In the nick of time

Just before it gets too warm, we talked Lilah into modeling this cute little number:


FO pictures and pattern info are right here. She wasn't that excited about it, but we had to get pictures before it was too small. It's a 0-6 month, and believe it or not, our barely three-month-old has almost outgrown all her six-month stuff. At this rate, she could be the first female linebacker in professional football, though I hope not. It's also my theory that she's teething early, due to major drool and tiny teeth I SWEAR I can see, but no one else can, and some night waking that wasn't happening before. We'll see...

Please don't take it personally if I haven't commented on your blogs in a while. Things have been a bit hectic, and there are days when all my free time is spent doing laundry or something. I'm slowly getting more free time, and I can't wait to see what you've all been up to!

StringBean, I'm all about the vanilla soymilk on my cereal now. And Starbucks does a nice soy vanilla latte. Soy cheese, though...yuck. All in all, cutting out cow's milk has been less traumatic than I expected. I'm trying to take this as an opportunity to improve my Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Indian cooking. Anyone else have ideas for less dairy-oriented cuisine? Rachel, you may not have this problem at all! Less than 2% of colic cases are caused by cow's milk allergy, and it's a sensitivity to proteins in cow's milk (so I can have goat cheese), not to lactose, which is a sugar.

Fun news...The Whole Ball of Yarn(s) is moving! No, I haven't finally switched to Typepad. We're moving to Atlanta, where my husband starts a post-doctoral research position this summer. Since we met and fell in love as undergrads at Emory, we're kind of excited to go back. But, wow, is there a lot to do...finding a place to live, packing EVERYTHING up, throwing out junk that we're not moving with us. We have loved living in Madison, though, and I plan to take Lilah to the Farmer's Market, the Terrace, Great Dane, and our other favorite Madison places, as often as possible before we leave.

Knitting: Still going on Hedera. Rachel, I may be emailing you about a short-row heel when I get closer to the heel :) I decided to leave the FuzzyFeet excessively blue. It's getting warmer anyway, and when it gets cold, I shall just buy my husband new pajamas to match them!

Reading: I forgot to mention How To Be Good by Nick Hornby. Hornby wrote High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, and About a Boy, among other things, and my husband loves him. I quite enjoyed it. I think it would be a cool book for a book club because there are a lot of interesting issues raised. It starts out with a marriage that's falling apart. The twist is the husband's spiritual change. It's hard to summarize it as being "about" something in a succinct way. I think it's about modern society, doing what's right and how to figure out what that means, being connected to an increasingly disconnected society. It was very funny in places, and really made me think. To be honest, some parts made me uncomfortable, but I think it's good to be challenged sometimes.

I also finished Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House and loved it. No shock there :) I'm now working on A Charmed Death by Madelyn Alt. This is a sort of Wiccan-ish murder mystery, the second in a series. I picked it up for the plane, and haven't read the first. There are some things about the pagan/mystical elements that I'm not sure about as far as accuracy goes, but it's not a negative portrayal. The mystery so far is fairly interesting.

Writing: Ha! I sat out on the porch yesterday (gorgeous spring day) and knocked off some revision while Lilah napped. I deleted some stuff, so the word count is 40,500.

Cooking: I made Sesame Noodles with Broccoli from the April Cooking Light, and it was fantastic! The sauce used tahini, dark sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, and soy sauce, and I could have eaten it with a spoon. It was excellent, and will go in my repertoire. I used soba noodles instead of whole wheat spaghetti. I have some Indian recipes I plan to make this week.

Kinda Fuzzy Feet

So, I've gone a while without blogging again, and I'm woefully behind in my blog-reading, as well. This is because I've been traveling! We've been in California to visit my family, and we've all had a great time. Lilah has really enjoyed being outside in the nice weather. Too bad it's back to the cold soon :) I've been doing lots of visiting stuff, but there's been some of my usual activity as well.

Knitting: I promised my husband a new pair of Fuzzy Feet. And here they are, obviously before felting, with my foot for scale:

I had this much yarn left from a skein of Cascade 220:

I don't remember the exact color, but it's one of the heathers. It's really not the right color, and I need to ask all you dyeing geniuses out there if there's a way to darken it to more of a navy. It's kind of BLUE, but the LYS here didn't have anything closer in a feltable worsted weight. This is why I usually order yarn, but I needed to get it before we left on a trip the next day. My husband insists that it goes just fine with his pajamas, but I'm not convinced. Any ideas? I really just settled on the color and let him talk me into them matching okay because I wanted to do them in the car on our five hour trip (each way) to Sacramento to visit my brother. I'm calling them Kinda Fuzzy because Lamb's Pride is more fuzzy than Cascade, but the LYS, which told me on the phone they had "tons" of colors of Lamb's Pride, turned out to have about six colors in stock, none of them close, though they "would be happy to order" for me. Urgh. If I wanted to wait for an order, I would just order it myself. Anyway, I also barely started Hedera from Knitty:

That's Sunshine Yarns in Strawberry Banana, which I think is a fun yarn. Hedera isn't my ideal sock, as I really wanted to try a short-row heel this time, but I only have dpns in size 1 or size 5 or greater, so I needed a size 1 pattern, and this was the one I found that seemed interesting. It'll be nice for the plane, and I can always rip it out when I get home if I find a different pattern. I've been having trouble getting inspired by knitting lately. I think the main problem has been the colic we've had around here for several weeks. The 5+ hours of crying every night were exhausting and really prevented me going through the stash and my knitting books to find what I really wanted to knit. Thankfully, it's over! But, sad for me, I had to give up dairy. I was allergic to cow's milk as a baby, and I think Lilah is, too, because two days after I gave up dairy, the colic was GONE. Like flipping a switch. So when we get back from this trip, I'll get my knitting to-do list in order and get excited about it again.

Reading: Lots of this! I've had The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst on my to-read shelf for ages, and I finally tackled it (it's 400+ pages, so not thin). It was excellent. It's billed as a political/social satire, but that makes it seem a little impersonal to me, and it's not. Nick Guest, a Henry James scholar who recently came out, lives with the family of a university friend. The father is a very wealthy conservative MP who adores Margaret Thatcher. The novel takes place in the 1980s, with the spectre of AIDS hanging over Nick and his lovers. There are better summaries over on amazon. I've read that the plot is Jamesian, which makes me want to read some more Henry James. The plot is divided into three parts, in 1983, 1986, and 1987. The social and political satire is incisive and very funny. I definitely recommend it, and I'm glad I read it, but I'm not sure it'll go in my re-reading pile.

In the "definitely re-read" pile is Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. This is a prequel to Peter Pan and it is FUN. I have to re-read Peter Pan now, as it's been years and years. It's swashbuckley and adventurous, and good for all ages.

I'm now on the sixth Jane Austen mystery, Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you probably already know I love it :) These are so fun, and a pleasure to read.

Writing: See above re: colic. Hoping to start again when we get back.

Cooking: No cooking on vacation.