November 2007 Archives
MT4 is not bad, it's just a significant shift structurally and I did some dumb, blind things without thinking when I installed it. I have been kicking myself for deciding to upgrade when what I had was working fine. The lure of shiny new features is just too much to resist sometimes. Some days I am just my own worst enemy when it comes to wanting to play with new toys. In the end, I ended up "starting fresh" by creating a brand new blog and importing all of the stuff from the old blog into the new one. And there are still a ton of issues that I still have to resolve. Sigh. But at least you can read it and I can post to it, which is an improvement. The look and feel of my blog is now just one of Movable Types standard on board styles... I miss my old template already. But hopefully I'll be able to resurrect things as time goes on. In the meantime, it's nice just to have a blog that actually functions.
Right now I'm trying to look on the bright side and see this as an opportunity to learn something new and to clean up a bunch of old cruft that had accumulated in my template. I'm hoping that once I get to start playing with some of the new widgets and toys in MT4 that I will be happier about the whole situation. I do have to say that I like the image preview functions much better...
However, the moral of this story is most definitely the old engineer's adage: if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Yes, I know I am having problems with the comments... they want you to be authorized to log comment... even I am not authorized at this point, so don't take it personally... more MT4 issues.
Before I had a child of my own, I could be sympathetic to a lot of child-related health issues, but I really didn't understand the depth to which they affect the parents. Now that I have a child of my own, I have a much better idea of how it feels when something happens to your child that causes them some kind of distress. Fortunately for me, Zosia hasn't had to undergo anything more distressing that the vaccinations that every child gets, but I do have friends and colleagues who have had to go through significantly more to ensure the future good health of their child or to help ensure that their child has a good quality of life.
One of those friends is Emma Emma has been my "blog neighbor" in the Knit Bloggers ring since 2002 (although, sadly, now it appears that we have been separated in cyberspace). At that time, I wasn't a very adventurous knitter and I was really just getting my knitting legs underneath me. I can still remember the incredible good feelings I got one evening after coming home from work and finding a package from England on my door step: my first sock yarn. How amazing that someone I knew only by email would send me a thoughtful gift to encourage me in a new direction. It was the start of an addiction, a fiber trading experience, and, best of all, a friendship.
Since that time, Emma and I have sent quite a bit of fiber back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean. She's remembered many of my special events with lovely electronic greeting cards and when I had problems with miscarrying, she was one of the first to email and talk to me about it. I know she's made relationships with many knitters around the world -- she's left many kind and positive comments on many blogs. And I know she's been generous with her words and her needles to many people. I don't know if I will ever get to meet Emma in person, but I know I would love to have her living on my block here in Chicago.
Emma has a very lovely son, Oliver. I've been enjoying Emma's pictures of Oliver since I started reading her blog a long long time ago. He has a beautiful smile. He also has cerebral palsy, and, as he grows, he's had increasing needs for equipment that helps him to be mobile and helps Emma and Alan give him the kind of experiences that every child deserves to have.
Right now, Oliver is in need of a larger car seat. Any of you out there that have kids already know how much gear costs for kids. A good car seat can cost anything from $50 - $300. Oliver's equipment costs significantly more. In order to help out Emma with some of those expenses, Michaela has started a project that can help you de-stash a little and feel good about helping out a fellow knitter and her child. She's sent out a call for 4" x 4" knit squares. She's collecting them and is going to seam them together into what she hopes will be at least 2 blankets. And then these blankets will raffled off to help out with some of Oliver's needs for new gear. She initially envisioned the squares out of left over sock yarn (although she is open to squares out of almost any yarn except lace weights and super bulkies).
Since, we all know I have a lot of left over sock yarn, and I've been able to find some extra knitting time while Z nurses, I thought I might be able to put this time to some extra special use. I talked it over with Ms. Z and she enthusiastically endorsed the project with a big smile and a willingness not to squirm too much while she nursed. So I pulled out some yarn, and my copy of Barbara Walker's stitch treasury and started on my first square.
For my swatches, I'm using some Opal (in honor of the fact that the first sock yarn I ever knit with was from Emma and was Opal -- it's still one of my favorites) and some Tess Designer Yarn's sock yarn that was left over from my Jaywalkers. The first swatch, done in the Opal, is in a pattern called "Quaker Ridging" which I think works pretty well with the self-patterning Opal and isn't too complicated to work on while keeping an eye on a hungry baby.
There's still plenty of time if you'd like to contribute to the project as well -- I believe Michaela has extended the deadline for squares until the beginning of December. Maybe you have some swatches of the right size that you've already knit that have been looking for the right new home? Maybe you've been looking for an excuse to try out some stitch patterns for fun? This is a neat way to play with yarn and help someone out without having to knit an entire garment. Isn't it nice to think that a 4" x 4" square of knitting could help make a kid's life a little better?
You know, every time you turn around, your kid is getting into something. Hitting a new milestone. I'm not sure what milestone "sneaking onto Mommy's blog" qualifies for, but clearly I will have to keep a close eye on her to see if she does it again. And make sure I don't get any unexpected orders from Babies R' Us.
Both Z and I would like to say thank you for all your good wishes for my dad. His recovery was absolutely incredible. His surgery was early Thursday morning, on Monday afternoon, he wrote this email message:
Well it has been an an exciting week for me. I was riding my pedal bike on Monday of last week and I became dizzy so I got off my bike and promptly passed out. An half hour later I was in St Joe's cardiac ward. On Thursday morning I had a double by pass and had my aortic valve replaced and one of the good spin offs is I no longer have high blood pressure. And today I'm sitting in my chair at home with all my loved ones and pets. What a wonderful world it is.
My dad is always an inspiration to me for his outlook. He can go through unexpected cardiac surgery and still come home and be happy about the amazing technology that made it happen and the people and important things in his life.
Which is part of what helped get me through this week. In spite of a whole bunch of stress from work and baby-related issues that I won't go into (mostly because I've gone into them before and because they are pretty much the same issues all moms who try to juggle work and a newborn and their own needs run into), I have come to the end of the week realizing that I have a pretty good deal. A smiling baby who reminds me (even as she refuses once again to take daytime naps -- I suspect more developmental milestones are soon to be reached) that the job stuff is just job stuff and I can only do what I can do. A husband who listens when I talk about all the things that are making me crazy and takes on some extra baby time so that I can get enough things done to feel like I am not failing on all fronts. And my Dad, who, after an incredibly scary surgery, can come home from the hospital and see the good things all around him.
I love you Dad. Even when things are not exactly as we'd like them to be, it is, indeed, a wonderful world.
