I lost November

I swear it was just November 1st. Right? Am I crazy? And now its the end of November. Tomorrow I'll be 28 weeks pregnant (for those not fresh on their pregnancy info, its 40 weeks total - give or take - which leaves me with 12 weeks left) And as much as I was hoping November and December would go quickly, this is a bit faster than I had in mind.

This last week I'm cycling between

"TWELVE WEEKS???? 12 more weeks?" and

"TWELVE WEEKS??? what do you mean only 12 weeks?"

It depends on what pants I'm wearing (where am I going to put 12 more weeks of baby??) and how many baby related sewing projects I add to my list (pregnancy does something to your ability to judge time required for these things. I have about 2 years of sewing planned that I seem to think I can do in 8 weeks?)

I'm going to try to take a 'belly shot' tomorrow. I originally planned to do the week by week documentation of this pregnancy. Then I thought month by month. Annnnd now I'm 2/3 of the way through and I'm hoping to take the FIRST picture tomorrow. So that plan was a big FAIL. Ah well.

Moving on to what I *have* accomplished in the last few weeks: (keeping in mind the pictures are terrible. Lighting has been junk lately, and I got tired of waiting. I was also too lazy to edit them to try to help the situation.)

My first example of "I don't knit nearly as fast as I apparently think myself able"

I won't post any other info on this until after Christmas. Let's just say I planned to have it done by now, its a gift, and it needs to be finished, washed/blocked, and shipped all in the next 3 weeks. Which...is totally do-able. But since my PLAN was to be done already, its making me panic about 37%.

This is just a random picture because if I get the camera out, I *have* to take a picture of him, and show him the back of the camera to see. Plus....he's freakin' adorable. So there. (he's smiling funny because he kept insisting I take a picture of the inside of his mouth, when I wouldn't, he gave me this goofy smile instead)

I actually hate this card. BUT...I made it. And it was one of those days where I had to *make* something, anything, even if it was fugly. I felt better.

This has no picture yet. (Which, would seem obvious without me pointing it out...duh Sarah) This is another "don't like it" but I've been trying to force myself to just make something without spending days over-analyzing, re-doing, and driving myself crazy trying to make it 'perfect'. Kind of a 'just sit down and do it' challenge for myself.


Play-mat/quilt top #1

Play mat/quilt-top #2

Play mat/quilt-top #3 - this one is basted, and partly quilted. But then I realized my machine quilting was T.E.R.R.I.B.L.E. so I'm ripping it all out (that's not true, I'm PROCRASTINATING ripping it all out, because ripping it all out is tedious and maddening).

Doll quilt that will be in the etsy shop. Hopefully with quite a few other items by this weekend. Love etsy. HATE writing descriptions. Bah.

Another random page I made a few weeks back. Inspired by a sketch from
sketchy thursdays. I never used to use sketches, but I've found them helpful getting me jump-started back into scrapbooking. (I didn't do much with it for about 2 years) Most of the time I start with a sketch, but end up tweaking and moving things that in the end you'd never recognize the two were related. This one was pretty straightforward.

This was a pillow I made for some friends that just had a baby. I screwed up on it (when don't I?) and its a little 'snug' top to bottom, but I was actually pretty happy with how it turned out. The color is lighter in real life...

'baby robin' as their last name is robin. a little corny maybe, but embroidery makes corny ok.



Another baby gift. Play mat/quilt. It was supposed to be gender neutral, and came out a little heavy on the boy side...oops. Since then, said baby has made HER entrance. Hopefully she likes blue!

There's also a baby sweater I COMPLETELY forgot to get a picture of, and a sweater I made for myself that needs buttons. Then I can start on that ambitious baby list =P

5 years

Yesterday marked 5 years since my mom died. The picture above was the night Zach was born, he was about 12 weeks old when she passed. I hesitated to post about it here, because it makes people feel awkward and like they have to say something comforting. So don't. :) Its just weird to think its been FIVE years. Sometimes it feels like it was forever ago, and other times I can't believe its been that long. Thanksgiving was always HER holiday. (Literally, I think she'd have drawn blood if anyone else tried to host!) So thanksgiving is its own reminder.

But this year it really occurred to me that she's not there. I do ok - I loved my mom, but we never exactly saw eye to eye - but seeing Zach grow up, and knowing he's missing 3 grandparents (Eddie's parents both passed away about a year and a half before my mom) is weird. And not that he's lacking. His papou and yaya pretty much adore him, and we're fortunate that even though they live 2,000 miles away, he's very aware of who they are and that they love him. We also are blessed to have aunties - both mine an Eddie's - who've taken on a 'grandma' role. They have his pictures on their fridge, and feed him junk food just because he asked, and have a stash of toys for him to play with. He does ok :)

Its just weird to think its been that long. And in case you're wondering, she had a form of cancer called glioblastoma multiforme. If you think "wow, that's a shi**y disease" (and it is) and want to throw a couple bucks into research you can do that here: donate. And if you don't, that's cool too. I know there are about 400 charities, groups and foundations I'd love to support if I had the funding and we can't do them all.

(A few off the top of my head: charity: water, Mother's Milk Bank of Iowa, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital)

I really have no end to this post...so I'm done. :)