Blankie

Steve and I went to see little baby Jackson over the weekend.  He was two weeks and two days old when we saw him and, sweet Jesus, is he cute.  He doesn't really do a lot.  He squirms quite a bit.  Makes funny faces.  Sleeps.  That's about it.  He pooped every time I held him.  He's a little, tiny baby and about one third of everything he does is poop so I tried not to take it personally.  He's also exceptionally cute so I'm pretty sure I forgive him.

Which brings me to:

Baby feet!  Holy crap is that not the cutest freaking thing you've ever seen.  Little itty, bitty, tiny baby toes.  Damn, that's just adorable.

We got the chance to give him (well, his parents) his baby blanket.  My teddy bear, Sleepy Tired, has been kind of enough to model for me:

The blanket itself is about 4 feet by 5 feet (give or take, depending on pull and such) and made out of organic cotton yarn.  Specifically it's from the Lion Brand Nature's Choice collection in Almond and Blueberry.  (Sounds like a tasty cereal combination.)  Note:  I have not been paid to promote Lion Brand Yarn, it's products, or knitting in any way.  Their yarn is readily available in most craft stores which makes it easy to gauge the weight, texture and color of the yarn and therefore decide if you want to use it.  I've used a number of their yarns over the years, some of them are great, some of them are terrible, some of them are so-so.  The yarn I used for this project is VERY soft, very easy to work with, and while it's pretty light overall it makes for a very cuddly blanket.  I would absolutely recommend this yarn if you're looking for a warm, cuddly project for fall/winter.  

Okay so that was me geeking out about yarn.  Yeah... I'm not without my... well let's just settle on I'm an odd duck okay?  Odd duck it is.

I used a five to two ratio for the stripes and an over-all diamond pattern to give the blanket just a little more texture and interest.  Here is a close-up:

And here's a wider shot that really shows the diamond pattern nicely.  

Jon and Kelly seemed to like it a lot, which is awesome.  (It may have been suggested at one point that it will end up being Kelly's blanket, that's cool too.)  Jackson kind of looked at it a little bit, which is really all you ask for from an infant.  I know the comfort a good blankie myself so I hope it'll be a good one form him.  And it was really a fun blanket to make.

Damn The Man, Save The Empire!

So my workplace has this really unfortunate habit of basically falling apart on Fridays.  It's like everyone's just trying to hold it together for the whole week and just run out of steam at the end of the day Thursday and take it out on everyone else the next day.  Seriously about three weeks in a row Friday has been just terrible, crazy-ass days at work.  Today was no exception.  It became apparent around 8:12 am that today was going to be... well, a day.  And by that I mean "a day" and in "oh my freaking god, why is today so terrible?  Why won't it end?  Is this punishment for something I did in a past life?  Did I think about committing a crime in the future and this is me serving my sentence after Tom Cruise arrested me?  Why am I thinking about Minority Report?  What the hell is going on?"

That kind of day.

So around 9 am a friend of mine at work and I were talking (and walking back and forth around the office, trying to remember where we left out brains and such) and talking about how today was just... a day.  It had already been a day.  And there was so much left.

And then we decided to call an unofficial Rex Manning Day in the office.

Because seriously?  What the fuck is with today today?

There weren't really a whole lot of shenanigans involved and I'm fairly certain no one had intercourse of any kind near the copier.  Though someone did ask me if there's a policy about inter-company relationships, so who knows.  A few of us did have a contest of sorts to see who could find the most today-appropriate demotivational poster.  And we did at one point have a discussion about which 19th century industrialist/super rich person we would have liked to be.  (We're a strange bunch.)

Unfortunately - calling it Rex Manning Day didn't really do much to make the day go any better.  So I'm going to show you a couple of pretty pictures, watch the Twins game, knit a little bit and go to bed.  Also going to eat the burger Steve's making me for dinner.  He makes really good burgers.

On to the pictures!

This is the top of the faceplate of the doorknob (if there's an actual word for that, please let me know because I really feel like I'm just rambling) at the Lutheran church whose lamps were featured yesterday. How freakin' badass is that?  (I apologize for calling anything involved with a church "badass" it strikes me now that that's probably irreverent and offensive.  I'm sorry.  I'm not taking it back, but I am sorry.)  I'm pretty sure I would really love to have doorknob faceplate thingy (seriously there has to be a word for that) like this on my house someday.  That's probably going to have to be the house I get after I somehow become a super rich 19th century industrialist, because I don't think it would fit in very well on, you know, a regular house.  It would look really silly on my apartment door, I can say that for sure.

Here's another shot that, I don't know, I just really like that picture.  I didn't think that much of it while I was taking it but when I got home and actually looked at my pictures this became one of my favorite shots of the day (more than 100 involved in that pool).  I just really like the shape and texture of it.  There's something almost... calm about it.  I like it!

Alright I'm out.  I only have one more thing to say to today - Stop calling me Warren!  My name isn't fucking Warren!

Papery

This flower was HUGE. And still manages to look delicate and pretty.

The Other Side of Flowers

Okay, so I have this thing... it's a little weird. I love the backsides of flowers.

Yeah. If I were a dude and flowers were women (stay with me here) I would totally be a butt man.

Okay let me actually explain. So obviously the front side of flowers are the really amazing part. I clearly like flowers and think they're pretty (or I spend an awful lot of time taking pictures of stuff I don't especially care for). But I've always liked the back side of flowers. The petals tend to have a lot of veining and texture on that side and there's something I just find so beautiful and graceful - elegant really - about the way the stems of flowers connect and open up into petals.

I'd Rather Have Snow...

The Twin Cities have been experiencing the always overwhelming joy of freezing rain, rain, and/or frizzle (as one weatherman donned freezing drizzle the other day) on and off since, oh, Thursday or so. As someone has to... you know... go outside this is about as annoying as possible. Snow is a hassle, that is true, and on occasion it makes roads slippery and dangerous and that sucks. In Minnesota that does, however, require a goodly amount of snow. We are not an area that goes into crisis mode over an inch of snow. Most people I know turn their noses up at "winter weather advisories" that only predict three inches of snow.

Any amount of rain in January, though, is something to get all stressed out about. Basically it ensures that every surface - be it road, sidewalk, parking lot, or snow - will be an ice rink for the rest of the winter. In short it sucks.

One interesting this I did learn this week about freezing rain is that it sounds really cool. I guess I've never really been outside while it's been freezing rain... freezing raining? freeze raining? Hmmm. A few mornings ago we were experiencing some freezing rain while I was on my way to the bus stop. It was like being in the middle of a hail storm only the hail was about sand sized. We had already had a little bit of rain that had frozen over night and every drop/crystal made these tiny "ting" noises as they laded. It was a seriously surreal experience walking around in this rain that was... hard but sounded like a distant wind chime. So weird. Did you ever make "rain sticks" as a kid? When I made them we pounded nails into the sides of a cardboard tube and then filled it part-way with little rocks and when turned it, it sounded like rain? Mine never sounded like rain because it never sounded particularly wet, that it was almost metallic. That's kind of what this sounded like.

Another interesting thing about the rain/freezing rain is that it sort of crystallizes the top layer of snow. Suddenly the smooth surfaces of snow drifts have a lot more texture, which really makes it way more interesting.