Step Into My Thimble

The other day I was thinking about how I have done these annual “day in the life” type posts, just kind of detailing how I spent my time as a person with a kid, a job, and various goings-on at what is usually a great time of year in Michigan (late spring). I realized I was overdue for this year’s, and now we live on the other side of the planet, something I could never have anticipated in those previous posts.

Today I poked around and also realized that I didn’t even write a “day in the life” last year AT ALL. 2009 was hated by a lot of people, but for me, up until mid-October when our utopian existence of affordable living in a relatively progressive community, a great job, super friends, and lots to do came crashing to a halt, it was a really great year. I’m sure we were just too busy having fun in the spring to even think of it. Of course now I wish I had written it just as a document of life at that time. It would have involved more complaining about irregular sleep patterns, but by last spring Maeve was solidly potty-trained, and had finished breastfeeding a couple days before turning three in April.

Nothing to do but forge ahead with this year’s though. And I will get to that soon. In the meantime, here are the previous versions:

• A Day In The Life (May 25, 2006). Maeve was only 1.5 months old, and my previous childless existence was going up in flames.
• Another Day In The Life (May 26, 2007). I was slowing down, or maybe getting better at incorporating my kid in the things I wanted to do. Wood from Sweet Juniper left a comment which made me feel cool.
• Day In The Life 3.0 (June 17, 2008). Two years old! I had gone back to work part-time earlier that year, and after a rocky adjustment to all the daycare germs and stuff, by summer we were getting used to the patterns.

Here is “Big Four” at her international school in Dubai a couple weeks ago.

Lots of things have changed since Day In The Life 3.0, living in Dubai being the hugest one of course. Summer vacation is coming in a while and we’ll have some interesting things to record on one of those days. Stay tuned!

My parents decided a few weeks ago to send Stan to kitty heaven, unfortunately without involving me in the decision, so it’s double the sadness.

I’m sorry Stan, you were the best cat, and maybe the only one I’ll ever have.

I figured things would change when I picked up and moved across the globe… And they have, I’ve barely had the mental energy to think about crafts in the past month. But it’s all still on my radar and it will return to my routine soon enough.

I have noticed that I can buy a decent sewing machine, at Carrefour in Mall of the Emirates (and probably elsewhere).

Magrudy’s bookstore in Festival Centre has yarn and sewing notions, among other art and craft supplies, way in the back.

I am most looking forward to checking out the textile shops here sometime. They are in Satwa on Plant Street.

And I have started making a Berroco pattern, Nimbus, in a lightweight cotton blend, and with a revised gauge of course.

Finding time to make things won’t be too hard–kiddo still goes to bed around 7pm regularly–it’s the navigation in this wacky city on the way to places where you can get supplies that takes forever. A little bit at a time…

I can’t get it together to write a comprehensive end-of-year summary this year. It’s just been too crazy since mid-October. A few great things have been going on in the last little while though, worth mentioning.

• Social opportunities galore. Everyone wants to see us, get in one more dinner or playtime with the kid or whatever. We have a lot of really good friends that I will miss like crazy.
• Got a fabulous new haircut. After fearing layers in my giant mop of hair for the last 15 years, I gave it a try and it’s awesome.
• Finished knitting Nuss. Also awesome. Hair and Nuss together below.
  
• Watching my kid turn into much more of a little person all the time. She is beyond the halfway point of age 3 and doing a lot of good things, not the least of which is sleeping an average of 12 hours a night. Also being more difficult than ever with her thrashing and refusal to do normal things like pee or get dressed, and the level of public bad behavior has definitely gone up (she’s 3.666!). My mom always brags about how I was reading by this age, which maybe might have some shred of truth if Maeve is like I was. I know she recognizes certain words already like “no” or “mom” and lately she digs looking at graphic novels to find terms like “BAM!!!” and “POW!!!” We had a long talk about exclamation points the other day.
• Despite the leaving what was a good life behind, I am getting more excited all the time about going to Dubai. IN ONLY 21 DAYS. I was musing about how it will be awesome to go to the airport to MOVE somewhere instead of just travel there. Sucky with all the luggage and 3-year-old and customs and security checks, but otherwise very very awesome.

This year I think I read about five books total. It’s miserable. I barely find time to get through “selected” articles in each New Yorker anymore. I have been reading the same Paul Theroux book for about two months now, a little here and there at bedtime. It’s really good and the fact that it covers so much of Oceania in little chunks makes it perfect for this kind of reading, which is not helping me. Someone please recommend something that sucks you in, fiction or non.

We finally became Mac people all the way. The iPod touch Rodney won at his holiday xmas party in 2008 was the gateway drug. I love having a computer that, when you push the On button, is just on. None of this waiting for 10,000 processes to run anymore.

Generally for me, 2009 was not that bad of a year. I had a happy life, a good job, a comfortable house, good friends, I ate well, we were thinking about going to Mexico or somewhere next year. It got a little crazy in October, but luckily the solution came about quickly. And what a wild solution it will be. Stay tuned and have a wonderful 2010 yourselves!

Well, it’s been a while. I think most readers here are also following Flickr, Twitter, Facebook or some other source of info about me, but if not, the big news is that we’re moving to Dubai. Yes that Dubai, the Vegas of the Middle East. We leave toward the end of January. It’s sad and exciting and crazy all in one!

There is another family blog in the works that will focus primarily on that adventure, so this one will for the most part be relegated to craft news. Maybe some of my old readers will come back if I return to some sort of consisten subject matter here! Anybody remember the glory days of Secret Pal swaps? I hosted #2 way back in 2004. Were you there?

I’m bringing some yarn with me. I’ll be working full-time, maybe with a commute, so I expect to have a little knitting time each day. Instead of big warm sweaters for Midwest livin’ I am taking things in a lace shawl/scarf kind of direction–lighter things to cover the shoulders in air conditioning–and probably some cotton kid stuff for you know who. I hear it isn’t easy to buy nice yarns there, so I have stockpiled a little fingering-weight hand-dyed.

At the moment, I’m near done with my Nuss cardigan, but as I suspected halfway through it, I am going to run out of yarn. The extra ball has been ordered, and I hope to finish that project before I go.

I also made a pair of Give a Hoot owl mittens for a friend. I just love how they turned out. The pattern is easy and fast–I had these done in two nights I think.