I returned to work this week. After months of wearing leggings and drool-covered nursing shirts, it is time to jump back onto video calls and once again cultivate some degree of professional presentation. To help me get in the work mood and to give myself a creative project to sustain an aspect of my pre-mom identity, I sewed something! Note on garment terminology and cultural appropriation The pattern featured in this post (Simplicity S8887) is described by the company as a “kimono jacket,” following the fashion trend of the past few years. But these drapey robe-like jackets are nothing like ..read more

All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you – Gandalf. I have a limited amount of time now to do things beyond explicitly caring for an infant. I always *knew* this going in, but the reality of parenthood still packs a punch. If I thought that it was hard to keep track of the date during the COVID-19 pandemic, the passage of time has truly become inconceivable as my sleep-deprived days, weeks, and months of maternity leave bleed together. From a glass-half-full perspective, parenthood has forced me to adopt habit-changing behaviors like a New Years Resolution on ..read more

When Washington State went into a lockdown and my office started working remotely in early 2020, so many things changed. One of them, which I wouldn’t learn about for a few more weeks, has marked a fundamental shift in my life. I learned I was pregnant during a pandemic and gave birth during a pandemic. The pregnancy was planned, though the global circumstances weren’t. We did consider holding off until the lockdown was eased, but ultimately we were already pregnant by the time we had that conversation. All of my prenatal appointments were socially distant – masks when in the clinic, and every ..read more

It took a pandemic quarantine to finally finish my Ginger Jeans. If you’ve been a reader for a while, you may remember years ago when when I first started these jeans. Some time passed after the above post from 2017 (technically I bought the fabric in 2014!). I attached the waistband to my wearable muslin…and when I tried them on again, it was clear the black twill “jeans” no longer fit. The waistband gaped and with the pants sitting where they should, I could tell that I needed to take in the center back seam a bit. But I managed to psych myself out (and then changed jobs) and it took ..read more

Step. Breath. Step. Breath. Pause…. Step. I had come to hike the Inca Trail up to Machu Picchu. As an archaeologist, I was fulfilling a dream I had since first learning about the ancient city in middle school. Instead of living out a dream, I confronted my reality. The air is thin. (And so is my blood due to anemia, but I didn’t know it at the time). I am not as in shape as I thought I was. 14,000 feet above sea level is really, really high. Photos show me pale, unable to smile. To add insult to injury, I developed food poisoning and spent the first night on the trail struggling t ..read more

The night is dark and full of restlessness. We’ve survived a week of time shift in the United States, falling back one hour into standard time. The mornings are better. daylight starts to blink on within the 6 o’clock hour. The evenings are brutal. I come home in a darkness that feels like it should be 8pm, do the post-work routine of dinner, dog playtime, and general catch up with the spouse. Then? Then it feels like it should be bedtime based on the daylight (or lack thereof) alone. But no, there are hours which could be used for productivity, cleaning, relaxing, or being creative. B ..read more