Yay for me!!

We're starting to settle into a routine with Delaney.  Julia still plans to just work two days a week.  Newborn care runs about $300 a day and she doesn't make that much a day.  She's happy to not be working full time right now and I'm thrilled to have Delaney two days a week.  I was reading to her and tried to catch the moment with this selfie.

As of last Monday I'm back at the High Desert Museum as a living history interpreter, wearing my Birkenstock sandals.  Since they're not period appropriate I'm seated in a rocking chair with my skirt covering my feet, and I'm either knitting on a pair of socks or drop spindling.  On occasions I have to get up to help direct visitors and so far no one seems to have noticed my toes.

Staci is a new seasonal worker so Emily showed her how to bake a rhubarb pie in the wood cookstore using fresh rhubarb from the garden.  It was a great success and Staci was very proud.

This doe has been hanging around our yard, obviously pregnant and only getting bigger.  I took this picture as I was backing out of the garage, on my way to HDM.  She is alone these days and the neighbors are keeping an eye on her.  We seriously have each others phone numbers and text for updates.

Clover who lives two houses away texted Ian and me on Sunday morning to let us know that the twins had been born at Sandy's house, right in between us.

Once born they go to ground and just don't move.  Mom was eating grass and really quite trusting of us, given that the babies were between her and our little cluster of neighbors.  Ian is a morning person and saw her bring them into our yard about 5:00 Monday morning.  The three of them are still here and we are leary of provoking any kind of protective response from her.  We went through that last year and once is enough.

I'm not able to do much yard work other than bend over and pull weeds so it's wonderful to see my hard work from past years.  This is my first attempt at irises.  I was given about a dozen rhizomes which I planted last year.  Six of them are award winning, a gift from Petey, Ian's friend from college and now my friend. His cousin's husband raised them for show and had written the name of the iris on the dried flag.   This one is Wicked Cool, which it is indeed.

 I've been having my morning coffee on the patio, enjoying the plants as they grow and come together.  It's starting to look like I meant it to look like this.  Granddaughter Alexia and I created a little fairy garden and she'll be here next month to see how fabulous it looks now.

It's been two months exactly since my surgery and today was also my first appointment with my surgeon.  I have a lot of healing to go but he's given me exercises and told me to get back to doing the things I like to do.  I've done a lot of knitting and reading but it's summer and I want to enjoy all three months of it.  I celebrated my good report at my favorite nursery with two plants for my shade garden and two for my sedum garden.  I've always wanted to be able to grow an astilbe and am concerned that it might be too big for the area where it will go.  I had planned on another hosta but my good visit made me adventurous and I went for it. I'm excited to get back to yard work, and while it's still cool will take my first walk in the morning in my Teva sandals - I'm still too swollen for a shoe.  Yay for me!!

A Whole Lot of Nothing

Delaney turned one month old last week so we drove up to Redmond to pay our first visit.

It was the first time I got to hold her and I swear I had an angel in my arms.

Other than that, not much has been going on other than knitting and reading.  My body isn't adapting well to the pin and my foot swells if I don't keep it up.  So I do.  It beats taking pain meds.

This is another Heidi Kirrmaier pattern.  Her patterns are detailed but so are her instructions which makes her so satisfying to knit.

I frogged a moth-eaten sweater that I knit when we still lived in Red Rock.  The damage wasn't consistent throughout so I'm knitting another of Heidi's sweaters.  This one is called Climb Every Mountain.  It's kind of a sweater poncho combo.  If I have enough yarn I'll make it with long sleeves but the pattern calls for elbow length.

One of the ladies in my book club brought me these three bags of yarn last meeting.  She says she is going to bring me more, that her stash is out of control.  So I who have no stash now have one.  I've looked through quickly and see some things I believe I can put to use.  The rest I'll take to our guild's Weftover Sale next month.

Two days later I got a call from a friend who is moving to Texas who wondered if I'd like some of her stash because she's trying to cull rather than move.  These will also go to the Weftover Sale and the proceeds go to a scholarship fund.

Frankenfoot is healing nicely.  I wear a toeless sock to keep the surgical boot from chafing on my incisions, so what you see on the top of my foot is the impression from the sock.  The pin comes out next Tuesday, a week early.  We leave that Thursday for Reno to see DD Chris receive her master's degree.  Commencement will be on the quad, the same place I was awarded my degree almost thirty years ago.  And the frosting on the cake - Thursday evening is Alexia's band spring concert and she has a flute solo.  I got to mention two granddaughters in one post!

Das Boot

This is the last thing I finished weaving before my surgery.  I wound another warp and have it on the loom for when I'm able to go back upstairs.  My surgery was Thursday April 11th and I'm still a little unsteady on my pins.  I plan to have the warp threaded, sleyed and ready to weave by the time the boot comes off.

Ah yes, the boot.  It's very large and I an only weight-bearing on my left heel - very awkward and slow, but it gets me to the bathroom without crutches.

Periodically I'm to open it up and apply ice which is more awkward than walking!

Ian and Maddie have been very attentive.  The Norco has knocked me out for the first several days and I've been a champion sleeper.  Yesterday I started weaning off it and onto the Tylenol.  At this point I'm only using Tylenol and still sleeping a lot, though I'm finally able to knit a little.

But my days look pretty much like this.  The books I brought home from the library are too challenging for my brain so I've put a book by Liane Moriarty on hold and Ian has gone to pick it up for me.  He probably needs a break from the sick house :-) A friend had warned me about the level of books I selected for this time and even suggested that I stick to YA, but did I listen???

My friend Ana fixed an amazing meal and brought it over Friday for dinner.  What a wonderful gift!!  We just got a text from our friends Sue and Michael who would like to bring dinner tomorrow.  Slowly slowly this is moving forward.  I see the doc in follow-up next Wednesday.

Meanwhile son Matt sends me occasional pictures of Delaney who is beYOUtiful!!