Also, my cat sleeps funny sometimes

Yes, she regularly attempts to sleep with her forehead buried in the arm of the couch.
(Please to be excusing the crappy webcam photo, btw)

I, on the other hand, prefer to sleep like this:

What?  Can I help it if they missed me?  They'd just be scratching at the bedroom door if I tried to keep them out, anyway ...

I'm Lost

We only managed to complete one sentence between the two of us during our entire conversation regarding tonight's episode of Lost:

J - So wait, he released original sin when he went down the ...
G - No, it wouldn't have been original sin, because isn't that the whole thing with eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good ...
J - But Cain - wait, was that his name ...
G - I was just hoping that Blondie had slaughtered the village, so we'd know HE was the bad guy, and ... well ...
J - Somebody online said they thought the guy in black was helping people get off the island, but the only way to get off is to die, but he can't actually kill anybody directly, because ... wait, no, he just killed his mother, so ...
G - Yeah, but that was before he was the smoke monster, so maybe now he ... wait, the smoke monster has killed lots of people, so maybe it's supposed to be a metaphor for ... um ...
J - Eh, fuck if I know what's going on.

I believe that's about the most concise description of the plot of the entire series I've ever heard - "Fuck if I know what's going on."  Me neither, brother.  Me neither.

Proof that I am trying to dilute the crazy a little

It's pledge time on our local public radio station, which means I've been listening to a lot of commercial radio in the car recently. I keep hearing the same commercial over and over again, and I think it's starting to get to me ... because walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day is starting to sound like a good idea.

Pros of participation:

• I've lost 10 pounds this year, and I'd like to keep losing at least another 10 or 15 in the near future.
• Walking - it's healthy! It's cheap! I don't have to join a gym or drive across town to do it!
• The training schedule would have me walking four days a week, with the worst of the distance training on the weekend when Jason could be in charge of Small Child With No Endurance.
• Walking that much will give me a better appreciation of the spring and early summer weather - look, flowers! Birds! Biting insects!
• I know several people who have made it through breast cancer, and it would be a good way to celebrate their lives.
• Completing it would be the most impressive thing I've ever accomplished.

The crazy:

• Dude, it's like walking most of a marathon ... three days in a row.
• Camping? After walking for 20 miles? You can't be serious.
• The training schedule is set up for 28 weeks. As of right now I've got less than 20 weeks before the Cleveland event, which means that I'd start training at higher mileages than I'm probably ready for. Like, I'm supposed to walk 10 or 12 miles tomorrow.
• Who decided it was a good idea to put this thing at the end of July, anyway? Did nobody look at the average temperatures for July and August?
• Whoa, do I really want to do an activity where chafe-reduction products are recommended on the packing list?

I haven't made up my mind yet. I'm leaning far enough toward participating that I've printed out the training schedule and I'm going to try it for a week or two to see if it's even feasible for me to do it without massively injuring myself.

I started "slow" today with a walk that was about 4 miles, and I think I should get bonus points for doing it in the 40F rain. I know I weighed about three pounds more when I got done than I did when I set out, just from the rain that soaked into my jacket (and pants, and shoes, and hair, and gloves). And while I definitely felt like I was exerting myself more than I usually do and I'm a bit stiff this evening, a walk of that length wasn't unpleasant, and I don't feel any worse than I usually do after the first day or two of working in the garden each spring.

So I'll let you know what I decide ... especially if I decide to go for it, since I'm going to need all of you to help me raise the required minimum donation to participate :)

Why sending Jason out to play with the kid is sometimes a bad idea

Leprous Staring Snow Baby says,

"Step closer so that I may suck the delicious brains from your puny head! Oh, and let me know if you've seen my legs, okay?"

Maybe my mind is just in the gutter too much, but ...

Doesn't this sound a little, um, suggestive?

"But before she could get the words out, Mr. Rogers put something in her mouth. It was so good Mrs. Rogers forgot about being angry."

In context**, it makes perfect sense, and I'm sure it wasn't meant to be inappropriate, but darn, I just about choked when Liza read that to me tonight.

**"Mrs. Rogers was angry. She was very angry. She opened her mouth. Mrs. Rogers meant to tell Amelia Bedelia she was fired. But before she could get the words out, Mr. Rogers put something in her mouth. It was so good Mrs. Rogers forgot about being angry. 'Lemon-meringue pie!' she exclaimed."

Coolest. Fabric. Ever.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/spider-silk/

The mind boggles.

Doing the math

Let's see ... 6"x8"x1" = 48 square inches, but this is a triangle not a rectangle, so it's only 24 square inches of cake.

Seriously - Wild Mango, I love your cake, but I don't love it that much. Cut back on the portion size, mm-kay?

Um, no. Just 'No.' And possibly 'Ew.'

http://www.costco.com/Common/Category.aspx?cat=20595&eCat=BC|20595〈=en-US&whse=BC&topnav=

I especially love that they have both regular shipping ('Eh, he'll keep a few more days') and expedited shipping ('For when you've got to plant 'em NOW!').

The butterfly game

The first day we hung up the hammock, Liza invented The Butterfly Game. She wraps herself up in the hammock, I kick a yoga ball at her as hard as I can, and she laughs hysterically when it slams into her. And every once in a while she pretends to be a butterfly who has been woken up and emerges from its crysalis, but mostly it's all about getting smacked with a giant ball.

Now, my kid has always had a thing for getting hit with balls, so I thought it was just her being strange. And then she convinced our next-door neighbor to play, and Emmy thought it was hilarious, too. And she's ten and should know better. So I guess it's not just my daughter being weird, after all.

Two other four-year-olds have approved the game since then, including Penelope, who you see playing The Butterfly Game with Liza in this video. Enjoy!

Now come on

Now, I loves me some Shaun the Sheep, but come on, did we really need this?

from http://www.mandco.com/Nightwear+Underwear/Shaun-the-sheep-bra/invt/7815476pink?source=116_45 , in case anyone wants one. And they're on sale, too!

Only I

Only I would decide that the crowning touch for a bathroom renovation would be a handknitted valance.  At least it turned out awesome!

Pro:  I used up some of the yarn I had in my stash.

Con: I have enough of the yarn left to make a shower curtain, bath mat, hand towel, and possibly wall-to-wall carpeting for our family room.

Life lesson #462

Don't forget that you're in the middle of felting a bunch of stuff in the washing machine and let it go through the whole cycle, unless you really want your stuff to be sized for American Girl dolls.

That tote used to be about 10" tall, and was originally intended to be a "purse" for Liza.  This is really, cute, but it is too small to fit even her pretend cell phone into, so I think I may need to crochet another one.

And this was a very, very large hat that I meant to shrink a little bit so it might fit anyone I know:

Now it's a small (but very attractive) bowl.  Oh, well - it's probably more useful that way.

And the red felted wool slippers that I wanted to refelt to make them a little snugger?  They're about 3/4" too long ... for Liza.  Oops.

Good news / bad news

GOOD: The contractor didn't find any sign of mold inside the walls where the water leaked in this winter.

BAD: He said he didn't find any mold because there is so little insulation that the draft inside the wall had evaporated the water faster than the mold could grow. And we spent $600 to find out that there wasn't a problem in the wall after all.

AT LEAST: We were able to save some money by repainting the wall ourselves, and Liza was able to help with that.

________________________

GOOD: The endocrinologist says that my nodules don't look particularly worrisome on any of the scans he's seen, so we should just keep an eye on them and do another ultrasound every six months or so.

BAD: Another $600 in doctor and ultrasound costs to find out that there wasn't a problem after all.

AT LEAST: Nobody's going to be sticking a needle in my neck or asking me to ingest radioactive isotopes in the next six months.

_________________________

GOOD: After two years of living with a guest bathroom with black tile floors, dark purple walls, and a black sink that showed every speck of toothpaste or shaving cream, we finally got the nerve up this weekend to rip it all out. And all the demolition work went as smoothly as could be expected, with things coming out in one piece and not taking out large chunks of wall with them.

BAD: Noticed this morning that the two coats of paint we put on the - for once! - properly prepared walls decided to make their own variety of faux finish over 90% of the room. AT LEAST: My husband works for Sherwin-Williams, and if anybody can figure out how to keep this from happening again, it's his buddies at work. And if I get lazy, I can claim I did the cracking intentionally and just hang pictures over the spots that aren't cracked.
____________________________

GOOD: Our friends have adopted the friendliest, smartest, most adorable puppy in the world, and it loves nothing more than to come and sit on your lap whenever you sit down. Who's a cute little fluffy wuffigans?

BAD: All that attention paid to the dog makes the girls jealous. And Jason is really, really allergic to dogs.AT LEAST: I have a large enough lap to accommodate them all. Well, Jason might have to wait for a separate turn.

_____________________________________

GOOD: Liza got to go to the Easter egg hunt at our friends' neighborhood, where all of the 14 billion eggs were ridiculously easy to find, and there were so many that the kids ran out of interest before anyone ran out of eggs to find.

BAD: It was like 40 degrees, and the kid is going to be hopped up on sugar (or whining to get more sugar) from now until Labor Day.

AT LEAST: She's willing to share the good stuff with me.

Is it just me?

... or does it take more than a few hours to make an "aged" steak?


... or should shiny, dangly, realistically-scrotum-shaped hitch ornaments only be sold to licensed stud services?

Anyone want to guess where Liza and I went on vacation?

I'm a dirty, dirty girl

It started with the partially-deflated "sword" positioned suggestively on the floor at the kids' carnival this weekend:

And then Jason and Liza produced the following masterpiece of collaborative solar system artwork:

... which, when seen upside down, immediately leads me to believe that the space shuttle now comes with a reservoir tip:

And let's not think about what those blue things on each side could be, okay?

I bet I totally just made Mrs. Happy snort her beverage all over her keyboard :)

Well, that's, um, an interesting coincidence

The "Eye of Jupiter" prophesy Starbuck drew on the wall of her apartment on Caprica:

My daughter's art:
Hmmm, if she's actually a Toaster , that explains a few things.

Great! Not so great...

Great! - http://wendi-aarons.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-got-answers.html

Not so great (pretty crappy, actually) - http://www.zrecommends.com/detail/the-cpsia-soon-to-bar-kids-from-libraries/

I think I'll head to our library on Feb. 9th and check out a wheelbarrow full of kids' books, just in case.

My madeleine is a chicken nugget

We were in a hurry for lunch today, so once I managed to drag myself through the (huge) line at the fabric store, we ran through the Wendy's drive-through on our way to Liza's school. She still had two nuggets left over when we got there, and she decided she wanted to save them to reheat for a snack later on, so I left them in the car while I got her settled at school.

When I got back to the car, the lukewarm nugget smell hit me like a wall, and it smelled exactly like the dry dog food we used to feed our giant weimaraner when I was Liza's age.

This stuff came in what were probably 50-pound bags at the Southern States supply store, and I remember the chunks being the size of unshelled walnuts. How Schatzie swallowed - much less digested - that stuff, I have no idea. Then again, he was able to swallow the face of my Raggedy Ann doll with no problem, and he handled that half a ball of twine pretty well, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

So, does this say good things about the dog food (Mmmm - smells like nuggets!) or bad things about the nuggets (Gah - smells like dog food)?

Please tell me ...

... that I did not just waste 30 minutes of my life watching a show about things getting blown up, washed away, plowed into, and otherwise Destroyed in Seconds. It was like watching a train wreck - you couldn't look away. Actually, it was watching a train wreck, and a couple explosions, some buildings fall over, a couple houses being swept away, two boats crashing, and a couple plane crashes. And, oh yeah, the factory where they make the fuel for the space shuttle exploded. Twice.

Damn you, Discovery Channel, and your insidiously addictive programming.

And the socks I was working on while I was watching are too large and will have to be unraveled back to the beginning ... grrr

Wait, what do I do now?

Today was the yearly clan gathering at Jason's aunt's house, and Liza was in rare form. She leapt out of the car and charged straight at Jason's uncle to give him a hug, and I think she stopped moving for about five minutes for the rest of the afternoon (and that was to eat some ice cream, so I'm not sure it counts). She played tag. She played football. She played cornhole. She threw leaves at her cousins. She played hide-and-seek. She went down to the dock to look at the fish. She watched her cousins climb trees, throw footballs, chase each other with rakes, and taunt the dog. She called out for Aunt Susan to come play with her approximately 453,000 times.

I, meanwhile, got to eat dinner while sitting at a table and having a conversation that didn't have to be shouted over a sniveling child. I helped clear the table without dragging along the weight of a child velcroed to my leg. I sat with other mothers and crocheted while we talked, for goodness sake.

She gave everyone at least two hugs and kisses before she would leave today, and I think she would have smuggled a couple cousins home with her if she hadn't been too tired to think of it.

Really, really not used to this.

Really, really glad we've finally gotten here.