Please, Sir, may I have some more?

*This hat is overtime. And I don't use that word frivolously.  (Sorry the photo's so blurry--she moves quickly!)

It was a nice day, so we played outside for a while. Rosina had a chance to play with her little scooter-thing for the first time in a while. Unfortunately it was full of water! Mark is going to drill some extra holes in the bottom.

*Speaking of drills, our entertainment center is coming between nine and one tomorrow. I have to negotiate with the driver to help get the almost 200-pound shipment to the door. (Hopefully twenty bucks is enough incentive.) We're going to build it tonight. The online reviews all say it takes a few hours--I'm hoping with two of us working on it, it'll be a bit faster.

*Our daffodils are blooming! I cut one and put it in the bud vase on the kitchen windowsill, where it serves as a reminder that I need to start my tomato seeds ASAP...

*Rosina's favorite color is blue, if her crayon choices are any indication.

*I started the second Bex sock, since I'm trying to save the stockinette feet for public/mindless knitting. It's a lot easier the second time around! I had wanted to make another Adorkable Monster for Rosina for Valentine's Day, so I ought to start that--but the first one I made only took two days, so I guess I have some time.

Suburbia

*Fun trip to Tar-zhay this morning, which included the purchase of two super-clearance tops for me and one absolutely adorable newsboy cap (also on sale) for Rosina. Pictures will be taken ASAP.

*Crockpot favorite--chicken with olives, raisins and capers--for dinner, served with roasted sweet potato wedges...yum.

*Discussed our plan to enroll Rosina in preschool in the fall (just eight hours a week). The school has already posted the application, so we may need to move more quickly than we thought.

*Good bellydance class--there's a new step I will have to practice a bit, but that's a good thing!

*Just busted a hole in my Binghamton T-shirt! I guess it's fifteen years old and was due to be replaced, but will I be able to find one without a Bearcat on it?

Briefly...

*Rosina is coming down with a cold, we think: runny nose, coughing. Oh, sad baby night coughing. :( She got three colds in two months this fall, so we've been spoiled for the last few months. Poor thing! I hope this is a quick and mild one.

*I guess the Superbowl is over by now, not that I care. I just can't get invested unless a team I care about is playing, and since the Jets haven't been in FORTY YEARS, I only ever watch if the Giants are playing. We celebrated an anti-Superbowl by watching lots of trailers for musicals on Amazon Prime. (Mark has a free month, and wants to get the most out of it. Honestly, I don't think it's that great, unless you already like pay-per-view.)

*Took a nice long nap! I really should do that more often.

*Yummy lunch at Neomonde. They know me by sight now, since I get full-fat Greek yogurt there three times a month. It's so cheap!

*Finally finished the leg and heel of the sock. Using the decrease row for the toe worked out great. I guess I'll know soon if it's going to be too loose around the ankle...

Om nom nom...

*We just got back from a delicious Indian dinner (Tower India, if you're local) with some friends we hadn't seen in a few months. They live in the next town over and are incredibly busy with new businesses and MBA programs, so it is always a treat. Vegetable kofta curry, paneer butter masala, dosai--we were sated and full of carbs. Which is why we had froyo afterwards. (Fun fact: Autocorrect wanted to change "froyo" to "group". It makes sense if you think about qwerty, but still.) Rosina didn't do so well at first, but once we stopped trying to shove yogurt in her face and took her out of the high chair, she was happier, and even ate roti and some tastes of our food.

*Part of the reason for the general grumpiness is last night's disturbance. It was late, and I was about to go upstairs when Rosina started crying. It sounded like she was pretty unhappy, so I went in to check on her. Between trying to give her some Tylenol and milk and bringing her downstairs, she probably wailed for about half an hour before I managed to cheer her up with an array of Sesame Street video clips (how about Billy Joel and Marlee Matlin serenading Oscar the Grouch with "Just the Way You Are"?). I didn't get to bed until after two...

*More Rosina: she had the first meeting of her second swim class this morning. It had been a year since the last one, but she's still pretty comfortable out there. Apparently most of the kids are around her age (Mark goes with her), but she was the only one who wasn't freaking out. So at least there's that.

*We (or mostly Mark) have been watching It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia on Netflix, which is just a crazy show. There are no redeeming characters, and the writers seem hellbent on offending as many people as possible. (Like Family Guy, but not as racist and sexist--jeez, I can't even watch that anymore.). But even multiple seasons in, it's still actually funny. They even had the prerequisite "let's put on a musical" episode, and now we can't get the big song out of our heads. It's too convoluted to explain...

*Only four more pattern rounds on the sock! I took a look at the foot chart, and there's an easy way to decrease all the extra stitches in one. Tomorrow!

Whirling dervish

*Eek, look how big my baby is! I think I may have gotten her to jump today, just a tiny bit off the ground. Tonight before Mark put her to bed, she was spinning around in a circle. And she tried meatballs for the first time today--inhaled them, I should say. She is definitely my child...

*Work was actually very productive this morning--even if it did mean compiling statistics manually. Seriously, who would design peer reviewing software without the capability to run reports on the reviewers? I was really hoping this new system would be better than the last, but I've learned three new systems in three years now, and this one is clearly the worst. It is horribly non-intuitive.

*Finally got to the post office--I mailed my monster for the 600 Monsters project (it's probably not going to Newtown, but I trust the organizers will get it to a kid who could use a monster hug) and some gifts for my nieces. Then we went to Costco, where I finally bought the temporal artery thermometer (on sale, no less), along with other supplies and an impulse-purchase 5-pack of eos lip balm. Hey, I use a lot of lip balm, and I like to have a change from Burt's Bees once in a while.

*Still plugging away on the sock. I have about 26 rounds now before I get to decide how to decrease for the ankle. On second thought, I ought to take a look at the foot chart to see how they're decreased there. I think it's a decrease worked into the large cables...

*OMG. If you watch The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (YouTube series), you have probably been buying your nails for the last few weeks, wondering how the Lydia-Wickham situation was going to be handled. Well, now we know. And spoilers aside, I think it works with the gestalt of the show--new media, fourth-wall breaking... If you haven't been watching, there'd be a lot of catching up to do (84 episodes, plus like, 24 of Lydia's, and Maria Lu--and I just noticed that Gigi has a new channel), but I promise it's worth it! Plus it's not like the Interwebs are going anywhere...

 

Because sleep is more important...

*I'm actually posting this on Friday (shhh!). I was actually in bed a minute before eleven! I'm going to continue to try to catch up on sleep over the weekend.

*Remote desktop is working, but everything is all screwy, and because of software updates my files were hidden in some random backup location. Plus the mad German came out of hiding and, per his MO, needed something done immediately and started freaking out when I didn't write him back in ten minutes (smack in the middle of the 24 hours the server was down). Argh.

*Brought my sock to knit night, and actually got a few things done. Discussed some mystery upcoming events...

*Rosina had a fever spike this afternoon--she almost never runs a temperature, but she felt warm after her nap, so I took her axillary temperature, and it was 101. I hardly believed it, sine the thermometer is so crappy, but my temperature was normal. I gave her some Tylenol, and it was significantly lower in just a few minutes. She seems fine now, so I guess it was just one of those things. It could definitely bee teething-related.

*i have been freezing veggie burritos for us to eat for lunch, and I am officially dick of them. What's worse is that I don't think Mark is even taking them to work. I was doing this so we could save money on lunches, and he probably spends more than $30 a week on just lunch.  Must discuss!

Technical difficulties

*I missed posting yesterday because that time was better spent taking a shower. I never understood why parents of small children so valued showers, but now I do! I don't need to wash my hair more than three times a week anyway, since it's so long at the moment, but I wish I didn't need to mark the calendar for it!

*Server issues at work, hence the title of this post. I wasn't able to check my email or access any of my files. Still can't! The silver lining is that I can let myself sleep in tomorrow.

*Made a decision regarding Bex (the docks I'm working on): I'm just going to do the cable pattern on the legs, and do the feet in stockinette. I don't need the extra bulk in my shoes, plus I'll be able to make the legs longer without running out of yarn. Also, the feet will not need my undivided attention.

*Just bought two new diaper covers and two long-sleeved bibs on sale on Amazon. Interesting stuff, eh?

*Rosina is really in the thick of this molar thing--drooling like crazy, both hands in her mouth, general fussiness, and grumpiness about eating. Poor thing...I wish we could look forward to it being over soon, but after this one we still have canines and another set of molars to go.

Up too late, surprise surprise

*Had a very nice lunch with my officemates and a few out-of-town staff. It was great to have more time to catch up--I know I'm lucky to be working with such nice people (even if I do think they talk about religion too much). Rosina was a doll the whole time, particularly considering she was past due for her nap.

*Speaking of Rosina, she makes the cutest animal noises right now. Dogs say "wuw wuw", cats say "meh"--and her favorites are horses, sheep and goats, but she's been baa-ing for a while now.

*Ridiculous Southern reaction to possible precipitation #17: the district calling a three-hour delay when there was only a very slight chance of rain, well north of here. Maybe if they hadn't called it the night before, they wouldn't have basically wasted a school day.

*Good bellydance class tonight. I have to clean up my Tunisian twists--ugh, especially going to the left! I am so right-handed--but other than that I have a pretty good handle on what we've done so far in this choreography.

*Got about five rows of my sock done at at my Monday knitting group--my fault for bringing a cable-crazy Cookie A. pattern--and afterwards completed a motley shopping list consisting of super glue, magic erasers, breath mints and bananas. I still can't find a calendar anywhere. I may check a craft store tomorrow, but I wonder if we're out of luck and will have to print one. We definitely waited too long!

Team Peach Cobbler FTW!

*We just crushed it at the local sports bar's trivia night. Fifty dollars!! (Figures they'd have a new rule where you have to spend the credit right away--and since there were only two of us, and we didn't order drinks, we ended up buying a few desserts to put in the freezer.) Go Peach Cobbler! (Don't ask me where that name came from--it just popped into my head.) And considering that Mark had to leave for about half an hour to take care of a work thing, leaving me alone with Rosina for the last two rounds before the final, I feel particularly good about it. I aced the third round!

*FaceTime date with Cathy, where we discussed the relative merits of 1990-vintage colognes. Malibu Mist and Electric Youth are both available on Amazon--though the photo of the latter looks pretty yucky. Maybe I'm just lazy now, but I usually use either scented lotion or vanilla body spray these days--when I think of it at all.

* Took a very restorative hour-long nap. I am so loath to take naps--it's always seemed like a waste of daylight to me--but I haven't been sleeping that well lately (it's the low humidity; I think I ought to get a new prescription for Flonase), and I was supremely cranky today before that nap...

*Went to Whole Foods alone to pick up some basics. Believe it or not, their milk prices are actually competitive! (We've had bad luck with milk from Costco and Kroger going bad days before the sell-by date--and don't get me started on Trader Joe's!) It is SO relaxing going to the grocery store when you don't have to worry about your car's proximity to the cart corral, or about keeping a baby occupied. Plus my English Breakfast Tea was on sale!

*We went to the dollar store to pick up some coloring books (why go anywhere else? They're just going to be scribbled on) and some wrapping paper, and I also picked up one of those large French twist hairpins. I have fallen prey to hair gadgets before! This one actually seems to work, however. I am pleased.

This is a particularly bourgie post, for whatever reason. Don't worry about me, I still turn up the volume when Thin Lizzy comes on...

Late again, so I'll make it quick

*Had a pleasant evening at the cocktail hour and dinner. It was nice catching up with people. Free filet mignon didn't hurt, either! The Key lime pie was a bit out of season, but still delicious.

*Spent most of the afternoon cleaning, but it's nice to have it over with.

*Rosina had a rough day toothwise, but Tylenol helped a lot. I ended up putting her to bed tonight after I got home--it's usually Mark's job (I normally wash the sippy cups every night), so it was nice for a change.

*I must've slept oddly last night--I know there were weird dreams, at least--and my back and neck have refused to let me forget it. Another reason to go to bed now...

*i have heard "Close My Eyes Forever" on the radio twice in the past week. This cannot be a coincidence.

Snow day

I'm so glad I didn't have anywhere to go...

*Southerners are historically chicken when it comes to the white stuff, but this was no joke. It started snowing a bit at about eleven this morning, which alternated with sleet and freezing rain for most of the day. When I went to get the mail (empty!), there was about 1/4" of ice on everything. I'm glad Mark managed to get home before it got too nasty.

*Played this song for Rosina today. I don't know whether she liked it, or if she just enjoyed my awesome dance moves. It definitely brought me back.

*We are watching the last few episodes of Ellery Queen on DVD from Netflix. It was a really well-made show, but I guess it wasn't gritty enough for the post-Watergate, post-Serpico world. I have been waiting a while for the latest Doctor Who half-season to show up--I am now learning what they mean by "Very long wait". I may just break down and pay to stream the next half-season from Amazon. This is just silly...

*I have a work function tomorrow night, and one of my friends is watching Rosina so Mark can come to dinner after the boring "happy hour" at the office. (Free steak dinner--I shouldn't complain! And other than helping to set up snacks and making small talk with near-strangers, I don't have much to do!) My editor is presumably in Europe, where he was the other day, so I should be able to avoid any of the Herculean last-minute requests for which he is so famous.

*I am almost done with the Baby Bobbi Bear I'm making for my new niece. This is my first time using Berroco Remix, and I really like it. (I suspect the 100% recycled content is pre-consumer, considering there's a decent but inoffensive amount of VM in the skein.) This time I need to just bite the bullet and embroider the face as soon as possible, instead of waiting most of a year, like I did with Rosina's!

Blerg

Things got away from me yesterday, as I will explain...

*Rosina had a rough day yesterday, mostly because she's working on some molars--but she's also started this pattern where she grunts/yells when she wants us to do something or give something to her. I keep saying, "Please, mommy?" to try to change it before this becomes a habit, but it's not working yet. And there are tantrums, but they're normally brief, and are to be expected at this age. That doesn't mean I have to like it!

*Misplaced my wallet! I ordered that tv stand last night, and never put my wallet back in my purse--so of course I left without it when I went to buy milk. I luckily had a $10 bill in my wallet (I feel bad when my grandparents send me money for Christmas, but it saved my ass!) After we got home and put Rosina down for her nap, I tore apart the living room looking for it, with no luck. Mark found it in three minutes, in a place I had already looked.

*Got totally bitched out by someone for saying something completely innocuous. I've known this person for a while, and maybe they had just had a bad day, but it was really unnecessary. I'm trying not to take it personally, but, um, well, I do! It has changed my opinion of them, at least for the time being...

*Heard "Let's Go Crazy" on the radio, and they totally cut the spoken word part! Big mistake.

*In good news, I have been following the 1600-calorie version of the DASH diet since the beginning of the year, and I think I've actually lost a few pounds. :) I made myself these Deal-A-Meal-y cards out of construction paper, and it's been a pretty easy way to keep track of servings without having to keep a food diary or anything.

Since I get a kick out of this picture, I will post it completely out of context.

On a roll...

It's late so I'll be quick:

*We have been going back and forth about a new entertainment center. We bought a nice tube tv right before the LCDs came out, so now we have a 75-pound tv that no furniture is designed to support anymore. I think we have finally decided on something that isn't going to bankrupt us, and just need to work out the logistics.

*Caught up on Castle with one eye while reading Peter Rabbit over and over again with the other.

*I found these old links in an unposted entry from November 2011:

Article on the first black MLB player--in 1905--who later became a lawyer for Marcus Garvey

One-hour quick clean!

And this needs no introduction.


*In annoying work news, my Remote Desktop is still down, and our new peer review system only provides useless statistics.

*i am a Pinterest power user! Go follow me if you don't already. I mainly use it for recipes, it seems. Pinterest recipes tend to fall into two camps: hysterical veganism (hello, some of us can't eat tofu, and refuse to waste money on almond milk) and full-on Sandra Lee cream-of-mushroom soup craziness. There is no middle ground! And why does everything have so much added salt and sugar? I like all the ideas, but I end up having to modify everything, because they're so ridiculous...

Five (okay, six) moment memoir #1

Oh, blog. I have neglected you for so long. I genuinely thought I didn't have enough time for blogging--but when I see the other ways I fritter away my time, it makes me wonder. Anyway, I read this piece in O magazine (thanks again, Helen!) about one writer's idea for a "five-moment memoir", in which only five points are listed, and I thought that might be a good way to get back into things. Since it's been more than a year, I know an update would take forever, and hopefully this will just help me skip over all that. So welcome to the mundanity that is my life.

*Got to sleep in today! Dragging my ass out of bed at seven every morning is manageable, but rather unpleasant. I know I should be all thoughtful about Martin Luther King, and believe me, I am, but I am also grateful to get an extra two hours of sleep.

*In old-lady-in-the-supermarket news, a retired NICU nurse stopped us today in Target. They're always so happy to see the tiny ones doing so well. In other Target news, I bought some vanilla Gud body butter for half off--score!

*Heard "Silent Lucidity" on the radio. Wondered how Queensryche was always grouped in with the grunge bands, when they are clearly straight-up prog. Seriously, you could tell me that song was by Yes, or even Pink Floyd (doesn't it sound like "On the Turning Away"?), and I might believe you.

*Caught most of Obama's speech today. I thought I wouldn't miss much after our errand, but they must've been running really early. Civil rights were in focus for obvious reasons, but I can't help but think of GWB's "I'm the decider" BS. Repeatedly bringing up gay rights would certainly rile the conservative dipwads...

*Slight update: my new niece was born Friday! Elizabeth Anne looks like a little grumpy Sicilian woman, just like her sister Charlotte did. They should come home from the hospital tonight. Rosina was very excited to see pictures of her, particularly since she is currently obsessed with babies. "Baby" is probably her favorite word at the moment.

*Just read The Passage by Justin Cronin. There are obvious comparisons with The Stand, and his style is similar to Stephen King's, which could explain why I found it so hard to put down. Oh, and there are nasty psychic superhuman semi-vampires, and epic doomed-to-fail journeys across wastelands, and of course The End Of The World, which, if you know me, you know is my favorite book topic ever. If a novel includes a decimated population scavenging for unspoiled canned food in long-abandoned supermarkets, I have probably read it.

And that was six moments! More tomorrow, if I can get my ass in gear. Maybe even more pictures... This one is from Thanksgiving--enjoy.

This is just as fantastic as you would expect.



And speaking of awesome performers, I'd never really heard of Diosa Costello until I read an interview she did with Smithsonian magazine. She sounds like a hoot.

You all know I love Bea Arthur. This dude takes it to the next level. Love it!

Whoa, this is awesome.

Two days after my last post, I started working from home, two hours a day. That is pretty much all the time I spend on the computer nowadays. Rosina is an extremely good-natured baby, but there's only so much time her beloved activity mat will keep her occupied! (She is doing great, by the way--six months old today, and extremely active and happy. I'll know better tomorrow, when she goes back to the hospital for an in-depth preemie checkup, but I don't think she's even delayed...though she is only about 12 pounds. Tiny and mighty.) Anyway, that's the main reason the blog has been neglected; I use one of Rosina's long naps to work for the day, and the other to try to get things done around the house, or actually relax...

Speaking of which, I also have quite a bit less time for knitting than I used to have. When she was smaller I could just prop her on my shoulder and have my hands free, but she's about 25 inches now (will know better tomorrow) and wiggly, so it's no longer an option! I did manage to get this shawlette done in time for the fair--and I ended up getting an Honorable Mention ribbon for it, so I guess I still got it:

Gotta love a Zauberball--I just wish I could use them for socks. But considering how rough I've been on my socks lately (I keep wearing through the heels--a combination of ceramic tile floors and, I suppose, a change in weight distribution with the pregnancy), I'm not knitting any socks out of 100% wool--and certainly not a single--for the foreseeable future. I have two more lovely balls, which I suppose will also end up being shawlettes.

So I would like to start blogging more regularly--and I just realized that last Monday was the TENTH ANNIVERSARY of this blog, whoa--particularly because I really am not using Facebook anymore, other than to check on my friend who is officially post-due date. I do need a place to deposit my random thoughts and links, even if it is mainly an exercise in ego. :) Speaking of which, links:

OMG. Definitely making those.

I just put myself on the library wait list for this book. I really no longer have the time for much hard literature, sad to say--however, I am about to start watching the penultimate season of DS9.

So this happened:



That was fun. It was a sick tree anyway, but the winds from Irene and a thunderstorm a few days later put the final nail in its coffin. It fell at about 11 A.M., while Rosina was napping. It sounded like somebody had just dragged something heavy up to the front door, so I opened it--hello, tree! Thankfully it fell right in the four-foot space between my car (which was slightly scratched) and the side of the house. Also thankfully, while it was about a foot in diameter, it was easily one of our smaller trees... Unfortunately it took several days to have a tree service come out, since there were so many downed trees due to the storms, and it was blocking our front path. Not much to complain about, truly, considering all the devastation in the past two weeks...

Other items of note:

This article about one woman's experience with her preemie is pretty powerful. It obviously doesn't mirror our experience, but some of the details are close enough. The "distancing" thing is common enough with preemie parents that it was mentioned in a bunch of the things they gave us in the NICU. I'm really glad it didn't happen to us. This was a brave article to write--I think people need to be more aware that it's a relatively common reaction.

Recipe for chai-flavored simple syrup: YUM.

Another recipe, from one of the knitting ladies: I think these will kill you dead...

I really want to do one of these! But paying money for a venue...ugh.

It's Red Scarf Project time again! I already have a stash yarn in mind (remember my awesome orange yarn from many years back??), and a few patterns that might work.

And look! An FO!!


I'm about as excited as she is about them. Ah, but at they are at least finally done. Continuing in a masochistic vein, my newest project is an uncharted shawl. Sigh...

Am I the only person that remembers this show? There was a really smarmy song about turning a frown upside down, I remember.

I am currently mired in a ridiculously slow cross-stitch project (why did I pick something that only uses two colors? ugh), but when I finish it my next project will involve this and this.

On that note, somebody should beam me up to bed. Why I am blogging at 1 A.M. instead of in bed is no mystery, I suppose...Mark put Rosina to sleep a while ago, but my internal clock is all messed up. To sleep!!