Now, I would never call myself a Fan Girl.  I love pop culture but I usually lean toward the B-side of all that is normally considered pop and culture.  Have never watched American Idol, rarely watch TV in general.  Not that I’m against it – it’s just something that I am not inclined to do.  Books are, obviously, another story.  Movies too.  I love books and will pretty much read anything.  I am a bit of a literary snob, but am not above a great Stephanie Plum story.  Entertainment is Entertainment and I LIKE to be entertained.  I do not go ga-ga.  I rarely read a book twice, watch a movie twice, or listen to a CD over and over.  Just not my personality.

Except when it comes to Neko Case.  I adore Neko Case.  I would marry Neko Case.  I would follow her to hell and back.  I bought my first CD of her’s two years ago (Fox Confessor Brings the Flood).  This CD was on loop in our house for weeks.  In fact, I wrote about it here (for the record, she is not Canadian).  The voice!  The Lyrics!  The Music!  It soothed Sophia like no other and it touched me in a way that is rare and special.  I still listen to it at least once a week and haven’t even begun to be sick of it.  A few weeks ago I found out that her new album comes out on my birthday!  This alone is worth getting a year older for.  I am super excited.  Today I found out that NPR is streaming the full album until it goes on sale Tuesday – go listen, do your ears a favor.  I’m super disappointed that I won’t be able to make the concert near us (Ithaca) because of the new babe – but perhaps one of you will go to a show and share your experience?  In the meantime if you would like to hear her Live you can do so here (the first is the best).  ( You know about the music on NPR’s website?  Right?  It’s a great resource!!)

On another note – There are two books that I have read in the past few years and really enjoyed, Atonement by Ian McEwan & The Namesake by Jumpa Lahiri.  When the movies came out I resisted watching them.  As you all know books rarely translate well in to movies.  There are some important exceptions to this rule:  Lord of the Rings, Some of the Harry Potters, Age of Innocence, and I Capture the Castle.  But most of the time I am vastly disappointed and scarred by the book to movie experience.  So – I avoid them like a plague, especially when I REALLY liked the books.  Well – I am here to tell you that both the movies for Atonement and The Namesake exceeded my expectations.  Atonement less so than The Namesake…but I was pleasantly surprised by both.  The Namesake in particular did a beautiful job of complimenting a very organic and sensual story with it’s visuals and sound track.  Go forth and watch with confidence.

On the baby front – I am at 36 weeks.  Sophia was born at 37 weeks.  We have bags packed but that’s just about it.  The house is a construction zone (literally – we’re putting up a wall for a bedroom), Rob is still unemployed, and work is NUTS.  (Thank you Mr. President for infusing money in to the NIH but really, could you not have considered your timing?  And your request to spend the money immediately?  Maybe we could just wait on few months on this line item?  At least until I return from maternity leave?)

However, we are not sick any longer and everyone around us is working so hard to help get us ready.  The name is still a mystery to be revealed when we see his face.  It’s going to be perfect.

Hi.  We’re all sick here.  Have been for weeks now.  No exaggeration.  First the stomach flu (which I escaped) and now various forms of upper respiratory infections/viruses.  Rob’s got it the worst – pneumonia.  Anyone want a poor sick toddler?  Poor baby hasn’t been to daycare in almost two weeks.  Enough about that though, if I talk about it too much I just cry.

We are officially in the home stretch of pregnancy.  Whew!  This has been a relatively easy one (as was my trip with Ms. S).  Aside from the toddler wrangling and the unemployment (Rob’s still without work) and the lightheadedness it was/is a breeze.  My midwife helped me to feel the head and identify all of the body parts of the little Mister last week.  That was super cool.  For example – right now I have an ass in my ribs.  Somehow, when you know what it is it is so much less annoying.  I’ll be at 34 weeks Saturday.  Sophia was delivered at 37 weeks, so there is a chance this pregnancy will go the same route.  We still have a wall to put up in our house (creating a bedroom), furniture to buy, and all the infant stuff to put together oh, and there is still that small problem of a name!  But I am not panicking.  We were TOTALLY unprepared for Sophia (our first outing post-birth was to T-get to buy a changing pad!) and everything turned out fine.

The real reason why I am here is to congratulate the Knitting Blog Class of 2005.  Knitsings put together this is a really cool summary of how things have changed and who is still where/when/how.  When I scroll through that list I realize how many of those authors have impacted my life in a considerable way.  How many I call friends and how lucky I am to be a part of this community.  How glad I am that I joined it when I did (September 2004), when it was still small and somewhat penetrable.  Gone are the days where we would all hunker down in Claudia’s living room.  The community is just too big, in a good way though – there are some amazing people out there.  And, I for one, am super glad that we are what we are.

While I do not blog as much as I used to I do still knit, quite a bit actually.  I miss writing but my life is pretty much out of control right now and I have to let go a bit in certain places – this is one of them.  I do still read all of you.  It’s my respite, my calm, my connection…so, thanks for keeping on!

ps- Thanks to Cara for pointing out the post.  Mwah.

I have been writing, her and there, in my head and out.  It is often hard for me to find the time and motivate myself to Just Get It Done.  The to-do list is endless.  I only have X hours every day.  I am tired.  I can’t move or breath (baby is head up in my lungs right now and I am light-headed with anemia).  I am afraid of getting lost in my head if I think too hard.  I want to knit that before baby comes.  I want to knit this.  I need to do this.  I want to do that. All of the excuses pile up and, because I am relatively happy, I just do not move toward moving these thoughts to the “checked” column.

I just am.

Which, in theory, is great.

This is what we should be.

Just.

Sigh.

Here.

But then the head starts running again.  I want to read this.  The carpet here needs to be fixed.  Our couch is a mess, do we need a slip cover?  I miss people.  I need to make more connections.  My heart and head should be better aligned.  What the hell are we going to name this kid?

Every few months I have to redefine myself, lest I risk going batty.  These past few months, maybe year – I am a floating agent pushed and pulled by my environment and circumstance.  Not necessarily unhappy with this, quite possibly content.  Such a strange way to be (for me).

It’s 9:30 pm Christmas Night and I am worn out.  It was a great day… I hope the same for you.

Here’s a peek at our Christmas Card.  I created it from scratch with some heavy inspiration from a design I found online.  We had them printed front/back postcard style.  I’m super proud of the way they turned out.

You guys have some great name suggestions.  I was really inspired by your responses and have renewed my quest for the perfect Anglo-Italian boy name.   Rob is going to read through them and I am hoping he’ll find a spark.  We live in a pretty heavily dominated Italian city (much like Boston!) so the kid may end up fitting right in.

I had my mom drop off the “family tree box” last night.  There is a fair bit of genealogy work in that box, most of the work has been done on my mom’s side (her paternal side has a direct line to Isaac Cummings.  Maybe that’s why I love Boston so?!).  The work for her side was “easier” as the English decedents in that line came to the United States in 1635.  The German side (her maternal side) is a bit more difficult, the decedents that were “off the boat” were my great-great grandparents.  Things get fuzzy pre-America as many had name changes when they arrived (thankfully they determined that Haganbutcher wasn’t the greatest name for a family that was now Doctors).

My father’s side, the full on Italian side (and the side that “raised” us) is also hard as the first “off the boat” were my great- grandparents.  First names were anglicized and many of the records indicate those names as birth names (although, I know from family lore they are not).  My Aunt Mayme will always be my Aunt Mayme but her birth name was Domenica and man could she make a mean Christmas cookie (she suffers from severe dementia right now, I miss her and her blue hair).  Surnames were shortened in only one case (that I am aware of) and I am guessing that was an effort to escape discrimination.  (It wasn’t so cool to be an Italian in the mid century, as a result a lot of my families traditions and ethnicity were watered down.  In fact, when my mother told my great grandmother (a full blooded German) that she was going to marry and Italian in 1973 my Granny just about had a heart attack).  To make matters more confusing after my father’s Paternal Grandfather passed away his Paternal Grandmother married his Maternal Great-Uncle.  Small town, what can I say?

All of this to say that the names found in the box were not much help as they stopped here in America.  My Uncle Anthony (my Grandmother’s brother and one of my all time favorite people in this world) has been to Italy a few times to research and I have a call in to him for more information about the homeland peeps.  Stay tuned!  For the record we have a bunch of Michaels, Antonios, Vincents, Josephs, a Felix, a Carmen – rinse repeat.  Not too creative with the first names.  Damn Catholics and their saints. 

Enjoy your Christmas Eve Eve.  I am stuck at work until this afternoon.  Trying to reserve vacation time for maternity leave.  It’s quite, but not too quite (I work in a hospital and, unfortunately, people are always in hospitals).  We’re off to my aunt’s this afternoon for extended family fun.  Sophia has her party dress all ready to go, I’ll be back to share pictures.  She can’t wait to go to the party – she has come to associate parties with cake so there is much excitement around going to the party and having cake.  She is also the only grand-child/niece/cousin on this side so she gets all kinds of loving.

More eye-candy for you!

“Look, we caught a tree!”

“Pink Yummy” (hat courtesy of My Sandy)

You all crack my shit up.  I am so glad you’re out there.  Although, Cara freaked my shit with her comment.  Almost as badly as my realization that Sophia was peeing inside of me when she was in utero.  Pregnancy is too freaky.

Rob and I have been trying hard to come up with names for this next one.  We’re no where near agreement and both of us are beginning to doubt we ever will find one that works for us both.  We each have a short list – with no points of intersection.

I was pretty dead set on having an Italian name.  My family is Italian and my married last name is not – it is German.  I really wanted to have the kid’s Italian heritage show through with their first names.  However, there are not very many Italian names that work with the American World, so I am wavering.  I am not a name snob but I REALLY don’t want to subject the kid to cat-calls of, “Hey Vito! How are ya?!” for the rest of his life.  (Incidentally, this is how my dad calls to Sophia when he first sees her.  It’s his little joke – “Hey, Sophia, How are ya?!”  He’s done it since she was a wee.  It’s VERY cute.)  I have a few family names that I really like but Rob’s not on board with (and I have doubts about all but the first): Anthony (NOT Tony), Vincent, Angelo.  There are few others that I just like – Nico, Marco.

The list for non-Italian names is longer and I think I like many of them a bit more.  The real problem is that I am a victim of pop culture and history.  If I have the slightest association with a name I am almost instantly turned off.  It’s bad dude.  Except in the case of Atticus.  I would love to name our kid Atticus because I love Atticus Finch.  But alas, playground mocking would run rampant with a name like that.

Any suggestions for us?  (And please, no “I knew a ________ in grade school and he was a real turd” stories).

Here is a bit of eye candy for you….Sophia knits!  She always wants to “help” with my knitting.

Here’s another one of my current favorites – This was taken on Thanksgiving.  Doesn’t it look like a school photo?!  She’s so cute.

ps – head over to my flickr account for Cathi’s naming prowess.  She was dead on with our first choice if it was a girl (an unusual name too) so I was hoping she would be a wealth of resources for us.  You be the judge.

Here we are the week of Christmas and I am at work.  Bah Humbug.  I love Christmas and I miss being a student – I want three weeks off!!!

As a consolation prize I am going to spend some time blogging this week during my down times.  Cool?  I thought so.

Yah, so – I’m preggars.  In my third trimester and feeling pretty good.  I am having issues with anemia and lightheadedness, as I did with Miss S, which sucks.  But – in the grand scheme of things it is small beans.  While I am not in love with being pregnant I am enjoying the idea of having another little monster in my life.  Sophia has been such a blast this past year and I am REALLY excited to spend Christmas with her.  I love this time of year and it is even more fun looking at it through her eyes.

We have found out the sex of the baby.  We had our ultrasound on Halloween.  It was touch-and-go there for a minute as the little rascel had its legs crossed.  We were looking at him from the bottom up and all we could see where little indian legs with feet covering the important bits.  Modesty in an in utero baby is way over rated.  Fortunately our tech was VERY patient and she offered to leave for a few minutes to let me walk around.  I did and we had success almost right away.  In fact – the baby had decided to flash us every chance it got!  My mom was there with Rob and I, which was great.  Soon after the getting the machine fired up, the picture became clear and there was little denying what was there.

(You’re looking up here, the baby is sitting on his legs.  Just in case you can’t quite see it, the tech was nice enough to label it.)

Now, I know this is a bit of an invasion of the poor little monster’s privacy.  However, I knew you all could appreciate the fun here – and the fact that our ultrasound tech labeled it – that really has kept my giggling for weeks.

Oh, and a boy?!  Holy shit.  I thought I had it all figured out and here we go again.  Oy.

It is NEVER too late to be thankful.   We had a great Thanksgiving and I was fortunate to have an extra day off for the Holiday on Friday.  Four days at home was GREAT, enough time to work on some projects, spend some quality time with my favorite girl, and get our Christmas Tree!  It seems a bit early to have a tree in the house however, our schedule over the next month left only this past weekend or the weekend before Christmas.

Mostly I am thankful for – Projects.

House Projects.  This summer has been filled with House Projects.  Rob has spent a lot of his off time (yes, he’s still unemployed, bah!) working on some sweat equity projects.  Our house was in great shape when we moved in – but it was a bit dated and ready for some work.  We managed to get much of it done before we moved in January.  Since then we haven’t done much!  These past few months have been filled with house projects:  hanging pictures, new patio!, finishing office, and finishing Sophia’s room.

Knitting Projects. I have gotten some of my knitting mojo back.  Sophia is a bit more independent now and she is (shhh, I’m NOT really saying this) sleeping and going to sleep and sleeping.  She is in bed around 8pm which gives me some time at night and I can get a bit more knitting time while she eats dinner (she takes forever).  As a result I have been a busy bee and will plan to post some of the projects I have finished here over the next few weeks.

The Mothering Project. Wow.  If anyone would have told me that it would take just about 22 months to get a small child to the point where she will sleep I might have ran screaming from the world of Motherhood.  While I was pregnant with Sophia I feared one thing – the lack of sleep.  To get a child that was not a “sleeper” was a cruel joke.  Alas, I suppose that it is not totally over as she is still up periodically and is just this week having a hard time going down again.  However, it is so much easier.  And that single fact makes life so much more joyful.  She is a hilarious little girl and is full of surprises.  Her language has erupted these past two weeks and I love to hear her thoughts and narrations.  She is quite taken with stating the obvious and narrating our daily rituals.  It is like being around a little sports caster.  Except, the things she notices, you would never have taken a second look at.  It is unbelievable.

The Fat Naked Man in the Corner of the Room Project. I have long considered this blog to be one room in my house.  It is primarily a room where I keep my creative side.  Writing, goofiness, knitting, experiencing the creative and thoughtful side of life.  I have never kept the door locked or blocked the entry of other facets.  Mostly because I am not that kind of person in real life.  If I am thinking it or experiencing it chances are you are going to hear it.  On the other hand, this is still only one room of many and at times it is neglected (will someone PLEASE redecorate – we have clashing colors, people can’t read all of the posts) and sometimes a fat naked man comes into the room and sits in the corner and no one knows he is there or, if they do know he’s there, they ignore him and carry on with their business.  Well – it is about time we talk about the fat naked man and ask him to please put some damn cloths on because it is winter and the cold does bad things to naked men.  Eh-hem.

Huh, who would have thought?  I AM THE FAT MAN.

In early August I was about a phone call away from calling a Doctor about the supreme level of exhaustion I felt.  Mind numbing.   I decided to wait a week and see if some early nights would take care of it.  No dice.  Still exhausted.  Rob teased and brought home a pregnancy test.  And what do you know?!  It was positive.  I quickly did some memory digging to determine the date of my last period.  Huh, look at that, I was a few weeks late.  Curious, I headed to an online pregnancy calculator to figure out the potential due date (potential because um, I am the type to only count chickens when they hatch and an early pregnancy does not always hatch).  I am also the full-time working mother of a non-sleeping toddler and, well I know that immaculate conception is pretty weird but it was a serious possibility in this scenario.

Anyway – I type in the date of my last period and wow! a due date pops up – March 28th.  Well that made it a bit more real.  A probable conception date pops up too – July 5th 2008.  Huh.  What was I doing around then?! Damn fates, they’ll get you every time.  Note to self – trip away with husband and no kid CAN be damaging for the future trips away from kidS.

We are thrilled, I am feeling great and am totally terrified.

Okay – Mint Eiffel is the winner.

I just went to place my order and saw that it was over $9 to ship!!!

6 yards of fabric* – $9!!!

That is just silly.

Any other suggested vendors?

*  I put a few other fun choices in there – I’ll share them later as they will hopefully turn into Christmas Gifts before 2010.

So, remember this picture?

This are different now – mostly in the way my desk and shelves are organized.

My plan has been to put a fabric covered bulletin board up to the right of my monitor, under the shelving.  I have had the cork board for months and just got around to picking out some fabric ideas.

Help!

Which do you like?  Any other suggestions?  My only requirements are the following:  the design shouldn’t be too symmetrical.  I’ll never get it to hang straight and it will drive me bonkers for the rest of my life.  It also cannot be too goofy or feminine.  While I am both of these I try to play them down at work.  I work in a male dominated field and am, by far, the youngest person at my level of responsibility in my department.

Here is what I came up with on a first pass:

• Amy Butler – Forest Clematis 
• Alexander Henry – Mint Eiffel 
• Amy Butler – Leaf Kaleidoscope Dots
• Michael Miller – Black Zen Blossoms & Espresso Ironwork

Favorites?  Other suggestions?!