Home, sweet home.

I'm bouncing back (and i use the term bouncing very, very loosely....) from a very rewarding, very exhausting couple of days as a birth doula. I am happy to say that mom and baby are well despite minor setback after minor setback. But the mom was a rockstar (as are all birthing women!) and the experience of witnessing a whole, new, real, live person show up and join the party was just - as it always is - mindbending and fulfilling. And exhausting. Emotionally, mentally, and physically.

Something that is really odd about it - I get a call and I go to someone's house. In most cases we're nearly strangers, having met at most 2 or 3 times before. At a very pivotal point of their lives I slide into their environment fully. I, and my life, cease to exist except where I fit, in that moment, into their world. Very quickly we move past the awkward conversation and politenesses generally exchanged when a stranger visits your home, or you enter as a stranger into someone else's space. Over the next few hours we become intimate. We share stories, we share experiences not often shared among even siblings.

Sometimes we then go together into yet another environment with a new cast - a hospital room becomes our next reality, with the various nurses and doctors and midwives and support staff that become such fixtures in that event. If you've ever been in a hospital or supported a loved one through a hospital stay you'll know what I mean. You get to know the nurse and are disappointed when her shift ends and she goes home. When she comes back the next day, for her next shift, and you're still there - you're overjoyed to see her again, this old friend. And you mourn the departure of the one you've come to rely on in the meantime.

Then this amazing thing happens. This birth happens. And it's huge and tremendous. And we weep together. Marvel together at the strength of mothers, the miracle of birth. I witness women at their most vulnerable - which, remarkably, is also their most power filled - and I weep with joy, with pride. I am moved by these women, every time. Whatever differences we had when we met as strangers now forgotten. And then I go home, and leave them to their new families.

I arrive home, my kids energetic and loving me. I realize how I'd missed them, how I'd relived each moment of their coming. How I experienced again the joy of transformation from woman into mother. How I experienced again the pleasure of changing baby into sibling. I am exhausted. And happy. I shower, if I'm lucky, I catch a nap, and when I awake, it's all gone, like a dream. My life is mine again, and really, that lifetime that just occurred was a flash - a day or two, that's all - in the timeline of my family, my household.

It never ceases to amaze me, how my life waits for me. How comfortable it is to reenter it. How naturally it fits.

Other Stwipey Bwanket.

Years ago, when my monkey was a mere parasite, I made him this basketweave blanket. Which he, of course, being a wise and compliant boy, loves. And inexplicable calls his Stwipey Bwanket, despite the fact that it's, you know, not striped. It is a blanket, though. Anyway, many things have changed since I made that blanket. One of the things which has changed is that the monkey was born. And now he has two houses. He and his gigantic sister travel a few blocks each week to spend a few nights at his dad's house. And while so far there have been no major losses transporting Stwipey Bwanket to and fro, it's a fear that haunts us all. So we talked it over and it was determined that a second Stwipey Bwanket must be made.

I decided to make it actually striped this time, and in my infinite wisdom used two yarns so close in color (Henry's Attic Inca Cotton in Sage and Oz) that you can't tell that it's striped at all. So again we have a non-striped Stwipey Bwanket. But this one is nice and big and cushy and crochet - so it was finished in about the time it would take Apollo Ohno to build a castle out of legos.

New Pattern, New Site

I've been working away at all of the different little facets of my life. For one thing, I've been going on a lot of interviews lately. I'm a birth doula and there's a lot of chatting that goes on when you meet a potential client for the first time. I mean, you kinda want to know a little something about the person who will be in the room when you push a person out of you. Anyway. I go on a lot of these interviews. And I end up talking about knitting. It confuses people. But it reminds me how much I love knitting. I feel like I don't have enough time any more. I'm stretched so thin. So many things going on. I need to remember to keep on knitting. Because when I don't? I miss it so.

So anyway, in this working away at the different facets of my life thing, I've updated my knitting website, and published a new pattern. An old pattern, really. The first thing I ever designed (though it's been tweaked beyond recognition from the first version, which I now affectionately call "Alien Bear" because it was so weird looking). My bear pattern. I'm going to be "cleaning house" and trying to get a bunch of my older patterns out there, starting with the animals. That's the plan, anyway. Let's see what happens with that, shall we?

So take a look at the new site at curlypurly.com and let me know what you think. I made it using iWeb from Apple in pretty much no time at all. Web design sure has changed since I started this thing.

Crafting for Haiti

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/work-connect/diyers-crafty-aid-haiti.html

Valentina

Finished! Valentina, named, of course, for the daughter of Dr. Parnassus. These were extremely quick to make, and though I thought they'd be kind of annoying to wear with the wide top opening, they actually feel less fiddly than my usual fingerless mittens.

Four Years.

So my fourth blogiversary passed on January 1. And I must say I've been a poor blogger indeed, haven't I?

Well, I'll see what I can do to rectify that. First let me offer a whirlwind update of my past, well, year.

I'm now in my 3rd (of 4) years in school, studying to be a homeopath. I've finished my training through DONA to be a birth doula, and am working towards my certification now. The kids are growing, my knitting has been waning. I did work for a while in a local yarn store (now defunct) designing house patterns, so it's not like I gave up on yarn completely.

And then this thing happened. I was in the movie theater, on Christmas day, watching The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. It was amazing. But. I found myself distracted by Valentina's fingeless mittens, and waiting for different shots of her hands so I could figure out how they were made. Seemed so simple, but not like every other pair of fingerless mittens I've made for myself. And then I realized "Hey, dummy, you're sitting in a movie theater WITHOUT YOUR KIDS on a HOLIDAY counting RIBS on GLOVES. I think it's time to start knitting again!"

And so I have.

Oh such a long time.

It's been a ridiculously long time. It's been a ridiculously long year. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was about 18 years this year.

But I'm back (kind of) and working on being more back. My kids are growing, I've got time to knit again, and I've got a job working for a yarn store. What could be better?

I'm coming up on my third blogiversary. I can hardly believe it. It seems so much has happened in just three years. I have so much to say. So much to report. And so little time to do any of it. I don't have any photos of anything wooly, so these pictures of my beasties will have to suffice.