Newborn and Mama Vertebrae

What's nicer than a little cardigan (that actually fits in with the current state of my belly...) to ward off the chill?

A wee matching one for a newborn. 

 Cuteness overload.

My local yarn store just had their big annual sale... resistance proved futile. I managed to only buy a few skeins of yarn -- one of them being a German sock yarn for this little newborn vertebrae. The newborn pattern is free, although the baby version is not. I'm thinking that I will need to invest in the baby version though... this thing was so fast to make and I'm sure the Peanut will outgrow it about the same time he or she finds these baby jeans too tight. 

(Yarn: Regia Angora Merino / 50 grams / roughly 200 meters and I had plenty leftover.) 

My cardigan is the Mama Vertebrae pattern found here. I mentioned that I was making it here way back in March, but never showed you the final project. While summer is in full throttle at the moment and I have no use for a cardigan at the moment, I know I will wear this all the time as soon as chillier weather rolls in. And let's be honest here.... I want to make one in my size in the same luxurious angora merino blend as the Peanut's! 

Happy Fourth & Fireworks!

My city missed the memo that today is the Fourth of July and instead planned their fireworks for last night... along with a free concert at the park.

When we first moved here last year, the fireworks got rained out, and the Sailor and I spent the Fourth of July watching old movies, while I crocheted this red rug for the bathroom. This year, I had full intentions of going to the concert with a group of friends, but sleep called my name louder than the firecrackers. 

I was in bed by 9 pm.

Over the years, I've missed out on a lot of Fourth of July celebrations since I spent so many summers overseas.

One year, I found myself in Budapest, Hungary during their own national holiday. Budapest is a combination of two former cities, Buda and Pest, on either side of the Danube River. I had planned to meet some new friends across the city to view the fireworks, but I found myself stuck in Buda, since the bridges were closed due to the fireworks display. 

I climbed up the hill and headed back to my hostel, somewhat dejected. I had looked forward to simply experiencing a little bit of Hungarian nightlife with the locals and now I was stuck on this side of the river. Instead, I steeled myself for a night in with a 25 cent cup of a coffee from the vending machine, hoping that I might catch a glimpse of the display out my window.

One of the hostel receptionists saw me and asked if I wanted to go up onto the roof to view the fireworks. (We could climb onto the roof...?)

Sure enough, a group of us clamored up the access ladder to the flat roof of the five-story building with no railings, where we had one of the best views of the fireworks that night. 

I have since forgotten the name of that hostel and the names of the people on that rooftop. But I'll never forget that night, or the view. It reminded me a little bit of being a kid again.. of the anticipation of nightfall and the excitement of simply holding onto sparklers. 

I wondered last night if there was perhaps a Hungarian or two in town who would be missing their own fireworks display in August. Hopefully they made it to the park last night to at least see ours. 

Happy Fourth of July! Be safe... and invite someone out to see your town's fireworks with you this year. (Unless of course, they'd rather be asleep before dark.) 

  

Simple Crochet Bag

Understandably, I have a ton on my mind at the moment. The Peanut is due in about five weeks... so in between my nesting compulsions, and reading 874 (slight exaggeration...) pregnancy, birth and baby books, I'm giving myself some down time in my comfy chair, in front of the TV to catch up on a few series.

That of course means I end up crocheting or knitting something at the same time. 

At the moment, I've been working on this super simple (read: occasionally boring to hook...) crochet handbag. 

I've had the free pattern for a while, and on a trip to the yarn store a while back, I decided to buy this cone of yarn on a whim so that I would have a simple crochet project to do on the evenings that my brain felt especially foggy. 

Like tonight. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to going to have a seat in that chair and work on this summer tote so that I can actually finish it before the end of the season. (And forget what I said about this being a boring bag to crochet... tonight's episode of 24 should bring enough excitement for the evening.) 

Non-Shower Baby Showers

I have never been much of a baby shower person. Have I been excited when my friends had babies? Absolutely. Was I ever as excited when I've received a baby shower invitation in the mail? Not so much. 

I could never understand someone cooing and oohing and aahing while opening gifts that they already picked out and placed on a registry. It's not like it was a surprise or anything.

And then there are the games: weird ones like melting chocolate bars, putting them into a diaper and having guests take a bite of the brown goop to guess the type of candy. 

GROSS. 

Admittedly, as I've gotten older and so have my friends, the showers have become much more mature and tasteful... beautiful brunches, fun favors and let's face it, less goofy games. 

I'm happy to report that my friends both near and far know me well enough to throw me non-shower Baby Showers. These past few weeks have been busy with friends and family visiting from afar, with a few non-showers in between. 

My school chums from childhood threw me a Skype shower first; my local friends hosted a library shower next. I'll tell you more about the library shower in a later post, but first, let's talk about Skype. Skype is incredible. It's how the Sailor and I get to chat basically for free whenever he's near enough to an Internet connection overseas. We usually just voice Skype, since the video takes up too much bandwidth where he is.

I was a little skeptical when my friends offered to host me a Skype shower, though. What fun would that be, I thought? They all get to eat brunch together while I sit here on my own opening gifts in front of a screen, probably with a bowl of cereal for company? 

However, it was a total success! The gals sent their gifts ahead of time and even arranged to have cupcakes delivered right to my door in the middle of the shower, ensuring that even I had a tasty treat to indulge in. 
 

Giraffes were a prominent feature in the gifts!

They gathered around the laptop hooked up to a giant screen TV, while I opened gifts (and cooed and oohed and aahed...) and modeled my larger than life belly for them on the screen.

While of course it would have been fun to be in the same room together, Skype was a great alternative. 

Maybe you want to have your own Skype shower for a friend who is far away and expecting? Here are some tips: 

1. Test your Skype connection first! Luckily we did this a few weeks before the shower. My friend had a weird dancing cat on her video feed thanks to pre-installed software from her Dell laptop. (If you have iPhones or Macs, you can always use FaceTime instead of Skype and avoid the dancing cats all together.)

2. Mail your gifts to the recipient so she can open them during the shower. I knew not to open any gifts with my friends' return addresses on them until the shower; luckily another friend alerted me to incoming packages from Target. I had placed so many online orders from various places, I may have inadvertently opened her package early if she hadn't warned me. 

3. Send some food goodies to your friend! Seriously, those cupcakes made all of the difference. I love to eat and I especially enjoy eating with this particular gang of gals. I was actually feeling a little bummed that I didn't get to share a meal with them, until the cupcakes arrived!  

4. Give yourself plenty of time to mingle together before you arrange a time to Skype. I knew my friends would be late to the party (I know how long it takes us all to order our brunch when we haven't seen each other for months...) Plan to leave an extra few minutes buffer while everyone catches up, THEN make the Skype connection. 

5. Once the connection is established, make sure the recipient can actually see you! If you can't see yourself in the computer screen, there's a chance the person on the other end can't see you either. If it's a large group, then take turns chatting to the person, rather than having everyone talk at once. Sometimes conversation gets lost over a connection. In my case, there were only five gals on the other end, so it worked out to have everyone on at the same time. 

Another bonus of Skype showers? If you are not a tactile person... there's no chance anyone will touch your belly.

Later next week I'll share with you the local literary love I received at another non-shower, shower! 

Pyrex Not-So-Pretties

My vintage Pyrex collection has definitely taken a backseat to the amount of stuff we are acquiring for the Peanut. While I'm not storing baby clothes in the kitchen (yet), I have still been clearing out the cupboards to simply make some breathing room. I managed to sell a few pieces of Pyrex a while back, and there's a stack of dishes waiting at the door for their chance to make someone else happy. 

Understandably, I've limited my 'hunt' for more Pyrex. I have still searched for Pyrex whenever I'm out and about, but I haven't found many pieces worth writing about, let alone purchasing. However, a few weeks ago, I went to a thrift store and spied these three little pieces. 

They were (and still are) in rough shape. Someone either scrubbed them too hard or ran them through the dishwasher. And they cost a little more than I wanted to spend on not-so-pretty Pyrex. 

And yet I found myself at the checkout, with these three little less-than-perfect bowls in my hand. 

You see, I found a lonely little yellow bowl ages ago... just the right size for a small serving of fridge milk tart.

The bowl is also the right size for a small serving of M&Ms. (Because let's face it, if the bag is out, I'll eat them all...)

 
Later, I found the matching larger hostess bowl, along with the even larger hostess bowl and four square dessert cups. 

But the rest of the little yellow bowls still eluded me. In all of my thrifting and antiqueing adventures, I had yet to even see another tiny yellow bowl just like the one I had.

So you can understand then why I ended up paying $6 for three tiny bowls that weren't in great shape. 

After all, they are simply perfect for that tiny bit of ice-cream I like to indulge in fairly often. The Peanut seems to enjoy the ice cream too... although I'm pretty sure he or she doesn't care which bowl I eat it out of. But perhaps these less-than-perfect bowls will be perfect for when the Peanut is old enough to eat his or her own little bowl of ice cream.