Lately

I've been making stuff lately. I've also been spending money at the Toronto Women's Bookstore which is in dire financial straits and accepting donations. And there's just three more shopping days until Christmas!

Justification

Well, I have limited myself to purchasing only one book a month. But. We're off to England on Friday, and therefore it only makes sense to order Howards End is On The Landing and Wolf Hall from there, as they'll be either more widely available and/or a wee bit cheaper. And by the time I get back, What Boys Like will be out, and as I've been planning to buy that for ages, it doesn't quite seem like my monthly allotment (which should be more spontaneous, you know). And that copy of Birds of America that arrived last week doesn't count either, because I only bought it to get free postage on an amazon.ca order of CDs. So basically, we're halfway into October and I haven't even bought one book yet. I am very proud of my restraint.

All of this is a little less ridiculous, because I've been reading like a madwoman lately. Harriet's naps have turned out to be much longer when taken on me, which means that I can read a lot and nap as well. So that's what we've been up to lately, which leads to a Mommy who is better-read and less exhausted.

Now reading nothing! Or rather little bits of lots of things-- I've been rereading Jennica Harper's poetry, the LRB (I'm caught up to late July now), and the ROM magazine. Because I'm saving Birds of America for my holiday, and am too superstitious to start it before it's time.

Any day now

For about seven months, people liked to tell me, "You don't look pregnant," which I found deeply irritating and kind of perplexing to address. I don't think I'd want to go back to that one, but neither am I too fond of the current comment, which is, "Any day now!" Because, well, no. Though perhaps in about forty days now, though probably more. My baby bump has ceased to be cute, and I am beginning to look into the mirror with considerable fright, and who knows what the effect will be forty days from now. I could also do with fewer strangers telling me I look "heavy" in the shower at the gym.

Nevertheless, I am excited. Our very good friends had a little girl two weeks ago, which served to make the connection clear, that pregnancy is a means to a miraculous end, for I often forget it's not an end in itself. And our baby is moving around all the time, so that I feel like I'm getting to know it. Though yesterday I also got to know that baby is lying sideways, so we have to do everything possible during the next two weeks to get that baby upside down. I vote for turning somersaults in the pool, and hope it does the trick.

The biggest news, however, is that the baby's blanket is done. I started knitting it back in November, before I could acknowledge the baby in any other way, out of fear that wanting too much was unlucky. It's only been very recently that I've been able to start preparing, and indeed now the baby's nursery is ready(ish). But in November, all I could do was knit, which made me feel that at least I was preparing in some way. The blanket coming together perfectly, with no mistakes, which is previously been unheard of in a project by me. The blanket is beautiful, so soft and warm, and I can't wait to meet the little person who will be wrapped inside it.

Slacks for Ella Funt

I am very excited, as this weekend I get to discover if my new sewing machine works. I picked it up at a yard sale about a month ago for $10, but have no clue how to use it, so am not sure if I wasted my money or not (credit crunch). However, a sewing savvy friend is going to give me lessons Saturday, and then after we're going out to our local Hungarian to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution. An exciting Saturday is destined then, though I am still not sure what kind of useless cloth item it is I am going to (dare I dream?) create.

What I really want to do make is slacks for Ella Funt:

Ramona tugged and tugged at Ella Funt’s slacks, but no matter how hard she tugged she could not make them come up to the elephant’s waist, or to what she guessed was the elephant’s waist. Ella Funt’s bottom was too big, or the slacks were too small. At the same time, the front of the slacks seemed way too big. They bunched under Ella Funt’s paunch. Ramona scowled.
Mrs. Quimby considered Ella Funt and her slacks. “Well,” she said after a moment. Slacks for an elephant are very hard to make. I’m sure I couldn’t do it.”

Ramona could not scowl any harder. “I like to do hard things.”

Baby feet

Oh, for booties and wee feet. Aren't these adorable? And I was lucky enough to have a friend with an upcoming bebe for whom to whip up these ickle shoes. Which are a bit wonky, naturally, as they were knit by me, and hopefully the bebe's feet will be the same size, unlike his/her shoes, but alas. Made with love. I am terribly superstitious that a babe might come into the world for whom I've not created a knitted item, and be cursed for life. Cursed not to own a wonky knit thing, I suppose, but then these booties will forever stand as evidence that someone was thinking of their tiny feet even before they were born, and that is nice I think. Should fit them for all of about a week. And if it's twins they can have one each, I guess.

It's hard to find good music

Indeed, I successfully defended my Masters Thesis yesterday, and came home to this beautiful bouquet sent by my family. Lucky I, and luckier still for this Saturday afternoon Stuart and I are going out to celebrate the end of school in the fashion I have chosen, and it is a very special fashion. I can't wait to tell you all about it.
Linkylink:
-Find an update over at my hobby blog Now Doing! Posted are pictures of the blanket I knit this winter, and my current patchwork project.
-I was thrilled to find out that the marvelous Saffrina Welch has started a blog. Saff is a friend of Stu's from uni, and when she and her boyfriend Ivan came to stay with us in December, we had a brilliant time. So it will be fun to see what she gets up to online.
-Bookwise, I was happy to see that Karen Connelly's The Lizard Cage has been nominated for the Orange Award for New Writers. As I expressed when I read it last March, The Lizard Cage is an extraordinary novel, and deserves so much recognition.
-I've never read Barbara Pym, but I feel like I ought to after having read this wonderful feature on the Barbara Pym Society Conference.
-And on an unrelated note: Kirsten Dunst is credited with saying: "I was brought up on Guns 'N Roses, the Les Miserables soundtrack and anything my mother listened to. But it's much harder to find great music these days." Bless.

Still reading Happenstance very happily, though copy errors make my eyes bleed. I also picked up the new Hart House Review today and it's absolutely beautiful. The ever-accomplished Rebecca Rosenblum took a top prize for fiction. Congratulations RR! Some poetry as well by other creative writing comrades. What a bunch.

Project

Whenever someone came to visit us in Nottingham, we took their picture in front of the Robin Hood Statue. This was not only because there wasn't much to do in Nottingham, but it was quickly an important ritual. Some shots are quite posed: me and my guests standing at attention (hello Erin, Claz, Mike, and all of ye who attended my 24th birthday celebration). We've got Stuart's and my sisters in town, and even a shot of my Mom (though she's standing a bit east of the statue; her visit occurred before tradition was cemented). Some great dramatic shots: Bardley launching his bow alongside, Rebecca swooning at RH's skirts, and Britt being nailed in the skull. All in all, an excellent photographic exhibition (in which, it must be noted, the sun is never shining) and I've decided to arrange and frame some sort of a display that will deck our walls forever more. At the time I was unaware that I was creating an historic record, but then I suppose one never is.

Confronted by Fiction

The book I just finished, I am embarrassed to name, and the book I am reading at the moment, I don't like much at all. This state of affairs is a deep dark hole which doesn't please me, and I'll be climbing out of it in a day or two.

Part two of the Treatise of Zadie Smith. "To read The Virgin Suicides followed by The Idiot followed by Despair followed by You Bright and Risen Angels followed by Bleak House followed by Jonah's Gourd Vine followed by Play it as it Lays is to be forced to recognise the inviolability of the individual human experience. Fiction confronts you with the awesome fact that you are not the only real thing in this world." (Oh Zadie I swoon!). Edith Wharton in France. Go Hillary! (How refreshing-- a chance for a better world!)

The Robber Bride's TV adaptation is on tonight. I'll be watching, mainly because I've just started a knitting project and TV becomes handy then-- particularly when it's bookish.

She doing things like havin her boys come from her neighborhood

I just finished knitting the final scarf of the season. See it over at Now Doing.