Too Homespun

Pre-school Valentines and the need to not have the lamest Valentine ever can be a little scary.  Or perhaps I am just a little crazy?  Let's split the difference and go with both, m'kay?  I KNOW.  HUSH.  Move on from my crazy!

Our pre-school has a 'no candy' policy, but J1's teachers, knowing that the Valentine's will not be opened until the kids are home and out of class when the parents can parent, have a 'what happens in the Orange Room stays in the Orange Room philosophy.'  So, we could easily have slapped some candy on a store-bought Valentine and called it a day.  In hindsight, this is a smart way to go.  In any event maybe it is my inherent need to follow the rules, even when the rules are allowed to be broken, which is in total opposition to my driving/speed limit actions, but whatever, I didn't want to do candy Valentines.  This is why I decided J1 and I should get our craft on for Valentine's Day and decided to go with the recycled/homemade heart crayon Valentine idea that a friend recommended.  I perused Pinterest for further inspiration and thought I had a clear idea of what we were doing.

Clearly I did not, though when you look at our Valentines en mass, they seem fine.  But in reality, or at least in my perfectionist not-three-and-a-half-years-old brain, they are a little too homespun.  J1, however, is pleased so I am going to concentrate on that.  Should I ever decide to undertake this venture again, a few notes to myself ...


Select more similar colors.  Yes, your kid LOVES purple, it is her favorite color in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD, but even a color blind person could see that the red and purple crayons look somewhat awful together.  That is not going to change when they bake.

Some people have glitter that bakes and stays glittery.  You are not one of those people.  Your sparkly red glitter will turn to black.  Black dots in homemade crayons look like dirt.  Your kid knows the black dirt dots were glitter and doesn't see this dirt dilemma, the other parents will.  GLITTER = FAIL.

Craft foam may seem like an awesome medium to attach things to and maybe it is.  It is not an awesome medium to print on.  My printer will not print on craft foam.  It will print on labels but those labels will not stick to craft foam.  So, unless you have a hankering to find your sharpest Sharpie and write some lame poem a dozen times, a poem that seemed not so lame until you wrote it a dozen times and then seems like the lamest thing ever, find a different medium.  This will also help with reducing the tears factor, when at some point your kid will have a hard time writing her name on craft foam and will goof up one, or four, of your Sharpie poemed masterpieces.  You will, tired of writing the stupid poem, snap.  She will cry.  Lesson? Craft foam is bad for this.

Your hole puncher has about a one inch reach.  You can not get it to punch three or four inches in from an edge and your three hole punch which may be able to do this has vanished. While it is incredibly crafty to let your kid rummage through your yarn stash and pick out some hand-dyed superwash sock yarn which you then will thread through a darning needle and use to sew your crayon onto your Valentine, it is only crafty for you.  And you know, it is not your crafty Valentine, it is your kid's.

Girly Food

A certain little girl turned three in these parts and there was some crafty (craFty not craPPy, though there was some of that too) baking going on as a result. Like a cake! A pink cake! A pink cake, shaped like an apple!


I have no idea why she wanted such a cake or how she dreamed it up. But here is my version of an apple shaped cake (pre-frosting). I copied was inspired by the Apple logo and, if I hadn't been up until three in the morning alternating between the cake and dealing with a sick baby, I think I would have remembered to swish the bottom part. She was happy, even without the bottom bit carved all right and proper, so WIN!

We also had some cake pops! And sugar cookies! With regard to the cake pops ... FAIL! I mentioned I had some cake pop problems and knowing that I tried another test round. Because you know, my kids is turning three which is such a big deal that I needed to practice. Ha! Me = Nutjob! Anyway, test round number two? That worked a little better and seemed to have helped with my dripping issue. So, of course, the final "real" batch turned out fucktastic. I ended up with three pseudo Hello Kittys who were really Hello Kitty's demonic sisters. One has a tumor, one is cracked out and one is perpetually scared like something is being rammed up her ... oh wait, there was, a lollipop stick. Anywho, there were many duds which I threw on a plate and referred to as a kitty graveyard.


'Twas only after I spent a day slaving over those motherlovin' cake pops and icing a gazillion cookies, that I realized I had nothing to shove a candle in, and well, you kind of need a candle to blow out on your birthday. So an uber-early morning trip to Starbucks netted us the cupcakes. Though I totally could have made them. And they would have looked just like that.

Bad Rep

We are having record (or close to) heat up in these parts. As such, we, along with the rest of clichéd suburbia, bought a pool pass for our town pool. This purchase triggered my EXTREME cheapness gene and I now try to get the family to the pool every day. A nice idea, that when executed flawlessly rocks, but, when executed without perfection say, like yesterday, can result in Public Shame. A very fine Public Shame in front of people I know not so well, and only sort of a little bit.

So. Monday. National holiday observed. No one working. We decided (read: I steamrolled the husband) to go to the pool. I needed to find my swim suit and was hoping to find the one that covers my nipples (two babies and coughcough pounds later, this is a bit of a challenge). During my exhaustive search, Boo was in charge of getting Lady Bean in her pool attire. As I am on my hands and knees looking under the bed for a swim suit (I really should have a better system now that we have a pool pass, no?), I yell out "Put LB in her suit and a swim diaper. The swim diapers are in the box of random diapers. They are the pull-up type in the open bag. The unopened bag are the next size up." I was distracted and not paying close attention to either task and, of course, ended up in the overly boob revealing swim suit. HOT. But whatever. All seemed fine and we made it to the pool as a group and in one piece.

Once we checked in, we meandered over to the kiddie pool and Boo, not knowing anyone, sat between friends of a friend with their husbands and another, not part of that group, friend. It wasn't like we could have sat by strangers anyway as the pool, due to the holiday, was JAMMED. Packed. Insane. You know, filled with tons of people needed for a good public shaming. Anyway, I said our 'hellos,' performed introductions and then pretty much ignored everyone but my family.

Basically I was anti-social and we stayed to ourselves. For the five minutes it took me to notice that LB's drawers looked really REALLY full. I mean, honestly, for a diaper to be that full you need a serious bladder/intestinal problem. Or, as it turns out, a foot or so deep kiddie pool. As I watched, through LB's swim suit, Dora the Explorer's head grow and grow on my baby's ass, I realized what happened. When I was barking orders from under the bed, I was a tad unclear on what constituted a swim diaper. Boo, unfamiliar with the box of random diapers, heard "pulled up" and "in the open pack," and grabbed a regular, non-waterproof, pull-up from the open pack of regular non-waterproof pull-ups.

Did you know pull ups bloat like dead beached whales when emerged in water? It was HORRIBLE (though not as horrible as a dead beached whale, but close). LB had a badonkadonk only it was all diaper. I once described a panicked HOLY SHIT WHAT DO I DO? feeling and that is EXACTLY how I felt at the pool. I looked around and didn't think anyone had yet noticed so I whisper-yelled, "WHAT DO WE DO???" to my husband and he's all whisper-yelling back, "I DON'T KNOW!!" After determining that closing our eyes and willing a swim diaper onto LB did not in fact work and after scouring our resources (limited to none), we decide to slink away discretely. Weird after only being there mere minutes, but still better than the alternative, right? And frankly, I am not sure what we thought that the alternative was other than having people notice, point, and laugh. Which was still, you know, not desirable.

So we are gonna leave. Only, of course, LB doesn't want to leave. So she RUNS AWAY. Well waddles because a diaper that full, it cannot be run in it. Of course everyone takes notice of this turn of events. Which means that alternative 'notice, point, laugh' thing, NOW HAPPENING. So there I am, boobs flopping hither and yon in a suit that had no business being seen in public, oh and did I mention I am peeling from a previous sunburn too, chasing my waddling non-swim diapered kid across the foot deep kiddie pool as she is screaming, "NO! NO! NO!" When I do catch her at the OPPOSITE end of the pool, I have to tuck her flailing squirming self under one arm like a purse so I can use the other arm to corral by boobs. Public. Shame.

There is a woman around town who apparently has a big snarfle tooth and a kid that smears poop on random surfaces and she is known as "The Woman With a Big Snarfle Tooth and the Kid That Smears Poop." I fear I am now know as "The White Trash Floppy Boobed Peeling Freak Who Makes Her Kid Swim in Regular Diapers."

One May Be The Loneliest Number

A friend, referring to her son and his age, once said, "One, two and three SUCK but four, well, four, it doesn't suck so much. You just have to make it to four." I have to tell you, I didn't think one really sucked and so I wasn't concerned about what was coming down the pike. At one LB slept thru the night and spent the days playing, eating, giggling and being, generally, delightful. Sure she was spirited, but rarely did I think about selling her on the black market. I figured the dreaded two and three was more of a boy thing and was content with life. Then one and a half rolled around and the suck started to happen. Little did I know, one and half, one and a half didn't have jack shit on two. Two is the pits. Two is an asshole.

Two takes its favorite book and rips out the pages because the ripping noise is neat.

If you tell two to stop doing something and indicate that a failure to stop will result in a time out on the naughty step, two will do the something and then walk itself over to the naughty step with a smile on its face.

Two wants a granola bar but not that granola bar the other one no youtoucheditAHHHHH.

If two was a frat boy, he'd come to your house, drunk, pee on the floor next to your toilet, eat your cheetos, throw them up on your pillow, cop a feel on your mom and then brag about the whole damn thing on his Facebook page.

Two asks for a brownie and whines for hours until you give in. Once two gets the brownie, it takes one bite and then crumples the rest in its little fist and throws it at you.

Two will only wear a diaper if Zoe is on it.

Two cleans up all of its toys. Yes. It cleans up all of its toys and then, as you are about to walk out the door, finds the largest bin of toys and dumps it all over the floor so that it will take another ten minutes to clean up the crap and you will be late.

If two was Viagra, it wouldn't give you an erection. No. Instead it'd give you severe allergic reactions, chest pain, fainting, fast or irregular heartbeat, memory loss, numbness of an arm or leg, ringing in the ears, seizure and sudden decrease or loss of hearing or loss of vision in one or both eyes.

Two cries. And whines. At the same time. A lot. For no reason. For some reason you don't know. For some reason it doesn't know. For some reason only the dog knows.

Two only wants french fries and chicken nuggets. Unless you are out with other people. Then two wants anything but french fries and chicken nuggets and the thing that you ordered it. In fact, two often wants to not eat. Ever. Just to see if you would really go to jail for failure to feed it.

Two wakes up screaming in the middle of the night as if it is on fire because it needs you to reach the six millimeters below its hand to get the blanket.

If two has to put a toy away and does not want to, well, it would rather (and somewhat gleefully) take that favorite toy and throw it in the garbage than put it away. And then, with a smile, two will tell daddy all about how it threw away its favorite ball instead of putting it away like mommy asked.

Two, two is birth control. If we want to stop teen pregnancy, we merely need to lock up a bunch of teens with a bunch of two year olds. If any of the teens survive, I guarantee it won't be to go and have unprotected sex.

Six Random Things

1) I like silly bandz. I bought some on a lark for LB and decided to give her one when she did something good on her own and without my pleading. On a good day she would end up with five or six of them which, at the end of the day, I would take back so that I could start again on the next day. This worked out until she started breaking and losing them and I kind of decided that I liked them. Now we are running out and I don't have enough for her or for me. Which makes me sad. Yes, I am sad because I only have a few of my two year daughter's animal shaped rubber bands left to wear on my wrist. Can you say loser?

2) I have a kitchen in my garage. Well not a functioning one. And, not one with appliances. Fine, I have a bunch of kitchen cabinets and some granite counter tops in my garage. Some how when everything was stored, the island was stored properly, which is to say it is a functioning island with cabinets and a top. A functioning island that now has two days worth of mail and six bottles of soda sitting on it. My point: an island is rather useful in the garage.

3) I have reknit my short-row heel and made it larger. I like it enough that I have started the second heel.

4) I have also started a garden. I PLANTED STUFF IN THE GROUND. WHERE BUGS LIVE. Mind you the majority of my garden consists of herbs in containers. But still, there are some chives, basil, parsley and oregano IN THE BUG FILLED GROUND.

5) TD seems to have mastered the art of sitting up. Mere hours after we were at her pediatrician's and I stated that she in fact could not sit up for squat. Note I also stated she couldn't eat food. She made sure I knew this statement was one hundred percent true as she took her first ever bite of banana, spit it out, and then projectile vomited on me. A lot.

6) There are twenty-one episodes of Law and Order in my DVR. Every single one of them is from 1994 or earlier and has Michael Moriarty as the prosecutor. I watched those shows when they were first shown and thought they were great. Now I watch them and think they are great, yet dated. Stuff from my teenage years feels dated. HOLY FUCK.

Faux Pas

Dear Nordstroms Shopper:

Please accept this apology on behalf of my daughter. She is not quite two and well, you see, we've been working on manners here at Casa de SouthPark. Those manners include saying, "excuse me" when one burps or toots (toddler speak for farts). I realize that you were suffering from some extreme gastrointestinal distress which is why you were in the Nordstroms' loo in the first place. And I realize that the last thing you wanted was to hear was my sweet little snowflake chirp "'Scuse me" after each and every one of your toots. So, I apologize. She didn't mean to embarrass you (or me for that matter). She was just practicing her manners. Maybe you can take heart in the fact that all of her hard work seems to be paying off and that she is starting to learn manners. No? Oh well.

Sorry,
'Scuse me and her Mom

Ice

Yesterday we got a couple of inches of snow which resulted in some icicles on the windows of my car. Not a big deal, right? WRONG! It is a HUGE deal if you are a twenty-one month old toddler who goes by the moniker LB. A deal so huge that you must scream and shriek and have a goddamn meltdown the second you enter the car. Now I'm a nice, kind, caring mom, at least some of the time. So when LB screamed MOMMY! MOMMY! NO ICE. NO ICE. NO ICE, MOMMY! I was willing to scrape the icicles off. Just not in my garage. Which is why we had the following conversation:

LB: MOMMY! MOMMY! NO ICE. NO ICE. NO ICE, MOMMY!
Me: Honey, it is just ice. It's on the outside. It's fine.
LB: NO MOMMY. NO. MOMMMMMMMMMMMY! NO ICE. NO ICE. NO ICE, MOMMMMMMY!
Me: Okay sweetpea. As soon as we are in the driveway I'll scrape the ice off the windown.
LB: NO ICE. NO ICE. NOOOOOOOO ICE, MOMMY!
Me: Listen! I am not dumping the ice in our garage. You are just gonna have to suck it up for a minute.
LB: No suck Mommy. No suck.

Fabu

My eldest is sick with a cold. Which means she is a crying whining mess. So instead of interacting with her and dealing with the constant whining and crying, I have turned on Sesame Street (also known as ELMO, ELMO, ELLLLMMMMMOOOO) and let her plant herself in front of the t.v. I am an awesome COMPASSIONATE parent.

Provocateur

If LB was awake to see this ...


she would LOSE. HER. SHIT.

Abuse

Due to poor planning on my part, this past Thursday I found myself at Walgreens, at noon (instead of at home, where I really needed to be, feeding and napping my human), in search of a birthday card to go in a gift that had needed to be mailed two days earlier. Had I not called to apologize for my lateness and said that I was mailing the gift that day, I could have continued procrastinating, but no. I opened my pie hole and shoved in my foot, and thus, found myself shopping at an inopportune moment. Nonetheless, I knew I was working on borrowed time and I was trying to hurry. I tossed Lady Bean in a cart, grabbed my purchases, including the card, and paid. And at this point all was well, with only minimal fussing from LB. I went to the cart return area, by the door, and prepared to head to the parking lot when I made a stupid, STUPID, mistake. I (did I mentioned STUPIDLY?) asked LB if she wanted me to carry her or if she wanted to walk. She opted to walk. Our rule is simple, you walk, you hold my hand. She knows this. She, however, was hungry and tired and wanted to walk sans Mommy and her handholding self. When told this was not a choice, she threw herself down on the floor and threw a fit of the highest order. There was screaming and tears and kicking and flailing. I stared at her in a kind of defeated and resigned way and in between wails repeated that if she wanted to walk she needed to hold my hand, all the while offering her my hand. She wailed, "NOOOOOOO!" and kicked and flailed some more. Good times. But wait! They get better.

It was at this point where an elderly gentleman in the line to pay raises his voice to tell me that I was an idiot. "She's obviously tired. She is screaming and throwing a tantrum because she needs a nap." Then, to the lady next to him, "That little girl needs a nap." And then back, loudly, to me, "You need to take her home and get her some sleep." After looking at him with my mouth agape, I replied, "Huh. Now I get elder abuse," and then I scooped up my screaming kid, two bags of crap and walked out. The End.

Okay, I didn't say that, but I wished I had. Dude, my kid is having a fucking meltdown. In the middle of a store. Blocking the exit. I know there is a problem. Thanks Captain Obvious. I mean, really? Do you honestly think you are helping the situation? Offering useful information? Meaningful insight? I'm just saying, THIS is why people beat up old people.

The End of Summer

I suspect that we won't get any more pool time in before well, next year. Well, outdoor pool time. Outdoor pool time in our kiddie pool that was suppose to be the dog's pool but that it a whole 'nother story for a whole 'nother time. So, I have Lady Bean and her final pool picture of the season!



Now if my tomatoes could just ripen, PRONTO!

Fifty-seven

There are many reasons I love my husband, but every now and then he does something that causes me to add a new reason to the list. To wit:



I was gone for the weekend and he taught the Bean how to put her cup in the cup holder in the car. Do you realize how much of my life I have spent searching for a random cup that she has dropped while trying to drive? Well NO MORE! I'd like to say that if I knew the back seat had a cup holder, I would have taught her this neat trick, but yah, probably not.

Distasteful

My daughter has taken to "reading" books while I change her diaper. It skeezes me out; it's like the adult equivalent of reading while in the loo.

Presto! Pesto! Oh Boy!

Four semi-packed cups of home grown basil + one Mark Bittman pesto recipe = A Happy Girl! Actually, I exaggerate, all of the basil didn't go into the pesto, the leftover was for bruschetta, but this t'aint about no bruschetta, it's about the pesto, my very first experience with my homegrown herb. Homegrown herb, heh, wonder how many stray google hits that is gonna bring me.

First I took my freshly plucked basil and hand washed each individual leaf, cleaning all dirt off. Idiotically I am MUCH MORE relaxed when I buy fresh basil at the store; no individual leaf washing, the whole package gets a quick douse under the faucet (I just spelled that Fawcet, as in Farrah, as in I see too much pop culture on tv and the internet and it is rotting my brain). But then again, I know what lurks in my yard (i.e., psycho deer that try to attack my pooch and the turkey mafia) and it ain't pretty. So right, I washed the hell out of the basil and then, and only then did I give it a spin in the salad spinner.




It sure looks pretty! Well maybe it doesn't. Maybe it is some sense of farmer pride that makes me find this to be the most beautiful basil in the whole wide world. Maybe I am deluded. Or, maybe it really is the most beautiful basil ever. Once the basil was clean and drying, I gathered the rest of my pesto making goodies.


Note that neither the coffee maker nor the pink little girl socks are crucial to this recipe.

You may also want to grab slave labor, uh, I mean a sous-chef. The sous-chef, if under-aged, may turn out to be a hindrance as all she will want to do is sit on the floor and play with raw pasta noodles. But if she is cute, she can provide comic relief if your pesto goes to shit.



So I followed Bittman's basic pesto recipe, except that I added a dash of Romano cheese because I have crappy reading comprehension skills and randomly added it in my head. Also, I detoured from the recipe when it came to adding the oil. I like my pesto thick and after adding half the oil I was worried it was going to be a watery mess. Granted, you don't add the cheese (well the Parmesan, a/k/a the cheese called for in the recipe) into the food processor, you mix it in by hand after the oil and other ingredients are processed, but still, I was scared.

                   
This one has no cheese.                                                 This one has lots of cheese.

It turns out that the full amount of oil probably would have been fine (hell, it is a Bittman recipe after all), but I can only say probably because I just started mixing cheese in with no thought or care to measuring. I was just going for what looked right. I may have used less cheese to compensate for less oil, or maybe I am just a cheese loving fool, or maybe both.



It really doesn't matter though because in the end, I had some DELICIOUS pesto!

Good Times

Happy Fourth of July! Well to the Americans. And maybe to the Brits, since you know, they got rid of us which, considering the high level of idiocy amongst my countrymen, is a valid reason for the Brits to celebrate our Independence Day. Everyone who doesn't celebrate, well you can suck it.

And speaking of sucking, yesterday, for the first, and how I totally hope last, time, LB puked. It was a somewhat surreal experience, which I probably shouldn't share, but I will anyway. I had spent the day curled up on the floor with stomach ailments of my own, using my prone position to block LB into the play area and prevent her from escaping while at the same time, allowing myself to doze. When she tried to escape, it woke me up. Also, getting hit with a book because some unsympathetic little wench wanted attention, that woke me up too. I am a considerate sick parent so I had the television on and LB watched Horton Hears a Who. Which was a bit of luck - I had lowered my girth to the floor and then thought the television might be a great distraction. Not wanting to actually get up, I manually (heh) turned on the tube, which meant I had no channel control unless I got up. Apparently Boo had been watching HBO the night before and fortunately Horton, and not say Natural Born Killers, was what was on. After Horton, I did manage to move and get the kid some Sesame Street and Barney. I am not proud of my parenting, but I am somewhat feeling better and figure the rest did me well.

So I felt crappy and LB felt fine. Those were the reports I was sending to Boo when I was asking him if he was sure he couldn't get home from work at you know, now. Later in the afternoon, all seemed well, or at least status quo as I just wanted to lay down and LB wanted to play or eat. LB asked for a snack so I brought her some crackers and Cheerios. I returned to the couch, and LB ate a cracker. Then she coughed. Then she burped. And then she opened the vomit flood gates. Honestly, it was insane. First I saw the crackers come up and thought, huh, isn't she a little old for spit up? Then I saw lunch come up and thought, uh oh. Then I saw her pre-lunch snack come up and thought, hell. Then I saw breakfast come up and though, HOLY FUCK! Seriously, you could watch each course come up. And for the records, shouldn't breakfast have been digested by late afternoon? I mean, really.

The entire time I watched the puke-movieathon of her meals, she just stood there, puking down her front and on the floor without seeming the least bit upset. When she was done she wiped her hand across her face, smearing puke into her hair and eyebrows, and smiled. It was ... the opposite of awesome.

Now I am not down with the puke, or rather the clean up of puke, as every time I puke, it is in the toilet or garbage or sink, you know, someplace where I don't have to scrub it up. I don't really like kids, and I was never the babysitting type, and even if I had been, you bet your butt that if some kid I was babysitting started puking, I would have been on the phone with the parents STAT. Ten bucks an hour soooo does not cover that type of hazardous duty. In any event, I am unfamiliar with the clean up of the puke and I had no idea that puke it somewhat slimy and a general fuking menace. Holy crap, cleaning up puke stinks (bad pun totally intended, though apologized for). I have scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and my nostrils have been singed by the smell of stomach bile and toxic chemicals. It has been delightful. I see a date with Stanley Steamer in my future.

And did I mention BiL5 was showing up about two hours after LB's pukefest? Yah. I had forgotten he was coming and the house was trashed and Boo called to remind me about three hours before BiL5 was arriving. Had I been feeling good, I could have cleaned but I wasn't and so I didn't. LB just solidified the frat house atmosphere by adding the scents to go along with the dirty laundry and pet fur.

Happy Dance

Praise Zeus! The camera has been found. A tithing was due the finder which I paid gladly because DUDE, MY CAMERA IS BACK (and its anus seems fine, thank you sweet gentle aliens). Before I photograph my two pairs of socks of sparkle, I want to get rid of the stuff already on the camera. In no particular order ...

First, I knit these socks. Rather I started them. Both of them. I got them both to this point:


Then I decided that I didn't like them. Or rather, I found the chart to be a pain in the ass and the socks were a little too big and so I started to rip. But then I remembered how put out I was when I saw that I ditched these guys so close to being done, that I stopped ripping, shoved them in a bag, and tucked them away. There is still a slight chance that I will finish them. Well, smaller than slight. Minuscule. But it is a chance.

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Lady Bean likes playing under my desk while I am on the computer.


She doesn't seem to mind that she is taller than the space provided. It hurts my back just looking at her. It hurts my pride to see a big wad of dog hair next to her under there. We are dirty, dirty people.

*************************************
We had more turkeys.

I hate turkeys.

*************************************
LB was sick. As in brains (or infection, why must I be so DQ?) leaking out of her ear, only able to sleep sitting up on my chest, miserable sick. So for the twenty-four hours that it took for the miracle drugs to kick in, I was a glorified pillow.


A glorified pillow that knit (and had some massively frizzy hair, though that could be from the fact that I went from the shower to the Emergency Pediatrician's office in like two minutes and used not one single iota of hair product. Or make-up. Apparently I had a back up plan of scaring the doctor into treating her immediately).

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Last, I planted herbs. This is from the day they were planted.


Proof that they were in fact alive at the outset, even if they aren't anymore.

Duet

My MiL is here for a visit with her favorite (and obviously best) granddaughter which is quite nice. Said granddaughter is turning one this Friday and having a party to celebrate same on Saturday. Also, quite nice. The house (mine, as in where the party is being held, not say, the house that Ruth built) is not ready for a party, and this, this is not quite nice. In other words, Holy Shit my house is a mess and twenty-five people are going to come over for LB's birthday and find out we live like pigs. Instead of bitching about our sty-like conditions, I should be cleaning them. After all, my child has a playmate which relieves me of that duty (duty ... doodie ... heh, I am seven) and I have time to remove the hairballs gathering under the buffet. Instead of doing this, I am hiding in the office, checking my e-mail (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and doing everything possible BUT clean. Which is not to say I have not cleaned. For I have. A lot. For example, I removed the nobs from the stove and cleaned underneath them. Now that, THAT is cleaning. Which, I guess is not "a lot" of cleaning. But still. It doesn't explain why I am sitting here, overwhelmed by the wafting stench of the stinkiest cat poop ever (which was really mean of the cat - he saw me in here and was like, Sooooo what? I gotta pooh and this is where my box is suckah). Nothing could explain it. Sheer laziness? I know not. What I do know is that I have killed five whole minutes with this drivel despite the need for gas mask. Go me. And, so as to kill five more minutes, let me tell you about my BRILLIANT anniversary gifts.

As I have mentioned before, we try to do the gift thing in accordance with official guidelines. Which, yah, not so official. But whatever. So this year the things were wood and silverware. In case you were wondering, these things SUCK. I've been married five years and THIS is what the universe deems appropriate. Suck it universe! But, being a sheep, and incapable of developing a thought of my own, I went with the guidelines. Wood? Easy. Toothpicks and matches. Done. Silverware? Now that is hard. Well, I suppose if we didn't have twelve place settings of perfectly fine silverware, then it would not have been hard as I would have just bought silverware. But we do have silverware, fancy and plain, and the last time I checked my husband was a "man's man" and had absolutely no interest in acquiring a new silver pattern, which meant that silverware was hard. I say was because, DUDES, I rock. Drum roll please ... For our fifth wedding anniversary gift, I got Boo some silverunderware. I KNOW. Brilliant. So long as you whisper "under" it is all good! In case you are curious, Boo was much more 'in the box' getting me a nice wooden picture frame and a cheese knife set. He did get creative and gave me a cheap wooden picture frame, with a picture of his friend in it, a friend who's last name is Wood. But I have to say if you put his Wood against my silverunderware, I get the vote for most creative. Granted silverunderware was his "real" gift, so I also get the vote for "cheap ass" and "least exciting anniversary gift ever." But hey, you win some and you lose some. And on that note, I shall shimmy out of here and clean because HOLY FUCK, WHAT DID THE CAT EAT?

Um ... ?

Remember THE Christmas stocking? The stocking that I truly had a love/hate relationship with? And do you remember the designer of the stocking? The designer who thought I was a moron for wet blocking the stocking? The designer who was going to send me a replacement kit as an act of goodwill despite my supposed dimness? 'Member that? Well, last night as I was  lying   laying  lounging in bed, I realized ... FUCK GOOD WILL! She never sent me the stocking kit.

Also, and totally unrelated to the above, I think I may be stuck in the 90's.



Since when did $1.69 become a "GREAT PRICE" for a two liter jug of Coke? $1.69 is great? Really? That seems like a rip-off gas station/convenience store price to me. 99¢? Now that is a GREAT PRICE.

And also unrelated to both of the above, but lingering in my subconscious because of the use of the word "great" ...



Check out my baby's hair do!?! Now that is Grrreeeaaatt! I took that picture with my CrackBerry and didn't think the quality would be all that great (which it's not, obviously, no duh, I KNOW), so I busted out the "real camera." And yes, I use "scare quotes" because my camera is only real in the sense that it takes pictures. It is a point and click and not anything like the real deals that Stalkarazzi use and that I covet. But I digress, I busted out the camera that is only a camera and not a phone and yet, the pictures, still pretty phone like in quality ...



Anyway, I liked the hair do. It made me smiled but LB screamed her lungs empty when I made? crafted? concocted? placed? (what does one do to a ponytail?) the ponytail, and thus, it was loose and was undone before we left the house.

Scrummy Yummy

If yarn were drugs then my personal heroin would be Artyarns cashmere. It's not the softest cashmere, it's not the most expensive or most luxe. Nonetheless, it tickles my fancy and I love me some Artyarns cashmere. Douse it in a poison green color and DAYUM!



Several months ago when Zazu started knitting up a scarf in poison green Artyarns cashmere ... well, I was green. With envy. Not nausea. It is a good heroin. It does me right. Anywho, I (of course) was going to be a big ole copy cat and get me some of my own smack pronto. Only it was not for sale. ANYWHERE. Not where Zazu bought it. Not on the internet. Not nowhere. Now you have to understand, I SEARCHED. At first, I checked the store. I figured it would be there. But it wasn't. And the proprietor thought I might have been delusional as she had no recollection of the yarn. Then I looked on the internet. Nothin'. Then on Artyarns site. Nope. I finally deduced that the color was 131 and that Artyarns didn't do cashmere in that color anymore. Which was nice to know but not the least bit useful as I was trying to acquire some.



So I did what any unself respecting junkie would do, I drooled all over Zazu's scarf and rubbed on it whenever I could. Every time I saw her I would ask about my scarf. I would fluff it and smell it and dream of abducting it. In the end, whether it was my puppy dog eyes, or the foam at my mouth, when Zazu finished her scarf she promptly gave me her leftovers (and oddly enough didn't tell me that now I could shut the hell up! Which is a sign that she is not only very generous, but also patient as I may have been a teeny bit annoying.)



Once I had the scrummy yummy goodness in my hot little hands I wasn't sure what to do with it. I knew I wanted to used EVERY LAST bit so a proper pattern probably wasn't gonna do since I didn't know how much I had. And then Zazu stepped up again with a pattern for a child's neck warmer from Knitting to Go. When you think about it, this is a great idea, as you can't give a baby a scarf because of the whole choking/hanging hazard. I mean, I'd feel pretty bad if I knit my child a method of death. That would be no good.



The pattern is a four stitch repeat of purl three, knit one, and it is knit in the round. As I am lazy and would rather knit, I knit it inside out and did knit three, purl one. When I was done I flipped it and, Voila! The pattern does have specs and measurements, but I seriously wanted to knit until I was almost out of yarn so I did my own thing. When I thought I used as much as I could, I used the EZ sewn bind off and then weaved in my end. My end was kind of long but I was not going to cut the yarn ... MUST USE ALL OF YUMMY YARN. So the tail, it weaves in for a complete round. As in, all the way around. It's all good though.

Once LB's melon is too big to get the neckwarmer over, I plan to rip this out and do something else. For myself. Maybe by then I will have a yarn meter measurer and can find out how much I have. Or maybe I will just make up my own thing as I go.



Yarn: Artyarns, Cashmere 5, Color CS131, Zazu's leftovers
Needles: two Susan Bates Circ, size 3.75 mm (US 5)
Pattern: Based on the neckwarmer in Knitting to Go
Modifications: Used my own number of stitches.
Time: One month.
Care: No idea.

Happy New Year

I made black-eyed peas to ring in the new year, like I usually do. This year I went with a Texas Caviar recipe which has black-eyed peas and black beans. It was delish and gone within a day so sorry, no pictures. Instead, a question. How is it that the child I carried in my womb for nine months during which time we ate boatloads of refried beans, black beans, and garbanzo beans, the child who was called The Bean and Lady Bean, doesn't like beans?