Starting Over

Yes! You heard me correctly, (though I wish I could say incorrectly). There I was, knitting along. Doing a fine job. Every few rows (of the 32) checking how well the pattern was trodding along. Then I'd look at the pictures in the book and notice how my jacket was slightly different. "Unique", I'd tell myself. "It doesn't have to be exactly the same", I'd say as I thought of The Yarn Harlot and how she teaches you "to make it your own". (I finished the book, "Knitting Rules", and it was G.R.E.A.T.) Well what the hell does she know? When it comes down to it, what the hell do I know? I know nothing about this artform that we call knitting. Nothing! And just to prove it:

It turns out (Jillian read this carefully) that the pattern was right, and I was wrong! The chart is simple enough, but I was reading ONE part of it wrong...on every row! There are two decreases symbolized by X's on the chart. However, there is one that slants to the right which means you need to K2tog and not drop the stitches to your right needles because you will insert your right needle in between the two stitches and then drop them. (So you aren't really decreasing, kwim?) Anyway, this wasn't what I had trouble following. I just hadn't realized that the other X had a different slant. And finally when I realized they were two different beings, then I realized that my stitches should have been branching out.

On a brighter note, I wasn't mad when I had to rip out 32 rows. In theory I was. But not in practice. Ask me why. "Why?" you ask. Well let me tell you! Shawn and I had to drive down to the Valley (where I used to live) for an OB appointment. An OB appt. at 2:00. (Meaning Shawn had to leave work uber early to make it on time.) We made it, at 2:00 exactly! Anyway, this was just a check up since my visit from last weeks trip to the Labor and Delivery. I checked in, peed i the cup, took my weight (I dread that part the most, but was happy to see I hadn't gained anything), and sat in the room. For an hour! One friggin' hour! The plan had been I'd go to my appointment and then go upstairs to do the glucose test. Since I had to fast, I didn't anything...since 10 a.m. Three o' clock comes by and I'm starving. There was absolutely no way I could wait another hour to eat. So I didn't. (I'll be taking the test Wednesday morning.) Anyway, the Dr. says to keep doing what I'm doing. There's not much they can do about my back pain. And as long as the contractions aren't coming back, we are good. We also got to schedule the C Section. January 16th. It seems so far, yet so close.

And because I need to add to my stash, lookie at what I got:

Two, count them, two lovely skeins of 100% baby alpaca that I found at Unwind in Burbank on Thursday night after our ultrasound. The people that work there are really nice. And they have a great selection of yarn...sock yarn, chunky yarn, baby yarn, novelty yarn...Yarn as far as the eye can see! I also asked if they did private classes (sock knitting baby) and they do! I'll definitely be going back! I planned on using this yarn for a chunky (and really soft) scarf for my pal Wendy, but I don't know. Even Shawn says I probably won't use it for good. He may be right!

The ultrasound went pretty well. I say "pretty well" because our little girls' kidney is still filling faster than the other one and the Dr. believes we will need to have to do an ultrasound on her when she's born to make sure the "problem" is correcting itself. If not, she will need antibiotics. Of course, this would be the mild case. *sigh* And I know that a Dr. has to give you the worst case scenario, but I could have lived the next two months without thinking there was a slight possibility that there could be something wrong.

The good news is that she is pretty healthy other than the kidney thing. She is still a she (you should have heard the sigh of relief Shawn let out). And she weighs about 4 lbs. 1 oz. The Dr. says she will gain about 1/2 lb. a week. So we are looking at her being about 8 lbs. (at least) when she's born. She's really active as well, so I don't know what will be in store for us. But she's beautiful isn't she?