The lovers, the dreamers, and me

(Edited slightly 9-20-05)

There's this "Sushi Maker Master" kit I saw at the home & garden show last year. It contains molds for easy sushi rolls, including one for a heart shaped sushi roll. Heart shaped sushi! How could this get cooler (or more dork-like)? I must get this wonderful invention. I must. I can hear it calling to me.



(I especially like how there are just random fruits and veggies strewn about in this picture, along with what looks like a mimosa. "Oh yes, I like to take a bite out of a whole bell pepper in between sushi pieces. Much better than ginger for clearing the palate.")


Do you see the genius that is this product? Do you see it?!? I have visions of doing a whole tray of assorted shape sushi at Drew's b-day party (for the adults, natch) and hearing such things as "how divine!" and "just lovely!" and having them sound like real compliments and not just like things characters in a TV miniseries about the women in the American South would say. Yes, it is my dream, so shut up.

Surely $20 is a reasonable amount to spend for fulfilling a dream, yes?

See between the trees, where the path curves around? That's the house.



This was the weekend she was moving in, before the porch lights had been installed. Real slate tiles on the roof.




Wraparound porch, with glass sliding door entryway



When you step into the house from the sliding doors you're immediately in the living room, with the bedroom sliding sort-of-shoji-panels directly opposite.




Once in the living room, the dining nook is directly to the right.


The kitchen is on the other side of the living room and across from the dining nook.




Standing in the dining nook, looking across the living room to the kitchen.



And finally, the amazing ceiling


I'm always calmed by this house.

If any of you like heist flicks and haven't yet seen Inside Man, you really should. I watched it yesterday and was quite impressed at how well thought out it was, for that genre. There were still a couple things which I thought were less than plausible, but many fewer problems than I normally have with movies of this type. I consider the time spent watching to be worth it.

*

So much stuff going on with you all. Lots of joy and pain and enthusiasm and snarking and thought provoking stuff. I wish I had another three hours in the day just to respond to you all. I try to read and keep up, but I'm finding it difficult. I am interested, though.

*

Yesterday I went to MnM and the lady who created the Sling-Ezee came and demonstrated proper sling wearing techniques and answered questions. She used Drew for some of her examples an he was, as always, the perfect baby with other people. Didn't make a peep once even when I handed him to her for the first time, and came back to me with a cheerful grin and then promptly fell asleep. Cool. I was so confident after watching her presentation that I was inspired to finally use my Maya Wrap (from Keely many moons ago - thanks again, K!) for my Target run today. As part of my must get out of the house more doing things I like resolution, I visited a sales center for new town-homes in my area (we're not looking to move, but I love seeing floor plans and whatnot) and then went to a nice park and walked with Drew in the stroller for a couple of miles.

I'd like to make walking with him a frequent occurrence. Living in this climate means there's no excuse why I shouldn't - it was in the mid 60s today, with a gorgeous sky - and I'd like to get in shape as well as modeling a non-sedentary lifestyle for Drew. I'd not been to that particular park before but I think I'll go back soon. Each lap in this park is just under a third of a mile, and there's a well-kept restroom on the premises as well as shady benches for nursing, a very nice playground, and a huge field of grass so green you'd swear it was spray painted.

*

Drew seems to have a clogged tear duct. I don't see any redness and he's not bothered by it, so I'll just keep it clean, massage the corner of the eye a bit, and mention it to his pediatrician if it hasn't gone away by his next visit. He also seems to have a touch of diarrhea. It's not an excessive amount, he doesn't have a temperature, and he's his usual self, so I'm just going to go let it pass (heh) by itself and avoid the Dr's office. Perhaps I shouldn't be so cavalier about not taking him into the Dr, but considering he's nursing on demand exclusively and isn't dehydrated I can't see what they could do about fluids, and since he's not exhibiting any other problematic symptoms I'd rather not expose him to a waiting room full of kids with the flu only to hear that I should just keep doing what I'm doing and monitor the situation at home. 

We've been spending some time each weekend for the past couple of months trying to make the garage usable and more efficient. Essentially trying to make it something other than a repository for junk and things that we don't know where else to put. We're almost done, and one of the last things we have to do is to take down the things that the previous owner, Jeff, had stored up on plywood sheets in the rafters. Bryan took down a box today with some surprising magazines. There were several stacks of Playboy magazines from the 80s, a bunch of Life magazines from the later 70s (these we're keeping temporarily until I can check and se if they'd go for anything on Ebay), and a few old Rolling Stones. These aren't abnormal to me. Instead, what surprised me that at the bottom of the box contained what looked like a year's worth of Soviet Life magazines, as well as a small book entitled something like "Socialism: the Philosophy of the New World Order." Um, yeah. Right.

I'm half tempted to ring him up and tell him we found his stash of Playboys, and did he want them back? Just to see what he would say.

*

Oh, and those Sorel snow boots I'm selling on Ebay? They've now got 20 watchers and 8 bids, and there's still a little over 3 days to go. 20 watchers? Seriously? We've never sold anything that had 20 watchers before. You'd think with that much interest in the boots they'd be going for more than $15.50 right now. Gah.

I just got an email from Borders: - reserve the new HP and the DH and choose from one of two stickers that say "Trust Snape" and "Snape is a very bad man." What, like we can't trust him in this matter and think he's a bad person?

I bet they've had this email waiting to be sent out for months and just needed to fill in the date of the release.

After my post complaining about Drew's sleeping habits he went and gave me the bird by sleeping for 11 hours last night, while only getting up twice to nurse and then immediately going back to sleep. Given a bit of luck he'll prove me wrong again tonight.

***

About three weeks ago a gal came into my Mommy-n-Me session saying she was a casting rep for Baby Einstein and handing out flyers asking for photos of 2-5 month old babies so they could consider them for a new video shoot. I didn't take a flyer, as Drew was only 5 weeks at the time, but the lady encouraged me to take once since he'd be 2 months by the time of the shoot (And let's face it - Drew's a cutie. Not that I'm biased or anything. But I so totally am biased). I took the flyer and thought about sending a photo, but time got away from me and I never got around to it. Today I found out that TWO babies from our MnM group are in the new video. And one of the moms, whose daughter is just a couple of weeks older than Drew said she thought she was chosen since there were so few young babies to select from. Damn! I should have sent in the photo! And the gal is somehow also in the video herself, which meant that they paid her baby and her for their appearances. Double damn. Ah, well. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.

I'm cracking up a bit that the gal had to sign a non-disclosure agreement about what was filmed. What, are there competitors out there just ITCHING to snipe their babies-playing-with-toys idea? Is there a Baby Aristotle group that is trying desperately to pull the rug out from under the Baby Einstein clan? She sort of violated her non-disclosure agreement and told us what the new video is about, but I'm not telling. So nyah.

Goodness, I want a drink.

It's just been one of those days, you know?

Someone pass me the biggest, baddest vodka tonic out there, pull up a seat, grab yourself something wet to knock back and we'll drink until we get loopy and laugh until we can't remember what we started laughing about.



Who's with me, and what'll you have?

So a few posts ago I mentioned that Drew was eating every 2-2.5 hours and waking frequently at night to nurse. Ha. That was only the beginning. It progressed quickly to eating every 1.5-2 hours. All day. Every day. So between getting him ready to nurse, nursing, and diapering I had basically no time to do anything. I had hoped that it was only a growth spurt and would pass when he was around 6 weeks. Hallelujiah - it happened. The last two days he's gone back to being hungry every 3 hours or a bit more, and he's slept for a 6-hour stretch each of the last two nights, eaten, then gone back to sleep longer, and he's gone back to being the mellow little man that I'd come to rely upon. My days just got significantly more pleasant. Joy!

That being the case, I actually have time to post the pictures that I'd promised last week. ;)



Tell me, does he look like a 1 month old to you? I mean, he was 5.5 weeks in the last photo, but to me he looks like a much older baby.

Work is crazy.

The house is a mess.

My hair seems to have (temporarily?) lost it's curl.

I had to collect 24 hrs. worth of pee yesterday and haul it into a lab for testing.

I may or may not have preeclampsia.

I don't think I have enough clothes to get through the work week.

On Friday I somehow flaked on an after-work get-together with the Kiss My Ass gals at work.

Scout threw up - twice - this morning when I was already running late leaving the house.

My great aunt is dying.

I'd rather not think about how many things we still have to do in the next nine weeks.

It's supposed to be fall but it's still hot like in summer.


But on the upside - we finished the nursery on the weekend. And it is so freaking adorable my heart flutters every time I walk into the room. I'll take pictures tomorrow when it's light out. So, so damn cute.