Crochet Progress

Hi! Long time no blog!

Thanks to all who have stopped by and left encouraging comments. I really really appreciate each one of you. My husband stopped by my blog and told me I needed to update it. I did not realize that I had not blogged in a month. All kinds of things have been happening.

I got sick at the beginning of April with a horrible cold so that knocked me out for about a week. As for adoption, we will jump back on that road at the end of June. I am scared to try again, but we will move ahead in faith. What else can we do? We know for sure we want a child so I have to find the courage to try again.

In the mean time, I am still doing needlework, reading with my book club and hanging with friends.

My book club has been together for more than a year! I have been in two previous book clubs and none of them stayed together this long. I think we have read about 15 books together. I did did not read the last book because we were caught up in the adoption madness. This month we decided to read a classic: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Its good so far. I am half reading and half listening to it on audio. It should be a great discussion in a few weeks.

Here is my latest work in progress:



and a close up of one of the squares:



Its an afghan, for my sister-in-law. I am making it as a Christmas gift. Each strip is made up of 6 squares. I have to make one more strip and then connect them and border them in black yarn. Should be pretty. I love the colors. I am participating in a Gift Along here:

Gift Along

Once I finish this I will have met the 2nd quarterly challenge and will be entered into a drawing for some fab prizes! I hope I win!!!!

I am planning to finish this soon because my time will be limited as of May 1. After thinking long and hard about it and speaking to my hubby about it, I applied to grad school!!!! And I start May 1. I have always intended to go to Grad school. I graduated from Northwestern University 20 YEARS AGO!!!! I cannot believe it has been that long! I took some graduate level coursed when I first got out of college, however, life got busy and my priorities got a little muddled and basically, life happened. Fast forward to 2002. I got married and pretty much immediately started trying to get pregnant. Since that resulted in no baby, we moved on toward adoption. And so far no baby. Every time I have thought about trying to go back to school in the past few years, I decided to put it on the back burner because I was either trying to get pregnant or going through the adoption process. With this last failed placement, I got really down and felt like I had been trying to accomplish something and have nothing really to show for it. I kept thinking that I could have had 2 master's degrees by now if I had just started. So now, I am starting. I found an online program that is fairly flexible. And, if I need to slow it down or stop it once we get our child, thats what I will do. For now, I am going back to school!!!! I am excited and nervous. Northwestern was not easy. I must admit, I barely graduated, but I did it! Even so, when I started, I defined myself by my intelligence. By the time I graduated, I did not know who I was. Simply put, I was BEAT DOWN after I got out of school! So, I am a little nervous about being a student again. I am hoping that when they say older students make better students, that they are speaking truth. We shall see!

I do plan to continue crocheting and knitting and sewing, just not as much. Gotta have some fun, right?

Anyway, I will be blogging in the future about how my almost 43 year old brain is progressing in school. Pray for me!

And keep praying for us re the adoption.

Pulling Myself Together

Hi All,

Thanks so much for all the prayers and well wishes. I can feel all of your support, believe me. My husband and I are fighting our way back from the challenges of the failed adoption. We have put our quest on hold until June. Then we will get back into the pursuit of a family of our own.

In the meantime, my needle work is helping me a lot. I am making to focus on my WIPs for the month of April. I am working on a cape, a shall for a friend, an afghan for my friend's daughter, a dress for my other friend's baby girl, a pair of socks and a baby bunting, amd a doggie sweater. Thats a bit much, so I am going to focus on one thing at a time until they are all done. Wish me luck!

Thanks again everyone and be on the lookout for FO pix!

Sad Update

Our little guy was born on March 5. We brought him home on March 8. His birth parents could not go through with it. So, we gave him back today. We are devastated. Please pray for us. He is a wonderful baby, cute as a button. Sweet sweet baby. But no longer ours.

Astonishing Update!

On Saturday we found out that our birth mother was being induced on Monday! So we are awaiting the birth of our boy! Keep us in your prayers.

We Are Matched!

Hi guys! Just want you to know that we have been matched with a birth mother. The baby is due in VERY SOON so we are going crazy trying to get ready to bring home our baby!

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Its very exciting but also makes us super nervous.

Packed Weekend

As a general rule, I try to plan one event, at the most every weekend. I go to church every Sunday, so thats just a given. I do not know how it happened, but I managed to pack a lot into this weekend. On Saturday, I got together with my knitting guild. I have not gone to a meeting in about 4 months so it was nice to go. The ladies in the guild are not only nice, but they are skilled knitters. We had a lesson on Stash Busting and got some really great tips. Our newest member is the author of this blog:

knit lich

Look at her stash busting project:



One of member's also gave me a gift from her daughter:



This book is beautiful, educational and inspirational. I am so grateful for it!

On saturday evening, my husband and I joined two other close friend couples for dinner. We had a great time with the kids and enjoyed watching the slam dunk contest.

Right after church on Sunday, came home and cleaned because of course with all that I had done on Saturday, I had not cleaned a thing. And, I was hosting my book club for the first time ever. We read this book:

Julie & Julia

So, I had the bright idea that we should cook something from Mastering the Art of French Cooking and bring the dish to the meeting. So, I had to cook of course. Turns out the recipes in this book were a bit much for me. So, I paid homage to Julia and Julie by making a knock off quick quiche. I am sure this dish did not qualify as a french cooking by Julia Child's standards. But hey, it was good! We also had crepes and beef borgunione. The pictures don't do the food justice. Each dish was very very good! ( the pictures don't do me any justice either. This one is proof positive that big ol' t shirts do nothing, absolutely nothing for my figure!)




This is a long weekend for us so we are off tomorrow as well! Yeah! Thank goodness because I did way too much this weekend. Though I did enjoy every minute of it!I plan to do a lot of needlework tomorrow. And speaking of needlework, remember the boa i made. Well here is a picture of the one I made for my coworker:



Its black and taken with a camera phone, so its not the best, but it is a finished object! Hopefully, I will post more fo pictures later in the week.

Bye for now and if you are off tomorrow, Enjoy your day! If not, try to enjoy it anyway!

I have never been this excited

about a presidential election!!!!! I went to the polls last week with a smile on my face. I cast my vote and smiled all the way home. I feel like this is the first time that I am not voting for the lesser of two evils. And its so exciting to be a part of history. To vote in a primary where an African American man and a Woman are running and really actually have a real chance to win. I feel like I have options that I respect. I am inspired by Mr. Obama and I hope to be able to call him Mr. President in 2009!