catching up and a new start

Another three-month delay in posting, my my! We had a little excitement in November and December, in that we discovered a rather extensive mold problem throughout our apartment. Ick! So we got to spend the first three weeks of Advent in two hotel rooms and out at my mother and her partner's place in a semi-rural village just outside the city. Skipping the long and somewhat depressing parts, we were back home about ten days before Christmas, just enough time to reassemble our living space from the utter mess it had become (dozens of contractors and a fairly significant demolition required the shifting around of most of our furniture) and clean up the fine layer of drywall dust that was covering everything. Despite the trials and tribulations of the season, though, we had a lovely Christmas.



And now it's a new year, the year we'll welcome someone new to our family! We aren't real resolution people, but I think after all the drama of our little mold adventure - and there was plenty of drama related to our landlord and certain amount of unpleasantness including some mild threats - both The Recruiter and I felt the need to do a little leaf-turning and sort of reconnect with our home. So on Epiphany we followed an old European tradition and performed a door-chalking home blessing. I can't tell you how what a blessing it is to me to see those marks of blessing over our door written in our own hand. It's very...soothing, and it's left me feeling very much as though we've reclaimed our home.



We moved in at the end of June, unpacked, and then lost our drive. By the beginning of September I was pregnant and feeling rather wretched, so out walls stayed bare, our artwork unhung, and the whole place just continues to feel rather temporary. So we're nesting. Well, I'm nesting.



I've spent longer than I care to admit stitching up these little birds to hang in our living room. The smaller, multi-coloured birds are made from random fabrics I had in my stash, and the larger red birds are made from a beautiful mohair sweater that was ruined in the laundry has been beautifully felted.

I'm 23 weeks along in this pregnancy and feeling pretty great. I'll post a picture when I've made myself presentable soon! And I knit something! It's awesome and deserves a picture in good light, which we are sadly lacking on this grey day, so it'll have to happen soon, but not today.