Our lovely friend Emily in Victoria is having a baby! She told us right before we moved. And way back then, in late May, I told her that I wanted to crochet her little baby things. And I meant it. There is mega cuteness out there when it comes to baby handicrafts ('for' not 'by'). There are also mega cheesy ones. Anyway. I feel somewhat vindicated in my procrastination because way back in June there is no way I could have made anything I think is so babytastic as this:
This is a mishmash, stashbuster of adorableness. And the pompom is of considerable size.
Emily didn't know at the time of our leaving if it was a boy or a girl so both I tried my best to be gender neutral. This brings to play people's ideas of gender performance, concepts of socialized femininity and masculinity, and appropriate baby shower gifts. I chose instead to consult my yarn stash and breed inspiration from there. When we were in Calgary last month, I took to Value Village with Pam, who has the gods of secondhand awesomeness on her side and found a score of perfect little yarn balls (don't be rude!) packaged in a huge bag (don't be rude!) for my consumption.
These baby booties are the sweetest. And the easiest. I can finish a pair in fifteen minutes (and that's while being distracted by the TV). So easy. And just because I was dressed in lace, pink satin and iridescent beading as an infant doesn't mean that all little girls will. Do baby booties have to be a showpiece. They are the cutest thing on the planet just by virtue of being small. Like seriously! Or THIS. Little Peanut Snuggle Sack. The marketing around baby is so nauseatingly effective.
The pompom was hilarious fun. I think I may actually take up pom bomb. I (not surprisingly) caused harm to myself while making that pompom which is kind of like hurting yourself shopping for down comforters. I have an extremely complex love hate relationship with band-aids.
School starts tomorrow which requires a big breath. I'm all signed up for the orientation potpourri and that's really the only thing making me nervous. I'm...NOT an orientation person. Froshing, team building, all that garbage is so far from anything I find entertaining or conducive towards meeting people/making friends. I never come away from those things recognizing people and a meaningful connection. It's always 'you're the heavy girl that couldn't get over the Storm wall' or 'you're the dude that threw up hot dogs all the way from the stage back to his seat'. Awesome. Orientation has always been a day of awkward eye contact and droning messages from Student Union presidents and Deans about 'Your best year ever!'
But I'm all signed up. Because I'm a transfer student, I'm in the orientation programming with all of the other transfer students in the Bachelor of Arts department. So I'm not going to be stuck making conversation in line with a I get to meet my profs, other students from the same department and make connections for work co-op. And I will force myself to like it if I have to.
Official classes start Wednesday. Matt and I have been feebly attempting to try and get ourselves onto some kind of schedule resembling that of people doing things with their lives. We had a whole month of waking up whenever we wanted to. Like going to bed at 2am and wondering why when 8am boot camps me I end up sleeping until 1130. But making yourself get up for a hypothetical schedule as opposed to getting up for the class you went in debt for is a totally different story. I'm PUMPED for my classes. Getting back in a place where I'm writing for a challenge is always a great place. Sometimes I don't write well IN that place but I always write well AFTER that place.
And I'm taking Russian which is sweeeet. It's gonna be fur hats and lots of vodka from this point out.
Happy September!
*This is in reference to a finding the silver lining story of Mama D's. Two sisters: one's a pessimist and the other is an incessantly positive thinker. Like girls do, they always would ask for a pony for Christmas. So one Christmas, in an effort to bring out some positive thinking in the negative one, the parents said they had a surprise, there was a pony outside. The girls rush outside to see a huge pile of poop on the driveway. The negative sister stands on the side, uncomfortably eyeing the pile saying, "Where's the pony?" The other sister jumps into it and begins to dig around screaming, "There must be a pony in here somewhere!"
