Even as late as 8 o’clock Thursday I thought it was well within reach.

And then Larson threw up.  All over himself, his bed, and his father.

A quick bath, a quick sheet-change, a quick change of clothes for Larry … and he did it again.  We did get him off the bed in time, at least – but the carpet got it.

And then a half-hour after that, again.

At which point we realized what we had on our hands was a sick baby.  Is there anything worse?

I have to stop here to give large bushels of credit to my husband, who despite getting vomited upon multiple times, spent a mostly sleepless night in bed with a very restless sickly baby.  I also must mention that he handled the laundry aspect of the endeavor; all I did was rock the baby to sleep, then handed him over and went to sleep myself.

Larry says he threw up once or twice after that; I’m happy to take his word for it.  In fact I only woke up at 4am when Larson started crying unconsolably, in a way that only a sick baby can.  I got him a sippy cup of water and sent Larry to sleep in our room.  Blessedly Larson went right back to sleep after the cup was empty, and stayed asleep until about 7:30.

Shortly after which Alistair started throwing up, midway through his getting-dressed-for-school routine.

Awesome.

Cut to the present:  My folks came here and stayed with the boys while I went to the office for the morning.  I am now home, laptop on lap, aside a sleeping Alistair, who has been vomiting periodically throughout the day and hasn’t eaten a thing.  Larson has been asleep since 10:30 (it’s 1:42 as I type), but has successfully held down dry cheerios and string cheese.

Needless to say, there was no knitting last night; tonight doesn’t look so promising either.

But it’s only an inch – 7 rows plus the bindoff – and I remain steadfast in my resolve to get this skirt finished and wearable by the end of the month.

It was windy and cold, though.  Alistair went outside to help me clear off the car, and that was enough for him.

CC and I braved the elements nonetheless.  We had brunch and then went to check out the local winter market.  Such a great idea – it was part craft fair, part farmers market, all in the greenhouse of the local garden center.   Genius!

There was a trunk show on at the new yarn shop, too, so we checked that out.  This was only my second time in this shop, since I’m still trying to work down my stash, but I think it’s safe to call it my local from now on.

Sunday turned out to be sunny and a bit warmer, so we all bundled up and went out back to play for a bit.

Did I mention we never quite got around to putting the table and chairs away last fall?

And then I grafted my skirt together, and picked up the stitches for the waistband.  Three inches to go!  Photos soon…

The skirt has another inch or so to go before I join the beginning to the end and add a waistband; I’m shooting to have it finished by the end of the month.

We are finally having winter weather around here!  We got a bit of a flurry earlier in the week, and last night we had honest-to-goodness shovel-able snow.  Alistair was over the moon – he got up and dressed early so he could go out and “help” Larry shovel (ie, throw snowballs at him).  He was so happy to finally be able to wear his new snow boots.

There are another few inches in the forecast for the weekend, too.  Can’t complain at all – I think our winter total is something like 6 inches at this point.  Last year we were closing in on six FEET by now.

I tried a new recipe last night, and I liked it quite a bit.  It was another one of those ones that I do, where I look at a bunch of recipes and cobble my own meal together…

Pasta with Bacon, Spinach, and Cannellini Beans

• 1/2 pound smallish pasta – bowties, medium shells, penne, etc (I used shells last night)
• 3 cups spinach, rinsed, dried and cut into pieces
• 3 strips bacon, cut into small pieces
• 1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (but not rinsed squeakily-clean)
• 1 rib celery, cut into small pieces
• 1 small onion, cut into small pieces
• salt and pepper
• 1 cup water or broth (I used water)

1. Boil a pot of water and once it starts to simmer, put the bacon into a cold pan – not a skillet, though, because you’ll be cooking the spinach and beans in there, and will eventually add the pasta too.
2. Once the bacon starts to get a little brown, add the celery and the onion to the pan, and stir it all around occasionally so that nothing burns.  Once the water is completely boiling, add the pasta to the pot.  Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box, and drain it once it’s done.
3. Once the bacon is pretty brown and the celery and onion are soft, add the spinach.  Once the spinach wilts down and gets bright green, add the beans.  Toss it all together and stir it occasionally.  If the pan starts to look a little dry, add a bit of the water/broth, and continue to stir it as needed.  Add more water as needed too (all in all I used about a half-cup).  The starch from the beans will thicken the water a little bit.
4. Once the beans have cooked through, add the pasta to the pan and toss everything together.   Add a little salt and pepper to taste and serve.

I could see a little red pepper flake working well at the end.  Or a tiny bit of nutmeg.  Grated parmesan or pecorino would be great, too.

You could use sausage instead of bacon, chard or kale instead of spinach (you would definitely want some nutmeg with either of those), chickpeas instead of cannellini beans… it’s a pretty flexible gig.

You could even use ravioli, but that’s a whole nother thing.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the formal program, and it’s changed a lot; fruits and vegetables are 0 points, for example – but oatmeal (formerly 1 or 2) is now 4.  So there’s an adjustment factor, but we’ll see how it goes.

Anyhoo, we’re experimenting with various recipes and so forth.  And this week I made Cauliflower Steaks.

There was a recipe in Bon Appetit, and I started there and made my own little riff.

I seared it on either side, then put it in the oven.   I cut some broccoli into small pieces, and tossed it together with the bits of cauliflower that fell off when I cut it, along with some Italian seasoning and olive oil.  I stir-fried the broccoli and cauliflower in the pan I had seared the cauliflower in, and heated up some extra tomato sauce.  All in all it took less than a half-hour, and it was delicious.  Pretty on the plate, even.

The only thing I might do differently next time, is I might not bother with the searing next time – putting it into the oven will probably brown it up just as much, and that’s one less pan to wash later…

With the holidays and holiday-gift-knitting behind us, it’s time to take a little breather and knit for pleasure.  And, often, for ourselves.

Some people call it January Selfish Knitting.  I think of it more as January Reward Knitting, but hey – tomayto, tomahto.

At any rate I finished the last bit of gift knitting on the 23rd, and started a project for myself the very same evening.

Fast-forward a couple of weeks, and I’m a little more than halfway through knitting my very first skirt.

The pattern is Lanesplitter, from Knitty; the yarn is Chroma, from Knitpicks.  As the pattern is written, you cast on a few stitches, constantly increasing until you reach a certain length, at which point you begin constantly decreasing.

After browsing a few projects on Ravelry, I realized that I didn’t like the way the seam lined up.

Luckily, neither did other people – other people smarter than me.

Other people smarter than me who took the time to write up their modifications.

So I’m using the seamless instructions, and am loving the results.  Although on Sunday I noticed that the yarn wasn’t contrasting quite as much as I’d like – so I cut 5 or 6 yards or so out of one skein of yarn.  Hopefully that will make enough of a difference.

I am terrified that he will somehow roll off the bed and/or jump over the rails we have set up, so for the time being we have the mattress and boxspring directly on the floor.  He has done neither so far, but it’s early days yet – I figure we’ll give him another week or so before we put the mattress on the bedframe.

While he’s still getting the hang of falling asleep in his own room (up til this we’ve been putting him to sleep in our room, then moving him), he has quickly adjusted to sleeping in there.  Witness:

Night 1 he woke up around 4 and Larry got him back to sleep quickly – and in his own bed.

Night 2 he woke up around 2 and watched TV with Larry (who was awake with a toothache) til he fell back to sleep – and was quickly reinstalled in his own bed.

Last night was Night 3; he didn’t wake up at all.

So that’s three good nights of sleep in a row for yours truly.

I wonder how long it will take for me to catch up on 15 months worth of crappy nights’ sleep?