shirt is the one that says: Start a Revolution, Stop Hating Your Body