Baby Things...

The other week I was at my friend Abby's house while she was opening her presents from her wedding. Her sister had made her a beautiful blanket. She made one for Vincent when he was born too and it inspired me to learn to crochet so I could make him a blanket, which I did.

Well, again, when I saw one of her beautiful blankets I wanted to make one, so I set out to make one for my friend Toni, who was due with her first baby on Sept. 27. I say "was" because she had him today! And, as coincidence would have it, I finished the blanket today too.

Since I had some extra yarn I decided to make him a hat too. I'd never made a hat, or a pom before. I went to videojug.com (which someone showed me) and watched a video on how to make the hat. Overall, I think it was very successful and is super cute.

I didn't get to go see baby Marsellus today, because I wasn't feeling well and because after a long labor, my friend was pretty exhausted. So tomorrow at lunch, I will get to go see him and give him his present.

The Blanket:

The hat:

The set:

The hat with a rim rolled up:

Set one more time:

And I'm sure it will look much cuter with a baby in it!

New Blog!

I thought since I am no longer a "waitress aspiring to rise" it was time for a blog name change. Of course, I am still a waitress, and I am still wanting to rise higher, however; it's no longer what defines me. So here it is, a new blog!

An old teacher of mine called us journalistas, and sadly, I grew to love it.

Be sure to read all of the new ones for the month. :D

Transportation Museum

The other day I woke up with the feeling that it would be a perfect day to take my family to the transportation museum (the actual name is the museum of transportation) in St. Louis. Vincent has been obsessed with trains and even though we took him last year he said he didn't remember. So I called my mom and she and her husband, Gary, Vin and I were off to the musum.


I was right. It was a perfect day. The trains are really cool. There are also antique cars, a boat, and an airplane. You can take a trolly, tram and train ride. We were planning on taking the train ride since we didn't last time and we thought Vin would like it. Paying admission and train fees separately would have cost us more than buying a membership. So, we are now proud Museum of Transportation members. We don't get free train rides all the time, but we do get free admission, and we definitely plan on going back.


One cool part is all the information and history provided, not that I got to read very much of it. The other really cool thing, is that you can go inside some of the trains and see what they were like.

Here are a few photos.



These are from my mom's camera and she is the world's worst picture taker. Not the trash can in the boat picture... eh, well, you get what you can.

The Resort

Gary's parents have a membership to Lost Valley Lake Resort. To go there, you have to be an owner or an "associate owner." I'm not sure how it is now, but when they bought their membership, it was good for three generations, which means G and I are associate owners. We only have to pay $25 a year to go there. There's a petting zoo, several lakes for fishing, swimming, paddleboating, canoing, etc., sand beaches, teepees, tents, cabins, RV's for rent, movies, a bazillion activities, an outdoor pool, two indoor (heated) pools, three hot tubs, some saunas, a little cafe and store... just about everything you can think of. The lodge recently burned down, but they have a new one being built. Everyone who has ever been there says it's not as nice as when they had the first lodge (two have burned down), but I never saw the first one, so I don't know any different.

Anyways, G's parents get angry if we don't use the membership because they have to pay yearly dues. We used to go all the time, but kind of fell out of it after Vin was born. He's still never been camping, but we've been making the 1/2 hour trek to use the awesome facility.

Here are a few recent photos.

I've been trying to pick a date when I could have a girls weekend there (I can bring guests), but none have worked out because of my hectic work schedule.

I accidentally lined these up on the left instead of center, but I don't feel like fixing it.

Photos are: Here is Vincent with a goat. He's feeding it a leaf.

Then, Gary gets a kiss from a horse. Did I mention that there was horseback riding?

Pool.

funny photo.

and me with a llama. Cute, aren't we?

Something Sweet

The other day I got an e-mail from an old teacher of mine. I had her for fundamentals of reporting at Webster, one of my first college journalism classes. She works at a large paper in St. Louis. I'm not oging to be too specific because I don't like using people's names without asking them. Anyways, here is a small part of what she wrote, congratulating me on my job.

"I'm thrilled to hear about your new job, and I'm so glad they recognized that you're a good hire. I'll be eager to hear how it's going for you, and I hope you'll send me links to stories you're proud of. I mentioned you to an editor today, in fact. I told him that I planned to keep track of my best students in the event of possible openings down the road. Papers have taken a bad hit, but things seem to have stabilized here for the moment. I'm awfully glad I didn't scare you away from the field with my too-honest, doom-and-gloom reports! I know you're going to be great at this stuff."

Her little letter made me feel great. She was one of my favorite teachers at Webster and I'm glad she remembers me too.

Box of Books!

The other day, G's mom insisted I walk down to the middle school with her-- because-- in the teacher's lounge, was a large box of books that was headed for the dumpster...

I wasn't quite sure if a bunch of teachers would throw away books, but I went down there anyway.

Sure enough, in the lounge was not one, but several boxes of books marked FREE and a sign about how they were going to be thrown away the next day.

I couldn't just let perfectly good (some look brand new) books be thrown away. Even though most of them weren't really titles I would normally pick out, I chose several (read: a ton) to take home and read. G's mom said the books had been there forever and that they had already been picked through. Since they were garbage-destined within hours I didn't feel bad taking them.

Now, it will take me longer to tackle my Goodreads list, but I will eventually get there. And I have a bunch of new books!

Some of the new titles include:

Love me, by Garrison Keillor





http://www.amazon.com/Love-Me-Garrison-Keillor/dp/0670032468

December Heat, by Luiz Alfredo Garca-Ruiz



http://www.amazon.com/December-Heat-Inspector-Espinosa-Mysteries/dp/0312423438



Drop Dead Gorgeous, by Linda Howard



http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30067.Drop_Dead_Gorgeous



And, All Night Long, by Jayne Ann Krentz




http://www.amazon.com/All-Night-Long-Krentz-Jayne/dp/B002YNS49U

Again, not exactly my style, but they were in great shape and maybe I'll like them.