May 24, 2003. I finished another baby sweater.

May 21, 2003. Evil, evil Erica! She posted a link to the Joy & Jake website, and now I am completely obsessing over the apple green version of these. A few years ago I saw the movie "Henry Fool" and ever since I've been searching for a leather suitcase and doctor's bag like he carries. I'd like to always look like I'm coming off a train journey. I even bought a set of three suitcases once from a vintage store, but returned them when I realized I'd been duped by poor lighting, and they weren't leather at all, but plastic. Leather suitcases are all I ever look for in antique stores. Sometimes I find them, but they are often ridiculously expensive and/or falling apart and/or smelly. Perhaps I just need the apple green jet set instead. Hmm.

Or -- jeez -- maybe I don't need suitcases at all!

Hmm, plus it's not clear what the Joy & Jake bags are made of. Oh, just got a reply from them. PVC over heavy-duty cardboard. Not sure about that. Maybe I'll let some other people buy them and I can see how they wear.

May 20, 2003. I officially start my third trimester today. 12 weeks to go! I'm thinking of celebrating by taking a nap.

Dave and I had a great time at Anne and Pete's wedding this past weekend (this was the wedding I made the guest book for). Excellent food, beautiful weather, and a lot of fun people we don't get to see very often.

And it's a beautiful day here now, so maybe I'll go take my nap outside...

May 14, 2003. I was reading one of my pregnancy books today, and realized that, at this point (27 weeks), most women are feeling all kinds of kicks and jabs. I had wondered why everyone kept asking me if I was feeling lots of movement. I do feel movement, but not a lot, and it's never kicking. It never worried me because it's not like it ever decreased (the movements have always been pretty subtle), and I figured Dave and I could easily have a pretty mellow baby. I called my midwives to ask about it and they had me drink a large glass of juice (for the sugar), and then lie down and count how many movements I felt for half an hour. The goal was to feel 5; I felt 15. So the baby's obviously active enough. It just appears that he's also very considerate. The movement I feel is all rolling and gentle movements, never kicking and punching. I hope he's this non-violent when he's born!

May 8, 2003. Theo is doing much better. Mostly his pinkeye is the only lingering problem, and it's much better than it was last week. It's just a little swollen still. It just seems to make him wink a lot.

The biggest cat excitement is that I somehow managed to seamlessly wean them off of wet food. I've always thought it would be much easier to just feed a cat dry food, but I always get old, second-hand cats who have lifelong wet food habits. Theo and Peaty always would make a fuss around mealtime, very excited to get their canned food, but they would not end up eating much of it (sometimes...sometimes they'd eat it all). I was only giving them an eighth of a can each at each meal (twice a day). Anyway, we had some friends over for dinner on Saturday, and I didn't feed the cats because it didn't seem like it would be very hospitable to suddenly get up and dish out some smelly cat food right near where we were eating. The cats didn't complain at all (as they're always on their best behavior when guests are over). When our guests left, at 11:00, it seemed a little strange to feed the cats, especially since they were sleeping peacefully at that point. So I didn't. Then, the next morning, I saw my opportunity to try the Great Dry Food Solo Experiment, so I just filled up the kibble bowl, and gave them fresh water. And they were fine! Now it's been almost a full week since they've had canned food, and they are clearly totally fine with it.

So now we don't have to deal with gross wet food smells, more expensive wet food, cleaning the wet food dish, etc. And, best of all, we don't have to deal with Theo's constant complaining that he needs to be fed immediately. Instead, he has adjusted completely to the idea of just eating his dry food whenever he wants, and doesn't make any noise at all. He used to complain for at least half an hour before his dinnertime. He also used to do this elaborate ritual of wanting to go out, and then wanting to come back in two seconds later, so he could run over to his food bowls and see if we fed him in that nanosecond. Now he doesn't do that either! Ah, it's so much better. I would have done this ages ago if I'd known how easy it would be!

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday, and I wove her some placemats on my loom. She has already received them, so I can show you. Here they are on our table:

I actually made six of them, but four fit on our table better. Here is a closeup of the plaid:

Plaid was really fun to to do. Though it took me a while to come up with a method for weaving in the ends whenever I changed color. I also hemstitched the ends of the placemats, so there's fringe without me having to tie knots or sew the ends. It took a while, but I think it ended up looking much nicer than knotting.

May 1, 2003. Poor Theo had quite a traumatic day yesterday. I took both cats to the vet yesterday morning for a regular checkup and vaccination, and, on the way home, Theo started to have an adverse reaction to one of the shots (he was throwing up). I thought maybe he was carsick, but then it kept up once we got home, so I took him right back to the vet, and they wanted to keep him all day to watch him. So the poor guy had to stay at the vet all day, and got cortisone, as well as some other various things to calm down the reaction. I was able to go pick him up at 4:00, and he was simultaneously really mad at me, and very glad to see me (he wasn't purring, and wouldn't look at me, but also was clinging to me desperately). He was pretty mad all last night, but then he crawled into bed and got under the covers (which he doesn't do that often), and stayed there all night, so I guess I'm forgiven. Now I have to give him an antihistamine pill in addition to the goo I'm putting in his eye for pinkeye. Poor guy. He's handling it with dignity, I have to say.

I finished knitting another sweater for our baby. Go to my knitting page to help me choose buttons for it.