jennanddave.com

The last day I remember with complete clarity would be December 23rd. My New Year's resolution is to somehow get back the seven days that came and went between then and now. Tonight Megan and Adrian are coming over to celebrate New Year's Eve. We'll be eating. A lot. As usual. And going to bed by 10, cuz we're squares, you dig?

Megan's pregnant. Have I mentioned that? She's due pretty soon. I'm very excited to meet this kid. We went over to their house last night to hang out and Dave and I took turns running around after Henry. On the ride home Dave said he tried to have a conversation with Adrian except he kept having to stop to chase after Henry. Then we realized that in a year or so, any time we all get together we'll be so busy chasing after our respective kids that we probably won't have had a chance to talk to each other at all other than me asking Megan if she wants another frosted sugar cookie and her saying "Duh!". Scary. Also, most likely it won't be as bad as that. Now that I think about it, sometimes when we watch Gilmore Girls together, all we do say to each other is "Do you want another frosted sugar cookie?". Maybe I should look at it from the perspective of nothing is really going to change at all. Now I feel better.

Dave and I are hitting the road again tomorrow, this time for a family wedding. I don't know if we'll have internet access so it may be a little while before I update again. If you see us on the interstate, be sure to wave hello!

Happy New Year!

Posted by Jenn at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm at the computer, and I'm typing something, but technically, I think I'm asleep. I have mad skillz. The drive yesterday was long. It took us about 10.5 hours to get home from Massachusetts. We crossed into CT where we hit a major traffic jam two miles into the state. Traffic jam + CT = what else is new? We decided to drive back up to the Mass Pike and take it out to the NY State Thruway, a route that adds at least an hour onto the trip under normal circumstances, but since I was following Dave who was operating the moving truck, the fastest we could go was around 65 MPH, usually less, so that also added to the travel time. You know what though? After all the packing and cleaning and general mayhem that went on during our last two days, 10.5 hours in the car was relaxing.

A couple of weeks ago I told Dave I figured we could have everything unpacked and in its place in a few hours. Hah! I talk the crazy talk. We were both so inspired by not having been surrounded by tons of junk for the last five months that we're packing up stuff we don't want anymore while also unpacking all the stuff we moved back here. Megan and Adrian had the house cleaned for us as a welcome home present because they're awesome. To thank them, we made them wait outside our house for twenty minutes this morning while we had breakfast at Perkins, because we're also awesome. They came to help us empty the truck and we all walked around and admired how amazing and non-stinky our house was. Finally. It only took three years and us leaving town and having someone else take care of it for us to get it clean and not smelling funky. Hmmm... Anyway, after six hours of Jenn and Dave madly trying to get organized, it no longer looks amazing. It looks tired. Just like I feel. It still smells good though.

Posted by Jenn at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Excluding any moves related to undergraduate education, between the two of us Dave and I have packed up and moved approximately fourteen times. By this point we've become expert packers. We could start our own company, we're that good. We could call ourselves "Modest Movers" because we're modest about all other aspects of our lives, except for when it comes to describing how good we are at packing.

What we are not good at is cleaning, and that's exactly what we're doing right now. The hardest part about cleaning in an apartment building like this is we have no idea whose standards we're supposed to be cleaning up to. Our apartment was immaculate when we first arrived. I doubt that the previous tenants left it that way. But maybe they did. I have a feeling that management probably has someone come in and spot clean things up to sparkly when they have the carpet cleaned, but then again, maybe they don't. I guess we'll clean until we can't be bothered to care anymore. I give us fifteen more minutes, tops.

Posted by Jenn at 08:36 PM | Permalink

Christmas was great. Relaxing and hectic all at the same time. How is that even possible? And yet, there it is. Everyone got lots of great stuff, including Flash, who not only got presents, but also ate her own weight in food. I was so exhausted by the time we got home last night, I was curled up in bed with an Archie comic within half an hour of walking through the door.

What's the best way to spend the 26th of December? How about spending it packing up all of the fabulous stuff you unwrapped a mere 24 hours earlier. All of you suckers out there eating turkey sandwiches and playing with your new toys are really missing out. Seriously. Dave and I have spent the entire day packing up everything in our apartment in preparation for the upcoming migration back home. A couple of weeks ago people would ask if I was looking forward to going back to PA and I'd say "I dunno...maybe...I dunno...". Looking back on it though, I think the lackluster responses I was doling out were related more to wanting to get to the stage where we were proactively getting things together for the move so we could just get on with it. Limbo doesn't suit me. Unless it was pink and sparkly. Then I'd be all about limbo. It's never pink though, it's always gray and drab and stressful.

All we have left to pack is the bathroom and some minor kitchen-y things and that's it. Oh, and we have to buy a lightbulb for the hallway. And clean. And load the truck. But first, we have to watch "V is for Vendetta", which is what Dave got me for Christmas because he loves me.

Posted by Jenn at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My parents are on their way up to Salem to babysit Henry one last time before we move back to PA. Dave and I have absolutely no idea what to do. Maybe go into Boston. Maybe go see a movie. Who knows.

In the meantime, since I'm probably not going to have a chance to post again before Christmas, I wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday!

Posted by Jenn at 02:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A couple of years ago I was in a yarn shop poking around and I found this really soft yarn in pastel colors. Dave and I had just decided to start trying to get pregnant, and so with visions of cuddly baby blankets and hats floating around in my head, I picked out three skeins and headed to the register. When I imagined my pregnant self, it involved me sitting on the couch, huge, with a box of Dare chocolate cookies on one side of me and a baby-related knitting project on the other. As soon as the second pink line showed up on the pregnancy test, I had an over-whelming desire for salad (the cookies came later) and absolutely no desire to knit. I knit one little sweater and that was it. Those three skeins have been knocking around in my stash while Henry has quickly outgrown the pastel baby stage and leaped into the primary colors of toddler-hood.

While perusing various knitting sites I came across this caterpillar pattern. I thought it was very cute and wanted to make it but didn't know what yarn to use. I went digging around and came up with the three skeins purchased oh-so-long ago. The yarn is Patons Pixie which I'd like to go on the record as stating is the worst yarn to knit with. It actually squeaked on the needles as I was knitting. On the plus side, it's fuzzy enough to hide any mistakes or weird seaming issues you may encounter. Of course, it may also be the reason why you made mistakes and had problems seaming in the first place. I used two strands held together, one pale blue and the other pale green. My guage was off but since it's a simple pattern I decided I didn't care, Henry would just have a large caterpillar. It worked up very quickly. I managed to screw up the increases on a few of the bumps which meant I had to go back and close up some resulting holes, but that was easy enough. I used a black boucle yarn for the eyes and mouth. I initially tried embroidery thread but it disappeared into the Pixie so I needed something with more heft. Aren't you dying to see a picture of the finished product? Promise me you won't laugh:

To give you a better idea of the size, here's one of Henry playing with it. He likes it!

Posted by Jenn at 06:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Remember that gorgeous tree that we decorated only two weekends ago? Guess where it is now? If you guessed in the dumpster behind our building, give youself a big hug, because you'd be right. Ten days ago, as soon as we set the tree up we filled the stand with water. Before we went to bed, Dave checked the water level, assuming it would need a refill, but it didn't. It didn't the next day either. Or the day after that. Repeat that last sentence until you've made it to today, because two hours ago, it was still sitting in the water that we'd put in the stand when we first got the tree. It didn't drink anything. I've never had that experience with a tree before. Yesterday I noticed that you could snap the ends off of the branches pretty easily. That's also when I noticed how some of the branches had started to curl under themselves.

Last night I had a hard time sleeping (too much Chicken Tikka Masala) so instead I stared into the dark and worried about all the packing we have to do. Then, suddenly I remembered a video I'd seen on the 5 o'clock news of a Christmas tree going up in flames in three seconds, so naturally I started worrying that our tree was going to catch fire and that our entire building would burn down and it would be all our fault. Since I have enough things to feel guilty about, this evening after Henry went to bed, the tree came down. I'm very happy with this decision, but I have a feeling Henry's going to be less than thrilled when he wakes up tomorrow morning and finds his raison d'etre is gone. This afternoon Henry woke up from his nap and ran into the living room. After running around for fifteen minutes he finally stopped long enough to notice the lights on the tree weren't on. He waved his hand in front of it, said "uh-uh!" and looked at me. I asked him what he wanted and he did the hand-wave, "uh-uh" thing again, and after the third attempt at communication, it dawned on me that maybe he was trying to tell me to plug in the lights, so I did. He stared at the tree for a minute, then went back to running around the living room. Like I said, he's going to be one dissappointed little kid tomorrow morning. Or it's not going to register at all.

Posted by Jenn at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As it turns out, watching "Super Nanny" isn't the best way to wind down after spending the day wrangling and playing with your kid, it's just too stressful.

Dave and I were terrible parents yesterday evening. We put Henry down for his afternoon nap, and after a bit of fussing his exhaustion got the better of his runny nose and he fell asleep. We woke him up again an hour and a half later and it took him thirty minutes to fully wake up. He desparately wanted to go back to sleep. We were worried if we did put him back down, he'd be up all night. After two hours we'd guilted ourselves into feeling like we'd done a very bad thing, depriving a sick kid from well-needed rest, so we got him ready for bed a little earlier than usual. Of course by this point Henry was fully wound up and ready for action, having shaken off the need for sleep entirely. He cried while playing "Skin the Rabbit" (my grandpa used to play this game with me when I was getting ready for bed: he'd say "Skin the rabbit" and I'd throw my arms up in the air and he'd whip my shirt off. Hi, I'm from Louisiana. I've eaten squirrel.), he cried during his beloved bath, he stopped crying for his pre-bed book, then resumed crying during his good-night smooches. Then the battle between his runny nose and exhaustion began again. Exhaustion won out (again) eventually.

Today Henry was feeling much better. Not much of a runny nose, chipper disposition. We went to the mall today to get some last minute gift items, three to be exact. We struck out completely with one exception. Since we were there, I also tried on some jeans. My saggy post-pregnancy belly is still preventing me from buying anything smaller than a size 12, despite what the rest of me fits into. It's very discouraging. My newest pair of jeans fit great in the store then stretched out a lot after the first day of wearing them so now it looks like if the wind catches me right, the legs will billow out and I'll take flight. I don't feel very chic in them. Sooooooo...I finally sucked it up and bought me some Spanx. They'll smooth everything over, and maybe help me get back into my cute pre-pregnancy clothes. Fingers crossed.

Posted by Jenn at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1. Henry slept through the night last night so I woke up feeling well-rested. This is in direct contrast to yesterday morning, which succeeded the first night of Henry's first cold. He didn't sleep well and neither did we. Also, the lack of sleep Friday night doused any spark of desire we may have been fanning for a second kid.

2. Some friends that I haven't seen in a while came over for lunch.

3. Because the aforementioned friends were coming over for lunch, I had to clean the apartment.

4. Because I had to clean the apartment, I was procrastinating by watching tv and discovered a program on PBS about the legend of Amazon warrior women. It was really interesting.

5. Because Megan and I are totally mentally connected, she called right after I had cleaned the bathroom but before I had vacuumed, thus helping me procrastinate. Really, you couldn't ask for a better friend.

6. Noshing on Christmas cookies all day. Yesterday my mom and I had our Christmas cookie-making marathon. Lots of sampling went on throughout the process, and Dave and I came home with two huge tins full that my mom laughably assumed would still have cookies in them by the end of the week. Ha!

7. Tonight is the annual viewing of "White Christmas". We bought the dvd last month to replace our old vhs copy. I can't wait to see it in widescreen. Really. I can't wait. Is that sad?

8. Steak tips and brussel sprouts for dinner while watching "White Christmas". Yum!

9. By around 2:30 our friends had left and Dave and I were faced with a free afternoon for which we had no plans. We couldn't decide what to do so we stayed in. Since the apartment was clean, our holiday shopping done, grocery shopping done, and Christmas cards mailed, there was nothing left on the to-do list for me to obsess over. I was actually able to sit back and relax and hang out with my family. It was a beautiful thing.

10. I get to resume the burning down of our advent candle.

Posted by Jenn at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our tour of Central Mass. yesterday was great. We drove by Redemption Rock, then after realizing we'd passed it, turned around and drove back so we could actually get out of the car and admire it. Obligatory pictures were taken. Massachusetts is home to two rocks, the widely reknowned Plymouth Rock and the lesser known Redemption Rock. Having been to both, I can say with certainty that Redemption Rock is definitely the more satisfying of the two to visit. For one, Plymouth Rock is a small rock that sits in the sand in the middle of a gazebo that was constructed around it. When I was last there, it was not recommended that you go under the shelter of the gazebo because of a falling tile problem they were having. Also, there's a disclaimer that states it probably isn't the exact rock that a pilgrim set his feet upon when disembarking from the Mayflower way back in the day, but it's certainly a reasonable looking stand-in as far as you should be concerned. Redemption Rock, however, is the actual rock upon which the Indians agreed on a ransom for Mary Rowlandson. Plus, it's big. And you can stand on it and feel mighty. If you're interested in rocks that have major historical significance, head out to Princeton and check out Redemption Rock.

The next stop on our list was Turners Fall. It's a small mill town on the Connecticut River. I'd probably be able to tell you more about it if the historical museum was open on days other than Friday and Saturday. We carried on down the road to historic Deerfield which was a really interesting experience. Often historic sections of towns are the heart of the town, newer construction generally having fanned out from the original centers. Deerfield seems to have expanded off to one side as opposed to all around. When we drove into town, it was like we had been transported back in time. I assumed initially that it was a living history place, that each house was a museum, but as it turned out, it's still very much an active town. People live there, which is great, but also unexpected because it's just not set up the way I'm used to seeing a town set up. The lack of modern structures taking up space in the background gave me a much better idea of how vulnerable the towns were back in the day.

After Deerfield, we drove to Northampton to peruse a few bookstores. I loved Northampton. It has a great energy, lots of hustle and bustle. Traffic was a bit of a nightmare but it had everything you'd imagine the ideal college town would have. I came home and started pressuring Dave into thinking about Smith or Umass Amherst because I was ready to pack up and move.

Miscellaneous things re: the trip: I worked my way through an entire box of Kleenex; we discovered a great diner just past the Yankee Candle Factory Outlet; Mary Rowlandson is not from Deerfield but from Lancaster, a fact we discovered after having asked several people in Deerfield where her house was originally sited and being greeted with confused looks, a fact which also probably should have registered after having read the inscription on Redemption Rock that said "Mrs Mary Rowlandson of Lancaster"; don't take 128 north on a Thursday night, it's better to just sleep at work.

Posted by Jenn at 09:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have a cold. It started out yesterday as a scratchy throat, maintained that level of annoyingness until this afternoon, when it finally decided to hit my nose. I knew I shouldn't have taken that nap. I've already gone through one box of tissues, and now I'm clinging to our last box, hoping it'll last through the night. I also really hope I haven't gone and done something stupid like passed it on to our kid.

Tomorrow my dad and I and Henry are going on a tour of central Massachusetts. The three points of interest where we will be making pit-stops are Redemption Rock, Turners Falls, and Deerfield, with a bonus stop at a used bookstore in Northampton. I've been making my way through the Indian captiviy book I mentioned a couple of posts ago. I expressed an interest in seeing some related sites while I'm still in the area and my dad was all in. I'm really looking forward to it. If you're lucky, maybe I'll remember to bring my camera so you all can see pictures where the subject is blurry but a swathe of grass in the distance is in beautiful focus. That seems to be my trademark style.

Posted by Jenn at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The number one thing I'm in complete denial over at this moment in time: sending out Christmas cards. I had this big plan to make my own cards this year with my Gocco printer. After stressing out about the design for a few months, I decided to go easy on myself and just buy some. Then Dave and I picked out a photo of Henry to include in all of the cards, but when we finally got the prints in the mail, they were too dark. So no photos of the offspring will be heading out this year. We really need to just sit down and write them, but we seem to be willing to do anything else but, which brings us to Things We've Done When We Should've Been Writing Our Christmas Cards: worked; watched "The Nanny"; updated respective weblogs; napped; watched "Celtic Woman"(more than once)(!); surfed the net; stared at the walls; stared at the tree; plucked a couple of eyebrows; read. I do enjoy writing them, I just have a hard time forcing myself to get started.

Referring to the last item on the Things We've Done... list, this morning I was rereading F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story Bernice Bobs her Hair. When I finished, I closed the book and thought to myself "Wow, Fitzgerald is, like, totally a literary genius," which was quickly followed by "Man, do I really need a haircut." The last haircut I got was up in Portsmouth, and while I totally loved it, our time is coming to a quick end here and I didn't think I'd have a chance to devote almost an entire day to going up there for a cut. Plus, I'm all about instant gratification. I wanted my hair cut NOW! I remembered seeing a sign in the window of a store that said a salon would be opening soon on Pickering Wharf. I stopped by, saw they were open, and made an appointment for this afternoon. Best decision I've made in a long time. They were amazing. The owner and the stylist I had made the appointment with both talked with me about the style I wanted and how to achieve the best look for my features. Then they talked me into coloring my hair (not a hard sell since I'd brought it up anyway). The salon specializes in dry cuts, which I think is the best way to cut my hair since it's so thick, heavy, and straight. I find it difficult to style so the shape really has to come from the cut itself as opposed to any styling I might do. Everyone at the salon was amazing. I walked out feeling gorgeous. I also walked out feeling like I'd just received a $200 haircut for a lot less. If you're in the area, you should go. The salon is called Fringe Salon. It's on Pickering Wharf in Salem. Perhaps a picture of me sporting my new 'do will show up on Flickr sometime. You never know. Ah mystery, thy name is woman. Or something like that. I'm really tired.

Posted by Jenn at 08:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I vowed to go to bed at a reasonable hour and look, I'm still up. I blame History Detectives on PBS. What a great show. If it was Thursday I'd blame Men in Trees. Also a good show. Who'd have thought Anne Heche could've pulled her career up by the bootstraps after the whole "Celestia" thing. I didn't, and yet there she is on tv, all cute and chipper and ogling good-looking guys using tools. And she's getting paid to do it, like you really have to stretch you're acting chops to be convincing at that. I do it everytime Dave's standing at his workbench in the garage. Somebody give me an Emmy.

Moving on, when I was but a wee little girl, every December 1st my mom would put an advent candle on display. It was the kind that had the numbers 1-24 painted on it and you'd burn down one number for each day leading up to Christmas. She expressed great love for that tradition, particularly once we couldn't buy them anymore. I don't remember where we used to get them, but the source dried up. Fast forward to 1993: I was walking down Decatur in the French Quarter one fine Fall day and noticed a store that dealt solely in all thing Christmassy. I went in and inquired after advent candles and lo and behold, they had them. I bought a few and sent them to my mom. I was very proud of myself for being able to bring this particular Christmas joy back into the family's holiday tradition. After I left New Orleans, I would call the same store up and order two or three more candles to carry us through the next few years.

This past November, the route my dad and I took out to my grandma's house when we picked her up for Thanksgiving took us right by the Yankee Candle Factory store. It's now a knee-jerk reaction whenever I see either a Christmas store or a candle store to wonder if maybe they sell advent candles, so I careened off the road, slammed on the brakes, and after a tire-screeching 180 degree turn, stopped in a parking space between a Hummer and a tour bus. It was very Dukes of Hazzard.

I've never experienced anything quite like the Yankee Candle Factory store before in my life. It smells...ummm... I'll leave it at that: it smells. Also, it's confusing; approximately two seconds after walking through the main entrance, my dad and I were officially lost. The place is a maze of rooms. We found the candles, did a dance of glee (I did anyway), and then commenced wandering around looking for the exit until my dad (with a glimmer of desperation in his eyes) grabbed the nearest employee and begged to know how the hell people were supposed to get out of that place. The guy chuckled, said that was a good question, and then pointed. We paid. We left. We breathed a sigh of relief.

Last weekend while my mom and I were working on the advent calendar, my dad asked what day it was. My mom told him and he started talking about how they would have to burn the candle down a few days because they were slightly behind and when did she think they should do that? He sounded what can only be described as anxious. Way back in the day we were notorious for lighting the candle then forgetting about it only to discover we had burned down four days instead of one. Apparently my dad has some bad memories of this and it now manifests itself as "concern" about the current candle.

To put a merciful end to a long story, this one's for you dad:

Posted by Jenn at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last night we drove down to Edaville in Carver, MA. Every year they have a Christmas Festival of Lights during the months of November and December. We went a few times when I was a kid and it was always a lot of fun. I remember my mom saying that she didn't want to go unless there was snow on the ground, and we never went again after that. I assumed the lack of snow was the main reason why, but as it turns out, Edaville was shut down for many years.

Henry was completely enthralled by all of the lights. There's a train ride through a cranberry bog which features various Christmas scenes that are strung up along the route. Henry stood on my mom's lap for most of the ride, not taking his eyes away from the windows for a second.

It was odd going back 20 + years after the last time we were there. It's a vaguely surreal experience, almost like you're living a dream you had once upon a time. There was some discussion over what we remembered from that last visit compared with how it's set up today and I was surprised by how much we did remember. If you're in the area, you should definitely check it out.

Posted by Jenn at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There's nothing worse than shuffling into your room at the end of the day, wanting nothing more than to fall into bed, only to be greeted with the site of the jumbled pile of sheets and pillowcases you took out of the dryer earlier, tossed into your room, and promptly forgot about.

Tonight I watched "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman" on CBS. I ate pumpkin pie and drank hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream. I added stuff to my Amazon wish list. I contemplated what to get for the only person left on my Christmas list, a notoriously hard woman to shop for. One year I asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she said a light bulb for over her garage because the old one had blown out. How do you top that?

Tomorrow we're heading out to get a Christmas tree. I'm hoping for something small in size but big in pine-scented goodness. We're going to need something to infuse the apartment with an air of festivity in order to cheer us up while we're packing for the move back to PA.

Posted by Jenn at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Henry and Dave were feeling a bit under the weather today. Dave's had something going on that's been knocking him out for the last week, and this afternoon we noticed that Henry was feeling a bit warm. It turns out he has a low-grade fever, not that that's stopped him from running around like a mad-man. The highlight of the day occurred right before his afternoon nap. He sat on my lap with his big box of books next to him and had me read one after the other, tossing whichever we'd just finished over the side of the couch. It's the most snuggling I've managed to get out of him in a while.

It's supposed to be snowing here by the time we wake up. I'm very excited! I'm sensing lots of hot chocolates tomorrow.

Posted by Jenn at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Like the Phoenix arising from the ashes, Dave's Cool Science page has been brought back to life. He thought a weblog format would encourage him to post more often because he wouldn't have to upload and download and upload again. Soooo...go check it out! And leave a comment!

Yesterday afternoon I was watching WCVB's five o'clock news and they mentioned that the North Shore Toys for Tots program hasn't been getting nearly enough donations for the number of needy kids in the area. Before having Henry I would have thought "Dave and I should go out and buy some toys," but that would be the end of it. Having a kid has, in some sense, made me see beyond the end of my own nose. It also seems to have made me more prone to sobbing uncontrollably over anything even remotely sappy and emotional (Megan had to collect me in a bucket and carry me, sloshing, home to Dave after we saw Brokeback Mountain. Also, thank god they don't make phone ads the way they used to.), but that's another story.

They ran the same news item this evening, only this time the reporter walked into a room that was designated for gifts for boys ages 9-11 and there were only a few toys sitting on a counter; the rest of the room was empty. That pretty much did it for me. As soon as we finished dinner, the three of us got in the car and headed over to Toysrus. There's something to be said for running around a toy store with no list and no idea what kids in the age group you're buying for like. It was basically like shopping for ourselves. We ended up with a cart full of stuff we both wanted. Dave picked out a toy that asks you twenty questions and tries to figure out what you're thinking of. Apparently it works (Dave tested it thoroughly. He's a scientist you know.). I picked out some Spongebob stuff. And Lego's! Wow are there lots of Lego's kits now. It ain't just a box full of colored bricks anymore.

It was a great way to spend the evening.

Posted by Jenn at 09:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Dave: Wait, what are they saying?
me: “Parson Brown”.
Dave: "Parson Brown"...what does that mean?
me: You know, pretend to get married and all that.
Dave: Oh.
me: What did you think they were saying?
Dave: Possum brown.
me: Possum brown? What does that mean?
Dave: I thought they were describing a color...I always thought it was odd the snowman was brown.

Posted by Jenn at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I decided a couple of days ago that I simply had to have a three column layout on our homepage. Since I'm such a smarty-pants, I decided to do it: 1) tonight, 2) by myself without warning Dave ahead of time (he's the one who fixes the computer problems I create) (did I mention he's sick?), 3) when I'm exhausted, and 4) because, really, how hard can it be? So I've got the front page happening in a nice way. I haven't made use of the third column yet because I ran into a little trouble. What's that? You say you'd like to know what the trouble is? Click on the comments link and see for yourself. Squishy is pretty good when it comes to certain things, for example floam, mud, eyeballs, but not for my archive pages. Despite a valiant, bleary-eyed effort, I can't figure out what I did which is not good because if I don't know what I did, I don't have any clue how to go about fixing it. Any suggestions?

update: Dave fixed it. As usual.

Posted by Jenn at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A couple of weeks ago I talked my mom into trying to make an advent calendar. The general design is inspired by one I saw in a Pottery Barn catalog a few years ago, and the decision to use multiple holiday-themed fabrics was inspired by this gorgeous calendar. The planning phase being the best bit of any project (because it involves shopping), we spent part of the afternoon yesterday happily going to fabric and craft stores. We finally settled on the following fabrics for our calendar:

We decided to get together again today to actually start putting it all together. My mom used to sew a lot, but never really got back into it due to a general lack of space to permanently set up shop. A lot of her sewing paraphenalia is spread amongst several boxes which are located in different spots around the house. While digging through one of them trying to locate a pair of fabric scissors, I found this pattern:

I love the top. I'm thinking I really need to make it. Thus begins the search for the perfect fabric. I haven't really ever shopped for fabric online, so I don't know of any places other than reprodepot. I looked through their selection and have found a few that I like. If anyone knows of anywhere else I should check out, let me know.

Posted by Jenn at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Last month I knitted a pair of fingerless gloves for my dad, but because of all of our various camera troubles, I wasn't able to take a picture of the completed pair until this evening. I used the Knucks pattern from knitty's summer issue, without any embroidered embellishment (although I was briefly tempted to put on "shiznit!").

I don't think I can adequately express exactly how much I loved knitting these gloves. It was such an interesting pattern. You knit all of the fingers and the two thumbs separately and then join them together to knit in the round, so essentially the pattern works from the top down. Often when using double-pointed needles I would pull out four of them and look at the lone fifth one, stuck in the package, never to see the light of day other than to wish its friends luck. I even started wondering why they sold them in fives. Then came the Knucks pattern. There's not much wiggle room after you join the fingers, so out came the fifth needle, practically squeeing with glee over finally being made use of. Here's four of them in action:

It took a few minutes to get comfortable with all of those sharp sticks pointing in every direction, but eventually I did. Here's a shot of the gloves right before the thumb got in on the action:

I used my beloved Rowan Felted Tweed in Cocoa (it's a great color, cocoa brown with flecks of blue) and knit the largest size. Working a few hours every night, it took about a week to make them. Also, because my dad's not a frilly guy, I chose to do the ribbed cuff instead of the textured version. Here's the finished product:

Bonus: Look below if you'd like to get a better idea of what half of my genetic code is like...

Posted by Jenn at 09:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)