November 28, 2007

Hello Baby!

Hi Everybody!

It sure got busy around here fast! I got the recipes and started working on the Girl Scout Cookie Book for my old troop in Oregon today. (We got sidetracked in a major way over the holiday and this weekend)

How was your Thanksgiving? We had Harland and Jenny over, along with Fernita (Jenny's mom) and our cousin Billy. We all crowded into the dining room for dinner, but sadly, no pictures were taken of the meal or the diners. Poo!

Harland came back over on Saturday for the UK vs. Tennessee football game and Mom and I helped them all get ready to go over to the stadium and tailgate. Melissa went to the game with Harland, Dad, and our friend Jerry Robinson. Mom and I stayed home and worked on some projects for the baby. I was working on a blue and white "K" sweater that Harland had requested, and Mom was using some pretty plum cotton I had picked out to crochet a sun dress.

Near the end of the game, we got a call from Fernita asking us to get in touch with Harland as soon as possible, because Jenny was having contractions, and he needed to get get home as soon as he could. This was pretty serious, because she had had early contractions the night before, but had gone to the hospital and they gave her medication to stop them. Her due date was not for another month, but they were going to do a C-section in two weeks because she had been having trouble with the baby pressing on her sciatic nerve and causing her leg to go numb.

We kept trying to get through to him at the stadium, but we were having no luck. Seems like everyone at the stadium was on their cell phones jamming up the system. We finally got through and let him know that Jenny's contractions were coming about 30 minutes apart and not slowing down with the medication. At that point, he left the stadium, jumped in his truck, and headed for Cynthiana, a good 40 minutes away.

What we didn't know at that point was that Jenny had decided to wait until Harland got back to go to the hospital, which is about 5 minutes from their house, even though her mother was with her and was urging her to go ahead to the hospital.

So, we have me and Mom at the house waiting for news, Melissa, Dad, and Jerry still at the game (which went into quadruple overtime and we lost, but only by 2 points) waiting for it to be over, and Harland just getting to Cynthiana about 20 minutes later (boy, was he speeding!)

The game ends and the trio tries to make their way home, but are stuck in traffic for a very long time. Mom and I get the call from Fernita that they are at the hospital now, and are getting ready to take Jenny into surgery because the medication to slow her contractions is not having any effect and they are coming about 15 minutes apart now. Mom wants to know if we should come on to Cynthiana. Fernita agrees that we should head that way because they will be doing the C-section tonight.

Mom calls Melissa and finds out they are still stuck in traffic. She asks Dad if he wants to go meet his new granddaughter. He says no. She is stressed out and ready to go, and his answer only ticks her off. (He was totally upset when they told him that they were having a girl. I think he felt cheated and was disappointed that the Hatter name would have no legacy. Like the rest of us are chopped liver... sorry, sore spot.)

She is about to hang up and leave, but Melissa wants to go with us. So we wait. And wait. And wait some more. And they finally get there, and by that time Dad has been cowed into going along by his friend Jerry. (Yay, Jerry!) So we wait for them to get changed really fast and we leave.

About a mile from the house, Dad realized that he had left his remote control for his hearing aids back at Toad Hall. So we run back and pick it up. Mom is quiet, but I can tell she's really nervous about meeting her new grandchild. We chat on the 40 minute drive, and then realize that no one knows how to get to the hospital once we reach Cynthiana. Oh yes, it was a funny night!

We get to the hospital and Harland meets us in the emergency room and takes us up to the 2nd floor where he introduces us to:


That's right! A boy... when every medical technician who had looked at an ultrasound (and they had even done the 3D ones, too!) said that it was going to be a girl... even 90-99% sure that it would be a girl.

Dad was overjoyed. Mom started crying, she was so excited to finally have a grandchild! We loved heckling Dad about how glad he was that he decided to come along? Melissa and I were excited about how cute he looked and how you can never be sure what you're going to get... Also, I was very glad that I had not embroidered the "G" for Georgia Lee on the cute little sweater that I had made for the baby. I very wisely left it off until the baby was here so I could definitively put the right initial on the sweater.

You can't even imagine all the girl clothes that they have to return... so many hair bows and frilly shoes and socks. They had a whole closet full of stuff. Most of it was really girly too. Someone even gave them a pink and black baseball glove... Worst of all, was that Jenny had already taken all the tags off the clothes because they were so sure it would be a girl.

We went to Target the next day and picked up some really cute outfits for him and took them to the hospital. Harland told us to come later in the day so so we could spend some time with them after the crowd thinned out, but it sure didn't work out that way. We got there later, like he had requested, but we still had to share time with other cousins and distant relatives who were trickling in to see the baby too. Harland got Dad to hold the baby, and we got a good picture of that.


So, that's about all we have for now. I'll be working on getting the cookie book done by this weekend and getting it shipped back ASAP. I'm also looking forward to a interesting hairstyling session tomorrow with Mme. Zabet, my very own challenging Mistress of Craftiness, and hopefully getting the apple green Presto Change-o Sweater finished, so my nephew will have more handknitted hugs from his Aunt.

Also, thanks to Samantha for the wonderful cards and the mobile that we just got in the mail today. We can't wait to put them together!

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November 02, 2007

*sigh* It's true...


The new issue of The AntiCraft is up and I have a new pumpkin carving pattern, along with a couple of other surprises in there as well. Enjoy!

image courtesy of
someecards.com

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October 24, 2006

So Many Stories, So Little Time!

It's been a busy two weeks since I last posted.

Secret Projects (2)
Well, since the issue is up and the party is over, I can safely share my super secret design projects.

Project #1 was for The AntiCraft, my friend Zabet's online crafting zine. She asked if I could do some pumpkin designs for this year's Samhain issue, and I gladly took up the challenge. The designs take quite a little time to do, and I think she was a bit dismayed by that, hence the name of the project.

I was really excited about how the designs turned out, and I hope you are too!










Peek-A-Boo







Slither










Demon Vomiting Dog








Margarita






Project #2 was also for Zabet. She commissioned me to create a cake for The AntiCraft's First Anniversary party. Requirements: must be disgusting, in a beautiful sort of way, and it must be vegan, so that everyone can share in the fun.

Then vegan part was actually pretty easy compared to creating the cake. I googled Vegan Red Velvet cake and came up with a great recipe. I not-so-secretly tested it out the week before by making it into cupcakes which I took to the Saturday S-n-B.

Creating the cake took three days of fairly intensive work.

Day 1 was baking and cooling and leveling and wrapping the four layers for the cake.

Day 2 was thinly crumb icing the layers, stacking them, carving the final shape of the cake, taking off the top layer and carving out the reservoir to hold the strawberry goo "blood", then icing the reservoir and the outside of the cake. Bug and I also made the strawberry goo mixture, and created the arteries out of white modeling chocolate, and put them in the fridge to set. Then I created the templates for the ribs and piped those out of melted white chocolate. I had a little bit of the chocolate left over, so I made a cute little horned skull and crossbones for our friend P.

Day 3 was pretty much putting it all together and painting the outside of the cake with paste food coloring and corn syrup to achieve just the right gory look to it. Bug also made some beautiful fondant eyeballs that I later painted to go around the base of the cake.

It was an amazing cake, and I'm so glad that every one liked it enough to tell me just how horrible looking it really was. :) ( frankly, I'm surprised that anyone even got past the way it looked to eat any of it... but it was really yummy!)

Here's the photos...














































There are a couple more links to the action from the party here, here, and here.

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