Emily M. DeArdo's Blog, page 8

Happy First Birthday, Miss Madeleine!

I can’t believe we’ve gone from this…

To this…

Her smash cake is a Hedwig cake!

What an incredible year it’s been!

Dad and I went out to Denver to celebrate Maddie’s first birthday (Mom has a broken leg, so she didn't make the trip—thank goodness for FaceTime!). She had a Harry Potter themed party—my sister went all out and did a fabulous job creating a magical day for Madeleine!

The party table with the house scarves I made for Maddie’s sorting!

Maddie was sorted into Slytherin—though some people were calling for a re-do, saying that she was a Ravenclaw because she sat on that scarf—and greatly enjoyed eating her chocolate Hedwig cake.

And she very much enjoyed her presents (Aunt Sarah got her the Harry Potter PJs!)

Tunnel also from Aunt Sarah, Uncle Bryan, and Hailey!

Yes, there was Baby Lit.

Happy birthday, Miss Madeleine! We’re so glad you were born!

Blogmas '22 Day 12: Spiritual Testaments

I cut out this photo from a newspaper and kept it at my desk at work—there’s something about it that I just loved.

In reading about Benedict XVI’s death last week, I found this story about the Pope Emeritus’ “spiritual testament”—so I thought for the last day of blogmas, I’d share if with you. You can read it here.

And in honor of him, we’ll wrap up Blogmas ‘22 with a German carol, “Josef Lieber, Josef Mein”

Blogmas '22 Day 11: Welcome, Miss Hailey

Hailey Rose DeArdo December 15, 2022 at 3:24 A M6 lbs, 2 oz, 20” long

Hailey was the best Christmas gift this year! She obviously could not wait to get out and spend Christmas with us, so instead of being a New Year’s baby, she’s a Christmas baby.

She is so sweet, and really, is there anything sweeter than a newborn at Christmas? I don’t think so, especially when I get to spend Christmas Eve with a snuggled up baby on my chest.

Because she was a little early and there’s so much respiratory crap going around this year, the pediatrician asked us to wear masks if we’re holding her, hence my face gear. :) But it’s me!

Music: This is one of my FAVORITES—”The Seven Rejoices of Mary”, sung by Loreena McKennit.

Blogmas '22 Day 10: Word of the Year

When I was brainstorming my 2023 goals, one of the things that kept coming up was I do all the things I want to do—but I’m not consistent in doing them.

So my word of the year was pretttyyyyy evident. It’s consistency!

Let’s take goal three, for example—Creating a deeper relationship with God through regular prayer and confession.

I already have a regular prayer life. I already go to confession semi-regularly. But I want to do these things consistently. I want to say morning and evening prayer and my rosary every day—and that doesn’t happen. I want to make sure I’m going to confession once a month, etc. (The goal is every two weeks, eventually. Not right now!)

Consistency in fitness, in decluttering, in saving money, and in prayer is what I’m going for this year. Once I achieve consistency—and it’s easy to achieve, it’s almost automatic—then I can think about expanding what I’m doing to continue to reach higher goals. For example, the ultimate goal with working out is to be hitting the treadmill 5 days a week for thirty minutes. THat’s the ultimate, final goal, the “I’m running a marathon” goal. By consistency, I can work up to that goal and achieve it.

Here’s to being consistent in 2023!

Music: “The Echo Carol” (How Great Our Joy), Sung by the Benedictine Nuns of Ephesus in Gower, MO.

Blogmas '22 Day 9: New Year's Goals

If it’s a new year, then it’s time for resolutions and new goals.

My goals this year really aren’t new, so to speak—they’re continuations of what I’ve been working on for the past few years, but with an adjusted focus. Does that make sense?

For example, I’ve always wanted to have a comfortable, cozy, organized home—but I wasn’t sure what that really looked like, in terms of appearance, decor, etc. Over the last year I learned what I like and what I don’t, what works and what doesn’t, and now I can apply that to focusing on this year’s house goal, which is to have a home full of things I love, and organized in a way that works for me and how I live.

An example of this is this lamp I got last year from Target.

I’d needed a new lamp in this space for years, but I couldn’t find one I liked—until I found this one. And finding that lamp solidified the “look” I’m going for in my house, which is English Cottage (think The Holiday or Country Living UK) meets a beach house.

With all that digression out of the way, here are my goals for 2023!

Goal #1: Grow emergency fund

Goal #2: Continue peloton work to become stronger and more fit—continue to have good lab results.

Goal #3: Deepen my relationship with God with regular prayer and confession. (I do do regular prayer but it’s not consistent. More on this tomorrow!)

Goal #4: To create home by decluttering and keeping what I love.

I’m not giving a ton of detail here—I’ll do that in future posts. But these are the four main goals for 2023 and I feel good about them!

Do you make new year’s resolutions or set new goals

Today’s music: Ave Maria isn’t specifically a Christmas song, but it appears on a lot of holiday albums, so here’s a good version!

Blogmas '22 Day 8: Happy New Year!

Dear brothers and sisters, it is only by pondering in the heart, in other words, by piecing together and finding unity in all we experience, that, following Mary, we can penetrate the mystery of a God who was made man out of love and who calls us to follow him on the path of love; a love to be expressed daily by generous service to the brethren. May the new year which we are confidently beginning today be a time in which to advance in that knowledge of the heart, which is the wisdom of saints. Let us pray, as we heard in the First Reading, that the Lord may “make his face to shine” upon us, “and be gracious” to us (cf. Nm 6: 24-7) and bless us. We may be certain of it: if we never tire of seeking his Face, if we never give in to the temptation of discouragement and doubt, if also among the many difficulties we encounter we always remain anchored to him, we will experience the power of his love and his mercy. May the fragile Child who today the Virgin shows to the world make us peacemakers, witnesses of him, the Prince of Peace. Amen!

—Pope Benedict XVI (1927-2022)

In today’s carol we have some trivia! Did you know this hymn was written by a Dominican blessed? It was—Bl. Henry Suso!

Blogmas '22 Day 7: Christmas Knits

There were three things knit for gifts this year and now I can talk about them since they don’t have to be surprises anymore!

One of them I think I’d already shared—Hailey’s baby blanket.

Wrapped up in it :)

This is an adaptation of the Sully blanket pattern I’ve used for all the baby blankets I make, but every time I keep adapting is! This time I added a border of garter stitch all the way around—I start with four rows of garter stitch and then end with four rows of garter stitch, in addition to the four garter stitches at the end of each row. I don’t like to block blankets so I think that this makes the blanket “lie” a little bit better.

I used Rowan’s cashsoft merino in three colors: snowflake, vintage pink, and rosy.

Project Number 2: A winter scarf!

This was actually planned as a Christmas gift—I made my dad a scarf in easy mistake rib, using a nice navy blue yarn—and he got it before Christmas due to the insanely cold temperatures we had here! I’m glad I’d thought to make it!

(I don’t have any pictures, sorry, bad blogger me!)

Project Number 3: A Cowl for my Sister-in-law

This was sort of a random project. I had some of Quince and Co’s limited edition yarn based on a Taylor Swift song—Lavender Haze. I bought a few skeins thinking it would make some good cowls.

Once Hailey was born, I felt like I needed to make another Christmas gift for Sarah (my SIL) since one of her gifts was Hailey’s baby blanket—but since Hailey was here, it was hers now! Knowing that she loves sparkle, I thought I’d pair Lavender Haze with a sparkly Knit Collage yarn to make a really quick cowl that will keep her warm on walks with Hailey this winter!

The colors here aren’t really representative—it’s much more pink in person, not orange!

The pattern is Knit Collage’s Yarnicorn Cowl knit with Quince and Co Puffin and Knit Collage’s Star Spun in Lunar Landing. You need one skein of each and it seriously takes about two hours to knit up! Knit Collage’s yarns create really fun, unique knits. I’m going to make another one of these for my sister, except using the Knit Collage Kona Sky color way with the Lavender Haze.

Did you knit/crochet/craft any Christmas gifts? Tell me about them!

Blogmas '22 Day 6: Maddie's First Christmas

It actually ended up being a first Christmas for both my nieces—Hailey, as I wrote in an earlier post, wasn’t supposed to celebrate hers until next year! But she decided she couldn’t wait and had to have it now.

She spent her first Christmas Eve snoozing on my chest, which I have to say is a great way to spend Christmas on my end.

But for Miss Maddie, who is almost a year old, her first Christmas was very exciting!

She loved her Advent calendar—the little figures with their velcro backs were very intriguing to her (and sometimes they got stuck on her clothes!). She loved playing with them and placing them on the nativity scene.

She also had a couple of trees—one in her room:

And one that she could play with:

It had a train and ornaments too!

Her Advent/Christmas corner!

Madeleine did go to see Santa! She wasn’t scared of him, I don’t think, more…intrigued.

And YES, Santa commented on her missing boot! :) Maddie is still fighting against shoes and socks.

And they went to see the lights at the zoo!

For her first Christmas she got….a tricycle! That’s foot powered! I have never seen one of these and I think it’s adorable.

My sister made some great meals, which of course Madeleine enjoyed.

She wants food, lots of food!

And her birthday is at the beginning of January, so it’s going to be party-palooza for Maddie over the next week or so. In my opinion she had a highly excellent first Christmas!

Blogmas '22 Day 5: How to Pack Your Meds When You Fly!

From my trip to Houston this summer

I’ve been reading the coverage of the Southwest Fiasco, and what’s really scared me more than anything else is the comments from many people about PUTTING MEDICATION IN CHECKED BAGGAGE.

via GIPHY

PEOPLE.

Never, ever, ever put your medications and medical devices in your checked baggage! EVER!

I always put my meds in my carry-on, which is an LL Bean backpack. Always. They are in a large zip-up pouch. I also take extra medicine, just for purposes like this fiasco, where you’re stuck somewhere—the last thing I want to worry about is my medication and my health. So I also pack the entire bottle of medication, in the pharmacy bottle, so if I have to take it somewhere to get refilled, I can do that and it will have all the information a new pharmacy would need to fill it.

(Some people say, “well, just have your doctor call it in to the new pharmacy!” Over the holidays, it might be hard to get your doctor’s office on the phone!)

My insulin, insulin supplies, blood glucose kit, and my cochlear implant batteries and charger also go in my carry-on, always.

Does this take up space in my bag? Yes. Does it mean I can’t fly with just carry-ons? Also yes. I must check a bag.

But it’s much easier to check a bag than it is to lose medications, get them replaced, and, oh, worry about my body going into meltdown while I’m stuck somewhere!

I didn’t fly a lot pre-transplant, mostly because it was hard to do with my CF related machinery (aerosol machine, nebulizer, etc.) , but I have a travel size aerosol machine that I used when I did fly or travel, and it could fit in a backpack and wasn’t terribly heavy. I could also fit the supplies in my bag. So if I had to carry those around now, I could do it (They have much smaller ones now than they did in the year 1999!)

Folks. I beg you. Never, ever, EVER put your medications and medical supplies in your checked bags. Never in life. Do not do it. Pay to check the bag. NEVER EVER put your medicines in a place where you can’t get them.

Blogmas '22 Day 4: Books of Christmas!

There must always be a Christmas book post! :) There are a few more coming from Amazon that I bought with gift cards I received. So this is really like Christmas books part one.

Go-To Dinners, Ina Garten*: I love Ina’s cookbooks—I have all of them—and when she has a new one, it’s a guaranteed item on my Christmas list. I’ve already gone through and marked up the recipes I want to try, and there are a lot of them.

Welcome to Our Table: This cookbook is by the Penguins’ (my favorite hockey team) wives and girlfriends, and the sales support the Penguins’ Charitable Foundation. It is pretty cool to see recipes from Anna Malkin in here. If you’re a hockey fan, this is a great book—with lots of good recipes even if you’re not!

Queens of the Age of Chivalry,* Alison Weir: Why yes, I am a British History Nut. This book is the third in Weir’s series of books on the queens of England up to the Tudors, starting with William the Conqueror’s wife, Matilda of Flanders. There will be four books in the series (here are the other two: Queens of the Conquest and Queens of the Crusades). Weir has written full biographies of some of these ladies, so if you want even more detail, you can get it!

Antoinette’s Sister*, Diana Giovinazzo: I’m a sucker for anything about Marie Antoinette—she was really the first historical figure I “got into”, as it were, so this novel is pretty perfect for me. It’s told from her sister Charlotte’s viewpoint, which should make it even more interesting. I will report back.

The Lays of Beleriand*, JRR Tolkien: This is the third volume in the “History of Middle Earth” series. I’ve been working my way through this, very out of order—I’ve read the four that deal explicitly with Lord of the Rings, but then I went back and started at the beginning, with The Book of Lost Tales Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. If you’re really into Tolkien, these are good reads. If you’re not, then you’ll be bored stiff!

(asterisk—Amazon affilate link)