cozy

Today is such a cozy, crafty day. The kind of day for which I am grateful to be staying at home with Owen. He is napping, and I am debating which pleasurable crafting activity to partake in.

Options:
1. My new knitted headwarmer (http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter06/PATTcalorimetry.html). I have the perfect yarn for it, and so far it seems to be going well... except that it seems inordinately long. I am hoping that it will work out, because I did not (as usual) knit a gauge swatch. We'll see. I am either knitting it for myself or Virginia. The yarn I have is perfect for this pattern, but I am not sure that it will look good on me. On the other hand, it is probably way too dorky to wear in a trendy urban environment, such as Connecticut, New York or London. (But I think the colors will suit her...)

2. The lottery block for the March guild meeting. I have chosen the "Crossing Ohio" pattern, in orange and blue, because of course I have excellent school spirit. Plus, in Gainesville, either you can use an orange and blue quilt or you know someone who would love one. I don't see how you can't win with this one!

3. Valentines. I picked up Owen's pictures yesterday, which means it is time, yet again, to cut and label an ungodly number of photos for distribution. I think this is the last time I am going to order so many, now that I know I can email the proofs out to everybody.

Or I could unload the dishwasher, but that seems less exciting. It has stopped raining, but is still really overcast. And I an totally exhausted. I drank some "pick-me-up" cocoa this morning, rumored to have as much caffeine as a cup of coffee, but obviously not a cup of coffee as I make it.

EFFF. Junie just barked and woke up the baby. GRRRRRRRRRRRR. No crafty time now. Oops.

the 60,000 calorie weekend

Kim left this morning after a fantastic 2 GF (+ 2 boys) SS weekend. It was fantastic. (Did I mention that it was fantastic?) Except I am now feeling slight regret over the INSANE amount of calories consumed, 1/2 of which were from dinner at my mother's house last night (filet, lobster, plugras, italian wedding cake and a yard of reisling). I think another 1/4 of those calories were from alcohol. Very bad. Very very bad. But completely worth it. I think I am going to make a rule that calories consumed with long-distance girlfriends do not count. Yum... I keep getting flashbacks- asti, sea turtle white chocolate ice cream, 2nd street bakery brioche french toast (which practically caused me to orgasm in front of the waiter-oh my god. it was so very very good), pigs in a blanket, salmon pesto, stuffed tomatoes.


I will walk in the mall tomorrow.

Plus, I learned how to spray paint. We painted my dressing table-cabinet-thingy aqua. I think Craig lost 2 years off his life because we didn't ask his advice or do it in a planned, perfectionist way. We just did it. It feels so liberating. I want to antique it a little- maybe put a white glaze on it? I feel ready to take on anything. Pictures to follow, once I get it closer to finished.

whoo hoo!!!

My apologies. I have officially become Magda, the smug married from Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason.

If you are male, or considering having children, I do not recommend you keep reading. But if you are already a mom, go for it!

I had my annual with Jane today. I decided that I should just do it around my birthday, because then I will remember to renew my car registration at the same time. (Even though Craig does that for me, after he drove to Miami lastyear in a car with a tag that was two years expired. Oops.)

Anyway, good news and bad news:
-I am offically back down to my pre-pregnancy weight. I thought I was, but it's nice to have it on the medical chart.
- I only actually gained 32 pounds while I was pregnant. (I eventually got to the point where I just closed my eyes whenever I got on the scale).
- Jane says that not only can I choose to be induced again next time, but that she recommends it at 39 weeks. Yay! I will not be pregnant forever again! Nor will I have to deal with boring pre-labor. I could be in and out in under 3 hours. SWEET.
- (Okay, I am totally going to brag here): Jane told me that she talks about me all the time, because I dealt with labor so unusually well. I feel so smugly proud. I was obviously meant to have four children.
-She told me I can stay on Implanon forever if I want to. Awesome. I could never have my period again.... well mostly.

bad news:
- her Ph.D. is done in a year, so I think she will move onto teaching and not delivering babies anymore. I am considering getting pregnant again right away, and I'm not sure how I'm going to pull it off. How am I going to have a baby without her?????????
- I have to go to physical therapy. Ewww.
-I have cabbage stuffed in my (three) sports bra(s). I have tried everything else, and this is the only thing that is working to stop producing milk. It is the first time I have been remotely comfortable in 5 days. If only I didn't smell so...cabbagey.

coffee press lamentations

Today I am feeling defeated. This is probably the result of not drinking coffee until 10:45, but there you go. Laundry is covering my kitchen table, and let's face it, some of my living room furninture as well. I do not have a lime for the recipe that I was planning on making for dinner tonight. Owen has been incredibly fussy, and then had one of the most copious poopy diapers I have ever seen. After all this hard work, he happily went to bed, allowing me to make my coffee and moan electronically to the world.

Craig got up with Owen at 6:15, ran the dishwasher (even though I ran it last night... oops. I think I left the door unlatched, thus ruining our method of non-verbal-dishwasher-status communication), fed Owen breakfast, and I swear I heard the vacuum running. Where does he get the energy? Am I sure that I want four boys? Maybe I should get a better coffee maker than my french press.

Pros to the french press:
+ is tiny
+ does not take up counter space
+does not (directly) use electricity, but the electric tea kettle that I use to put hot water in the french press does.... this is a draw
+ makes me feel slightly urban and chic

Cons
- we both hate washing it (damn coffee grounds)
-it seems to require additional steps to coffee, which I can not perform unless I have already consumed said coffee
- we both REALLY hate washing it
- Since I am the only one who drinks coffee, I don't make enough to really compact the coffee grounds, which makes them difficult to throw away, so I just dump them down the drain and hope it won't clog our plumbing system. Fat chance
- It is rarely clean first thing in the morning
-have I mentioned that we really hate washing it?

I am a totally boring person.

correlation and causation

I was rereading some of my previous posts, not because I am entirely self-absorbed and find myself fascinating, but mainly because I am always amazed that I managed to post at all. I was mystified to see how much I talk about cleaning and reorganizing the house. Completely baffled. I can only conclude that:

a) I really do spend more of my time cleaning than I am aware of

or

b) I get really bored when I'm cleaning and take a very importnat break to update my blog.

It has to be the latter. If it isn't, my house should look a hell of a lot better than it currently does. I finally understand the psych 101 theory about causation and correlation not equating each other. Aha.

gerbil on crack

Okay- I admit that I am feeling a bit frenzied. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am switching Owen over to formula, so I can now consume unlimited quantities of caffeine. The problem is, after over a year and a half of not consuming caffeine except in very small quantities, my tolerance is low. Instead of being really drunk after one beer (also happening, but mostly at night), I get supercharged after a medium to largish cup of coffee. This has led to "cleaning: frenzies, which do not involve actual cleaning, but rather frantic rearranging, leading to a differently (note that I do not say "better" or "more efficiently") configured home environment. Actually, what this means is that while I am putting things away, I can not remember where I put them. So far, I have lost my ipod charging-docking cord thing. Happily, I have since found it with the trivets. Obviously.

I also stored the Christmas decorations in the hall closet, on a shelf that was amazingly underutilized. Apparently, because the shelf can not hold anything heavier than batting. This is incidentally very lucky for me, because I have an excess of batting in the quilting room with no place to live. Craig seems to think that I can replace the batting in my quilting room with Christmas decorations. Silly silly man. I may also place board games on that shelf (unless they are too heavy), thus removing them from their NEW home, on an open shelf under the television in the living room. Right at Owen's level. These were placed there by Craig while I was at book club. They do make the new TV shelf look very magazine worthy, but seriously. How much of a chocking hazard are board game pieces? Craig thinks Owen will not try to access them. I think Craig is from another planet.

I am looking forward to staying home tonight and setting up the cube-ee thing we bought at Target for our kitchen. (Ha! I write that as if we might actually usually "go out" and do something fun. What I meant by "stay in" is "not run errands".) I feel that it will help get the kitchen organized (ha) and baby-proofed (ha ha). At least we will be utilizing something we bought, which will also make Craig happy.

today

Dishes are piled up, waiting to be loaded into the not-yet-emptied dishwasher. Lunch fixings are scattered all over the house, both from me prepping actual food for Owen (vs. easy-lazy-mommy jar food) and then from me subsequently trying to snag questionably nutritious tidbits from the fridge while keeping Owen away from Lucy and Junie simultaneously. But why am I so happy? Because Owen is still sleeping- we are looking at an hour and a half nap, and counting!!!!