Flurry of Yarn and Crochet Needles

As promised, I'd like to show some crochet projects :)




This is a "newsboy" hat for my friend Christina's little girl, being born in March. I also made some little Mary-Jane booties to match with little black flowers :)




These were only my third attempt at making crochet "items" rather than blankets. It has really upped my confidence in my skills. Going back and forth in a line for a blanket is one thing. But actually forming something and it looking like a hat or shoe is something I wasn't sure I could do.




This was my first attempt at the newsboy hat. I really like the black sparkly yarn, but the pink yarn was really too big, and so it made this hat a bit large for the precious little girl I made it for.




My first ever attempt at booties of any kind. A special request from a dad that is a firefighter. He really wanted some that looked like fireman boots. I even managed to make little "pulls" at the top. I was pretty happy with how these turned out.

I have a large list of people and their babies that I want to make things for. Seems I will be a busy little flurry of yarn and crochet needles until the end of the summer! Orders and requests welcome, still, however!!! :):):)

My stay at Chateau Baylor: The Snowpocalypse, Texas Edition

When I was getting ready for work Monday night, I really didn't think I would not be leaving the hospital for three days. The snow and ice storm that ensued Monday night into Tuesday morning kept me stranded at Baylor All Saints for 60+ hours. Although it was a less than desirable situation, the people I was with made it more than tolerable :) The temperatures dropped into the teens Monday night, and I knew I was going to lose about 3 hours of sleep if I tried to drive home Tuesday morning, and then return to work Tuesday night. So, I, along with about 5 or 6 other women I work with, stayed in hospital rooms for the day so that we could sleep and come back onto the unit that night.

Our accommodations, while not the Four Seasons, were not terrible. Andrews Women's Hospital was only built in 2008, and the rooms are actually quite nice as hospitals go. I had a hospital bed, while my roommate (for both days it turned out) slept on the Murphy bed that folded out from the wall. This stowaway bed, usually used by our new fathers to sleep on while our new mothers are up all night with their babies, has been notorious for looking terrible when the dads make it. Alysa, my roommate, however, went to nursing school, and therefore understood the importance of mitered corners. We both joked about the fact that this was the first time either of us had used that skill in our professional nursing career. Glad we spent two weeks on that in clinicals.

Alysa came prepared to stay over, so we had some of the essentials, but the rest we went and bought in the convenience store. Amy and Michelle roomed two doors down from us, and luckily supplied us with makeup. We wore hospital scrubs that night, some of us with no underwear, not to mention any names :). Others of us pulled a boy scout move and turned their underwear inside out. Desperate times.

By the end of our second night, it was apparent that we were not going to be able to make it home Wednesday morning either. Second day sleeping at the Baylor-d Texan provided much better sleep. The third night, we were out of underwear and sock options. We had to resort to mesh panties from Postpartum and those rubber-bottomed socks that they give moms so they don't fall. Let's just say that was not my most comfortable night at work.

Here's the good part about the whole experience. They gave us free meal vouchers for our entire stay pretty much. Although hospital cafeteria food isn't gourmet, it was at least food. And they kept me with a diet coke in hand. The second morning when we went to the staffing office for our meal provisions, they were nice enough (we thought) to give us a little toiletry bag. Upon inspection of said freebie bag, it happened to be : a mirror, a baby comb, hand sanitizer, and lotion. Hm. Can't really say that helped very much. All in all, I felt like Baylor was very accommodating to its employee's needs and I am thankful that I made it home safe today. I don't go back for 5 days and I'm not sure I will even leave the house!

Special shout outs to all the girls that stayed over with me. I think the NICU owes us a big kiss. And an extra special thanks to Julia R., who was our secretary both nights since we had none. You guys made this a fun week, despite all the chaos.

OK! Now to the new stuff!

I apologize to all my faithful readers for the lack of blogging, yes all three of you. :) hehe

So here's what I've been up to, and what I hope to share through my blog in the next few posts.

• I started weight watchers as of January 8th, 2010 and have lost 15 pounds up until this point! I will hopefully be posting some recipes/snack ideas/tips and tricks. (This was a suggestion from Greta, which I will honor :) )
• I have been a crocheting maniac, so I'd love to post some pictures of my final products
• Kyle and I have booked a cruise that we will be going on with our whole family for our one year anniversary/my niece's graduation/my brother and sister-in-law's 20th anniversary/my mom's 62nd birthday/kyle's mom and her fiance's honeymoon. Phew. What a celebration that is going to be! I can't wait!!!! I'll be posting a blog about the room that we are going to have; I am REALLY excited about that.
• Most recently, I have had quite a week. I stayed at the hospital for 60 hours straight because of the ice and snow! I went in Monday night and I finally got home today at 8:30 AM. I won't be expanding on that here, because I have so many stories!!

Ok that's it. I shouldn't be in need of anything to write about for the next few weeks!

What you've missed in the last month- ok 2 or 3

Another unfinished blog that I am just going to post so we can get over this hump!!!!!!

I feel like I get a "by" on this little break from blogging because of the holidays so I will try to catch you guys up. First off...we have a new header, that I'm EXTREMELY proud of!!! ^^^^ thanks to jordyluxe on etsy for creating that for us. I have put that cartoon everywhere!!! I love it so much!

Ok, now. Let's start with November 21, which was my brother's birthday! For those of you that don't know, my brother is 15 years older than me. This has always made for an interesting brother/sister relationship. He is definitely like a father figure to me, especially since I lost my dad at such a young age. We got him the new Call of Duty game: Black Ops. He was super excited and even used his whole day off to play it! We also went to Freebirds World Burrito for his birthday lunch, which was AWESOME. In fact, about a week ago I went twice in one day. Gah, it is so good. So if you've never been to Freebirds, they wrap their burritos in two layers of foil so that people can make stuff out of the foil to put around the restaurant. We made Kevan a foil birthday cake:)

Thanksgiving...Break?

This is a blog I started writing in the beginning of January and I have been avoiding blogging because I haven't finished it so ... I'm just gonna post it as is with what I have written and then just give some pictures at the end. I just need to get over this blogging block :)

This year was the first Thanksgiving of our married life. I think that most people probably wait a few years before jumping behind the wheel of cooking a Thanksgiving dinner when they first get married. Not us, apparently :D. We thought it would be a good idea to get our "first Thanksgiving cooking disaster" out of the way early. But guess what!? It wasn't a complete disaster!!!!

Since everyone in the family kind of had their own thing to do on the actual day of Thanksgiving, we decided to have our Thanksgiving meal on the Saturday after. Kyle's mom, Saundra, is unfortunately snowed-in up in Minot, North Dakota; and his sister, Shelby, is with her husband, who is stationed in 29 Palms, CA. His other two sisters, Ashley and Amanda, and their significant others, Mark and Joey, were able to come down to my mom's house for Saturday. Also in attendance were my brother, Kevan, and his wife, Shellye, and my two nieces, Kami and Brook.

PICTURES!!!!

My cousin Dakota with our fried turkey that we had at Thanksgiving

My wonderful pumpkin spice cupcakes which I will be posting the recipe for later :)

Kami and Brook having just a little too much fun at Tom Thumb shopping for Thanksgiving groceries.

Just having fun with my favorite girls

Update

To fulfill one of my Old Year's Resolutions: here's a new blog...my second in the span of a week!!!

I just thought I should give a little update to the progress of my resolutions and steps I am taking in the right direction...no matter how little they may be.

1. I really want to find the perfect church and become active in it.

This week: Shady Oaks Baptist Church

Update: I worked Saturday night and was living on the prayer of a cancel for my Sunday shift. Even with the odds stacked against me, I came home, made some lemon poppyseed muffins, and Kyle and I went to sunday school and church. Now...we have visited a few churches in the span of our relationship, and have found good things about all of them. I had a thought that maybe after a fourteen hour shift was not the best time to assess a church's ability to keep my attention. That in mind, we visited my home church, where my mother still goes, and where I believe my membership still lies. I really wanted this Sunday to be more about just getting our feet wet in church again. It was a good experience overall, and I really hope to continue our journey for the perfect church.

2. I would like to lose 10 pounds.

Motivational picture of the week: I swear I used to look like this.

Update: I started my new diet (if that's what you want to call it) yesterday. I have a really neat app for my iPhone that I downloaded some time ago called MyFitnessPal to help me track my calories. It has a listing for every food imaginable and it is really easy to search for what you are eating. You can see how many calories you have eaten, and how many calories you have to go. I am trying to stay under 1500 calories a day. I plan to do a blog maybe next week about "pretending." Like how I pretend that my Chocolate Drizzle Special K Cereal Bar is really a Milky Way. It should be interesting. I'm also struggling with this whole "drink water until you drown" thing. I love Diet Coke and it will probably be the hardest thing for me to give up. I think it will happen eventually.

3. I want to spread contagious joy.

What's more joyful than a smiling Paigey on a dinosaur?

Update: According to Greta, in my comments section from the last post, ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! :) Haha. But seriously, I have been trying to be better about this. I think that positivity is something that has lacked a little bit in my life lately and am attempting to amp it up. I feel like I have made strides towards being a more joyful person.

4. I want to be a devoted blogger.

Update: Blogging now. Boomshakalaka.

5. I want to be awake more.

Update: Yesterday I woke up at 6 AM when Kyle had to wake up to get ready for work. I cooked him some delicious breakfast burritos, walked him to the door to say goodbye, and gave him a hug and kiss (just like Leave it to Beaver). This is the point where I would normally just go lay back down in bed a few more hours. Instead, I stayed up ALL DAY!!! No nap, no mid-morning dozing, NOTHING. This is probably my greatest accomplishment this week, because my awake time allowed me to do a lot of things I have been wanting to do for a while. I treated and vacuumed the entire carpet staircase, I organized my desk and office shelves, I deep cleaned the kitchen, and I did a billion loads of laundry. Ok, not a billion, more like three. It felt really good to get some things done instead of just sitting around watching Netflix. I'm going to try to stay awake like this on all my days off this week, and also try to not sleep away the entire day that I work.

I really feel like all of my goals here are intertwined. If I do one, then another follows, which causes another one, etc. Thank you to all my friends who support me in my goals, no matter silly or serious.

Old Year's Resolutions?

I know...it has been way too long, but unlike all you other little bloggers, I do not have cute kids to take pictures of and share funny things they have said. These are the things I love to read about in your blogs, and so sometimes I feel a little inadequate as a blogger, in general. But today is a new day, and a new beginning. I know its not January 1, but I would like to set some goals for myself that I would like to accomplish before the end of the year: let's call it old year's resolutions? Sure.

Things I would like to do before the end of the year:

1. I really want to find the perfect church and become active in it.

Since Kyle and I have gotten married, we have really enjoyed our weekends together. We get to sleep in, lounge around, and just enjoy our day. Unfortunately, we have gotten so spoiled by staying up late on Saturday night that Sunday mornings have been a difficult time for both of us to get up and going. I really miss being in an active Christian body, and even if it means Saturday afternoon church, I want this back.

2. I would like to lose 10 pounds. That's all. Come on people it is already November 5th.

10 pounds divided by 8 weeks. Thats totally doable...right?

3. I want to spread contagious joy.

This is something that I have found is missing in a lot of places. It is pretty easy to make someone's day with a little bit of happiness. While I have never really understood the point of dragging other people down with bad moods, I have been not so altogether encouraging lately. I think if we do a little work on #1 up there, #3 should follow :)

4. I want to be a devoted blogger.

Let's just call devoted one blog a week, ok? Start small.

5. I want to be awake more.

I don't want to sleep through my life, and working nights it seems like I do that a little bit. I would like to think of sleep more as a luxury and not a necessity. Right now I feel sometimes like it is taking over my social life.

So there you have it. 5 things I want to accomplish before the end of this year. I will (hopefully, if number 4 works out) be keeping you updated on my progress with these things. In the meantime, you guys can try to keep me accountable.