Making and waiting, coffee and rain. (Seven Quick Takes (9))

1. God is already using these twins to make me grow and stretch as a person. I am super unorganized and I procrastinate horribly, and unless I get things done right away they can take me forever. Things like setting up doctor's appointments. And what do you have with a twin pregnancy? TONS of doctor's appointments, that's what. That need to be coordinated with tons of ultrasounds and earlier-than-average glucose tests and etc, not to mention trying to get medical records to transfer smoothly from one office to another and ... wowza. But God is good, and despite the fact I waited a week to try and call and make an ultrasound appointment that needs to be the same day that I visit the OB, it all worked out, and I got a very friendly and helpful receptionist to help me through it.


2. I made a thing.

In case you need help identifying it, that's a floor cushion, made from this tutorial. With awesome elephant fabric. Michael loves it, and he loves the elephants. He points at them and says "doo doo doo!" Which is his rendition of this song. I have no idea how other people on the internet have stuffed this with polyfill and had it come out looking so awesome and not-lumpy, though. I stuffed and stuffed until I couldn't fit any more in and still it has saggy spots. Am I missing something? Can anyone give me tips?


3. A friend recommended to me that I start out sewing things that only had straight lines. Obviously I ignored her advice, because I like to dive into the deep end when it comes to crafts. I think my lack of circular-sewing-skills shows, but. :-P I am looking forward to more sewing for the twins' room ... except that my nesting has to be put on hold until September 1, when I can start buying yarn and fabric again. SO FRUSTRATING. But I am pretty much set on a "theme" for the nursery, and it involves foxes and other woodsy creatures.



Seriously, how cute is that fabric?! And I love the colors.


4. Another way that God has been stretching me via this pregnancy? I don't even have the illusion of control over so many things. Their birth and when and how it happens; the amount of time I have to prepare for them (I am pretending that they are arriving at 36 weeks; everything must be ready by then!); the inability to even start preparing in some ways, since we are moving in a little more than a month, but in the meantime all I can do is sit and wait ... I can't even start packing. I am in a space of waiting, and I can't even fill that space with anything right now ... except trust.


5. It is rainy today and I love it. But it does effect my energy levels. All I want to do is curl up with a cup of coffee and look out the window and watch the rain falling. And maybe knit.


6. Yep, that does it, I am making myself a second cup of coffee. How decadent, right?


7. Speaking of decadence, I am going to be making a trip to Anthropologie with a friend this evening and I am so. excited. I could furnish my house and wardrobe from that store if I were a little richer. And yes, I can't spend money there right now anymore than I can spend it on yarn and fabric ... but you know ... that might be for the best. ;)

Twelve.

1. Happy fourth of July, everyone. Happy last-holiday-as-a-single-woman, self.

2. This is how I count things. In terms of holidays, of tubes of toothpaste, of how many more times a certain day of the week will come and go. (One more Sunday, two more Tuesdays.) I have five multivitamins remaining in the pill bottle. They won't last me into my marriage.

3. This weekend we have created a seating chart; started the ceremony programs; ordered place cards and favors, all of which will hopefully arrive by the end of next week, or the beginning of the next; had a trial-wedding-hair-run, in my case; filled out the paperwork for the marriage license just before the office closed.

4. This week I will pick up the marriage license on Tuesday; stop by the jewelers at some point with Keith to pick up the rings; fetch my wedding dress and veil on Wednesday.

5. Although we've had several minor mishaps, things nonetheless seem to come together. I just have to keep reminding myself that when I get stressed. I would like every moment of stress to become, instead, excitement for the day that's drawing near, so quickly and so slowly.

6. I have been busy knitting--a rehearsal dinner shawl, because I am crazy, and many many teal flowers for the tables at the reception. (See photos!) None of them have been seamed together yet, so they all have loose threads hanging from them. I need to make at least four a day to finish on time, which is about an hour's worth of work, maybe a little more. I also still have to block several shawls. More on this Wednesday.

7. Keith is growing a beard until the day of the wedding, at which point he will shave it off.

8. I just finished Alice von Hildebrand's By Love Refined: Letters to a Young Bride, and may pick up The Temperament God Gave Your Spouse again this week.

9. One of the aforementioned mishaps was that my makeup artist bailed three weeks before the wedding. I don't want to do my makeup myself, and I don't want to place that responsibility on a friend's shoulders either, so there was a mad scramble to find someone else. This is a story unto itself, but in the end I found a lovely Mary Kay lady with a devotion to St. Therese, so I feel that my favorite saint once again has stepped in and sent beautiful gifts my way.

10. Yesterday Keith and I went to dinner with some friends. Since I am currently living with my parents, this was probably the last time I'll see most of them until after the wedding.

11. The schola is, after all, singing at our wedding. Partly in Latin.

12. I've had a story accepted at the wonderful literary journal Dappled Things. And because it's getting printed after the wedding, it will be published under my married name. :)

Thirty Days

It is my second to last real day in this apartment before I pack up some things and move back with my parents to await the wedding. When I come back—save, maybe, a night here and there if I need to be in the city for some reason—it will be with Keith, and it will not be to this corner bedroom, with its sunny windows and desk in the corner. I am both glad of that, and a little nostalgic.

Right now I am knitting nupps for my bridal shawl, and it isn’t the horrid struggle so many knitters complain of, but a peaceful process. I sit here, all the blinds drawn open, surrounded by trees that wave through the windows, as though I myself am sitting in their branches. There are passing cars and muffled voices, but those tend to fade into the background of my awareness. There is also a chiming from someone’s windcatcher, a series of high, melancholy notes that follow one another sometimes at a distance, sometimes on each other’s heels, and I think I should like to write the story they are telling, the one that pulls at something in my chest and the corners of my eyes.