Sunday, June 22, 2008

Family, Class, and Socks

It's been a busy few weeks.

Last weekend, two of my sisters and my maternal grandmother decided to surprise me for a visit. It was kept from me until they had some car trouble in Chicago. Their stories in what it took to arrive here were pretty amusing. I personally enjoyed Heather and Charity playing Cranium Jr. in the tow truck on their way here, much to the amusement of the driver ("Can you spell 'watermelon' backwards without writing it down?", "Act out 'slow motion.'"). The time went too quickly, but I was so glad to have them here. We were able to have some good food together, as well as Guitar Hero face-offs and while I was at work, the others took a tour of the Chocolate Factory.

Then this past week my ceramics class began. I'm taking it through the university. My schedule consists of work during the day, heading home long enough for a short nap and a quick meal, then going to class for a couple hours. It's nearly bedtime when I arrive home. In spite of the busy week, I'm enjoying it and am looking forward to my finished projects. We're working on coil vases right now, to be followed by a few weeks on the wheel.

In baby news, everything's still progressing as expected. I tend to tire more easily, and I can see the physical changes, but to the regular person, I haven't started showing. While visiting the friends in Minnesota a year ago, Kristy casually mentioned that her shoe size changed because of pregnancy. When I was shocked, she scoffed, "Oh, come on, Faith. Everything grows."

In my naivete, I thought I would be spared this until the third trimester. Come to learn that summer temperatures can exacerbate the swelling, however. So imagine my surprise a week ago when, looking for shoes to wear, I half-heartedly considered a pair of simple dress shoes I purchased a couple years ago that have always been a little too roomy for my taste. I needed to be reminded of how loose they were, and when I slipped them on, they were plenty snug and fit perfectly. That was a blow to my pride. While I realize I can't escape inevitable swelling or shoe-size changes, I was pleased this immediate swelling dissipated as the temperatures eased.

In the knitting sphere, Friday night I went to hear the Yarn Harlot in Oak Lawn, Illinois with Sandy. We left South Bend around 4:30 and returned home just before midnight. In between, we had some knitting as we heard her speak, then she signed her new book.


Since she often has a gallery of people showing off their first socks (in the above photo, we are holding her in-progress sock), I dug out my sock of shame, surprised I haven't yet unraveled it, and I brought it along. It was what taught me about the importance of gauge. To give you an idea, it would only work for me if I had a cast on my foot. Eric actually slipped it on, though, and other than being roomy in the ankle, it turned out that it fit him pretty well as a house sock. If you need to see my failure, scroll down here and look for one of the thumbnails. In my defense, I learned about starting with appropriate sock yarn and fastidiously checked my gauge for future attempts.

Finally, yesterday I went to Kayleigh's wedding.


I've only known her for a couple months, but I've had some fun conversations with her during our weekly knitting group and I was glad I got to share in their special day. It was a lovely wedding and they were both so cute (I can't say they're the cutest couple, since Eric and I sewed that up almost five years ago, but I can see I need to watch this competition).

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