keelyblog

The Infamous Knitting Emergency

I have to admit, this was a stressful pregnancy. I found out on of my best friends had been talking trash about me behind my back. And then she refused to return all my maternity clothes! I was getting by with being mostly naked, or just looking like a slob in pajama pants and a t-shirt. All my beautiful maternity shirts that cost a fortune–gone. The 70’s dress that my mother-in-law found at a thrift store in CA that made me feel beautiful during my first pregnancy—gone. All gone. In addition to this, Mark was paying attention to job offers and going on interviews. I was in a terrible mood most of the time and letting my Mom spend more and more time with my daughter. My milk dried up early and my daughter was suddenly and traumatically weened. Every night to get her to sleep I had to hold her tight against me and rock her while she bucked against my belly. Needless to say, I was emailing Christy quite a lot.

So that was my thing, I emailed her. The only other thing I had to relieve stress was knitting. I started knitting wool soakers before getting pregnant–just for fun. I found pleasure in picking out high-end wools at the local yarn boutique. I needed the knitting. After seeing some of Christy’s soakers laid out in her office one visit, I realized I had not made anything small enough for a newborn. Not long after that, I picked out some new wool with plans to make something small and cute!

More than halfway through one of the soakers, I realized I did not have the right needles to finish it. I was using a very chunky wool and size 8 needles. Soon I would need to use four double-point needles instead of the kind with a string connecting two ends. I did not own size 8 double point needles! The only stores in town that sold size 8 double point needles are not open on Sundays. You guessed it, this was Sunday morning.

I did not realize how much I needed to keep knitting and to finish things until that moment. I was relying on finishing one project after another to keep my sanity. What could I do now? I would be stuck all afternoon with nothing to distract me from thinking and worrying and obsessing! Poor baby inside me! This story is still about him and he was growing in a very stressed out mommy!

The only think I could think to do was to call Christy and see if she had needles that I could borrow. I had not “called” her in months. When she called back, she told me how relieved she was that it was only needles I needed. Since I always just email, seeing my number on her cell-phone made her worried that something had happened to me or the baby! She said to come by and she would bring the needles out because she had family over for a visit that afternoon. I finished the soaker that night and brought it, and the needles, to our regularly scheduled appointment the following Tuesday.

Can you imagine an OBGYN being so calm to to talk to and help a stressed out mommy–on Sunday!?

I really thought this one was interesting–especially the “during that four years” part.

1980: Ronald Reagan V. Jimmy Carter
I REMEMBER: not much
I WAS: almost 1
DURING THAT FOUR YEARS: We moved a lot. Dad worked sometimes and didn’t work lots of times. I remember living in an old trailer just inside the Lake Travis school district line and then moving to an even older house across the street with holes in the walls. We covered the holes with newspaper. My mom went back to college.

1984: Ronald Reagan V. Mondale
I REMEMBER: not much
I WAS: a week away from turning 5.
DURING THAT FOUR YEARS: We moved a lot. First to Missoula, MT. Dad couldn’t find work there; Mom had a crumby job despite graduating near the top of her class in accounting at UT. Then to Chaparral, NM so that Dad could get a job on Reagan’s “Star Wars” program. When the program got tanked, we went on food stamps. Then to Oregon, Las Vegas, and Arizona in that order. Lots of union electrician work on casinos. The Bullhead City, AZ/Laughlin, NV year we broke into the middle class.

1988: George Bush V. Dukakis
I REMEMBER: thinking “Dukakis” was a funny word and something about releasing criminals.
I WAS: almost 9
DURING THAT FOUR YEARS: We moved a lot. To the Texas coast. We bought a piece of land in Rockport and a big trailer. Being back in a non-union state, wages and jobs were pitiful for my dad. My mom worked two jobs and went back to school. She was certified to teach Sp. Ed. Home life went downhill as my sisters became teenagers and my father drank more.

1992: Bill Clinton V. George Bush V. H. Ross Perot
I REMEMBER: having one good friend who’s family supported Bush and one who’s family supported Perot.
I WAS: in Jr. High and strongly Democrat with my family.
DURING THAT FOUR YEARS: Home life plummeted. We moved back to Vegas for work. We were middle class again, I finally got glasses, and my parents finally separated, back together, separated again. My mother got a teaching job over the phone and she and I moved back to the Texas coast.

1996: Bill Clinton V. Bob Dole V. H. Ross Perot
I REMEMBER: trying to finish HS without loosing my mind.
I WAS: Politically out of touch.
DURING THAT FOUR YEARS: I graduated HS, moved around a lot. Worked a lot of mediocre jobs and saved money. Let a man manipulate me out of my savings, returned from being homeless in Chicago, worked more mediocre jobs and saved more money. I typed my parent’s divorce.

2000: George Bush V. Al Gore V. Ralph Nader
I REMEMBER: not much.
I WAS: Living in a small travel trailer of my own on my mother’s land. I found out too late that my voter registration didn’t go through and I couldn’t vote in that election.
DURING THAT FOUR YEARS: Moved to Austin, then back to Rockport, then back to Austin. Met and married my husband. Worked lots of mediocre jobs and went to school intermittently. Having had the sense to stay out of a lot of debt, my then fiance cleared out all the debt I had (small car loan, less than $1000 in credit card) with one check.

2004: George Bush V. Kerry (V. Nader V. Badnarik + a handful of other candidates)
I REMEMBER: Being alienated by the “If you not with us your against us” mantra of the Democrats.
I WAS: exited to finally be voting in a presidential election–I voted for Nader.
DURING THAT FOUR YEARS: I started a family deeply entrenched in the mid-upper middle class. My husband worked to build a product, but couldn’t get enough funding. With a second child on the way and our (his) savings dwindling, he took a job at Microsoft and we moved to the third ring of Hell; one week after our son was born.

2008: Barak Obama V. McCain (V. Nader V. Barr + a handful of other candidates)
I REMEMBER: being sad that Richardson didn’t make the nomination and then sad again that he wasn’t chosen as a running mate. Not having a declared party, I don’t “caucus”. I did vote for Obama, but loved that there was quite a long list of candidates on the ballot. I am happy that racism doesn’t have a hold on this country the way it used to. I still meet racists :( even in a liberal state like WA.
DURING THAT FOUR YEARS: I’ll keep raising my kids and growing the strong bond between my husband and I–despite living 2 years in different cities. I look forward to the time we can all live together again in the home where my son was born. It’s also nice that without a mortgage, car loan, or other kinds of debt, my family is pretty cushioned against all the economic toil and my husband is not worried about mass lay-offs and we have great medical coverage. It’s a long way from my parents telling me that I didn’t need glasses because really, we couldn’t afford them anyway!

A friend posted a dream outfit on her blog this morning as part of a contest to win that outfit. I couldn’t find anything I really liked on the store’s site hosting the contest. So I am perusing my favorite online clothing store for pictures of fabulous clothes that I would love to wear.
Here is the outfit:

Only I would shorten the sleeves.
I would prefer to wear no shoes, but if I had to wear shoes, they would be these:

In case you are wondering, the shirt and top come from Shukronline.com and the shoes are Z/2 Chaco sandals in “Razz”. I actually need a new pair of Chaco Z/2s as my current pair, after 4 years of being a daily-use shoe, are getting close to having no tread left on the bottom! Otherwise, they are in great shape. :)

Some of you may have noticed that I suddenly stopped posting about Marsden. My Granny died last week. I love and miss her. I just couldn’t write about it. While attending college in Corpus, I would take her out to lunch and shopping every week. We had a good time! And she told me so many fun stories!

My mom just got back from the funeral Sunday night. I am so glad so much family came to see her off. I feel that I really missed something by not being there. The day after Granny passed was my son’s 1st birthday. Then a weekend of packing and loading a shipping container to move back to Texas. So many things. Also, I don’t think right now I could have handled a Seattle to Kentucky flight with a 1 year old and a 3 year old. I hope my mom attending will help me get closer to my cousins. I found out that some of them have blogs! Yay! My regular readers will know how much I love new blogs to read.

Something Granny used to tell me has really been helping me through this difficult time. Being basically locked into this apartment makes me feel alone and that I have few real friends. Of course, I have my mother. I am blessed with the best husband ever and love his parents like my own. I have one really good friend that I have known more than half of my life. We seem to be able to get past being mad and frustrated at each other. And I have sisters, who are spread apart and busy–so we don’t get to spend a whole lot of time together. One is a lawyer and has a family and the other one owns a restaurant in NYC with her husband.

Okay, so what did Granny tell me that has been helping me? That she just gets tired of friends but is so happy to have a big family around! Alright, I don’t really have a big family, but at least I may be genetically inclined to have difficulty keeping friends! :) Sure, I have lots of “acquaintances” and enough confidence and social grace to let my daughter keep some of her friends (recent incident with the racists not withstanding). There are just so few people that I can get close to and can get that close to me. I love my Granny and am not ashamed that I get tired of friends as much as I need them. I wish for a bigger family!