Post Industrial Brambles

I added a new category – wine! I like drinking wine but I forget what I drank in two seconds. I know that Merlot is a dark wine and Chardonnay is light, but everything else is a blur. So now, I will not only list the movies I saw but the wines I tastes in my blog amongst the assorted bloggy chatter.

Henkell Trocken, Fine Seckt, dry sparkling wine, Wiesbaden Germany
Gazela, Vinho Verde, white wine, Portugal

Did you know wines have web pages? Crazy!

Today might not be the first day of spring, but it felt like it was. Owen and I went for a nice walk. He is getting very heavy, this was probably the last time I will carry him in the sling for a longer period of time.

I just realised the next week is the Canada Reads panel on CBC. I managed to get through two of the books and am half way through the third one. I really hoped to have read all the books but I just was not in the mood lately. I finished “Good to a Fault” and “Jade Peony”. Both were pretty good. I am now reading “Nikolski” which is promising as well. I don’t think I will get to the other two, but I will try. Last year I was hoping to save the podcast for until I am done with the novels, but with radio and internet, I ended up seeing/hearing who won before I was ready.

No movies today, the choice of films was not to our liking so we took a walk today. It was wet snow day but it was so nice to be out in the air.

I’m adapting well to double motherhood, I have got a good mix of activities and doing nothing. I am getting to know my children a bit better, or really, I am learning how to take care of them better. I spend more time thinking about how to take care of them anyway.

The strangest thing happened to me last week. I started to miss work. No, I do not miss sitting at the desk for 8 hours at the time or the constant decreases in the size of the local workforce or things that irritate me. But I miss doing engineering, I miss the coworkers, I miss the lunches with Heather, I miss rolling my eyes at adversity, I miss the two loudmouth managers a cubicle row over whose comments on the state of their projects and the rest of the World make me spit out my coffee laughing every morning. I have been wondering how my team is doing since I left, but I am afraid of finding out.

Your baby spits up on your good shirt. You:

a) Eww! Carefully remove the shirt, immediately do the laundry and take a shower
b) Survey the damage and dump the shirt in the laundry room, you’ll wash it when you can. Run a wet towel over your shoulder and back
c) Put a sweater on to contain the spill, continue to the hallway to clean up toddler pee

My free ride is over. It has been nine weeks since Owen was born and the last grandparent on duty has finished his shift. It’s swim or sink now. While the grandparents were here I managed to finish up and do a few crafts. It is not so much that I had the time to do them (I didn’t) it is more that I had to do them to keep my sanity.

The first craft I started late last year. I wanted to make a couple of pairs of gloves. Here is the recipe I decided works best:

Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun Fingering
Needles: 2.25mm dpn
Size M

For fingers, knit until you get to the bottom of finger, knit the finger then knit the remaining fingers together until you get to the finger separation. I don’t have a good strategy for fingers yet.

This has been heavily borrowed from Knotty Gloves on Ravelry. I don’t think this is plagiarizing since the pattern used in here does not seem to be too original and I have made enough modifications to make the look and feel of the glove different.

My mom modeling the fancy red gloves

A lesson I learned is to not mess with the yarn. I got a different yarn for my sister’s gloves and the result was disastrous. I still gave her the gloves since I did not have the time to make new ones, but I will never, ever, make such drastic substitutions ever again. Sorry Barbara, I’ll make you something nicer later.

The second craft was a travel bag for my dad. This isn’t really my craft since my dad did all the design and cutting. All I did was sew on the line.

My dad and Trevor testing out the travel bag

This bag is the perfect airplane bag as long as you don’t mind your belongings being banged around. It is the largest allowed size and it weighs next to nothing allowing for maximum capacity. It is also made of sturdy recycled pre-faded fabric. The toddler does not come with it.

The last craft is my needle case (etui for you crosswords solvers). It is smaller version of this pattern except I did not sew the top fold because it would make the cow’s face look funny. I might add some clips to keep it folded properly though.

Next challenge: socks.

I am a sucker for romantic comedies, so I was really glad to see this film though it is entirely forgettable. I was going to write more about it, but then I had to go take care of the children, and it has been over a week since I started this post with some profound thoughts I had about rom coms in general and this particular instance of it but it just doesn’t sound as interesting now as it did then. I also went to see Sherlock Holmes yesterday and it was nice too.

Chris brought an article about sleep and crying babies to my attention. It is very true. More so, even when Owen isn’t crying I am listening to the noises. It was like that with Trevor too. In fact, until Trevor was big enough to get out of his bed and walk over and wake me up, I was always listening for him in my sleep.

Even though I am not going to have a good night sleep for another two years, I am really enjoying spending time with my kids. We went to the pool this morning and Trevor loved it. I spent some alone time with Owen in a failed attempt to go to a thesis defense a girl in my lab was doing. Both boys are asleep now and I miss them though I am exhausted.

My main accomplishment today was to wash both boys at the same time. Look how happy I am!

I am getting back into Mom at Home mode. I have gone to a drop-in at the Early Years Center and Playgroup and Stars and Strollers this week. I missed the Story Time at the mall, but that was because I had a doctor’s appointment. I had a Belly Dancing class too, but I don’t know if that counts since this was a kids free event.

I am doing well, but that is because I had help around the house since Owen was born. I do have a mommy brain. I can’t really think of anything other than my kids. Oh right, I did go and check out the store that sells cross-country skiing equipment, but I am not at the point yet where I got anything I am currently missing, so I don’t know if that counts.

This is the point where I usually talk about favorite moves of the past year, but I really haven’t seen too many movies, definitely not enough to make a list. The past year has been strange and though I managed to do some fun things, most of the time I was really tired, partially from work and school, partially from being pregnant.

I don’t really know what to expect for the next year and I do not want to make any resolutions. I will spend most of the time taking care of Owen and Trevor. Trevor loves being outside, and I want to encourage him so I will try and get him to be outside as much as possible. However, I will also have Owen with me, so this might prove to be difficult from time to time.

I want to work on getting back into shape. I did pretty well during the pregnancy, but I still have far to go. The challenge with this is that I do not want to overdo it and end up in physio like I did last time. I am hoping to do a lot of biking, which will be challenging because Owen will still be too young to take on the bike. I also want to do some cross country skiing, but how I am going to manage that, I have no clue. I probably won’t.

I need to finish my thesis. I have been making very slow progress over last six months.

What I will probably be able to do is spend time with my boys. I just have to make sure I am rested enough to be able to enjoy myself.