Baby Kimono

Posted on December 28, 2008 by chatty

My other project this past week as been to finish this baby kimono. The pattern is from Lion Brand Yarn. It is the first sweater I’ve tried to knit, and I feel like I cheated a bit, because it is essentially five different pieces, but then sewn together.

Baby kimono sweater

Not quite like the impressive and adorable sweater that my pal Marcie knit for little baby.

By the way, I think I discovered while researching some different stitches online, that I’m actually knitting incorrectly. I knit through the back loop, whereas I guess you’re supposed to knit through the front. Unfortunately I can’t find my “Teach Yourself to Knit” booklet to doublecheck. With the sister arrives in January, I’m going to have to have her bring her knitting book with her (the one I gave her for Christmas … the gift that keeps on giving), to double-check what I probably already know to be true. Oh well, what are you going to do.

Baby Baby

Posted on December 1, 2008 by chatty

Baby has a very cute sweater, knit by my friend, Marcie:

baby sweater

Super cute shoes from Cheryl & Katie:

mouse shoes. they match the cute outfit that came with it.

Tasty baby shower food … Eggs with dill and other fancy herbs. Egg quiche. Tasty little puff pastries with savory fillings. One was sweet potato and bacon. The other was … mashed potatoes? Embarrasingly enough now I can’t remember. Regardless, the puffs and eggs were courtesy of JB. The quiche from I think Marcie.

baby shower food

Fun was had by all. Hooray!

Grandma Emma’s Blanket

Posted on December 1, 2008 by chatty

This blanket arrived in an old Nieman Marcus box that had handwritten in pen, “Grandma Emma blanket. 1999”. You see, the husband and I started dating at the end of the year in 1998. In 1999, Grandma Emma was crocheting a blanket for a family friend’s baby, to be born that year. The husband’s Mom then asked Grandma to crochet a blanket for the husband’s first born as well, as it was sort of known that her eye sight was not what it once was.

“Why,” she asked. “Is there something I should know?”

As it turned out, the husband and I wouldn’t marry until 2004. Grandma Emma passed away in 2006. And, now, finally, the husband and I have a baby on the way. The mother-in-law gave this to us on Thanksgiving. She’d been holding it for nine years. Waiting patiently. Who knew it would take this long? Not me. Probably not Grandma Emma, either.

Grandma Emma's Baby Blanket

A beautiful blanket. And a sweet story.

Leg warmers

Posted on November 26, 2008 by chatty

Do you remember when leg warmers were the “in” thing? I was in maybe third grade or something. Not just for aerobicizing women, I’m pretty we just wore them to school. They were h-o-t.

Anyway, I purchased some super-cute leg warmers as a baby shower gift from Baby Legs. Then, I decided I could also knit some basic ones. Not as cute as the polka dots, stripes, or skull and crossbones that Baby Legs makes, but these were done while watching Sunday Night Football. Nice and easy. Here’s the pattern I used.

baby leg warmers

Believe it or not, the yarn is the same as the baby hat I knit earlier. Different light, different time of the day that the picture was taken makes the colors a bit off. I know, we are having a girl and I’ve knit a lot of blue stuff. But, I’m merely trying to use yarn that I have sitting in the house. Besides I’m not one to put gender stereotypes on my child so early. Don’t cha think? For anyone who is still not convinced, my plan is to add some pom-poms to the bottom of warmers to make them a little bit more girly, but not too girly. Either I will outsource the pom-poms to E., or perhaps I’ll try to do them myself. I just found some instructions on the web. Ain’t the Inter-webs amazing?

Sorry, this blog has become more crafty than I meant it to be. I’ll bring some food pics back soon. It is Thanksgiving weekend, after all, and this afternoon I’ll be making my traditional bourbon pumpkin cheesecake.

Knitting Projects

Posted on November 10, 2008 by chatty

I have a stash of yarn. There was a particular project that I had held off on until I was pregnant … a baby blanket. I sorta felt like if I started a blanket before I became pregnant that it would somehow jinx the getting pregnant part. But then, weeks and months went by and I completely forgot of my intentions. Until a few weeks ago, wherein I hustled this little project out.

knitted baby blanket in eggplant

It is a very easy pattern. I’ve done several dishcloths using a similar pattern, and just expanded it significantly to create a large blanket. The idea behind the diamond-shaped blanket is that you start by casting on 5 stitches, then continue to increase each row until you get to the halfway point. Then you begin decreasing each row until you get back to 5 stitches on the needle. I reviewed a lot of patterns and one suggested adding a little hood at the end, which I did. However, the husband suggested, upon project completion, that the hood looked a bit pointy. He says it reminded him of the cartoon “The Point” which I had never heard of, but after hearing him talk about, now I want to see it.

Anyway, E. from the vp suggested a pom-pom for the hood, and did I mention she also has a pom-pom maker?

hood with pom-pom

Last weekend I started my second project … infant hats. The first one (I finished it yesterday) is pretty small, so it’s definitely newborn. Using double-pointed needles, I did an inch of ribbing, then just knitted in a round, and 2 inches later began decreasing each row to create the crown until the end. Wasn’t quite sure how to finish it so there’s a little notch at the top.

baby hat

I’m not a great knitter. My skills end at “beginner”. But I enjoy doing it. And it gives me something to do while vegging out in front of the tv.

The Workout

Posted on September 20, 2008 by chatty

Here is part 2 of what I started last week. Incidently, it’s 6:30AM and I’ve been up since 3:30. Gotta love this sleep schedule!

Fitness: Fortunately, I raced in San Diego just a couple of months before getting pregnant. (Unfortunately, we lost that damn race, but I won’t dwell. Really). So I was in decent shape coming into all of this. Also fortunately during the first trimester I had no morning sickness, weird fatigue issues or anything. Long ago I knew it was important to keep working out rather than stop everything and sit on the couch and eat bonbons. So in the first trimester, I tried to keep rowing. A little bit in June, subbing in for rowers training for Regionals (which I did not attend). A little more in July, when I had the hankering because the weather was just beautiful. When JPT returned in August I found myself sitting in the launch more than in a boat, so decided it was time to take a break. I had planned to stop rowing mid-August anyway, since I knew the girls would begin training for head-racing season.

You can sorta look through this blog and see what I’ve been up to fitness-wise. It hasn’t really changed. In fact, I got pretty routine, especially with the lifting, thanks to NROL. I’m still doing it, nearly complete, but at a much slower rate. I’ve gone from about 5x a week, of combined practice, cardio + lifting down to 3x a week, depending on my work schedule.

It’s not that bad. There were mornings when I did not want to get out of bed to workout. A lot of mornings. At some point when I wanted to hit the snooze button, though, there was a little bit of motivation that I didn’t have 6 months earlier. It sounds corny but I’d think,”man I should really do this for the kiddie” And so then I’d get up.

Joints are looser now, and injuring the connective tissue in the pelvic area is a concern. The increase of progesterone keeps me breathless more often than normal. My doctor is super. She’s very well aware of the fitness level I had before. She herself is quite fit and can speak from experience. In terms of cardio there is less erging, no treadmill, a lot of elliptical. Strength training is lower weights and higher reps. I feel good, practice common sense, and believe I can keep going at least into the third trimester. Once I get huge, well, we’ll see.

So. Kettlebells Training on Thursday. I like doing this because I can catch up with my rowing buddies a little bit. The other benefit is being able to adjust the exercises according to what I can and can’t do. I can’t really do jumping squats, and some of the core work isn’t good for me, either. It’s easy to sub in different items and still get a great workout. I think/hope I can keep doing this through the end of October. I think the number of exercises I’ll be able to comfortably do will go down, until all I’m doing is squats.

3 sets of 4 exercises. No rest between exercises, but 2 minutes between sets. Each set = 3 x 1 minute per exercise. Got it?

Set 1:

KB Clean & Press
Bulgarian Split Squats
BW Squats (everyone else did burpees)
Bridge (everyone else did bridge)

Set 2:

Yates Row
Wall Ball
Plank
Cross Squat

Set 3:

Step up with Wood chop
Erg
Push up + T
TRX Squat & Row

Sleepless (and Hungry) in Seattle

Posted on September 13, 2008 by chatty

One thing no one told me about the pregnancy thing (and let me tell you, people will tell you LOTS about pregnancy. For the most part, I appreciate it).

Insomnia.

I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Suddenly, I’m up for a while. This is happening to me about once a week now. It’s almost to the point that I’m debating getting up in the night to go to the bathroom because really I just want to sleep. But, you know, it’s sorta bad to hold it in.

So anyway, I’m up. I thought I’d share a thought… about pregnancy. Ha!

Part 1) The weight gain (Part 2 will be the fitness, for another time). I knew it was coming. I read about it. I saw my friends go through it, gaining 25, 30, 35, 40 pounds. But boy was it difficult to grasp when it started happening to me. First, I feared I was gaining weight too fast. Doctor quickly calmed my fears. For my 12-week appointment, I was basically the same weight I was when I saw her the previous year (I managed to shave off 5 or more pounds in that year, but she didn’t seem to care much about that). So, to her, I hadn’t gained any weight the first trimester. Oh, I thought. So then, suddenly I feared I was gaining weight too slowly. In the end, I’m right at the rate I’m supposed to be at, one pound a week. The diet hasn’t changed dramatically, but a few things:

a) Burritos. I ate a lot of burritos in the beginning. The cafeteria at the firm has an Ooba’s. They make a good chicken burrito. I was eating one of these a week, at the cost of nearly $9 a meal (considering I bring my lunch to work 4-5 days a week, $9 is steep for lunch for me). I know burritos are high in calories. Five or so years ago I had to swear off TDM when I found out how many calories are in one of their fish burritos. But then, there I was, happily eating a ginormous chicken burrito, with chips & salsa on the side. Mmmm… while the Mexican cravings haven’t really died off, I have taken a break from Ooba’s.

b) Mochas. I’ve had more tall-nonfat-with-whipped mochas in the past 2 weeks than I’ve had in the past 2 years. Really, I think it’s just the whipped cream that I’m after. The mocha fascination started with the aforementioned insomnia. I found myself with less than 3 hours of sleep in me, having to make it through a day of work. So I treated myself with a mocha (full single shot. no decaf for this girl). Mmm. That tasted good. So I got one the next day. And a few days later. At $3 a day, this is another habit I’m going to stop. Soon.

Speaking of the caffeine, I did stop drinking coffee daily, which was my habit for a looooong time. I had gone from full caffeine, to a half-caf/decaf cup, to one day I went to the coffee machine and just looked at it. Sort of lost my taste for coffee. I moved down to a decaf latte once a week. That was in my first trimester. Just recently (that mocha binge last week, to be exact), I returned to a full caffeine single shot. Not every time I order a drink, but more than before. One shot, or one cup of coffee, once a day, ain’t going to do any harm. I looked it up and Nurse confirmed.

c) Vending machine candy. In the past I’ve allowed myself a trip to the vending machine no more than once a week. Usually it falls on a day when I’m freaking out, stressed, tired or just need something to make it through the afternoon. That something is usually salty, like Chex Mix, Baked potato chips, pretzels, once in a while Snack Wells cookies. Once in a great while those crazy Rugers.

Last week it was $1 for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (king size). This week it was a Chocolate-covered Payday. What’s gotten into me? This definitely has to stop. I’m sort of a miser when it comes to spending money on this stuff. Especially because I just don’t need it. Weeks ago, the husband, knowing of my penchant for bad foods, and knowing what it does to me (See “Garbage In, Garbage Out“), sent me to work with healthy snacks: peanut butter & crackers; almonds; buffalo jerky, oatmeal… Well, this week, my stash dwindling, the vending machine won the war.

Healthy snacks. Thanks, dear

So, back to the drawing board. I try to eat well 75% of the time. The husband insists that needs to go up, to 85-90%. It’s his kiddie, too, so I suppose I should pay attention to what he has to say.

But if I want a cupcake. By golly, I’m going to have a cupcake!