You take it on faith, you take it to the heart...

The waiiiiting is the hardest part*

OK PEOPLE. Listen up. There's a lot to tell. A lot that's random. I'm just going to go with it. You should pee, and get yourself a beverage. You may be here awhile.

High Energy Embryo.

So, all the active IVF poking and prodding is done for now, except the aforementioned shots. Now, we wait. And wait. Maybe there's an embryo implanting. Maybe not. No way to tell yet. Just lots of waiting.

There's a lot of chance it just won't take. Even if it does, it could only take a little and then I'd have a period. Or I could miscarry. Or, maybe it'll stick.

I don't say this to be negative. I'm feeling quite positive, actually. But we infertile types get used to failure, to having our hopes dashed with each period every 4 weeks (or 3 in my case. EXCELLENT.) So, it's best for us to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. All your thoughts and prayers mean everything to me. Thank you. We'll wait together.

Random thing number one.

Mostly for the fam, a picture of our new deck furniture and newly stained deck. Which my dog has already covered in mud. Because she's bad.

The knitting on the table - it's a secret. Shhh.

Dientes mas blancas.

I am getting my teeth bleached. They make these cool molds of your teeth so the plastic things fit exactly, like so:

Not so attractive. Not very tasty bleach gel. Moving On.

You think she's dancing now...

Here's some math for you:

9 girls + slightly used wedding gown + engaged girl = weddin' jig.

REALLY High Energy Johnny...

...is taking a welding class. How cute is this picture?

Best. Man. Ever. Wants to build bicycles. Lord don't let him burn down the house.**

Random Pirate Attack!

Look what I got from the dear HibiscuitsGirl at The Black Stitch! Yo Ho Ho!

Note the "Ahoy Matey" sticker. I love this woman.

Knitting? A swatch. Anything.

I have joined the "Green Gable Knit-a-long" because I could not help myself. Here's a swatch. Boring, but it's all you get folks.

Yarrrrrrrrrrn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in "New Age Teal". Ooooh. Goody.

Alright, kids. I'm exhausted. I actually have to go back to work Friday. Oh, WORK. I forgot about that bit. I was enjoying this stay-at-home situation...

*Kudos to Karma, whose song suggestion was perfect.
** WATCH OUT. You might get what you're after...

Where do we go...

Sweet Child, Where do we go now...

Thanks to all of you for your well wishes and prayers. You all are the best.

We have some embryos a-growin', so we'll see what happens. They will take over the world. This I know for sure. Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

Have you finished ANYTHING?

Yes.

The Sockapaloooza socks are done.

Click here for a detail shot. Oh, yeah.

And, here's the specs, if'n you want 'em.

Gratuitous Pet Shot:

Ouch.

Now that I have passed the egg retrieval stage, I am taking intramuscular shots of progesterone nightly. Thank God I work with nurses. Take a look at the size of this needle:

Ow. Quit it. Ow. Quit it.

Actually, and truly, they aren't that bad. Didn't really hurt much. Or maybe I'm just numb from all the other shots I gave myself over the last 10 days or so. Hmmm.

Sleeve therapy.

To distract myself from such medical therapies, I finished the Vintage Knits Ribbed Sweater Sleeve No. 1. Or, Bob, for short.

Bob needs to be sewn on to see how it's all going to go together. I have true fear that I am going to run out of yarn. I think I can maybe get the other sleeve done, but there's no way there's enough for the neckband. CRAP. The yarn gods are not smiling. Anybody out there have any Rowan Cotton Glace in color 787, Hyacinth??? We can talk dye lots, people. I can trade or pay. But you can't have our firstborn (if there is one). ;-)

A Day in the Life.

Well, hello there.

Hi people. I thought I'd post a little post here, but actually it's a BIG post, so be forewarned!

A friend of a friend suggested this idea on his blog about taking a picture of your day, hour by hour. I thought it'd be interesting... I couldn't do it on a work day, since I can't take pics at work, but here I document for you my day off work on Sunday.

2:30pm

Hi. I'm sleepy and the gnomes and I really want to stay in bed.

3:30pm

Walking a happy person who is getting her news. All the news that's fit to sniff.

4:30pm

Knitting on Madli's Shawl, from IK, in Kidsilk Haze. I'm working fast, cause I have a month left till I wear it. At this point I have 18.5 repeats out of 31 done.

5:30pm

The boy and I decide to take the tandem out for a spin. Lord is he silly.

6:30pm

Buying new bike shorts from Bike Nashbar. And no you can't zoom in to to see my credit card. Stop trying.

7:30pm

Carrie, John and I waiting for AM and Dixie Chick. We were so hungry, we threatened to eat Carrie. We were in a vegetarian restaurant, and they caved and seated us. We won!

8:30pm

Dessert. Yum.

9:30pm

Talking to my Mom-in-law on the telephone. Gabgabgab. My mom and dad: I will call soon, I swear.

10:30pm

Jenny actually starts in on a project for work she was supposed to start hours ago. Excellent. I HATE writing.

11:30pm

Still working. Have called in reinforcements: ipod, Lucky Charms, Diet Pepsi. Thank God for Diet Pepsi.

12:30am

Waiting for last page to print. So. Tired. of. Waiting. Have resumed Pajama Status.

1:30am

Kinko's. 1:30 am. The Jennmeister, High Energy Jenninator, Making Copies.
I am the ONLY one in the copy shop. This is a college town on Sunday night. WHAT?

2:30am

I'm exhausted and I deserve a movie. Goody. Headphones, laptop, sofa.

3:30am

Mid-movie, knitting up a storm! Almost 20 repeats down!

4:30am

Writing the blog. Too boring for picture.

5:00am

Must work at 5pm tomorrow. Maybe just a little Harry Potter time before I go to sleep...

Good night ya'll... More knitting soon.

100th Post!

Aloha!

Welcome to the special or not so special 100th post of HEK. That's right, 100 times I have talked and talked and you nutty people have listened. We've laughed, we've cried, we've knitted. Oh, good times.

Oh, for Pete's Sake!

Ahem.

Here are a few pics from Hawaii, where we are having fun times. Well, except for me LEAVING my camera on the plane (it appears to be gone forever), getting really SUNBURNED despite my attempts not to, and FORGETTING my French Market Bag knitting (after all the preparation), that is...

Oh yeah, and I turned 33 today. Solidly in my 30s. There it is. Oh well.

For my birthday, my dear friend Alex gave me a beautiful needle case:

In back is the recent Vogue Knits in which they are pictured.

Here my favorite little kid and I are practicing swimming:

And at dinner. Yummy good dinner.

This is Kai. He is our dear friends' 15 month-old and he is SUPER CUTE. If only we could be so lucky. He knows the words "boat", "owl", "lizard", "mama", "dada", "thanks", and "belly button." He is a genius baby and we love him.

Here for the parent-types is one of the man and I:

See ya'll later!

We return to the mainland on Wednesday. I think the shrug might be done by then. Miss all my knitting buddies! See you all soon. Back to actual knitting content when I am reunited with my camera. Or a new camera. Harrumph.

Woe, woe, woe.

So, lately I've been feeling a bit like, oh, CRAP. No energy Jenny, that's me. What's the deal? I'm not sure, but I don't like it. Just one of those weeks where you think, what's it all matter? Does my life have any meaning? Will my life ever be simple? Can George Lucas make a good movie again, ever?

The week started sucky with me sewing a cat bed for our kitties. Taking my spare time to sew a comfy, corner shaped cat bed, even with cats on it. But they would have none of it.

I cat troubleshot:

• Spraying it with catnip spray? No good.


• Too much stuffing?


• Too little stuffing?


• Wrong place in the house?

Nothing would convince them. Ungrateful wretches.

Pure Laziness.

Also - in the time I've been gone from the blog, I did essentially no knitting. WHAT? I know. I did essentially NOTHING at all.

Really. You can know this is true as I did essentially no blog reading either. If you have a blog I read and comment on, please don't be sad or mad. I haven't read anyone's blog in week and I am tremendously behind.

I have nothing to say for myself, really. I suspect two things are to blame.

1) I hate working with Summer Tweed, so I am not in a hurry to finish the Ginger sweater. Especially since the edges are chain stitch edges, which take that oh so little bit more effort - effort that in Summer Tweed is excruciating. And I may not start something new until I finish something old.

2) Also, I blame Alias.

I have watched all of Season 1 and four episodes of Season 2 (so don't tell me any spoilers). Let me just say the show is completely addictive. I CANNOT knit while watching this. And I can knit through just about any movie, etc. But not Alias. I can't even knit Clapotis, because of the twisted stitches. If it's not stockinette I can't knit it because the show is that exciting. And I have nothing that is stockinette now, so there you go. And I love the show, I can't stop watching it.

Basically a worthless low energy Jenny watching TV for days and days.

Ok, so I did a little knitting.

I did finish two Dulaan hats, from Norma's great pattern.

Red light, green light.

The only thing I did differently for the green and blue one was to use a provisional cast-on, so in pulling the top and bottom together it was not as bulky.

I used Peruvian Highland Wool, two strands together and used exactly two skeins total for each hat.

Here's a goofy girl modeling it.

End on an up note.

Although this week started out sucky, I have to say things are looking better:

1) I successfully went yarn shopping with a sweet friend and did not buy any yarn. This is huge.

2) I ran twice this week. THIS is really huge.

3) I am successfully keeping Sea Monkeys alive.

4) I looked out in our porch today to see this:

He likes it! Hey, Mikey!

Man, this hold music sucks!

Your call is important to us.

So I will be on a small hiatus here at HEK as I have no camera, as the man took it away to CA. And without pictures I am nothing.

In the meantime, here's a fun game to play for you music lovers:

The geeky husband and I (both of us nerds) had our laptops on the sofa sitting together and it occurred to us we could play music off our computers (with itunes or similar program) to each other to see how fast we could guess the song. Like nerdy Name that Tune.

The rules were:

• It had to be a song the other should know.


• It had to be a song that could be recognized from the very beginning.


• Everyone plays by the honor system.

So we'd start the song and stop it within a second, and if the other didn't guess, we'd play a bit more etc. The scoring was lax but I did win. ;-)

The best was that I recognized "Santaria" by Sublime in one note and in about 1/2 a second. Impressive, no?

OK, not really. But it was fun! We were laughing the whole time. You should try it. Could be done with one computer as long as the other person isn't looking. Honor system! No cheating!

Enough of that. Should be back in a week-ish.

Until then, feel free to go play in a bag.

Oh, and P.S.

Anne Marie's blog has moved! Update your links!

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

I could complain...

Yes, I could tell you how my lovely trip home (in which I had a GREAT time, thanks Mom and Dad!) was marred by:

a) a mechanical plane issue resulting in significant delay in getting home.

b) the discovery that I spent quality time sewing in the sleeve into my Honeysuckle sweater, only for it to look like SH*T. And be too small. More on this later, if I can stand to touch the orange monster again.

c) a torrential downpour which led to our basement flooding. AGAIN. And since I quilt in the basement, and since my two crappy felines knocked some books onto the floor, I have spent tonight doing this:

Thank heaven for my ipod.*

This book is the Vogue Knitting of quilting books for me. Trust me, if it was your favorite knitting book, you'd be spending quality hair dryer time too.

I said, I COULD complain...

But instead, I'll show you this:

Anyone who knows me will recognize me in this picture.

1) The hair. I mean, really.
2) The outfit. You can't tell in b&w, but that is a nightgown with Raggedy Ann on it, in BLUE and PURPLE. It was vintage then, let me tell you.**
3) The purposeful gait. This is how I walk now - fast, going somewhere, looking only in the direction planned. I was a child with a goal. And that goal was - CHRISTMAS GIFTS.
4) Note the doll's hair also. I mean, really.

*And James Ingram singing, "Yah Mo B There."
**My mommy made the nightgown. ;-)