10:49 a.m. - 7 June 2001
Baby and stitching
I got to hold my niece this weekend. She's beautiful, but at that age it's rather like holding a pile of warm spaghetti. That spits up. And poops. And cries. But she's beautiful.
Mom wasn't kidding about her having red hair. I think everyone was surprised by that, of all things. Apparently I had red hair like that when I was born, but once that hair fell out, I was bald until I was about two. I still don't have much hair, and what I do have is still baby fine. Oh, well.
The baby also has quite a temper: she's either happy and looking around, or mad. There is very little in between. When she's hungry, she's hungry now, dammit. And after a bad case of mastitis that came about because she can't latch on properly (something about how her little tongue is formed prevents her from it), Jen is pumping for now, but will eventually switch to formula. Not what she'd hoped, but a day in the hospital will do that to you.
Everyone made it to graduation, too. I managed to sunburn myself, but that's my own fault. I remembered to put sunscreen on my face, but nowhere else. So my neck and arms are finally happy again, after several days of general unpleasantness. Lee remarked that I've been a real redneck for almost a week now. I refrained from telling him what I really thought.
Partly because of the baby, I've gotten back into cross stitching in a big way. I've managed to finish three onesies, the birth sampler for Converse friend, two Christmas projects that I started months ago, and I've started on the Pooh sampler I got for Jen. I've even managed to work with the floor stand that I got for my birthday last year and haven't really used yet. But it seems to work pretty well with this project, so I'm happy. We won't discuss the three large projects I have yet to finish, two of which date back to 1994. Nor will we discuss the fact that I need to wash, iron, and prep most of these other projects for framing. Eh. I can't do everything.
I've been a cross stitcher for nearly all my life: our next-door neighbor taught me how a couple days before my sixth birthday. I tend to go in spurts, though; I'll stitch every day for a couple weeks and then neglect it for several months. This explains why most of my projects take so long. I'm a big fan of Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum and the first "big" project that I finished was her "Earth Angel." I've got four or five more of her patterns in my "stash." Teresa Wentzler is another favorite, but I still haven't actually finished one of her designs. Not only are they huge, but they are mostly made up of "blended needles," where you have two different colors of embroidery floss in the needle at one time. But I will finish one of them....someday.
