What Time Has Wrought

Note: This post was mentally composed and intended for publication several days ago, but the home computer is proving consistently recalcitrant and Michael's laptop distressingly unavailable during the day. We must buy that Mac this month.

Five years ago, at the end of April:

-I had a picture on my wall of the Canadians holding their gold medal from the Winter Olympics
-I was planning a trip to England for the summer
-I was helping several friends plan their weddings
-I looked forward to a full summer of conferences and horseback riding
-Marriage was not even on the distant horizon

Four years ago, at the end of April:

-I was freshly engaged and planning an August wedding
-Baghdad had been taken, the statue had fallen, and the war was going well
-I was getting pretty much no sleep, what with all the IM chats and phone conversations

Three years ago, at the end of April:

-I was settling into life in a new house
-I was looking for a job
-I went to the Blue Willow Inn for my birthday dinner (thanks to Janice for the cookbook!)

Two years ago, at the end of April:

-I was about to deliver my first child
-For the first time in seven years, I didn't wear my silk party dress on my birthday
-I quit my job

One year ago, at the end of April:

-I went to a Blue Angels airshow
-We were contemplating trying out for the summer musical Hello Dolly!
-I planted a garden (which promptly died)

And now:

-I have another precious daughter
-I own more butter than anyone else I know
-I'm going to make brownies, ice cream, and chocolate fudge sauce for dessert tonight

We all scream

Baskin-Robbins is hosting a $0.31/scoop night this Wednesday, May 2nd, from 5 to 10 p.m. Even if we all buy three scoops each (and I think Jane would need a little help with hers, at that rate) it would cost less than $3 total. Okay, so I know a half gallon of ice cream from the store could cost less than that, but you wouldn't get the variety of nine different flavours. Plus it's the experience.

I Was Mistaken

A few days ago I took the following pictures, intending to post them along with the caption ‘A Really Full Freezer’ or something to that effect. I thought I had really and truly maxed out the capacity of our little fridge-top freezer. I knew I was pushing it when I took out the ice cube trays to make room!

Right before our trip I had purchased eight gallons of organic milk for $0.99 each. Ninety-nine cents! I didn’t think I had room but I knew I would regret not snapping up such a bargain, so I bought all eight, pushed things around, made a bunch of yogurt, and somehow made it work.

Then, within the last week, I found bargains on 6 lbs. of strawberries and 10 lbs. of ground beef. Of course we didn’t have any room. But I would never get over it if I didn’t seize the day, so I pushed things around even more and somehow we found the room. I was so impressed that I took the pictures to prove what a totally-full-absolutely-no-room-left freezer looks like. Look ye and marvel:













Then. I was rushing past the butter aisle in Kroger, and happened to spot a sign: 2 lbs./$1. That can’t be right, I thought. But sure enough, REAL butter. One WHOLE pound. For FIFTY CENTS!!! You can’t buy margarine this cheap! I have NEVER seen such a price and I probably never will again. It would be the death of me to pass this one up, so I made several trips and eventually ended up with 102 lbs. of butter. Now, this is what a really, truly, absolutely stuffed-to-the-gills positively-NO-room-left freezer looks like:

Worthless movie log

On the flight to DR they showed us The Holiday. Owing to regulations on oxygen masks, there was a limit as to how many lap infants (non-ticket-holding passengers) could sit in one row, so Michael - with Jane on his lap - had to sit behind me the entire flight. This made for a complicated carry-on situation, what with passing snacks and diapers back and forth over the seats, but the real nuisance was that I couldn't nudge him and make sarcastic comments as the movie progressed.

When they first handed out the headphones, he declined a set. 'You'd better watch this movie!' I told him. 'If I'm going to watch this miserable, rotten, wretched flick, then I'd jolly well better have someone to talk it over with afterwards. But he resisted. So I am going to have to blog about it.

Well, you know the premise is that a rich LA movie producer and a British typesetter, both trying to get over broken hearts, swap houses for the Christmas holiday. The problem is that nothing in this movie is believable. There are so many cheesy sub-plots but you don't even care if they get wrapped up. One character is apparently unable to cry, and then realises she has just left the love of her life when she starts crying after bidding good-bye to him. Yeah right. One character is engaged to another character and then flies across country to persuade an old girlfriend to - what? He's still engaged, she knows he's engaged, and what sort of future does he envision for them? Another character, whom you just know is destined for someone, is inconveniently already with someone else, but because he's so patently a good guy who would never dump anyone, the movie conveniently has her go off and cheat with someone else so we can drop her from the storyline sans guilt or regret.

One of the most telling lines from the whole movie occurs early on, when a main character is breaking up with her live-in boyfriend because she suspects him of cheating. As she empties his drawers, occasionally pausing to hurl objects at him, she says something along the lines of, 'You know, this is exactly why I didn't want us to get married! I knew something like this would happen!' Oh. And so why did you let him move in with you in the first place, under such auspices? This is someone you will fall in love with, live with, etc., but not someone you will actually trust?

That's pretty much all there is to this movie. It's not about love, honour, decency, commitment, trust. It's all about self-gratification, personal happiness and self-discovery, the whim of the moment, and a fair dose of good luck. Just another shallow, forgettable piece of tripe. And now that I've sufficiently vented about it, I can forget it too.

Miss Potter (on the return flight) promised much better. I loved the styles and fashions, both of clothing and interior decorating, and I wish that I'd figured out the glitch in my earpiece a whole lot sooner so I could have listened more intently. At first, from the bits and snatches I was able to pick out, I was afraid it was going to be another tiresome feminist piece on the universal oppression of women in all circumstance prior to 1970s America, with the repeated harping by her parents on the importance of getting herself married suitably off. And the classic heroine rejoinder of self-assertion: 'I'm a published author. I have ample means, and I shall do as I please.' (clapclapclap.)

However, there came shortly after this speech of defiance a charming chat with her father and mother, in which the father says something to the effect that 'Whatever you may think, we have only your welfare at heart. We do not wish you to rush into an improper and ill-considered match. Let me therefore propose a compromise. Keep your engagement secret for now, and at the end of the summer, if you still wish to marry him, we will give you our blessing. If you truly love him, one summer will not cool your ardour. If, however, your mind has changed, we will give that our blessing as well, and there will be no scandal.' What a clever, wise, gracious path to take! I wanted to cheer. My earpiece gave out around here, though, so I have no idea how this story ended. She got on a train and went somewhere. Anyway, it's a fine movie.

Sometimes it pays to be behind the times

The advantage of waiting almost a full year to watch Pirates II is that you have only a couple of months more to wait for the finale.

Random political thoughts

-I find it hard to get enraged at Alec Baldwin over the angry message he left for his daughter, and think all the media attention the situation is getting is very annoying. Sure, it was a nasty message and involved a few nasty words, but we all know that these Hollywood types are pretty lacking in self-control in real life, anyway. Was anyone surprised when Russell Crowe threw that phone? It doesn't matter how nice/decent/genuine the characters they play on screen may be; these people are actors. They smoke and drink and sleep around and have bad marriages and poor parenting skills. (This is a sweeping generalisation, but it's true more often than not.) Aside from not leaving the country like he promised he would do, Mr. Baldwin hasn't really done anything that out of character.

-I still don't get the hoopla over Don Imus' firing. I never listened to him or liked him before, so it's no skin off my nose, but according to several articles, he's made nasty remarks and sarcastic, cutting comments about other people before. In fact, that's pretty much his shtick. Why this particular comment crossed the line is as puzzling to me as I'm sure it was to him. I'm not condoning his remarks, by the way, simply pointing out that it's rather hypocritical of whoever was listening to him before (I mean, for him to be on the air, there must have been a substantial market for whatever he was peddling) to decide that this kind of nastiness is suddenly not acceptable anymore. Kind of like if Howard Stern suddenly got canned for public indecency: one would have to wonder just which straw it was that broke the camel's back. And why no one warned him that they were suddenly changing the rules.

-I'm sure this VA Tech shooting is going to bring on another tiresome round of gun-control legislation, possibly banning whatever type of weapon it was that the shooter used, possibly banning a whole range of weapons. What such reactionary proceedings fail to take into account is that there were already laws against what this guy did, on several levels: there are obviously laws against murdering people, and there are already laws against having handguns on school property. Why do they think that another layer of legislation is going to stop someone from doing something wrong? If someone wasn't intimidated enough by the law against carrying a gun onto school property, is he suddenly going to be quelled by another, higher law stating that he must not carry even this type of gun onto school property?

-While I'm pleased at the decision of the Supreme Court to uphold the ban on partial-birth abortion (and frothing with rage at the spin the major media are putting on it: ''"so-called" partial-birth abortion'; oh, yeah, what else would you call it when a baby is partially birthed and then aborted?), it's a bit hard to muster the spirit for even a minor Hurrah when you consider the reasoning which allowed this decision to slip by: they got away with finding the ban constitutional - sans a health-of-the-mother clause - only because they pointed out that there are alternatives which do have that clause. It's a bit sad that the decision had to include the reasoning that, if all else failed, at least the fetus could still be dismembered in utero.

Words/phrases I love to say

But of course!
Yes, but still.
I think not. (Poof!)
Aha. So [delighted, perplexed] was I that I said it again, only backwards: Aha!
Ah.
Alas and alack.
We are not amused.

One of the Deadlies

It’s been my ponderation, on and off, whether we - as fallen sinners - are all susceptible to the same degree of accountability when it comes to the seven deadly sins. Obviously we are all subject to varying degrees of temptations, depending on what our weak spots are, but are we all equally culpable when it comes to any given action involving any given sin?

The case in point is gluttony. Now, this is not something I feel as if I’ve struggled with at all in my life, because I really don’t think I have any kind of eating/food/addiction problem. I eat a lot, I enjoy eating, and I don’t have any health problems resulting from my diet. I am very fortunate to have been blessed with a very high metabolism, which insulates me from the apparent consequences of my actions, in that I can eat pretty much as much as I want, of pretty much anything, without any adverse physical side effects.

So here’s the question. Am I or am I not subject to the sin of gluttony? If I didn’t have such a high metabolism, and I ate as much as I do, and didn’t exercise to compensate, then my weight would be a visible testament to my lack of self-control. So just because of my genes, do I get a free pass on this one? That doesn’t seem right. (I know, I know, life is not fair.)

'Twas the eighteenth of April in Two Thousand Seven

Cost of Living

So I’ve been thinking a lot about budgets recently.

The Iron Chef Mom’s Challenge really made me ponder the definition of frugality, because while I obviously respect these ladies and admire their ability to stick to a budget, I was surprised at the shock and awe occasioned by other readers at the ability of one of the challengers to stick to a grocery budget of $50 a week.

Of course, these ladies have more kids than I do. But then, we have people over for dinner and bring meals to families who need them, so it probably all evens out.

Also, they are accounting for more than just groceries: they’re including many household goods (tp, laundry detergent, personal care, etc.) because most of these things get bought along with the groceries. So I ran the numbers (which we have at our fingertips because we’ve been tracking our receipts with vicious accuracy for the past 2+ years) and found that our recalibrated totals, including all these household items, still beat out the experts’.

It’s delightful to feel really on top of one’s game. But after pondering what makes our food budget work, and why it seems so effortless to spend so much less on groceries than the average family, I decided that I have the personality factor in my favour. Quite simply, it’s easy for me to budget because I like bargains and I enjoy the things that bring our food costs down.

Therefore, it’s a personal fulfillment issue as well as a budgeting issue, and the quality of life is improved, not dragged down. If I didn’t enjoy budgeting and baking, then pinching pennies would merely be a drudge and a toil and I should probably resent the budget for its shackles and constraints.

The factor that enables me to keep our food costs down is the matter of convenience food. I really don’t rely on convenience food all that much, so in essence I am not paying someone else to do the work for me. I am not paying Betty Crocker to pre-mix my cookies for me, or Uncle Ben to strip down the rice to quick-cooking (and, incidentally, less nutritious) levels, or the instant mashed potato people to peel my potatoes for me, or Perdue to skin and bone my chickens for me. With a minimum of effort and time I complete these tasks myself, and thus save myself a lot of money in the process.

The fact of the matter is that I enjoy baking. I like to mix up recipes, and the two or three minutes that it takes to measure the dry ingredients is more than worth the dollar or two I save by not having someone else do it for me. If I hated the feel of flour on my fingertips, or detested touching a raw potato, then I might consider it worthwhile to hire someone else to do it for me. But that’s not my personality.

I could save even more money on our food budget by not buying, oh, cheese or mushrooms, or cutting way back on our butter consumption. But I like those things more than the money I would save, so I continue to work them into the budget.

There are obvious contrasts to this in my own life, which clearly illustrate the cost v. quality-of-life continuum: diapers and laundry. I could save a lot of money using cloth diapers, but I really detest the idea of washing them, so I spend a lot of money not to have to deal with that. Washing out diapers is not something I enjoy, it is not something that improves my quality of life, and it is not something I want to devote my time to. Hanging up laundry to dry would save a tremendous amount of money on the electricity bill, but it is not something I enjoy nor something I really want to budget time for. Therefore I continue to use my dryer even though it costs more money.

So budgets aren’t really about just scraping by on the bare minimum. They’re about seeking balance in a well-rounded life. Therefore I concluded that comparing budgets is so much more than contrasting the bottom line in dollar signs. Whatever your budget is, for whatever category, if you can afford it and it makes you happy, then embrace it and enjoy!

How Do You Spell Character?

On Wednesday nights we help serve dinner at our church. We enjoy the opportunity to serve people and say hello to everyone who passes through the line, not to mention the free meal afterwards. Generally I serve the kids’ meal and the salads (rocking Ella in her carseat underfoot) while Michael tends to the desserts, wearing Jane in the backpack.

Last Wednesday, as we were waiting for the rush to begin, I glanced down at Michael and caught his eye. He smiled back, so I wandered down and proffered my cheek for a kiss. ‘Hey, Little Miss Haughty,’ he whispered in my ear.

I was perplexed. I had indeed pointed my nose in the air to give him the best angle, but I couldn’t imagine that he would cast it up to me under such circumstances. ‘Well, I’m trying to be humble,’ I told him, thinking of some way to work it into a compliment, like adding, ‘Which is hard with such a handsome husband as you,’ thus heaping coals of fire upon his head.

Michael began to laugh. ‘Your Institute training is bleeding through! Who else would think I meant H-A-U-G-H-T-Y instead of H-O-T-T-I-E?’

Oh. Yes, that sounds much better.

A glimpse of the tropics

A Creature of Habitat

Jane is simply delighted to be back. She had a great time, and enjoyed all the attention from adoring relatives, but she was clearly overjoyed to be back in familiar surroundings. As soon as we arrived back home, she made a beeline for the dresser and came back with a pair of socks, begging us to put them on her hands (we packed only sandals, so she was a week without her socks). Clearly the glove obsession is still going strong.

She has recently begun to baby her toy animals, lining them all up in a row (in order of height!) sitting against the hearth. Or she will line them against the wall, face down (she still sleeps on her front), and kiss them ‘Nigh-night.’ We packed no toys for the trip, and yesterday she was simply thrilled to be back with all her beloved creatures. She runs around naming everything with delight. ‘Fridge!’ ‘Trash! Yucky, yucky!’ ‘High chair! Jane high chair!’

Yo Ho Ho And All That

Back from the Caribbean we are, and it’s just as beautiful as it was when Michael and I were there on our honeymoon. Warm sunshine, low humidity, cool tropical breezes, lush tropical fruits, and plenty of family to take a girl or two whenever we wanted to slip off for dance lessons on the beach. Pictures will be forthcoming.

This one's not so bad, either

What a cutie!

In like a lion, out like a lamb

So pleased were we with the success of our Indian dinner that we called for an encore, only this time we were determined to go entirely all-out with the inclusion of a mango lassi. I didn’t expect to find cheap lamb stew meat marked down again, but I did expect to at least find lamb. Alas, there was none apparent in the specialty meats section, so I settled upon some ground veal.

I told Michael about the change in plans.

Me: But don’t you think that ground lamb will be much the same as lamb stew meat? After all, after hours in the crockpot, the lamb was pretty shredded anyway. And this is very young lamb, hence very tender.
Michael: Veal isn’t young lamb. It’s young calf.
Me: What! I thought it would be young and tender lamb!
Michael: It’s young and tender all right, but it’s beef. Young lamb is lamb. Old lamb is sheep.
Me: So basically I paid a lot of money for very fancy, very tender, very expensive ground beef.
Michael: This is going to keep you up all night, isn’t it?

Off I scuttled, therefore, to the nearest grocery store to buy some genuine lamb. ‘Boy,’ I told Michael when all was said and done, ‘do I feel sheepish.’

Miss Rose’s Linguistics Lesson

Now today we are going to talk about a trendy little phrase that’s taken the colloquial mainstream by storm in recent years to express a sort of apology for one’s mistake: ‘My bad.’ As a gesture of accepting responsibility it’s not bad, and certainly it’s more polite to assume the blame in any way than to ignore the issue altogether. But is it entirely correct, grammatically speaking?

Ah. Let’s break it down into its two disparate parts, namely, the words my and bad. My is a possessive pronoun, implying ownership of or accountability for the object it modifies. So far so good. Bad is here used as the object of the sentence, which makes you think it is the main character, or in other words the thing being possessed. It could be something – anything – as long as it was indeed a thing, or in other words a noun. But alas, bad is not a noun; it is an adjective, meaning it can only describe a noun. An adjective is only a concept insofar as it describes a noun; it is not, in its own right, a real thing. Therefore you cannot own an adjective. You might just as well say ‘My green,’ or ‘My curious.’

This phrase always leaves us floundering in helpless suspense, wondering anxiously, ‘Your bad what? Yes, yes, but what is it you have that is bad?’

Ha. Can you tell we’ve been reading Lynne Truss recently?

Words which, we have noticed, are not so commonly used anymore

A pity:

Oblige
Shall
Should (as in, ‘I should not have thought of calling at so late an hour.’)
Fancy (as in, ‘Fancy an ice cream? Me too! Let’s go!’)
Hasty

A relief:

Gardyloo

Hurrah, it worked!

Apparently Michael's laptop was the key. Fortunately I've been saving a few of my posts in Word against this eventual development. Unfortunately the keyboard is different and long-term access is sketchy. Fortunately we'll be getting a new home computer soon and the browser problem (for such it appears to be) will be solved.

Any luck yet?

Let's try a change of location.

Well, at least the passport came today

Any luck yet?

Still trying...

HA! We'll see if THAT got their attention. (See comments for details.)

Blog ideas, blog ideas everywhere, nor any place to post them!!

Can you hear me now?

Meanwhile, here is the updated template, though I can't say much more about it

Hmm, it doesn't seem to have worked

So I will outsmart it and post my post in the comments

I do NOT like the new blogger!!!

Okay, Blogspot is not posting articles, only titles

First day of spring!

Government efficiency strikes again

I am very much put out at the Department of State.

I realise that they have a lot on their hands, and that they didn't ask for the recent revisions to the passport law - Congress did - and that they are utterly swamped right now, but this takes the giddy biscuit, as Bertie would say.

We dragged ourselves out of the house with a two-day-old baby to get her passport photo taken and then spent about two hours at the passport agency ironing out the wrinkles on her application. At that time, we were promised the passport within six to eight weeks. We had exactly nine weeks to spare, so we chose not to waste the extra money on the expedited fee.

Twice now I've checked up on the status of the application. The first time it had been received. Now it has been forwarded to the processing agency in, of all places, NH, and the email reminded me that it takes up to ten weeks to process a passport now.

This makes me livid. We applied well before the crunch, and I know that they're busy and working overtime, but they need to process the applications in the right order, so that the people who were promised an eight-week turnaround will get it. If my (daughter's) passport is delayed because they're focusing all their efforts on the emergency passports of people who didn't plan ahead as well as I did (and they stand to rake in substantial fees from these ones, of course), well then!!!

The big sister

Perhaps you can't tell, but her lips are pursed, because the finger puppets are kissing.

This girl loves shoes.

Did I mention that she is obsessed with shoes?

A bit of role-playing never hurt anyone.

National Pi Day

If only I had thought to post at 1:59 today!

Jane-isms

Jane has recently become obsessed with playing hide-and-seek. She will put anything out of view and then query 'Where go? Where go?' with a finely accomplished look of astonishment. One time she pulled her sleeves down and then asked me, 'Where thumb? Where thumb?' And then she goes off into fits of giggles at her own cleverness.

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Today when we were shopping, Jane was sitting in the front of the cart while I pushed it. Unless occupied with a cookie, she usually does not like to sit still, and sure enough, before long she was asking me 'Up! Up!' I told her not now, maybe later. After a moment she reached her arms out and said, 'Mama! Hug!' I could see where this was going, but it was so cute that I couldn't resist. And when I leaned forward, she put her arms around my neck and begged again, 'Up! Up!' Clever, that one.

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The wallpaper in the bathroom is decorated with letters, and for the last few nights Michael has pointed out a few of them to Jane as he brushes her teeth. I thought nothing of this until a couple of days ago, when Jane was 'reading' her book, The Runaway Bunny. Suddenly she got very excited and started exclaiming, 'B! B!' Sure enough, she had spotted the B on the cover. She recognised the As too. We have taught her up to J, and only since then did I learn that we are supposed to start with lower case letters rather than capital letters. Oh, well. At this rate, she'll learn them both before long.

Mid pleasures and palaces

I've been delighted to discover how very pleasant it is to stay at home. In the weeks since Ella's arrival I've felt happier and more content than ever, much to my relief, as I was afraid that cabin fever would strike. But it hasn't.

After Jane was born, I was so fearful of falling into postpartum depression that I made a point of getting out pretty much every day. She was small and portable, so it was no additional inconvenience to haul her along with me everywhere, and I strung my errands along most inefficiently to make sure I had an excuse to go somewhere. That was all well and good, but I knew that with the arrival of a second one my strategy wouldn't work so well. Taking into consideration a wiggly (and much heavier) toddler with a much more complicated car seat as well as the portable (but still requiring both hands) infant car seat, it seemed that it would almost be more trouble than it was worth to get out and about. That, combined with the fact that Michael takes the car for the carpool 1-2 times a week and I am certainly not about to strap the cars seats into the truck, means that we end up staying home several times a week. And I am thrilled to find that I just love these kinds of days.

It's very satisfying to settle the day's chores early on (and I've scaled back my expectations to a reasonable level, meaning that if I keep up on the dishes, laundry, and basic cleanliness we can let the rest go until the weekend) and spend a happy morning playing with Jane and Ella, the latter having just started smiling and the former already learning to read. I'm experimenting with meal plans to make kitchen time simpler and more Jane-interactive, so that's fun and exciting. And I am finally, finally catching up on sorting all our digital pics and ordering them online. Right now I am keeping current with the Ella pics and am caught up to Christmas '03 on the general folders. This a huge project that I should have tackled long before, but I am finding that breaking it down into manageable tasks makes all the difference. The great thing is that I'm placing these orders with various online promotions, offering anywhere from 10 to 50 free prints, which means that it's already broken down into bite-sized chores for me. Whenever I have five minutes I'll pick up where I left off, click through the pictures in the folder, and save the ones I want to print to a temporary folder in the desktop. Then whenever I get another freebie offer, I select the next 10-25-whatever prints from the folder and voila! Pictures arriving in the mail every few days, with very little effort on my part.

I was effusing to Michael the other day about how wonderful our lives are right now and how happy I feel ('Of course that's just the happy hormones from nursing but still!!'), and wondering whether that was a bad sign. Of course contentment is a good thing, but is it healthy for me to be feeling happier as my sphere shrinks? Culinary adventures are all very well, but I don't want the high point of my day to consist of a crock pot success. I should hope that feelings of accomplishment would stem from overcoming genuine challenges, not just from deflating my goals to an easily achievable level. Fortunately I am still able to converse with him rationally and sympathetically about issues at work, so I know I am not totally losing my connection with the outside world. Still one wonders.

A smile, a smile, to make this life worthwhile

There's magic in the music and the music's in me

Yes, we have no bananas

The local Kroger store (about which I have raved before) often marks down ripe bananas. Since these bananas are very cheap, and since they are usually marked down at exactly the stage of ripeness that I like (just starting to turn brown and spotted, meaning the flesh will be perfect and sweet), I usually buy these up in droves whenever I see them. They stay at the perfect stage of ripeness for at least two or three days, by which time we will have eaten them up, either straight, in smoothies, or sliced over chocolate ice cream. The occasional banana that escapes us pops into the freezer for hibernation until next time we make banana bread.

This weekend I bought a bundle of bananas and I discovered, upon reaching home, that one of the bananas was bruised and blackening. Knowing that its useful lifespan would be short, I started to peel it to make a smoothie, only to discover that the half that had been bruised was black and slimy. I showed this to Michael in disgust before throwing it in the trash and grabbing another banana with which to make a smoothie. When Michael saw me drinking the smoothie, he made some comment on my inability to let things go to waste.

Me: No, I threw away that banana. Even I wouldn't eat that!
(Michael gives me a significant look.)
Me: Okay, even I wouldn't feed that to Jane!
Michael: Ah, that's more like it.

A continual dropping

Yesterday was possibly the most miserable day of mothering yet, with the obvious exception of the day of the stomach flu. (Speaking of which, did you know that what is commonly called the flu - the stomach flu - is not actually influenza? After our last bout I vowed to take the flu shot every year henceforward, until I learned that the annual flu shots are not applicable to it. As one friend put it, 'Influenza can make you dead. The stomach flu just makes you wish you were dead.')

Poor little Jane has been fighting a cold for several days, and while sniffly and hoarse for some time, she remained cheerful in spite of it all. But yesterday the floodgates opened; I litereally spent my whole morning wiping her nose. I had no idea one little body could produce that much discharge. Twice I tried the nasal aspirator on her, thinking that if I could suck out as much as possible it might give me a few moments' respite, but no such luck; she was dripping again immediately. We went through so many tissues and her little nose got sore from the constant wiping, of course, making her even fussier than the misery from the congestion had left her, and of course the more the crying, the more the dripping. It was physically exhausting to be reaching for the tissues every minute, but it was far more emotionally draining to deal with the tears and try to cheer her up, sing to her, and distract her from the discomfort.

Fortunately she cleared up a bit by the afternoon, so I took her to a friend's house for an hour while I kept an appointment downtown, participating in a market research study for big bucks. It was very exciting, but I can't say any more about it because I signed a paper agreeing not to discuss the details until the models of the prototypes I tested are already on the market.

Today Jane is much better, and thoroughly back to her normal happy self, complete with hat and glove obsession.

Why...

...do the cultured voices on the classical music stations always refer to the composer as Dvor-CHAK? His name is very clearly spelled Dvor-AK. Do Czech words just automatically insert random ch sounds?

Overheard during a movie

Me: How many movies can you think of where the title of the movie is the main character's name? I can think of three: Erin Brokovich, Billy Eliott, and Forrest Gump.
Michael: Spartacus.
Me: That doesn't count! He had only one name!
Michael: All right then, Ben-Hur. Or Henry V.

Wow

It just occurred to me that when Ella reaches her golden birthday (29 on the 29th) she will be older than I am now.

Happy Birthday Oregon!

The state song of Oregon - also known as the Beaver State - is Oregon, My Oregon. The official state drink is milk.

Virginia's state song is Carry Me Back To Old Virginia. The state nickname is Old Dominion State and the state dance is the Virginia Reel.

Georgia is known as the Peach State and the state song is Georgia On My Mind.

And that's about all I've learned about the places I've lived.

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Don't buy me flowers
The effect will fall flat;
Flowers will die in a couple of hours~
What lame allegory is that?

Pregnancy brain and beyond

At least I've stopped feeling so scatter-brained and forgetful, but the post-partum hormones are in full swing, and now I remember all those teary nights and days after Jane came. It wasn't the sleepless nights (because there weren't so many of those) but just the facts of the matter: after having a baby, apparently I need to cry at least once a day or so.

The other day we came home from an event at church, where I had nursed Ella, then set her in her carseat (which is still light enough to carry her around in) and gone off to collect Jane. When we got home, I lifted the blanket to discover that I hadn't remembered to fasten her in before snapping the carseat into the base. Thoughts of what might have happened had we gotten into a wreck, and the realisation of how much I love this little person despite hardly even knowing her, produced an immediate display of waterworks. Likewise pretty much every movie we've watched in the past two weeks (which is a lot, since I had just signed up for a Blockbuster free trial before Ella came), even if it wasn't supposed to be a sad one.

On the upside, I am wearing jeans again, which is a huge boost to morale, never mind the fact that they aren't technically my pre-pregnancy jeans and were too big before. They fit perfectly now, which tricks me into feeling really good.

I still haven't printed photos from Jane's birth and onward (yes, that means we have thousands of digital pics stuck on our computer) aside from the random one I took to Walmart and printed to frame and give away as a gift. However, I responded to an offer for 40 free prints, and today received back the first ones of Ella. At the rate we are taking pictures of this child, I can probably keep up with printing all the photos of her for free, since my experience is that Snapfish and all the other competitors offer 25 free prints quite frequently (less shipping, of course). I am trying to be glad that I am printing photos at all, and not feel guilty that we still haven't printed off/started an album for Jane.

I am now one and a half weeks into parenting two children solo (meaning since Michael went back to work during the day) and it seems safe to announce that it's far easier than I thought. Jane is adjusting nicely, after a few days of clinginess, and aside from wanting to climb into my lap whenever it is otherwise occupied, seems to be happily independent.

When Jane naps, I put Ella down and try to sleep myself. Everything else that used to be my free time stuff is now worked around Jane. If Ella is awake, we play with her. If she is asleep, we set her within sight in the bouncy seat and do housework. I am pleasantly surprised to see how nicely the house runs; so far we aren't swamped with mountains of laundry or dishes and the floor looks pretty clean.

I think I must have held Jane pretty much all the time when she was a baby. I remember taking naps, but I also remember just sitting on the couch and looking at her as she slept, and of course I held her whenever she was awake too. I know this because we have a new saying around here, which must only come from setting the baby down now and then: 'Don't sit on the baby!' If one of us leaves the room to change Jane or something, and the other one has to go off and do something, we find that leaving a baby on the couch swaddled in blankets requires an alert, because our couches are already littered with blankets, boppies, and spit rags. Ella blends right in.

Photo gallery

Family portrait

The Thinker

Where's Jane?

Peek-a-boo!

Overheard at the changing table

Michael: Hey!
(I wander in to find him throwing away a fresh diaper.)
Michael: That's the third time she's done that to me! Right after I take the old diaper off, too.
Me: She never does that to me. (giggle) Maybe she's embarrassed.
Michael: Yes, I'm sure that's it. You'd better change her from now on.

Two are better than one

I love having two little girls. It is just what I wanted. Jane couldn't be cuter, and Ella couldn't be a more docile, sweet-tempered, bright-eyed little baby.

Things are evening out nicely after a full but wonderful first week. Michael was able to take last week off work, and it was so nice to have him here as we adjusted to life with a new baby again. It wasn't quite as blissful, idyllic, and restful a time as I had hoped due to troublesome things like pediatrician's visits that ran two hours late (because of our early discharge we had to take Ella in the next day for her PKU) and passport agencies that required paperwork we did not have, but all was well in the end. We had a pleasant weekend with my parents visiting, and I was SO glad that they could pay Jane the attention she merits. We even went to a Super Bowl party last night, and it was grand to get out and about and show my precious baby off. I love Super Bowl parties, because they require so little of me; I don't care enough about the game to pay attention to it, freeing me to socialise with others similarly inclined, and there's always plenty of good food to go around.

A few remarks follow, because I likely won't have time to work them into individual posts.

On the topic of sleep, I quote Tommy Hambledon's request to the hotel clerk after half a night of unexpected visitors and interruptions: 'I am going to my room now, and on no account disturb me. If that part of the hotel in which my room is located should catch fire, then you may wake me, but not otherwise.'

On the topic of names: Do not fear. We have absolutely no intention of naming a daughter of ours Lydia, ever.

On the topic of bouncing back: Being up and about is a good thing! If you see a new mother out and about, you should compliment her (if she looks nice) and praise her beautiful child, not scold her for choosing not to remain in confinement for six weeks. Note to well-meaning ladies of a certain age: The days when you stay in the hospital for two weeks are long gone. (Hospitals don't pamper young mothers they way they used to, anyway. Other than as a means to get free food, it's not so fabulous being in the hospital, what with nurses coming in to check your blood pressure every two hours and whatnot.) It is not dangerous to take a young baby out into society, as long as you are careful about who touches/breathes on her. It may have been more risky when all babies were fed formula, but if a baby is nursed, she will have her mother's immune system to defend her. (Try hacking into MY immune system when my baby's health is at stake!)

On the topic of weightlessness: I LOVE being able to sleep on my back, front, and roll over without flopping an immense belly around! I LOVE the sensation of moon gravity! I LOVE being able to squeeze past people in tight spaces again! But WHERE did this immense appetite come from? Ella doesn't weigh substantially more than she did a week and a half ago, after all!

Carpe Noctem

I think I've found my new window of opportunity for blogging. Unfortunately it means I have to type with one hand and without contacts. So my posts will be shorter than ever.

Oh, well. I don't really want to blog anyway. I want to gaze at my baby.

Monday's Child

Introducing Elizabeth Rose Focht

Born January 29th, 2007, at 12:42 AM

7 lbs. 4 oz. 19.5 inches long

Very fair of face indeed

Quality v. quantity

Leaving aside the issue of blog posts (according to my new resolve to post more haphazardly if it means actually posting what's on my mind instead of letting the little gems slip into oblivion because I never got around to fleshing them out thoroughly enough), I would have thought I fell decidedly into the quality camp, preferring the few worthwhile whatevers to the masses of cheap shoddy whatevers. But I fell to mulling over this a few days ago, and decided that there are some categories where it actually makes sense - for me - to go for the cheap short-term quick fix. I came up with a few examples of each:

Quality - Jewelry. This is one where, for me, it makes sense to invest in the quality and have only a few very nice pieces. I started building my jewelry wardrobe over ten years ago, and I still wear the gold hoops I got when I was sixteen. A few classic pieces (gold hoops, garnet studs, sapphire studs, opal studs, black pearls, and white pearls) pretty much cover every look I need, and the lack of choices makes accessorizing so much easier. Not allowing my jewelry box to become cluttered with costume jewelry saves space, saves time, and perhaps helps me avoid problems with allergic reactions to cheap knock-off metals. Plus I don't ever have to buy new jewelry, unless I decide someday that I like diamonds, after all. (I'm thinking this might happen after I turn forty.)

Quantity - Sunglasses. This is one where I'll gladly buy cheap sunglasses from Wal-mart or even the Dollar Store, even if it means replacing them every year or whenever they break. I am far too hard on my sunglasses to invest in a really expensive pair; one might argue that a better quality pair would last longer and thus be a better investment, but no pair can resist getting scratched when tossed into the wrong pocket in my purse or avoid serious damage when accidentally sat upon. Plus, do I really want to be wearing the same pair of sunglasses for the next ten years? Having cheap sunglasses that will routinely break gives me a chance to update my look every summer.

Quantity - Hair accessories. This is probably rather a moot point, since the days of mother-of-pearl hairclasps and real pearl combs are long gone and pretty much everything is plastic, wood, or metal these days. But I'm sure there are still sliding scales of quality, and I'm happy to shop at the bottom rung of the ladder, with the cheap plastic barrettes and hair claws whose springs wear out and snap off within a year or so. Once again, do I really want to be putting the same things in my hair for the next ten years?

There were more, but I can't think of them right off, and rather than mull and ponder and strain to recollect I shall simply post, walk downstairs, brew myself a cup of tea, and try to take a nap. Happy Friday!

Windows of opportunity

Because:

1) Blogspot has been so unpredictable lately;

2) Very soon I will run out of spare time;

and, most of all,

3) When I mull over a post idea too long then it must be all the more eloquent to justify the time spent pondering it, at which point it will be too long for me to ever sit down and do it justice, so I generally end up not posting on the topic at all -

Therefore:

I will seize the day, not knock myself out to make deep philosophical posts as polished as possible, and post quickly and randomly if I have an idea in conjunction with a minute to spare. That is how I will balance blogging with my new season of life, quotha.

Belated birthdays and blasted blogspots

I wanted to say something to the effect that New Blogger has fallen decidedly out of my favour since posting my farewell speech twice and keeping me out of logging in ever since I switched. But that would be to imply that I ever had a good opinion of it to begin with, which was its own task to win and prove. Now I am so desperate to get this post published before Blogger's temperamental window of bonhomie disappears that I cannot invest the proper time to invent scathing metaphors for how deeply into the void of my negative opinion it has sunk.

I was distressed not to be able to post a tribute to my beloved yesterday, who celebrated yet another revolution around the sun. Happy birthday, Michael!

And I was very concerned that the apparent silence would be inferred as a tacit acknowledgement of Baby's arrival. Not so. We are all here; do thyself-a no harm. But we will keep you posted. (Assuming further sunny spells on Blogger's part.) Meanwhile I'm trying to write them huffy emails explaining my dilemma and begging them to let me go back to the Old Blogger, which is difficult to do as they have an answer for everything else and assume that their answers cover all categories, thus sparing them from receiving any emails from real consumers. What can I say? It's not like I pay them for it, anyway.

A tearful farewell...just in case...

I have come to a fateful decision. I am going to switch over to the new Blogger.

For weeks they've been hounding me to do it, every time I sign in suggesting how much easier my life would be if only I'd capitulate and take advantage of all the new features (who needs new features, anyway? It took me long enough to figure out how to post pictures on the old system!) and half the time switching the locations of the old and new account sign-ins so that I'd almost sign up before I knew what I was doing. Despite the reassurances that nothing is lost, that all the posts and comments carry over, that the new Blogger is SO much better and easier, I resisted. We don't change, we badgers.

But now I must get the new account if I'm to maintain my access to Bookfest, which has already gone modern. So I go with heavy heart to make the switch. If all goes well then you may not notice any change at all, and all this angst will have been for naught. But I cannot repress a sigh and a feeling of doom at the thought. So, just in case, farewell to all. If it crashes I probably won't have the heart to start it all up again, not to mention finding a new name and address and all, at least not for weeks and weeks, by which time Baby's arrival will be old news. Tootle-pip and all that.

A tearful farewell...just in case...

I have come to a fateful decision. I am going to switch over to the new Blogger.

For weeks they've been hounding me to do it, every time I sign in suggesting how much easier my life would be if only I'd capitulate and take advantage of all the new features (who needs new features, anyway? It took me long enough to figure out how to post pictures on the old system!) and half the time switching the locations of the old and new account sign-ins so that I'd almost sign up before I knew what I was doing. Despite the reassurances that nothing is lost, that all the posts and comments carry over, that the new Blogger is SO much better and easier, I resisted. We don't change, we badgers.

But now I must get the new account if I'm to maintain my access to Bookfest, which has already gone modern. So I go with heavy heart to make the switch. If all goes well then you may not notice any change at all, and all this angst will have been for naught. But I cannot repress a sigh and a feeling of doom at the thought. So, just in case, farewell to all. If it crashes I probably won't have the heart to start it all up again, not to mention finding a new name and address and all, at least not for weeks and weeks, by which time Baby's arrival will be old news. Tootle-pip and all that.

Scavenger hunts are not only fun, they are PRACTICAL!

Who would pack a hospital bag and forget to include a hairbrush? Well, until ten minutes ago, that was me. After spending a good hour wracking my brains trying to recall anything, anything at all, that I'd read about hairbrushes in the past few weeks, it dawned on me that I hadn't packed one for the hospital! Thank you, Darren and Sara, for the timely reminder. Now Baby can come anytime!

Fancy car

Have you ever wanted to own a really, really fancy car? I mean, I'm talking about the fanciest car in the world here, like a Ferrari or a Rolls-Royce! A very expensive kind, that turns heads everywhere it goes, runs up incredibly expensive insurance premiums, is so sporty that it gets terrible gas mileage, and is in constant danger of being vandalised?

Neither have I. But I am getting pretty desperate over at the scavenger hunt.

Scavenger hunt!

You can read the complete rules here. (And, now that I've submitted my entry, you can play too!)

* A Shoe
From Baby Cheapskate:

I think we've outgrown Robeez (okay, Robeez knock offs, I'm cheap). I can accept that my wee one now needs real shoes (sniff!). What I can't accept is how much toddler shoes cost! I admit, I'm a shoe person; I notice shoes. I'm always commenting on the other kids' shoes at the playground. I love the look of those trendy Vincent shoes, sure, but forty bucks (on sale) for something my kid's gonna outgrow long before the shoe is worn out? Come on!

* A Tooth
From The Duchy Of Burgundy Carrots:

Look at the pictures and you will see lots of teeth!

* An Odd Name
From Doug's Blog:

The Christian Boys’ & Men’s Titanic Society Eleventh Anniversary Banquet
(I really wanted to post a link to his family picture, where you could see children with such names as Justice and Jubilee. But I couldn't find such a link quickly enough without using search tools. Oh, well. This is a mouthful of a name for an event, let alone a society.)

* A Car (fancier the better)
From LinkTheValiant:

I'd always wondered whether the stereotypes of Corvette owners were accurate, and I've received confirmation today. Coming home, I was behind a Corvette at a stoplight. He was waiting with the engine revved slightly above midrange. As soon as the light changed, he was off. I turned the corner in my usual way, and saw that the guy had accelerated to 55 in a 35 zone. Not a quarter of a mile farther on, he pulls off and turns in to a school of all places. . . It's no wonder that, aside from theft, insurance rates are so high for Corvettes.

* A Frightful Dilemma
From Not Alone:

Seriously folks -- I have not, nor do I intend to, change the ability for everyone to leave comments. I'd rather hear honest, thoughtful conversation. But I would ask for a bit of courtesy in return...If you cannot contain yourselves to appropriate comments, then I will be forced to moderate comments (which I do NOT want to do-- but I'm feeling pressed).

* A Discussion of Childbirth
From Focht Tales:

The only thing about the Jolie-Pitt baby hoopla that interested me enough to irritate me was the statement by their apparently famous and accomplished doctor (so hand-picked that they flew him all the way to Africa to deliver their child), something along the lines of: 'The baby was delivered by a planned cesarean due to a breech presentation.'

* A Theological Discussion/Debate
From Kevin & Amy's World:

Frankly, I’m disturbed at the hoopla surrounding the Pope’s passing. If the he were a true follower of Christ, he would not want Catholics to make such a big deal over him. After all, he’s a mere mortal. Or did he claim to be more than that?

* A Funny Line, Joke, or Short Post
From LinkTheValiant's Site:

Little brothers can be hilarious. Case in point, on the way home from work yesterday:
Leah, in backseat: "Thomas, can you get that bug there for me?"
Thomas gets the bug.
Leah: "Okay, thank you, can you get rid of it?"
Thomas reaches for the door.
Leah: "Just roll down the window and throw it out."
Thomas: "But I can't do that. A car might hit me!"

* A Train (the engine and cars kind)
From Breitbart.com:

Traffic on the Eurostar, the train service that runs under the English Channel and connects London and Paris, was suspended for 90 minutes after an electrical cable holder was blown onto the tracks near the city of Lille in northern France, railway officials said.

* A Hairbrush
From Focht Tales:

Who would pack a hospital bag and forget to include a hairbrush? Well, until ten minutes ago, that was me. After spending a good hour wracking my brains trying to recall anything, anything at all, that I'd read about hairbrushes in the past few weeks, it dawned on me that I hadn't packed one for the hospital! Thank you, Darren and Sara, for the timely reminder. Now Baby can come anytime!

* An appeal for money
A very tactful request from MommyLife:

So just remember - whatever shopping you have to do, please save yourself time and money while supporting MommyLife by clicking through to Amazon from the Barbara's Store button on my right sidebar.

* A Hobby
From Mom Advice:

I am passionate about getting good deals, which makes me extremely passionate about going to garage sales and visiting our local thrift stores. There is nothing that thrills me more than to get to spend an hour hunting through all of the "junk" to find that one memorable treasure to bring home with me. I have always been this way, even when we had much more money than we do now. Thrifting has always been an outlet for me and now that we are eating at home more, I am able to use our dining out allowance to score some really great thrift store finds, without busting the budget.

* Green
From The Real Food Revolution:

Open some cans of black beans, or make some in the morning in the crockpot. Add to the beans, cumin, pepper, oregano, Cajun seasoning, dried cilantro leaves, chili flakes, and chopped bell peppers. (I actually roasted the pepper I had and then pureed it with some of the beans and added it all back in, but my husband doesn’t like the texture of cooked peppers if they are in larger pieces.) Puree about a 1/4 cup of the beans and stir into the rest to make creamy, serve with the quinoa and a green salad.

Hit any key to continue...No, no, no, not that one!

I saw that in a cartoon once, and it's about how I feel re: Baby right now. I specifically didn't want Baby to come before Saturday (which, admittedly, would have been a really long shot anyway) because we had tickets to Cirque du Soleil and I really didn't want to miss it. (This was our Christmas present to each other, although as we both sheepishly acknowledged, we were going to buy the tickets anyway and calling it our Christmas present was really just a clever way to get out of wasting money buying superfluous presents for each other. We are so lame.)

Anyway we went to the show and thoroughly enjoyed it, and I told Baby afterwards that he/she was welcome to come any time now. Somewhat wishful thinking, I suppose, but I started taking Evening Primrose Oil every night just in case Baby needed a nudge. Never hurts to plan ahead, right?

Now Jane's fever is still dragging on (though she seems to be improving) and I'm thinking that I really don't want to leave a sick toddler with friends while I go off to the hospital to have another baby. So Baby can just hang on a few more days until Jane is fully recovered and no longer contagious. In fact, another week or two would be just fine, according to the original schedule, thank you very much.

Fever

Yesterday Jane came down with a high fever. I first noticed that she felt hot when I got her up from her nap, and her temperature registered at 102. We left a message for our pediatrician's answering service and meanwhile dressed her lightly, encouraged her to drink water, and tried to remember what the panic level is for fever in a young child. While we were waiting to hear back from the nurse on call we tried calling a couple of friends to ask for advice, since this was the first serious fever she's ever run. At least she exhibited no other symptoms and did make the occasional remark, thus evincing coherence and alertness despite her extreme apathy. It was a very odd evening, with us just sitting around taking turns holding a very hot (but so quiet and well-behaved!) child, not feeling very hungry, and not daring to do anything or go anywhere.

By the time the nurse called back, Jane's temperature was almost 104, but since she had no other symptoms and the fever hadn't lasted long enough to justify a visit, we were instructed to give her Tylenol to bring the fever down, keep giving her liquids, and check on her throughout the night. It was reassuring to know not to panic, though still very worrisome.

Today she's still a bit listless, but her temperature is down around 100, so we'll keep an eye on her and bring her in tomorrow morning if it persists. Otherwise, we'll just enjoy our quiet day.

Goals 2007

Now you know (probably, because I think I've mentioned it on previous January posts) that I don't do New Year's resolutions (other than goofy ones that I was going to do anyway, like 'I'm going to lose 25 lbs. by the first quarter of the year!') but the turning of the calendar always makes me nostalgic and contemplative, and this year I fell to musing on goals and the way I approach them.

What brought this about is the curious feeling of non-stress that seems to have fallen over me upon embarking on the New Year. For some reason I've felt laid back, content, and completely not worried about a thing for the past week and a half or so. It seems that our calendar is pretty clear for the near future, after a seemingly interminable run of bouts with sickness, travel plans, houseguests, parties, and the like, so that's definitely a factor. But even in the day-to-day minutiae, once we got past the relaxing holidays, I found myself chilling out on a far grander scale than I can recall doing in recent history.

For instance, we hosted our Sunday school Christmas party on Saturday, which was a lot of fun and didn't feel stressful a bit to prepare for, even with Michael having to go in to work most of the day and me doing all the preparations solo. I had gotten quantities of marked-down paper goods in my post-Christmas shopping, so we didn't have many dishes to deal with, but there were quite a few pots and pans. These I set to soak and didn't feel compelled to scrub them out for two days, making the next day (Sunday) truly a day of rest because I wasn't racing around madly trying to clean up the kitchen. Usually it is difficult for me to relax if I am conscious of work undone, which has hijacked a quiet evening or two when Michael is ready to sit down with milk and cookies and watch a movie and I am still too focused on putting away laundry to sit still.

Why then would the laundry or dishes intrude on family time? Because I didn't get to it during the day, being too busy racing around with other points on my agenda such as running long errands (to get the best shopping bargains), baking cinnamon rolls (for Michael's breakfasts, so he doesn't have to eat cold cereal), chopping vegetables for supper (because of course it's cheaper and more nutritious to do it all from scratch), etc.

Now these are all good things and they are certainly done for the benefit of the family, but it occurred to me that I am really the impetus for all this frantic pace. Michael certainly appreciates how I stay on a budget and likes having home-cooked food around, but he is not imposing on me the details of how I run our household. In fact, it occurred to me that most of the time, it is more important to me than to him.

This is not to say that I should completely chill out and let things go to seed around here in an attempt to relax and focus solely on being a happy wife. Happiness should also come about from the satisfaction of honest industry. But the pots and pans that I left in the sink overnight did not disrupt my general feeling of well-being; at least they were stacked neatly, they were out of the way, they did not make the kitchen look cluttered, and I didn't use the slight mess as an excuse to let more mess pile up in the meantime. Therefore that was a successful incidence of a calculated deferred work plan.

I need wisdom to discern what the true benefit of any effort on my part will be, and to whom. I don't want to knock myself out to do something I think would be nice for someone, only to feel resentful and deflated when they don't appreciate it quite as much as I think the effort I put into it warranted, which should only prove to me that my motivation wasn't quite as genuine and good-hearted as I thought it was.

Of course, I'm not going to measure everything exclusively by the yardstick of quo bono - or rather, I'm not necessarily going to order my life accordingly. Some things may not matter to Michael as much but if I have a strong personal stake in it, then I may go ahead anyway. Dashing across town to get a free milkshake is just too fun to pass up, as long as I realise that I'm getting more mileage out of it than Michael.

(I toss that last paragraph in because I recently read a review of a new book that apparently claims that the secret to a happy marriage is basically for the wife to realise that her sole end in life is to be the helpmeet to her husband, and while I agree that the wife was designed to support and encourage and be the helpmeet to her husband, I don't believe that that means that every decision must personally advance the career, mental health, and personal satisfaction of the husband exclusively. Maybe that's not what the book was suggesting. But I've run across that school of thought before and I writhe when I hear it. The secret of a happy marriage, among other things, involves both parties being mature enough to defer and sacrifice when matters of personal interest conflict. The mainstream culture's pop psychology approach of negotiating 50-50 and making deals and bargains, and the extremely conservative approach of insisting that the wife's wishes and interests must always give way to the husband's because she is to submit, are both flawed, in my opinion. But I digress.)

So my goal for 2007 is to evaluate my daily goals and determine whose agenda I am pursuing. I hope this will help me streamline my daily to-do list and enable me to accomplish the truly important things without letting the house fall apart. I'll keep you posted - or maybe not, depending on where blogging ends up on the new spectrum. =)

The times, they are a-changing

We've spent a good deal of time over the last week clearing out, sorting through, and tidying up. (Incidentally, with all the days off, I hardly know what day it is; for a long stretch there every day felt like a Saturday and it was weird when we finally did go to church. Next week things should feel more normal.)

But we finally decided to move Jane out of the nursery, mostly for our own convenience so we wouldn't have the children waking each other up during nights and naptimes. At first we thought we'd just move her crib across the hall into our acting guest room/office, and keep her stuff in the nursery. Then we realised that whenever Baby is asleep (and newborns do sleep a lot, I remember) we wouldn't have access to the changing pad, supplies, etc. That forced us to consider setting up a second changing station somewhere else, and the upshot of it all is that the former office/guest room (now renamed The Yellow Room, to avoid confusion) will now be Jane's room/guest room.

So we (as in Michael) took apart the computer, took apart the desk, and moved it all up to the bonus room. The bonus room has sloping ceilings, tons of boxes, and insufficient insulation, so it's really not a viable choice for an office. Thus far it's done fine housing our old computer, which was set up on a folding table, but now the old computer will be bumped off, the folding table will return to circulation as a folding table and not a makeshift computer desk, the current computer on current computer desk will become our new old computer, and we'll get a Mac and put it on the kitchen desk. Michael has been wanting one for a while, and the turning point came when he told me that Macs can be all-inclusive, meaning that there's no need for a tower case or superfluous equipment, meaning that all we'd have on the kitchen desk would be a flat screen monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I like the idea of having a computer out there, as long as it doesn't entail having all the cords, wires, scanner, printer, and the like. The house is networked so the peripherals can go upstairs, and we can still print from downstairs. I'm always running to the office anyway to look up a phone number or a recipe, so it can only make my life easier to have the hub of the universe located in my kitchen instead of a back room.

The only thing is that we don't have the Mac - yet. Once ordered, it can be here in a matter of days, but until it arrives, I'm dependent on the computer now located upstairs. That means I'm forever running up to the bonus room just to check email, which used to be a simple matter of just jiggling the mouse whenever passing through. All this exercise must be good for me, though, and may even bring Baby here the sooner. All the same, I'm anxious for a computer within easy reach again.

Pregnancy photo

Here is one of me on New Year's Eve (you can tell it's after Christmas because the presents are all gone):



Even though I'm feeling smaller this time around, the baby is bigger. At my checkup this morning my midwife gave a rough estimate of 7 lbs. - and we still have at least three weeks to go! This is rather alarming. Fortunately Baby's not the one gaining a pound a week at this point.

Hot & haute cuisine

I've been hearing so much about paninis recently that I thought I'd try making one (that, and I had some odds and ends of mozzarella slices, leftover Christmas beefstick, and rolls to use up). Apparently they are all the rage at upscale bakeries and cafes, and are merely hot, flat sandwiches. So I sliced a roll in half, fried the inside in butter, flipped the sides and lined the inside with cheese and meat, put the top half of the roll on top, pressed it flat with a potato masher, and waited for the cheese to melt. Michael and I both agreed that it tasted delicious, and I made several more. Who needs to spend $100+ on a panini grill when you can squish the sandwich just as flat in a skillet with a potato masher??

On the other end of the spectrum, last night I decided to try my hand at making hollandaise sauce, and to my great astonishment it turned out perfectly! I spent a good bit of time reading up on it online, and it's quite the delicate procedure, requiring patience, deftness, and lots of butter, but the oil and water didn't separate and the meal turned out so perfectly that I had to take a picture:

Happy New Year!!

2007 is here! Another year is upon us. This time we didn't go anywhere because of the child's bedtime, although she did make it up past ten, happily running around our own living room. We stayed up til midnight, though, and watched It's a Wonderful Life, made ice cream, and talked about New Years past. This is the fourth New Year's we've spent together since getting married, and I've been pregnant two of them. That always makes my New Year's Resolution (if I took such things seriously) of Losing Weight This Year straightforward.

The sun is shining, the house is clean, and it looks to be a lovely year!