It’s just like riding a bike…or not

I admit it, I’m twenty-six years old and I’ve never learned how to ride a bike. It is a teensy bit embarrassing. I’ve been saying for years I was going to learn but never did. Ever since Doug and I got married he’s been bugging me to learn. He thinks it would be fun and good exercise, I don’t disagree. So Sunday night we got a wild hair and drove out to Super Target and bought a $114 Schwinn Women’s Mountain Bike for me. While it isn’t the pink Schwinn Cruiser of my dreams it’s something I can learn on.

Last night we went in the back yard and tried to (unsuccessfully) get going with falling over. It was a learning experience. I’m hoping that by the end of the week I’ll be able to actually ride the damn thing. Here’s to hoping….

Flowers I've planted that haven't died.....yet

So now that we've bought a house I've been trying to plant some flowers in an effort to make the place look nice. My green thumb is a little brown, I have a tendency to plant things and then neglect them, especially in the middle of the Memphis summer when its about eight thousand degrees. But I've been doing better. This is the sunflower I bought at the plant sale at the Lichterman Nature Center in April, it's about to be in full-bloom.









There's another one that's also opening up but it's a tad shorter. All I've done is plant it in the ground and water it. It's in an especially sunny spot so that's helped a lot too.

I also planted a red geranium and some dusty miller in a pot and set them on the patio. They're thriving too with water and a sunny spot. They even survived the cold snap we had in the middle of April:
So while I don't have my grandmother or my mother's green thumbs I'm doing okay so far.

Knitting for other people's babies

I'm working on a knitting a pair of baby socks for my husband's co-worker who's expecting her second child in a few months. They're a pair of teeny, tiny socks knit in very soft baby blue cashmerino, which is merino wool with a little bit of cashmere in it. I started and re-started them about three times last week and I finally got the cuff and the body done and now I need to turn the heel and I have no idea how to do that. I need to make a trip to the LYS (local yarn store) and beg for help so I can finish them before the child's too big to wear them.

While this is the first pair of baby socks I've made I've been making baby blankets for about a year now. It's a little depressing because I keep knitting baby blankets for other people and I have to wonder when will I get to knit a baby blanket for myself? Infertility sucks and it sucks even more when everyone you know is pregnant. There's so much uncertainty and that drives me crazy. You're spending a lot of money on something that isn't even guaranteed to get you pregnant and you have to wait for what seems like an eternity. It's been a little over a year since our failed cycle of IVF. We decided to try IUI again since we don't have the immediate funds for another round of IVF right now so I called last week to make an appointment with our RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist) and the soonest they could see us is JULY! Ridiculous. Babies aren't getting made on their own around here.

So in the meantime, I'll keep knitting socks and blankets for other people's babies and hope that someday I'll be knitting my own.