jennanddave.com

We just got back home from the best weekend ever. I'm not exaggerating. On Friday we headed out to Western Massachusetts to spend the next couple of days with my Grandmother. On Saturday morning, my parents arrived just in time for a major fry up for breakfast. Henry spent the morning banging away on the piano and eating bacon, eventually convincing me and my dad it was time to go down to my Grandma's stream to throw rocks. Throwing rocks is a lot of fun, especially when you have things to aim for, like logs and leaves and dads. We headed back to the house for a quick warm-up, then the three of us headed back out, this time for a local waterfall. Henry loved it. He wanted to stay there "forever and ever". While we were eating a late lunch, it started snowing and didn't stop until sometime Sunday morning. By about 5 o'clock, there was enough snow for sledding and snowman building, so that's what we did. I thought for sure Henry would be timid about the sledding, like he was last year, but he hopped right on and headed downhill. It was great.

Sunday afternoon we got in the car and headed back home. We hit Scranton around 6PM and spied, from the highway, a Christmas light display at Nay Aug Park. We got off at the next exit and drove around until we found it. It was a huge display of lights that you tour in your car. It was so worth the detour. Henry was oohing and aahing non-stop.

On Thursday, Henry came down with a cold and over the weekend Holly came down with it as well. She's a trooper. Today seems to be kind of the worst of it. She has a low-grade fever and is content to sleep away the day. Hopefully she'll feel better soon.

I got a lot of knitting done on my Bella mittens. I'll take pictures soon.

Posted by Jenn at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We headed out to the mall this afternoon in the hopes of crossing some people off of our Christmas list. I'm not a Black Friday shopper, I'm a day-after-Black-Friday-only-if-the-parking-lots-don't-look-too-full shopper. We were surprisingly successful. That trip, combined with the frenzied hour spent online right before we hit the road, resulted in some serious progress made. Now we only have a couple of things left to get, and then we can sit back and hope and pray that people like what we got them.

After the mall we headed over to a friend's house for dinner. I found out she was thinking about making meatballs and so I sort of hinted around us maybe going over. She's one of the few people I know whose head wouldn't go spinning completely out of orbit at the last minute-ness of it all. We had a great time. Good food, good conversation, and Henry was psyched to be able to run around with their kids and raise a ruckus.

Meanwhile, what's up with Tiger Woods?

Posted by Jenn at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dave and Henry are in the living room fighting over the TV. Henry wants to watch SpongeBob and Dave wants to watch the Pats. Maybe I'll steal the remote and put something really girly like Gilmore Girls on and drive them both out of the room. Actually, Gilmore Girls would probably drive them right out of the house.

Today I'm roasting a chicken for dinner, complete with stuffing, acorn squash, and mashed potatoes. My main motivation is to make chicken soup with dumplings tomorrow. I haven't made it since last winter, so I'm really looking forward to it. Nothing like a good hearty soup to cure what ails you. Cupcakes, specifically these, work well too, but I don't have any.

It's starting to smell good in here!

Also, SpongeBob just beat out the Pats.

Posted by Jenn at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Henry's doing a lot better. Yesterday he was chipper despite his eyes being at half-mast all day. By the time we put him to bed he had one heck of a runny nose. Today, it's all good. He's not coughing nearly as much and he put up quite the fight over taking a nap, which is always a sign of robust health in my kid.

Here's a mystery having to do with myself. I caught Henry's cold while we were in Boston and all of the symptoms are gone except for a scratchy throat which sometimes gives me fits. After dinner on Easter, I took Flash for a walk in the cemetery. Exercising after dinner is not something I've been inclined to do as of late, mainly because even the smallest meal makes me feel stuffed and uncomfortable. My inclination after eating is to retire to the couch to rub my poor belly until it's time to go to bed. Anyway, I hooked Flash up on her leash, took her to the cemetery and about halfway through the walk, coughed a bit, gagged a bit, then tossed a little bit of cookie just as she was doing her thing. It wasn't full blown by any stretch of the imagination.

Today I decided to take Flash for a walk before having dinner, thinking that perhaps part of the problem on Sunday was the fact that I was moving around while uncomfortably full. So I hooked Flash up on her leash, took her to the cemetery, and in almost the exact same spot, coughed a bit, gagged a bit, then tossed a little bit of cookie just as she was doing her thing. I can't decide if there's something in the air that's irritating my throat given that it's Springtime, or if pregnancy is maybe making me a little sensitive to things that come out of Flash's business end. Any guesses?

Posted by Jenn at 06:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned I went to Target and while I bought some things for Henry, I neglected to buy anything for the future girl that's soon to be emerging into our lives? This bit of news was passed on to a certain someone's mother who couldn't believe I didn't get anything and the end result is the very first contribution to what will probably be a very impressive wardrobe for a very lucky little girl:

Pretty cute, eh? Thanks, Bella!

Meanwhile, having a girl means sorting through 5 billion girls names. This is no easy feat, and after having gone through it with Henry, I'm completely over it. A couple of weeks ago I told Dave that since we like the name Henry so much, we should name her Henrietta, shorten it to Henry, and be done with it. We could even call them Henry². Anyway, we're tossing around a couple of ideas so I thought I might as well take a poll that will most likely have no bearing on our final decision but what the heck, it could be fun. Feel free to write in suggestions in a comment.

Posted by Jenn at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

A while ago my mom read an article about how Americans are comprised of mostly corn* because of our diets and because of the diets of the animals we eat. Pretty scary thought. After conducting my own research, I've figure out what Henry and I are made of (after sugar, spice, snips, snails, and puppy dog tails):

60% cheese
15% pancake
8% maple syrup
5% milk/coffee
5% cornbread
2.5% cookie
2.25% cupcake
2% meatball
.25% cold germs

Dave is:
50% mashed potato
25% coffee
25% steak

*This is not the article my mom read, but it's a good explanation and it gets its Chemistry on a teensy-weensy bit so I had to link to it for Dave.

Posted by Jenn at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Not too much has been going on. We had an ice storm Tuesday night and into Wednesday so Henry's school was closed. One perk of living next to a public school is that when you don't hear the school buses rumbling by, you know that there's either been a two-hour delay or it's been canceled altogether. This is convenient because it means I don't have to get out of bed extra early to check online or on the television. Instead I can turn off the alarm, roll over, and go back to sleep. Priceless.

Henry is still asking for another Christmas tree. The other night I was talking with him after tucking him in for the night and he asked if it was going to be Christmas again soon. I explained that we'd have to wait a whole year, then I rattled off all of the months between now and next December. When I was done he said "No, I want it to be Christmas, and then I just want it to be anudder Christmas." Fair enough. Sometimes I feel that way about beach vacations. Actually, I always feel that way about beach vacations.

Tomorrow we're supposed to get 7-8" of snow. If we're feeling plucky maybe we'll head out and get some sledding in. I can already hear Henry protesting once he sees the dangers that are involved in sliding down a snow-covered hill on a flimsy piece of plastic-covered foam. Perhaps there's a bit of a wild-child in him, yet.

Posted by Jenn at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today was the first day back to the usual routine. After a week straight of getting up mid-morning, to say it was tough getting out of bed this morning at 7:40 is putting it mildly. Henry was very happy to get up, but very unhappy to hear he was going to school. Until he spied his lunch box sitting on the counter. Then he was practically pushing me out the door. Right now he's probably running circles around one of his teachers, because that's what he does when he sees her. It's either excitement or a territorial thing.

After dropping off Henry, I headed to Curves for the first time in three weeks. I hadn't been back since I got the stomach bug, and then we traveled, and then I decided my time last week was best spent on the couch with a book. It was nice to move my body again, although my back is still complaining from the shoveling of slush I did before we left for Boston. I'm getting old. And apparently boring because this post is starting to put me to sleep. Until next time...

Posted by Jenn at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So far we've celebrated 2009 by sleeping in until mid-morning, which, as it happens, is what we did to say good-bye to 2008. It's been glorious, indulging in complete laziness, but it is going to make it extremely hard on Monday to wake up and have Henry dressed and at pre-school by 9AM, which is about an hour earlier than we've been getting up. There is no question that Henry completely takes after his mom and dad, although generally he wakes up ready to greet the day. The prolonged morning sluggishness will no doubt come as he gets a little older; it's in his genes.

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

We're still alive. Everyone is currently not sick (knock on wood), although at this point I'm already counting the seconds until May when the cold season subsides and we can breathe easy for a few months. I'm such a complainer.

We had a nice Christmas in Boston. We hardly left my parents' place at all, choosing instead to sit on the couch, take naps, and eat all of the amazing food my mom and dad cooked up. It was hard to come back home and face having to fend for ourselves.

A couple of days before we left for Massachusetts, Henry started asking a couple of times a day if it was Christmas yet. He had picked out one little present that I had put under the tree, asked if it was his, then stuck it in his stocking. When we got to my parents we hung his stocking up with his one present in it, then hid all of the others. Everyday he said he couldn't wait to open his present. On Christmas morning the pile of stuff that had mysteriously appeared under the tree didn't even register; all he could focus on was getting at his one present. After he tore through his stocking, which had been beefed up with some other small toys, and opened his present (a slinky), he was obviously pretty pleased with his haul. Naturally, though, there were a lot of other shiny boxes under the tree with his name on them. He would open one, get totally excited about whatever was inside, insist on playing with it for a while, and then we would have to coax him to open another one. This went on for about an hour until suddenly something clicked and he just started tearing through his presents, paper and ribbons flying, stuffed animals hugged, helicopters flown, and clothes tossed over shoulder. Christmas innocence lost? The next day he asked if it was Christmas again. I told him there were only 364 more days until Christmas. That answer satisfied him, until the next day when he asked if it was Christmas again yet.

Here's a video Dave took (with one of our Christmas presents) of Henry playing with his new workbench and drill:

Posted by Jenn at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We're taking advantage of the lull between the two winter storms that are supposed to hit our area to escape to Beantown. This trip couldn't come at a better time. The house was beginning to feel as oppressing as the hotel in "The Shining" and I was starting to feel very much like Jack Torrance. Or maybe just Jack Nicholson. He seems like he probably feels pretty funky in general without the aid of a whacky Hollywood script. Henry's been continuing to bounce off the walls, trying very hard to keep complete and utter boredom at bay. He's been a trooper. He's also very excited about the prospect of getting in the car and going away. Today he asked many times if and when we were going. I think he's afraid one of us is going to turn around and say "HAHAHA! Just kidding! We're not going anywhere! Wasn't that funny?!?!" Tempting, but needlessly cruel.

Speaking of Henry, the other night we watched the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. We had just seen the scene where Charlie Brown checks his mailbox to see if he had received any Christmas cards. When he sees the mailbox is empty he says "Rats!" and closes it. Henry turned to me and said "There were pretend rats in there." It took me a second to put two and two together. "Pretend rats?" "Yes, pretend rats are in the mailbox." "Oooooohhhhh! Pretend rats! Rats! Of course. Now I get it."

Posted by Jenn at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm thirsty. Really thirsty. Nothing is doing it for me either. I've tried everything. Water, root beer, coke icee (yum!), more water, sparkling grape juice, fizzy water. Still thirsty. Now also sloshing.

2. Henry's played with the sprayer on our kitchen sink so much lately that it now has the unfortunate habit of staying on. The only way to get it to unstick is to let the water run for a little bit. The current score: sprayer 4, Jenn 0. And I didn't even know it was a competition.

3. We are now in hour seven of getting the Christmas tree up, and that doesn't include the time we spent trekking through the freezing cold to pick it out, chop it down, and haul it back to the car, Griswold-style of course. After all of that tree-centric time, all we have to show for our efforts is a tree that's in its stand and decorated with newly purchased, lead-frosted, energy-saver LED lights, plus two strands of garland, one of which ends in a massive tangled knot that Henry and I finally gave up on and just tossed into the lower branches. Tomorrow will be a better day. Hopefully with fewer commas.

4. Both men in the house have been gnoshing on veggie chips that have been seasoned with, among other things, garlic. Then they've spent time in my face, breathing on me. There's nothing quite like seeing an angelic three-year old giving you Bambi eyes, only to be greeted by the green stink of doom when he opens his mouth. Dave I expect it from, but not dear, sweet Henry...

Posted by Jenn at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The stuffing is in the turkey, the turkey is in the oven, and the giblets are simmering away on the stove top. It must be Thanksgiving. We watched the parade this morning. Henry was semi-into it this year. He enjoyed playing the drums along with some of the showtunes/marching bands. He got pretty wound up until he stepped on one of toes wrong. After a bit of a crying jag he settled onto the couch with a bowl of Honeybunnies and his brand new pair of Lightening McQueen slippers (courtesy of Grandma) and convalesced for about 30 minutes. Then he was off again, a slight limp not being much of an obstacle. He hasn't stopped since.

Here's a Thanksgiving Day message from Henry: dp; fhb vy / ,h=4l59-l/7 ,c vf n n, bun mo;.,
..,k m
\cyr v
nlb7kg7n
4 kmjm , ;./
- ,,j./..5m2;[ n

Also: Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Posted by Jenn at 02:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday was a very strange weather day. Before 1PM I had driven in the following: rain, sleet, snow, sunny blue skies, and hail. In that order, too. It's like we're living in the Northeast or something. While we drove into the snow on the way to school, I got all excited and said to Henry "Look! It's snowing out! It's snowing out!" to which Henry responded "No! It is NOT snowing out!" Everyday he also declares that it is not, in fact, cold out, it's hot, therefore he doesn't need a jacket. He's in major denial. It's going to be a tough winter for him until we get some snowman-worthy precipitation.

Posted by Jenn at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're getting geared up for Halloween over here. Lots of scary shapes stuck to our windows, orange and purple lights strung up, piles of pumpkins waiting to be carved. Henry tested out his whale costume at a kids costume party that was hosted by various University sororities and fraternities. There were tons of really cute kids there, plus about 50 Hannah Montana's, which, who can blame them, she wears awesome clothes and frankly, how many girls when I was a kid wanted to dress up as Madonna for Halloween? Speaking of which, radio stations around here have the oddest play lists. I was driving home after dropping Henry off at school this morning when one station went from utterly depressing Pink Floyd to Lucky Star. It was, um, an interesting transition, much like the one I just made from talking about a costume party to a radio station's playlist.

Henry had a good time running around whale-like yesterday afternoon. As fate would have it, he walked into the party holding a box of goldfish which everyone thought was a great addition to his costume while Dave and I were all "Yeah, we totally did that on purpose," even though right before the party we happened to be at Walmart picking up humidifier filters and while waiting to check out Henry asked if we would get him a carton of goldfish. We didn't realize the irony until we were about to walk into the student center, which was fortunately soon enough for us to claim full credit. Henry's favorite game at the party was the one where there were tons of balloons on the floor for kids to kick and throw around. He stayed there for a long time. Then after we went to see what else there was to see, he turned and asked if we could go back to the balloons. I know what I'm doing with the living room next time I host playgroup.

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

This is totally rad. Pennsylvania uses rumble strips to snap you out of whatever daze you're in when you're driving. They should do something along these lines.

Henry is 100% into the Halloween Thomas the Tank Engine DVD we got from a friend of ours. The dazed look he gets on his face is pretty scary. We have to ration it.

We're going on a much needed trip to the Big City very soon. Dave hasn't been sleeping, I need the change of scenery, Flash needs new fire hydrants to sniff, and Henry needs to ride a few escalators and trains. Hopefully we will all come back with a fresh, new outlook.

There's another Hafla coming up in a few weeks that I could potentially be doing three dances in. It's a mildly frightening thought. Regardless of what I decide to do, I'll be practicing a lot over the next few weeks just in case I'm feeling a little wild and crazy. I need to expand my current costume wardrobe which right now officially consists of nothing but coin/fringe hip scarves. Guess I need to go shopping...mwah-hahahahaaa!

Posted by Jenn at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My parents left this morning, leaving Henry and me alone to roam the house wondering exactly who was going to entertain us until Dave gets home. After a week and a half, I've become completely spoiled by having two other people looking after Henry. Finally, we settled in the kitchen, Henry with a measuring cup, me with a whisk, and both of us filled with a sense of high adventure. We made pumpkin pancakes. They tasted like heaven. Henry insisted on serving the pancakes and the syrup because he's such a dictator gentleman.

After breakfast we lounged around kiddie-pool-side in the backyard with Megan and Leo, and then all by ourselves. While Henry played with the hose and a couple of cups, I folded laundry, finished knitting a dishcloth, and started a new book. It was one of the most subdued and relaxing afternoons Henry and I have spent together all summer. When you imagine what idyllic summer afternoons in small town America are like, I think we pretty much hit the nail on the head today. I was even wearing a skirt.

I'm off to bake an apple pie.

Not really.

Posted by Jenn at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As if Julia Child wasn't cool enough, she somehow manages to up the ante .

I bet Anthony Bourdain wishes he had been a spy. Or maybe he was...or is! *gasp* I'd better stop writing this entry now, I'm starting to fear for my safety.

Posted by Jenn at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

While shopping at a toy store over the weekend, Dave and I came across this bargain:

A whole penny off the original price! WOW!!!

I'll give you one guess what Henry's getting for his birthday...

Posted by Jenn at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A friend of ours hosted a 4th of July parade that went up and back down the street where they live. Everyone was decked out in patriotic colors, and the kids rode bikes/trikes/wagons covered in red, white, and blue balloons. I brought Henry's tricycle along for him to ride. We were about fifty feet down the parade route when Henry brought the rear faction to a screeching halt after he decided to disembark and declare his preference for sitting in the car and having a snack. So that's we did.

After the parade and the post-parade popsicles, we headed over to the park with a cooler full of food and met up with another couple of friends who also brought coolers full of food. We played and ate for a few hours and then we carried our tired selves back to the house for naps. It's been a full day and there are still fireworks and BBQ to look forward to.

Hope all of you are having an equally fun and festive 4th!

Posted by Jenn at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You know it's hot out when you look out your living room window and you see this:

Posted by Jenn at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

1. Rolling around in grass after four humid days of 90+ degrees is not recommended because when you get up you'll carry around the stench of death, doom, and decaying vegetable matter. This is not an attractive scent.

2. Last night I saw the first lightning bug of the season blinking around our yard. Yay!

Posted by Jenn at 02:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So. That yard sale we had where we made a little cash. It's now going to help pay for two new rear tires and new rear brakes. Glad we took some of it to the Fence before we found out about all of the car stuff we'd soon be paying for.

Also, because I'm an idiot, the two days I spent hauling stuff around for the yard sale took a toll on my back. Yesterday I could barely move, and if I rested for more than ten minutes between (low-level) activities, the muscles in my lower back would scream bloody murder when I finally attempted to stand up again. I went to physical therapy for this last summer but it didn't help. Belly dancing helped improve the day-to-day pain a lot, reducing it to next to nothing, possibly due to improving my posture and increasing my all-over strength, including the all-important abdominal area. I have an appointment with a friend who's massage therapist on the 23rd. After telling her my history the other day, she thought that working both with her and a physical therapist would help. I'm looking forward to hearing what she has to say at the end of our session.

Today is a day of air conditioning and rest, and possibly a trip to the pool after dinner since Henry's been such a trooper about hanging around and doing nothing with his injured mom.

Posted by Jenn at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We had a yard sale at Megan's house and came away from it with money we didn't have when we woke up in the morning. After we had packed up the stuff that didn't sell and split the money, we celebrated with lunch at the Fence. Between the milkshakes, fried fish/scallops, and hot dogs, Dave and I managed to blow through 1/4 of the money we made.

It was a very hot morning and early afternoon, and after installing an air conditioner in Henry's room, the three of us went our separate ways: Henry went down for a nap, Dave puttered in the garage, and I slept face down on the couch in the living room. A couple of hours later, we peeled ourselves away from our various activities, Henry got some dinner, Dave got dropped off at work, and Henry and I went to the pool. It was in the 90's yesterday and the only way to cool off with any kind of lasting effect definitely involves total immersion in a community pool. It was our first trip this year and Henry was beyond excited. Then we got there and he was terrified of going into the water. So twice I picked him up and brought him all the way in with me, much to his (very vocal) chagrin. The second time did the trick. He played with the water spouts at the shallow end then went back and forth into the water, going a little deeper each time. He did this for the last twenty minutes we were there. By the time we left he was getting about halfway down the length of the pool. The whole exercise offered great insight into my kid's personality.

After picking Dave up from work we headed to our backyard with some M&M ice cream cones. We all hung out and chatted and played until it was time for Henry's bath.

It was an excellent day. I hope the summer is full of others just like it.

Posted by Jenn at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have this friend. We'll call him Paul Fallon. (By the way, that's really his name.) Not so long ago Paul, being the crazy entrepreneur that he is, started up Irish Running Tours, a touring company that allows you to experience all of the beauty of Ireland from the runner's perspective, which if you're me would mean lots of resting accompanied by the rhythmic sound of me wheezing. If you're more fit than I am, and chances are very good that you are, it seems like a pretty nice way to experience a place. Why zip around in a car with your nose in a map thereby missing all the scenery when you can have a really nice guy like Paul take you on a running tour of wherever you'd like to go?

Right now Paul's been doing lots of traveling to trade shows and the like, getting Irish Running Tours' name out there. It's been going really well and I thought I'd do my share by posting a plug and also putting up a link to his site over there on the right-hand sidebar. Go ahead and click it. You know you want to.

Posted by Jenn at 09:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Dave's parents came up for a visit on Friday. I can't speak for them, but the flurry of activity that has been the last two days has pretty much knocked everyone here off of their feet. Henry is zonked out upstairs and I'm about to hit the couch. How did this happen? It could be one of many things: marching around the house with drums and brooms while blasting "McNamara's Band"; running around outside; running around inside; going to Karen's house for a barbecue (where there was also lots of running around outside and in, not to mention really good food. Karen made killer burgers. I'm thinking of going over tonight and demanding more. Not that I've been at all invited.); planting potatoes; blowing bubbles; eating lots of pancakes; making play-doh spaghetti; etc.; etc. It was a great weekend.

Regarding my last post, I think it only fair to tell you that my dad, who also went to see Harry Belafonte, insists that the song he was referring to was not "Jamaica Farewell", but instead was "Day-o". I'm not sure I believe him. On the one hand, I remember feeling sad that it was "Jamaica Farewell" because it's one of my favorite songs, and I could probably convince myself that we had a conversation about it during the car ride home during which I could have declared "You'd think it would be 'Day-o' that he didn't like." Plus, my dad doesn't have a great track record for remember things, like, for instance, his high school graduation, or how old I am. On the other hand, he's like a sponge when it comes to soaking up useless information, so he could very well be right. Anyway, I felt compelled to publicly admit I could be wrong about the specifics of the whole Harry Belafonte analogy. Emphasis on "could be".

Posted by Jenn at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My parents got here early Friday afternoon at approximately 1 PM, which, coincidentally, is about the same time I became chopped liver in the eyes of Henry. Things I'm no longer allowed to do: read a book at naptime/bedtime, tuck Henry into bed, give him a bath, run around the middle of the house chasing after him, play the banjo, be around at all. But let's face it, the one thing that is truly music to my ears would have to be this: "Grammy change diaper! Grammy change diaper! No Mommy's do it, Grammy do it!"

I wonder if I can convince them to stay forever.

Posted by Jenn at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We woke up this morning to find everything iced over. There were cars across the street that looked like sheets of water from a very heavy rain had instantly frozen over them. Henry and I were supposed to crash a playgroup today, but after hearing from Dave that all the streets were bad and everyone he saw on the walk in to work was slipping and sliding, we decided to just stay home. Which meant another day looming ahead of us with no plans, nothing to do, and nowhere we could go. Slightly depressing, but we persevered.

For the past few weeks I've been wanting to make some bread, so after settling Henry down with a quick breakfast, I got out Fanny Farmer and decided to make clover leaf biscuits. It's been a while since I kneaded dough in this house and I quickly remembered why: there's no room on my kitchen counters for it, so I made good use of a large wooden cutting board and the stove top, hopefully not kneading any burners out of whack. Because our house is so cool, I had some trouble finding a source of warmth that was warm enough to get the dough to rise, but not so warm that it would rise too quickly. I tried Fanny Farmer's recommendation of filling a pan with hot water and putting it and the dough (in a separate covered bowl) in the oven. After an hour it hadn't risen much at all so I turned the oven on just until it warmed up and then put the bowl back in and hoped that would do it. It seemed to work out all right.

Henry and I banged on some drums and messed around on iTunes while the dough was rising, then got out the griddle for some pumpkin pancakes. I'm not kidding when I say this: we ate the entire batch, both of us hoping that Dave wasn't planning on coming home for lunch because we didn't want to share. And lest you think that since I'm the adult, I ate a lot more than Henry did, let me just say, you'd be wrong. The kid threw them down one after the other, barely stopping to breathe. I see great things in his future.

While I was making the pancakes I punched down the dough and rolled out a bunch of one inch balls. Three of them in each of the "bowls" in a muffin tin make the cloverleaf. Since the oven had been on to keep the cooked pancakes warm, the stovetop was nice and toasty, so there was no problem trying to figure out what to do with the biscuits for the second rise.

After lunch, while waiting for the biscuits to bake, Henry and I settled under a blanket on the couch and watched "Surf's Up". Well, I watched it. Henry watched the first twenty minutes, but then did a lot of running around. What's the fastest way to get rid of my kid? Ask him for a cuddle. The biscuits came out great. My mom told me after the first time I made these biscuits that the first time she made them they were little round rocks rolling around in the muffin tins. Every time I've made them since hearing that story I've expected to pull hard little rocks out of my oven. So far so good, knock on wood.

Right now Henry's upstairs napping, the dog is next to me snoring, and I'm feeling a little droopy myself. My house smells like bacon, pumpkin pancakes, and fresh-baked bread. If I took a nap, I wonder what I'd dream about? Probably breakfast, which is not a bad thing.

And I just realized, I wrote a post that's mostly about making biscuits. My life is complete.

And Happy Birthday Leo!

Posted by Jenn at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I set some steak out to defrost this morning to have for dinner tonight. For a side I was planning on making a cheese sauce and cooking up some cauliflower. Around 11 it started to really snow and it hasn't stopped since. Now that it's six hours and twenty minutes later, what I really want for dinner is cold-weather comfort food, so I threw the steaks back in the fridge and pulled out a frozen dinner we made from our Thanksgiving turkey/stuffing/mashed potato leftovers. I also really want some pumpkin pancakes. That would be kind of a weird dinner though wouldn't it? Although pumpkin pancakes taste kind of like pumpkin pie, so maybe it wouldn't be that weird.

There's a lot of snow coming out of the sky and landing on the ground right now. It's awesome.

Posted by Jenn at 05:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Pats lost the Superbowl last night.

This morning Henry received a potty book in the mail.

It's already a crappy week.

HAHHHAAHAAHAHHAHAAA!

*wipes tear from eye*

Oh the wit!

My kid hasn't had a bath since Thursday night. He was supposed to have one Saturday (he's got dry skin so we give him a bath every other night in the winter), but Dave and I were feeling lazy and very much inclined to put it off until Sunday. By the time we realized Sunday probably wasn't going to be a good night for a bath what with the Superbowl on the tv and friends and family over to watch, everything was in full swing. By the time the game was over, it was pretty late, and by the time we wrangled Henry upstairs for bed it was somewhere around 10 o'clock. By the time I got close wrapping up this paragraph I realized this is just a long-winded way of saying I'm going to go upstairs right now, wake Henry up from his nap, and give him a bath because wow, does he ever need one.

Posted by Jenn at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dave got a copy of P.D. James' book "Children of Men" for Christmas from one of his friends. We both read it and although Dave thought the author copped out a bit by using a few sci-fi cliches here and there, we both really liked it. I couldn't put it down. Another thing we both agreed upon was that it seemed like it was practically written to be a movie. The copy Dave received has a big sticker on it that reads "Soon to be a major motion picture", a fact I happened to mention to my dad on the phone one evening. I told him I couldn't wait for it to come out and was thus informed that it had come out already, last summer in fact, and that it starred, and I quote "You know, that guy...what's his name...you know...he was in...ummmmm...what else has he been in?...ah, jeez, what's his name?...uhhhhh...hey Debbie? What's the name of that guy that was in...uhhhhhh..." Eventually we figured out he was thinking of Clive Owen. You know, what's his name who was in that movie. So "Children of Men: Now a major motion picture starring Clive Owen" got bumped up to the top of the Netflix queue.

A warning, there are some spoilers below.

I was disappointed in the movie, partly because it veered so far away from the book, but also because I didn't love the focus of the movie. It ignored most of what I found to be really terrifying in the book which was how the government used fear to control the people, which allowed them to get away with the forced slavery of immigrants and the mass murder of the elderly. What would be the state of mind of the people who were willing to look past reality and except these things as the way it had to be in order for the country to run smoothly? The book ends with Theo putting the ring of England on his finger, and you just know that despite his finally being capable of looking outside of himself and his past, he's probably going to become as much of a dictator as his cousin, Xan, was. Xan ("Nigel" onscreen) pops up in the movie, as does the Quietus (in the movie it's a pill. A pill!), but you're not really sure why they bothered. It's almost as if they deemed it necessary to pay some sort of homage to the book other than using the same character names that they just threw those in.

I read a quote from the director on Wikipedia that describes how he dislikes "a cinema about exposition and explanation" which is ironic because although he used symbolism in the movie, it was often so obvious you felt he stopped short of suspending the action so that one of the characters could turn to the camera and explain it to us, like "Look! She just told me she's pregnant! And she's standing in a barn! And she doesn't know who the dad is! Could this *be* any more like the nativity?".

Has anyone else seen the movie or read the book? What did you think?

Posted by Jenn at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When we last left my kitchen floor, specifically the spot that's half in front of the oven and half in front of the dog's water/food bowls, it had just been thrown up on by both the dog and the kid which earned it the distinction of having been bleached not once, but twice within an hour. Never had it been so clean.

Then Leo came over and upended Flash's water bowl. Out came the towels, but, alas, no bleach this time. Then I managed to knock over a cup of orange juice I had poured out for Henry on the stovetop and guess where it all ended up? Out came the towels again, and after Megan and Leo went home, out came the mop. Right now that spot on our floor is probably cleaner than our dining room table.

So, what are the chances of all of that happening in that particular spot all in the same day?

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

Statistically speaking, what do you think the chances are that both the dog and the kid would throw up on the exact same spot of the kitchen floor within an hour of each other?

Posted by Jenn at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Did we just have a weekend, because it really doesn't seem like there was one this week. You know what else? As of this minute, Dave has been up for 29 hours and 45 minutes. Because he didn't go to sleep last night. Because apparently he's forgotten that he doesn't *go* to college, he *teaches* kids who are in college.

This morning I forgot to put the lid down on the washing machine so when I ran down to move all of our towels to the dryer, I was greeted with a washer full of water and wet towels. Oops. It's been a while since I've done that.

We're all feeling better here. Well, except for Dave who's been up for 29 hours and 48 minutes. This morning Henry watched "Cars" and I tried to get some more Christmas Thank You cards written and talked on the phone with my mom. Then the rest of the day leading up to naptime was spent eating lunch, reading books, drawing xylophones/helicopters/airplanes, and talking about how at Christmas Grandpa would turn on the light over the piano for Henry, a fact that was brought up, seemingly randomly, by the young man himself, who at the time was enjoying a grilled cheese sandwich. I don't know how or if the two are connected, but I'm not making any assumptions one way or the other.

I remembered yesterday that January is Jane Austen month on PBS, just in time to catch "Northanger Abbey" on Masterpiece Theater. I've never read the book, so I don't know how the two compare, although probably pretty favorably since Andrew Davies did the screenplay, but it sure did end abruptly. In three sentences the main character was married, had a baby, and celebrated her sister-in-law's marriage, the end. Of course, how can a story go wrong when the main love interest has a name as fine as "Henry"?

Posted by Jenn at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Henry caught a cold, then I caught a cold, then last night no one got any sleep except for the dog, who, from our respective corners of the bed, Dave and I were each fantasizing about throwing out the window. There's nothing worse than hearing your dog intermittently heave lengthy, loud sighs betwixt snores because she's just so darned comfortable while your tossing and turning and thinking ahead to what a wreck the next day is going to be. I got up with Henry at 6:30 and while he was all chipper I died on the couch just a little bit until Dave came downstairs and suggested I catch a few hours of sleep. So I did. Then I hauled myself out of bed to make my doctor's appointment where I told my Dr. I couldn't sleep because of allergies and annoying dogs. She gave me a prescription for one, but couldn't do anything for me about the other.

Right now Henry's in bed coughing away. Sometimes when I'm sick I think it's our house that's killing us, although I don't know why I think that. Maybe because everything seems extra unhealthy when you're not feeling well, like the whole world's against you and your sinuses so why shouldn't the house be too? Every time I get over a cold I go on a cleaning jag. After this one runs its course I'm probably going to hire someone to clean our couch and rug and also maybe look into getting someone to clean out our heating vents. Have I mentioned how much I dislike forced air heat? I don't like it very much at all. It's all about radiators.

That's what's been going on around here. Lots of Tylenol popping and napping. Oh, and crabbing. Lots and lots of crabbing.

Posted by Jenn at 09:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last night Dave and I watched the third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. It was the third time I've seen the movie. Despite having seen it twice before, I found myself once again hoping that Elizabeth would toss Will aside in favor of Jack Sparrow. He's far more interesting, not to mention dreamy, what with the professionally applied eyeliner and faux dreads ("freads" for short?). Alas, it was not meant to be.

Tuesday it was almost 70 here. After shrugging off the hint of anxiety over the world coming to an end that always accompanies late-Spring-like weather in early January, we headed to the park with Megan, Leo, Phoebe, and Otto. Henry rode his new tricycle. He also insisted Megan push him, which left me to enjoy a leisurely walk behind a stroller with a kid who was perfectly content to go along for the ride. Having the opportunity to briefly experience it all again from behind the cupholder of a Graco, let me just say, "Those were the days." After we got to the park, Megan chased after Henry while Leo and Otto got down and dirty in the mulch. After that I settled Leo into a swing and took advantage of his being trapped with nowhere to go by pinching his thighs and giving him eskimo kisses. If he cries whenever he sees a swing, now his parents know why. On the other hand, if he squeals with delight whenever he sees a swing, I think I'll just go ahead and take credit for that as well.

Two words I wish my kid didn't know how to say: "nebulizer", "McDonald's"

I'm very much against decorations for holidays showing up in stores two months before the actual holiday is supposed to occur, with the exception of Valentine's Day. January and February can be pretty bleak months and sometimes they need all the help they can get. I love seeing all the pink and red and hearts and roses everywhere.

Right now I hear a mug of hot apple cider and some quality time with a book calling my name.

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

Megan and Leo came over this afternoon to hang out. After they left Henry settled down to watch a little pre-nap Elmo/Stomp on the TV while I checked my email real quick. When I went back out to the living room there was no Henry to be found. I called out his name, heard a thump-thump-thump overhead, and headed over to the staircase to see what he was up to. He started coming downstairs asking "Megan go? Megan go?" Apparently he was searching high and low for Megan. I told him she went home and he said "Megan went home," somewhat forlornly. He perked up though when I mentioned we'd be seeing her again tonight.

This evening we're all going over to visit Mr. L at the nursing home with a big tin full of Christmas cookies. Giving up the tin is quite the sacrifice for Henry because he loves using it as a drum. The lid has lots of little dents all over it. After that, we'll have some dinner, open some presents, put the kid to bed, then hopefully watch Mr. Bean's Christmas special, which I haven't seen in a couple of years. Maybe Dave'll agree to rent "Love Actually" (or is it "Love, Actually"?) and we can have a snuggle on the couch. What are the chances?

Posted by Jenn at 02:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Today's going to be a pretty low-key day. So far we've watched "Frosty the Snowman" and "Charlie Brown Christmas" (Henry's a Frosty/Charlie Brown addict), the viewing of which was precipitated by some fine behavior displayed by the young man while having to spend some quality time with his brand-new nebulizer. He's still leery of it but he's handling it like a champ.

It's gray out and since it's also cold, I'm hoping for a little snow. I don't know if it's in the forecast, and I don't want to check to find out because I'll be disappointed if it isn't. We should really move to Vermont. I hear it's beautiful this time of year, with all that snow.

Posted by Jenn at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The nor'easter is not being very nor'easterly in our neck of the woods. Last night sleet started falling around 9:30 and carried on for most of the night. Our bedrooms are in converted attic space right under the roof so when it rains or there's sleet at night, we can hear it pretty clearly. There's no better sound to fall asleep to, with the possible exception of ocean waves. Soon after we got up this morning it started to rain. About two hours ago I tried tuning in to our local channels to see what else we might be getting out of the storm but all I got were five channels worth of blank screen time. We still get Fox News so we'll at least be able to stay misinformed about the world in general. (Ouch! Couldn't resist I guess.) I can only assume Scranton/Wilkes Barre must be getting some pretty interesting weather if it's knocked out their ability to send out a signal.

With luck the rain will turn to snow and we'll get a few feet of the white stuff. This is entirely wishful thinking, but it's my blog and I can dream if I want to.

Friday night our town had a late shopper's night. It was a madhouse, which was great because it's never a madhouse downtown. It makes a person feel like they actually live somewhere. Anyway, Libby had a sale so I went in and picked up a few skeins of Lonesome Stone Fibers yarn in Hot Rod Red. The picture doesn't do it justice. It's got some black in there, as well as a hot pink that matches my wool coat perfectly. You get 400 yards per skein. I bought two. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet. Maybe a scarf and matching gloves? I spent some time flipping through Vogue's knitting bible looking for some inspiring lace patterns. The yarn's fairly delicate so I was thinking of doing something lacy with it on bigger needles than the yarn's gauge calls for, at least for the scarf. Then I was thinking if I planned it out properly, I could duplicate the lace pattern on the back of a pair of fingerless gloves because who doesn't want to be all matchy matchy? That's the idea for now. Maybe later I'll see something that will inspire me to head in a completely different direction.

Posted by Jenn at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm feeling a mite uninspired, yet still have the desire to post something, so how about another rendition of random stuff? Okay!

- I have a hair appointment for 3 this afternoon. The last time I went I told my...uhhh...good grief, I've completely forgotten how one refers to the person who cuts one's hair. Hair cutter? Hair stylist? Probably I should skip the cut and go straight upstairs for a nap. Or I should start playing Brain Age. Anyway, the last time I went to the salon (circumvented that little snag, no pun intended) I asked for an angled cut, but when it was all done there was nary an angle to be seen. I'll give it another shot today. Can't annoy this particular stylist because after much trial and error, she's the best I've been to around here.

- Took Henry back to the doctor's yesterday. He was diagnosed with asthma that's triggered by colds. We now have a nebulizer sitting in a box on the floor of our dining room. I swear, this kid gets more expensive everyday. I'm going to have to work hard so our expenditures for him don't eclipse our expenditures for me. I'm a lady after all!

- It's snowing out right now. It's very pretty. I'm looking forward to walking to the salon this afternoon.

- I just discovered this website: Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog. It's very funny. Plus they have awesome t-shirts for sale.

- Yesterday I made 12 billion molasses cookies for the playgroup cookie exchange, which was ultimately canceled due to the bad weather. There's a possibility it'll be rescheduled for next Tuesday. What are the chances there will be any cookies left by then? It's a mystery.

Posted by Jenn at 02:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I read an article somewhere that talked about how many chemicals we're exposed to in everyday items such as beauty products. Being someone who is all about beauty products, I decided to go organic with them as I ran out of things. First items were shampoo and soap. I bought Kiss My Face olive oil and honey soap. I used it twice three weeks ago and I'm still recovering from how badly it made me break out. Fortunately I didn't use it on my face. Instead of bar soaps, I'm going to give an organic body wash a try as soon as my Softsoap that smells like Playdoh runs out. Dave says he likes the Kiss My Face soap, so if you don't have my skin, he recommends it. The shampoo I bought was pretty bad too. I couldn't remember the brand a friend recommended so I went ahead and winged it when I made my choice. When I'd lather it into my hair, it actually didn't lather at all, and within 20 seconds my hair was a big, massive, knotty mess that could barely be rinsed. It also didn't clean my hair, although it dried it out nicely despite the application of lots of conditioner. No one wants an itchy scalp two hours after you wash your hair. Today I went back to the natural food place and got Giovanni brand shampoo and conditioner (See? I remembered!) so I'm hoping it works a lot better than the other stuff. I'll let you know.

Meanwhile, for the last couple of days I've been wanting to listen to music that I know all the words to but which I haven't heard in a while. I tried to get "Ritual de lo Habitual" on iTunes but they only have a partial album. Bob Marley's "Legends" it is. Suddenly I'm 16 again and getting all daydreamy about that cute college guy I work with.

Posted by Jenn at 03:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It's rainy and gloomy out here, so we've been doing rainy and gloomy day things, like watching a little Elmo, drinking coffee and/or milk, vacuuming, playing our banjo and guitar, laundry, dismantling stuff and getting other things back to their proper places, taking turns tucking each other in and pretending to snore, reading a book, turning out the lights, rocking, having a chat, taking a real nap. Well, one of us is. The other one of us is paying bills.

The one of us who is paying bills is pretty much done. She's also thinking about retiring to the couch with an Archie comic and some cheese and crackers. She may also be wondering if instead of making chili tonight for dinner, perhaps a pizza is in order. Because now she's tired.

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

While we were all out shopping this afternoon, my dad called and left the following message on our answering machine:

"Two antenna's meet on a rooftop, fall in love and decide to get married. The wedding was okay, but the reception was amazing."

Ba-doom-boom!

Posted by Jenn at 02:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The turkey's stuffed and in the oven, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is over, leaves have been raked, the house smells amazing, and across town Megan's busy making ravioli and stuffed mushrooms to bring to the table this evening. Celebrating the holiday with family and friends, in person and in spirit, is what it's all about.

Posted by Jenn at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We've been really busy today. Everyone's been running around doing things. Dave's dad and I went to Phoebe's house this morning to scope out and pillage her husband's formidable collection of cardboard boxes (Now she doesn't have to shove the door to that particular room to open it!) so that he can make this for Henry, but not before I slammed my finger between our front door and the door jamb. Pain! Meanwhile, Dave rushed home from work so he could get a pork loin started in the smoker. I worked on making some potato salad. While all of this other stuff was going on, Henry and his Grandma were playing in the living room, putting together puzzles, setting up trains, and getting a mini-band going.

The rest of the day was a blur of cooking, eating, cleaning, and a trip to the store, during which Dave and I sat at McDonalds with cotton candy and an Icee for ten minutes, enjoying the downtime and the fact that our kid wasn't there asking us if he could watch Cars (which, for the record, he's currently watching with his Grandma).

I was on the verge of forgetting to post today, there was so much going on. If I had a camera, I'd regale you with pictures of the felt cookies I started sewing yesterday, Dave's dad working on Henry's stove, a gorgeous centerpiece my parents had sent to our house, and all of us noshing on an amazing pork roast. You'll just have to use your imagination.

Posted by Jenn at 07:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Henry's watching Elmo and I'm rushing around trying to remember all of the little things I wanted to get done before Dave's parents arrive later this afternoon, like MOVE DAVE'S RIDICULOUSLY HUGE HOCKEY BAG FROM THE GUEST ROOM SIDE TABLE! Oh wait, Dave was supposed to do that.

Really all I have left to do is vacuum and continue on my quest to shift random stuff to more convenient places, like deep, dark recesses of closets. Otto and Phoebe are coming by later for lunch, and now that Otto's crawling, he'll probably be my toughest vacuuming critic today. Hopefully I'll pass inspection.

Suddenly I'm overwhelmed with the desire to commit to sitting on the couch and watching all five hours of Pride and Prejudice, with maybe a few cocoa breaks tossed in there for variety. That wouldn't be a terrible thing would it?

Oh wait, I have a two-year old. Never gonna happen.

Posted by Jenn at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So I broke the camera. I mean, who cares, really. No one actually has any use for a functioning camera around the holidays. I've never seen pictures of kids gleefully ripping open presents, or stuffing their faces full of turkey, or trimming trees, or anything like that. That's not the kind of preservation of family memories people generally go for, right?

Can you tell I'm giving myself one heck of a kick in the pants right now?

Yesterday, I happened to drop the camera right after the battery died, so we had to wait for it to charge before checking to see if it was working or not. It wasn't. Okay, technically it was, but first you had to take it out to dinner, ply it full of an expensive french wine, buy it some flowers from the little old lady selling them on the corner, and then, if you held it just right, maybe it would think about turning itself on. I managed to download the last set of pictures I'd taken, and then I left it alone.

This morning Henry and I took it back to Best Buy where they said they didn't have much hope for resurrecting it, until I showed them how you could turn it back on. Then they decided to go ahead and ship it back to the manufacturer to see if it could be repaired. We're still under parts warranty, but not under labor, so we'll find out later this week how much it's going to cost us to fix it. And as it turns out, I really want it fixed. I love this camera. It makes me a little misty thinking about it being out there in the world, far from home, sad and broken.

Meanwhile, Henry and I took care of some holiday shopping. Don't tell him but he's getting a Magnadoodle. And a pop-up tent if I can find one I like. We also picked up a couple of items for other people on our list, as well as some fabric to make our own version of this, and some felt to make our own versions of these. After two hours of kicking around stores, we were both pretty hungry so we headed over to the mall chinese restaurant and had some fried rice, bourbon chicken, and black pepper chicken.

We were happy campers after that.

Posted by Jenn at 03:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Tonight we're going to a friend's house for what's essentially a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. Dave made his famous apple pie and I made my family's traditional sausage stuffing. I can't tell you how amazing our house smells right now. What's even more exciting is across town a turkey is sitting on a hot grill, dripping a pesto rub. We're *so* looking forward to dinner tonight.

Henry gets to hang with his best buddy Thomas this evening, which means I get to watch one of my all time favorite interactions go down before me: usually Thomas and Henry don't really notice each other until they've been in the same room for about five minutes, and this despite Henry repeatedly saying "Oh boy Thomas, oh boy Thomas", all the way to his house. Then, suddenly, they'll look up from their respective toys, see each other, smile and point, and make gleeful squeaky-type sounds. It's the cutest thing ever.

Hope all of you have as good a Saturday night as we will be!

Posted by Jenn at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dave's at the doctor's right now. He's been sick for, ummm, let's see...about a month now. Last night when he came home from his conference I suggested it might be time to make an appointment with our doctor. He grudgingly agreed. This morning he tried to forget to call, but I've been living with him long enough to know how he operates. I hope he starts feeling better soon.

I've been spending too much time on Facebook.

I've also been eating too many oatmeal raisin cookies.

I just remembered I forgot to switch the laundry over to the drier, which means I also forgot to start a new load.

We had tumbling today. I didn't want to go. I really didn't want to go when we got to the car and discovered that the car seat wasn't in it. We had taken it out before Dave left in case I wanted to strap it into someone else's car. As if there's anywhere interesting to go around here. I contemplated staying home, but at the end of every class each kid gets a sticker to put on a card that has his/her name on it, and the thought of getting a card back at the end of the session that has even one empty, sad, stickerless box on it makes me twitchy. Plus, I was thinking that not going someplace because you have to walk there instead of drive probably isn't the greatest message to be sending to my kid. So we went by stroller.

Henry has a friend in our class named Thomas. When I told him this morning we were going to be going to tumbling, he said "Thomas tumbling oh boy!"

Last Friday I saw "The Darjeeling Limited". It was so good. I wish I could erase the memory of it so I could go see it for the first time again.

Henry's currently taking a nap wearing the hat I made him. He doesn't know it's the new one because I'm extra super stealthy. Ha! Take that!

Posted by Jenn at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Henry's had a cough for the last two weeks. Just as it seemed to be getting better, he went and caught a cold on top of it. He was up a lot of last night coughing, which was a bummer, but I have to admit I was happy to see this morning that his nose was runny because his mystery cough with no other symptoms was making me a little nervous. Just to be on the safe side, I'm taking him to the pediatrician tomorrow morning for a checkup to make sure his lungs sound okay. He went down for a nap about twenty minutes ago; I can hear him coughing away. He really needs to get some rest. We got one of those Vicks waterless vaporizers so with luck that'll help calm his throat and nose down enough for him to get a little shut-eye.

You know who else needs to take a little nap? Me. And Dave. And probably lots of other people too.

The next session of belly dancing started yesterday evening. There was a two week break between the last class and this one, long enough, apparently, for me to forget how much I enjoy it, because last night I could bearly drag myself there. Happily, once we got started I was all over it. This time, instead of Egyptian style belly dance, we'll be doing Turkish style. It's a lot more aerobic and a lot less restrained. It uses a 9/8 rhythm which I personally think is nuts, but our teacher assures us we'll be totally used to it by the end of the class. Yeaaahhhh...

Posted by Jenn at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There was an ant uprising in our kitchen yesterday. Ants are one notch above cockroaches. I hate that swarming thing they do where they all jump into one big pile like they're at a Rancid show or something and run all over each other. Have they never been introduced to the concept of personal space?

So after spending a little quality time with the internet, I walked into the kitchen and there were about forty or fifty tiny ants running gleefully toward and on top of something that probably fell out of Henry's mouth during snacktime. I'm surprised he doesn't have a constant line of ants following him around everywhere with little hearts buzzing around their heads. I had to resist the urge to jump up on a chair and commence shrieking. Then I had to resist the urge to call Dave and commence shrieking.

I grabbed a couple of paper napkins and frantically tried to goosh them, but had only moderate success. I thought about my possible options, and finally settled on squirting them with 409. And it worked. And I now feel incredibly guilty. I mean, what a way to go. Poor ants.

Really, incredibly, enormously guilty.

Sigh.

Posted by Jenn at 08:39 AM | Permalink

...specifically Galway two weeks from now, and you're a runner, my friend Paul has organized a 10K race you should definitely consider taking a part in. As added incentive, the first 200 runners get a free t-shirt!

Once, a long time ago, I asked him if he'd train me for a race. It was the worst week of my life. Actually, that's not entirely true because up to that point I'd had 21 years of experience to prepare for the amount of crabbing that was going to come out of my mouth over the course of those few days. Paul, however, hadn't, so it was probably way less fun for him than for me.

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

Henry's gotten very into Elmo lately; Elmo's the greatest. I personally don't think Elmo's the greatest. In fact, I may find him just a smidge annoying, just like every other parent of a toddler probably does. The show's only saving grace is Bill Irwin (aka. Mr. Noodles). Sometimes when I'm watching it with Henry, I wonder what it must be like to live in a world composed entirely of crayon scribbles and I've come to the conclusion that it would be insane, and that it's no wonder Elmo is the way he is.

Last week Dave gave me a bob. Sounds kind of dirty, but I'm referring to the hairstyle. I'd been thinking for a few weeks that I needed to get some of the length trimmed off, and was reaching the point of desperation where I was entertaining the thought of going to a hairstylist who hasn't done a very good job in the past, just for the instant gratification. While Dave and I were watching the season finale of Shear Genius, mention was made of the Vidal Sassoon bob, so I asked Dave if he didn't maybe feel like cutting my hair. And since he'd already had two beers in him, he said "Sure!" And he did a great job. I asked him to leave it long in the front and short in the back for the swing factor, and he did. He did such a good job, I'm getting tons of compliments. And you should see the look in women's eyes when I tell them my husband did it. The general consensus is if the whole Chemistry Professor thing doesn't work out, he's got other career options to fall back on.

Posted by Jenn at 02:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Henry and I are having a pretty good day today. Instead of stressing out about running around to playgrounds and getting errands out of the way, we put on our best lounging clothes and kicked around the house all morning, indulging in our deepest darkest desires: I spent some time rearranging everything in the back room now that's it's got a fresh new coat of paint livening things up while Henry got busy watching DVD's and tearing apart the living room. It looks like a toy factory exploded in there so mission accomplished. Right now he's upstairs napping, no doubt dreaming about chasing cats, cats being his most favoritest thing ever in the whole wide world, after cheddar bunnies, pears, sidewalk chalk, and slides.

Have I mentioned Dave and I got tickets to a Wiggles concert that's taking place in late July? Pretty exciting stuff. Seriously. We're excited! We have plans to go to Asilomar (Dave has a conference there next Spring) and Hawaii next year, so we're not going to go on vacation this year because we're trying to save for those two potentially expensive trips. However, since summer vacation season is almost in full swing, and since we have to drive two hours to get to the Wiggles concert, I've been sniffing around the web trying to scout out beaches that are near where we're going to be. I've come up with Bradley Beach. Anyone know anything about it? It's on the Jersey Shore, which scares me a little bit because everything I know about it I learned from MTV's "True Life: Jersey Shore" ("...maaaan, that's good from far, but far from good"). We don't want insane nightlife, we just want a quiet beach. Wait! No! Stop! Really! We can't afford it! And yet...

Want to see pictures of our back room? Here's the before:

and the after:

We have a weight machine taking up a lot of floorspace in the back room, which we use as an office and as a guest room. Future guests will perhaps be happy to hear that we're moving the weight machine into the garage, and in its place will be a headboard and footboard, with a bed taking up the empty space between the two. We think you've earned it.

Posted by Jenn at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over the past few weeks, a couple of creative people have managed to put Henry's hometown here in Central PA on the youtube map.

E. Pickens music video:

A clever short film about copyright laws made by local University prof:

And since this is a post all about youtube, I'll share with you Henry's latest favorite video:

Posted by Jenn at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My parents, my grandma, and my aunt and uncle came to town for the weekend to celebrate my grandma's birthday. I went into the weekend three pounds lighter than I came out. It was totally worth it. The weather was great so we did a lot of BBQ'ing. My dad and I went down to the river to get a little bit of fishing in yesterday afternoon during Henry's nap. We didn't catch anything except for a couple of trees. My mom chased Henry around for a few hours in the afternoon while I mowed the lawn. She looked exhausted by the time we all sat down to dinner. Mowing the lawn is tiring, but it's not as tiring as chasing after my kid.

Posted by Jenn at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the worst time of year. You get teased with a few warm, sunny days which send you outside to do whatever it is you do when you're buoyed by a fit of spring fever. Inevitably the cold, damp weather rears it's ugly head again and you have cabin fever even worse than you did before the spell of warm weather.

After the excitement of Saturday's Easter egg hunt, Sunday fell like a big, wet blanket. It was cold, gray, and rainy. And depressing. So I sat around and crabbed about how tired and bored I was and how there was nothing to do. It was a bad day. If I could go back and do it over, well, I really wouldn't because the first time was enough.

Then there was yesterday. It was in the 70's! Same thing today! So we went to the park and played! And we kicked around a couple of balls in the backyard! And we blew lots of bubbles! And I bought my first iced coffee of the season! Life is good.

I'm ignoring all of the snow showers that are being forecast for later this week. They're not going to happen anyway. It's going to be mid-70's, low humidity, and sunny everyday from now until September. Or else.

Posted by Jenn at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dave and I have agreed on the name Roscoe for our fish. Once upon a time there was a spider that lived in our kitchen window which we named Roscoe. The next summer, another spider showed up, so he became Roscoe II. Last summer no spider showed up at all and I was sad. Since I personally find spiders to be icky, I decided that it was the lack of something, anything, named "Roscoe" in my life that weighed most heavily on my heart, so Roscoe the Fish it is.

Last night I went online and looked up information on how to care for a Betta fish. Thanks to this site and some advice from my Grandma, I went to Walmart this morning armed with a list of things I need to get besides water conditioner and fish flakes. Our fish is going to be living in style. MTV Cribs is going to be knocking on the side of his tank soon, looking to get a tour. Or he'll be dead by Saturday.

How Roscoe has changed our life: every afternoon (since Tuesday, so, twice) Henry and I have a post-nap snack at the dining room table where we munch on goldfish, feed Roscoe, and then have a very animated conversation about him while watching him swim. It really is as cute as it sounds.

Posted by Jenn at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Henry's a youtube junkie. Here are his current obsessions: 12 Days of Christmas reworked Indian style; I'm a Kitty Cat; Hot Potato by The Wiggles (pre-hot Anthony).

Yesterday evening Dave and I had the following conversation:

me: You know, I've gotten so used to your late-night work schedule that when you do come up to bed while I'm still awake, I get a little annoyed.
dave: I've been getting annoyed when I go up to bed ten minutes after you do just in time to see you close your book and turn out the light.*

Last night I went upstairs at 11:04. I spent the next hour reading, waiting for Dave to come upstairs. Meanwhile, Dave took the dog for a walk, cleaned up the kitchen, and did who knows what else. At 12:10 I finally gave up waiting, put my book away, and turned off the light. At 12:15 Dave came upstairs. I listened to him fumble around in the dark and asked if he'd like me to turn on the light. He said no. Then we had the following conversation:

dave: Did you wait up for me?
me: Yeah, I turned the light off five minutes before you came up.
dave: I was staying downstairs so you could chill out and go to bed before I came up.

Then we laughed. A lot. That is how completely in tune with each other we are.

*We both like to read before we go to sleep.

Posted by Jenn at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rainn Wilson hosted SNL this past week. His opening monologue is hilarious:

Lorne Michael's Michael Scott was *really* good.

Posted by Jenn at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been scoping out the various Mardi Gras cams courtesy of NOLA.com. You can find them here. So far my favorite is the bourbocam. It's like I'm there except I don't have any beads and I've managed to keep my shirt on, although you never know, the day's not over.

Posted by Jenn at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Valentines received:

Henry - 3
Flash - 1
Dave - 0
Jenn - 0

Yes, even the dog got a Valentine, and not from me or Dave either. It's very Charlie Brown, isn't it? It's always sad to see Valentine's Day come and go. I love all of the pinks and reds and heart-shaped everything that take over the local shops. It's a cheery holiday to have in the middle of the winter, just when cabin fever starts to settle in.

It's been snowing here since yesterday morning. I'm very happy about this because it really was about time. I've been out shoveling twice just to revel in the glory of it all. I love how quiet it gets in the middle of the day during a snowstorm. Very peaceful. I'm hoping that by Friday Henry will be feeling well enough to go out for a bit of snow tubing. Actually, I'm hoping that by Friday we'll have dug ourselves out enough to be able to go buy Henry a snowsuit and snow boots.

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

It's 3:30 and Henry's actively refusing to nap. That plus the fact that he woke up a lot last night means I'm a little groggy. It also means I'm desperate for him to take a nap, any kind of nap. I put him down (again) five minutes ago and the crying seems to have subsided so my wish may be coming to fruition. I'm supposed to be making meatballs for spaghetti tonight but I think it may be time to call in the reinforcements. (The reinforcements being anyone who will deliver food to our door.)

Is anyone else tired of the extreme cold weather? Henry and I have been cooped up (with the exception of playgroup and grocery shopping) since Saturday because it's too cold to go for walks around the neighborhood. It's very demoralizing. It's also a little difficult to come up with new and exciting activities to pass the time. Today we read every single one of his books. Yesterday we wreaked havoc with his crayons and even colored a little. What do you do with a 17 month old kid when you're stuck inside? Any suggestions?

It's still quiet upstairs. I'm going to seize this opportunity to go crash on the couch.

I shouldn't have written those last two sentences. He's crying again. So....Dave, when are you coming home?

Posted by Jenn at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

And just to be wacky, I'm working in reverse chronological order:

How cute is this:

I found it at one of the shops in town that sell handmade crafts. I can't decide what it is though. A dragon? A bird? A chicken? My grandmother has a shelf full of glass animals in her bedroom, so I think I'm going to send it to her. A few years ago I was looking at her collection and she said that she used to have more but that she had bumped the display case which caused a lot of them to fall and break. She said she was really mad at herself for doing it, but that she was also glad it had been her because she would have never forgiven anyone else. Then she gave me the stink-eye and I backed away from the shelf quickly but carefully. Okay, the part about the stink-eye isn't true. The backing away from the shelf after hearing the story is.

Here's a picture of it with my keys and Consumer Reports, just to give you an idea of how big the thing is.

Posted by Jenn at 06:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Since Sunday I've been experiencing intermittent yet sharp pains in my stomach. I can't figure out what it is. Yesterday afternoon it occurred to me that maybe Megan's gone into labor and I'm having sympathy pains. Can friends have sympathy pains? Probably not. Anyway, I mentioned my theory to her last night and she said she definitely wasn't in labor, which was disappointing but also a relief because she said it as she was driving us to a meeting we attended two or three towns away and really, it wouldn't be a good idea to be driving away from the hospital if you happen to be in labor. It's probably just gas brought on by too many nacho's, the fact that the Colts are going to the Superbowl, and the .1345567568 inches of snow we got yesterday. Snow really wreaks havoc on my digestive system. Not really, but why not say it anyway?

Did I mention we got a new camera on Saturday? It's a Panasonic Lumix and I'd tell you the particulars but then I'd have to get up and go find it. I love it. It's really user-friendly. It's got all of these pre-sets for different settings you may find youself in such as: candlelight, night sky, fireworks, self-portraits, etc. This is great because I know nothing about photography, especially not photography with a digital camera. I'm a point-and-clicker. In fact, the pictures that are currently waiting to be downloaded are indicative of what I'm going to be using it for: 237 pictures of my kid taking a bath, plus two movies in which I unsuccessfully try to cajole him into performing.

Posted by Jenn at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm fairly certain I've been up all night. We haven't been home since right before Halloween and the house feels like a giant dust bomb blew up in it. Claritin only takes the edge off. Our bedroom, which was once attic space, doesn't have a forced air heating vent in it like the rest of the house. It has a small electric baseboard which has a faulty setting dial so that most nights we use it we end up over-heating the room. Last night when I turned on the heater you could smell the dust warming up on it. Just thinking about it is enough to send a person into allergy-induced asthmatic fits. I might have to hire someone to come in and clean the place before we move back.

I think I'll jump in the shower and head out to Dunkin' Donuts. They must be open.

Posted by Jenn at 05:29 AM | Permalink

We're going to be on the road for most of today and I anticipate being so wiped out by the time we park the car this evening that I might just be willing to blow the whole NaBloPoMo thing on this, the second to last day. How sad would that be? So here I am, sort of bright and sort of early, with some linkage for you to look at should you so desire.

I get "Adelina, the Yale Boola Girl" song stuck in my head more often than I care to admit. When I was in middle school I loved the old '30's and '40's Dick Tracy comic strips and I swear I remember one of the villains would always be mumbling "boola boola". I know how he felt. Listen to it here.

Last week after an hour of link-following, fate led me to a video on youtube that I thought was great. It's a Halloween stage dance from 1929. Check it out:

Posted by Jenn at 07:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's 9 Sunday night,
day 12 of NaBloPoMo.
I'm going to bed.

See you tomorrow.

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

I just went down into our basement and caught a whiff of something faintly foul. It's not unusual to be able to really "smell" our basement, particularly in the summer when the dehumidifier has filled up and we haven't emptied it in a few days. Lewisburg is a damp town, and if you don't keep up with it, it'll take over everything. When we were house-hunting in April 2003, we noticed that quite a few sellers would light scented candles when prospective buyers were checking out their house. At the time we wondered what other smell they were trying to cover up; now we know.

Anyway, central Pennsylvania has been the recipient of quite of bit of rain of late. Fortunately, our branch of the Susquehanna isn't flooding anywhere near the extent that it is in Wilkes-Barre. Our basement's been a little wet, but nothing more than what we usually get when it rains really hard. Dave and I have been emptying the dehumidifier around two to three times a day, whereas usually we have to empty it once. We're feeling pretty lucky considering quite a few towns only an hour east of us were being evacuated yesterday. This morning I went downstairs to see how things looked and there was that smell, only it was slightly different from the usual damp smell. I walked around the basement, nose in the air, and noticed a lone wet spot on the floor in the back of the basement. Right underneath a big white PVC pipe. A PVC pipe that connects to our second floor toilet. And the pipe had trickles of water on it. Yuck. I'm really hoping that if it is the pipe to the upstairs toilet, that it's really, really easy to fix. And I also hope that the smell doesn't waft up to the first floor. Because, you know, ewww.

Posted by Jenn at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This weekend my parents are coming up for a short visit. We talked last Saturday and I told them Lewisburg is celebrating July 4th this weekend and that they should come up (or over and down?). It has nothing to do with me missing them. Nothing at all. Anyway, I was really stir-crazy on Tuesday so after Dave tore himself away from the office, we got in the car and drove over to RB Winter State Park. There's a lake and a stream and a dam, all in one spot. How often does that happen? It's a beautiful drive to RB Winter, past Pennsylvania farms and then into the state forest, and once you arrive at the lake, you can bbq and swim. I twiddled my toes in the water, which was freezing, then sat with my two men on a blanket. Dave and I enjoyed watching Henry try to figure out exactly what sand was and why it would want to get stuck all over his hands whenever he touched it. Can you sense the cuteness? What was most inspiring, however, were the people on the other side of the lake fishing. My dad and I have been interested in going fishing ever since Dave and I moved to PA three years ago. The problem is, where do you start? My dad and I have this thing where we'll think about, conjecture, and research something to death, without actually really finding anything out about it. Plus, the hunting and fishing stores around here are intimidating in their hard-coreness. Put those two together and you end up with three years entirely devoid of actual fishing action. What I want is to find some place close to where we live where we could drive out, fish for a while, and then come home, which is exactly what RB Winter State Park is. So, to make a long story short, after a couple of excited phone calls to my pop, this morning Henry and I drove out to Mertz Rod and Gun, bought some spinners, swivels, a glorified adult version of the Snoopy pole I had when I was a kid (my dad has his own rod and reel), and a couple of fishing licenses. I'm feeling pretty hardcore.

Posted by Jenn at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is the photo set from the New Hampshire trip.

Posted by Jenn at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

It's been hot here the last few days. I'm not a hot-weather-loving type of person. There's nothing worse than being too hot. I wouldn't be as grumpy about it if the following items were not the case:

1. This past winter was terrible in the sense that we didn't get very much snow. It also didn't seem as cold, but that could be because we didn't get much snow.

2. It seems like it's warmer earlier than usual, which apparently is true since farmers are saying the corn is a full week ahead of schedule. One of the perks of global warming? I liked my climate the way it was, thankyouverymuch.

3. I still haven't lost all of my pregnancy weight, so as I walk by the cute college girls in their tiny skirts, I feel like a heifer. *snort-snort*

Speaking of college girls, I screamed at a couple of them today, but I don't think they heard me. Dave and I were walking towards our house when two girls stopped by our trash cans and started throwing something out. They were there for a while, long enough to me to be filled with rage at these girls who have the audacity to use our innocent trash cans as receptacles for whatever junk they needed to shed themselves of. It's small things like that that really fill me with rage. I'm serious. I yelled at them from down the street not to throw their trash in our cans but I don't think they heard me, although Dave swears otherwise. You should probably feel very sorry for Dave for having to put up with me. When we got to our house, I looked in our trash can and there was a bandaid stuck inside. What I really wanted to do was put on rubber gloves, take the bandaid, hunt them down, and throw it at them all the while yelling "You left your biological waste in my garbage can and I thought you might like it back!" but I didn't. Instead I went to the neighbor's house and complimented them on their front door which they just painted red. It looks really good! Obviously being a mom has made me a more mature person.

Earlier this week I read an article on CNN that said a ridiculously high percentage of kids couldn't point to Louisiana on a map, much less foreign countries. I find that really depressing. Never mind the fact that I was late catching a joke in the Dukes of Hazzard last night because I didn't know where Beijing was, but then again, neither did Bo apparently so that makes me feel better; at least I knew it wasn't in Japan. I've taken certain steps to ensure that Henry is not one of those kids: I got him a Hugg-A-Planet. Anyone know why there are two "g"'s in "hugg"?

Posted by Jenn at 10:32 PM | Permalink

It's been an exhausting week thus far. Dave is madly preparing for a conference and has been working until 1 or 2AM the last three nights. Poor guy. Add on top of that a kid who's teething and waking up at both midnight and 3 or 4, a wife who can't sleep until you're home (probably good practice for when Henry's a teenager and out on the town), and what you've got is a household full of somewhat cranky people. So, every time I put Henry down for his naps I'm faced with the choice of crawling into bed and catching a few z's, or trying to get something done, like weeding the flower bed or updating the website or taking a shower. Naturally, I've been crawling into bed. I haven't been able to nap, but it's nice to just zone out for a while and daydream.

We're going to be going to Boston next week. Henry and I are going to check out an apartment in Salem that we're trying to rent while we're there for Dave's sabbatical next semester. I'm looking forward to kicking around town for a day, checking out everything in bloom, eating some cookies from the local cookie place, and generally reveling in the good old days from when we lived there. It's probably going to rain all day, meaning Henry and I will run from the commuter rail to the apartment complex, then run back to the train station, not having seen a thing. That's generally how it works out. I guess I'm feeling a bit doomsdayish today.

Posted by Jenn at 09:34 AM | Permalink

I've been feeling very uninspired lately, hence the lack of updates. Things have been happening, big things, but I haven't felt able to make them sound remotely interesting so what I'm going to do is just list out a couple of them. Last Friday, Henry slept through the night. The entire night. I woke up at 6:15AM and wondered why everything was all bright and shiny. Turned out our bedroom was awash in morning sunlight. Apparently I slept the entire night as well. The relief and joy was quickly replaced with panic as I started to wonder why he had slept the entire night. I had one leg out from under the covers, when I heard Dave say "I hear him moving around in there." Back under went the leg, and relief once again spread over me. He hasn't done it since, but wow, that was a good night.

The other big thing is we had our roof replaced. It looks gorgeous. We also had the gutters replaced at the same time. Those were two things we thought we'd be able to afford ten years from now, but as it turns out, it wasn't an unreasonable amount of money. We're slowly starting to feel less and less like the Clampetts of the neighborhood, and that's priceless.

Posted by Jenn at 07:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Because I know you've often stayed awake at nights wondering about this...

The Black Angel People Iced: Eighteen Car Bombs Planted: Three Favorite Weapon Garden Hoe Arms Broken: Fifteen Eyes Gouged: Two Tongues Cut Off: Three Biggest Enemy: Joe Diamonds Get Your HITMAN Name

Lock up your garden hoes.

Posted by Jenn at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The Institute of Museum and Library Services at UCSL has created a digital collection of thousands of Edison cylinder recordings. And they're online! Check them out here. Lots of marches, lots of speeches, lots of cool stuff to hear, such as "Peaceful Henry".

Posted by Jenn at 04:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Henry and I are back in Lewisburg. We had a great trip, saw lots of people and sights, and ate lots of good food. As a belated Valentine's Day present Dave decided to drive up to Boston to pick us up, with the ulterior motive of taking me out for a romantic dinner on Saturday night. We decided to go to Roka, a great little sushi restaurant on Mass Ave where Dave and I spent many a night gnoshing on gyoza when we were first dating. We put Henry to bed at 7:15, waved good-bye to my parents, and ran out the door. After circling around for half an hour looking for a parking space, we walked up the to the balcony that overlooks Roka (which is below street level) and saw that it was closed. Not just closed, but empty. It's gone. The only thing left is their still lit-up sign. Now, if we were in Lewisburg and this had happened, we wouldn't have had any problem deciding where else we could go to dinner because there are only, like, four other restaurants. However, being in the big city, we both panicked a bit at the number of options and thus could make no decision at all. We drove through Inman Square, then through Kendall, then finally I suggested we go to the Grand Canal. Good idea: North Station area + tons of restaurants and bars = no empty street parking spaces on a Saturday night for miles around. But we gave it a shot. For forty-five minutes we drove around and around, with no luck. So back to Cambridge we drove. We tried another place, but they had a half-hour wait and by this point I was really grumpy and so hungry I could've eaten the maitre-d's hand so we left and got take-out thai food from the place we happened to park in front of. It turned out to be really good. It's strange to be back in the quiet of Lewisburg. This was the first time I wasn't really looking forward to coming back (don't freak out, Bobo) but once we pulled into the driveway it was great to be home.

Posted by Jenn at 10:53 AM | Permalink

My lower back got worse throughout the day yesterday. Last night's feeding sessions with Henry were terrible because I could barely lift him out of his crib. I feel slightly better today but it's still really bad. If there's not much improvement, I'm going to go to the doctor's tomorrow. Sigh. It's mostly on the left-side of my lower back, which isn't too surprising since I tend to carry Henry around on my left hip. I guess his being four-ounces-shy-of-21-pounds is finally taking its toll. Maybe later I can convince Dave to get some heating pads for me. And some chocolate. *pout*

Posted by Jenn at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Today my lower back is absolutely killing me. By noon I could barely carry Henry up the stairs to his room. I've been a little tense lately. I notice I've been clenching my teeth all the time. When I notice myself doing it, I tell myself to relax, but then half an hour later I notice I'm doing it again. Sigh. What I need is a vacation, which is ironic, because as it turns out, me and the kid are vacating and heading to Boston for a week. A change of scene will do me good, and the endless amount of smooches Henry will receive from his Grammy will do him good too. He's got chapped cheeks from the copious amount of drool emanating from his mouth region; I wonder if we could kill two birds with one stone by getting my mom to wear chapstick when she gets in all of her smooch time. Something to think about. Now begins the days long task of trying to figure out (and collect) everything I'm going to need to bring with me to keep a certain person happy. I guess I should figure out what to bring for Henry as well. Har har.

Posted by Jenn at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Well I've got the main page looking pretty decent. I'm probably going to be messing around with the look a bit more because that's what I do. I'm learning CSS through trial and error and I have to say, I totally love them. I don't think I'd be able to write one from scratch on my own any time soon, but I finally understand the gist of how they work (I know, I'm way behind the times). Pretty clever stuff. Anyway, perhaps what I'm most proud of is the fact that I set up Movable Type with almost no help from the computer guru. Shazah!

Posted by Jenn at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Still working out all the kinks...

Posted by Jenn at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lewisburg has a stray cat problem. There are lots of them. And they're all procreating. And moving into our yard. I think they're attracted to our yard because they like to thumb their noses at the cat-hate that emanates from our house. I'm a notorious dog person. There are only two cats in the world that I like, and that's mainly because they act like dogs. In Salem, Dave used to have to listen to me complain constantly about the fact that everyone's cat would use our flower bed as their personal toilet. Even on clear days you couldn't see our house because of the great cloud of dried coyote pee I was constantly stirring up and shaking out, to no avail. When we first moved here, our next door neighbors asked if the black cat that was slinking around our respective yards belonged to us, figuring if anyone was going to own a black cat, it would definitely be the people who just moved from Salem, MA. We denied it vehemently but totally respected their line of reasoning. The other day I happened to look out the back door and saw this fuzzy, greyish-white face in the distance, peeping out from the yews. Dave whipped out the binoculars and informed me that it was a kitten. Then we looked out the kitchen window and saw a black cat trot by with a cicada in its mouth. I recall saying something along the lines of "That black cat better not be feeding those kittens" and sure enough, the grey kitten came dashing out to partake of the cicacda, followed a few seconds later by a black kitten. Grrr. If anyone has any suggestions as to how to keep them out of yard, please share.

Posted by Jenn at 10:53 AM | Permalink

We found out yesterday that the Phillies traded Placido Polanco to the Detroit Tigers. This was fairly surprising news because he's a great player, but on a more personal level, he was, like, totally our favorite Phillie. The betrayal!

In other news, it's still ridiculously hot. We just came back from a fairly long walk and Flash has been wandering around the house with her tongue out trying to find the coolest spot to take advantage of. Sadly, there really aren't any cool spots anymore. I keep saying to myself over and over again: "It could be worse, we could be living in Louisiana" except that if we were living in LA, chances are pretty good we'd have central air conditioning and wouldn't that be fabulous.

Posted by Jenn at 10:45 AM | Permalink

So, I was just perusing the bulletin boards at salemweb.com and found a thread about a proposed "Bewitched" statue that TV Land wants to erect. Naturally, my first inclination was to investigate to find the punch-line, but as it turns out, this isn't a joke. And, per usual, Mayor Usovicz thinks it's just about the greatest thing ever. I can only imagine that the residents who are trying hard to make Salem more reknowned for its maritime history are doing some serious cringing.

Posted by Jenn at 10:40 AM | Permalink

Anyone who's been following March Madness knows what an incredibly exciting week it's been for Bucknell. We beat Holy Cross to become Patriot League Champions, then we beat Kansas, becoming the first Patriot League team to win an NCAA tourney in thirteen tries. Friday night Dave turned on the game at tip-off, and when I came in to join him a minute later, he was watching Battlestar Gallactica, proclaiming "I just can't watch." We did catch the second half of the game. I don't think it could've been more of a nail-biter. The Bison's defense looked noticeably more put together than it did during the Holy Cross game the previous week. There's a great article on CNN/Sports Illustrated about it. Last night's game was just as exciting. In spite of the loss, we were amazing and gave Wisconsin a run for their money. There's a homecoming parade scheduled for tonight at 6:30. I'll take some pictures and post them tomorrow.

Posted by Jenn at 10:01 AM | Permalink

So, I'm totally bummed out. One of my all-time favorite holiday x-mas specials is "Yogi Bear's First Christmas" which Cartoon Network annually shows at some point in December. I was just on their website and it's being shown on Dec. 21st at 10 AM which is when Dave and I will probably already be on the road heading out to the Berkshires to pick up my grandmother. Of course, they're playing it again a few days later at 3 AM. Rotten luck.

Posted by Jenn at 10:35 AM | Permalink

I was just listening to news radio and they did a bit about how the crowd went wild at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade when the Spongebob balloon went by. A frenchman was among the spectators and apparently he turned to the woman next to him and in a very heavy french accent asked "Who is this famous, enlarged cheese?" Very cute...

This past weekend Dave and I drove out to my grandmother's to hear her sing in her annual Christmas concert. She sings in a choir made up of residents of various towns around her part of the Berkshires. It was a lot of fun. They have a new director who brought in a bell choir to accompany the singers, and he also incorpated a sing-along medley. Apparently there was some concern that the sing-along would go over very well but everyone piped in and had a great time. My parents also came up so it was really great to see them. We'll be heading back out to pick up my Grandmother and then driving out to Boston for the holidays in a few weeks. I'm really looking forward to it...

Posted by Jenn at 10:35 AM | Permalink