Barge

Launch
We went to a barge launch this morning. Not normally an activity we'd go to, but we got an invitation and figured why not? So we went and I'm glad we did. It was a short ceremony before the launch, bag pipes played, then put that barge in the water after christening it. It's pretty cool to watch something that big hit the water so quickly, and for the first time.

Cycle (free, share, and bi)
After the barge launch and another errand (picking up a donated sewing machine I got off of Freecycle for Sharecycle), we decided to go bicycle shopping for Avery. The first store, a real bike store, had one for $180. A tad pricey for a bike she won't use that much. The next store, Target, had only two choices for her size: Disney princesses or Barbie brands. Nope. So then we went to a used bike shop on Alberta St. They didn't have any bikes in her size. When we got home, I got on craigslist and found her to be what looks like a nice one for $50. Much more reasonable. There are bikes on there for less than that, but this one meets D's criteria of it not being completely pink and girly and frilly, yet Avery will like it.

Spoiled
After reading this article, Why Are American Kids Spoiled, I got all fired up this morning. It contains nothing I find shocking or new necessarily, but it made me realize that I need to have higher expectations for what Avery is capable of doing.

Anyway, I read the article before getting ready for our outing. I called Avery and told her she was going to go upstairs, get dressed completely dressed with shoes and I wasn't going to say it again. She marched upstairs and got dressed. Then I told her to tidy up her room and that I wasn't going to tell her how since she knew what to do. She did that. There was no whining and no nagging. That last part is probably a coincidence and I don't expect it to be so easy next time, but I'm going to do my damnedest to stop doing things for her when she's capable of doing them herself.

Tin Shed
While over on Alberta for bicycle shopping, we stopped for lunch at Tin Shed. It was so worth the wait. I had the Dr. Dreay - a sandwich with Canadian bacon, two eggs over medium, with jam on bread (I subbed gluten free for sourdough, of course). With a side of cheesy grits. DE-licious.

Date Night & Movies
Tonight is date night. We're going to watch the first half of the Timbers game at The Thirsty Lion, which is the official viewing party location for this game. Then we'll see the French movie The Intouchables. It only has a 77% critics' rating (which isn't bad, but not amazing), but more importantly the user score is 91%. In our experience, a foreign and/or indie flick with a fairly good critic rating and a much better audience rating tends to be right up our alley. Mom will be joining us since this is a movie she'll probably like.

Last night D and I rented Battle Royale through Amazon Instant Videos. This is the original idea for The Hunger Games. I'm not sure how Suzanne Collins didn't get sued by the guy/gal who wrote Battle Royale (it was a book before a movie). Maybe you can't sue if someone uses their own words but steals your idea? Anyway, this movie was MUCH more violent than The Hunger Games and it was very Japanese in its style of acting and directing, but it did hold my attention.

Pee

Pee emergency!
The other day Mom's Realtor was showing us some houses. Before we left the house to meet him, I noticed that Avery's tummy was huge. This happens when she drinks a ton of liquids and hasn't yet gone potty. Yes, she can hold so much urine in her that you can physically see that she needs to pee. My daughter truly amazes me in this way. Anyway, she replied no, which I clearly knew to be false. Nonetheless, since she's always been self-managed with regards to when she goes, I let it go.

We got in the car and drove the first house. We were a bit early, so the Realtor wasn't there yet. Avery suddenly, yet not surprisingly, says she has to go pee "really bad." When I can physically see that she needs to go AND she says so, then it's urgent. She's never had an accident, but I don't really want an accident to happen with that amount of urine. I put my thinking cap on and decided our best course of action was to have her pee in something in the car. I looked around and decided the best thing would be one of the plastic cereal containers I use for holding composting, recycling, and garbage. (BTW, lesson one when having your child pee in a container is to remove the contents of said container BEFORE allowing him/her to pee - yeah, I didn't do that.) Avery filled that thing half full. Mom's face was a sight to behold when she saw the volume. I then had to deal with the contents. I decided to dump it onto some ground across the street. Of course, I had to keep the solid contents (the trash) in the container while dumping the pee. It was less than pleasant, but very amusing.

Townhome
Mom has put a townhome under contract!  The quality of the home itself and the community is, we believe, very good value for the money. It's a leisurely 10 minute drive from our place. That's with traffic. If there's no traffic it's probably more like 8.

What else? The community has a pool, so I know someone who will be wanting to visit Nain a lot during the warm summer months. It has 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, so plenty big enough for Mom to have guests stay at her house. It's got a small outdoor space out back for Barkley.

Assuming everything goes well with the inspection, etc, she should close on July 13th.

Movie Saturday
Saturday was a movie day for us. Mom, Damian, Avery and I went to see Brave in the afternoon. I really enjoyed it, despite the princess theme. Why must all girl stuff be related to princesses?

Since it was our date night, we also got to see a movie that night. Mom, Damian and I went to see Safety Not Guaranteed, which I loved. It was the perfect length. This type of movie usually results in me waiting and waiting for the end. Not once was I anxious for the end, but when it came it was perfectly done.

Cuddles

Cuddles. She just doesn't get enough. Sigh.
As usual, Avery fell asleep on the floor in her bedroom. This happens almost every night. D always moves her from the floor to her bed before we go to bed. Last night he picks her up and she sees me in the hallway. She says, "Mommy, do you know the reason I come into your bed at night? It's because I don't get enough cuddles before bed so I need to get more cuddles." Talk about a master manipulator! Not enough cuddles my ass! You can make me feel guilty about a lot of things related to my parenting, but amount of cuddles is not one of them! I will cuddle till the cows come home, thank you very much. It just cracked me up.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, she's coming into our bed every night right now. It bugs D more than me because it keeps him awake more. I always wake up throughout the night anyway, so there's no difference to me if it's because she's squirming next to me or not. What was working for a long time was making a morning TV show contingent upon her sleeping in bed. We still don't let her watch TV in the morning, but she doesn't seem to care all that much about it anymore. Yesterday she asked for yet another song for her phone*, so we said we'd buy it for her today if she slept in her bed all night. She was very excited, but once again came in at some point during the night.

* I gave Avery my old iPhone, so she calls it her phone, but it obviously doesn't work as a phone for Avery.

Polish Nail
Bit of a repeat from my FB status last night ...

Avery's been asking if she can polish her nails for a while now. She saw Elise with nail polish (I think because Elise was at a friend's house and they did it there? RHG can enlighten me) and that was it. I don't have anything against painting nails specifically. I just wanted to delay any of the nail polish, make-up, etc as long as possible. So I finally caved yesterday and said she could pick out a couple of colors at the drug store when we were picking up her fluoride prescription. Avery, by the way, cals it "polish nail" rather than "nail polish." I corrected her, but we'll see if it sticks. She still calls her forehead her headfore.

Anyway, she picked pink sparkles and blue. She was so excited about it I thought she was going to explode. Seriously. Avery gets excited about pretty much everything, but this was a level beyond that. I had no idea she wanted it THAT badly.

She and I painted our nails before we went out for dinner. She wanted one of her hands done in pink and the other in blue.

I haven't bought nail polish in maybe nine years? Something like that. Nail polish has really changed in that time! There were all sorts of magnetic colors (not sure what the purpose of that is other than maybe it looks a certain way?) and all sorts of crackly colors. And there are definitely way more colors outside of the traditional pink/purple/neutral colors that used to be the dominate ones.

Timbers Game & Date Night
Tonight is the Timbers game. D is taking Avery because the guy who has the season tickets for the seats next to him is bringing his daughter. They decided to bring the girls to the same game in hopes the girls will like each other and enjoy the games a bit more. Following the game we'll drop Avery at the G's house and head out of our date night. There aren't a lot of movies playing that we want to see, but that will not stop us from going on date night.

Sketching

Fonts and Sketching
Yesterday and today I've been learning a lot about using the sketching ability* of my Cameo. I have a pen holder for it, but only one of my ball point pens actually fit in it. I also have glitter sketch pens specifically design for the Cameo, but those are shaky at best. When they work, they're great, but they are unpredictable.

I bought some gel ball point pens at Michael's recently, but they didn't quite fit in the pen holder. But, I discovered if I remove the pen tube from the pens and cut it down, I can use the casing of the glitter sketch pens! It sounds confusing, but it's actually easy. Yes, you're right, pictures would clarify things. No, I'm not going to post pictures.

I have also learned that, for sketching/writing purposes, I typically will want to use a single line font. From what I can tell, that is the same as an engraving font. Most of the fonts installed on my computer (e.g. Arial, Times New Roman, basically all the ones you'd recognize) are double-line fonts. That means when they are used in the Silhouette (and presumably all other applications), each letter is actually an outline. It just doesn't appear that way in, say, a word processor because its line color and fill color are the same. The top Hello below is a double line font. The lower Hello is a single line font. If I want to use the Cameo to write something (like on an invitation), it makes sense to use a single line font, otherwise it'll draw the letter as outlines.

I stumbled on all this because I'm working on Elise's BD invitations. I wanted to make the invitation text more interesting than just using a printer. Also, I will be doing Carlotta's wedding invitations soon and I want to know about all possible options. Plus I just like figuring out how to do this stuff.

I typed all the above yesterday before a trip to the art store. I figured there had to be better pens out there and there are! The end result of that purchase is that I'm very pleased with how I can use the Cameo to write text. Why would I want it to write text using a pen versus just sending paper through the printer? It looks much more like it's been professionally printed when done with the pen than with a printer.

* think of it how a plotter works and that is how the Cameo is able to draw and write

Mimi = mini progress ... maybe
The G's had their date night last night. D called and asked if he could play poker. Mom is here, so I said yes. As long as I have one other set of hands to help with cooking and clean up and baby holding, it's easy enough. When the G's left, they quickly handed Mimi over to Mom and made a beeline for the door, which is the most effective way to minimize Mimi's crying if the crying is going to be minimized at all. While I was cooking dinner, Mom was walking around trying to soothe Mimi. She was better than me in that Mimi would stop crying for 30s-1m intervals every once in a while. But this is all with complete attention on her and a lot of effort/bouncing/soothing/attention. After a few intervals of quiet, Mimi just ramped it back up to her usual loud screaming, so I decided to get dinner on the table for the 3 kids and Mom, then take Mimi upstairs to give her a bottle and put her down. That worked quite nicely. I mean, she still screamed the whole time, including while drinking her bottle (suck, suck, screeeeaaaam!, suck, suck, screaeeeaaaammmm!, repeat) and then when I put her down, but she was asleep the next time I went up to check on her.

Tomorrow I head over to the G's house to babysit the four kids while the Gs go to brunch.  RHG's dad will come over to put Mimi down for her nap, so that makes it all very easy. It's worth noting that when Mimi was in one of her 1 min stretches of quiet with Mom, if she caught site of me, she would immediately start screaming again. Mimi has no love for me. She's fine (ish) with me if RHG is around, but damn she doesn't like me. Ah well. Can't win 'em all.

Wedding Invitations
Carlotta is coming over in 30 minutes or so to work on her wedding invitations. Here is the design I came up with after much playing around yesterday.  The dark brown is paper of her choosing; the lighter color paper is very simliar to the paper she chose. I edited out her name and the details, but you get the idea. The red flower is embossed. I cut out the stencil for it in vinyl, then used red embossing powder to get the flower color. All the text and the non-red flowers are done using this gel pen. It actually looks much better in person.

Shock

Recap

Friday

• Walked Barkley. 
• Spent the day making skirts for Avery. 



Fabric choice by Avery

• Spent the evening listening to Mimi cry whilst babysitting the kids for date night. Don't feel too sorry for me. I have a high tolerance for crying (by babies) and just put my noise protection headphones on to drown out the noise. While Mimi isn't particularly fond of anyone outside of her family, I think it's fair to say she holds a special sort of hatred for D and me. Absolutely nothing either of do or so or give her will make her stop crying. The only time she isn't crying in our presence is if she's asleep. (For those of you wondering, yes, I would feel totally comfortable telling RHG and Jay that they have to find other plans for Mimi on date nights. No, they would not hold it against me & D. No, they are not taking advantage of us. I don't mind the screaming nearly as much as it seems others would mind a screaming baby. It's not pleasant, but as of now, I still want Mimi coming on date nights over here because eventually she's got to slot in, right? I'm not letting that one little baby mess up a good date night babysitting swap situation! Mom hasn't been here when the G kids are over, with Mimi, for a date night, so maybe Mom can work wonders with Mimi.)

Saturday

• Lazed around all day and did nothing. Took a nap most of the day. 
• D took Avery to the gym with him, then took her to lunch, then they went to the fabric store to pick out fabric for a new skirt. Somehow Avery also managed to turn that one skirt into one skirt and a pillow case, so they came back with two fabrics. One with Disney princesses on it. Apparently, Avery knows exactly where in the fabric store the Disney princess prints are located as she beelined right towards them. I think she must have remembered me saying I wouldn't make a skirt out of the Disney princess fabric ("because it just won't work!" being my excuse), and I believe this is why she came up with the need for a pillow.
• In the late afternoon, the whole family went to see the Cirque de Soleil show Ovo. Avery was enthralled the whole time. She also loved to tell me which costumes she liked best. That girl is all about fashion/fabric it seems. 
• After Ovo, we high tailed it to the G's house, dropped off A, then went to see a late movie. 

Sunday

• Avery and I spent the morning making her pillow case. Avery is OK with me sewing versus being on the computer. She'll just happily play whatever while I sew. If I am on the computer, she's on me like white on rice. Why? Why? Why?!
• Following the pillow case completion, we watched Dolphin Tale as a family. At this point, I should have wanted to Get Some Fresh Air! Or take my child for Outdoor Adventures! But all I wanted to do was nap, so Avery got more TV until Christie & Amber arrived for craft night. 
• I spent craft night working on matching skirts for Avery and Elise. I'm almost done with them, but was too tired to finish up on Sunday night. 

Monday

• Took Avery to school, came home & slept for 2.5 hours, picked Avery & E & N up from school, watched the kids for a few hours, took A & E to their first kung fu (!) class, picked up dinner, went to bed at 9:30 and slept until 7:30 this morning. Holy shit that is a lot of sleep. More on that later. 
• Kung Fu! I've been wanting to take Avery to a martial arts class for a while, but just hadn't gotten around to it. The first class of kung fu was free to see if the girls liked it. Avery LOVED it. Elise loved it for a while, then the instructor brought out this foam thingy to "bop" the kids in the head if they failed to protect their heads. And when I say "bop" imagine the slowest possible motion and hitting someone with a feather to imagine what it would feel like to get bopped. Elise was VERY against that and backed all the way out of the circle. The instructor was very nice and said he wouldn't do the bopping with her, that she could just do the punches (he was alternating offering the punching pad or the head bopper, which forced the kids to choose which move to use - head blocking or punching), but that did not convince Elise. Anyway, at the end of the class, Avery said yes, she'd like to do more; Elise said no; then Avery said no, not without any other girls. Being a parent for 4+ years, I knew to DROP IT!  Megan with 2 years parenting experience would have FORCED IT and tried to convince her there and then. Time and space, people. Time and space. That's what Avery needs ... not unlike me! We're very alike in this way. Anyway, after she enthusiastically showed her moves to Daddy that night, I pushed the issue and said Elise wouldn't be in the class with her, she would likely be the only girl, but she had fun right? Besides, I reasoned, it's like in Roscoe Riley Rules #5, when he's the only boy in his tap dancing class, but he sticks with it because tap dancing is so fun. 
• Mom returned home from her visit with Wayne & Rosemary (her brother and his wife).

Sleep and Shock

So I've been sleeping a lot more in the past couple of weeks. Then, yesterday, I started to have a side effect from my anti-depressant that I have historically only had when adjusting to dose changes (smaller or larger). I call it the electric shock feeling. It's particularly prevalent when I move quickly. Turning my head makes me sort of dizzy, but it's more just a buzz kind of feeling. A mild electrical shock feeling is the best way I can describe it. It's not painful, but it's disturbing and makes me tired. 

Since I haven't changed my dosage in a long time (almost a year, I think), it's odd that I'm experiencing this. I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm hoping it's a temporary thing, but if it doesn't go away in a few days, I guess I'll go back to the PMHNP who prescribes my anti-depressant and see what she thinks. I am loathe to do that because it seems the answer will likely be an adjustment of some sort (lower dose, high dose, different med, additional med, etc). Adjustments almost always mean side effects for me. However, of all the side effects, this is among my least favorite. Anything akin to dizziness is awful. I'd rather have an upset stomach all the time than feel dizzy/shocky.

AirPlay

Weekend update and other random thoughts

We have our date night tonight. Despite the fact that I'm sick and slept in until 11 this morning as a result, I'm still going on date night. The three of us (Mom, D & I) are going to see Undefeated, a documentary about inner-city football. I'm sure it has much more depth than that description, but I don't know like to know too much about movies before I see them. 

Last night's babysitting with Avery, Elise, Nolan and Henry went very well. Mom helped me get dinner onto the plates and get that cleaned up, as well as helped with various other things, so that was very helpful. Fortunately the kids fell into line fairly easily. Once I had them all in bed there was minimal getting up. Henry let a few minor protests fly, but they were nothing out of the ordinary for a 4yo boy. Avery was the last to get to sleep, but this is typical on date nights. Plus, because we have the routine that she can play in her room as long as she wants, as long as she stays in her room, that tends to make her bedtime later on nights when we have E & N (and/or Henry) over. 

It hit me the other day that I basically treat A's sleep like I do food. I provide her the opportunity and atmosphere to get plenty of regular, good sleep; however, whether she takes advantage of that is up to her. That's what we've done with food. We give her a variety of healthy foods (plus some non-healthy ones), then let her eat what she will.  Occasionally we make comments on her eating more x or y and on her getting to sleep earlier or being quiet, but for the most part we leave it up to her. So far this has worked well for us. It is, however, one of those things that I know probably wouldn't work if we had two kids. The odds of getting two kids with temperaments to not (regularly) fight sleep or that don't (regularly) fight healthy (or is healthful?) foods are slim. 

I find I think about what kind of parent I'd be with > 1 kid often. I think it's for two reasons: 

1. I'm grateful I realized that I am (speculatively) a better parent to one kid than I would be to > 1 kid. That's not to say I'd be terrible with > 1 kid, but I think my natural strike zone is = 1. 

2. I fairly regularly watch 2 kids, plus Avery. We have had to implement rules in the house simply to accomodate when the G kids come over. They're really good kids, but once you're at more than 1, things get really messy, really fast. 

Airplay

One great thing about our new receiver (bought for the new surround sound system* in the living room) is that is has AirPlay compatibility. We didn't seek out this function. It's just a happy coincidence that the receiver picked out for us by our installer had it. It means we can wirelessly stream music from any computer or iPhone or iPod on our network to the stereo system in the living room. And it's easy to do. 

Case in point: this morning Elise and Avery went downstairs to play. D and I were still in bed. Avery came in to tell D that she and Elise were going to have a celebration in the living room, but they needed music and she couldn't get daddy's numbers to work. D unlocked his phone for her and she and Elise scooted back downstairs to play while D and I drifted quickly back to sleep. About a minute later we hear blasting music coming from the living room. And this is to show that 4yo can easily figure out how to use the AirPlay functionality, but have not yet mastered turning the volume down. 

*We didn't know anything about what we wanted in surround sound since our entire goal was to better hear the dialoge on TV shows, not to experience car chances and action scenes with true surround sound. 

Throat

Fear of laryngitis
Yesterday my throat hurt horribly. In the afternoon, I got nauseous and threw up before dinner (TMI? Move along to someone else's blog then.) I felt better after dinner for a while, but not great. I took an Ambien to get me through the night since, when I'm sick with a sore throat, I wake up at least every hour to spit (TMI? again, move along then, no one's making you read). That worked beautifully. This morning, my throat is still hurting and I can feel my voice struggling. After having laryngitis exactly once in my life, it is something I never, ever wish to experience again. So I'm doing my best to limit my talking now. So I'm blogging ... because all my words have to go somewhere.

What I did with the rest of day (after typing that): sleep. I needed to conserve my energy for tonight's sitting duties. It seems to have worked since it's going well so far. Well enough for me to blog a bit.

Network
D is doing stuff with our network to get our new receiver hooked up to it. We also have to get my mom's new DVR hooked up so she has TV access and a working DVR downstairs. Once D gets the receiver hooked up to the network, we will be able to play music from our iPhones without wiring them to the receiver. That will be nice for Avery's "shows."

Kid Central Tonight
The G kids (minus Mimi) and Henry will be coming over tonight while their respective parents enjoy a night out. D will be at the Timbers game, which is where I believe Christie and Darren will be, too.

Right now the four kids are all happily playing upstairs for 20 minutes before the reading of bedtime books commences. Earlier all four were out in the backyard playing in the dirt and grass. At one point I checked on them and Avery had a shovel, had dug up part of the grass and everyone was standing around looking guilty. I decided I'd never actually told her she couldn't dig up the grass, so I made that a new rule and they all seemed satisfied with that. Of course, when they come in, everyone had to get undressed and immediately put on jammies. And Henry and Avery, who were both outside playing in the jammies with boots on, had to change into different jammies. I run a tight ship her at CdT.

Hungry

Hunger Games!
Mom, D & I are going to see Hunger Games tonight. After a search far and wide - i.e. waiting for babysitter #2* to text back - we located a sitter for tonight. I'm quite excited, mostly because it feels like a bonus date night since we expected not to have a date night this week due to the move (hence the reason there was no pre-arranged swap with the Gs).
New Subheadings


* I want to note that she's only our second choice babysitter because of our loyalty to the first neighborhood sitter we use. Avery also prefers our first choice because "she wears sparkly earrings."

Spring Break
Avery's on Spring Break next week. I'm rather pleased with myself as I have activities schedule for all days but Tuesday. Tuesday is when Mom's moving truck is scheduled to arrive, so I need to be here to help with that effort. I'm also rather pleased with myself for getting not one, but two playdates scheduled with kids (both who happen to be boys) from school with whom we've not had playdates before. I asked Avery if she'd like me to schedule playdates with any of the kids from school during Spring Break. She immediately replied Lennon and Eamon. The teachers have told me several times that Avery and Eamon are like two peas in a pod, so that wasn't surprising. And Avery talks about Lennon a lot. She thinks he's very funny.

Playroom
I schedule the handyman to come yesterday because I needed some shelving reconfigured and moved in the garage to prepare for the arrival of Mom's stuff. I arranged it on Friday afternoon. I realized it would be nice to have him assemble and install the storage for Avery's playroom while he was here. So off to IKEA Mom, Avery and I went on Saturday morning.  Went went as soon as they opened, zoomed through and were in and out within 20 minutes or so.

After brainstorming lots of potential creative ideas for playroom storage and its configuration, I decided that the smartest thing was the simple, large Expedit cube storage from IKEA.

I have also decided to hold off on making it look all pretty with matching storage cubes or bins. The playroom is all about function for me. I want to have a place to put the toys, but I also don't want to feel guilty if I haven't gone and restored it to perfect organization. Here's what it looks like now:

It's certainly not a picture I'm going to put on Pinterest. And that's what I've realized. If I make it a room worthy of Pinterest, then I'll be more obsessed with making sure the kids "play right" in it. I'll care when Avery decides she wants to rearrange things herself. I know myself well enough to know that if I want to let Avery have this room to be creative and play in, then I need to not get obsessed with the aesthetics of it now. So there you go. That's how I'm justifying this not-so-beautiful, but oh-so-functional playroom organization.

FYI on the other side of the room is the crib (with the front removed) where Nolan sleeps on date nights, along with some pillows. There's a good chunk of floor space between that is clear for any sort of play the kids may come up with.  Oh, and the closet is stuffed with Avery's princess dresses.

Notes

Thank you notes

I've got all of Avery's thank you notes done. I'm not overly thrilled with the design of them, but I never am with these things. Creativity is not my strength, but I did enjoy making them, so that is what counts. And I liked that I was able to reuse all of our Christmas cards. In fact, there are a few that I had to make using, gasp!, all new materials because I ran out of cards. 

I'm now creating upcycled* envelopes for those thank you notes that will be given out to her friends at school (i.e. not snail mailed). I'm using the program from Pinkalicious. A calendar would have been more ideal with prettier pictures, but I don't have any, so Pinaklicious program it is.

Avery now needs to sign her name on each one. For those of you who casually commented, "Just have her sign her name!" there is no just about this process. Getting her to write her name on these cards, something she's more than able to do all on her own, is like pulling teeth. She knows I want her to do it and this is a lot of the problem. 

Of course, these are just Avery's thank you notes. I still have to do my own. Then I have to get ahead of the curve and do about 20 so I have them ready to go for the next batch of thank you notes. 

* I kind of despise that term. It sounds so self-righteous to me. 

Date nights

Friday night was our date night - we went to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - and last night was the G's date night. Elise and Nolan spent the night, while Mimi tagged along with the Gs for their supper club night. It was an easy one. I like easy ones.

Health & Sleep

I've decided Sundays can be my break from my adherence to my calorie intake restrictions I've placed on myself. This is not to say I'm not logging my food because I have to do that everyday, or I have to pay Vic and Damian $1 each (each!). Nor is it to say I'm going to let myself go crazy. But, I did get fettucine alfredo (gluten-free) and the strawberry lemonade for lunch today. 

I'm also logging my sleep on a new app I found. I am sleeping a lot lately. It's hard to tell what it is, but my guess (hope) is that it's just because of the sinus infection I'm currently fighting. One day it seems like I'm making progress and things* are looking clear. The next day things are looking fluorescent again. 

* things = mucas

How Megan Gets Her Groove Back

I still feel like I'm trying to get back into my groove after our return from vacation. I do wish it didn't take me so long to settle back into things, but I think it's just the way I am. Regardless of what I do, it simply takes me a while to find my groove. I'm getting there. 

Calendar

Same old stuff
Ah crap. I'm sitting here trying to think of a fun little element to add to my blog. Like a fun fact of the day ... but then I have to look up facts everyday. Or a few new fact about me ... but then I'm going to drive away friends with my weirdness day by day until I have no friends left whatsoever. Then what will I do on January 5th with no friends? Ha! I crack myself up with my self-deprecating humor.

Back to the old standby. Random, random and more random.

Calendar
What have I spent the bulk of my day doing? Scheduling stuff on the calendar for the new year, including getting things organized and synced between RHG and me. The functional side of the relationship between RHG and me requires calendar organization every few months. It's tedious, but worth it. Each new quarter, new session of classes, new stage in our children's lives, etc requires we juggle things a bit.

It doesn't help that I'm easily distractible when on the computer, so I end up taking care of other tasks while attempting to complete the calendar task. For example, I've also resolved some Pay Pal account issues, ordered a BD gift for Avery's brother, cleaned out some of my emails, etc.

Presents
D got me the new Silhouette cameo for Christmas! Woohoo! I can't wait to start playing with it, but I'm trying to be disciplined enough to take care of all outstanding catch-up tasks before breaking it out of the box.

For my BD he bought me the 4s iPhone. I wanted to try out Siri whilst driving this morning (to test the ease of texting a quick message while en route), but my Bluetooth isn't pairing with the new phone. So there's another thing to figure out.

Lose It!
Vic, Damian and I decided to log our food until our Mexico trip in May. The penalty for not logging by midnight of each day is that we put $1 into the other person's account, to be paid up at the end. The goal is just to make sure we're logging our food versus trying to hit a number since just the act of logging what you eat makes an impact.

We're logging in loseit.com this time (instead of fitday as we've done previously) because their app for the iPhone is better. If anyone would like to join me in this challenge, just create a free account on loseit.com and friend me at my gmail address. We can keep each other accountable ($1 penalty optional). Dad? Anyone?

Charting

Chart for Nolan

I did Nolan's potty chart today. Later, I'm going to start a new chart for Avery to be used as a single place for her to earn tokens for staying in bed all night and for doing various chores around the house. It'll replace her currently system where she earns tickets.  It's the same concept, just a single chart.  Plus, she's always a bit jealous when I make charts for other kids, so I decided I should make one for her too. 

If anyone else would like me to make reward/motivational charts for you, just let me know. I'm happy to do so for the cost of the supplies. 

Date Night

D and I went to see Take Shelter last night. If you want to see a movie that makes you feel jittery, one that shows what it must feel like to go crazy, this is the movie for you. The very last scene made me mad, but the movie definitely achieved the crazy goal. Intensely watchable. We tried to go see Margin Call as a second movie, but it was sold out since it's only showing at one theater in the area and that theater is teeny tiny.  Instead of going to see another movie, we decided to head home and catch up on some boob tube.  Avery spent the night at the G's house, so we just ordered in pizza (gluten free for me) and had ourselves a nice lazy night. 

Composting

The food scrap compositing program for Portland has finally started. I'm ridiculously enthused about it. I've always wanted to compost, but I don't want anything to do with the actual compost pile. The biggest change in my recycling and trash system is that I've just found out that facial tissues can be composted (thanks to Amber for having a SIL in charge of the program). I use a lot of tissues because my nose is always running. This means I need a lot of places around the house to deposit tissues that will eventually make their way into the compost bin. 

With this new system, I have also realized that we need to switch the bins we use in our kitchen trashcan.  We have so little trash, that the bigger bin needs to be used for recycling and the smaller one used for trash. I've been waiting for our trash bag to fill up all week to make the switch and it hasn't yet filled up, so our trash has definitely gone down quite a bit. Of course, since I recycle plastic bags and rigid plastics that aren't taken by the curbside program, we had relatively little trash to begin with. 

Fits

Avery just had one of her 30 minute crying fits. This one started because I said she couldn't have a sippy cup of milk with lunch. She can have a glass of milk, but not a sippy cup. If I let her have sippy cups anytime other than quiet time and night time, then she just sucks down near ½ gallon of milk a day and her food intake plummets. So, as always, I said no. This started the meltdown, though I maintain that when these meltdowns happen, it's only about the triggering incident for about 3 minutes, then it just becomes a fit for the sake of a fit.

I'm not sure what I have documented here and what I have not, and I don't feel like checking, so this may be a recap. After discussing this issue a few months back with some mom-friends (namely Amber and Stacey), I have been trying a new approach with these fits. Avery's not had many of these fits in the past few months. This is maybe the third one.  Something like that.  In any case, my approach is now that I try the time out (which never works with these types of fits, but I try them nonetheless, just in case this isn't this type of fit). After that, I explain to Avery that I won't talk with her or pick her up or be around her when she's speaking to me disrespectfully. This is where my patience has to kick in because she will cry for another 20 minutes or so. During this time she says she is injured (yes, she uses the word "injured"); she says she wants to tell me something important; she says she wants "please uppy please"; she says I hurt her feelings; she says that she wants daddy.  She just alternates between what she's screaming.  Eventually, as with the fit today, she walks to me. Even though she's still crying at that point, I know it'll stop when we talk about it and cuddle. It's so hard for me to sit through this since *I'm* ready to cuddle and talk it out on minute 3. If I even try to approach her on minute 3, there's no talking to her or cuddling with her or trying to reason. She just kicks her screaming up a notch or ups the list of her demands.  There's something about forcing her to come to me for us to talk it through that allows her to snap out of it and return the to the sweet, reasonable child she is 95% of the time. 

I feel confident that letting her scream it out, then forcing her to come to me is the right thing to do, at least at this point in time.  This is in comparison me going back to her every 3 minutes to repeat that I will cuddle with her/do whatever as soon as she stops screaming.  It just feels like she's making emotional progress when she has to come to me versus me taking the initiative when I see the switch has flipped back to a point where she can hear me talking and respond. 

While I feel like this approach is better, I'm not sure it's lessening the duration of the fits any.  They still go on for 30-45 minutes. They are a fairly rare occurrence, so that's good. And there are certain factors that are typically present in order for her to be triggered: it's typically when she's tired and/or hungry and/or way overstimulated. 

These are the moments that I find hardest in parenting. When I go an approach that feels right, but the outcome of my choice isn't immediately obvious. Is it working? Is it the right thing to do? And now I get why, when asked if parenting gets easier or harder as kids get older, the response is often, "Easier in some ways, harder in others." 

High

High self-esteem day

Friday was a day to strengthen my self-esteem with a number of events (written on Friday):

• D just asked me how to do something obscure in Excel and I was able to recall from my many years of Excel devotion from way back when exactly what it was called.  Minor, but nice. 
• When I had my friend & neighbor's daughter this afternoon, she had three minor fits at the grocery store.  With each I calmly stood my ground.  During the third one, she actually got down in the middle of the produce section and started crying.  I continued to stand my ground and was able to calmly bring an end to the fit without giving in one little bit.  I had about ten people watching me as this fit went down.  A  woman (60-ish) came up to me after it was over and commented how well I handled it.  Excellent. 
• I got a number of things done today and this makes me feel good. 
• Finally, Avery is starting to understand the new reward system I started a couple of weeks ago.  I wanted to give her an incentive to do things like tidy her room and set the table without me asking her to do them.  So I decided to tell her she could earn two tickets if she did a task without me asking her to do it and one ticket when she does it when I ask her to.  She has, predictably, said no to performing a task I ask her to do.  To get around this, I tell her that the choice is do the task and earn a ticket, or I still make her do the task, but she earns no ticket.  It only took one time of her having to do the task and getting no ticket for her to realize she should take the one ticket deal.  Anyway, I thought it wasn't getting through to her that doing tasks without being asked would rewarded.  However, in the past couple of days, she's taken the initiative to do a few tasks. 

Sushi & Gelato

D and I took Avery and the G kids out for sushi and gelato tonight.  Considering we were out to eat with a 4, 3, and 2 yo, it went very well.  Best part was by the time we got home it was immediately time for bed!

Beach Trip

Elise earned a reward of going on a beach trip with a friend.  She chose to take Avery.  As long as G3 stays put, Avery will be off to the beach with Elise and Jay tomorrow for the bulk of the day.  In the evening is our date night.  Nice.

Update on Sunday: Avery had a great time with Elise and Jay at the beach.  And given the time, the Gs just kept Avery straight through date night, which meant that D and I had from 11:30 - the night free!

Estate Sale

On the way home from soccer today, Avery and I happened upon an estate sale.  So we popped in and I ended up buying a telephone chair/table, you know, because there's nothing like buying furniture for antiquated technologies.  Next up: fax table!

I plan to eventually (ha! in Megan-terms, that's like 4 years) refinish the wood so it's a darker colored wood, as well as reupholster it.  I just like it because it's unique.  Since I moved the chair that was in my office into the living room, I've been wanting a replacement.  I was just going to buy a cheap IKEA chair, but saw this and figured what the hell.  Plus, it's got a little nook below the table where I'm quite sure Avery will have a ton of fun putting things.

TV

I have been on a Seinfeld rerun kick.  I have no idea why.  I'm loving it, though.  Between Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, I'm cracking up all day.

Oh, and if you're not watching Suits, you should be.

Hipsters

D and I spent our aforementioned free time on Saturday while Avery was at the beach shopping for our costumes for Partiamo, which is the name of the annual company retreat with D's office.  The theme this year is hipsters. Time will tell if I have the guts to wear my hipster costume.  I am not one to dress to standout and my outfit is quite loud.

Woodpecker

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Woody the woodpecker

We have a woodpecker issue.  Let's call him Woody.  Woody has decided that our roof is a great place to make his home.  He seems to particularly enjoy pecking the gutter/side of the house/roof starting around 5:30 am.  The only way to get Woody away from our house is to go into one of the guest rooms and pull up the blinds quickly, thereby scaring him away for a while.  Woodpeckers pecking on a gutter are loud, in case you're wondering.

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Bangs

D and I took Avery to get her haircut yesterday.  We decided to try bangs to minimize hair battles in the morning.  While it doesn't look awful, bangs are definitely not the ideal look for Avery. 

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Date night

D and I originally planned to see two movies last night for our date night.  However, then D remembered that last night was the Survivor finale.  We couldn't very well miss that, so we skipped the second movie and came home to watch.  I don't think anyone else watches Survivor, but I'll just say I'm happy with the outcome.  Very happy.

Oh, and we saw Bridesmaids, a movie I thoroughly enjoyed. Christie was able to join us, so that was a nice change of pace.  Next, D and I would like to see two documentaries: Bill Cunningham New York and Cave of Forgotten Dreams. I know I'll elicit much sympathy when I say that D and I won't have a date night for two whole weeks!  The horror! 

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Self-Compassion

I read this article on self-compassion this morning.  I found it to be very thought provoking.  It made a lot of sense to me.

Funk

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Funky funkity funk

My lack of blogging is the usual: a sort of funk.  I spent all day on Thursday - and I mean ALL DAY - laying in bed staring at the ceiling or sleeping or watching TV.  All day.  What a waste.  Meanwhile, the house was filthy and I hadn't caught up on laundry since returning from Seattle.  I actually resorted to using a black Sharpie to fix some bleach stains on a pair black pants so I had some clean pants to wear.  At least the pants were clean.  And the Sharpie actually did quite a good job, so this really isn't the sob story it started out to be.

Yesterday, I had a much better day.  I took Avery to school earlier than usual simply because we were both ready. When I got home, I got laundry going, then took the dogs out for a walk.  Eddie just made it around the block before his back paw started dragging, so I then dropped him off at home, then took Turtle out for a big walk.  This morning, it's Turtle's paw that is bleeding.  She isn't limping and won't let me look at the paw.  Sigh. Another potential trip to the vet. 

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The Eddie Situation

Speaking of trips to the vet, Eddie's visit yielded an answer as to what we should do about Eddie, but the answer still leaves us in limbo.  The short answer is the vet said now is an appropriate time to put Eddie to sleep.  He's in constant discomfort.  However, he's not in excessive pain.  Pain, yes.  Excessive pain, probably not.  So, we can choose to wait until he reaches the point where he is in excessive pain or when he can no longer go up and down the stairs, etc.  Or we can do it before he reaches that point.  He's got weeks to 3 (ish) months before we hit the excessive pain point, the vet thinks.  I'm ready to put him to sleep; D is not there quite yet.  That I'm ready is partly because I'm just ready to be done picking up poop in the house everyday, and I'm ready to have one less being looking to me to care for him all the time.  This part of me feels immense guilt for these feelings. The not guilty part of me is ready because I don't want to see him get to excessive pain, nor do I think his quality of life is very good right now.  He can't go on daily walks.  He can only go a short distance before we come back.  He spends most of his day moving from room to room, following me, trying to get in a comfortable position.  He pants and pants and pants, which can't be restful.  Since the latter two behaviors are really annoying, both D and I often snap at him.  He's also sleeping in the garage, rather than in the house with Turtle and us; however, I don't actually think he minds that at all, so I can't really list that as a bad quality of life.

Anyway, the vet did give us some more medication for him, but not for pain.  This is an antidepressant for people that he says sometimes helps dogs with anxiety (excessive panting, following from room to room).  It's definitely working on the panting.  He still follows me around, but perhaps it's not quite as bad as it was - I'm not sure on that one.  Either way, I'm less annoyed, so I feel better able to handle the time between now and when D reaches the point where he's also ready.  After discussing it this afternoon, D has decided he'd like to wait until the end of summer so Eddie can enjoy being out on the deck and enjoy the summer.  This assumes, of course, that the pain doesn't ramp up.  Right now, I think he'll be able to handle it since he's taking his pain medication more regularly.

D talked to Avery the other night about the fact that Eddie's going to die.  Avery understands he'll die and he'll be gone, but she says it's for a "long, long, long time."  Then she says, "but that's OK, because we have Turtle Girlie!"  She doesn't seem to show any true sadness about it yet.  I think she does somewhat get death because, since that conversation took place, she'll say things like, "I don't want you ever to die, Mommy," or, "I won't let you die, Mommy."  Yesterday, she said something about not wanting Daddy to die.  I keep assuring her we're not going to die for a very long time. As with most of these topics when they're merely speculation, I'm very far removed from emotion with them.  I don't cry about Eddie unless I'm actually thinking through the process of putting him to sleep and what that means.  I did end up bawling in the vet's office, but I think that's to be expected.  

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Motorcycle

D bought his motorcycle today.  It turned into an all day affair.  He ended up going with a Kawasaki Ninja after reading that it was a good bike for new riders. It's apple green, so I approve of the color.

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Date Nights

The G kids just left.  Tomorrow will be our date night since we Friday night was my book club meeting.  There are many movies I want to see.  This could be a difficult decision.

Smell

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"Can I smell your breath?"

D and I were talking about another of Avery's quirks last night.  I don't recall documenting it on my blog, so that would be what this is.  Avery, for the last 3-6 months (time eludes me) has been asking to smell our breath.  Or she'll ask us to smell her breath.  It's usually to see what we've been eating.  She'll know that I just ate some chocolate and ask to smell my breath.  Making it more odd is that she needs to have you blow your breath right into her nose, so she's really, really close. 

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Movies

We saw Source Code and Win Win last night.  Win Win was definitely the better quality movie, but I also liked Source Code as an action adventure sort of movie. I'd recommend Win Win to almost anyone - it's funny, touching, and entertaining. As for Source Code, I think it's a good movie for folks who see a lot of movies and who enjoy action flicks.  You have to really suspend reality and be willing to overlook a few illogical plot points to enjoy Source Code.

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Motorcycles

Avery and I went to look at motorcycles with D yesterday.  I realized it's pointless for me to participate in this purchase.  I know nothing about motorcycles.  My entire opinion on bikes comes from what color they are.  I like the apple green ones.

Anyway, the toy motorcycle purchase is moving forward.  D bought his helmet, jacket, and gloves yesterday.  I think he also still needs rain pants and something else.  Can't remember.  Then he's waiting for a new bike from Triumph to arrive in the dealership so he can test drive it.  I think he has it narrowed down to a decision between the Triumph and the BMW.

Marathon

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Late Licker

Avery was never one to put things in her mouth too much.  She did it, as all babies do, of course.  But it wasn't much of a challenge to take it away when she was small enough.  When she was older, I would say no and it just seemed effortless to get her to not put things in her mouth.  Now, at 3 years old, she is licking EVERYTHING.  Yesterday I caught her with a wrench in her mouth.  At Disneyland, she would lean forward and put the fence or railings in her mouth.  You name it, she's licking it.  WTF, I ask.  I thought only babies and toddlers did this.  She also never sucked her thumb, but those damn fingers are in her mouth all.the.time now, it seems. 

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1h 45m

Avery had three dance classes totaling 1 hour and 45 minutes yesterday.  And she was engaged in all of them.  I am not foolish enough to think that she'll be as engaged in each one in the coming weeks, but I was pleased it was not too much to handle.

A summary of our Friday (travel time included in activities):

• 9:30 - 11:00 Doctor's appointment for Avery (all is well - no worries)
• 11:00 - 11:30 Ballet shoe purchase
• 11:30 - 12:45 PDX Playdate with Henry
• 12:45 - 1:30 REI to exchange shoes
• 1:30 - 3:45 Dance: hip hop; pre-ballet; terrific twirling
• 3:45 - 4:45 Car seat installation marathon (see below)
• 4:45 - 6:45 On my own with the three kids at home
• 6:45 - D comes home and I cash in the fact that he's going out with buddies next Saturday night whilst I do a G date night solo, which meant I told him he was putting all three kids to bed for the night.  He, thankfully, obliged. 

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Car Seat Installation Marathon 

I offered to take Nolan and Elise directly from dance class (Elise is in Avery's third dance class, the terrific twirling one).  I have a spare seat for Elise, but needed one for Nolan.  For some reason, the spare seat for Nolan wouldn't install correctly.  Each time we thought it was in there securely, I'd do the forceful wiggle-test and it would make its way loose.  Eventually, RHG decided to remove a Britax car seat (read: easy enough to install and a guaranteed safe installation) from her car and put it in mine.  Anyway, there's not much else to note other than after ensuring all three car seats were properly and very, very tightly installed, I kind of felt let down when we didn't get in an accident on the way home (jk, of course).  Car seat installation is like insurance: you want it to be solid, but you don't really want to test it's solid. 

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Double Date Night

We have date night tonight.  We're not doubling with another couple, but we are doubling our movie viewing; we'll see Win Win and Source Code. I am really looking forward to this date night.  And Avery is really looking forward to heading to the G's house.  I told her this morning she was going over there tonight.  She asked, "Can I go now?!"

Basketball

Date night

We went to the basketball game last night.  My enthusiasm was greatest before the game when the atmosphere is amped up a bit, then it took a nose dive when they started playing, then peaked again at half time when there was a flyball competition between two teams of dogs, and finally hit a low when I continued to read my Kindle right into the third quarter.  We finally just decided it was ridiculous to be there when neither of us really wanted to be.

We went to Toro Bravo for dinner.  I had never been there.  We pulled up to the restaurant at 5 pm and there was a line of people out the door.  We did get seated quickly because I think they opened at 5, however, that line never got shorter.  The food was very good, but I can't say it's the type of place I'd having a craving to go back to. 

Weekend

D has had motorcycle training both days this weekend, so Avery and I have been on our own.  It's amazing how much slower weekend days go than weekdays. I think that's just because I'm used to doing weekdays solo, but not weekends. 

I asked D if he thought he was still going to get a motorcycle.  See, when we went to try on helmets and just sit on a bike, he was a bit stiff and it didn't feel so great.  So I thought there was a chance he would decide against getting a bike.  However, after riding all day yesterday, he said it all came back to him and he's back to wanting one quite badly.  

Walk

Avery and I are about to head out for walk with Turtle Girlie.  We also need to check in on the neighbor's cat since they're on vacation. 

Subscribe by email

I put a gadget over there on the right-side bar where you can enter your email address to get a post emailed to you each time I write a post.  I have tested it out and it works well.  There is a way to stop receiving the emails if you change your mind and no longer want to be emailed.  I thought some of you non-Google-Reader users might prefer that to checking the blog directly. 

Hooker

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One in search of hooks

I am one who is looking for hooks.  So that makes me a hooker, right?  Several months ago, I admitted to myself that my knife-rack-as-art-display area was a failure.  It would actually have worked perfectly had I installed the knife racks higher.  But at Avery level, she just promptly removes the art work to show off/carry around/do whatever, then leaves said art work laying about the house.  Eventually I gave up on it as an art display area and stuck some ill-fitting hooks on the knife rack and we started using it as a spot to hang her coats.  I like that spot for coat hanging, but the knife rack doesn't work as well as would, say, actual hooks.  So I'm in search of quirky/unique/cool hooks for that area.   In my search, I happened upon these three Fork You hooks that I want to put there so very much.  The good mother in me won't do it because sooner or later Avery will imitate it, but damn it, I love it!  Fork you.  Cracks me up.

I do like the idea of using repurposed silverware for hooks given this is in the kitchen. The guy does make peace sign hooks, but I realized the other day when I bought Avery underwear (because it was on clearance) that had peace signs on it that I have a strong aversion to the peace sign and peace symbol.  I'm all for peace mind you, but both the symbol and sign are so overused that it's like putting a brand on my wall.  I rarely wear anything that reveals itself to be a particular brand.

Anyway, I also love a lot of other things in this person's Etsy shop.  I want to buy these business card holders to use as name place holders, make name cards (embossed ones, of course) and then throw a dinner party.  Of course, I don't actually throw dinner parties, but I like these suckers enough to start doing that again.  Alternatively, I could use them to label brunch dishes at brunches!  Or I could assign seating at brunches.  Oh, the possibilities are endless.  But $60 seems a bit steep to spend on such a whim.  Still, can't you see the possibilities! Then when I start thinking about it, if it's only going to hold one card, versus a stack of cards, the holder should be less bulky.  He has fork ones for holding recipes, but I kind of like the spoons.  It's a moot point.  I'm not spending $60 on it.  (Oh, I say that now, but it's only a matter of time before I cave.  I give myself six months).

I also love these little vases.  They're so cute and quirky.  There are a bunch of different designs of them, so I'm not sure which I like best.  But they're so cool.

Hmmm, you can request custom work.  It would be very cool to have five fork hooks that spell Avery in sign language.  That's probably too expensive to justify, but I like the idea.

Anyone know someone who runs a lot of marathons? This would be a great gift to display their medals on.  He has ones that say Marathon and other distances, too.  I like the numbers since you kind of have to think about it.

Oh, I think I found my favorite quirky one so far.  The hanger coat rack.  This might be the one.  I just wish it had five hooks. I shall sleep on it.

So, I am not a big holiday person and I don't like wind chimes (too much noise), but I still want this.  How cool is that for a decoration?

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Sewing

I finished my apron last Sunday night.  Christie took a picture of me in it, but I didn't take a picture of it finished.  It's an apron and it's done.  Truth be told, I just wanted to learn and didn't care much about the actual apron.  

My next project is going to be a knitting needle case for Rachele.  Egads.  I'm going to follow the instructions on a blog post she found that goes through the steps to make a case. 

The next step is for Rachele to pick the fabric from a list I sent over (assuming she finds at least one of them to be acceptable), then I shall go shopping for additional supplies.  One of those will be a rotary cutter because I quickly discovered my hatred for cutting fabric with scissors. 

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IKEA

I went to IKEA after lunch on Saturday.  Avery was so good for the whole trip.  I let her pick out a toy for her, one for Elise, and one for Nolan.  She picked out the same stuffed rat for everyone, but she got herself a white one, Elise a gray one, and Nolan a black one.  Both Avery and Elise went to sleep with their new rats tonight.  Nolan couldn't have cared less about it.

I bought a cabinet to be installed over the toilet in our master bathroom.  The toilet is in it's own little room and has an insanely high ceiling.  I think it only seems insanely high because it's such a tiny space.  Anyway, we have no upper cabinets to use as a medicine cabinet in our bathroom.  I want to keep medicines, etc out of reach of Avery, so I had put them in our hall linen closet.  I'm ready to reclaim that closet for linens, so this seemed a good solution.  I didn't want to spend a lot on a cabinet, so IKEA seemed a good solution.  We'll see if I feel that way when it is installed.

I went with a kitchen cabinet rather than the bathroom cabinet.  The bathroom one is more narrow to avoid bumping your head against, however, there were very few choices with that cabinet.  Also, we have the aforementioned insanely high ceilings, so it can be installed high enough to avoid head injuries, though I must say I think a head injury sustained when pooping would be highly amusing.

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Sleep Over

E & N are spending the night tonight following our new spend-the-night option with date nights.  To be clear, the spend-the-night option will be used sparingly, but it does afford the couple enjoying the date night to not have to retrieve kid(s) after the evening and be able to sleep in a bit in the morning.

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New Ailment

And a new ailment to add to the growing list.  Just now I tried to say, "Are you freakin' kidding me?" (stupid website problem) but what happened was my throat contracted painfully and forced me to cough to clear it.  Body, why must you hate healthy food so?  Give in to it.  Embrace it.  Megan likes her energy.

Stationery

Adventures in embossing

When I mentioned at dinner with girlfriends that I love embossing, yet have little use for it since I don't scrapbook, Stacey mentioned that her daughter would love personalized stationery.  Well, it took me three months, but I finally got around to actually doing it.  I thought about just making a bunch with the same design, but different colors, but instead went with a smattering of random.  I also made envelopes to match each one.  As per my usual, pictures are taken with my cell phone and in crappy light.   Considering I'm a one trick pony*, I'm fairly happy with the results.  Though, I can tell you that perhaps this isn't the hobby for me since I can point out flaws on every.single.one that drive me batty. I finally just had to say, "They're for a 4yo who will likely just scribble on it and toss it aside.  Get over it.  A few extra bits of embossing powder is not the end of the world."

* My one trick is embossing. I don't do any other embellishments (hey! I know a scrapbooking term!), though I guess use of punches might be considered an embellishment. Regardless, I am a one trick pony at the moment. I might look to add a few more tricks, but as I'm simple at heart, there won't be too many of them.

Inside it says, "From the desk of Maddie ____" (where ___ = her last name)

The first time I made this card, I thought I'd be clever and put the lion on the inside then punch a hole in the front so you could see him through it.  Yeah, that doesn't work if you actually want to have space to write on the card.

Too formal for a kid and the border on the side is a bit messed up, but hey, butterflies are cute.

Drives me crazy that the red balloon is so imperfect.  However, I love the envelope.

Simple card, envelope too big and is not lined on the inside.  Not my favorite one.

I don't like the color of her name, but I do like that's it's small and simple.

Way too formal, but I still like it.

I edited the picture to remove her last name, but this is an example of the personalization on the inside of most of the cards. 

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Unexpected night alone

Tonight was our date night.  We went to see Cedar Rapids (very funny).  While out, RHG texted and pointed out that we have brunch at their house in the morning anyway, so why don't we just leave Avery there overnight.  I quickly replied, "OK!" but then noted we needed Avery's approval because I do have the daughter who WILL remember that I specifically said we'd come get her in the few hours.  Apparently, Avery was just dandy with the idea of an impromtu sleepover, so D and I have the luxury of a night at home sans kid.  Of course, I'm blogging and he's researching motorcycle classes...

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Pounce

...which leads to my next topic.  I have always forbid D to get a motorcycle.  Tonight as we're walking along in the Pearl District, I said off hand that I guess it would be fine as long as he always wore a helmet (duh) and didn't drive crazy.  That was the extent of our conversation.  D is signed up to take a class to get his license already.  I have never seen him move so quickly in planning something in my life.  One moment of weakness on my part and poof! he's signed up for a class and scoping out bikes.  Lesson learned.

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Energy and diet and all that jazz

After that awful few days last week, my mood is back to good and my energy is, well, I guess it's good (relative to me).  The best way I can think to describe it is that I'm more awake during my awake hours, but my need/desire for a lot of sleep has not yet diminished.  For example, after brunch today, we got home and I took a, wait for it, 3 hour nap.  Yes, three.  And I slept 7 hours last night, so it's not as if I was sleep deprived.  However, this is the key difference the diet seems to be making: after I woke up, I was almost immediately refreshed and had energy to get Turtle walked, do some laundry and dishes, and take care of other things before we headed out for date night.  Were this pre-diet, I would have still taken the 3 hour nap, but I would have been worthless after the nap, too.  So there you go.  Now that I'm tracking almost everything, I do find it difficult to accept that I sleep on average, 9.7 hours per day.  That's a lot.  I knew I slept a lot, but seeing the actual number makes me sad.

After my call with Andrea last week, I am now thinking that this is going to be a longer process than I thought/hoped.  My theory right now is that I'm not sensitive to any category of foods, but that I have had such poor kidney and liver functions for so long that I'm going to have to keep eating this way until things get back into whack.  And when I say this way, I don't mean staying on the diet, but rather sticking to Andrea's general guidelines as much as possible at home, then allowing myself indulgences when I go out.  I don't know if I'm strong enough to resist once I taste the Good Stuff again (butter, white flour, sugar, etc).  While I have very little craving for any of it, I know once I taste it again, that could go out the window.  We'll see how strict I have to be with myself to keep myself from sliding back to how I was.

I asked Andrea if she ate out at fine dining restaurants (I care about fine dining - I don't care if I never can eat at McDonald's or Red Robin or places like that again), or if she ate "normal person food" ever.  She said absolutely.  She just eats a vast majority of her food at home, then doesn't sweat it when she goes out or eats non-macrobiotic food.  She basically promotes a macrobiotic diet, though she never actually used this term during our discussions.  Also, reading about the macrobiotic diet, I don't see much about red meat.  Andrea isn't against red meat or a little dairy.  She seems more to promote the listening to your body philosophy of that way of eating. And that is where I connect with what she believes.  Obviously, what I've been doing isn't working and I need to change it.  That's as far as my personal eating belief has progressed.

Adventure

An Adventure and a Half

We went to see the Hood to Coast movie last night.  It was better than I expected; it was funny, touching, and inspiring, all at the same time.  We left downtown about 9 PM and arrived at Rachele's to pick up Avery about 9:30.  That was when the fun started.

Prior to going inside to get Avery, I asked D if he thought we should just spend the night at Rachele's.  Before I could even finish the question, he replied, "Noooooo!" in a tone that said, "You're being a ridiculous worry wort, Megan."  I didn't push it.  Truth be told, I didn't feel the need to stay overnight there, either.  We should have.

The drive to the entrance to our neighborhood wasn't bad.  We slid a few times, but nothing scary that could be classified as a near miss or anything close to it.  We'd decided to take the lower entrance to the neighborhood. Driving down an icy hill as steep as the upper entrance hill would be an even worse idea that attempting to ascend an equally steep hill.  We barely made it into the neighborhood before the car started to slide.  We slid into a curb on the right side of the street, bounced off the curb and slid into the other curb before the car finally settled as if we had parked it purposefully facing the wrong direction, but at least against the curb.  That was the fun part of the journey.

The less fun part began when we realized we would need to walk home.  It's only a half mile walk, but ...

• The street and sidewalks were covered in a continuous sheet of ice
• We didn't have a coat for Avery (parents of the year, right here)
• Neither of us had on appropriate shoes with any sort of traction
• The temperature was about 29 degrees with a very cold wind blowing
• It's now 10:00 at night and Avery's asleep in the car seat in jammies

I managed to get out of the car and stand up.  Yes, that was a feat in itself.  I put my coat and hat on, put my purse over my shoulder, then proceed to get Avery out of the car seat and drape her blanket over her and cover that with Damian's sport coat.  I put my gloves and hat on Avery.  I started up the hill carrying Avery while D locked the car and got his coat on.  I walked on a lawn for the length of most of the first house, then had to move to the sidewalk to get by their driveway.  It was terrifying because I was holding Avery and all I could think about was falling and hitting her head.

I managed to make it to the second house, but that house had no lawn or verge in front of it - at least not in a location that would help us proceed up the hill.  So it was just sheer ice with absolutely nothing to grip.  I decide to wait until D made his way to us. Avery announces she's cold, so I realize I should take off my coat and give it to her.  I do this and put on D's sport coat.  We at least had a hat for Avery in the car, so D put that on Avery and gave me my hat that I'd put on Avery earlier.  The three of us start to attempt to walk further, but get no where.  We are discussing what we can do, but coming up with nothing.   Desperate, I decide to take off my shoes to see if I can get more traction that way.  I can.  I hand my shoes to D and take Avery from him and start walking in an attempt to get to the next lot, which is empty (no sidewalk, therefore, it's navigable).  I start to walk while holding Avery and make it five or six steps.  Then my socks lost traction and I started to slide backwards. Eventually I fell and said, "Shit!"  I hit my left knee hard and caught myself with my right wrist.  Avery was not hurt, but was obviously freaked out.  D and I started bickering, which did not help the situation. 

At this point, I transfer Avery to D somehow and he hands me his iPad.  You know, because we wouldn't want to leave the iPad in the car when attempting to navigate a steep hill covered in a sheet of ice.  As we're discussing another movement attempt, I slip and fall again, this time in a very cartoon-like manner backwards.  My feet just went out from under me.  I landed hard on my butt and the iPad went flying.  This is when I yelled, "Fuck!"

All of this is occurring in front of a single house.  Now I'm sitting there with no shoes on and no coat on a sheet of ice and I'm unable to even crawl. I cannot move an inch.  D and I are fighting over what to do.  Finally, the owners of the house notice us and open their garage.  We explain we're stuck, which the woman clearly couldn't grasp until she stepped onto her driveway and realized one simply cannot walk.  D managed to pass Avery to her, then grab my hand to pull me to him. He was standing on a very small piece of non-sidewalk in front of their house.  We get into the garage and I calm down quickly.

After we go inside, we discuss what we can do.  Who can we call?  There aren't a lot of answers at that point, so at 10:30, I call our neighbor, Maggie, in sort of a Hail Mary to see if their car is any better on ice.  It wasn't so we hung up.  D and Mark, our new neighbor friend, decide to head out and see if they can find a route by hiking up the empty lot next to the house.  Meanwhile, Maggie calls back and says she has an idea.  They have two pairs of ice grips, designed to go over regular shoes and allow traction on ice.  She says she would try to hike down the hill and then one of us can hike back up with her carrying Avery, then leave Avery with her and head back down the hill to get the other person, back up, get Avery from her, etc.   After determining that D's route is a no go, I call Maggie back and tell her, yes, please risk life and limb to hike down a steep, icy hill so we can come back from our most important movie viewing.  She says she's on her way.

Now we proceed to have awkward conversation with Mark and Sara.  They both have somewhat thick accents, I think Chinese.  Regardless, English is not their first language so we have a number of moments where a question is asked with a blank stare as the response.  At one point, we're sitting at the table and Avery interrupts a fascinating discussion on the weather to announce, "I farted."  Yeah, that was super awkward.  I replied, "Then what do you say?"  She replies with a grin, "Excuse me!"  I then quickly explain she doesn't need to announce each time "that happens."

Maggie knocks on the door a while later.  I jump up from the table and dash to the door to unlock it and let her in ... at someone else's house.  I was just so desperate to get moving and get home that I wasn't thinking.  Anyway, we get the grips on D's shoes, get Avery all bundled up in my coat, a pair of pants over her jammies, her hat, my gloves, etc.  I brace myself for another 30 minutes of awkward conversation, but then Maggie suggests that D take both grips since he's carrying Avery, but she and I could each take one grip.  I leap at that suggestion.

First, we have to get down the 12 or so steps from Mark and Sara's front door to the sidewalk.  12 icy steps.  I can't grip the wall because one hand is linked with Maggie and the other is holding the freakin' iPad.  So I shove the iPad down the back of my pants and that works beautifully.

From here on out, the story is non-eventful.  We all slipped and almost fell a few times, but no one actually fell.  We chatted as we hiked up the hill.  Despite the fact that I was wearing just D's sport coat, I was fine temperature-wise.  My legs were cold because my pants were still soaking wet, but that is to be expected.

Safe and sound!

When we arrived home, it was midnight. We walked in the door in great spirits and so very grateful to have made it home safely.  At this point, I ask Avery if she wants hot chocolate because if you're going to have such an adventure, it's important to throw all rules out the window and just go with it.  We have hot chocolate and take the family picture (using D's iPhone because, of course, the camera's battery is not charged).  Then we head up to bed and suggest Avery sleep with us and forget about earning a sleeping star.

I woke up about 4 AM starving and in pain.  I managed to get back to sleep around 5 AM.  When I woke for the day at 8:30, I realized I can almost not bend my right wrist at all.  At first I couldn't even type, but as I type this, I can at least do that with minimal pain.  I can't pick anything up with that hand or do much else other than type.  My knee is bruised, but feels fine.  The rest of my body is as sore as one would expect with two sudden, hard falls on ice. My right wrist is slightly swollen, but only slightly.  I figure it must be a sprain since surely I would have felt it last night if I'd broken something.

Lessons learned:

• Always toss a coat and warm clothes for all in the car, even if we're not planning to need it
• Buy many pairs of ice grips for shoes, to be store in each car, as well as at home
• When ice is present, never attempt to ascend or descend (reason 1, reason 2) the hills into our neighborhood.  Snow tires will not help. 

Bad Words

Above, I noted the bad words I said loudly and clearly in front of Avery. When she turned three, it struck me that Avery hasn't yet said a "bad" word. I never, ever thought that D and I would manage to clean up our language around Avery enough to be able to have a shot at this. Hopefully last night's slip up doesn't result in an end to our streak.