Yesterday I spent a few good hours cleaning my desk and reorganizing things. I filled a whole paper grocery bag of papers to be recycled, and I filled up a file cabinet drawer of papers to save. I used the sticky roller to remove cat hair from skeins of yarn that the cats had slept on and then rolled up all the messy yarn into neat balls. And then I finished a sweater I’ve been knitting for Chris for about two years, and all that has been left these last six months was a few more rows of the collar that I’d had to re-do because the first time I finished it the collar was too short.
All that work, and I’m still not done. I reached that point where I knew that if I kept going, I wasn’t going to be very productive, so I shoved the remaining papers into a “miscellaneous” pile and told myself I’ll finish it later. Typically, I don’t usually finish it later. The pile just grows again until it covers my desk, and the whole thing starts again. This time, though, I have an additional external motivating factor: Soon, our home office is going to have to turn into a baby room.
Yep, in just a few months, we will be welcoming a baby girl into our family! Her due date is at the very end of July, so possibly early August. Of course, one of the first things I did was browse Ravelry for a whole bunch of baby sweater patterns, though I’m dismayed by how quickly the time is flying by. I’ve only finished one sweater, and I’m halfway done with another. In my head, I thought I would have had time for loads of blankets and other things too! But I’ve also allowed myself to nap most of the time when I feel like it, and I fall asleep pretty early, too.
I’ve also renewed focus on my writing goals, knowing that if I use pregnancy and being tired as an excuse not to fit writing into my schedule, then I might as well say goodbye to writing when the baby comes! So the two stories that appeared in my last two blog posts were written painstakingly over the course of several weekends of morning sickness and frequent naps. Now I’m well into my second trimester and I haven’t been quite so tired, but I’ve been working on longer projects that are not so bloggable at the moment.
Honestly, I’m looking forward to my 6 weeks of maternity leave partly because I imagine that I’ll be able to sneak in much more writing time than I can around my work schedule. But I keep reminding myself that I have no freakin’ idea what I’m going to feel like or what it’s going to be like to have an infant. Still, at work I’m responsible for 10 preschoolers at a time, and really up to 30 at a time between all 3 teachers, so I find myself imagining that being able to focus on one child will seem like a luxury to me. I know that somewhere, there is an experienced parent laughing at me. But not many people can do what preschool teachers do every day, and I know that’s a fact!
So that’s my major update after many months of blog silence. I hope to be posting more stories soon, and to post them in downloadable forms for the different types of e-readers. I also hope to be sharing more knitting projects. My new goal is to post every Sunday. EVERY SUNDAY. You hear that, future me? We’re going to do this.
Check out the ADORABLE whale sweater that is my first baby knit! Detail-oriented people will notice that the whale on the left has a wonky face compared to the whale on the right. I noticed that I messed up a row several rows after it happened, and I decided that I’d rather learn to duplicate stitch than rip back all those rows. But now learning to duplicate stitch has become my the point I’m procrastinating on. I may just call it good and block the darn thing as is. My coworkers say I’m crazy for wanting to fix such an unnoticeable mistake.
Pattern is Save the Baby Whales by Sargantana Formenterenca on Ravelry.
