Neighbor Surveillance

D is spending a few days down in Florida getting things straightened out with work so the pickle and I have been holding down the fort. Well he has been doing his best attempt at chewing everything with those two new teeth of his. My SIL came for dinner last night, we ordered pizza nothing special, and played with the boys. About 7:30 the phone rang and on the other end was a woman who started the conversation stating that she was calling long distance and was trying to get in touch with my neighbor. I thought it was odd that she told me she was calling long distance... Who cares anymore? I could call the person sitting next to me and due to cell phones, it might be long distance... Anyway. She asked if I knew the neighbor and I said that I did and she then said that she had been trying to get a hold of him but could not get an answer and asked if I would give him a message. I found this to be odd. She gave me no explanation as to why should was trying to reach him. He is a deputy sheriff so it also made me a little nervous as to what sort of person might be trying to get a hold of him. I asked her what sort of message and she said her name and number. I told her I would take them down. She gave me her first name and a number with an extension, thanked me kindly and hung up. I called D to see what he made of all of this and he said to throw it out that it was a collections agency looking for the neighbor. How crazy is that? She must have looked up his property on the county auditor's site, found out who is neighbors were, looked them up in the phone book and called them! I have no plans on passing on this message to him, it is none of my business and I do not need to be in the middle of it. I would be so embarrassed if I was in his position... But then I pay my bills on time.

So with D out of town the Pickle and I have been running on our own schedule. The past 2 nights he has been ready for bed by 7:30 and down well before 8:00. This has giving me a nice chance to relax in the evening and have a little drink. I have finished knitting all the pieces to the third Mr. Dangly and just need to stitch him together. I am pretty pleased to be done with this pattern for the time being. I am on the hunt for an easy sweater to knit the pickle and I think I have decided to make my nieces hats from and possibly scarves from the yarn my secret pal sent. I feel like I should start on those first if they are to be gifts, but I really want to start on a sweater. I am holding off until I get that binding sewn.... Yeah... Still not done and all that doesn't even take into account the fact that the pickle does not have a Halloween costume yet and we are going out of town for the weekend! Yikes!

I Love Presents!

And I got one in the mail from my secret Pal! It came last week and I intended on taking a picture and posting at the same time. I didn't get a chance to get it photographed so I thought it best that I let her know that it arrived. Beautiful purple yarn and a set of bamboo needles! I am so excited to find something to knit with my goodies. I am thinking "scarf". Thank you so much secret pal!
I did a little shopping myself for my secret pal this weekend. I was disappointed to hear that Wolf Fiber arts had closed here in town, but then discovered that their whole stock was purchased by the Knitters Mercantile, and is actually closer to my house! Of course this is all old news as the whole transaction occurred about a year ago, but it is news to me. The shop was beautiful and the staff was so nice and helpful. They seemed very excited to hear that I was shopping for a secret pal. I picked up some beautiful yarn. Some for socks and some for another project for my pal to decide on. I hope that she likes the color scheme.

I see the light

I did get the binding sewn on the front of the king sized quilt last night. Whew. I can't wait until this quilt is done and out of my unfinished pile. I think it might take me just as long to pull all the safety pins out of it as it is going to take me to tack the binding down to the back. But I know I am at the home stretch. If I can get it sewn down this week I hopefully can take it to the Laundromat this weekend to wash it. It is way to big to fit in the washer at home. With this off my plate I need to start a baby quilt for a friend. She specifically ordered one that I designed and now I need to get it done because she would like to give it as a Christmas gift. I need to get shopping on the fabric for it.

The Pickle turned 7 months old this past weekend. It is so amazing how much time has passed. He has really hit a time of change. Gone is the little baby who just cuddled. He is quickly moving from army crawling to crawling on his knees and has started to pull himself up to a standing position. Everyday is something new. I have started signing to him with the hopes that he will pick it up. He watches very intently when I sign to him, but he has yet to sign back, or I'm not catching it. I think that I can convince myself that he has called me "mama". It doesn't happen very often by every now and then he looks at me and says something that is a whole lot like "ma". Very deliberate and different from the Da da da babbling that he does. He loves to sing in the car and we have a fine time rolling down the road both singing along to what ever is on the radio. Neither of us know the words half the time, but it doesn't really matter.

Tonight's the Night.... I hope

I know I said that my plan was to get the binding sewn onto that king size quilt and be done with it today. Well, it turns out that other than Monday nights I like to watch a little TV. So, I'm hoping that this evening I can set up the sewing machine on the dining room table for the last time and quickly stitch down the binding, leaving me the rest of the week to hand stitch it to the back while watching way to many reality TV shows. Just to gum up the works I am also planning on making a HUGE batch of potato soup this evening. It is one of the things I love about fall. I wanted to make it this weekend but we were way to busy.

D and I hosted our a block party on Sunday. It was a big hit. I've lived in my house for 3 years and met quite a few people who I didn't know before. Of course, the people who come out of their houses were there, while the ones who tend to hide inside did the same. The street was full of kids and I don't think I have ever seen so many bike wrecks. Unfortunately the last scooter wreck of the party sent one little guy home in tears with a little road rash. The pickle was the perfect baby and loved watching everything that was going on.

Saturday D went to the OSU game while we stayed home and watched it on TV. We didn't have a ticket and it wasn't worth it for me to drum one up. We had a nice Saturday together and the pickle took 3 naps. That was nice.

D and I are trying to figure out what to do about visiting family for the holidays. My parents have said that they do not want to drive down for Thanksgiving. So that leaves it up to us to go up there. It is a little frustrating, seeing as we have a baby and all... We had put a moratorium on over night travel since Pickle wasn't sleeping so well when he was off his routine. We are going to give it a test run at Thanksgiving I think. I don't mind staying at my parents house because they are equipped for babies. The have a crib and toys and diapers and we pretty much just need to show up with a change of clothes. D's family is another story and traveling to my parents means that at some point in time we need to spend the night at their house. They have no crib, we have no pack and play so it makes things difficult. I think that I will push for just inviting them over on Christmas day and avoiding the trip to them all together if possible. Holidays used to be so easy.

I had a dream last night that D and I were competing in the Amazing Race and we won. After a moment of being elated that we won I thought "How the heck am I supposed to not tell anyone about this for 6 months?" I thought it funny that my need to discuss shadowed my elation of winning a million dollars. I'd like to give it a try though!

I might just cry.

So, that whole nanny issue? Not really solved. The girl that we hired to watch the pickle Tuesdays and Thursdays decided not to show up yesterday. No phone call, no message, nothing. We have been calling her cell phone and never get an answer. I just don't understand. She worked 1 week, seemed to enjoy the job, like the pickle they got along well. I just don't know who does this sort of thing. It's not like this is a job where if you don't show up someone else is there to cover for you. If you don't show... no one does! We hired the girl who works M-W-F to come 5 days starting next week. We need to fill in for her for the end of this week. I may end up taking tomorrow off, and then we might have a friend watch him Friday.
I spoke to my boss about going part time again and told her that I need to know as soon as possible. If I can't go part time I told her that I would probably quit at the beginning of December. I have pretty much come to terms with the fact that this is going to be what happens and I'm almost excited for it to occur. The hardest part now is just not knowing what way things are going to go.
I had a long weekend this weekend and it was great. D went with some friends to Penn State for the football game so it was just me and the pickle. It was cute to see his face when D came back on Sunday. Sort of like "Hey... I remember you, where have you been?" The down side to all this pickle time is that D is less and less able to sooth him at night so I'm the one up calming him back to sleep. I think there are some teeth on the move in there and he is waking 2x at night now. Once like clockwork at 11, right when I go to bed, then again about 3.
I did manage to get some crafting done this weekend. I finally finished quilting the kingsize quilt for a friend at work. I have the binding ready and just need to sew it on. I'm hoping to have it for her by Monday. I also started my final Mr. Dangley. This one is in purple for L. Next I need to make a little clothing for them and embroider the kids names on them. I reserved a ton of knitting books from the library and they all came in at once. I got some that I really like and I am gearing up to try and knit the pickle a sweater. But first I'm trying to get those unfinished projects off my list.

Fingers crossed.

I think we solved the nanny issue. We hired another girl to work Mon-wed-fri. She seems great so far, works part time at Gymboree so hopefully has lots of ideas to keep the pickle occupied during the day. D and I have been talking and we have decided that if I can't go part time at work I am going to quit. It was nerve wracking to make the decision, but now that it is made, I'm ready to move forward. I spoke to my supervisor to see where things stood. She said that she would check things out up the ladder and see what our bureau's policy for part time is. This was a little surprising to hear, since up until now I was told that I had the support through our bureau and the only stumbling block would be at the division level. Well, like I said, I have come to terms with staying home and I'm actually looking forward to it and sort of hoping that part time is no longer an option. D and I would need to change our lifestyle a bit. We have never really followed a budget, but never lived outside our means. I guess that what we were saving for a rainy day might be start to be used.

Otherwise, we had a nice relaxing weekend. Sunday we walked down to the coffee shop and met a couple with a 2 year old little girl. She was very cute and very interested in the pickle.

The pickle is getting over a bit of a cold. It was waking him up during the night. It is hard to breath around a stuff nose while sucking your thumb. I think it has cleared up and hopefully he will go back to sleeping some longer stretches.