My nausea is significantly worsened by movement. I feel best when I’m lying in bed surrounded by strategically placed pillows, and I have done this a lot. Unfortunately, it has got to the point where nearly every room in the house is so trashed, I literally can’t stand it. So I’m dedicating today to cleaning/purging/organizing. The reason everything is so messy is because our house is small, and we have lots of stuff. There isn’t a place to PUT everything. So it ends up in piles, in corners, and driving me crazy.

Speaking of, I have an antique oak wardrobe that has been in my family for at least 20 years, and it has been sitting in the middle of my living room for months, waiting to find a new home. If anyone is interested, please email me. It’s driving me insane.

So I’m cleaning today. And all the constant movement and bending is making my stomach hurt. A lot. To ease my suffering, I am entertaining myself with thoughts of what I will do when it’s done and I can once again spend my days laying around.

I’ve been thinking about the Weasley Sweaters again. Abigail would look particularly adorable in a Harry sweater about now. She’s a dainty, feminine kind of tomboy. It’s hard to picture, I know, but she’s so stinking cute…. and I think with her hair the way it is now, she just needs that sweater. So I’m hoping to get on that again soon. I’m not feeling as much of a push to do Olivia’s accompanying “Ron” sweater, but I think I’m still bitter that she lost her gorgeous pink coat from last year. I don’t trust her with a small gauge stockinette Silky Tweed sweater yet.

Wanna see something totally groovy?

Julie (who outed herself yesterday in the comments) let me borrow this incredibly cool hat pattern booklet from her grandmother’s knitting stash. Could you just die? I LOVE it! Particularly the one on the bottom right. The cool thing is that I can tell from her grandmother’s writing and highlighting that it was one of her favorites too. The gauge on these hats is enormous. I don’t know where I’d find yarn that big. It’s like, 5 stitches to 2 inches in stockinette. Mercy.

Ok, I need to get back to work. Any Cable-Eights?

Last fall, my internet shy neighbor wanted to learn how to knit. I got her started on a basic swatch before setting her on an official project, so she could get comfortable with both the knit and purl stitches, as well as alternating between the two. By the time she was done, she had a swatch about 6 inches square which was perfect for one of those cute bunnies knit from a square. So we started sewing. We soon realized that what we had in front of us didn’t really look like a bunny, it sort of resembled…… an armadillo.

My internet shy friend printed up pictures of armadillos so we could fashion the tail and ears accordingly. And the result?

Cool, no?

Want to know what else is cool?

THERE’S ONLY ONE!!!! I’m very very happy. We got to see the little one wiggling around, and moving appendages this morning. Quite exciting. Veronica was there, and thought it was pretty cool. They put the baby at 10 weeks, which is much further than I thought, so I’m going to talk to the doctor about it on Wednesday.

Following Susan’s suggestion, I went to peruse herbs yesterday. Veronica and I had a lovely time amidst the lovely plants and water fountains before we ended up at the herb tables. I didn’t bother with parsley and cilantro, because they’re annuals, and it said they can’t tolerate temperatures below 50 degrees F, so that seemed pointless. But, they had lots of mint, which was what I was most anxious for. I had no clue what kind I wanted. I didn’t know what kind is sold in the grocery store as plain old “mint”, neither did the sales associate that I asked, so I bought four.

Veronica and I munched on them in the car on the way home. Nate happened to be home when we got there, and when I told him I didn’t know what kind of mint was sold in the grocery store he said, “spearmint”, very matter-of-factly. I swear the man knows everything. (He really does).

Anyway, this morning I had a wonderful time in the sun on my back deck planting them. Abner had a good time stealing mouthfuls of peat moss and herbs whenever he got the opportunity. Dork.

From left to right…

Apple mint, Spearmint, Lemon Balm (not mint, but smells heavenly and is supposed to make good tea), and Peppermint.

So I get to play with fresh mint this winter. Hooray! I have gardening books with all sorts of fabulous suggestions.

You will most likely be pleased to hear that I’m going to have some fun knitting-content posts tomorrow and Friday. So if you’re bored out of your mind with my whining about being sick (I threw up yesterday and wanted to die), and my dumb dog, tomorrow should be a good time.

No seriously, I really do. He is out-of-his-senses hyper, so we are taking steps. We have consulted with an animal health expert in Australia, and have followed his advice to take Abner off of dog food. Now he gets more of what we eat, which is whole grains, eggs, and vegetables. But his portions of these foods are either raw, or mostly raw. Plus, he now gets to chew on raw bones in the backyard. Sounds good, right? Well, since this change I have discovered, and am continually discovering the discount section of the meat department. I bought him some beef soup bones. I’ve bought him some turkey drumsticks (although I’ll need to investigate whether he can really have them or not. I’m holding on to them right now), and yesterday we bought him some chicken hearts and beef liver.

An aside- Tongue. I looked at it. I even contemplated it. Then I decided. There is no way I could ever touch, let alone cut up a tongue into portions. See, it LOOKS LIKE A TONGUE!! A really, really big tongue. With tongue texture and everything. How do people do it? There were also beef hearts. That one I’m reserving judgement on, I figure I’ll get used to livers and chicken hearts and see where it goes. Now, what really gets me is that I looked at the discount meat section and saw a ton of cow tongue and beef hearts. Two days later I went back and there were no tongues or beef hearts. This means that someone ACTUALLY BOUGHT THEM! And more than ONE someone! And I don’t think there are that many people trying to feed psycho dogs! I’m not trying to give offense. I’m sure that someone reading this can appreciate and even enjoy eating some of these meats. And that’s fine. I, myself, can’t relate.

Back to Abner’s liver and little chicken hearts. OK, seems gross, doesn’t it? But I actually had fun buying them, because I felt I was doing a good thing. I was helping to use more of the poor animal. You know? Causing less waste and all that. Well, my stupid mutt won’t eat it. Can you believe that? What dog doesn’t eat yucky animal bits? I’m sure there are yucky animal bits in DOG FOOD!!! I can’t buy him steak-on-a-bone EVERY DAY!!! Dumb dog.

Well, I’m thinking about knitting. That’s good, right?

Things are a little better. Thank you all so much for the help and advice. Nate has been making a lot of wonderful juice, and I think it’s helped. This morning I had one with watermelon, pineapple, and ginger. The watermelon juice he made yesterday was nothing short of divine, and I don’t remember what all was in it. Today, I’m looking forward to making a juice with tomatoes, carrots, celery, and lime. It’ll probably be a freshy V-8 type juice, which sounds wonderful. I love celery and carrot juice.

A lot of the recipes in our book have parsley or mint in them, so I’m already planning to add to my little herb garden (which right now consists of a pot of basil) next spring.

The bracelets really seem to help, so thank you all for that suggestion. I’d never heard of them before your comments.

Today my top priority is to clean up the house a bit and to clean my fish tanks. It’s been two weeks since I cleaned them last, which isn’t that bad, but my fish are all looking a bit drowsy, and they’re not quite as happy as usual. It’s so strange how much personality goldfish have. Before I made the switch from tropicals, I thought of goldfish as being food for bigger fish. Like the Oscars I had for awhile. They just seemed, well, disposable. But now I have a tank of huge and gorgeous Sarasas, (and a cast off lionhead that won’t leave the females in my second tank alone. We named him Klingon), and a second tank in my room with a pretty little Lionhead and a chocolate crowned Pearlscale. They’re all healthy, docile, and so personable. It’s fun.

More of the same. I’m sorry. I’m sick. I’m still spending the majority of my days in bed. I’ll be happy if I get a shower today, but the smell of shampoo kills me. I haven’t been able to exercise. We bought some produce last night at the store, and I plan to do a lot of juicing this upcoming week. Nate made a delicious juice for me this morning with pineapple, carrots, apples, and celery. It was fabulous. Since I can’t eat on a regular basis, I’m hoping the juice will give me some nutrients. I feel weak from the lack of food, and more importantly, from the lack of GOOD food. Nibbling on crackers, chips, and ice cream just to get a taste in my mouth isn’t providing any strength. I’m going to go drink some water.

How is it going out there?

The last two days, after the girls have come home from school, I’ve asked them what their favorite part of the day had been. Both days Olivia’s eyes have gone mischievous and sparkly and she said, “Chasing boys! (Giggle, giggle).”

Then last night, at about 6:30, there was a knock at the door. Two 2nd grade boys that had ridden to our house were standing on our porch asking if Abby could come out and ride bikes. The house unloaded, and everyone but me went out and rode around the neighborhood for an hour. You can bet Nate went too. And this is the second day of school!

I’m in bed again today. I’m nauseated, but at least it isn’t painful. However today, I’m way dizzy. This sucks.

Any Cable-Eights going on?

The new MagKnits magazine is up. Here’s my favorite. Although I don’t care for the colors at all, but I’ll dig out my KnitPicks catalogue and see what other color options there are.

I’m doing a little better. I wore the bracelets for most of the day yesterday. I think they helped. I took a nap in the afternoon, and was able to eat a good dinner. A yummy indian curry recipe in the Fix It and Forget It Cookbook. It has chicken, sweet potatoes, onions, orange juice, curry powder, and other seasonings. Mmmmm. I’m thinking that the crock pot is going to be the way to go this pregnancy, since most of my energy is in the morning, and once the girls get home from school, it’s all chaos and homework anyway. The only problem is that my crockpot is pretty lame. It was a wedding gift 11 years ago, and it’s a small one that doesn’t have a removable cooking pot. So washing it is no fun. Maybe I’ll get a new one.

But I’ve been saying that for 11+ years now :-).

I’m going to try to do something for my body today. I have a physical therapy appt this morning, and I would like to do a light treadmill later on.

Also, I’m starting to wonder if I’m not further along than 8 weeks. I swear I felt a good, swift kick last night, and it was just below my belly button on the left side. I can’t imagine I’m that far along, but my abdomen feels like it’s totally pushed out and it’s pretty firm in there. Another week, and I’ll know for sure. Except for the sickness, which fits with the first trimester, I’m feeling a bit further than that. I would think that by now I’ve figured out the difference between my own innards moving around (which you suddenly notice more after having carried and birthed a baby, because it is a similar feeling) and being soundly kicked. And based on other things, I suppose it’s possible that I’m 4 months or so. But, like I said, we’ll see. I’m just left to lay around and over-evaluate everything my body does.