Anniversaries

This next few days are chock full of anniversaries / milestones.
Most importantly, Sunday (March 29) is Chris and my 6 year wedding anniversary! And our last child-free anniversary. How are we going to celebrate? Probably by skipping church, sleeping in, and then doing not much of anything all day, just hanging out. It will probably be our last chance for a while to not do much, so we will relish it. Last year we did the same thing - stayed home and did nothing - and it was great. A fantastic way to celebrate. :-)

(March 29, 2003 - the wedding party, left to right: Alan, Emily, Sam, Kendra, Chris, Brooke, Mike, Amy, Phil)
Sunday is also my one year anniversary of calorie-counting. (Yep, I started my diet on our 5 year anniversary. I'm weird.) I lost about 25 lbs and got to my "goal weight" in about 4 1/2 months. And right about the time I got to my goal weight and started eating enough calories to "maintain" my weight, we found out I was pregnant! Since then I've been steadily climbing back up, but this time with pregnancy weight. The thing that's funny to me is that one year later, I still weigh about 7 lbs LESS than I did a year ago, even though I'm in my 8th month of pregnancy! Calorie counting pays off big time... let me just say it's not fun or easy, but I definitely think it's been worth it to have a better idea of what's going into my body, and now, Zeke's body.
Finally, Tuesday will be my one-year anniversary of being gluten-free. Yep, a year ago I found out that I had a gluten sensitivity and started on the road to figuring out my many other food sensitivities. I think it's safe to say that even with a little Zeke stealing all my energy as of late, I feel a zillion times better than I did a year ago, when my body spent all its time attacking the food I was eating.
Celebrations abound!

Etsy Store and free baby jellyfish crochet pattern

I've finally gotten around to finishing the pattern for the baby mobile, creating an Etsy shop, AND posting the pattern for sale on the Etsy shop. Hooray! Now to see if anyone actually wants to buy it. :-)

Update: Now you can also buy it through Ravelry for $4.95.

I've decided to post the instructions for the baby jellyfish from the pattern here for free, to give you all a tiny taste of what you could be making. So here it is!

Baby Jellyfish Pattern

Materials:

• fingering weight yarn in whichever colors you want your creatures to be (sample uses Claudia Hand Painted Yarns)
• 3.0mm D crochet hook
• Needle for sewing pieces together
• Stuffing

Abbreviations:

Abbreviations:
• ch = chain
• sc = single crochet
• fo = finish off
• inc = increase (two sc in one stitch)
• dec = decrease (one sc across two stitches)
• sl st = slip stitch
• st = stitch
• x2 = repeat two times (etc for multiple numbers)

Body:
Worked in a spiral. Do not join, do not turn.
Start a circle via magic ring or whatever is your preference.
1. sc 6 around (6)
2. inc 6 (12)
3. [sc, inc] x 6 (18)
4. [sc x 5, inc] x 3 (21)
5-7. sc 21 around for 3 rows (21)
8. [sc, dec] x 7 (14)
FO, cut string and weave in end.

Tentacles:
Make 2 dark and 3 light tentacles. Attach each one to the inside top of the body. Loose chains should help the tentacles to curl.
1. Loosely ch 28
FO, cut yarn short, but not so short that the knot will come undone. Alternately, you may try to weave the end back up the chain and hide it in the leg. Use the other tail to attach inside the body.

Note: some yarn doesn’t curl as well when loosely chained for the tentacles. If your tentacles don’t curl, try these alternate tentacles:

1. ch 30
2. inc in each ch
FO, cut yarn short, but not so short that the knot will come undone. Alternately, you may try to weave the end back up the chain and hide it in the leg. Use the other tail to attach inside the body.

Get the rest of the sea creature mobile pattern from my Etsy store at
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=22891478

Happy Pi Day!

Pi Day is the perfect excuse to eat pi(e) with friends. We had a good time, and now I am stuffed full of allergen-free apple pi(e). Well, allergen free if you aren't allergic to apples or butter or rice flour or sugar. Yum!

Chris made the shirt last night for me. He made an iron-on stencil with freezer paper, and sprayed bleach water on it to make the design. A quick DIY tshirt project.

yay for

So we had a good time visiting with my grandma and my great aunt this afternoon / evening, and even though it's been a very busy day, now that they've gone to bed, I'm still too awake to sleep... which is a bummer because I do have to go into work tomorrow. I guess I'll manage.

So I struck out with the rosemary and basil plants. I want to get organic ones, but none of the places that usually carry them (Whole Foods, and Sevannanda) have them right now. I don't know if it's too early, or what. Home Depot had basil, but it's not organic, and since I'm using organic potting soil and organic plant food that I already have, I don't see the point in compromising and buying a non-organic plant. But I REALLY want some basil! I wonder if it's too early, or if I just need to expand my search. I should probably call Urban Gardener tomorrow and see if they've got their herbs in stock. I can't even try to grow things from seeds, they always fail (the one exception being my avacado plant, and I tried three of those and the only one that lived is the one that was ALREADY sprouting inside the avacado when I cut it open). So each year I just buy the actual plants... I really don't have a green thumb, I just try real hard not to kill my plants, and that's about the best I can do. Alas!

Spring!

This morning we got the phone call that we have a baby niece! Hannah Emily Skeene was born in Thailand at 4:29pm Thai time (that's 4:29am our time), and we got the call around 8:30 in the morning. Sam and Nicole were quite pleased that their baby girl was born on a prime number day - 03/07/09. So much excitement about numbers lately, it makes me smile.

So less than a week after our big Atlanta snow, we had an 80-degree day today. Chris and I invited a few friends to have a picnic with us at Piedemont Park to enjoy our first big spring day. It was great to be out and soaking up the sun. This spring weather has me so happy and looking forward to all the new life it brings... not just gardening, but in the form of a niece and a son, too, of course!

So I had quite the productive day, I made a batch of sprouted hummus this morning before the picnic (I'm a hummus-making fiend lately), and this evening I made some lavender ice cream - yum! We also went through all the baby clothes our friend Amy just sent us, and got them all washed and organized and whatnot. Busy busy! I usually hate doing laundry and folding clothes, but I can't get enough of folding little boy onesies!

Tomorrow after church I'm going to get some new basil and rosemary plants (they always die over the winter). I'm so happy to have weather that will be kind to my plants, which have all slowly died over the winter. I hope to have the time to get them planted before my grandma gets into town in the evening. She's driving back up to Indiana and so she and my great aunt are staying the night with us. I'm excited to get to spend some time with them. Quite the packed weekend!

Get Ready for Pi Day! Tomorrow is 3.14

This great photo is from zenwerx, which will also inform you of the value of pi to 4 million digits. Now that's dedication.

While I won't be making a pie quite this fancy, I am making a couple allergen-free pies tomorrow in celebration of Pi Day, and a few people are coming over to help us eat them. I'm going to make a pumpkin pie just because it's my favorite, and an apple pie. I was going to make a blueberry pie but blueberries are just too expensive... I could spend about $18 on enough blueberries, or $3 on enough apples... not really a tough choice this time around!

So what are YOU doing for Pi Day?

Square Root Day - and I missed it!

I've been eagerly looking forward to Pi Day, which falls on a Saturday this year so I think I'll bake a gluten-free pie (blueberry? apple? pumpkin? I haven't decided yet) and wear a shirt with a pi symbol on it, if Chris makes it in time. But much to my dismay, I missed Square Root Day, which was yesterday, and I didn't even know it. Miss Emily alerted me to the missed holiday this morning. Maybe I could have cut a sweet potato into squares and sauted them for dinner. (And wish everyone a Happy Square Root Day, which is all you really need to do to celebrate a holiday).

So now that we're planning ahead, is anyone else gonna do something fun for Pi Day? Maybe crochet a pi scarf? More importantly, who wants to come over to my house for some pie? (Don't make me eat it all myself!)