jennanddave.com

We've been inundated with fruit flies the last several days. I set out a small bowl of apple cider vinegar spiked with dash of dish soap to take care of the problem. It's working beautifully. It's also making my entire house smell like feet. It's not nice.

Today is Henry's birthday. His party was on Saturday. His Grandparents waited until yesterday to give him his presents. Today he's getting ours, plus a few from his Aunts and Uncle, as well as his Grammy and Grandpa's. He'll also be getting another cake. That's three days of continuous celebration. It's making me seriously reconsider how I go about celebrating my own birthday.

Thursday morning the young man will climb aboard a bus and head off into the oblivion that is the local school system where he'll be knocking around for the next 13 years. We've been so busy with traveling and celebrating birthdays that I haven't yet had a chance to work myself up into a proper froth over it. Henry had to fill out a questionnaire for his teacher, which we brought with us to his open house last week. She was inquiring after preferred nicknames, interests, anxieties, etc. One of the questions was "This year I'd like to learn _______." Henry's response was "how to play the drums". I had a sneaking suspicion that was not the answer she was necessarily looking for (or maybe it was, who am I to say?), but it was so gosh-darned sincere, I didn't bait him into falsehoods. I looked at the other kids' sheets and they all said "how to read". Dare to be different, kiddo.

Posted by Jenn at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Dave's been hassling me about posting an entry but I haven't really been ready to. We've been getting back into the swing of things here on the home-front since coming back from Florida, the most pressing thing being prepping for Henry's birthday party, which mostly entails regaining control over our backyard which was taken over by pumpkin vines and cherry tomato plants while we were away. Naturally it's been raining a lot since we've come home, so we haven't been able to get as much done back there as we've wanted. It's been a blessing in disguise because I've been able to focus a lot of my energy on reading, knitting, and catching up on sleep. Henry's been laying low, too. Although he has made it very clear he would like to move to Orlando, he's a homebody like I am, so while he enjoys the spurts of craziness, he really likes the apres-crazy downtime as well.

My parents rolled into town early Friday afternoon. We kicked around the 'burg, then H², my Dad, and I went to the pool while Dave and my mom wrangled some food. The next morning they set off again, heading for Western MA to visit with my Grandma and Aunt. We were sad to see them go. Even though we were home for most of the week before they arrived, it still felt a bit like we were on vacation with their visit looming on the horizon. Their leaving sealed the lid on the proverbial coffin. Henry was a bit out of sorts all day, although he would never admit to missing anything other than Phineas and Ferb and his drumset.

Fortunately, the young man has set his sites a little further down the road to happier thoughts, such as his birthday, and then all too soon after that, his first day of kindergarten. I'm just going to sit here and continue stuffing my maw full of Smarties...

Posted by Jenn at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tonight for dinner we're having corn on the cob and salad. The salad is especially awesome because it contains homegrown: lettuce, cherry tomatoes, carrots, chives, and onions. I strongly dislike carrots, but I planted them anyway because I thought they'd be fun. Now I feel like I have some sort of responsibility to eat them. You know how everyone says they taste naturally sweet? They don't. They taste naturally like carrot. Blech, For dessert we have homemade peach ice cream. Probably we'll opt to nosh on peanut m&m's though, because that's how we roll. I always want to put a "g" in front of the word "nosh". Such an English major.

I asked Henry if he'd thought about what he'd like to get at Disney while we're there. He said there are three things he would like: a hat with mouse ears, a Disney t-shirt, and a Disney balloon. The end. Meanwhile, check out this video (if the sound is wonky, bump it up to HD). My Uncle's the one with the tuba. Henry's psyched about the tuba, because that's how he rolls.

Holly's looking forward to hitting the all-you-can-eat buffets.

Posted by Jenn at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is this a photograph of a time traveler?

Posted by Jenn at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yesterday Holly and I headed out bright and early to drop the car off for a checkup. Dave and I talked briefly about what I should say and we agreed on: oil change, check the brakes because they chirp like a little birdie, general check-up to make sure everything's in good working condition. Nothing like giving a mechanic carte blanche to find something wrong with your car to make you nervous. We hadn't heard anything by 2PM, which we assumed was probably bad news. At 3, Dave called and told me it was ready to be picked up. They changed the oil, looked at the brakes, declared they're in excellent condition, and the rest of the car's not so bad either. So it cost us all of $40. We were expecting at least a $400 bill. I later asked Dave if he feels relieved that our car seems fine, or even more worried that they didn't find anything wrong. The answer: more worried. I totally get that.

Meanwhile, today was devoted to eyes, specifically mine and Henry's. I decided to go ahead and try contact lenses. I've been wanting to for many years, and that's about how long it takes me to get my act together to make something happen. This morning was my appointment to learn how to put them in. The right eye went great, the left eye was a bit tougher. Let me say, it was not a great day to wear mascara. Or eyeliner. It was very odd to be able to see clearly without the frames of my glasses delineating the start of the blur. In fact, when I got home and glanced in the mirror in my bedroom, I had a brief "THAT'S what I look like!" moment. I haven't seen myself clearly without glasses on from a distance greater than two feet in at least six years. It was a little weird. Meanwhile, Henry and I returned later in the afternoon so he could be fitted with reading glasses. His eye doctor said he has 20/20 vision, but his eyes have trouble shifting from far away to close-up. She had a feeling he'd outgrow it, but since he's going to school, it wouldn't be terrible for him to have some reading glasses to help ease the ocular transition. They're blue. With propellers. He's stunningly adorable in them. After all of that excitement, I got a call from Lenscrafters saying my new sunglasses had come in, so we headed to the mall to pick them up. They're great, mostly because unlike the pair that have miraculously lasted the last seven years, the coating isn't peeling off and I can actually see through them.

Next week I get to head back to the eye doctor to let them know if the contacts are a go. If this morning is any indication, I'll now need one hour and a half hours of primping time before I leave the house: half an hour to shower and get myself cute, one hour to put the contacts in.

How was that for a navel-gazing post?

Posted by Jenn at 09:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This past Sunday, we realized we're officially two weeks away from heading for the wilds of Florida. I looked at our calendar to get a sense of what's going on during that seemingly long, yet all too short span of time and darned near had a panic attack over what I saw. Then I almost had a second panic attack when I realized some things hadn't even made it on to the calendar yet. I have three appointments with various doctors. THREE! They're all pretty innocuous, but they still require me to drop everything and actually show up. Since we're driving down, we have to have the car checked out from top to bottom, although if we break down on the highway near a Kia dealership, Dave probably wouldn't be too broken up over riding off into the Everglades in a new Sorento. Next week Henry's back to his final week of summer camp. Once we're back in town in August, we're going to be staring down the barrel of the gun commonly referred to as Kindergarten, which I'm equally excited about and in denial over, so that's the last I'm going to say about any of that for a few weeks.

This afternoon I had the first of my three doctors appointments. It was to have my stitches removed and naturally when Henry caught wind of the purpose, he was very enthusiastic about coming along with me. You know, for moral support. We're sitting in the exam room, reading books, when the doctor walks in. She comes over to Henry, puts her hands on her knees, and very sweetly says "So! I hear you're here to have some stitches removed!" Henry looked at her like she was nuts, and I sheepishly told her that actually, I was the proud owner of the stitches, although I could see how she would make that mistake. She thought that was pretty funny. When I told her how it happened, she said she'd never had an avocado before, and what do you do with them anyway? What don't you do with an avocado? Holly and I split one every day. Life without avocado in it is unimaginable.

Tomorrow we're going to drop the car off, then Thursday I'm off to the eye doctor. At least I think it's Thursday. I don't really want to know.

Posted by Jenn at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I went and had my stitches checked out this morning, per the ER doc's suggestion, just to make sure I was healing and not throwing a cocktail party for any infections. My doctor said it looked good, laughed when I told her how it happened, then laughed even more when I told her it was a serrated knife. She said because of the location and the resulting threat of the wound reopening (ewwwwwww) I get to continue to gross people out with my Sally impression for another week and a half. But! I got the okay to go ahead and get back to hanging out poolside, so all is not lost!

Meanwhile, Henry has caught himself a little summertime cold. Yesterday we went to the local amusement park to see these guys (the drummer's unbelievable), and by the time we left, Henry was a complete wreck. He shoved aside a little girl who was trying to help her baby brother into a boat ride. It was the last ride of the evening because we were fresh out of tickets, which really destroyed him when I hauled him off the ride before it even started and gave him quite the little talking too. The hardest lessons to get across to the four year old set are the ones that conflict with their general feeling that they are the center of the universe. His response to my talk with him, between gasping sobs, was "Why were they trying to get on the blue boat? That's the one *I* wanted to ride!" By the time we got home, his nose was running like a faucet and he was absolutely exhausted. On the walk from the car to the front door, Henry yelled "OH NO! *mumble mumble mumble* A BEE *mumble* ME!!!!" *SOB SOB SOB* Based on his reaction, I assumed he had been stung, and after some clarification, he hysterically informed us that a bee had bumped into him. I felt badly for him. Also? I was biting my lip, trying not to laugh. It was a rough evening for Henry. Today he's sick and grumpy and full of energy, yet needing to rest, which is always a frustrating combination. I'm counting the minutes until Dave gets home.

Posted by Jenn at 02:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

This:

plus this:

equals: I need to seriously rethink how I take the pits out of avocados.

Yesterday we were supposed to go to an amusement park after Henry got out of circus camp for the day. (In the interest of full disclosure, "circus camp" does not mean doing trapeze tricks and trampoline stunts, it means eating blue sno-cones and popcorn while talking about camels and clowns. Bummer, right?) I was rushing around getting lunch together for Holly and me. We've been having avocado with lunch everyday, and every time I take the pit out I wonder if today is going to be the day I injure myself while doing so, and as it turns out, yesterday the answer was yes. It looked pretty bad, there was blood everywhere, I called Dave, who fortunately was really close to home having just picked up Henry, and told him we needed to go to the hospital RIGHT NOW. He tore into the house, grabbed Holly, and off we went, straight into a road construction-induced traffic jam. The hospital is two minutes from our house and naturally it took an agonizingly long time to get there. They checked me in (Did you know that, when they ask you how you cut yourself, "Cutting fruits and vegetables" is an official category in the system?), wrapped up my wound, then I sat for two hours in the waiting room with my finger up above my heart to keep the throbbing at bay. It was fine, the bleeding had let up, and since I sliced a nerve there wasn't much feeling on the side of my finger that I had cut. Henry, Holly, and Dave whiled away the time at the snack bar and the children's room while I texted back and forth with my mom. Finally they brought us back, the doctor numbed up my finger more, cleaned everything out, and gave me the good news that despite how deep the cut went, I didn't get all the way to the bone. Four stitches, two episodes of the "Penguins of Madagascar", and one take-out seafood sub later, we were back home. Dave spent an hour cleaning and bleaching the carnage in the kitchen, while I lounged in bed, scarfed the sub, and read the latest issue of "Betty and Veronica".

Although it wasn't bad, all things considered, I still would have preferred going to the amusement park.

Posted by Jenn at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

We live in a small town and so we often find ourselves face to face with people that we wouldn't ever run into if we still lived in Boston. One of those people is my doctor. I always seem to see her at the grocery store. My knee-jerk reaction when I spot her from afar is to quickly scan my cart to make sure I don't have anything that's obviously unseemly nutrition-wise sitting on top of the pile. I wonder if she's self-conscious about people scoping out what's in her cart...

Posted by Jenn at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last year for Mother's Day, Dave and Henry got me two black raspberry plants. Raspberries are my absolutely favorite thing to eat in the summer, and I was thrilled at the prospect of growing our own. We thought very hard about where to plant them, decided on a sunny spot, and let them get settled in. Last year they didn't do much other than to produce a few canes, as well as make some half-hearted inroads into our rhododendron. By mid-April, it had become clear that this was going to be a very good year for raspberries around these here parts.

Last week, the very first raspberry ripened to a beautiful, glossy black. Henry plucked it off the plant and suggested we take it across the street to give to the elderly woman we often stop and visit with. So we did. Sometimes Henry blows me away with his thoughtfulness. The next one ripened and Henry decided it should go to daddy. I was graced with the third one, mainly because I ran outside and grabbed it before Henry could get his hands on it and bring it to any of our other neighbors. Sometimes I blow myself away with my selfishness.

It was delicious.

Posted by Jenn at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The beach was excellent. We ate sno-balls, taffy, pizza, burgers, but most importantly, we ate lots of shellfish. I'll tell you a secret about Dave: he makes a wicked seafood boil. He's got the system down for when to add what and for how long so that everything comes out steamed to perfection. It's a beautiful thing. We walked on the beach, watched many a pod of dolphins, admired the pelicans (with our mouths closed, of course) as they coasted over our heads. Henry enjoyed playing in the sand, but refused to go near the surf, per usual. Holly was not impressed with the ocean the first day (I think it may have been a little loud) and was *really* not impressed with the sand, but we wore her down gradually, and she spent a good amount of time on the last day with her daddy, sitting in a beach chair down by the water. It was very sweet. I went online and saw that the next week wasn't booked, and Dave and I talked a little bit about me and Holly staying for another week, but it wouldn't have been the same without everyone else there.

Meanwhile, I'm in denial that we're back home. Usually I'm pretty happy to come home after being away, but this trip was definitely an exception. So to pull myself out of my funk, I threw myself into cleaning and tidying the house, the yard, the everything. By Friday I'd worked myself up into such a state that I was nursing a nausea-inducing headache by the time the kids were in bed. I went to bed myself at 8:30. The next night I went to bed at 9. Yesterday I decided to revel in my misery and started to think about breaking up the summer with a few more trips than are on our agenda. I need the change of scenery.

Posted by Jenn at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned I was making a couple of journals for the Write It Out Project? Well, there were prizes, and I was lucky enough to win this beautiful Patriotic Log Cabin Table Runner from KigraPatchwork's Etsy shop. Try not to be too jealous.

Posted by Jenn at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

...in three days:

Wednesday: Holly, well-baby checkup, healthy!
Thursday: Henry, bronchitis, ear infection!
Friday: Jenn, sinus infection!

Meanwhile, Dave remains healthy...

Posted by Jenn at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Last night I went ahead and made two more journals.

Subtle, aren't they?

While I was making the journals, we also cleaned the couch cushion covers (Better living through alliteration! Literally!) and hauled out the living room rug. I was sneezing throughout the entire process, so I'm pretty sure we're in much better shape now. Yesterday morning I took the vacuum upstairs and cleaned my little heart out up there. Hopefully Henry will show some signs of improvement.

On the ukulele front, I've been teaching myself two new songs. One is "Yellow Bird", the other is "Beyond the Sea". This uke version of "Beyond the Sea" is really good and very sweet. Something to aspire to. Here are The Mills Brothers singing "Yellow Bird". No ukes, but it's so good, I couldn't not link to it.

Holly had her nine month checkup this morning. She's beautifully, spectacularly average: 50th percentile straight across the board. A big difference from Henry whose stats were always either 90th percentile or ^95th percentile. Naturally she charmed everyone because she's just so charming with all of the charm she's got going on. Nary a tear was shed, not even for the dreaded ear exam, which she hated last time, and which Henry hates all the time. What's up with that anyway? It doesn't hurt. I don't get it. Kids, man.

Henry's going to a birthday party on Friday evening. We have to come up with his own superhero costume. He wants to be a whale. Whale Boy it is. But what are his superpowers? And what could his costume be besides this? A cape? With sea animals on it? I'm at a bit of a loss.

This is Henry's last full week of school. A summer full of vacations and summer camps stretches out before us...

Posted by Jenn at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of my very motivated, creative, and selfless friends has been busy enlisting people to help out with the Write It Out Project whose purpose is to supply handmade journals to those who have lost their spouses to war. I read about the project last Thursday morning but decided I couldn't participate because I didn't think I'd have time. The goal is to send the journals in by May 31st, but we're leaving town on the 22nd and we have a huge laundry list of things to get done before then. I thought that adding a sewing project on top of it all would be adding a lot of stress, considering my general lack of comfort sitting behind a sewing machine. About an hour later, I saw my friend at playgroup and after talking about it I told her I'd do one. Yesterday I picked up some supplies, and today I got to work.

Supplies!

It took me a while, partly because I'm a slow sewer, and also partly because of all of the usual day-to-day stuff that goes on around here. I did it though!

Now that I've done one, others would go much quicker. I'm tempted to head back to the store for more supplies for a few more journals. It would be a nice way to pass the evening after the kids are in bed.

Posted by Jenn at 03:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

True story: Mucinex ads make me a little queasy. Animated mucus = ick.

So. Every once in a while I get completely sick of picking up everyone's clothes and putting them in the laundry basket, washing the same dishes, picking up the same toys, cleaning off the same counters/tables, day in and day out. When that happens, for a few blissful days I park myself on the couch and completely indulge in doing whatever it is I want to do, regardless of the rapidly deteriorating condition of the house. Then one morning I'll get out of bed, look around with mild disgust, and then I'll spend the next few hours tidying up. Once everything's back to where it should be, I'll spend my days picking up everyone's dirty laundry, washing the same dishes, picking up the same toys, cleaning off the same counters/tables, day in and day out, until I get completely sick of it again.

Right now I'm in the throes of spending my evenings on the couch, alternately knitting, reading, and obsessing over a couple of new songs on the ukulele. The house is in a bit of a state. As of right now, I don't care.

Posted by Jenn at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Dave got me a Topsy-Turvy for Mother's Day. When I unwrapped it, Henry was thrilled. He immediately asked me to pull it out of the box, and when I did, he unfolded it and peered inside, then he looked in the box, then he asked "Where are the tomato slicers that are supposed to come with it?" It was very funny. It also reminded me of the Bloom County strips that featured Opus buying all sorts of useless junk after watching hours of late-night infomercials.

Posted by Jenn at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last week Wednesday I was still trying to kick this insidious cold I managed to pick up from who knows where, and by the time Henry was happily crafting at pre-school and Holly was a-snooze in her crib, I climbed into my own bed and tried to catch a few z's myself. I have a hard time napping in the afternoon because my brain tends to run amok for the thirty or forty minutes I stay horizontal, until finally I just give up. There I was laying in bed when suddenly it occurred to me that I had completely forgotten to nurse Holly at lunchtime. Our general schedule is: Holly wakes up in the morning, I nurse her, we have breakfast, she takes a nap, she wakes up, I nurse her, we have lunch,she takes a nap, I nurse her, a few hours later we have dinner, I nurse her, she goes to bed for the night. Mondays and Wednesdays are a bit nuts because Henry goes to preschool in the morning, we have an hour for lunch, then he's off to his afternoon school, so on the one hand it's not surprising that nursing her before lunch fell through the cracks, especially since I usually do it before we pick Henry up. However since her nap went long, I grabbed her and ran out the door to pick up Henry, ran home, set us all up with lunch, then ran Henry off to pre-school.

Yesterday I went and did it again, except I have no excuse this time. There wasn't anything exciting going on, no dashing around town, just the three of us kicking around the house, and when it was finally time for lunch and Holly was devouring apples and blueberries at an alarming rate, I recall wondering about how hungry she seemed. Just before it was time to put her down for her nap, I realized what had happened.

Lest you think this is somehow indicative of how everything else has been going around here lately, let me assure you: it absolutely is.

Posted by Jenn at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been watching the news about the oil spill along the Gulf Coast. It's incredibly depressing. When I was a kid, my mom and I, along with my Grandma and Grandpa, went for a drive down to the coast on one of our visits to Louisiana. We went to Avery Island, home of the world famous Tobasco Sauce, and along the way stopped for a walk on the beach. I splashed around in the shallow water for a while, my shorts pulled up as high as I could get them, and on the walk balk to the car noticed my feet were covered in tar. A lot of newspaper went down on the floor of the passenger side of the car before I got back in.

We sure can make a mess of things sometimes.

Posted by Jenn at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been a little under the weather lately, so instead of posting I've been choosing to climb under the covers and read. What I thought was a minor cold started off with a few days of being completely wiped out, a small case of the sniffles, then when that cleared out, suddenly I had a sore throat and I lost my voice. It's now moved to my eyes and has morphed from a sore throat to one of those tickles that suddenly flares up, resulting in coughing fits and lots of water being gulped down. At least I'm staying hydrated!

This past weekend we made our annual trip to the Berkshires to celebrate my Grandma's birthday. It was very nice to get out of town, especially to such a beautiful part of Massachusetts, and it was even nicer to get to hang out with my family. My Grandma was feeling a little under the weather, but managed to somehow graciously put up with all of us. I greatly look forward to this trip every year. It's always so relaxing and fun. When we go to the big city there are a list of things that we like to go and do so we're always off and running, but when we visit my grandmother, the expectation is to play in the stream in her backyard, eat, bang on the piano, and sit around. That's my kind of pace.

Posted by Jenn at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It would be nice to lose about five pounds before heading to the beach next month, however, curling up in bed with a good book and a bowlful of Ginger Snap ice cream is even nicer.

Posted by Jenn at 09:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We went to Virginia for the weekend and when we came back home, our internet was kaput. We got back online yesterday evening. Then today it was in and out again. This is why I haven't been updating. Aside from the much needed change in scenery, not much has been going on anyway. If I were to say what's really on my mind at this particular moment in time, it would be that I shouldn't have eaten all of those chips while watching "Psych", and that I should take a Tums and go to bed. In fact, I think I'll do just that.

Posted by Jenn at 09:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Every year I help balance out the cash boxes at the end of our local library's fancy-schmancy auction. Usually there are four of us, but this year two couldn't make it, so I recruited Megan (lucky girl). Usually I'm home by 11PM, however, this year the stars misaligned and we didn't get home until 12:30ish. That's 12:30 IN THE MORNING. Driving home I was thinking to myself how sad it was to be getting home so late without there having been the benefit of dancing, drinking, or general carousing, until I realized that even the prospect of those three things wouldn't be enough to convince me to stay out much past 9:30PM anymore. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I was never a fan of alcohol, so we can tighten that list up to just dancing and general carousing.

The whole point of this was to tell you how even though I was dead tired, I was so jazzed up from all of the thinking and math I had to do while balancing out the cash boxes that I didn't get to sleep until sometime between 2 and 3AM and how it has taken me two and a half days to get past feeling like I'm going to pass out at any given moment. If I didn't have two kids, I probably would've reveled in the woozy feeling, instead it was just annoying. Dave corralled the kids this morning so I could catch some extra shut-eye and if it weren't for that, I'd still be feeling off. Two and a half days! Sad.

I'm afraid to call Megan to ask how she's doing. She might yell at me.

Posted by Jenn at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I have a lot of venom to spew into the universe about things that have gone on this week. Each one individually I was capable of dealing with, however earlier this afternoon the straw that broke the camel's back was plopped onto the pile and to top it all off, was entirely my own fault. It's sent me into quite the downward spiral of bad feelings, moodiness, and general fist-shaking. Now that the crisis has passed (somewhat) I'm mustering up what little positive energy I have left and focusing it on keeping my shoulders below ear level, relaxing my jaw, repeating a mantra of "Stuff happens" (except not actually using the word "stuff"), and looking ahead to the change of scenery and all of the relaxing we're going to do in Boston.

If only we could get in the car and go right now.

Dave just came in and told me he got my fortune by accident: "Share your happiness with others today." There you have it.

Posted by Jenn at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's 4:20 and I've already had my dinner. After picking Henry up from pre-school, we walked in the door, took off our shoes, and Henry said "I'm hungry." Then I realized I was, too. I eat lunch on his schedule, and since he has to be at school by 12:30, we have lunch at 11:30, which is way too early to get me through the afternoon. So at 4 I sat down to a big plate of chips and vegetarian chili. Oh, and sour cream. Hmmm, I think I'll go have some more.

This weekend we're escaping the 'burg for brighter horizons further East and North. A little big city action is just what the doctor ordered after a couple of weeks of colds. (I ended up catching the latest on Friday; Dave has escaped thus far, but is terrified nonetheless.) So far on the agenda: the piano staircase at the Science Museum; sesame buns from Chinatown; yarn shopping with my mom; riding the subway; stamp show in Andover; celebrating my mom's birthday; Clam Box if we do end up going to Andover. What we will probably end up accomplishing: celebrating my mom's birthday; riding the subway; lamenting about how we never get as much done as we think we will. So it goes.

Posted by Jenn at 04:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tomorrow I'm getting in a car and driving an hour with a friend so we can attend a belly dance boot camp. Why we're going to anything that has the words "boot camp" tacked onto the end of it is beyond me. To prepare myself, this evening I'm going to drink lots of water for hydration and I'm going to eat lots of Ginger Snap Ice Cream to bolster my fortitude.

Posted by Jenn at 07:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just got back from the first belly dance class I've been able to attend since before Holly was born. It felt really good to get back to something that's become so important to me. Thank goodness I signed up for that first class a few years ago. Not only did I accidentally stumble upon something I absolutely love to do, but I also met two women at that class who have since become close friends. As someone who's fairly awkward at the friend thing, that's something I'm very grateful for.

Speaking of bellies, amazingly those four boxes of Girl Scout cookies I bought on Sunday lasted until today. Unfortunately I ate ~ 90% of them. What do they put in those things?

Posted by Jenn at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today I'm trying to catch up on everything I couldn't be bothered to do last week because I was both sick and lazy. Mostly picking up the house, which, technically, I did last night with Henry, and vacuuming.

This weekend was great because although we had no plan, which is usually bad for us, we did manage to get out of the house. We walked to the park and had a lot of fun running around, although Henry was a little bummed there were no other kids there. We headed to Lowe's where Dave and Henry picked out materials to make a big xylophone, which they immediately got cracking on when we got back home. I scored four boxes of Girl Scout Cookies, so you know I'm happy. Holly went with the flow with a smile on her face, per usual.

Since the weekend was a bit willy-nilly, we didn't get any bread baking done and we didn't roast the chicken I bought for last night's dinner, both of which are crucial elements for one of the other dinners I'm making this week, so I'm getting all of that done today. I'm trying out this honey wheat bread recipe. The Friday my parents were here I dropped off a meal for a friend who recently had a baby. They're vegetarians, so I made vegetable soup. I thought rolls would go nicely with it so I tried out this recipe for Cloverleaf Honey Wheat Rolls and thus a honey wheat obsession was born. Hopefully today's bread will be just as delicious as the rolls turned out to be.

Thus ends a pretty mundane post.

Posted by Jenn at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My parents came up for a visit this past weekend and between all of the things we got up to while they were here, as well as all of the coughing and sneezing and nose-blowing, I didn't have much chance to update. Actually, I didn't get online very much at all, which is always refreshing, considering the amount of time I spend aimlessly wandering the web, hoping against hope I'll come across something interesting, but generally always failing. Once upon a time (as in last Summer and Fall) I put into practice a "No internet after 8PM" rule because of all of the time-wasting that was going on. (This rule applied to exactly no one other than myself because Dave is a lost cause what with all of the facebooking failblogging youtubing work he has to do at night.)

Anyway, over the weekend we: delivered a meal to a friend who recently had a baby; delivered birthday presents to the most angelic 3-year old you've ever seen; had hot dogs, chili fries, onion rings, and lots of root beer at A&W; went bowling; ate sticky buns from Mr. Sticky's; attended a Hafla; put together an amazing Valentine's dinner; stuffed ourselves with chocolate dipped strawberries courtesy of Dave; came down with colds; squeezed in a late-evening, girls-only trip to Target; played an addictive game of Solitaire that turned out to be a fun group game; spent a day at home watching the snow fall. Not bad for a three day visit.

On Friday, Holly was showing signs of having caught Henry's cold. By Monday it hit her sinuses and she was absolutely miserable. We brought her to the Dr's Monday morning for a quick checkup since Henry had been diagnosed with bronchitis the week before and she seemed to be working at having to breathe. The Doctor said it seemed like it was just a really, really bad cold, which was good news. Holly had a nice long nap when we came home, then was sort of in and out of it the rest of the day. We put her down around 7PM and she cried and cried and cried. I brought her downstairs and we spent some quality time on the couch watching the Olympics. It was very sweet having a cute little girl tucked under my chin. We had to wait until 8:30 to give her another dose of Tylenol after which I nursed her and put her back to bed. That seemed to do the trick. She woke up twice that night which surprised the heck out of me because she seemed pretty miserable; I was certain Dave and I would be switching off comforting her all night. She's feeling much better now. Tomorrow she has her 6-month checkup. Between well-baby visits, emergencies, and sickness, I feel like we're spending a ton of time at the Doctors. Ah well, soon it will be Spring.

Posted by Jenn at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My Hair. All I can say is: gah.

I haven't had it cut in a year and a half. When I found out I was pregnant with Holly, I decided to take advantage of the crazy hair growth that goes on. The idea was to have hair that was long enough to actually have hairstyle options beyond: short; shorter; really, really short. Now it's long. And I have no idea what to do with it. Except I've now invested all of this time into growing it, I don't want to make a mistake and get a hairstyle I don't like. So I'm paralyzed. Now I understand those women who have long hair but freak out at the mere mention of taking "just a few inches" off. Well, not entirely, but sort of; I have a feeling they actually like their hair, whereas I pretty much am not loving my hair at all right now. I'm thinking I should just go and get it cut really short again and be done with it.

Posted by Jenn at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last night I was SO TIRED! I did my pre-sleep yoga around 8:30 and by nine I was sitting on the edge of the bed reading a book. My face was scrubbed, my teeth brushed, and my eyes getting droopy. I decided to get up to say good-night to Dave and ended up spending the next two hours reading about the top 10 art accidents according to Time magazine as well as every single entry on failbooking.com. I crawled into bed around 11:30. I'm such a jerk. A really, really tired jerk.

Posted by Jenn at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Holly officially has one bottom tooth. She seems relieved. I didn't have the heart to tell her about the rest of the teeth that would soon be following suit.

Holly has been able to go from her back to her tummy for months now. Today she demonstrated she officially knows how to go from her tummy to her back.

Henry made it official that although he wrote on his construction paper green eggs and ham craft that he would like "to eat them at Grandma and Grandpa's house", he doesn't actually want any green eggs or ham. Ever. Seriously. Blech. Stop talking about it.

Dave officially stopped a goal with his groin tonight at field hockey. He's very thankful for the invention of the protective cup.

I officially ate too many peanut M&M's this evening.

The word "official" officially has no meaning anymore because I've used it so many times it now just sounds weird.

Posted by Jenn at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It's raining very hard here. It's also almost 60 degrees. I imagine the future flowers that are lying dormant in our flower bed are stretching their arms, feeling a bit groggy, and thinking "Wow, winter sure flew by." On the one hand, it would be nice if this was a sign of more to come, but for now I'm grateful to be able to open the windows and let a little fresh air in.

Posted by Jenn at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been very stressed and anxious lately which has led to the endearing quality of not being able to focus on anything or anyone. If someone's talking to me, I try really hard to listen and pay attention, but soon enough, I'm right back in my brain, obsessing and freaking out. Part of it is lack of quality sleep. Part of it is worry about things that have been going on. Lately, it's regularly crept up my shoulders and into my neck, and then taken on the form of headaches.

I know I don't take very good care of myself. I don't take any time out of my day to ground myself and refocus. Instead, I gradually get tenser and tenser until I crawl into bed and hope a night's sleep is enough to cure what ails me, but mostly it doesn't and I wake up exhausted.

The last two nights I've stretched out to a yoga dvd before going to bed. I've tried yoga before, but frankly, the sessions take too long. Generally I want lots of results in very little time, even when it comes to relaxation, and wouldn't you know it, therein lies the problem. After the very first session, I noticed a huge difference in how I felt physically. I'm going to try very hard to make that a regular part of my day.

Henry has to go to the doctor's bright and early tomorrow morning to have his two stitches removed. The reality of the fact that he actually has stitches hit him like a ton of bricks when I told him about his upcoming doctor's appointment and he completely fell apart. He was so distraught that when I pulled him onto my lap and hugged and held him while he cried, he didn't try to get away. I talked with him about it and told him all about the stitches I had when I was a kid. It helped subdue him temporarily, but once he started imagining how they're going to get the stitches out (I made the mistake of saying they might use scissors. Why did I think that would help?), a fresh batch of sobs would rear it's ugly head. I've noticed that it's much better to tell him these things a few hours before they happen, rather than spring them on him. This way he can cry, freak out, ask questions, digest what's coming, so that by the time he's faced with the reality of it, he usually handles things pretty well. Keep your fingers crossed for him tomorrow. And let's hope they don't actually use scissors. Let's hope they use magic.

Posted by Jenn at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm a little sad to be packing up the Christmas decorations. The holiday's were so much fun this year. The other night I tried to pinpoint exactly why that was the case. Partly I think it was because of our amazing trip to my Grandmother's house early in December. She had already decked out her house in holiday finery and that, along with the view from our hotel room of Pittsfield's huge lit tree and Berkshire Bank's giant lit wreath, plus a snowstorm to make everyone feel cozy thrown in for good measure, was definitely enough to put a girl in the Christmas spirit. Also, I really stuck to my decision to not overdo the usual Holiday shenanigans. That's something I'm going to make an annual tradition. Nixing expectations, sitting back, relaxing, and enjoying the season. Who would have thought?

Today I'm going to start the taking-down process, although probably the tree will be up for another day or two. Let's be realistic shall we? I've never been a fan of the quick removal method when it comes to band-aids, so I'll just carry that notion into the de-holidayification of our house.

Posted by Jenn at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Goodbye "Girl's Next Door"...

Hello "Twilight"...

Let's see...new resolutions...hmmm. A list, shall we?

1. Actively making an effort to reduce the amount of chemicals we're being exposed to, particularly in our foods. I read this article in Mother Earth News, and it scared the living daylights out of me. Most of it I knew, but some of it I didn't (ie. canned foods have Bisphenol A in the lining. Argh.) Which brings me to number 2.

2. Amping up our garden. We had huge (and sometimes surprising) success with our potatoes, tomatoes, various herbs, peppers, summer squash, and onions last year. Most of what we got in the CSA we joined last summer were things we didn't particularly love, so we're going to go try and grow the things we did like, like Swiss Chard. Lots and lots of Swiss Chard.

3. Dave and I have a sweets obsession. So instead of making grand declarations about what we will and won't eat sweets-wise, I'd like to make more of our desserts at home, because store bought just isn't that satisfying. Also, I'd like to make our bread at home, too.

4. I'm pretty happy with my weight. I would, however, like to get my stomach muscles back. They disappeared sometime in February of '09, with good reason, but I kind of miss them. So does my lower back.

Posted by Jenn at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This year I'm taking the Holidays off. I'm still reeling from last year when we took Henry to what seemed like 40 Christmas-oriented things on top of all of the decorating, cookie-making, card writing, and tree-picking-outing. I think what made it seem so nuts at the time was the fact that I was struggling a bit with morning sickness. Nothing like middle-grade nausea to color one's world view.

Keeping last year's hectic-ness (hecticnocity?) in mind, this year I'm going easy on us. I'll make cookies if I'm in the mood. We'll pick out a tree when it feels right. The decorations are going up slowly. I couldn't even hack the thought of trying to keep up with a chocolate advent calendar, and only bought them for Dave and Henry. This morning Dave and I talked about sending out Christmas cards. I basically told him if he wants them to go out, it's on him, that I'll help, but I just don't want to think about it. It seems sort of selfish when I write it all out, but frankly, I know I'm really just giving myself the gift of just relaxing and enjoying the season.

Posted by Jenn at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The felt jackelope from this shop was featured on the etsy homepage today. I clicked through to see what other things the owner makes and the feltidermy cracked me up. Particularly the Loch Ness Monster. Very cute and clever.

Henry and I have been working on his writing skills the last few days. Believe it or not, he actually has writing skills. His teacher expressed concern that he wasn't holding crayons or pencils correctly and was very reluctant to heed her attempts to show him the proper way. So yesterday I sat down with him and told him he was going to learn how to write his name. He said "Okay." He grabbed a crayon, held it in his fist, when I asked him if he was holding it right he looked, said "No", corrected how he was doing it, drew an H, then an E, then asked me to remind him what an N, R, and Y looks like, then he drew those. It blew my mind. I had no idea. It was even pretty legible. So. There you have it. Today we worked on the word "big". Tomorrow we'll write "fish". On Thursday we'll put them all together: Henry Big Fish. Did I mention he graduated from "Henry Little Fish" to "Big Fish" about a month after he turned four? My fish is growing up.

Posted by Jenn at 08:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

...be taking a nap before Henry gets home, but I can't stop shopping for tall boots and cute skirts and black turtlenecks.

My new computer came. It's got a Magic Mouse. It's awesome. I feel very sci-fi when I use it.

This was on the fail blog last week. It's hilarious. Marijuana brownies!

Posted by Jenn at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

There's not much posting going on because I'm too busy eating. This afternoon I had a turkey/stuffing/cranberry/gravy wrap. Right now I'm having a post-dinner, pre-pie snack of leftover stuffing. I'd say something about my expanding waistline, but that's so cliché.

Posted by Jenn at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

...get the pumpkin pie going. I love Thanksgiving!

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

How glad am I that I didn't marry Nicolas Cage like I had planned when I was a teenager? (C'mon, he was totally adorable in Wild at Heart.) On the other hand, I'm pretty good at balancing checkbooks, so apparently it's his loss.

Speaking of money, I watched a little TV today while the kids were napping. 20,000 Christmas commercials later, I'm now officially offended by how money-grubbing corporations have become. I propose we all boycott corporate stores and just donate to charities.

Posted by Jenn at 08:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two weeks ago I bought a hair coloring kit because it was getting to be about that time, judging by the state of my roots. Plus, I was about to run out of the special conditioner that comes with the blondifying potions I purchase, which work the best at hydrating my lightened hair. The kit I bought is supposed to get you *really* blonde. I've picked up that kind before, from different brands, and they never really do what they say they're going to do so I figured this one would be the same. Then I read the instructions this morning, thinking I'd take care of hair business while Holly was napping. And? They scared me. The list of "DO NOT"'s was huge. So I stuffed everything back in the box and decided that unless you're really tall and can see the top of my head, my hair doesn't look too bad.

I'm thinking of challenging Mel to dying our hair pink because we've both said in the past that we really want to. Except there's a high probability she'd totally take me up on it, so I have to think about it very seriously. Plus, with my coloring, I should go with more of a plum or a lavender.

I guess this wasn't a very miscellaneous post after all. It was, however, a totally mindless post about hair. I'm going to change the title.

Posted by Jenn at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Dave and Henry are heading out for a "Men only" breakfast. They're going to stop by another cafe to bring me back Huevos Rancheros, one of my favorite meals ever, one which I haven't had since last December when I ate it while in the early stages of morning sickness. Now that I've gotten over associating it with feeling bad, I'm going to thoroughly enjoy it. I might even make little oinking sounds while I'm tossing it down.

Posted by Jenn at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The other night I had a dream that my mom, Henry, Holly, and I came home and discovered that our house had been broken into. Thieves had taken our washer, dryer, refrigerator, and had expressed interest in our TV but had decided to leave it behind because it was apparently too heavy. Just after we walked in, Dave came home from work. I told him what had happened and he said "Actually, they broke in last night while we were sleeping." Somehow we had managed to sleep through people stealing three major appliances. That's when I started to panic about them coming back for the TV. Meanwhile, my mom couldn't stop laughing over the fact that we were such sound sleepers.

I really hope no one takes our new washer. They can have the refrigerator, though.

Posted by Jenn at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

*SOB*

Meanwhile, we're trying to figure out what to get everyone for Christmas, which is always an interesting exercise. It was easier when we lived in Boston and were inspired while out and about. Dave and I usually hammer out a tentative list while driving back home from our annual Fall trip to my parents house, but this year we forgot. It's somehow very difficult for us to find a significant chunk of time where we're in the same place (and not sleeping) so we'll see how we handle it this year.

You know who's turned out to be a difficult person to buy for? Henry. Go figure. Half of the toys we've purchased for him over the last few years he doesn't play with at all. Right now, it's all about music. And stuffed animals. And sometimes bubbles and marbles. He likes bouncy houses, so we're thinking about getting him a Jumpolene. He'd be thrilled and it is Christmas. It'd sort of be the equivalent of a Red Ryder BB gun if he knew he could ask for one. I hope Holly's easier to please. I don't need double the gift angst.

Posted by Jenn at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We spent the better part of yesterday and today sealing our new fence. I'm certain I lost a fair amount of brain cells inhaling those delicious fumes hour after hour. While we were doing it, I was cursing the fence. Now, I think it looks great. Next time, however, we're duping a bunch of friends into coming over so they can share in the fun.

Posted by Jenn at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I totally forgot to post yesterday. I remembered at 12:03AM this morning, so I didn't have a chance to post even a sad, one word post just to have something up there. So much for NaBloPoMo. I'll keep carrying on, even though I'm no longer legitimate.

While I was pregnant with Henry, I had fantasies of making sugar cookies with my kid, colored sugars flying and dough taking the shape of pumpkins, santa claus, and turkeys. The reality is, there are few things I enjoy less than messing with sugar cookie dough. It always sticks to the rolling pin and the table no matter how much flour I dust onto everything, and by the time I transport whatever shape we've decided on to the cookie sheet, it's somehow transformed into a shapeless blob. By the time I've got a sheet full of cookies, I'm ready to throw the rolling pin out the window. Nothing puts the love in like a long string of obscenities.

A couple of weeks ago Henry made sugar cookies at preschool. They were really good, so I asked for the recipe. His teacher told me it was great because everything goes into the bowl at once and the dough is really easy to work. Since my mom is here today to help alleviate the tension that always comes when I make sugar cookies, I decided to give them a shot. And they *were* really easy. Henry said they "rolled" the dough out at school by mashing it down with their hands so we quickly eschewed the rolling pin and I have to say, that is definitely the way to go. So! If you're looking for a good, easy sugar cookie recipe, I definitely recommend this one:Great Grams Sugar Cookies. I should tell you about how I turned my back for three seconds and when I turned back around, Henry had his tongue in the cup of orange colored sugar. When he came up his whole mouth was orange and he looked very happy. Until he got into big trouble over it. One of childhood's fleeting moments of joy.

Posted by Jenn at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

...he said I should write about whatever moves me. The thought of going to bed moves me. A hot bubble bath does, too. Today was a bit exhausting, which is ironic because around 4 o'clock I woke up from a nap, noted that both kids were still sleeping, and thought "Wow, this has been such a quiet afternoon." Sometimes it feels like I have to maintain a manic pace to keep from falling over, and that once I slow down, I just want to stop completely. I guess I've always been an all or nothing kind of girl. Just ask that empty box of Lorna Doone's over there.

Today there were gray skies and the threat of rain/snow showers. I was inspired to make some comfort food for dinner. Over the summer, we got a lot of swiss chard from the CSA we joined. I'm not a huge fan, but managed to work out a recipe that is so good, I actually bought some chard from the grocery store. I layer thin slices of uncooked potato (home grown, amazingly), season them with salt/pepper/garlic/pats of butter, add a layer of sliced tomatoes, a layer of sauteed swiss chard, a layer of burger, and finally a generous sprinkling of mozzarella. Then I do it all again. Cover and bake in the oven at 350 for about an hour, removing the lid for the last 15 minutes to brown the cheese. It's yummy. Unless you're Henry, in which case you'll treat each bite as if is killing you slowly and painfully.

Posted by Jenn at 08:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

When I walked out our front door this morning I saw a big pile of leaves partly in the street and partly shoved up all over our sidewalk. I have no idea where they came from. Briefly I thought someone had taken pity on us and raked our front yard out of the goodness of their heart, but one glance at our leaf-covered yard killed that theory. Then, because, oddly enough, I noticed it looked like they'd been gathered with a snow plow, I thought maybe someone had plowed the leaves together from up the street, except the street in both directions was a mess of leaves, and also, who would do that? So it remains a mystery. It did motivate me to actually get out and do some raking in our oft neglected front yard. Since we generally go in and out through the kitchen door, sometimes we don't see the front for weeks, except for when we happen to drive by. It still looks messy, but at least now there are a lot fewer leaves.

Posted by Jenn at 01:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I must be getting lazy. Why bother forming actual paragraphs anymore?

- On the drive home from Boston last Tuesday, I turned on FNX and heard a song I really liked. I said to Dave "I really like this song." and he said he did too. A few days later I bought the album. After listening to it in the car on Saturday, I said to Dave "I really like this album." and he said he did too. Dave and I started dating in 1999. It's taken 10 years, but we've finally found a group we both like. Have I mentioned how incompatible we are, musically speaking? If you're interested, here's a link to the song:

Also, "Dave and Jenn" now have a "Matt and Kim" clause in our marriage because they're so freaking cute.

- Henry has Cold Number Three of the season. He's handling it well.

- Holly's having trouble napping today due to an overstuffed nose thanks to an over-dry house thanks to the heat being on thanks to the unseasonably cold weather. Flash barking at the UPS guy didn't help.

- I'm eating homemade waffle cookies that Dave's mom sent to me for my birthday. I am very happy, despite the sick 4 year old and the non-napping baby.

Posted by Jenn at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

- I'm getting my seasonal flu shot in an hour. Having kids has hardened me against my dislike of needles because I was poked with them so many times over the course of both pregnancies. Having said that, I've realized that while I don't mind having blood taken out of my body, having stuff pumped in totally gives me the heebie-jeebies.

- Yesterday it snowed. I thought it was pretty awesome. To celebrate, I lit our fireplace candles and vacuumed. Sounds sort of pagan, doesn't it?

- We went to Boston this past weekend. For our birthdays, my parents sent us out to lunch with a fistful of cold hard cash. We went to the Summer Shack and shared: pumpkin/lobster bisque, king crab, lobster roll, and an apple tart. Then we died and went to heaven. The king crab was the most amazing thing I've ever had. Now I get what all the fuss is about.

- In a nod to tradition, we went apple picking in Stow. We arrived back in the 'burg late Tuesday, so we've been home approximately two and a half days. We're already halfway through a second batch of apple crisp. This morning while pulling out the box of mini-wheats (frosted, of course) from our cabinet, I found our bag of brown sugar cowering in a corner. It *should* be afraid.

- Not much planned for this weekend except for a birthday party, which is totally how one's calendar should look: empty except for the promise of cake in the near future.

Posted by Jenn at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I haven't updated lately mainly because I've had a tension headache since last Wednesday that just won't quit, so my eyes aren't particularly fond of the computer screen. Other than that, things have been great around here. Henry's in full-on Halloween mode and talks about it non-stop, Holly's busy doing her eat-sleep-poop thing, Dave hasn't been getting enough sleep, and I've been making pumpkin pies, birthday cakes, and these totally awesome pumpkin squares (also good with walnuts) because it keeps me sane and happy.

Saturday was one of those days that other days wish they could live up to. After getting Holly down for her mid-morning nap, Henry and I headed out into the wilds of the 'burg to burn off some of the Cocoa Puff's-induced energy that was coursing through a certain someone's four-year-old body. We spent about an hour and a half playing at the park with some friends we had the good fortune to run into, then we headed to the shopping district to first stop by the bank, and second stop by the toy shop, which, if your a kid, is definitely the ideal order for those two events to take place in. After a quick stop at the yarn shop, we headed for home and lunch. Since the weather was absolutely gorgeous, we decided to head out to the University's football game, the first one we've been to this season. (We really wanted to go last week because the Hawthorne Caballeros Alumni Corps was playing a pre-game and half-time show, but the timing didn't work out and the weather was lousy. We'll just have to wait until next year's Cavalcade of Champions to see them again. *sob*) A lot of popcorn and ice cream was consumed while we watched our team actually win. We stumbled home bleary-eyed but happy. After that, Dave grilled, we ate, got the kids in bed early, then we settled down on the couch with a DVD of The Big Bang Theory.

It was really nice to just go with the flow as opposed to rushing around, trying to get through a whole list of activities/chores. So nice, in fact, we did it again on Sunday. We need to make sure that we have more days like that. It's too easy to get mired down in trying to do things you think you need to do.

Posted by Jenn at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Before I get a reputation that I don't deserve regarding good laundry practices, I feel I should clarify that when I say "darks", I mean anything that has even a hint of color. This explains why the outfit Holly is sporting in this picture was one of the casualties. With the purchase of our new washer last May, I've managed to whittle down the number of loads of laundry I do each week to three: whites, darks, and towels/sheets. Thanks to my bad laundry habits, every time I throw stuff in the wash I assume that it's a gamble that things will come out looking the way they went in. Last Spring I picked up a set of totally awesome, ridiculously expensive, but finally on sale, Pottery Barn Kids dark blue tie-dyed sheets for Henry. Since I had to wash them before he used them, I put them in with our white sheets to kill the proverbial two birds with one stone. When I pulled everything out, our white sheets had a distinct blue sheen. Dave noticed it while we were making the bed and I launched into how they don't look blue, they really just look whiter thanks to the blue balancing out the yellow that was in the white. He totally bought it. Or at least pretended he did. And that is what makes our marriage work, lying and good acting.

Posted by Jenn at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The last two times I did a load of darks, I washed:

1. pants
2. shirts
3. socks
4. underwear
5. chapstick (cherry)
6. chapstick (cherry) (organic)
7. a Drumstick wrapper (empty)
8. Swiss Army USB drive
9. a blue pen

The blue pen was the one that would have made me cry if I actually got all that worked up over doing laundry. The only truly sad part was the day before, I *finally* had a chance to buy Holly an outfit. As soon as I got home I washed it so she could wear it the next day. She had it on for approximately two hours before she spit up all over it and it ended up in the laundry again, naturally landing in the wash with the blue pen. Maybe fate is telling me I have really bad taste in baby girl clothes. Maybe Holly is too. Or maybe I should actually check Dave's pockets before throwing his pants in the wash. My only defense is Dave buys pants that have 40,000 pockets and he seems to use every single one of them. Who has the time?

Posted by Jenn at 09:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

1. The following conversation I had with Henry Saturday evening:
henry: What's the story with the pancake situation?
me: What?
henry: The pancake situation...
me: As in the pancakes we had for breakfast?
henry: Yup.
me: We finished eating them. At breakfast. Hours ago.
henry: Oh. Good.

"Pancake situation"? The kid's talking more and more like his mom everyday. Scary.

2. Listening to Holly grunt and groan in the wee hours of the morning, trying to get some gas out. Every time she toots or poops I want to stand up and cheer because she's putting in such a man-sized effort.

3. The fact that, despite the wee-hours-in-the-morning grunting sessions, she's a pretty good sleeper. Granted, we've been working really hard at getting her to be a good sleeper, I think she also brings a certain laid-back attitude to the mix. I'm better rested now with an almost one-month-old than I was during my last month of pregnancy. Not shabby. And not at all like it was with Henry. I'm totally grateful over here. Now if only I could get Dave to go to bed at a decent hour...

4. We got a drawing in the mail on Saturday that features a little girl holding an umbrella. Holly's name is worked into the picture (ie. "Holly" is written in the shape of the umbrella, her middle name is the little girl's arm, and her last name makes up her dress), and it also has her birth date, weight, and height. It's absolutely adorable. We also have no idea who sent it to us. We don't recognize the name on the return address, nor do either of our sets of parents. Intrigue! So if it was you, tell us. Google was surprisingly unhelpful.

5. All of the meals we've been getting from people in our playgroup. It's such an enormous help. We're really feeling the love over here.

6. Dave put this up on his status bar on Facebook last Friday and as of yesterday I was still laughing about it: "Dave while sleep deprived and lecturing at 8am, said 'elephants' when he meant 'elements'." Actually, I can say that as of right now I'm still laughing about it.

Posted by Jenn at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

When I was a kid I had three constant literary companions:

Nancy Drew: I had them all and read them over and over. In particular I liked The Mystery at Lilac Inn and The Mystery of the 99 Steps. Man, did I want to be Nancy Drew: great hair, cute boyfriend, awesome car, totally smart. I wish I'd kept the books for Holly (or Henry) to read. However, when I outgrew them, they were passed on to someone else who hopefully enjoyed them as much as I did.

Sweet Valley High: Man, did I want to be Jessica Wakefield: blonde, blue-eyed, gorgeous, not to mention completely shallow, but, whatever, she got all sorts of cute boys so did it really matter?

Archie Comics: Man, did I want Veronica's hair. Still do, as a matter of fact. Her money wouldn't hurt either. This is the one that's still a constant literary presence in our house. Whenever things get to be a bit overwhelming, or I've read too many heavy books, I reach for a Pals and Gals double digest and enjoy the trials and tribulations of high school in Riverdale. The stories are all different, and yet they never really seem to change. It's like chicken soup for me.

Last weekend Dave's mom asked if I'd heard about Archie proposing to Veronica and naturally my world came to a brief halt. I hadn't heard anything about it, and may I just say "WHAT?!?" and "GAH!!!" It so should be Betty. Actually, it shouldn't be either of them. They're supposed to stay in high school forever! My bitterness didn't deter me from pre-ordering the 6-issue story arc, thereby financially supporting this travesty. I'll be kicking myself the whole time I'm reading them, I'm sure.

Getting back to the chicken soup thing, you know what else I enjoy (or at least use to before I started going to bed at 8:30)? The Wizards of Waverly Place. Dave can vouch for that. Embarrassing but true. Apparently my tastes in certain things stagnated at the age of 12. You know what else is embarrassing but true? Holly is hanging out in her Moses basket happily entertaining herself while enjoying the sounds of Terminator 2 playing on the tv. My dad would be so proud.

Posted by Jenn at 04:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

1. We had ourselves a baby. And she really *did* turn out to be a girl. Introducing Chocolat (aka. Holly):

2. Henry turned four on Sunday. FOUR!

3. This fair use video Dave sent me featuring Edward from Twilight and Buffy:

4. The trip my parents, Henry, Holly, and myself made to the mall yesterday. Events broken down as follows: my dad almost pulled one of his fingernails off trying to open Holly's stroller, Henry had a busted lip from tripping and running into my mom's knee, I needed to sit on an ice pack, we were all terrorized by a bat that was zipping through the mall, and Henry had blisters on both of his feet from his clogs. This was three hours in and we still hadn't gotten around to doing what we had gone for in the first place, which was looking for some 0-3 month clothes for a certain little girl. Our tuckus's were officially kicked by that particular outing.

My parents left bright and early this morning (SOB! COME BACK!). Right now Dave's getting Holly to sleep, Henry's watching some Thomas the Tank Engine, and the most I plan on accomplishing is getting some laundry done and perhaps sitting around a lot. It'll be a good day.

Posted by Jenn at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I just spent a small fortune on nursing bras and tanks and shirts. Fortunately I had some money left over on a gift card as well as a 20% off coupon, so I also saved a small fortune. Now that we've got the experience of one baby under our belts, we have a clearer idea of things we need and things we don't need. With Henry, nursing gear wasn't anywhere on my radar until after he was born and I was settled on our couch at home, ensconced within the confines of a Boppy pillow, fumbling with my shirts and tanks while still trying to maintain a modicum of grace. I ended up with a Walmart nursing bra that was nice in theory but miserable in practice, with a special ability to make a girl feel rather dumpy. I have vowed to myself that things to that end would be a lot more comfortable this time around. And, if at all possible, maybe a little more chic. Hence the small fortune. On the one hand it slightly kills me to spend money on that sort of thing when there are all sorts of other practical items out there calling my name, such as espadrilles, but on the other hand, we don't have much of anything else to buy because, with the exception of a stroller that actually strolls and size medium/large G-diaper inserts, we seem to have everything we need. It's nice to put that in writing. It makes me feel like perhaps we do have everything somewhat in order. Hah!

Posted by Jenn at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I think I should probably participate in NaBloPoMo just to get me back on track with my blogging, because obviously I've fallen off the wagon. I'd like to say we've been busy, but mostly I've been working very hard at trying to nap.

We spent last weekend in Virginia. Dave's parents hosted a family reunion. It was a lot of fun. I shudder to think what the scale is going to say at my next Doctor's appointment. Henry met a lot of family he didn't know he had. On Saturday night while I was putting him to bed he asked what "Grandma and Grandpa and all of his friends were doing upstairs". It was nice to be the only kid in attendance and therefore frequently the center of attention. By the time we had packed up the car to head home on Monday, Henry had worked himself up into quite the case of smitten-ness with one of Dave's Aunts. I sense a trip to Texas to visit with her will be taking place sometime in the near future.

On Tuesday the electricians showed up and spent the next two days installing the central A/C as well as our new heat pump. Henry and I hung around the homefront so that someone was here while they were working. Unfortunately it was rainy both days which meant we were stuck inside with not much to do, so by Wednesday night, although Henry seemed perfectly content, I was losing my mind. On one of those two days I recall asking Dave to take Henry out for dinner so I could have a little peace and quiet. I think I took a shower. I think it was maybe glorious. Meanwhile, everything has been installed and is running beautifully, but unfortunately we've hit a snag with getting our old oil tank out. We have no idea how they got it in, but it appears to be impossible to get out. Something about the height of the tank and the angle of our stairs combined with a wood beam in our basement, etc. etc. Our heating guy really wants it and despite giving it the old college try again on Thursday afternoon, he hasn't given up hope.

Right now Dave is eating leftovers we came home with last night from a birthday party we went to and frankly it smells so good I have no choice but to go and partake myself.

Posted by Jenn at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Henry and I hitched a ride with some friends yesterday and hightailed it out to RB Winter State Park where we spent the better part of the day splashing around in the water (Henry) and sitting in a chair, sipping water, and generally trying not to move too much (me). Despite the liberal application of SPF 5 bazillion on the usual susceptible locations, not to mention later reapplications, I still managed to get quite the sunburn in various awkward spots. I tried my best. Next time, I will not be wearing a halter swimsuit top because it sure hurts today, what with all of the wearing of non-halter-tops I'm doing right now. Henry had a swimmingly grand time. This afternoon we headed to Target to get him a fish shaped inflatable swimming tube so that next time we go I he can float.

A lot of bills for all of the various work and phone changes that have been going on around here have hit within the last five working days. I have only this to say: sheesh. It sure costs a boatload of money to save some money.

Posted by Jenn at 05:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We got back on Tuesday after spending a week at the Outer Banks. Late May is a great time to go because everything's open for the season, but no one's really arrived yet. We had a pretty active week, although I don't remember much about the particulars other than: seafood boils, sno-balls, fudge, butter, crabs, and salt water taffy. Oh, and none of us will forget the sunburn my dad got on his feet that relegated him to the safety of the living room couch for one entire day. You could almost see his feet swell up before your eyes.

Henry is very much looking forward to enjoying the hot tub one day "when he's older". He spent about twenty minutes one afternoon forlornly splashing the water while his daddy stewed away in bubbly bliss. The prospect of doing it at some point in the future definitely perked him up, as did the fact that I wasn't allowed to go in either. Every once in a while we would hoist our legs up over the edge and dip our toes. It was very relaxing.

About a month ago I mentioned to my dad that I was thinking about getting a ukulele, and the day we arrived, what should emerge from out of their car but a brand-spanking new, gorgeous ukulele, complete with a beginner's book and a hawaiian uke song book. Perfect for the beach. My excitement was perhaps eclipsed only by Henry's. You should have seen his eyes boggle when I opened up the case. I'm currently working on learning Israel Kamakawiwoʻole's version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and Weezer's "Island in the Sun". One day you'll find me in the backyard swinging in a hammock, wearing frayed cut-off jeans with a straw hat over my face, while strumming all sorts of crazy tunes.

Needless to say, I'm ready to pack everything up and head back down again. Henry would agree. Next summer is a long ways away.

Posted by Jenn at 07:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

My friend Gabriella moved into action after reading last week's sad-sack second post over my pre-natal care anxiety. She emailed the woman who was her mid-wife, who happens to practice at the same place I've been going to, to ask if she'd talk to me because I wasn't having a very good experience there. On Saturday I sent this person an email with my two biggest complaints, namely the c-section discussion and the gestational diabetes conversation. On Sunday I anxiously checked my email for her response every thirty minutes. Monday morning, she gave me a call. We had a nice long chat during which I discovered two things:

1) the 38-week ultrasound is something they give everyone. I had high blood pressure the first few visits I was pregnant with Henry (because of a previous pregnancy that had gone wrong) and so I received all sorts of special attention such as twice a month visits right out of the gate, early non-stress tests, and assorted other things you all don't want to hear about. That included a 38-week ultrasound which was presented as something extra I was getting along with all of the other stuff. If the Dr. had said he was going to tack on taking a close look at Chocolat's weight onto the list of other things they look at during the routine 38-week ultrasound, my head wouldn't have gone spinning off into outer space.

2) She talked to me about the glucose test, what my actual options are. There were at least three from off the top of her head, and one of those three was declining to do any of them. Then she told me what my options were based on which of those options I might choose, and one of them always included declining to do anything. Which is always nice to hear and tends to make a girl feel a lot more in control of her own destiny.

She was extremely easy to talk to and listened to me and my concerns. It was a huge relief. I asked her if I could just see her from now on and she said yes, although she was up front about the fact that she might be traveling for a vacation around the time that I'm due. At this point, I would trust anyone she recommended to be present at Chocolat's birth.

Which brings me to why I'm up at the ungodly hour of any-time-before-9AM. I have to be at the hospital by 7 to start the three-hour glucose test. I didn't sleep well last night, but have a feeling I'll be fine once the test gets rolling. Yesterday I headed to the library for some light and hopefully engrossing reading, as well as the video store for a DVD to play on the laptop. Right now I'd say I'm more anxious about having to pass three-hours worth of time in a hospital waiting room than I am about the gross orange drink and four blood draws. Anyway, wish me luck.

Posted by Jenn at 06:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

First of all, have you seen Dave's recent post about trying to protect his beloved lettuce from the groundhog that's taken up residence under our neighbor's porch? You should go read it. Not only is it funny, but he openly mocks me in the title. Bless his heart.

A couple of weekends ago we drove straight from my grandma's house in MA to an end-of-semester bbq bash hosted by one of Dave's colleagues. There were scintillating baked beans, juicy grilled pork loins, mac and cheese, and a killer strawberry and spinach salad that was so good I know of at least three people who left the party clutching the recipe in their hot little hands. I was one of them. (You know it's a good salad when people are asking for the recipe, right?) I made it twice that same week, once for us, and once to bring to another bbq we went to the following weekend. Now that good strawberries are showing up in the grocery store, I thought I'd share the recipe. First, a picture:

Yum! Next, the ingredients:

Spinach and Strawberry Salad
Fresh spinach, sliced strawberries, and sliced sweet onion, however much of each you'd like. I usually use one large bag of spinach, one pound of strawberries, and one half of a sweet onion.

Poppy seed dressing
1/2 C vegetable oil
3T apple cider vinegar
2T sugar
1T lemon juice
1T poppy seeds
1/2 t salt
1/2 t ground mustard

After mixing the dressing, I add about 2/3's of it to the salad, then toss it all together to coat the spinach, strawberries, and sweet onion. The first time I made it I put all of the dressing in and it was a little too much.

There you have it. If you try it, let me know!

Posted by Jenn at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I thought a good night's sleep would help me gain a new perspective on what I talked about yesterday and I would feel less apprehensive today, but I still feel very unhappy about the situation we're in with the pre-natal care we're receiving. I've spent some time sifting through exactly what's making me unhappy and I've come up with at least two things, the first being it's not unreasonable to expect at least a phone call to talk about the screening test I failed and where we go from there. To clarify, I'm not upset about having to take the gestational diabetes test, I am upset with not being included in any discussion about it, at all. That instance alone is no big deal, but when coupled with the other experiences that have given me pause, it's become the proverbial straw that's broken the camel's back.

The second thing: Dave and I have agreed that we need to be very clear about what we do and don't want for the birth of this baby (keeping in mind that we're pretty flexible people), but it seems fruitless to do that because of the way the current practice we're using works. You meet with lots of different mid-wives and a couple of different doctors because you just don't know who will be on call when you go into labor. With Henry, we had a mid-wife we'd never even met before, so we can talk to people until we're blue in the face, but in the end there's a good chance whoever we end up having for the big show won't know us and vice versa. To that end I'd be happier if we were able to meet with the same person, to get to know them as well as their being able to get a better grasp of where we're coming from. Today I found a practice who has just one doctor and one nurse who also uses the same hospital we used for Henry, so I'm going to set up an appointment to talk with them (I tried calling today but I got they're answering service).

I'll also be calling to set up an appointment with a local mid-wife who has a birthing center and also does home births. I'm not certain if this is necessarily the route I want to go, but the pros in my head right now are out-weighing the cons, most of which admittedly have to do with my own inhibitions and hang-ups.

This is the last baby we're going to have and I feel very strongly that I need to look deep within myself to figure out how I feel, to talk a lot about the options with Dave, to decide what exactly is the best route for us to take, and for both of us to not have any doubt whatsoever after that decision is made. Some fear, maybe, but doubt, definitely not.

Thank you for your kind words and emails after yesterday's post. I love you guys! *sniff*

Posted by Jenn at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

First the back story:

I failed my glucose test while pregnant with Henry with a score of 165. The cut-off is 140. No one told me, no follow-up testing was scheduled.

While I was busy giving birth to Henry, it became clear that he was just not interested in coming out. Two things didn't help this situation: 1. My kid had He-man-sized shoulders; and 2. I was rendered immobile on my back in bed because I was hopped up on pitocin (which resulted in excruciating back labor) and an epidural (to help with the aforementioned pain) so I couldn't change positions to allow gravity and my body to help make my pushes more productive. Dave and I both made it very clear that I did not want to have an episiotomy, to which the mid-wife looked at us like we were crazy and said "Well, I'll try not to, but we might have to anyway." So she performed an episiotomy, I had fourth degree tearing, lost a ton of blood, but had a healthy happy baby. I was also a little annoyed that our request was met with the reaction that it was, as if it was perfectly unreasonable.

Six weeks after all 9+ pounds of Henry was born, I had my post-natal checkup, not with the mid-wife that was present at my birth, but with another one whom I really liked. She expressed astonishment at Henry's size, congratulated me on having survived it, said if they had known he was so big they probably would have suggested a c-section, but since I had proven that I could give birth to such a big baby, they wouldn't really have to worry my being able to deliver naturally if I ever got pregnant again. That rubbed me the wrong way, because I shouldn't have to prove anything. I'm a woman. Giving birth is part of what we do.

The first few appointments with this pregnancy were great. I met with a mid-wife who was very positive. She saw my history of tearing, saw Henry's weight, and reassured me that there was no way I would tear as much this time, that it would most likely be an easier birth. I'm a firm believer in anything can happen, but it was nice to hear her say those things to me at multiple appointments. The last appointment I had I met with a doctor. He read in my history the bit about the fourth degree tears, closed my file and said "Right out of the gate we offer women who've had tearing like you had a c-section. Now let me tell you what that entails..." I stopped him and said I wasn't at all interested. Then he went on to talk about all of the complications associated with tearing, while in my mind I was thinking of all of the complications associated with surgery. There was no winning me over with that argument. He said we'd revisit the option a couple of weeks before my due date. I wasn't happy to hear this response. My answer will be the same at 38 weeks.

This afternoon I got a phone call from the receptionist at my ob-gyn's office saying she was calling to schedule my 3-hour glucose test. I said "What? Does this mean I failed this mornings test?" No one called to talk to me about it, no one called to explain what happens and what it could mean. I told her I wasn't interested in taking the 3-hour test and she said one of the mid-wives asked her to set it up. I said that was fine, that I'd like to talk with the mid-wife. So a few minutes later I got a phone call and after hearing my number (169, similar to when I was pregnant with Henry) I explained to her that I didn't want to take the three hour test because the number was basically the same as when I was pregnant with Henry, that pregnancy went fine, and on top of that, I have no risk factors associated with developing gestational diabetes. Then I got to hear about their policy about diabetes testing, that if I didn't do the three-hour test then I'd have to do regular blood sugar testing throughout the rest of my pregnancy plus a couple of extra ultra-sounds. I clarified with her that those were my only two options, at which point she got pretty pissy. I then found myself in the position of validating for her the fact that I understand they're trying to provide good health care, just to save the tone of the conversation. So, right now I'm a very pissed off pregnant lady who's having to take a three-hour gestational diabetes test next Thursday.

Here are the things that worry me:

1. Numbers that indicate pass/fail have become the be all and end all without any regard for actual risk factor's or the person's medical history.

2. I don't like being put in the position of having to deal with a medical professional who's getting openly defensive when I ask if a test is really necessary, especially if I have good reason to think it's not. Talk to me about it, don't get crabby.

3. The biggest worry I now have is that I no longer trust that once I walk into the hospital that I'm not going to get bullied into a c-section. They didn't listen to me about the episiotomy, and now that I've got a doctor who's going to revisit the c-section option at 38 weeks, I feel like there's already a predisposition I'm not going to be able to fight. Wait until they hear I don't even want a bag of pitocin to so much as swing in my direction when I get to the maternity ward. That ought to make people's heads explode. I don't mind advocating for myself; I don't like when advocating starts to feel like arguing and defending.

I told Dave that the tone of this afternoon's conversation with the mid-wife has made my anxiety level for August reach a fever pitch, that I now have this vision of getting up in the middle of labor and just walking out of the hospital because my faith that they're going to do the right thing as opposed to the convenient thing is completely shaken. Right now I'm wondering if the road we're currently traveling on to have this baby is the wrong one after all.

Posted by Jenn at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I'm off to the hospital's lab right now to do the gestational diabetes screening test. Those of you who have done this before are totally jealous right now. Don't deny it.

Posted by Jenn at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When you're packing up for a short trip and you don't want to bring your huge bottle of Cetaphil because whenever you do it inevitably leaks, these kinds of bento sauce containers are perfect for holding travel-sized quantities of beauty potions thereby allowing you to maintain your own personal level of cute (both in your bag and on your person) wherever you go.

My grandma is turning 91 this weekend. We'll be celebrating with cake and presents and cake and probably a lot of rock-throwing in a stream and at Grandpa Andy by a certain grandson who happens to have impeccable aim when it comes to both water and heads. We're all looking forward to hitting the road!

Posted by Jenn at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm feeling a bit like Debbie Downer today. Yesterday after a week and a half of salt gargles and Fishermen's Friends, I finally kicked my cough-induced sore throat when lo and behold, by afternoon I realized I was glued to my tissue box, and it wasn't because of the spring time allergies I'd chalked it up to earlier in the day; I have yet another cold. Not much sleep last night, pregnant, emotional, sniffly, coughy, grumpy. That would be me. This was my morning to help out at Henry's pre-school and when a couple of kids actively ignored my requests for them to stay on one side of a stream until the rest of the group could catch up with us, it peeved me a lot more than it would have on any other day. When I mentioned it to one of the other teachers, I got misty-eyed about it, and have since felt like an idiot, because it's so not like me. Well, feeling like an idiot is like me, but getting misty-eyed about things is not.

My only hope is that the last four weeks of being sick will have been the last hurrah of the cold season for us, at least until well after we've come back from our vacation in a few weeks. God, do I need that vacation.

Posted by Jenn at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

First of all, what's with all of the pirate activity lately? Can Disney be to blame somehow?

I took my last belly dance class last December, just as the waves of exhaustion and nausea were really starting to hit full force. I welcomed the break, welcomed the extra time I got to spend laying in bed being tired and miserable. Since those symptoms don't last forever I was fully expecting to head back to dance class when they started up again in January, February at the latest. Unfortunately, Dave's Spring semester schedule had other plans that resulted in me having to bow out until the end of his classes in May. At the time, I was a little disappointed, but what can you do? By mid-February I was losing my mind, stuck in the house, slightly depressed, with nowhere to go, and nothing to do. The exercise alone would have been great, because it's awfully easy for a pregnant woman to puff up to epic proportions, especially when it comes to pant size. Mostly, though, I missed hanging out with the women I've been taking these classes with since August of 2007. When you spend all of your days chasing after or entertaining a little kid, you really start to crave interactions with people that you know through avenues that have nothing to do with children, and that's what belly dance class has given me. I've always known that that's been part of the draw, but it really hit home during the dead of winter.

One of the sessions I missed focused on an Egyptian choreography that I really wanted to learn. I mentioned it to another friend of mine who's also in the class, and because of what her schedule was like in January and February, it turns out she missed all of the classes after the first one. We decided to take semi-private lessons to learn the choreography, the first of which was this morning. It was wonderful. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to find another way to get back into it, but now I know.

Posted by Jenn at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I went to Target today to find some new inexpensive luggage for an upcoming trip to Boston. Naturally I left with luggage and ten other random things. While I was raiding the $1.50 fruit snack sale on behalf of Henry, an elderly woman came up and asked me how exactly would a person go about getting the heck out of that store, and after I directed her towards the checkout lanes, I thought to myself "Why would anyone want to leave?"

A couple of weeks ago I went through Henry's shorts collection and cleaned a lot of things out. Most of his shorts were from the summer before last and were therefore very small. I managed to get a couple of pairs to fill out his wardrobe, plus a couple of shirts, one of which is a Ghostbusters t-shirt. I can't believe it didn't occur to me at the time to see if they had an adult sized version for Dave, since I got it mostly for him..."Back off man, I'm a scientist."

The real miracle is that I didn't walk out of there with any cute dresses or pink onesies or anything, especially since yesterday we found out we're having a girl.

Posted by Jenn at 01:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I just got back home from helping out with our local library's annual fundraising auction. Since I didn't have too much dinner before heading out for the night, I'm a little peckish. Here's what I've eaten in the last fifteen minutes: one tiny square of cake, two small slices of pepperoni pizza, two glasses of milk, watermelon. And now I'm going to bed because it's 12:05AM. Who wants to bet I have absolutely funky dreams sleeping on that particular mix of food?

Posted by Jenn at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

4.5 billion years later God said "...and let there be dust!" The clouds parted, the suns rays lit up the inside of Jenn's house, and as far as the eye could see, there was dust. Lots of it. So Jenn did what any man would do in that situation: she sat on the couch and drank a beer. Actually, she didn't drink a beer, she ate watermelon. She's not allowed to drink beer because she and Dave will be doing this all over again in August.

Posted by Jenn at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

For the past two weeks I've been waking up around 3AM pretty much every night with the exception of last night, when I woke up at 4:30. Sometimes I know what's waking me up. One night a cat was shrieking right outside our bedroom. Coming out of a deep sleep, the cat sounded like Henry crying so I stumbled into his room to see if he was all right. He was snoring away. So I walked into a few walls getting back to my bedroom, climbed into bed, and tossed and turned for a while. Another night I woke up from a crazy dream and promptly decided our house was haunted. So I very gingerly tossed and turned for an hour or so, not wanting to open my eyes or look in the general direction of the bedroom door. The last few nights the big toe on my left foot has been throbbing with an infection. You'd be surprised how much pain a person's big toe can generate at 3 in the morning. Most of the time though, I wake up for no apparent reason.

One of the things I do to try to get back to sleep is compose posts for this blog. Let me tell you, they're all absolutely brilliant. They're also always a million miles away by the time I get up in the morning. Someone needs to invent some sort of gadget that can translate thoughts and transfer them to your computer so some of this stuff can make it online. Or maybe I need to keep Dave's laptop next to my side of the bed so I can write some of what goes on in my brain in the wee hours of the morning down. Maybe that will be the new theme of jennanddave.com: 3AM Musings.

Posted by Jenn at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm updating this from the comfort of my bed. Many special thanks to Dave's laptop and our AirPort for making this possible. I'm probably going to doze off halfway through this post, lulled into unconsciousness by the low hum of the computer and my snoring kid in the next room. There are worse soundtracks to fall asleep to.

Dave and I went and checked out the house today. I went in expecting to love it and instead walked away not thrilled, whereas Dave went in with no expectations and liked it well enough. The problem we're running into is there aren't a lot of options in the price range we're looking at, which is ironic because we're looking within a range I really never thought I'd be in a situation to realistically afford. Sometimes even when you find yourself firmly established and living within some sort of definition of "adulthood" you still can't get past some of the ideas that formed apropos of nothing when you were fresh out of college. Anyway, when we got home from the showing I went onto realtor.com to see if maybe through some miracle ten or twenty absolutely adorable houses went on the market while we were asleep last night but, alas, I was greeted by the same gallery of rogues that has been showing up for the last three or four months. So no Raul. Not yet anyway.

Posted by Jenn at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

me: So Dave and I drove by this house today. I think we're going to make an appointment to go look at it. It's cute. It has three bedrooms like we want. It's got more than one bathroom which is always good. The only thing is it has a swimming pool. I'm not sure I want to deal with the hassle of maintaining one.
Megan: You can always hire a maintenance company to look after it for you.
me: That's true.
Megan: Orrrrrrr...you could hire a pool boy.
me: OH MY GOSH!!! A pool boy! Even better!
Megan: Yeah, you could get a high school kid to come in and clean it and everything.
me: Or I could hire a college kid, just to make sure everything stays nice and legal.
Megan: EVEN BETTER!!!
Megan's mom: I had a pool boy once.
Megan: Really? Did he walk around in a tiny swimsuit?
Megan's mom: No, but sometimes he took his shirt off...
me: Wow...
Megan: Wow...
Megan's stepdad: (to Megan's mom) What do you mean "had"?

Posted by Jenn at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

59 is what the temperature was today. That combined with the purchase of three very important female undergarments (we'll call them bras) has vastly improved my outlook on life. Right after I picked Henry up from pre-school we headed to the park "with the drums". It was a mob scene. We were there for 30 minutes before I was ready to go home, and as we were walking back to the car I overheard a woman saying to her kids "...but we have to go now, we've been here for two and a half hours already." I don't think I've ever hung in there that long at the park. After we got home I got us something to eat and we retired to the front stoop to munch and play with Henry's new bubble machine. It really was a much-needed, sunshiny (for the most part), and glorious day.

Here are a few links dedicated to my parents. The first is for my dad if he can stand 4+ minutes of the Beastie Boys (be forewarned, there is some profanity). The second is for my mom, from the brief heyday of V66.

Posted by Jenn at 06:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

After dropping Henry off at preschool on Monday I was blazing through the radio stations hoping to get lucky when I came across one that was playing "Parents Just Don't Understand" by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. I don't think I've heard that song since the late 80's, and definitely I haven't heard it on the radio since then. A couple of weeks ago my mom and I were talking about it and how I used to know all of the words. She asked if I still did and after hearing it on Monday I can now say with utter confidence that I do not. That knowledge was given the boot during the summer of 1992 when I listened to Check Your Head by the Beastie Boys approximately 5,472,637 times. There's an album I still know most of the words to. When Dave first started his job at Bucknell I used to ask him "Professor, what's another word for pirate treasure? Well, I think it's booty, booty, booty, that's what it is." I don't think he thought it was very funny. I, however, know that it was hilarious.

Now I have to go listen to it.

Posted by Jenn at 01:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of my friends have updated their blogs after having taken a brief absence and I guess I should probably do the same. Lately I've been wandering around in a bit of a daze. This has been a particularly hard winter. I've been trying hard not to indulge in my desire to sit on the couch in a stupor because that tends to make a person feel worse. Sometimes I do it anyway. Last week Henry and I hosted playgroup. This forced me to have to clean the house which felt pretty good. After our long bout with colds last December, it had been a while since I made much of an effort to make the place look presentable, something you can get away with in the winter when no one is really venturing out of their own house to visit. It was nice to have a bunch of kids running around and raising a ruckus. It helps make the house feel warm and cozy and loud instead of its usual quiet.

Dave's parents are coming for a visit later this week. It'll be nice to have a shakeup in the routine, plus it'll be nice for Henry to have a couple of non-duds to play with for a change. I've told him a few times that they're coming but he just says "No they're not." I don't think he believes anything we say anymore, despite the fact that we've never led him astray. He'll be very excited when he sees them in person standing in his living room.

Today I have a doctor's appointment. I asked Henry if he'd like to go with me and he said "NO!" When I clarified that it was a mommy doctor and not a Henry doctor, he looked at me warily for a few seconds then told me that yes, in fact, he would very much like to go. Nothing gets my kid more excited than watching other people suffer at the hands of a doctor.

Posted by Jenn at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Henry and I are hosting playgroup this week and our house is such a disaster that I had to start cleaning today. What's sad is our house has only ~1200 square feet of living space. That gives you an idea of the magnitude of the mess.

Sometimes I think when we moved to this area we moved back in time to the turn of the 20th century. This feeling is mostly based on what comes up on the local news. This area is dealing with a huge drug-trafficking problem, enough that you hear about it pretty regularly on the news. What gets top-billing though is the arson problem. Central and Northeast PA seems to be lousy with firebugs. Arson feels like such an old-fashioned crime to me. Buildings are sent up in flames with such frequency that I'm surprised there are any left standing uncharred.

The other night news broke about a couple of corrupt judges in a nearby county who received oodles of money for placing juvenile offenders (is "delinquent" no longer politically correct?) in a specific detention facility. Often these kids didn't receive fair hearings. I'm not naive about the way some people operate in the world, but it's still frightening that this sort of thing happens, adults in power taking advantage of kids they should be helping. This particular news item struck me as being very Charles Dickens.

After watching the news story about the corrupt judges, which was, of course, followed by the latest incidents of arson, I couldn't shake the feeling that back in 2003 when we moved here we had somehow stepped through a time warp that had carried us back to the early 1900's.

Posted by Jenn at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last week I finished reading "The Watchmen", the graphic novel that will soon be a movie that, unless it has a happy Hollywood ending tacked onto it, will spread its message of bleakness to many more millions of people than have read the book. When I closed the back cover of "The Watchmen" I decided that whatever I read next would have to a bit, well, brighter. So I picked up "Tess of the d' Urbervilles". Oops.

In college I took a class that was called something along the lines of "The 19th Century Novel". One of the first books we read was a Jane Austen novel, and every class discussion involved some sort of swooning and face-fanning on the part of the professor. I ended up dropping the class because good grief, but one of the things she said has stuck with me to this day. She said that a reader can figure out pretty quickly how a Jane Austen novel is going to end, and that the joy of her novels are in the telling of the journey that the characters take to get to that end. I felt the same applied to "Tess of the d' Urbervilles", except you knew that there wasn't going to be happy ending and you wondered why you were torturing yourself with 400+ pages of misery. The upside was that Tess was one of the best characters I've ever encountered in a novel. The downside is what Thomas Hardy puts her through. Poor Tess.

Earlier this week I got two surprise packages in the mail. One was from Mel who sent along the first three volumes of "Sugar Sugar Rune". The other was from my parents who sent me volume 2 of the Complete Little Orphan Annie collection. The literary forecast in this house shows sunny weather in the near future thanks to my friends and family who have taken *very* good care of me this week.

Posted by Jenn at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Lately I've been having really vivid dreams. A couple of weeks ago I had a dream about spats that made such an impression that last night while watching a program on comedy on PBS which featured an old clip of a guy dancing and wearing spats, my eyes bugged out. I don't know why, especially since it wasn't a bad dream about spats, it was just vivid. Also, I should really go back and fix that second sentence, but, meh, who can be bothered?

Last night I dreamt it was late February and when I walked out to our front yard I noticed our tulips had bloomed. And then I noticed other flowers had bloomed. And our three trees had blossomed. I was extremely happy that it was finally spring (although a bit concerned by how early it was happening). Then I woke up and lo and behold it was ridiculously cold out and everything was still covered in snow. To make myself feel better I went to the grocery store after playgroup and bought some out-of-season and shipped-from-who-knows-where watermelon. It tastes like summer. I'm feeling environmentally irresponsible but very happy.

Posted by Jenn at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I was tagged for a meme on Facebook and since, like this blog, it's all about me, I thought I'd be lazy and post it here as well. I'm such a cheater. Anyone else who wants to do it, go for it!

Ruth tagged me, so in accordance with the rules . . .

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

1. I was born in Louisiana.

2. Your guess as to my natural hair color is as good as mine. Haven't seen it since 1991.

3. The last 1/2 hour of "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind" never fails to make me sob like a little kid who has just lost her balloon.

4. I'm married to the Southern Gentleman.

5. I lived in the greatest little condo in the world in Salem, MA for three years, one house away from Salem Harbor.

6. I've had a weakness for vampire fiction since I was 15.

7. I decided I was going to marry Nicolas Cage after I saw him in "Wild at Heart".

8. Whenever I hear "Only Wanna Be With You" by Hootie and the Blowfish I turn up the volume and sing along really loudly, because I'm cool like that.

9. F. Scott Fitzgerald is my most favorite author ever.

10. I think the movie should be called "F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'"

11. I only read Hemingway novels so I know what I'm talking about when I tell people I think he's unbelievably overrated. Know it, don't blow it!

12. If we ever have another kid and she's a girl, we're naming her Annie after the main character in the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie".

13. My husband puts up with a lot.

14. When we first moved to this particular university town, people thought I was a college student.

15. No one makes that mistake anymore.

16. When I lived in New Orleans, my ex-boyfriend and I went to Lake Pontchartrain to get in a little sun-bathing. We got bored after 15 minutes and headed back to the dorm. 15 minutes at high noon that far south was just long enough for me to get one of the worst sunburns I’ve ever had. I was green with aloe and didn’t get out of bed until the next day.

17. I’m learning Italian via Rosetta Stone so that when I watch a Marcello Mastroianni movie I can concentrate on looking at him instead of the subtitles.

18. My 3-year old and I like to eat cheese and crackers while watching “Little House on the Prairie” reruns after his nap.

19. If we ever have another kid and he’s a boy, we’re naming him Oliver Warbucks after the character in the comic strip “Little Orphan Annie.” Not really. We’re naming him The Asp.

20. When I was in high school my post college plans were to move to France and teach English.

21. One of my French professors in college used to consistently show up to class drunk. He’d talk about French for five minutes, then ramble on about random stuff for the next 45.

22. I’ve never been drunk.

23. I’ve only had my license for four years.

24. I’m still sad “Gilmore Girls” is off the air. Somewhere in this list I quoted a line from “Gilmore Girls”. Bet your bottom dollar you can’t figure out which it is.

25. I have a strong affinity for Chinese sesame seed buns filled with sweet bean paste.

Posted by Jenn at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I have some sort of stomach bug. And a fever. I've been in-taking and out-puting water and ginger ale all day. It's absolutely miserable. I just tried one of Henry's Pedialyte freezer pops. It was pretty decent and, happily, exquisitely cold. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it down long enough to get some of that lovely electrolyte action going in my favor. Maybe Dave, who has been chasing around Henry all day, would go to the store to get me some Gator-ade while the kiddo's napping. I feel bad asking him to do that during the one break he's gotten all day. I hope he doesn't get whatever this is.

Posted by Jenn at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I just made the best salad:

Lots of lettuce, halved grape tomatoes, three slices of bacon (crumbled), shredded cheddar, crushed Red Hot Blues chips, ranch dressing.

Seriously good. Probably not extraordinarily healthy, but I also just ate more lettuce than I have in the last three months combined, so that counts for something. Go make yourself one.

I just remembered I have an avocado! That would have made it even better. Tomorrow...

Posted by Jenn at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I finally found the fourth book in the Twilight series on Wednesday at, of all places, the local bookstore downtown. It was the last copy. In fact, it was the last copy of any of the books in the series, so, as Megan just said on the phone, it was fate.

I was extremely excited to dive in, but by the time I got halfway into the Jacob section, my eyes were starting to glaze over. I find now that with every paragraph I think to myself "Okay, we get it." Plus, characters who were previously insightful are now portrayed as a bit dopey, seemingly for the sake of not moving the plot along in an effort to create tension. I'm a little disappointed, and unlike the first three, don't feel as compelled to pick it up. Perhaps it's just the particular section I'm reading and it will get better once the plot actually does move forward.

The other thing that's grating about this book, which is something that started picking at me during the third one, is the continuation of all of the emotional "I can barely bring myself to say this because I'm so afraid to hurt you" whispering that goes on. I hope I don't have to read ..."she/he/Jacob/Bella/Edward whispered," too many more times. Mumble, confide, murmur, mutter...

Posted by Jenn at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finished the third book last night. It took me slightly longer to read it. I managed to stretch it out over five days. It was a little easier to put this book down for the night, unlike the first two, which I think is good because there's only one left and I'd hate to reach the end of the series wanting more, although I suppose that's still possible. Fortunately, the main character is starting to get a little ridiculous, so that should help make it easier to leave it behind. Anyway, I assumed that since I wasn't all fired up over it like I was with the first two, I'd be inclined to let a little more time pass between that one and the fourth in the series. I was wrong. While out on some business today, I snuck into Walmart to pick it up. They didn't have it. Then after dinner I packed the family up in the car and we went to Target, Giant, and Waldenbooks. All of them were sold out. I'm trying not to panic. Also, who are all of these people buying books? I mean, really now! And another thing, if they're gifts, are they really going to make the recipients wait until Christmas to open it, especially if they've already read the first three, because that's asking a lot of a person. Unless, of course, they're giving the whole series. That's a lot more civilized. I'm going to just pretend that's what's going on. La-la-la-la-laaaaaa!

Posted by Jenn at 09:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Today Henry, Dave, and his mom decided to see what Henry would think of watching a movie in an actual theater. Since he loved Madagascar, the sequel seemed like the best case scenario for piquing his interest. They all piled into the car and headed for the local mall/cineplex, while I looked ahead to four hours of time all to myself. Items on my list of things to do: shower, call my parents, read some of the 3rd installment of the Twilight series, make turkey hash, make turkey soup, work on my hat. I was really looking forward to the afternoon. After showering and talking to my parents, I grabbed the grocery list and headed out the door. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was forgetting something major. I shrugged off the feeling, only realizing what I'd forgotten as soon as I'd shut the door: my house keys. Sometimes the front door can be stubborn about closing, but it was shut up tight this time. I went to the back of the house to see if by some miracle the back door was unlocked. It wasn't. I tried our faulty bathroom window. Shut up tight. I couldn't call the people who have our spare set of keys because they're conveniently enjoying themselves up in New Hampshire. I popped by their house to see if I could find the spare key to their place, but it's not where it used to be. While I was wandering aimlessly around their barn, I saw their tool boxes. A plan started percolating in my brain and after mapping out how I envisioned it working, I made off with one of their tools and headed home. So, after a bit of finagling and prying and other verbs, I managed to break into my house using the ice scraper we keep in our car and one of those keys you use to take the lids off of paint cans. MacGyver's got nothing on me. If I wasn't so embarrassed about having locked myself out of the house, I'd be feeling pretty smug right now.

Three lessons I've learned today: 1) give spare keys out to more friends. 2) our dog is not a guard dog. She barked once or twice while all of this was going on, but never even bothered to get out of bed to investigate. 3) Henry hates movie theaters. They're scary.

Posted by Jenn at 06:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Two more days until the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!

Posted by Jenn at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today at school each of the kids made a Thanksgiving tree, and hanging from each tree were leaves upon which were written the things they were thankful for. I didn't expect any of Henry's leaves to have anything on them because I assumed he was a little too young to get the concept, but lo and behold, I was wrong. Written on one leaf was "I am thankful for fish, a little fish and a big fish." As soon as I read it I got a little teary. One of the teachers came over and asked if we have fish at home, and I said no, that "little fish" is what Henry calls himself, and "big fish" is what he calls his dad. Isn't that SO CUTE? Sigh.

Dave and I went and saw "Twilight" yesterday. He made me buy the tickets because he was too embarrassed to. I did buy them, but I also told the women working the ticket counter why I was buying them and not my husband. There was a quite a bit of cackling going on at his expense. The movie was okay. If I was 14, I would definitely still be actively swooning, but since I'm not, it was just okay. I think I would have liked it more if I hadn't read the book. This theory is supported by the fact that it appears Dave liked it more than I did. I can't decide if it's because I knew what had been cut and/or moved around, or if it's because reading a book is a more personal experience than watching a movie, so I was bound to not like someone else's visualization of things that I'd already mapped out for myself. One thing I will say, the characters were all very well cast. Let's see, what else? Bella had great hair. Oh, and the guy who played Jacob was adorable, so I hope he's recast in the next movie. Meanwhile, I haven't purchased the third book yet, but really, it's only a matter of time.

Posted by Jenn at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today I joined Curves. I want to start doing some strength training, but don't know enough about it to venture up to the University gym to try and figure things out myself. I thought Curves would be a good starting point. We'll see how that goes.

Meanwhile, I have great friends. One of them offers to make me cookies to keep in the freezer for emergencies, and another one drops off homemade beef stew because she knew I wasn't feeling well. Throw in a couple more who lend me cars or keep me laughing and occupied while I'm juggling a sore throat with a three-year-old all on my own, and you pretty much have the makings of someone who feels very lucky to have the people she has in her life. Thanks guys!

Posted by Jenn at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yesterday evening Henry and I watched "Peter Pan" and ate cookies. Then we started "Aladdin", which, as it turns out, is perhaps a little too scary for a three year old. At one point Henry picked up Owl and asked him if he was scared of the tiger. Owl apparently said yes, so while Henry cuddled him, I switched the dvd out in favor of Nemo instead. Let's here it for Owl's honesty.

Now that he's on his way home, I can confess that Dave's been out of town since Sunday morning. Not that big a deal until I woke up yesterday feeling less than stellar. I used to wonder how people ever managed to take care of dogs by themselves, because even if you have a fever and feel like you're dying, the dog still needs to go out for a walk. Now that I have a kid, I don't know how single parents do it because even when you're able to finagle a situation where you're not as "on" as you usually are, you're still pretty on, and when you're a one man show, it's tough to resist the urge to put your kid to bed for the night at 5PM just to get a little bit of a break.

In other fascinating news, while Dave was out of town, my friend lent me her Jeep Cherokee Sport so I could take Henry to school and then to the grocery store (Where we bought a gigantic bottle of extra-strength Tylenol and two different kinds of pre-made cookie dough. Where we also ran into another woman I know who was keeping three kids in line while I tried to hide the contents of my shopping basket. I was so ashamed.) and finally back home again. The first few times I walked around the corner of the house and saw her car in the driveway I started looking around for her, thinking she had stopped by for a visit. It was sad. Anyway, the point of this story is I now want a Jeep Cherokee Sport, and since I already have one sitting in my driveway, I've decided not to give it back. Sorry. And thanks!

Posted by Jenn at 03:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I'm feeling again like I'm coming down with yet another something. After I dropped Henry off at school I came home, walked the dog, then climbed back into bed to try and warm up. Gah. Since I'm barely hanging in there, Henry and I went to the video store and picked up Peter Pan and Alladin, then headed over to the grocery store for some Tylenol and chocolate chip cookies. It's going to be the best evening of Henry's life.

Posted by Jenn at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

1. Dandelion leaves turn red in the Fall. Henry and I were taking Flash for a walk when I happened to look down at the ground and noticed splashes of red everywhere. They were all dandelions turning color. Very pretty.

2. Putting Henry's owl doll in a little Baby Alive diaper makes Henry extremely happy. It also induces very strong maternal feelings toward Owl, who was gingerly carried upstairs, told how cute he was in his diaper, then tucked into bed on his very own pillow, which is right next to Henry's.

3. Gale Harold is on Desperate Housewives. Suddenly that show might actually be worth watching.

Posted by Jenn at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The soup was delicious, but didn't work any magic other than the sheer joy that dumplings can bring to the table. As soon as I finish this post (any second now, really) I'm going to be making a spinach pie recipe that a Greek friend of mine gave me at the beginning of the summer. Now this is a magic recipe, because I know for a fact that after Dave had it for the first time, he loved me a little bit more than he did before he tucked into it.

This evening we're off to visit with Mr. L at the nursing home. We haven't seen him since we celebrated his May birthday last June. All of us have been feeling pretty guilty about how long it's been, and I'm looking forward to seeing him this evening.

A good friend of mine gave me a heads up re: this fabric she found online. If I ordered some, what could I make out of it?

Posted by Jenn at 02:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Dave and I are so sad and pathetic with our colds (well, mostly just Dave now; I'm feeling better than I did yesterday) that I scored a kickin' chicken soup recipe from a friend of mine earlier today and I'm happy to report that it is currently simmering on the stovetop. Also, it has dumplings, and, you know, you are what you eat and all of that. I'm pretty certain that it's a magical soup that will make us instantly healthy and twenty pounds lighter. Also, all of our gray hair will turn back to a more youthful shade and we'll wake up to a much nicer car in our driveway.

Posted by Jenn at 05:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I finished Twilight this morning. I think that may be the fastest I've ever read a book. Now I'm *really* looking forward to seeing the movie.

Last night instead of going to bed early to give myself a chance to recover from the cold I inherited from Henry, I stayed up and read. Now, at 2:40PM in the afternoon I'm considering myself officially done for the day. I had plans to make chicken soup with the chicken I baked yesterday, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm thinking that if we want to eat this evening, it's going to come down to the following choices: peanut butter and jelly, instant mac and cheese, or take-out. Sorry Dave. I feel a little bad because I think all three of us could really use the chicken soup.

Posted by Jenn at 02:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

While foraging through the book section at TJ Maxx, I came up for air holding three Dr. Seuss books and "Twilight". I managed to avoid the Harry Potter wave of the late '90's that carried everyone into the new century, and when people started talking about this latest literary obsession I figured I'd sidestep it as well. (Hey, I never claimed to not be a book snob.) Then I heard it was about vampires and the eighteen-year-old proud owner of a library of vampire fiction in me was all "Huh? Wha? Vampires?" That's when I knew it was only a matter of time. That time came to an abrupt end at the bargain bin of TJ Maxx.

Yesterday afternoon I finished the book I'd been reading and last night broke into "Twilight". It's not very well-written, and some of it sometimes makes a person want to cringe, but darned if the story doesn't suck you in anyway. I will definitely be going to see the movie, especially after checking out the cute guy (Who was apparently born in 1986. I mean, Iremember 1986. Clearly. I'm feeling a mite old now. And how does that play out with the rule of seven?) who's playing the main character, however, I might be too embarrassed to make Dave go see a teen vampire romance with me. I might have to drag a girlfriend. Or go by myself. That might be best.

Posted by Jenn at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It is Sunday night.
One of us is sick, sleepy.
It's well past bed-time.

Had a good week-end,
tomorrow is for school and
getting up early.

I can already
tell that I'm not going to
want to leave the bed.

Twenty-nine degrees
is not for the faint of heart.
Best to stay inside!

Posted by Jenn at 07:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Megan and I went on a birthday shopping expedition, two weeks after our actual birthdays. Better late than never. We bought matching ponchos, although Megan insists they're capes. It's not sad or embarrassing at all that we might one day find ourselves showing up at places wearing almost the exact same outfits.

Posted by Jenn at 06:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Henry's going down for a nap extra-early today (does a little jig) because this evening we're heading off to State College to see the Wiggles. We had a great time the last time we went and saw them. Unfortunately, every time I mention us going tonight, Henry insists that he'd rather stay home. We watched one of their concert dvd's last night and while he protested vehemently when I was putting it in, once "Toot Toot, Chugga Chugga" came on he was hooked for the rest of the hour. I'm hoping that once we get there he'll be excited about it.

Perhaps the best part of the evening will be stopping by India Pavilion to get some indian food to bring home for dinner. Actually, the best part of the evening won't be stopping to pick it up, the best part will be digging into it later.

Posted by Jenn at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We hosted playgroup today. Five thousand kids (Or maybe it was just fifteen. Yeah, I think it was fifteen. Or sixteen.) came and made good use of Henry's toys. We had the back door open so everyone was wandering inside and outside, enjoying what could be one of the last nice days before the long winter sets in. We followed one of Henry's playmates home and had lunch at her house before heading back via tricycle to kick around in our very quiet house. We've been going non-stop since Henry didn't have a nap today, and I'm a little ashamed to say I'm counting the minutes to bedtime.

Posted by Jenn at 05:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Since everyone else is writing about the election, I've decided I'm going to write about my hair.

Yesterday while picking up various items at the grocery store, I happened to go by the hair color section, and also happened to reach out and pick up a box of "Dark ash blonde". It's Fall. It's time to lose the blonde. When I got home I opened, mixed, shook, and distributed goop evenly through my hair. After breathing deep the familiar smell of ammonia, I set the time for 25 minutes and watched a little news coverage of that thing that was going on yesterday. What was it again? Oh yeah, the election. When the timer went off, I checked out the nice shade of brown that had developed on top of my head, then jumped in the shower. After getting dressed and toweling off my hair I looked in the mirror while reaching down for my socks, then did a double-take. My hair was a beautiful shade of dark gray. Apparently my colorless hair soaked up all of the ash tone and none of the brown. After ten minutes of careful inspection and lots of "Hmmmms", I called Megan and told her what happened. She advised me to call the company's hot line to get some advice on how to fix it. Then she told me to take a picture of it with my cell phone and send it to her. She's a good friend.

After hanging up with the 1-800-hair-color-expert, Henry and I hit the road and headed to the grocery store where naturally, they didn't have the two different shades I needed in order to fix my hair. Initially I was a little sheepish about how I looked, but people didn't even bat an eye. Either they're used to people with funky hair around here, or gray looked totally natural on me. By the time we left, I was ready to start grabbing people and telling them that really, I'm not fifty yet, my hair's not supposed to look like this, it doesn't look right, right? I finally found what I needed at CVS and while McCain was giving his concession speech I was washing my hair, yet again. Four times in one day. I'm surprised my scalp didn't run screaming into the night while I was sleeping.

Today, the country has a new President-elect, and I am no longer blonde or gray, but instead a brunette with red undertones. The end.

Posted by Jenn at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I am the proud owner of a brand-spanking new "I voted touch screen" sticker. I woke up early and got to the polls about fifteen minutes after they opened, and even then I waited ~25 minutes to get to the head of the line, which is certainly nothing compared to how long people in the big cities will be waiting today, but which was still impressive considering the small town I live in. Happily, my name was in the book so there was no problem there.

The Today show just did a super-condensed summary of what's gone on since right before the Primaries which proved beyond a doubt that it has been a spectacularly interesting race, especially when it's been boiled down to three minutes. It's possible I'll have the TV on speculative news casts all day, or at least until my brain leaks out my ears. Or maybe we'll go to the park instead.

Does anyone else get test-taking anxiety while they're waiting to vote?

Posted by Jenn at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was just on votePA to check on my voter registration status and lo and behold I'm not in the system. Dave is, but I'm not. Chalk it up to yet another complication based on two different last names living under one roof (scandalous!) or maybe I'm no longer registered. Also, no one's been sending any political propaganda to me. Dave's received some, and a guy who lived here sometime before we moved in five years ago has gotten some, but my inbox is empty. Normally I wouldn't panic about this because I do have in my hot little hands a valid voter registration card plus all sorts of other id's, but, wow, I really want to get to the polling place and vote without having any complications arise.

I was thinking on the drive to pick up Henry this afternoon that this election year my penchant to get out and vote is now largely driven by a desire to gleefully not vote for certain people. Although that was also the case during the last presidential election, this time the urge is even more powerful, and I'm still trying to figure out why that is. More access to the strong personalities of the candidates thanks to the media? Too many viewings of SNL election specials? I remember watching coverage of the presidential race in 2006 and thinking we were in for a loooong two years. Tomorrow night I'm looking forward to camping out on the couch and watching the election results roll in into the wee hours of the morning.

Posted by Jenn at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had a good time at the hafla last night. Although I could feel myself shaking throughout the first dance I did, Megan and Kim both said I looked cool as a cucumber. As an added bonus, I only stuck my foot in my mouth twice (that I can recall anyway), and that's pretty good; usually I'm way worse in social situations. There are pictures, and even a video, but I'm not sure if they'll ever see the light of day, although you never know. Speaking of cucumbers, those are all I'll be eating for a while. After spending yesterday evening prancing around in a half shirt, there's no denying I'm carrying around some extra baggage in the mid-section that needs to be lost, pronto. Or at least by the next hafla, whenever that is.

Meanwhile, Henry woke up in a mood today. I think the excitement of the weekend finally caught up with him. Dave and I tag-teamed playing with him all the way up until naptime, which got bumped up a bit after a melt-down over washing his hands. Once I tucked him in, he actually seemed relieved to be back in bed, not that he would ever in a million years admit it. Now if only someone would march me upstairs and tuck me into bed.

Posted by Jenn at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

...that is the question.

Right now I'm currently freaking about performing at a hafla this evening. I'll have moral support in the forms of Megan, Kim, and Gabriella, but probably Gabriella will be too busy freaking out as well since she's also performing. Maybe we can just lean on each other and sob a little bit. When I first signed up for belly dance class in August '07, I thought to myself "Well, at least there won't be any recitals," and now look at me. My jitters over performing are exactly why I'm doing it, to put myself out there in spite of my fears, but that doesn't make it any less scary. It just means that by 7PM, when the two dances I'm performing in are over, I will be both ecstatically happy that they're behind me, and very proud that I went through with it. It also means I'll be over by the buffet, stuffing my face since I'll no longer have to worry about throwing up.

Posted by Jenn at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yesterday one of the two teachers at Henry's school had to stay home with her sick kid, so in an effort to keep things running smoothly she called me yesterday morning to ask if I'd be willing to be an extra set of hands and eyes. I agreed, then went cold with fear because: kids! Gah! Dave hadn't yet left for work so when I told him the news he was all "OMG!", a sure sign he's spending way too much time on Facebook and not enough time wearing his Strawberry Tart costume. So yesterday I spent four and a half hours hanging out at Henry's preschool.

I'm pretty sure fate was somehow involved in clearing a path that resulted in my having to be there because yesterday was apple-picking day. We all walked down to the orchard and picked apples which we later cut up and used to make applesauce. The kids were over the moon about picking apples and quickly filled two large crates. All of this reminded me of something that happened last Fall, and although I feel like I've already written about this, I can't find the post so I'll risk repeating myself:

Last year I overheard a conversation between three teenaged girls who happened to walk by our house in the midst of apple season, which meant our sidewalk was littered with fallen apples. All three of them stopped and stared at the ground. Then they freaked out, shrieking "EEEWWWWW!" and "What are those?!?" They noticed me sweeping our front stoop so they asked me what they were and after shaking off my complete and utter speechlessness, I said "Apples." Then they noticed the apple tree and got all excited. Talk about having a complete disconnect over where the food you eat comes from.

I'm pleased to say that not one of the kids at Henry's preschool will ever be stunned by the sight of a tree with actual bona fide apples growing on it. They might, however, become overwhelmed with the desire to make applesauce.

Posted by Jenn at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The nice thing about having a cold is it's a nice reprieve from the raging allergy symptoms I'd been experiencing.

My friend Mel is making all sorts of pear preserves that are making me hungry. Meanwhile, I just had Spaghettio's for lunch. I'd rather be making my way to the bottom of a jar of homemade preserves than scraping the bottom of a tin can. Alas.

We went to Target yesterday to kill some time before Henry's bedtime. They were in full Halloween swing, with only a little bit of Christmas encroaching on the spookiness. They have a line this season that features a skull and crossbone motif. It took all of my willpower not to buy one (or two) (or six) of everything. Actually, it took a little willpower and Dave standing behind me, glaring, and say "No. No. No. No. NO!" He can be terrifying when he starts working his eyebrows. Meanwhile, Henry left the store with a big plush pumpkin, pumpkin and Frankenstein bath mitts, and Halloween gel window clings. Because if I can't have fun Halloween stuff, my kid sure can.

Posted by Jenn at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I have a cold and I didn't get much sleep last night, therefore I'm crabby and irritable and apparently redundant. I'm experiencing a deep-seated need for comfort food in the form of Spaghettios, but that requires me to corral the kid into the car, chaperone him through a grocery store, then somehow make it back alive, all the while juggling a bad attitude and the ever-present box of Kleenex. It's not looking good.

Meanwhile, because all I want to do is sit, I've decided to sit myself over some long overdue thank you cards that have needed to be written (Do all of those tenses add up to correct?) since Henry's birthday last month. I've been experiencing major guilt over not having had a chance to get them done, so the sight of a neat little pile of stuffed envelopes that are ready to be distributed will make me feel a lot better.

Posted by Jenn at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

While driving home this morning after dropping Henry off at preschool, I turned on the radio and there was a guy reading almost verbatim the article that Mel linked to in her comment on yesterdays post about how to get kids to eat a more varied diet. Now I'm trying to figure out if the universe is trying to tell me something. Ironically, before I even saw the article, I had Henry help me make the stew we had for dinner last night. He cleaned carrots, picked out potatoes, and poured barley. Then, approximately one hour later, he vehemently spurned it all. To be perfectly honest though, after it was all finished and sitting in a bowl on my placemat at the dinner table, for whatever reason I looked at it and didn't really want it anymore either. I ate it all though, because I'm a good little girl.

It was tough getting out of bed this morning. The air is pretty crisp now when we get up, and the fact that it was foggy and gray made me feel foggy and gray. The thing to do on a day like this is to crank up the old oven and make some granola. My friend Kim clued me in to this recipe for cranberry/almond granola on epicurious. I haven't ever tried to make it, but I was at her house when she made it and the whole place smelled heavenly. So not only will it smell amazing around here for a while, but there's going to be some major snacking going on very soon.

Posted by Jenn at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Yes, I'm still going a little bento crazy over here, hence more photos of boring food stored in cute containers. These would probably be a lot more interesting if my kid was a slightly less picky eater, but they'll only get better as he gets older and his tastes expand. I'm sounding pretty optimistic, aren't I? I can't lay into him too much about it though because eating an apple with the skin on it still gives me the heebie-jeebies, not to mention the fact that I can't even look at a green bean without feeling woozy.

Anyway, here's a shot of what Henry brought to school for lunch yesterday:

That would be tofu with a little soy sauce on it, cut up grapes, butterfly shaped crackers, and cheese that I cut with a little gingerbread man cookie cutter I dug up from the deep dark depths of one of our kitchen cabinets. Henry ate all the tofu, left behind one cracker and one piece of cheese, and spurned most of the grapes, although I do think he ate a few of them, unless he traded them for something better, which I doubt, because "trading" comes a little too close to "sharing".

Time went screaming by yesterday morning, despite my attempts at time management, and I found myself running so late I didn't have a chance to eat my breakfast. Since I was heading over to a friend's house after dropping Henry off at school, I tossed some food into a Hello Kitty bento my parents bought for me in Allston. Mine consisted of scrambled egg, grapes, and the cheese bits that were leftover from cutting out the gingerbread men for Henry's lunch.

One quick side note about scrambled eggs: when I make them, I sprinkle a healthy amount of Penzey's Garden Salad seasoning after pouring the eggs in the pan to cook. It's a mix of chive, cheese, and poppy seeds, and it makes for killer scrambled eggs. Even Henry likes them. Most of the time.

Posted by Jenn at 02:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It took me eight hours to finally decide that maybe I should change out of my pajamas.

It took me eight and a half to get around to brushing my teeth.

It's been a really good day.

Posted by Jenn at 05:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you haven't yet seen "Lars and the Real Girl" don't read any further because I'm going to give away the ending while destroying the last vestiges of my pride AT THE EXACT SAME TIME!

I cried at the end of the movie when the sex doll "died". Cried. Like a baby. Poor Bianca! Then I called Megan to see if she had cried too, because I was that embarrassed about the whole thing. She said she had, so that made me feel better.

You know what else makes me feel better? Announcing to the three people who read this that Megan cried at the end of the movie when the sex doll "died".

Posted by Jenn at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In the past, I haven't paid much attention to the Olympics, but every night I've found myself glued to the television, rooting for the men's swimming team. Not just the USA team, sometimes the italian team too. I should also note that my most vocal rooting occurs after the race during the slow motion recaps. Dave, because he's a very generous husband (who happens to really enjoy the women's gymnastics, particularly the floor routines), has started coming to get me whenever the men's swimming starts. He's the best.

Posted by Jenn at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

My dad's allergic to Flash. Or dust. Or Pennsylvania. Since he's coming to visit next week (and he's bringing my mom! What a guy!), it was time to hire someone to come and deep clean our rug and couch. Since we had our heating ducts suctioned clean this past Winter or Spring or whenever it was, I've been looking forward to having the rug and couch done too because hooray for clean and (mostly, hopefully) allergen free! It was hard waiting until just before my parents were due to arrive, especially since the last two months I've gotten sniffly while crashing out on the couch, but I somehow persevered. The guy doing the cleaning showed me the water after he finished the couch and it was *so* dirty. It made me giddy watching it all wash down the drain. So hopefully this'll help and my dad won't be extra-sniffly. See how much I love him?

I stumbled across a cake disaster website last week which my friend Mel happened to forward to me today which was enough of a reason for me to feel like posting it here. It's called cake wrecks. They're all...interesting. However, they're cake, so I'd still eat them. Except for the bound foot cake. That one was gross.

Through an entry on that site I found The "Blog" of "unnecessary" Quotation Marks which has some very funny stuff on it.

That's all the news from over here.

Posted by Jenn at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After experiencing the bi-monthly angst that always accompanies paying our bills (this month being extra-angsty because of car insurance and municipal bills), I once again made a vow to cease and desist with the spending of money on things we don't need.

Then I went ahead and purchased the soundtrack for the original Broadway production of Sweeney Todd. I could make an argument that I absolutely needed to buy this album, but it would be a weak one and you all would be shaking your heads and feeling a little embarrassed for me. You probably do that anyway, so why add fuel to the fire.

Fine. Since I'm making confessions, I may as well also confess that I bought "Balls of Fury" while at Target today. Terry Crews' pecs deserve an Oscar nomination for their work in that movie. What oh what will Dave and I do tonight to pass the time?

Posted by Jenn at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Henry and I are fast approaching the end of our week-long vacation. On Thursday, after his nap and while on the way to the bathroom, Henry suddenly stopped and asked "Where's Daddy?" It took him five days but he did eventually realize there was a gaping hole in his life that could only be filled by the presence of his Daddy.

We've been extremely busy, riding lots of trains, doing some toy shopping, running up to Salem, and riding more trains. Today I left Henry in the hands of his Grandparents so I could head off to do some shopping on my own. I bought some clothes, a book (the first book I've ever purchased based purely on the author's good looks), a chai latte, and a Hawaiian crêpe. I thoroughly enjoyed leisurely browsing through stores that I had noticed on previous trips but knew I couldn't fully appreciate with a toddler in tow.

We're heading back to the wilds of central Pennsylvania on Monday. Tomorrow we're going to try and squeeze in as much fun as can possibly be had on the last day of a vacation.

Dave, your days as a bachelor are almost up, so get in all the Doom you can, because we're coming home...

Posted by Jenn at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Today I clogged Megan's Mom's toilet. Then I died of embarrassment. It's too bad I can never come here again because it's really, really nice.

Tomorrow Henry and I are getting dumped on the doorstep of dropped off at my parents' house. I waited until this evening to tell Henry we would be seeing them on this trip. He's now extra super duper incredibly excited. I think Leo's Grandpa Bill will be equally excited to see him go because this evening every three minutes Henry would drop what he was doing to go up to Grandpa Bill and say "Hey, hey! Whatcha doin' Bill? Hey! Whatcha doin'?" and he wouldn't stop until he would get an answer. I finally had to ban him from the room Bill was in but that didn't stop him from following him down the hall and into his bedroom.

I'm starting to get the distinct impression we're not fun guests to have in your house.

Also, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese crackers = Heaven in a box.

Posted by Jenn at 09:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Megan and I are taking the kids and getting out of dodge for the week. We're heading up to New Hampshire for a few days and then Henry and I will go down to Boston on Tuesday to spend the rest of the week eating all of my parents' food and hopefully spending all of their money. I'm just kidding! About the spending all of their money part, that is. No, wait, I'm kidding about eating all of their food. No, wait, I'm not kidding about anything at all.

Henry's looking forward to stopping at his Great-Grandma Ethel's house on the way to NH tomorrow because she has not only a piano, but also an organ. It doesn't even matter that the organ doesn't work, it's just as awesome anyway because it has two whole rows of keys, plus a ton of pedals and levers. She also has a stream with lots of rocks and she always has cake ready for his consumption. We're going to have to pry his fingers from her doorjamb in order to get him to leave.

Henry's also looking forward to riding lots of escalators with his Grammy and Grandpa. In fact, on Thursday when we asked him what he did that day, he said "Rode the escalators with Grammy and Grandpa!" Poor confused kid. And yet, that's how much of an impression riding the escalators made.

Anyway, I don't know how much posting I'll be doing while I'm gone, not that I've been doing much at all anyway, but I will be taking lots of pictures with my brand-spanking new awesome camera, so there should be lots to see when I get back.

Posted by Jenn at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Way back in 2002 I ordered a pillow kit from Arts and Crafts Period Textiles. If I wasn't able to have an Arts and Crafts bungalow complete with ridiculously expensive Stickley pieces and an inglenook, I was at least going to have a pillow. I didn't know how to embroider but a good friend of my mom's did, so after a spending a very informative afternoon with her, I was on my way. A few weeks before we moved from Salem to Pennsylvania, I was up late one night madly embroidering away so my pillow would be done in time for a lesson in blocking fabric (I also learned how to make a killer guacamole because my mom's friend also happens to be an amazing cook), and when I left her house that day, all I had left to do was let the fabric dry, buy a pillow form, and sew that baby together.

And for the next five years that's still all I had to do. Two weeks ago I bought a pillow form and a zipper. A week ago I realized that although I put a zipper in my cart the week before, it never actually made it onto my receipt or into my bag, so I went back and really did buy a zipper. This afternoon I sat down and put the thing together:

I'm really happy with the results.

I'm not going to tell you how after I put in the zipper I went ahead and sewed the rest of the square shut because, hey, there's a zipper there. It wasn't until I cut the thread that I realized it probably would have been a good idea to unzip the zipper before sewing the rest of the pillow square shut. After some finagling I managed to get it open, but I felt incredibly silly the whole time I was messing with it. But, again, I'm not going to tell you about that.

Posted by Jenn at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

We're finally getting a new camera. I'm extremely excited for two reasons: 1. Instead of buying a cheap digital camera to get by with, we went ahead and purchased another Panasonic Lumix. We're getting a slightly lower end model than the one I so thoughtfully destroyed by launching it off of our kitchen counter onto the floor last Fall, but I will love and adore it no less. Guess what else? It's pink! Which is the second reason why I'm so excited. Dave was not thrilled by the prospect of a pink camera, but eventually decided that since I'm the one who uses it the most, it wouldn't affect his manliness much one way or the other, however, I will not be surprised if he strains and flexes his muscles if he ever has to use it. We compromised over the pinkness by getting a relatively unattractive black camera bag in which to keep it safe from harm.

Since it wasn't in stock at the store, we ended up purchasing it online. I'm counting the seconds until its arrival.

Posted by Jenn at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I woke up last night around 3AM in the throes of a major allergy attack. At 3:30AM I was wandering around the pharmacy section of Walmart, searching for Claritin. There were a few other shoppers in the store with me who were doing some grocery shopping. On the one hand, grocery shopping at Walmart at that hour of the morning seemed strange. On the other hand, I bet it's nice not having to dodge fifty other people and their carts just to get to the cheese.

This morning I woke up completely exhausted. The thing about being that tired and cranky at the start of the day is that twelve hours later, you're no worse off. So I'm feeling at the end pretty much like I felt at the beginning. Does that make it a good day?

Posted by Jenn at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To celebrate Henry's general success with the potty he and I went to JoAnn Fabrics today to buy patterns and fabrics to make some new clothes! For me!

What? Potty training's been rough on me too!

When Henry found out I was getting Leo a pillow and making him a pillowcase just like the one I made him, he decided he was in dire need of a new pillowcase as well. This is the fabric he picked out. The boy is very secure in his masculinity.

Meanwhile, on Friday night we took Henry to his very first professional fireworks display. He was warned repeatedly and by many different people that the fireworks, although very cool, would also be very loud. He was fine until Megan brought it up, then he just looked really nervous, which either proves he'd heard it enough times to believe it, or he doesn't listen at all to anything either Dave or I say. I don't think he was disappointed after all of the buildup. When we came home he pulled out a book that has a drawing of fireworks and after staring at it for ten minutes pointed out all of the colors he'd seen earlier that evening, the most popular being green.

He's been talking about them nonstop ever since.

Posted by Jenn at 09:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...but since Megan's getting punchy, I guess I should go ahead and update.

The weekend in Boston was amazing, fun, and exhausting. We're all still recovering from it, trying to catch up on sleep. At one point on Sunday, while attending Riverfest, Henry decided to just lay down on Memorial Drive and think about catching a little shut-eye. Yes, that's how good the weekend was.

Friday was the day we overlapped with my Grandmother who was up visiting from the Deep South. The only one of us who seemed to have a desire to vocalize what he would most like to do was Henry, who declared he wanted to ride a train. So we took the T out to Aquarium to see the seals since no other destination jumped out and grabbed us, and upon ascending out of the train station, we saw the harbor cruise kiosk abuzz with activity. Turned out an inner harbor tour boat was going to set sail (or I should say "turn on the motor and go") in ten minutes. When I was in high school I used to love taking the harbor tours or taking the boat out to George's Island, so I've been waiting for a chance to be able to take Henry on one with me. You know, reclaiming lost youth and all of that. Henry had a fine time, although he didn't leave his Grandpa's lap for one second, especially not after the boat tooted its horn at the Charlestown Navy Yard halfway through the tour. When that happened, he pulled his hat over his face and really settled down into Grandpa's lap.

After the boat tour we checked out the seals, then met up with Dave and headed over to Faneuil Hall for some lunch. There was a "one-man band" set up outside, complete with a banjo, that everyone was enthralled enough with that I managed to run around and do a little shopping.

After stumbling home and getting a little rest in, my parents, my grandma, and myself stumbled back onto the train and headed over to the Regattabar to see the Puppini Sisters. It was one of the best shows I've seen. They were absolutely fantastic. Their act pays homage to the Andrews Sisters, so they sing a lot of their popular songs, like "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen", but they also do some original songs, as well as some pretty amazing covers, the most impressive of which (I thought) was "Crazy in Love". "Walk Like an Egypytian" was pretty darned good too. We all happily floated home on a cloud of rum and coke, gin and tonic, and lemonade. It was a fantastic evening.

And that was only Friday!

Posted by Jenn at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Spring seems to have come to an abrupt end. Now it's hot, humid, and hazy and I'm starting to be miserable. Summer is not my season. When it's cold you can at least bundle up, but when it's hot, there's a finite number of things you can do before resigning yourself to sitting in front of an air conditioner until September.

On the flip side, summer also happens to be watermelon season (with the bad comes the good?). When I was growing up in Louisiana it seemed like every couple of miles we'd drive past a pickup truck parked on the side of road that had a guy selling watermelons off the back. My mom and I used to sit on our front porch with big half-moons in our hands, making a big, sticky mess of things. It's a bit of a toss-up over which is better: watermelon that's been chilled in the fridge, or warm watermelon that's spent the morning basking in the sun on the back of a truck. If I can find some sun-warmed watermelons around here, I'll have to revisit that question with a taste test.

Posted by Jenn at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We got back into town yesterday afternoon. After doing a lot of extensive unpacking, both last night and today, I have come to the somewhat inescapable conclusion that I left my swimsuit in a cute little beach-house somewhere on the Outer Banks. I say "somewhat inescapable" because I still haven't unpacked Henry's box of toys, which is an unlikely location for a reasonable adult to shove a probably still damp swimsuit, however, you never know what you'll be driven to do in the throes of packing up your belongings at the end of a very relaxing week. I'm not too bummed out about leaving the suit behind because it was a little too big on me and so one of the bra cups had a tendency to ride on up and out which is not a great characteristic for an article of clothing to have. On the other hand, it did just occur to me that after a week spent eating food that was either: 1. BBQ'ed; 2. steamed and served with half a stick of melted butter; 3. fried into oblivion; or 4. not a vegetable, it would probably now fit me beautifully. Alas.

At least I have a box of chocolate fudge with walnuts in it to cheer me up.

Posted by Jenn at 05:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sorry to have left both all of you hanging after that last post. My little melt-down couldn't have happened at a better time: the next day we got up to head to Dave's parents' house, and the day after that we carried on down the road to the beach, which is where we've been kicking around for the last few days. This is also where we'll be happily kicking around for a few more days. On Sunday night there was a tornado watch. The storm was vicious and scary and we did, at one point, end up in the basement for about half an hour. My theory is that the storm helped to concentrate a lot of our stress into one moment so that when it was over, we were all completely relaxed and therefore able to really enjoy the rest of the week.

Henry has been enjoying being here, except for that one traumatizing moment when the ocean came up on the beach and tried to eat him. He ran shrieking towards me and then would not let go of my hand until we came home. That was Monday morning. By Monday afternoon it was cold and rainy, and yesterday was just plain cold so we didn't get a chance to walk on the beach again until this morning. Henry was extremely reluctant to go out on the sand again, but we finally just picked him up and carried him out. He wasn't at all thrilled, but eventually we were able to put him on the ground, and soon after that he was off on his own in search of shells to put in his little yellow bucket. Perhaps by the end of the week he'll be up for dabbling his toes in the water.

Posted by Jenn at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In a few weeks I'm going to be taking belly dancing twice a week. I'll be carrying on with the six-week sessions offered through our local recreation department, but I'll be adding a private lesson once a week with the same teacher and another student. No one has been more surprised than me by how much I've enjoyed taking the classes. Last August I convinced Megan and Phoebe to take them with me because the idea of belly dancing was so far out that there was no way I could do it alone, plus it's always fun getting out of the house to hang with the ladies. I thought it would be a one-time thing, but I just haven't been able to stop going. About a week ago I went back to that first youtube video I posted back when we signed up for that first session and watched it again. I was surprised that I could name some of the steps she was doing, and could even do them myself. Not as gracefully or self-assured, but I could definitely do them. So hopefully with private lessons my instructor (who's amazing, because if she wasn't so encouraging and fun, I probably *would* have pooped out after the first session) will be able to better whip me into shape.

Last week she told us the name of the song we'll be using for our choreography. There's a dancer on youtube who also uses it. Here it is if you're interested:

Posted by Jenn at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This evening Flash and I ventured into the cemetery for our daily walk, just as dusk was deepening. While I was channeling my inner Buffy, just in case, I caught a glimpse of the latest in grave decorations: solar powered crosses and Angels. Saying I "caught a glimpse" is putting it mildly; "nearly jumped out of my skin" definitely belongs in there somehwere. There's a general heightened awareness of all senses when you're in a cemetery at night, no matter how firmly your feet are planted outside of believing in the realm of ghosts and goblins, so seeing a soft glow amongst the gravestones doesn't increase one's sense of ease. Once I ventured close enough to figure out what exactly it was that was glowing in the distance, I thought it was a pretty interesting take on outdoor solar lighting, and although I can't speak for the intentions of the people who put them out there, they suit cemeteries perfectly.

Posted by Jenn at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dave's in major grading mode. He's grading labs and exams and more labs and since we're going on vacation next week he's trying hard to get it all done by Friday. This means I've had to try to not lean on him as much as I usually do, like no running out of the house the second he comes home because if I have to watch another one of these video's on youtube my brain will instantaneously liquify. Besides, it's my personal opinion that since Dave created that particular monster, he can deal with it.

This weekend I made a conscientious effort to give Dave lots of time to get some grading done with no distractions. Saturday I took Henry over to Megan's house and we had some lunch and played in Leo's new sandbox (which also has a water table because Megan always has to be better than me). She has this really nice flower garden alongside her house in the backyard and since the kids were contained by a nice tall fence I was able to sit down and weed while they were playing which maybe doesn't sound like a good time but really actually was. I've been dying to go out and weed our flower beds but by the time Henry's down for a nap, it's time for me to be down for a nap so it doesn't ever get done. Also, since we don't have a fence around our front yard and since Henry sometimes gets it into his head that it's hilarious to run over and teeter on the edge of the sidewalk, presumably because it's funny when his mommy nearly passes out from terror, I haven't been able to do any serious weeding. Did I mention Henry also likes to rip the tops off of our tulips? Because they're just so pretty they must be destroyes?

Anyway, later in the day Dave decided to take Henry to Sears to see about getting a new battery for our weed whacker. Riding high from the morning of weeding at Megan's house, I hauled out the wheelbarrow and declared war on some dandelions and a couple of huge masses of little maples (maplettes?) that were making a go for tree-dom. I raked, pulled, heaved, shoveled, and mulched for two hours. It was glorious. For two hours I reveled in the dirt and the bugs and the sense of accomplishment which increased with every weed pulled. The thing about living in a college town (and near the high school to boot) is you're constantly thinking back to what you were like when you were younger and experiencing all of the things all of the kids around you are going through. Sometimes I laugh at how disappointed the me of 16 years ago would have been to find out that 16 years in the future I'd be happily grubbing around in the dirt and lecturing my kid about not pulling out the pretty tulips BECAUSE I PLANTED THEM AND THEY'RE MINE SO JUST LEAVE THEM ALONE. I MEAN REALLY, NOW!

I guess those things just sort of sneak up on you.

Posted by Jenn at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I can empty the dehumidifier while wearing finger cymbals.

I just keep getting cooler and cooler, man.

Posted by Jenn at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

1. If you're at the post office trying to send a package to Iraq, the people behind the counter are a lot nicer to you.

2. If you're buying a sandbox for your kid with your kid, salesmen are really helpful, especially when it takes forever for one of the other employees to figure out what the price is, because that means the aforementioned salesman gets to sit at one of the picnic tables, relax, and chat. With a cute mom no less! Lucky guy.

3. The local butcher sells prepackaged 3.5 pound bags of frozen bones for $1.99.

4. My kid is always, always, better behaved than I expect him to be when we have to run lots of errands. I need to give him more credit.

Posted by Jenn at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Tonight I hosted a meeting for a Board I'm on. The President of this particular Board is Megan. Everyone arrived for the meeting while Dave was putting Henry to bed. Apparently when Henry heard Megan talking, he said "Henry need Megan... Need Megan... Need Megan..." Dave said he was handling his lack of Megan like a real trooper, despite the fact that he knew she was in the house and that she was not there to give him yellow cookies or kick a cup while running around the house with him.

I was going to make an allusion to the fact that since Megan's both President *and* Henry's number one lady that she was gaining an upper-hand in my household and that she probably needed to be taken out. I even had a good Zoolander male model assassination reference ready to go. Then I realized if Megan's takes control of operations over here, the pressure would be completely off of me. After two seconds of soul-searching (I'm not that deep.), I've decided I'm totally down with that.

Posted by Jenn at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I couldn't access my website this weekend, which means I also wasn't able to receive or send any email. (Is the plural of "email" "emails"? I just typed and erased it both ways a couple of times but nothing looks quite right and although I'm too lazy to hunt down the answer on the internet, I'm apparently not too lazy to type out this ridiculously long aside.) Although the first few hours were tough because I'm an email junkie, being forced to go cold-turkey was cathartic. I spent far less time running to the computer to check my inbox, which meant I also spent far less time on the internet getting sidetracked by random surfing. I need to beef up my willpower and go email-less on the weekends more often.

Yesterday in an effort to make progress with some house projects we went to Lowe's and spent $100. We felt much better afterward, except for being $100 poorer. This summer I'm going to make an effort at getting some sort of vegetable garden going, both in our little square garden box in the backyard (which is strategically placed to take advantage of the three square feet of consistent sunlight we get in our backyard over the summer once all the trees have leafed out), but also by interspersing some vegetables within our flower garden. I also bought a container to start a container herb garden. And, as if that weren't ambitious enough, I'm thinking of starting a tea garden on a small plot of land we have near the house that gets some decent light. Yesterday Henry and I had a great time planting some seeds in some flats we have leftover from last years nursery purchases. I've never started plants from seeds and have a feeling I'm already failing miserably, but time will tell.

Meanwhile, Dave took the door to our back room off the hinges so he could repair and sand it. The previous owners had a dog that had scratched the door a lot and, in doing so, managed to dislocate the lower panel of the door so it would drag on the floor and not open all the way. Now it's in Dave's workshop, freshly glued, mostly sanded, and ready for a coat of paint. Everything in the garage has a fine layer of wood dust on it, including all of the items that are in two boxes that we had set aside for a garage sale. This morning I had to vacuum the vacuum cleaner before bringing it in the house. Lovely. The door looks great though.

Posted by Jenn at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

...when you have a toddler is you get everything done by 10 in the morning and then you each look at the other like "Now what do we do for the rest of the day?" This is especially problematic when said toddler has a cold and it's still too early in the day to have warmed up enough to go outside and run around. So instead of doing anything constructive, we embarked on a two-hour journey that eventually led to each of us incessantly plucking the other's last nerve. This all would have ended up with both of us flinging banana nut bread batter at each other out of sheer frustration, but then Megan showed up and saved the day. What would we do without Megan? I shudder to think...

Over the weekend we went and looked at a house. Both Dave and I loved it so we're looking at our finances to see if there's any way we can afford it. Meanwhile, because interest rates are falling so much so fast, every mortgage broker in town is swamped, probably with refinances, so we haven't been able to meet with anyone to go over numbers yet which, when you're excited about a house that could potentially go under contract to someone else at any moment, is pretty tortuous. I finally talked over the phone with someone at a local bank this afternoon and we have another meeting with someone else at yet another bank tomorrow morning, so, progress!

As if dealing (or not being able to deal with) the financial end of things isn't bad enough, we're going through the 5,000 pro's and con's of whether we should move at all. There are two major items on that list. The first is, we have a small house and right now we're in desperate need of one more room. If we have another kid, we'd need another room on top of that first extra room. So we could either renovate this place ($$$) or buy a house that already has all the room we'll ever need ($$). To add to the conundrum is the fact that I love where our house is. It's in a quiet downtown neighborhood, it's not near the students, but it's not in the "historic" part of downtown where all the houses, albeit beautiful, are crammed up against each other. After having spent the last four-five years wandering around town, I know that this is the ideal downtown location for us. Which, in a long-winded way, brings us to major item number two: the house we're looking at is not downtown. It's about a mile away. Which is kind of a bummer because if you're going to live in a small town like this, isn't it ideal to live within walking distance to downtown? But the more I think about it, not really. Most of where I need to go to get basic items I have to get into a car to drive to anyway. The only shop I really frequent is the yarn shop and it's not like I'm going to give up shopping there because we've moved a mile away. Last summer we spent more time at the park near the pool than we did at the one downtown. Moving out of downtown probably wouldn't change our lifestyle as much as we think it would.

So in a few days time we'll either be:
- drowning our sorrows in vodka
- madly getting our house ready to be put on the market while thoughts of a summer spent chilling out on the deck of our new house dance in our head
- bbq'ing in our backyard thinking about a summer filled with long walks down to the river.

Kind of exciting, actually.

Posted by Jenn at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

You were a good fish.

Posted by Jenn at 01:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I just got an email from Williams Sonoma advertising the "Perfect-Ending Cupcakes" except I read it as "Neverending Cupcakes". You can imagine my disappointment.

I'm not quite sure where February went. Usually it feels like the longest month of the year despite its being the shortest, thanks to the winter doldrums and cabin fever and colds. Instead this year we've had so many things going on: so many birthdays, so many visits from Grandparents, so much hanging out with friends. If every February is like this it may just become my favorite month. Maybe. Probably not, but it's definitely trumped January.

Henry's been a bit of a piss-whistler lately. He really testing limits, so they say. "Testing limits" translates very quickly into "lots of time spent on the time-out chair". On the plus side, he's been coming out of his shell a bit. He mostly likes to spend a lot of time on the outskirts, checking things out, not necessarily being an active part of whatever rabble is being roused. Last week at our Friday playgroup out of nowhere he charged one of the other moms so she would tickle him. He also spent a lot of time rolling around on the floor, which doesn't seem like great shakes except my kid doesn't roll around on the floor much, especially when other people are around. He's also been making all sorts of growling and roaring sounds which scared us half to death the first few times he made them, our reactions most likely being what bumped them up into his Top Ten Favorite Things To Do.

Tomorrow at playgroup this really cool guy is coming in to host a kid-oriented music hour. I'm betting Henry's head is going to explode when he pulls out his guitar.

Posted by Jenn at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Megan and I went to our first Hafla yesterday. There was lots of good food, which I didn't fully appreciate until later on in the afternoon because who can eat when you're about to dance in front of a group of people, most of whom you don't know? So, yeah, I got up and danced two dances, not alone because that would have been insane and I'm not that talented or confident, but with some of the women who are in the belly dance classes I've been taking. We did two dances, one slow number that we learned over the course of the last month and a half, and another faster (and my personal favorite) dance we learned last September/October.

The other dancers were incredibly inspiring, both for their talent and for their obvious enjoyment of belly dance. It inspired me to really try and learn how to dance, maybe even become half-way decent at it. I'm thinking about talking to my teacher about signing up for a second class so I can go two nights a week instead of one.

The other thing the Hafla inspired me to do was to get over my self-consciousness and think about investing in some sort of costuming other than my hip scarf, which is losing coins and looks sad in general. I don't want anything crazy, just something pretty I can feel comfortable in while practicing and which I can dress up with accessories for the next Hafla. I'm thinking something along the lines of this (because I can wear the skirt separately to practice in but then can pair it with the top for more of a costume) or the one I really want, which is this one, because it comes in the color I really want (maroon) and because every girl should have a coin bra in their wardrobe.

Posted by Jenn at 02:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Things I can't be bothered doing:

- paying bills.
- gooshing the spider the crawled up our bathroom wall last night while I was taking a bath.
- go grocery shopping.

Things I can be totally bothered to do:

- make the bed every day. I don't know why I'm doing this, I usually don't, it's just been giving me an unusual sense of accomplishment lately.
- making a draft-stopper for our kitchen door out of brown and blue polka dot fabric. It's cute. It also filled me with an unusual sense of accomplishment.
- laundry. Can't explain it, and don't want to know why.
- make cinnamon/chocolate chip ice cream with my new ice cream maker.
- shop for fringe belly dancing skirts, like this one.
- start cutting out a pattern for a summer shirt I'm going to make for myself. I also ordered some red and white striped seersucker (that's being shipped from all the way from Metairie, Louisiana which is where I used to grocery shop and buy smoothies when I lived in New Orleans) for a pair of pants I got a pattern for a few weeks ago. Also for summer. Kind of had it with the winter over here, if you can't tell.
- panicking slightly about belly dancing at a Hafla this weekend even though there'll be a few of us doing each dance.
- eating stuff that goes well with sour cream.

I should go pay some bills.

Posted by Jenn at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My mom sent me this link to The Rules of the Blues.

I would like everyone to know that from now on I will be referring to myself as Fat River Dumpling. I drive a Chevy and both Dave (we'll call him Mangled Mango Madison) and I have a penchant for cheap wine. If I got rid of the computer I'd be totally legit!

Posted by Jenn at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

It's a dreary Fat Tuesday here in Central PA, but we're doing what we can to keep things lively, mainly listening to lots and lots of New Orleans Jazz/cajun music on one of the music channels that came with our cable package. The big tradition in this neck of the woods is scarfing down donuts, so I'm sensing an outing after dinner might be in order.

Here's a Bourbon Street webcam if you'd like to feel like you're part of the action. It's 79 degrees in New Orleans right now. I wonder what that's like...

Posted by Jenn at 03:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

When I was in elementary school, once every few months my class would form a single line and we'd all be marched down to the computer lab. I don't remember there being a lot of options for what we could do, but I do remember we played "Oregon Trail" a lot. The object was to successfully travel from Missouri to Oregon while managing food supplies, clothing supplies, money, and health. Your mode of transportation was an ox-pulled wagon (the game takes place in the 19th century), so you also had to account for wagon repairs and associated supplies, such as spare wheels, tongues, and oxen. I loved that game. I was also extremely lousy at it.

The other day I was perusing the various applications on Facebook and came across an Oregon Trail app and after dancing around and clapping my hands with glee I signed up. I've been addicted ever since. I have four other members in my party, Dave, Megan, Phoebe, and Mel. So far only Dave has died. Of cholera. After breaking his elbow. He's so delicate.

I'm really enjoying being eleven again.

Posted by Jenn at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I hosted my first playgroup today. My house looked awesome. Right before going to work Dave suggested we host playgroup every week because the house looked so good. Then I kicked him on the butt and slammed the door in his face because I spend most of my days picking up little piles of his discarded clothes that he leaves in every corner of the house. For example this morning he comes out of the shower with his nightclothes tightly rolled up in a ball and starts to throw them upstairs to the second floor. I stop him to ask if he's going to put them in the dirty laundry basket in the upstairs bathroom *hint-hint* and he says "Yah, that's what I was about to do!" then proceeds to chuck them upstairs. I'm willing to bet he would've walked away if he wasn't such a lousy shot; he didn't clear the top steps. It also solves the mystery as to why I'm always finding dirty socks and other nefarious items tucked away in the back right corner of our second floor hall.

Playgroup was a lot of fun. Everyone showed up late which led to the usual "I'm getting stood up!" panic, which was followed by the "even if everyone shows up they're probably all going to throw eggs at me because I'm such a dork" panic, a sentiment which may or may not have been influenced by my having watched "Never Been Kissed" last night on ABC Family. Henry handled having a bunch of kids playing with his toys very well, although he wigged out a little bit after everyone left. Right now he's upstairs napping peacefully, probably dreaming of driving the real Lightning McQueen car, which is something he unexpectedly informed us he was planning on doing someday. Kids say the strangest things at dinner time. And every other time of the day.

Right now I'm going to collapse on the couch with a plate full of tuna casserole and maybe unwind with a little Hannah Montana if it's on. What? That show's hilarious!

Posted by Jenn at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Megan insisted on watching Henry for us so Dave and I could go out and have a perfectly romantic evening staring into each other's eyes over bbq ribs in honor of our seventh anniversary. I took a quick look around our house and was completely blown away by the state of things. I decided it was imperative that I clean it before she arrives. To put this in context, Megan and I are at the stage of our friendship where neither of us feels at all pushed to clean when the other is coming over. That statement should give you an idea of how bad our house had gotten.

Since I'd rather write a 10,000 line epic poem entitled "What I Did Over Summer Vacation" in iambic pentameter than clean, I got onto realtor.com and looked at houses for sale in our area. To make a long story short, we have an appointment tomorrow to see what could possibly be my dream house in a somewhat less desirable location than our current one. Also I think I may have stumbled across a genius way to avoid cleaning our house: buy a new one.

Posted by Jenn at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Before going away for Christmas I was all over posting on the good ole blog. NaBloPoMo really is a nice kick in the butt to get things going again on a much more regular basis, but while we were in Virginia, I checked my email twice. Twice! It was great, especially since I fully recognize what an email addict I am. Dave continued to check obsessively, but that's his burden to carry. While I successfully exorcised the need to be online over the course of six or seven days, I also managed to exorcise the momentum November gave me. Thus, I haven't posted much. And I feel bad. Partly because I feel I have an obligation to provide my audience (Hi Mom!) with some mundane fodder pillaged from my life, but also because I plan on printing it out some day so I can have it forever and ever in hardcopy. This means I will eventually unload it on my kid, who I will have guilted into feeling some sort of sentimental attachment for it, thereby ensuring that my life will take up physical space in the back corner of a metal bookcase in the damp basement of a house, nestled snugly between a malfunctioning game of "Operation" and a dusty black sombrero with red bobble trim. If I want it to take up a big and tall space on that shelf, I need to get my blog groove back. Perhaps I should treat January as an unofficial NaBloPo month. Hmmmm...

Also, in case any of you cared, I am that shallow and I did reschedule my facial.

Posted by Jenn at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The fates have conspired against me. Yesterday morning I made an appointment for Monday to have a facial with a gift certificate Dave got me in October for my birthday. By last night I had a raging zot on my chin. This morning some guy climbed it, declared himself King of the mountain, then rappelled down the other side. So now I get to go have a facial with a huge blemish on my chin and I swear I wish I were a better person than this but I have half a mind to cancel and go later in the week. Is that incredibly shallow of me?

Posted by Jenn at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

But first, a cute thing my kid did this morning. He was setting up the world's largest drum set using all of the pans from his play stove, his actual drum, zills, xylophone, and snack bowls. I was in the dining room dismantling one of our small Christmas trees when I hear him say: "One, two, three, four, five drums! Good job counting Henry...good job counting Henry!" It was seriously cute.

Now for the resolutions:

1. Spend less time on the internet. Aside from the blogs I really enjoy reading, all it's been giving me lately are lost hours I'll never get back and serious eye strain.

2. Continue losing weight by changing my diet, instead of dieting. That includes the six pounds I gained over Christmas, 1.5 of which is already gone. Shazah!

3. Talk to my doctor about my anxiety issues. It's long overdue.

4. Get Henry's schedule shifted back an hour. Right now he gets up around nine, goes down for a nap around 2:30, gets up around 5 or 5:30, goes to bed around 9. Now that he's old enough to be able to add a bit of finesse to his procrastination game, I have a feeling we could easily get sucked into a truly horrendous schedule. Also included in this resolution is my having to come to terms with the fact that Henry is probably over the need for a three hour nap. Two hours is enough. I'm going to continue to nurture my denial that his nap will be getting shorter and shorter over the next year.

5. Drink more water.

I think that about covers the main stuff. Maybe at the end of June I'll make some middle-of-the-year resolutions, depending on where things stand with the ones listed above.

Posted by Jenn at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just finished paying some bills and now I'm in a grumpy mood. We started Christmas shopping way back in October so we haven't been hit too hard all at once, although honestly which is better, getting hit in the knee with a banjo or having a band-aid made out of duct tape slowly ripped off of your hairy arm? I'm starting to think the banjo option is better because you get all of the pain over with at once. By that blazingly brilliant logic, I've decided that next year I'm not going to start shopping until the 15th of December.

In the past we've made regular contributions to a state environmental group. They're a little brazen with their tactics re: shaking us down for money and they're still misspelling my last name which, after four years of trying to fix it, is getting pretty darned annoying, admittedly more annoying than that particular faux pas merits, but it's all for a good cause so I keep writing them checks. And correcting my name. They called again last week, giving us the hard sell, which isn't too hard when you have a toddler running around the house who's about to inherit a planet that's been pretty well screwed up by all the burping cows and belching tailgates. The guy on the phone said that last time we donated we gave $-- and would I please be willing to do that again and send the payment in within a week since I didn't want to give them my credit card number? I said sure, then hung up, plagued by the sense that I'd just been had. Dave and I aren't rich. We're more like sort of comfortable and frankly, $-- sounds like a lot more money than I'd ever commit to donating given our financial situation. So I looked and sure enough the last time we gave to them, it was less than what the guy on the phone said we had given. So when I got the pledge letter today I scratched out the $--, wrote in what we had previously donated, and sent them a check, along with the correct spelling of my last name and some strongly worded threats about me putting them in the naughty corner if they ever pull a stunt like that again (the last bit being spoken into the envelope as opposed to written down because I'm a wimp). I'm a little irate. And I'm feeling guilty because, dangit, it's for the environment and aren't I being just a bit petty? On the other hand, I'm spending a little more money on earth friendly household products, etc, so it all probably works out somehow in the end. Right?

In other news, last night I went to a friend's house to knit and watch a movie. We watched the third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean saga. There were five or six ladies there and let me just say, you would not believe the swooning that was going on over Orlando Bloom. Orlando, if you had been there with us last night, you would have been blushing. And running for cover. Of course, because I dare to be different, I had to part ways with the masses and stoke the torch fire that forever burns for Johnny Depp. I mean really. There's no contest there as far as I'm concerned. Attractive male actors aside, I had seen the movie with Dave about five minutes after it came out on DVD and to say I didn't understand half of what was going on would be putting it mildly. I asked four thousand questions. At one point I think Dave was seriously considering kicking me in the pants. Last night we watched it with the subtitles on. I can't begin to tell you what a revelation that was. I totally got it. All of it. This is a movie that should be read and not seen. Except for the parts where Johnny Depp is on screen. Those parts have to be seen.

Also? I don't know what my kid is doing right now, but it is most definitely not napping. It sounds like he's bumping out the wall to make his room bigger.

Posted by Jenn at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A classy holiday lawn ornament! Don't tell Dave, but I've already order 10 of them. We're going to have a forest of legs on our lawn this year. Santa's *definitely* not going to pass us over.

Posted by Jenn at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

The drive home yesterday was long but everyone was a trooper and we made it. It's easier going to Boston because you can leave as early as you want without having to worry about things like hitting rush hour traffic. Because no one lives here. I wanted to put that last sentence in all caps but you guys really don't need me yelling at you. Although it's less "yelling at you" and more "talking loudly in a panicked way". But whatever.

So yesterday we had to take into account rush hour traffic in Boston which starts at 6AM and tapers off to a somewhat congested flow (but a flow nonetheless) around 9AM. We left Cambridge around 10:45 and got home around 6:15. Not too bad, but the timing of everything was enough to make it feel like we spent the entire day in the car, especially since we arrived home in the dark. It started snowing one mile outside of the Pennsylvania border and continued to do so until about an hour after we got home.

The best part was when I asked Megan how she and her husband met (think along the lines of the lyrics to Some Enchanted Evening as sung by Dean Martin because who does anything better than Dino? Okay, maybe Bing. But Dean's just soooo romantic. I'm sticking with Dean. Gah. Now I can't decide. How about a Bing/Dean duet?) and she got so swept up in the romance of it all she decided to just get off the highway altogether. Both of us would apparently rather get lost in the wilds of the suburbs of Wilkes Barre/Scranton than have to backtrack half a mile so we took an alternate route that I declared was going to be "totally genius". It would have been too if it hadn't been snowing and we hadn't been stuck going downhill behind a couple of oil trucks. Next time we're coming back from MA/NH and I'm doing the driving and talking about how Dave and I met and I veer off the interstate at the same exit, I hope it's summer, because I wouldn't mind taking that route again in better weather.

Posted by Jenn at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been tagged by Kitty at New York Portraits to do the following meme: fill in the blanks using the first letter of your name. "J" was hard.

1. Famous Singer: Jimmie Rodgers
2. Four Letter Word: jump
3. Street: J Street. I've never heard of it, but there probably is one. Somewhere.
4. Color: java brown. heh.
5. Gifts/Presents: jewelry
6. Vehicles: Jeep!
7. Things In A Souvenir Shop: Jackelope postcards
8. Boy Name: John
9. Girl Name: Juniper
10. Movie Title: Jarhead
11. Drink: julep of the mint persuasion
12. Occupation: jackhammerer
13. Celebrity: J. Lo
14. Magazine: JPG Magazine
15. U.S. City: Jacksonville
16. Pro Sports: How about the high jump? It's an Olympic sport anyway.
17. Fruit: jujube
18. Reason For Being Late For Work: traffic jam
19. Something You Throw Away: junk
20. Something You Shout: Jinkies!

I'm going to go ahead and be a good friend and tag Mel to do it too.

Posted by Jenn at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Dave and I finished up the stove the day Dave's parents left to go home to Virginia, which I probably already mentioned, but since my camera's hopefully in queue to be repaired I wasn't able to take any pictures. Until Megan lent me hers, that is! She dropped it off at my house around 4PM, I took some pictures, and then I gave it right back to her a few hours later at belly dancing because 1. her camera is super fancy and expensive and 2. I have a really bad track record with cameras right now and 3. her husband would KILL me. I'm sure of it. So anyway, she downloaded the pictures and forwarded them to me so now I get to share them with you!

I'm estimating, but I'm guessing the whole thing cost under $20 because the cardboard was free and almost everything else either we had or Dave's dad had. Yesterday while out and about in Porter Square we stopped in a toy shop to do a little hands-on window shopping. I spied a really cute wooden play set that was similar to ours in that it was one free-standing station. It had a sink, microwave, and oven. It was $199. Smug smuggity smug. I think I'll head off to, say, Sephora and blow the $179 we theoretically saved. Although I should probably spend it on Dave's dad since he did all of the dirty work.

I also took advantage of having a camera to take some pictures of the felt cookies I made:

Yesterday I saw bags of felt farfalle and linguine. That might have to be next on the list.

There's a storm moving in later today. The skies are already dark and gray. I hope we get a lot of snow. Or *some* snow anyway. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Posted by Jenn at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I can't believe it's been a month already. Last November when I was doing this I remember being halfway through and struggling to find something to say. This year, I either have a lot more going on, or I'm finding the minute details of my life fascinating beyond belief.

Megan's picking us up around 7:30. I'm feeling a little anxious about the trip, partly because of the two kids thing, and also partly because I've made the trip four thousand times and am ready to start passing the usual landmarks and making some progress. Once we get in the car and the talking begins, time will fly.

Right now I should be in the shower getting ready for our road trip but I got caught up in email and catching up on my Blogroll. Everyone's either posting really late on the 29th or really early on the 30th, so there was a lot of reading to do. I'm sad to see NaBloPoMo end, and yet, it'll be nice to not have an hour of Henry's nap sucked away into the internet ether everyday.

Posted by Jenn at 06:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Megan's coming over here this evening so we can install Henry's carseat into her car, and load up most of the stuff we're taking with us to Boston so she can fit all of Leo's stuff in around it. This should be interesting because Henry's two and still requires a fair amount of luggage, but not nearly as much as what a nine month old requires. Add into that equation the amount of luggage two women cart around so that they can have as many wardrobe and eye shadow options as they'll need to get through five days away from home, and you have one seriously packed car. So I'm spending the afternoon piling together everything I think we'll need, weeding stuff out, and attempting to contain it in as small a space as possible. And for the record, I'm taking Mel's experience to heart and making sure I don't pack like a man.

Right now I've got our clothes in one small suitcase and I have one large bag for miscellaneous junk that isn't even filled up. The things that take up the most space are the three blankets and four stuffed animals Henry sleeps with, but since we need those tonight, they'll have to go in tomorrow. So far, though, it's looking pretty good. Hopefully it won't get too out of control by the time we leave. I'm very bad about last minute panicking over what we'll need which leads to the throwing of tons of random stuff into bags which are then squished into every available space in the trunk and back seat.

This is going to be an interesting car ride.

Posted by Jenn at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's day 28 of NaBloPoMo, apparently the one in which I don't really have anything to say. So I'll just tell you some random, pointless, completely uninteresting stuff.

Today I raked. I'm hoping today's the last day I'll have to rake until next Fall because although I greeted the raking season with much pent up, giddy anticipation, I'm now completely over it. Tomorrow I may just get up early enough to sit by the window with a cup of coffee piled high with Redi-Wip so I can watch the giant leaf-sucking contraption they use on street cleaning days come through and suck up all of our leaves.

This morning Dave took Henry to tumbling. I went downtown and ran an errand and did a little shopping without having to appease a thundering toddler with Cheddar Bunnies and promises of some fun activity which will take place sometime but don't ask me specifics because I'm making it all up as we go along but you don't know that because you're two. Since Henry's stove has been sitting in the living room begging to be played with but without any of the proper play-stove accouterments, I stopped by the local toy store and picked up these. Would you believe, not only are they not plastic, but they're food safe? I'm very pleased with myself and with the toy store for carrying them. When Henry spotted them he stuffed the felt cookies I made into two of the pots and then hammered them in with the spatula, put the lids on, and commenced looking very pleased with himself until he realized he'd shoved the lollipop he got after tumbling in with the cookies, then he was all "Pop go? Pop go?" I had to rinse it off because it was fuzzy.

Tonight, it's back to belly dancing. Thanks to all of the pies and turkey and other stuff that goes along with the days leading up to and away from Thanksgiving (including the big day itself) I will be arriving with more belly than I had the last time I was there.

I had a salad for lunch.

The end.

Posted by Jenn at 02:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's snowing out! We woke up this morning to a nice heavy snowfall, and within five minutes I had both me and Henry bundled up and booted. When I opened up the kitchen door, Henry stood staring out, in complete awe. Then he watched me kick around outside, yelling at him to join me. Instead of bounding outside, a place he loves to be, he turned around and started to help his dad empty out the dishwasher. Yes, he'd rather be doing that than running around outside. I still can't quite believe it. All in due time.

Instead of heading back inside, I went for a walk around the cemetery that's at the end of our street. It was beautiful out. I took some pictures, but whilst in the throes of chopping vegetables for omelets later in the morning, I accidentally knocked our camera off the counter. Keep your fingers crossed it still works because seriously, Dave will kill me if it doesn't.

Last night's dinner was absolutely amazing. Everything was great. Plus we came home with a loaf of homemade bread. Henry and Thomas had a good time playing with each other and dismantling things. It was a nice way to kick off the week.

Posted by Jenn at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

At least I got sleep last night. Glorious, glorious sleep. Plus, I watched "My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding" on TV last night so I had big, fat, greek dreams, which, honestly, it could be worse.

Henry is definitely on the up. Poor kid, stuck inside, sick for three days, and just as he's getting better and showing signs of serious cabin fever, his mom gets sick and can't find the energy to go beyond the kitchen. Last night we watched Cars because I felt so badly for him.

Meanwhile, lately he's been doing this funny thing where he tricks you into asking him to do things he really wants to do. For instance, he'll say: "Henry outside," and Dave or I will say "What, you want to go outside?" and he'll say "OKAY!!!", like it was your brilliant idea. Saturday Henry said: "Henry banjo Cars," so Dave said "Do you want to watch Cars while playing your banjo?" and Henry said "OOKKKKAAAAAAYYYYY!!!" Our little manipulator.

Also, you should know that he has a freckle on his inner thigh that he refers to as his moon.

Posted by Jenn at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm sick. I have a cold. Last night I didn't get much sleep, probably because of the ice cream I ate to soothe my throat. Also, it was really hot. At five I finally went downstairs where it was nice and cool, stretched out on the couch, and fell asleep ten seconds later.

Around 7:30 Dave and Henry made their way downstairs. Because I'm the world's most awesome mom, while Henry was distracted by the prospect of a cup of milk in the kitchen, I snuck upstairs and went to bed. I came down an hour and a half later and guess what? There was a bowlful of popovers sitting on the stove, just waiting to be slathered in butter and jam and then eaten! It's been a while since I've had them. It turns out they're even better when you haven't made them yourself.

After breakfast I spent a little time on the front stoop, drinking coffee and letting the cold air clear the clouds out of my head. I think a little Tylenol would help too. I hate being sick.

Posted by Jenn at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When I was in elementary school, back when people used to dress like this on purpose, every day after I ate my bagged lunch I would buy a push-up. No, I'm not speaking of women's undergarments because for starters, I didn't have much of anything to push up until I was well into high school, and 2) what kind of elementary school do you think I went to anyway? I'm talking about an ice cream treat that was so amazing, I'm still thinking about it ten, fifteen, twenty-two years later. Wow. Note to self: stop realizing how old you are.

The push-up was vanilla ice cream with a gooey chocolate center that was served in a cardboard tube. You'd have to push up on a plastic piece of straw to get it to come out (after first warming it up a little in the palms of your hands so the ice cream on the sides would melt enough for it to be more easily pushed up). The bonus was after we were done enjoying our ice creams, me and my friends would hold onto the straws so that we could later stick them around our top teeth and pretend they were braces because for some reason, we all desperately wanted braces. Possibly because the older kids all had them and we wanted to be old too. Oh, if I only knew then what I know now, now that I'm standing on the other side of endless orthodontist appointments, still traumatized.

Every time I go to a grocery or convenience store I haven't been to before, I check to see if they sell them, but I've never had any luck. Someone makes a sherbet variety, but where's the fun in that? One day I'll find them. I can feel it.

Posted by Jenn at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I'm supposed to be taking a shower while Dave has the troops out for a walk, but instead I decided to go online, join nablopomo, and then stick a button for it on my sidebar proudly announcing my intentions of posting everyday this month, except it wasn't showing up because I didn't close quotes on the link for the button and it took me fifteen minutes to figure out that's what the problem was.

I think I have post-Halloween depression. Halloween is totally my holiday. I love it. Love the costumes, the decorations, the candy. Except this year, probably because it was so hot I sweated through most of the 31 days, it felt more like the end of summer instead of October. Halloween just kind of snuck up and then poof it was gone. As Sally says "I want restitution!"

And so, although I decided a few weeks ago I wasn't going to do nablopomo again this year, earlier today I changed my mind, figuring that focusing on the prospect of having to come up with something interesting to say every day of November would help lift me out of my funk. You know what else is going to help? A conference on the couch with the bag of fun size Butterfingers I wouldn't let Dave bring in to work today. Hel-loooo golden wrappers full of goodness!

Posted by Jenn at 08:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dave and I watched the Disney version of the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" last night. It was narrated by Bing Crosby, who also contributed a few songs which begs the question: how scary can anything that features Bing Crosby be? The answer: not very scary, at least when you get to be in your 30's. I will confess that I while I was watching it I did recognize the parts of the movie that scared me, not because I remembered the scenes, but because I remembered the soundtrack. Technically, last night was the first time I'd ever actually seen those particular parts of the movie, what with my hands not being in front of my eyes and all. Anyway, Dave and I laughed all the way through it, and Megan, Phoebe, and I watched it again this afternoon while we were carving pumpkins. I was inspired to create an Ichabod Crane pumpkin, an activity which hopefully exorcised any lingering "Sleepy Hollow" demons that may have been hanging on for the last 25 years.

Posted by Jenn at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There are some moments in a person's childhood that had such a profound effect on you at the time that you carry them into adulthood. You can remember every emotion as if it happened yesterday; instantly you are five or seven or ten again.

Something happened when I was six that I can never, ever forget.

It was right around Halloween. My elementary school was decked out in cardboard skeletons and witches, the pieces held together with grommets so they could be posed in all sorts of spooky ways. Teachers had tacked orange and black paper up over the bulletin boards and covered them with drawings made by the kids of pumpkins and ghosts. Everyone was abuzz with what they were going to dress up as for Halloween (I was going to be Annie, my hero.).

One day, a couple of teachers combined the second grade classes and led us all into a room that was empty with the exception of a television that was holding court at the front. Nothing is more exciting when your a kid than walking into a classroom that has a television. That usually means no math! No phonix! No nothing educational! Sure enough the teachers had us sit on the floor and told us they had a surprise. They were going to show us Disney's cartoon "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". Great! I'd never heard of it before but it sounded cool and everyone else was excited. The film started to roll. There went Ichabod Crane's unfortunate nose followed by the rest of him, and boy, that sure is a gloomy path he's on...

Then, the horror. I watched the rest of the movie through my fingers and by the end I had to remind myself to breathe. I've never been so glad to have a movie end in my entire life. The rest of the kids, however, loved it. They loved it so much in fact, the teachers decided to play it again.

I don't think I slept for two weeks after that, and I haven't seen it since.

That was 25 years ago. I told this story to Dave on the ride home from Boston. I also told him I've been trying hard to face some of my fears lately so I can let them go, and so perhaps it was time for me to watch Walt Disney's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow". So tonight, at approximately 9 PM, Dave and I will be sitting on the couch, firing up the VCR, unless it's available on DVD.

And I have no doubt I will be clutching Dave for dear life the entire 35 minutes.

Posted by Jenn at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)