We were digging through some boxes of memorabilia recently, looking for my high-school diploma (so I could mail a copy to our county school superintendent and prove that I’m qualified to homeschool my daughter). I had not looked through most of that stuff since I put it away in the boxes, probably seven or eight years ago. Do you ever do that, bring the boxes up from the basement or down from the closet shelf and go through them, just to see what you deemed worthy of storing carefully away? It’s a trip, man.

Among other things, I had stored a piano jewelry/music box that my grandparents gave me when I was about Annalie’s age and an old toy that belonged to me and my brother when we were little, a wind-up “radio” that plays Hickory-Dickory Dock. I pulled them out and gave them to Annalie to play with, and she carried them both around all day. At one point she took a snack and lemonade with her out to the deck and sat out there chilling to her tunes for about 20 minutes. I couldn’t help but laugh, because it was for that very reason that I kept all these things: so someday I could share them to my kids.

Some of the other stuff I had packed neatly away were the photo of my graduating class from Omaha North High; Minnie Mouse ears from Disneyland with my name embroidered on the back; old trophies from bowling leagues, summer music olympics, and spelling bees; an old blankie, soft with age; 45s that I used to play on my Fisher-Price record player—Neil Diamond, the theme from Greatest American Hero, and of course Billy Bob and the Rockafire Explosion (Showbiz Pizza’s animatronic band); the tooth fairy pillow my mom made for me when I started losing teeth; and an unopened bottle of Crystal Pepsi.

Yeah, I said Crystal Pepsi. Anyone remember that? Some of you reading were probably barely in kindergarten when it was around in the early 90s. I rather liked the stuff; as I recall it tasted vaguely cinnamon-y. I don’t know exactly why I saved a bottle of it. Maybe when they stopped making it I just thought it would be cool to keep one for posterity.

Probably the best thing I came across, though, was a stash of old notes from my friend Erin. This note starts out, “Dearest Bethany, I love this pen. This pen belongs to Eboni X. Carter. This pen is awesome as is Eboni…” That’s pretty typical of the notes Erin used to (and still does!) write me. I had fun reading all these old notes and cracking up at how goofy we were in high school, and how little we’ve changed since then.

All the pins in that photo used to live on my bedroom curtains, along with a dozen more that I didn’t deem worthy of keeping. The Russian pins at the top left and the bottom middle are from Russian students who did an exchange with our high school every year. My high school’s sister school was in Pskov, Russia, and students from our school would go to Pskov for a month and attend school with host students, and then later the Russian students would come to Omaha and attend our school. Too bad I didn’t start taking Russian till I was a junior, because only 3rd- and 4th-year students (like Katrina) got to do the exchange program. The Little Mermaid pin was a gift from Erin on my 16th birthday, because I was very into The Little Mermaid back then. The other pins are from old jobs (Children’s Museum and Library Page), my high school (V-Up, North Vikings!) and the Omaha zoo. The stripey rock is just a pretty rock I found by the Missouri River in Dodge Park one day. I gave that to Annalie, too, for her rock collection.

We never did find my high-school diploma. I guess I’ll have to call my high school and see if they can send me a copy. But I don’t really care, because we had fun looking for it!

Once upon a time, way back in March, the lovely Claire asked me if I would be willing to face a crocheting challenge for her. She wanted seven crocheted balls, in varying shades of red; and one ball crocheted out of jute twine, representing the city of Dundee, Scotland, where she lived. (Dundee is famous for, among other things, its jute mills.) I assured her that I loved a challenge! I could do it!

Yeah, did you notice the part where she asked me in March, the month during which we were moving into a new house and hosting a variety of houseguests at the same time? That was also the month during which I unknowingly became pregnant and started requiring 14 hours of sleep per day and not wanting to drink coffee. I was also working on a million other crochet projects at the same time. I got the red balls done by mid-April, and then…just…came to a stand-still. I looked around locally for the jute, but couldn’t find what I needed. I ended up having to order it online, then went out of town, blah dee blah, etc. FINALLY I finished all seven of the red balls and the jute ball. I emailed Claire to tell her it was done! I had completed her order!

Naturally, Claire (who was extremely gracious about my slowness throughout the spring and summer) and her husband were about to move away from Dundee. She assured me that the balls would be a lovely memento of their time there, and that she still wanted them. That was when I realized I’d forgotten that one of the red balls was supposed to be striped in the six other shades of red.

Sigh.

I scrounged around through my yarn bins and found most of the red yarns I’d used originally, and made an eighth ball, red and stripey. And now, finally, five months later, THE ORDER IS COMPLETE.

Claire, the red and jute crocheted balls are in my Etsy shop, waiting for you! I have no idea why this order took me so long, other than the obvious reasons of (1) moving cross-country, (2) being pregnant, and (3) not finding jute locally. Those things should have made this order take two months, maybe, but not five. Thank you again for your kindness and understanding.

(I saw we take my banner’s advice and just blame it on the baby. She won’t mind.)

I painted this mug way back in April, when I was in Omaha and I went painting with Katrina and Kassie. This mug is notable because it’s the first time I tried painting in script rather than printing. It turned out better than I thought it would. The quote is from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. It’s one of my favorite lines from a good play that was made into one of my favorite movies. That line has always struck me as a sweet and hilarious sentiment at the same time. I found myself thinking, Someone should put that on a mug! So I did. And then I put that mug in my Etsy shop.

I was trying to branch out from my typical brightly-colored dottery when I chose these colors. It turned out to be one of my favorite things I’ve ever painted. I love this color combination, so cheerful and summery with the sky blue and lilac and violet and apple green! And a little bit of gray for summer storm clouds. Perfect. It’s in my shop too, if you like it.

This is the red-white-and-blue plate I painted as an example when I taught that dottery class in June. I used a speckled paint for the white dots, so it has tiny bits of blue, red, and yellow paint in it that help the white dots stand out a bit more. I also used a larger paintbrush than I normally do, so it looks a bit different from most of my dotty plates. I really like it! If you like it and want one, I can paint another one for you—just ask.

A couple of months ago, I painted this green dotty mini bowl for no one in particular. (I don’t think I ever blogged this…it’s been a while since I’ve blogged any pottery-painting.) Brenda saw it on Flickr and asked if I could set it aside for her to buy. Instead, I set it aside to give to her for her birthday. Then I forgot to put it in her birthday care package. So now it’s going to be her thank-you-for-letting-us-come-visit-you-in-California gift.

Sonja saw the first green dotty mini bowl on Flickr too, but Brenda had already claimed it. She proclaimed her love for it, and asked if I could paint her another one. Alas, this is not exactly the first bowl’s twin; it’s slightly larger and has a couple of different shades of green in it, since I painted this one at a different studio. But I think it’s just as adorable in its own way. So this bowl is going to be Sonja’s thank-you-for-letting-us-come-visit-you-in-California gift.

Last Christmas, Melissa saw the star ornament that I painted (the one that now lives in Bex’s cubicle at work year-round), and said if I ever came across another star ornament, she’d love it if I’d paint her one. Unfortunately my pottery studio in San Diego had already run out of stars, and I’d never run across any more. Then when I painted with Anna at the beach, they had star magnets. I threw caution to the wind and painted one for Mel in bright colors, adding the word ‘hope’ just because it seemed like the right word to use. Mel might have thought she was going to buy this magnet from me, but I decided I just wanted to send it to her as a gift. Because isn’t hope always a gift, really? Mel, it’s already on its way to you!

Here’s the dotty ‘be happy’ mug I painted in Omaha last month, thinking of citrus fruits when I chose the colors. Not sure what I’ll do with it. Anyone out there want it? Let me know, I’ll throw it in my Etsy shop for you. (Gently! I will gently throw it since, as Sonja pointed out to me, it’s breakable.)

Finally, here’s something I’m really proud of. I’m kind of throwing caution to the wind posting it now, because a blog reader asked me to paint this as a birthday gift for her mom. She assured me her mom doesn’t read my blog, so it’s most likely okay to post photos here, but I’m not going to mention who commissioned it just in case.

I wasn’t sure how this one would turn out, because I rarely paint with the “right” end of the paintbrush. In my head, the dotty center looked good, and the shades of orange and golden yellow I chose for the sunflower’s petals were just right, and the true blue color I chose for the outside of the bowl and the dotty pattern inside complemented the colors of the sunflower perfectly…in my head. But once it was painted and I was waiting for it to be fired I got nervous. What if I was wrong about the colors? What if the petals were totally brushy and amateurish? What if I was too freeform on the blue dotty pattern and it looked like crap!?

But when I saw the fired bowl, I breathed a sigh of relief because I loved it. I hope my reader’s mom loves it too! And I hope I remember this lesson and branch out of my painting comfort zone a little more often because sometimes the end results are worth the nail-biting.

Our family and friends mostly know about this already, but I want to tell the rest of you and get this out of the way. I know, I’m weird, but I don’t like telling people big news like this. I don’t like being the center of attention. I get hot and uncomfortable and people are just happy for me and want to share in my excitement and joy and all I can think about is slinking away to a corner where I can blend into the furniture.

So…yep. I’m pregnant. I’m about 16 weeks along now. I feel good, no morning sickness or major food aversions, just the need to sleep 14 hours a day, and apparently to spend several of my waking hours crocheting—perhaps my recent burst of creativity has been hormone-fueled?

We don’t know yet if it’s a boy or girl. Yes, we plan to find out at our next ultrasound. No, we have not thought about names yet.

We’re happy, of course, except for Annalie. “Happy” is too mild a word to describe her utter joy and excitement that she’s finally going to be a big sister. She’s been waiting years for this.