Talking Tuesday: Fragmented life

Image via

Max Lucado tells a story about a village full of worriers, who have a collective freak out any time anything happens and are quick to rush to conclusions and judgement.  There is also a poor man in the village who does not join in, but rather rebukes their foolishness again and again.  

When the poor man's valuable horse goes missing, the villagers moan and groan, telling the man he is a fool for not selling the horse and living off the proceeds, but the man says merely, "All we know is that the horse is not in the barn."  He reminds the villagers that we cannot judge a situation in the midst of it, as life comes in fragments.

Later, the horse returns unharmed and brings back many more horses with it.  The villagers are quick to say what a great thing it is, that he now has all this wealth in these horses, but the man reminds them that they cannot say one way or the other; it is too soon to judge.  

Much calamity befalls this man (and the village), and each time the villagers come to him to worry and commiserate, he calmly replies that "all we know is x."  Sometimes the thing turns out well and sometimes not, but each time, the man remains calm in the face of the storm.  

We have told this story in my mom's family for years, and it has become a kind of shorthand in times of distress: "All we know is that the horse is not in the barn."  So I keep reminding myself of that when my fears and grief about my dad threaten to overwhelm me and carry me into the deep.

All we know is that the horse is not in the barn.

Nine years in the eye of the storm

Nine years ago, Birdie exploded into our lives like a cannon shot.  She was born hours ahead of Hurricane Irene, and her personality and temperament are less of the Irenic variety and more of the hurricane. 

My mom, the master multi-tasker.

With Piglet.  He was fascinated with her.  At least at first.  These days they spend a lot of time arguing about game rules.

Boo was barely more than a baby himself, so we had to make sure he was gentle with her.  But they have a sweet (but complicated) relationship now.

I looked through baby photos today, and was again reminded of how fragile she was that first year especially, when I didn't have a good handle on her medical issues, and she fell further and further behind developmentally.  Not that it is so obvious in the photos, unless you look at the photos of her at 8-9 months and realize that she is struggling to hold her head up and cannot sit up unassisted.  Or how tiny she is relative to her age. 

But man.  That girl.  (We say that a lot around here: That Girl).  She is indomitable.  She is a force of nature, and I suppose it is that strength that has carried her through all the years of respiratory crisis and severe illness--just sheer effort of will.

She's more of a tomboy than a girly girl, but does love to dress up in princess costumes and to have her toenails painted pink.  But she prefers to run and move, hang from the gymnastics swing, and get dirty and climb things.  She's a great artist, and I look forward to seeing how her skill develops as she gets older.  She wants to know everything (she devoured the When There is No Doctor book, and surprises me constantly with random bits of medical knowledge), and her observations are spare and hilarious.  ("How do you make ice cream?  You get a goat, and freeze it!")

As for me, I'm still sifting through all the baggage I carry around from the years of sleeping no more than 2 hours at a time (if I was lucky) and being constantly (constantly) on alert for new health crises, my brain a mush of medication schedules and pharmacy refills, and late night calls to the doctor.  The management of it was so heavy. 

 

 

 

Whenever I'm tempted to get frustrated with her impulsiveness or her excess energy, I remind myself that we weren't sure if she would ever walk, or if she would ever be healthy looking.  She was frail and her skin tight on her bones for so long, it is hard to make sense of the robust girl I see now.  Her hair is healthy and long, rather than wispy and falling out all the time from the stress of chronic illness.  There have been some dental consequences to the medical interventions given in her early years to keep her alive, but on the whole, they have been relatively minor, and compared with the alternative, I'll take the teeth problems any day of the week.

Having a medically fragile child changes you, profoundly, as a parent.  But she's nine today, and doing well, so I'll take it.

Yarn Along: May

~knitting~

Finished my Sorbet Doocot!  I blocked it over the weekend and took it out for a (brief) spin yesterday morning (while it was chilly, it wasn't quite cool enough for the mid-weight wool).  

I dropped the front neckline a bit from the pattern, and I think this is perfect now.  Basically, instead of casting on the connecting stitches where the pattern says, I continued to decrease rows A & B an additional 3 times so that when I got to rows C&D I only increased 17 x instead of 20.  

I also made the neckline ribbing narrower, which I also prefer.  I still think I could have gone down to size 1, but this is fine too.  

Chickadee doesn't grow like Swish, so it will be okay.  The color is really hard to photograph and describe--it is a pinky-purple color that looks really dull in some lights, and nice and bright in others.  

Me attempting to be elegantly artsy like Kate Davies (or flying on Titanic like Kate Winslet. You pick).  And failing. 

I have a couple of scarves and cowls that will coordinate very well with this sweater next winter, so I'm glad to add it to my woolies.  

Cheesy action shot.  Because: kid photogs.

After that, I started working on a shawl using the tonal yarn I mentioned last month.  I had thought it was self-striping, but after swatching it, I realized it wasn't really that, so looked closer at the label and realized it was hand-dyed tonal.  (Stroll from Knitpicks)

 After dithering over the pattern for several days, and then dithering some more after I realized it wasn't self-striping, I decided to go with the Simply shawl, since it has some interesting texture, and works with the tonality quite well.  I'm pleased with how this is knitting up, although I do worry about it looking fuzzy right away, as it is haloing quite a bit even just with the knitting.  (That's what I get for falling in love with sock yarn and hating to knit socks).

~reading~

This one is kind of funny.  I ordered this book sometime in March, after Brian Kaller recommended it (it's a great post more generally, go read it!), and I should have bought it long ago, given the number of crazy children in my household and general medical neediness of them.  I'm quite adept with medical glue and have avoided a number of Urgent Care visits as a result.  (Being asked to apply medical glue to Ponchik's eyebrow at an Urgent Care center convinced me of the ridiculousness of not keeping it at home).

I've had a stethoscope for years, and recently upgraded to a slightly better one after I missed Piglet's pneumonia in December.  It also made sense to get a blood pressure cuff, since I know how to use one after several years of taking vitals in the ER a long time ago, and some of the kids' docs want that monitored and we have to do telemedicine visits for the foreseeable future.  I'm considering learning how to suture too, for the ones that get away from me. (Obviously, when medical intervention is necessary, I'm all for it and am quick to seek it; I've practically got our pediatrician on speed dial and we text a fair amount during crises with the kids.  But there is a lot I can manage at home too).

Anyway, the book arrived, and both of my boys eagerly snatched it away from me and began devouring it almost whole.  Last night, Boo informed me solemnly that you shouldn't use antibiotics to treat a common cold and why (yes!), and also that tapeworms are a result of poorly cooked food and why (also yes!), and Piglet told me that I must be in menopause because I have so many hot flashes.  I laughed and said it was perimenopause, the long slide into the real thing.  Oh, he said, and went back to reading.  Ha!

On my own stack, I've finished the All Souls Triology, as well as Time's Convert.  I loved the Triology and am eager to see Seasons 2 and 3 of A Discovery of Witches, which follows the books, but Time's Convert was a bit...uneven.  It could have used some additional editing, and while I really enjoyed reading Marcus' story, and getting to spend a bit of extra time with Diana and Matthew, I thought the book meandered a bit.  Perhaps that was the point, as it sits well outside the main plot lines of the triology, and is just a side trail.  I would love to read Phillipe and Ysabeau's story, though!

I pushed Circe to the top of my stack and will start that next.

My kids are on a Looney Tunes kick again, so I'll just say: That's all folks!

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along!

Watchful Waiting: Holy Saturday

From Holy Week and Pascha published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery

Hindsight is easy.  It is easy to look back on events and say, "Oh, of course," or to have a better understanding of the whole course of things than when you are in the midst of them.  I keep thinking about how Saturday is a day of waiting, that day between death and resurrection. 

On the day of crucifixion, all those years ago, the disciples and women with them retired to an upper room to wait out the Sabbath and remainder of the Passover holiday, unable to even properly bury the man they called Messiah.  Their grief must have been intense, for they did not know what waited them the following day. 

All they knew was the fathomless grief of the loss of the man they had loved, and who had loved them like no other. And there was nothing to do but wait.  The Jewish laws regarding the Sabbath must be observed on pain of stoning, and they would have to wait to anoint the body on Sunday.

Little did they know that an empty tomb would await them on Sunday morning.

This morning, I remembered Lents past which were agonies of waiting, of seemingly endless Saturdays.  The year that Philip died, I was churched on Clean Monday (the first day of Lent).  I was still in the depths of my grief, and wondered whether we would ever have children, as my underlying fertility problems had made Philip's conception difficult.  I spent the Fast in a daze, and sleepwalked through that Holy Week. 

The Pascha service was chaotic at the monastery where my husband was attending seminary, with dozens of tired children and their exhausted parents. I spent most of the service joggling the restive youngest child of a friend with three children under four.  My husband and I took the Paschal flame to Philip's grave in the dark of the night, sheltering the flame from the wind.  There was still snow on the ground. 

Little did we know that we would welcome Piglet about nine months later. 

The year Birdie was a baby, she spent Lent in and out of the hospital with respiratory crisis after crisis, as we struggled to get to the bottom of what was ailing her.  I watched her fall further and further behind, my heart in my throat, wondering if she would ever walk or run or play like other kids.  I wasn't even sure it was a good idea to take her to any of the Holy Week or Pascha services, she was so fragile.  On Holy Saturday, for the first time, she was able to hold her head up by herself for a few minutes while propped in a Bumbo.  She was 8 months old at the time.  Bright Week landed her inpatient for a week in the hospital again, tubes and wires everywhere. 

Little did we know that she would not only walk and jump and run, but would be one of our most recklessly physical kids. 

This Lent has been marked by lockdowns and quarantine, virtual church and school, heroic health care and essential workers, economic uncertainty, and fear of a stealthy virus that snakes its way through our world, leaving death and destruction in its wake.  We don't yet know what comes next, as we wait on this long, seemingly endless Saturday.

But we do know what the disciples and Mary and the women did not know on that Sabbath long ago:

Sunday is coming. 

But today, we wait.

Postcards from the Edge

It's hard to know what to write.  We live on the East Coast, but I have family and friends in the interior of the country, and I think our lives are wildly divergent right now.  I live in a city that is on almost total lockdown, although we don't (yet) have curfews, and churches are still allowed to be open, although I expect that will change in the coming days. 

The city finally set up mobile testing units, but you can't get tested unless you have a doctor's order and a really good reason to get one, because they don't have enough.  The hospitals are running out of supplies already and are begging for masks.  (If you bought masks, please donate them to a hospital near you, as medical providers need them badly!)  There won't be enough ventilators for everyone who needs them.  It was a bad flu season already and the trees bloomed this week, so it is hard not to freak out with every runny nose or slight cough.

Lines at the stores are long and tedious, as the stores have implemented social distancing policies that only allow a certain number of people at a time, and seek to space out arrivals and departures accordingly.  The stores still open have begun rationing and have adjusted hours for cleaning and restocking, but I wish they had done so a few weeks ago when the panic started and shelves were stripped of paper goods, non-perishables, and hardy perishables.  Grocery deliveries are almost impossible to get now, unless you are able to wait for a slot that is two weeks out.  Given that we don't really know how long this will last, it is hard to know how best to plan.  The economic news is even more grim, and we are in for a lot more hardship in the time to come. 

It's a terrible catch-22, this social distancing experiment we're living in: keep people in isolation at home for week or months to slow the virus, flatten the curve, prevent some deaths, and the economy flatlines, or carry on as usual and 2.2 million people die in the U.S. as the health care system is completely overwhelmed, and many more suffer and receive inadequate care for other conditions.  It took 3 months to hit 100,000 cases, and just 12 days to nearly treble it. 

The isolation has been extreme, and I did kind of hit the wall with it on Thursday.  I've been homeschooling my kids all week, and having my daily schedule has been a big help in keeping a rhythm to our days.  The schedule posted on the wall helps the kids too, as they are all anxious and uncertain.  They know they are high risk and are worried.  Creating routines in the midst of uncertainty is one way of regaining some control.  We are still allowed to walk outside, so we've been doing so at least once during the day.  It helps keep the walls from closing in.

Our regular parish will close its doors after tonight's service because it is in a state that just went on total lock down until further notice.  We will live stream services from the monastery this weekend instead.

I hesitated to post this, as I know the news is not cheerful right now, but I also see some people still not taking this very seriously, and would hope that the message will get across loud and clear.  Please stay home as much as you can.  Take a walk in the sunshine or in the rain, but distance yourself from other people.  Have a dance party in your living room, do a zoom teleconference partywith your friends, but stay home.  It is hard, we are social beings, and crave contact.  I'm very introverted and I'm struggling; I feel for the extroverts out there who are likely feeling it more than me. 

But this is for all of us--to give more of us a chance to survive, to protect the vulnerable and elderly, to put the greater good ahead of ourselves. 

This is Lent.

Me-Made May, Week #4

Wearing: (left to right) Liberty #1 dress, Bluebird dress, Green Cookie Book dress, First Light dress, red twill skirt, Yardley's dress, Liberty #3 dress

The weird weather continues--I started out the week still needing tights and a light sweater, but by the week's end, we had popped into the low 90s and I'm suddenly pulling out my sandals and anti-chaffing gel!!  (That stuff is magical, by the way--I'm never going to have a thigh gap, and I don't care one way or the other, but I do care about friction rashes while walking in the heat, and since I don't want to wear tights year round, this has been a life-saver for me)

Only a few more days of Me-Made May to go!  Now that the weather has really heated up (we went from late winter to summer literally overnight), I'm eager to switch over to my summer rotation on Wednesday.  I keep going back and forth as to whether I have enough stuff for my summer, since I tend to sweat through my clothes more frequently, and thus need more frequent laundering, but I guess I can always whip up another Dottie Angel frock if I find myself short.  I'm aiming for about 27 garments per rotation, which seems to be about right for my needs and laundry cycle.

Some thoughts about clothes this week.  After the heat of the last three days, I think I can safely say that lawn will be a great fabric choice for the hot weather.  It is cool, thin, and has a nice feel against the skin, even in the drip.  The Liberty #1 dress continues to be a favorite, and I rediscovered my liking for the Green Cookie book dress this week as well.  I really love Cotton + Steel fabric, and am so eager for their Rifle Co. fabric collaboration to come out in August!  I had planned my sewing projects for the rest of the year, but I think I may have to work in a few dresses from that collection.

My Yardley's dress needs some attention.  I still think it is borderline as far as length, and am considering adding some lavender trim to the bottom to visually lengthen it a bit.  The fabric also is pulling a little under the arms and has developed some holes along the underarm seam.  It is fixable; I just need to take the time to do it.  I made this dress when I was still tweaking the shape of the armscye on my Dottie Angel sloper, and the early iterations didn't have enough of a curve on the underside of the sleeve, which makes it pull at the seam over time.   I've since fixed this (I'm hoping to write up something in June about all my changes) and it hasn't been a problem on the more recent dresses (except for the Pots and Pans dress-turned-blouse, but I think that was a function of old fabric being brittle, rather than the pattern shape)

I'm holding 3-4 pounds of water with the heat and my cycle, so I'm feeling a bit sloshy today; my legs and feet feel tight.  I went for a run on Wednesday and it felt really good to put on my sneakers and hit the pavement, but I'm really sore after not exercising for so many months!  I'm hoping to get to the gym this weekend, or possibly later today.  I've been eating a lot of salmon this week, and finding it to be a good thing for my system.  Unfortunately, it is kind of expensive, so I don't know how long I can keep it up, but I'm trying to experiment with different ways to keep my calorie counts reasonable, my blood sugar levels steady, and still feel like I'm actually eating during the day instead of having a liquid or mush diet.  Today I tried having Greek yogurt with honey for breakfast instead of my usual corn chex.  I find that the extra protein really does help me feel full longer, but I have a lot of trouble getting the yogurt down since it forms a bolus and kind of sticks in the webs in my throat.  As long as I take it slow and take small bites, it is okay.  It is not a food I can just gulp down and go.  (alas)  But that is progress, I think, so I'll take it.  I'm to have another endoscopy with dilation on the 6th, so perhaps that will help some as well.

I'm planning to wrap up both my spring rotation and Me-Made May on Tuesday, and will preview my summer rotation on Wednesday, God-willing.  I've finished Crawford's book, and am reading some really interesting stuff right now; I hope to discuss it in more detail soon.

Ivy League dress and Thoughts about Hospital Stays

Well. Last week was a week.  Birdie had been severely sick over the weekend, and I thought she was on the mend by Monday, but she landed in the hospital overnight after turning septic sometime in the evening.  It was an eventful and unexpected turn, as you might imagine.  It took a while to get her stable in the ER and they told me right away she would be admitted.  She needed oxygen, IV fluids, and IV antibiotics, plus a lot of monitoring.  It was disconcerting to see our whirlwind girl so still and sick.  She stayed in the hospital until Thursday morning.  She was mostly off oxygen at that point, and had been off her IV fluids for 24 hours by then and was pretty perky.  I think the doctor might have been inclined to keep her another night had I not begged for discharge.  We had gotten a roommate the night previous and it was, to say the least, disruptive.  Our room was a single that had been converted into a double, it was crowded, I was getting sick, the three children at home were all sick, and I felt we just needed to get home.  It was the right decision, as I got pretty sick once we were home, and the rest of the kids really needed to be looked after as well.

I had put up my posts last week before everything went down, so I imagine my belated "update" on my Yarn Along post made no sense to most people.  On the upside, everyone went back to school yesterday, and the kids mostly seem over it.  I'm still a bit congested in my lungs, and just feel exhausted from being awake from Thursday-Wednesday (including a 48-hours-straight stretch from Monday-Tuesday).  I have some friends bringing meals this week, which is a great help, as I am just overwhelmed with household tasks right now.  I find the week after discharge is actually more difficult than the week in the hospital, because all the kids are off since they can't really understand what happened, the child who was in the hospital is still a little shocked by everything that was done to her, and we parents are just exhausted from adrenaline withdrawal and the whole ordeal.

So let me show you a dress I made a few weeks ago, k?

This is the same spotty dot fabric from Michael Miller that I made last summer, but in a different color way.  There ended up being a lot of issues with the fit of that dress, and I ended up not keeping it.  I had bought this fabric online in the meantime, however, and since the color combination just said "spring" to me, I decided to save it for this season. It is a pretty straight forward Dottie Angel frock, no real changes to note, except I used the pocket from my Swirl dress pattern, just for something different.   I did have to redo the elastic on this dress because it came out too loose the first time, but I think it is fine now.  

This one also came out just a smidge shorter than the other ones, but it is still at the bottom of my knee, so I think it is okay.  I know what I did differently to have it come out shorter, and I fixed it on the dress I made after this one.  

I think this color scheme is really preppy looking.  I have a bright green cardigan that is a good match to the green dots, but it is lighter weight than the weather called for, so I put a knit shirt underneath instead.  I'm still a little chilly this morning, but it is supposed to get up in the 60s later today, so I'll be fine this afternoon!  

I almost did visible bias on this dress, in green, but my green bias was just a little bit off color-wise, and didn't quite look right.  So I went with my standard bias treatment, still using the green.  It is a nice little peek of color around the neckline and sleeve cuffs.  

I do think this is one of those dresses that doesn't photograph particularly well, but I'll try not to let that influence me.  All in all, a good spring dress.

Just the facts:

Ivy League dress: Michael Miller fabric, Simplicity 1080 with modifications, elastic, bias tape

Michael Starrs knit undershirt: ThredUp

Tights: Foot Traffic (in Heather Mocha)

Necklace: from Georgia (the country)

Earrings: Etsy 

Boots: Macy's

STATurday: Six Months

Six months ago, I went to my first appointment with a nutritionist who seemed like she could sort my dietary issues (which are numerous).  She was game to try, in any case.  I knew I needed to lose weight, get on top of my nutrition, and generally start making some changes.

I had a rocky start.

But at least it was a start.  A week later, I joined the gym and officially started on this crazy weight loss journey.  I had some modest success to start, and got into a good routine of working out, counting calories, and generally feeling good about the direction things were going.

Then, at the end of August, I had a routine endoscopy.  I have chronic dysphagia due to EoE, and it had gotten worse during the preceding months.  I hoped they would dilate my esophagus, which has helped a lot in the past.  That procedure sent me into a dark health tunnel that I think I'm only beginning to see daylight on.  Sometime in September, I moved to a soft thick diet that consisted primarily of Chex, cottage cheese, lite Swiss cheese slices, protein smoothies, Cream of Wheat, and the occasional mashed potato.  And dark chocolate, because it melts on the way down.  I had to watch my calorie intake very closely because it was easy to go over my daily limit on such foods.

Sometime in early November, I decided I had to stop working out because my nutritional profile was so poor and my fatigue so high.  My hair has been falling out again, and my skin and nails are terrible.  I still walk the boys to school most days, so I am getting some movement into my day, but I am no longer burning 1000 calories before 9:00 a.m. as before.

Since August, I've had several ER visits for food and medicine stuck in my throat, have aspirated a few pills, had some food impactions that I dealt with at home, a perforation scare, and had three more endoscopies, two with dilation.  A normal esophagus is 18 mm in diameter.  When we started the process of dilating it, in November, I was less than 8.  I'm now up to 15 mm, and am starting to eat a wider variety of foods again, but it has been a rocky road.

Eating and taking my daily medicines is a stressful experience for me. I'm now able to eat ground beef, and have had some modest successes with a few other foods, but I still have a lot of days where I can't face food getting stuck in my throat, so I go with what is now familiar and easy.  I also have a lot of days where food actually does still get stuck, so there's that.  And that is setting aside the allergy and digestive issues I have on top of all of this.  Most days, I just want to chuck it all out the window.

Needless to say, it has been a rough few months.  Today I went back to the gym.  It was the first day I felt I could manage it.  I decided to walk for two miles at 3.5 mph with 4.0 elevation, and stop at the end.  No pushing on, no seeing if I could run a few laps, just walking.  It was enough.  I had a 515 calorie burn, and I felt good after working out, but not destroyed for the rest of the day.  I'm quite tired today anyway, after a week of Birdie screaming/fussing every hour or two all night long, so I didn't want to push it.  We also just got word that my husband will argue another case before the Supreme Court this spring, so I know I have to pace myself for the next few months.

On to stats for today.  As of today, I'm down a total of 23 pounds, and 17.7 inches.  I'm wearing a medium on top and a large on the bottom in most brands now, and am ordering a whole size down at eShakti.  I've had to grade down my slopers and am sewing my Frankendress about a size smaller.  Some vintage pieces I thought would never fit again fit quite well now, and I've shrunk out of almost everything I made last year.  I still have about 12 pounds to my personal goal weight, but I'm within 5 pounds of the weight loss target that the trainer at the gym gave me in July.  I don't know how often I'll be getting to the gym, but I will keep moving as much as I can, staying active in my daily life, counting calories, and trying to improve my nutritional profile.

In short: I intend to keep on keeping on.

Yarn Along: Sweater Progress and more Mitts!

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along!

It has been quite a week.  Piglet, Birdie, and Ponchik have all had RSV this month (in addition to Birdie's having a stomach virus for a week, just for variety and fun times).  Last week, I spent a tense Wednesday evening monitoring Birdie, wondering if I'd have to take her to the hospital for respiratory distress and related complications from the infection.  In the end, we were able to stave off the visit with steroids and antibiotics (she tends to get secondary bacterial infections in her lungs because of her airway malacia).  Ponchik was sick too, but didn't seem very serious until Friday night, when she took a dive for the worse and ended up spending the weekend at Children's Hospital on the pulmonary ward.  

Needless to say, that threw a wrench in my plans for this week.  Thank God, she is doing better now, and we came home on Sunday afternoon, but it is Wednesday now, and I still feel like I don't have my feet under me.  

The kids are still crazy, cranky, and a little bit sick, and I'm exhausted from being up all night Friday night in the ED, and then not sleeping on the ward for two days.  I had made plans to make a dress for Christmas this year, but as the fabric hasn't arrived yet, and my energy levels and sewing motivation are at zilch, it will just have to wait.  

The upside is that I've gotten a lot of knitting done this week, because it doesn't require a lot from me.  

First up is the blue sweater, which photographed very badly today.  As I said previously, the color is a deep teal-mallard blue color that is very saturated, but it came out looking dull in the light this morning.  I've made it past the shoulder decreases and am now working the length into the armholes. 

 I'm not in love with the Paton's yarn I'm using.  After this, I'm going back to Swish.  I'm also not thrilled with how the decreases and increases are done on this pattern, because they show so much in the middle of the sweater.  I'm not sure why the cable line is belling in and out in the middle either.  My tension is pretty even, but the sweater is really looking "handmade" if you know what I mean.  Part of me wants to scrap it now and start again with Swish, because I hate to spend a lot of time on a sweater that won't be wearable (seems to be the theme this year!), but I also hate to waste yarn that I bought (although, admittedly, it has been in my stash for a while).  I think we all know my history with frogging, so don't be surprised if I show you balls of yarn next week.  

I'm also making more mitts--I really like the golden gauntlets I made earlier this fall, but they are a bit bulky and I was really just using up leftover yarn and pattern testing with that pair, so I've been knitting some worsted versions.  I made a green pair earlier this week (which took a bit of doing--I knit the whole pair twice because I was determined to get it out of one skein!) and have one brown one made. 

So far the brown one is my favorite--it is a riff on the pattern I used for the green pair.  I like the look of the green pair, but I wish they were longer and a little less bulky.  I also love this shade of brown--it has some purple and blue undertones in it and is just so lovely.

The brown one seems to be the perfect combination of length, interesting stitch pattern, and weight.  I'm hoping to make a coordinating hat to go with the brown pair.  I think I can also get this pattern out of one skein, which is also a win!

I'm not reading much at the moment--I've finally made it through the stack of articles that were sitting on my nightstand for an age, and am nearly caught up with the news magazines I read (I got behind in October and am just now catching up) and I've got some books on historic costuming from the Penn Library to keep me busy in the New Year.  I'm working on some essays on clothing sizes, fitting, and foundation garments, and these books will be a help for those pieces, I think.  I continue to revisit Jamie and Claire in fits and starts, just to spend time with old friends.

I'm hoping to get more writing done in 2015, as well as cracking a few new sewing patterns, and finding my perfect sweater pattern.

Happy New Year!

A Live Grenade

Living with children who have serious chronic illness is a little like living with a live grenade.  You never know when it is going to go off, so you watch it, warily, waiting for the explosion which inevitably happens.  Sometimes you forget that the grenade is there, lurking in the corner, and you go about your merry business, but there is always the click of the pin as it is pulled out, the metallic ping as the handle releases that brings you back to watchful awareness.

Last week, Birdie had a fever for four days.  It was high, it required constant monitoring because of her propensity to febrile seizures, and it was unrelenting.  It was perhaps a blessing in disguise, as she was home from school from Wednesday on.  On Friday, I found out that a student at her preschool ended up in the ER with flu and that the serious enterovirus has hit Delaware, one state away from us.  Many people commute between here and there, so I give it a week maybe two to hit our city.  The EV-D68 hits kids with respiratory conditions particularly hard, and it is hard to diagnose at first because it presents like a cold or the flu.  A lot of them end up hospitalized, some on ventilators.  That means my airway malacia kids are particularly vulnerable right now.  

We were hoping to wait on the flu vaccine until October, when the flumist would be in our doctor's office, but we don't have the luxury any longer.  I've got a last minute vaccine appointment for the three older kids on Monday to get them flu vaccines, and we will hope and pray that the EV-D68 stays away for now.  Because these are the things you do when you live with a live grenade.  You look for ways to soften the impact, to shore up defenses, to remain constantly vigilant.  

Our sick season starts at the beginning of August and ends sometime in mid-June.  

Miles to go before we sleep.  Miles to go...

7QT: Quickety-Quick, Lickety-Split.

--1--

Finished blouse!

My big ta-da!: The blouse is finished!  I can't say enough how pleased I am with how this blouse came out.  It looks exactly like what I had in my head.  I used Simplicity 1880 and modified the bodice to be a blouse (read: I lengthened all the pieces by 7").  I had intended to make it a long sleeve blouse, but didn't quite have enough fabric for it.  I could have done three quarter length sleeves, but they didn't really look right, so I went with plain old short sleeves, which actually gives me more options for the blouse anyway.  

This is one of those times when I can't recommend enough to do a muslin first.  I definitely learned a ton about the pattern by doing the muslin and saved myself from making a muck of the finished blouse as a result. Now that I've made it twice, I'm definitely making this one again!  It's not perfect, but I really like the fit.  I'm still too scared to do real button holes (it closes with snaps, which is actually super nursing friendly), but I'm not too concerned about that.  I'll get there eventually.

--2--

The matching swing skirt, however, not so much.  The fabric was some old polyester bottomweight from my grandma's stash, and it was a bear to work with.  It refused to press properly, and the hem was a beast to hand finish.  I got all the way to the end of the skirt, and went to repress the hem, and the fabric melted!  Right in the front, in an area the size of my palm.  I felt sick.  I tried cutting off the hem and rehemming a little shorter, but I'm basically unhappy with the whole thing now.  The old hem wasn't great, and the new hem is fairly terrible, and now it is shorter than I like.  The upside is that I've fixed the fit problems I was having with the pattern, so I feel confident to make it again with different fabric.  I also figured out how to put pockets int the side seams, so that is useful.  Live and learn, I guess.

--3--

Ponchik is still sick; she has had several fevers this week and every night is an endurance marathon of epic proportions for me.  She basically wants to nurse all night, and she is coughing, wheezy and miserable, so I don't have it in me to refuse her.  At least she is no worse.  And frankly, she is happier sick than some other of my children are when well!  

--4--

Yesterday was a toddler clothing bonanza around here!  Two friends dropped off girl clothes and some shoes for Birdie (and, eventually, Ponchik).  Birdie immediately seized a white crochet hat from the pile and has been wearing it non-stop since (I did say she couldn't wear it to bed).  I think it makes her look like a Q-tip.  A cute Q-tip, but a Q-tip nonetheless.

--5--

Birdie isn't really great about smiling for the camera (she tends to look more like she does in take #4), so I was pleased to get this shot one day this week:

--6--

And because I've been stuck at home for the last three weeks with sick children and have done precisely nothing except nurse sick kids, sew, do laundry, make food, read blogs, and watch Netflix when I collapse in a heap in the evenings, I've got nothing much else to add.

This photo captures so much of Ponchik's personality, I think:

Our copy of Bembleman's Bakery arrived this week and made me so happy.  We had it growing up, and it is just such a fun story.  

--7--

Oh wait, one more thing.  I found the series Coal House At War on YouTube this week and it is highly addictive and wonderful, especially if you love the 1940s.  It is the same concept behind Frontier house, 1900 House, and The 1940s House (all good!), but set in 1944 Wales.  The original Coal House series was on the same set but in 1927, and is equally riveting.  (Between Coal House, Coal House at War, and the Fireman Sam fest my boys had last week, the voice in my head currently has a Welsh accent).

 I've mentioned a time or two that I'm an historian, and what interests me most about the past is how people lived.  These sorts of series make life in the past accessible for the modern mind, and also point out to me ways that I could be simplifying things.  My favorite thing about Coal House at War was how the children played outside with each other, and how the community developed around the dooryard and the kitchens.  Yes, it was cramped, and difficult, and lacking in modern conveniences, but there was also something good about it all.  It reminded me very much of our experience at the monastery in California, which is off the grid in the Shasta mountains, or of my experience in Central Asia on the edge of Lake Issak-Kyl, a place that lacks indoor plumbing and modern kitchen convenience, and electricity is a bit dodgy at the best of times.  There was something so good and simple about that life.  I don't know how to bring it forward to this place and time, but I intend to keep thinking about it.

Okay, go see Jen for more Quick Takes!