stash, knit, repeat

As if I needed another reason to be… well, less than excited about a summer pregnancy in Boston, my hands are so swollen that most days I can’t actually get my hands closed into a fist. Knitting is largely out of the question.

Lucky for me, the lovely wry punster thoughtfully suggested that I do some sharing!

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

I was six months into my first “real” job (at the company I work for still, actually). Jon and I were living in a lovely apartment in a pretty terrible town, and generally enjoying being grown-up.

The big news was that we were just starting to plan our wedding, having been engaged for a couple of years at that point. We planned the date around our photographer’s availability. She was a dear friend and former colleague of Jon’s (he worked in an independent photo lab during high school), and if you’re in the Maine area I would recommend her without reservations.

(Image copyright Leigh Kelly-Monroe and the Unforgettable Moment. Don’t copy it, hoser.) It’s a little bittersweet to post that photo, actually. We were so young! Not that we’re old farts now, of course… but life sure was different.

2) What are five things on my to-do list for today?

1. Play with Jacob at the awesome playground next to the preschool building before summer camp starts. Check.
2. Get an ultrasound to make sure the baby is simply large, not godzilla-sized. Check. (Everything’s fine.)
3. Pick up our first meat CSA at the farmer’s market this afternoon.
4. Manage to get organic fruit & veggie box off of the porch before it either (a) gets drowned by another round of freak thunderstorms or (b) all of the chard wilts into nothingness. (Mmmm. Chard.)
5. Watch the Sox get trounced again by the Rays. While trying to knit and keep my hand from going too numb. SIGH.

You know, writing that list, I’m realizing that none of those things would really have been possible in Monterey (though I loved Jacob’s Montessori school there with the heat of a thousand suns). Pregnant or no, depressing Sox games or no, I’m so happy to be back here.

3) Snacks I enjoy:

Right now?

*cough*

More generally, though, here’s a sampling.

Um, yeah. What can I say? I love good food. And vinegar. Don’t forget the vinegar.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

I’m far too pedantic for a question like this. But I’ll try not to be too irritating about my answer. I think, aside from changing careers and doing something like getting a degree part-time in food science or nutritional anthropology, our lives would look much the same. There’d be no mortgage for me or my fam, of course, and there’d probably be more travel. But I like our life, and wouldn’t want to change much about it.

So where would the money go? A foundation of some kind, I expect.

5) Places I have lived:

Small-town Maine

Claremont, CA. This was our dorm. I think the architecture is called “neo-brutalist”. Not the most photogenic place, I know. Scripps was much more beautiful.

Lowell, MA. Okay, okay. This is Ingonish, Nova Scotia. I never lived in Nova Scotia, but trust me. You’d rather look at this picture.

The Camberville area, MA. Yay! We’re back!

Monterey Peninsula, CA. Ties with Maine for the most beautiful place I’ve lived. Too bad my experience wasn’t great there.

6) Jobs I have had:

I’ve worked since I was 12, at one thing or another. So this is far from exhaustive. But it tells an interesting story about my life, I think.

1. Maid in a coastal Maine resort
2. Dairy Queen countergirl and snarker extraordinaire.
3. Mathematics research assistant
4. Information security engineer specializing in formal methods
5. System administrator
6. Manager of information security engineers and director of security research program
7. Mother

Cliche of the day: Guess which job is the most difficult?

Please do play along if the mood strikes you. I love reading stuff like this.

12 comments

Yeah, yeah, there’s another FO to share, but hasn’t it been awhile since we just chatted? Life has sure been busy, and it seems like I have lots to tell you.

First of all, the wee beastie is doing just fine. Unfortunately, the swelling that plagued me for so much of my pregnancy with Jacob is back with a vengeance (good-bye, wedding ring!). I don’t think I’ll ever actually enjoy being pregnant. But all in all, 22 weeks isn’t as bad as it could be. At least I’m able to stomach coffee again.

Both my knitting and my yarn-buying are going well. Faced with the prospect of at least a year without practical sweater-for-myself opportunities, I’ve gone a little crazy with the cheez whizyarn clubs. After another shipment of Sundara’s club, and a general diminishing of the raging hormones, I’ve decided the club is both enjoyable and good for me. Unable to decide which season appealed to me most, I chose both Summer and Autumn this time around. As if that weren’t yarn enough, Madelinetosh came out with a club of her own. Her yarn is definitely a contender for #1 favorite, so I joined up. I guess my needles will be plenty busy, and hopefully I’ll be too focused on the luscious yarn to notice the lack of sweaters!

My secret knitting du jour involves what is probably my most favorite cable ever.

Also, it’s purple. How could purple be bad?

And finally, things seem to have gotten settled enough for me to share that we’re making a big move back to our house in the Boston area this summer. We have lots of good reasons to leave CA, most of them boiling down to family and culture. I’m so excited to go back that I can hardly stand it. We’ve been renting out our place, and I love the thought of being in my very own house again–although I’m daunted by the toddler-proofing challenges! The last time we were there, Jacob looked like this:

Now, things are a little different.

(Yes, he’s hiding something in my shoe.) What do you all like most about the place you’re living?

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This seems like a pretty strange thing to do, to me. So please forgive me if it’s tacky or otherwise inappropriate. But it occurs to me that there might be folks in Boston who read this, and could make a connection. So!

Until we move back to the area, we are renting out our condominium in Somerville near Tufts University. It’s a 4br/2ba with off-street parking. Our current tenants are leaving at the end of December, and we’re happy to do either a short or a longer-term lease. Pictures of the common spaces can be found here.

If you know of anyone who might be interested, please point them at me? Thanks in advance.

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It’s not usually a struggle for me, deciding what to talk about here. It’s a knitting blog, and I’m always (always) knitting, so… there ya go.

But there’s something in the room, now. Or rather, not in the room, and it’s getting in the way of my Rhinebeck post. I went. I had fun with new friends and old.

I bought yarn. A lot of yarn. Did I need a lot of yarn? Well, no, not really. Had I budgeted for a lot of yarn? You bet. And it was all lovely, every last yard.

(It will all be up on Ravelry over the next few days, if you’re curious.) And I made immense progress on the Tangled Yoke, and I finished Waterlily, and I have a gorgeous sock on the needles. But I can’t just post a chipper “oh my god it was so fun and I can’t wait for next year and I saw these 8 million people and here are some links to their blogs” post. I just can’t. It would be false. So instead, here’s an actual honest-to-goodness update on my life.

The day I left for Rhinebeck, I had a miscarriage. I was somewhere between 9 and 11 weeks pregnant, the dates are unclear. The week before, I’d seen a happy wiggling little proto-kid, steady heartbeat and all.

I’m really glad I went to Rhinebeck. It was really fun, I can’t wait for next year, and I did meet and spend time with some fabulous people. I’m excited about the knitting I’m doing right now, and excited about what I’m going to knit next, but I would feel like an ass if I just launched into all of that without a word. I have to be honest in this space, even if I’m usually pretty narrow in scope. So. There you have it. If I was oblivious to you at the festival, if I seemed sad or unfriendly, it wasn’t anything you did. It’s just where I was, this weekend.

Quite aside from me needing some time away from Monterey and the problems associated with it, Rhinebeck was the perfect place for me to go. There was something very healing and satisfying about spending an entire weekend devoted to a very creative endeavor that I also fully and completely control. If a sweater is not perfect, I can rip it out and re-do. I can very carefully choose exactly the right yarn, exactly the right buttons, exactly the right pattern. I can obsess over every stitch, fix mistakes as often as necessary, and wind up with a perfect object that will last a hundred years. So very, very unlike parenting. I craved the predictability, the control.

I’m absolutely going back, and I hope to see you there (and here) lots more in the future.

46 comments