Good News, Bad News

So as you may have noticed (if you're still reading my blog that is), I have been on a long hiatus. This is because Hubbie and I are expecting our first child! There was a long knitting absence, then a big move to a new house, and finally the dreaded wait to find out what sex our child would be. Once we found out we're having a girl, my knitting bug kicked back in. Over the past 4 days, I've knit booties and a sweater.
Also, in the meantime, I'm knitting a vest for my boss' newborn son.
You may be wondering, what does this big, exciting revelation mean to the Nature Knitter blog? Well, we've started a fetus blog that will turn into a baby blog, and this blog will no longer be filled with my life in addition to my knitting. For the time being, my knitting will still be on this site, but it may be replaced entirely with Ravelry (user name: natureknitter).

Summertime in the City

Now that the sun is back out, hubbie and I are determined to enjoy our summer in the city. Last year I feel like we worked all the time, so hopefully this year will feel differently (although we will still be working a lot). To kick off the season, we finally bought a BBQ. Against our wishes, we broke down and went to Wal Mart to buy this great barbecue. Hubbie loves grilling as much as possible (at once!).


We're hosting a lunch later this month, and my amazing parents just gave us their old patio furniture. Hopefully in the next two weeks I will have enough energy and motivation to sand and paint the table and chairs and will show off before and after photos when I'm done!

Speaking of my parents, yes, the socks were for my dad. His birthday was a few days ago, and along with father's day, I thought these socks would be the perfect gift! He wanted a sweater, but is too picky, so I told him that until he is old and frail and wears sweater-vests, these socks will have to do.


To further celebrate summer, hubbie and I made it to a baseball game last night. Hubbie is a huge fan (even though our team stinks). See his "rally cap" below for fan proof!

We just reserved a campsite for the 4th of July, so hopefully we'll be out enjoying more sun soon!

Home Garden

I was so excited to have a nice sunny, relaxing weekend, and the sun never came out once! It did give me a great excuse to wear my new Nau jacket all weekend, though. Hubbie and my mother-in-law went in on this jacket for my birthday and I LOVE IT. I wish I could sleep in it. I wear it every socially acceptable time possible.
So, my weekend was not sunny, and also not-so-relaxing. Hubbie conned me into working for him on Saturday, and on Sunday, our only time off together, we did tons of chores. Last week, hubbie and I hacked out our front porch garden which was overgrown with ivy and a HUGE rosemary plant. This weekend, in addition to more boring chores and errands, we went to our favorite nursery and planted a new herb garden. We planned an exciting menu for the month of June, and I can't wait to eat food seasoned from our garden! Here is is in all of it's glory:

Best Weekend Ever

Okay, that might be a tiny stretch, but we really did have a great long weekend! My birthday nicely coincides with Memorial Day each year, so it's always a long weekend that's all (or mostly at least) about me.

This weekend started off with a trip to my favorite not-so-local yarn store in hubbie's hometown. I had three gift certificates there, two of which were surprises for my birthday! I had planned on buying yarn to start the Apres Surf Hoodie that I have been so excited about, but I also ended up buying enough yarn to make a fair isle sweater for myself sometime in the future. They have an amazing 6-or-more-skeins-are-10%-off deal (always... I just found a new favorite store when I'm buying in bulk) AND 45% off sale on Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino (a weakness of mine... this will eventually be a fair isle sweater).

Here are my spoils:
Of course, this means the knitting on the socks came to a screeching halt. I'll try to still knit them on the bus, but I have 10 more days to finish them.

This weekend's knitting was, obviously, focused on my Apres Surf Hoodie. I knit most of Monday, but not that much on Saturday or Sunday, so I'm pretty impressed with my progress.

On the way home from visiting all of the in-laws and others, we stopped by our garden. I was worried that it would miss us too much and look sad, but it looks great! We should be able to start harvesting some salad in a week or two! Our beans are out of control... now hopefully the pods will start showing up soon.

One Week Later...

So, I'm pretty proud of how far my "bus knitting" project has come in one week. Granted, I may have knit at times when I wasn't actually on the bus, but I also showed restraint and didn't knit in EVERY social situation that I was in (I actually socialized instead - a little surprising, I know).
The yarn for my summer sweater that I'm dying to knit is sitting at the store waiting for me, but I'm showing even more self restraint and waiting until my birthday weekend to buy it (yes, it's a whole weekend celebration and not just a single day... it stopped being a single day years ago). I'm hoping to finish the surprise socks by that magical weekend, so my birthday present to myself can be casting on my new sweater.

To celebrate Mother's day this weekend (hubbie and I have kind of forgot about Mother's day for the past few years, so hopefully we made it up to both moms this year), we took my parents downtown for a little Seattle tourism (sadly, very little coffee was consumed... how un-Seattle of us).