Interviews coming soon

I have three people to interview! I will get those posted by tomorrow. And yes, I spelled ex-Patriot incorrectly. Sorry. Of course I meant expatriate.

I have a lot to talk about and very little of it has to do with knitting. But I will show you my niece Mary who is a master 11-year-old knitter.





First of all, I have to admit two things. I really like Justin Timberlake and I really like Kelly Clarkson. This is hard for me to admit, because I probably would have made fun of people for liking them in the past. But “Rock Your Body” and “Since U Been Gone” are both really good songs. Okay, I feel better now that I got that off my chest.

And in less fun news, the pope has died. I know, it was two days ago, I’m a little behind. I am very sad by this news, and not because I necessarily agreed with a lot of what he did. But he was my pope, and I met him, and I do think he did a lot of amazing things for the church. And so I am sad.

He has been sick for so long. Joe and I went to Rome in 1999 and went to the big audience with the pope at the Vatican on Wednesday morning. I seriously thought at that time, “My goodness, this guy is on his last legs!”. We went again in 2001 on our honeymoon and since we were newlyweds we were blessed by him (along with about 75 other newly married Catholics). It was an amazing experience. I don’t have a scanned picture so I had to take a picture of the one that hangs on our wall:



And now he is gone. I am so curious to see what will happen next. I can’t imagine trying to follow in his footsteps, but I’m sure the new pope will be pretty conservative. I know the church will change, but I also know it does not change quickly.

Lastly I have to say a few words about my lunch yesterday. I sent the little character to Chandler to visit his grandparents (I didn’t even have to drive him! Joe drove him for me!), and I met two friends for lunch at Duck and Decanter. For those of you not lucky enough to live in Phoenix, this is a lovely place with wine and food and a wonderful patio. We sat outside, drank a bottle of wine, had some sandwiches, and talked about things not related to babies. I enjoyed myself so much I didn’t even mind when I had to get up a billion times last night to deal with the babe.

The funny thing to me is I was thinking on the way home “I’m glad I have some new friends here.” New is a relative term I suppose, because I think I have now known these women for a year at least. To me that is very new. And I am grateful to have them. I know I am not the easiest person to get along with, so I do appreciate it when I meet people who I can sit and hang out with and not worry about it.

I will be dropping stitches on my baby blanket soon, and I will photograph the evidence. I just got the invite for the baby shower and I can’t go! Great news, because there is no way I was going to have the blanket done in time.

Less and less time to knit these days, as well as do anything else. I spend most of the day trying to entertain my small bald boss. He can’t yet sit up or crawl, and this makes him very angry. He wants to move, he has things to do and see! Therefore I must keep him happy, or I will certainly hear about it.

I can’t wait until he’s big enough to play soccer and baseball – think of all the knitting I will get done then!