What a great day we had today! Baby girl was kind enough to sleep in until 6am, an especially thoughtful gesture since I tossed and turned for at least an hour last night. We hurried off to our quick two-stop grocery shopping. I scored a half-price gallon of our milk, which means I can finally try out Kimmy's homemade ricotta recipe (it's cooking right now). After unloading the groceries, I changed and headed off to participate in a 10-mile bike race. It was nice. Back at home, I rocked the baby to sleep and then finished making a layered chocolate-peanut butter-whipped cream cake thing. It turned out a gooey mess, and I knocked it over at one point, and I was pretty sure it was a failure. (But it turned out fine.)
Then it was off to the best thing of my entire week: We got to see our friends Kimmy, Nathan, and their handsome son, "Little"!!!!! We got to spend four whole hours in their glorious presence, eating and chatting and watching babies climb up stairs. Nate and I wanted to go see the Tour of Homes taking place in their town, so after Baby Girl nommed some lunch and Little took a nap, we went out and saw three homes. (It was really interesting to compare/contrast the Tour homes in their town with the ones we saw last month.) Our generous friends made us a delicious dinner, we all tried my not-complete-failure of a cake (whew) and then, sadly, we had to go home. But oh, it was good to see them! We're all trying to convince each other to move. Wouldn't that be spectacular?
One of the reasons the trip was a smashing success is that I was given a marvelous, blessed bit of inspiration before we left the house. You see, as I might have mentioned, my daughter does not especially like being in her car seat. Thus if we go on a trip that requires driving for an hour (south to visit our good friends, north to visit my family) my daughter becomes very upset and is usually yelling if not screaming for some portion of the trip. Today as we were gathering things for the journey, I thought that perhaps if I took some books and toys, and I sat with her in the back seat and kept her company and helped her play, that we would have a more enjoyable trip...
The whole trip south, not a single noise of complaint! She would play with a toy or explore a given book for about 5-10 minutes, then toss is aside, and I would offer her a little food then give her another item. Not only did this make her happier, it means I was able to turn the car ride into quality time with my daughter! As a working mom, maximizing quality time is one of my highest priorities. I am deeply grateful for the nudge of inspiration that made all the difference in our day!
On the way home, Nate was tired and asked me to drive. He sat in the back seat instead. There was a minute or two of complaining, but dad gathered up some scattered toys, starting chatting with the baby, and was able to keep her content the rest of the way home.
Yay for a good trip, and HOORAY for our good friends. Such a wonderful way to wrap up the week.
Since it's "computer off" time in our house, I'm afraid that will have to be all for tonight. I have some updates about Baby Girl's new skills, plus thoughts on a couple of books I read -- hopefully I will find time for those posts in a day or two.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
The final car seat post
Yesterday an anonymous soul stumbled upon my previous car-seat-comparison blog post, and left a comment that she found it very helpful. That made me quite happy. It also made me realize that I never "finished" writing about that topic -- I didn't put up a post about our final decision, or any follow-up notes. My bad.
Feel free to roll your eyes at how long and agonizing I made this decision. I understand if you now feel like throwing up every time I say the words car seat -- I know the whole thing has been a bit of an ordeal.
In the end, I ordered a Britax Boulevard. I got the "Aztec" cover because it was about $10 cheaper than the plain blue or black covers. Is it beautiful? No. It's not even cute. But it's not ugly, and it IS a great seat. We got it at Amazon -- it was the best price we could find. (I love you, Amazon.)
At the time we got it (about two months ago), Britax had just started rolling out new versions of all their convertibles. But after quite a bit of deliberation, I decided not to wait for the newest version. My kid needed a new seat and I didn't know when the new Boulevard would become available. I also wasn't sure how the price would be affected by the new seats. Would the old ones become cheaper? Would the new ones be more expensive? Were the new, very minor, changes even worth the wait?
More of the new versions (maybe all of them?) are available now, and it looks like the new ones are "full priced" and that the old ones have actually become more expensive since we bought our seat. That makes me happy I purchased what I got, when I got it.
As I see it, here are some of the "challenges" with this seat:
- The shoulder straps tend to fall into the seat when we take out the baby. It's very easy to just pull them out of the way before I put her back in, or I can fish them out from under her after she sits down (it's easy to maneuver them out from under her plump little body).
- We have a Corolla, which is a smaller car. This is a good-sized car seat. We have it behind the passenger seat, which means we have to be careful as we maneuver the baby through the door and into the seat (or vice versa). I have bonked her head a time or two. But if you're slow and careful, it's not a problem. There's enough room to get her in and around. If she were in the middle seat, not problem. When she switches to facing forward, no problem.
- Since the car seat is behind the passenger seat, the passenger seat has to sit a little more upright than "normal". Personally I prefer to sit upright in the car as much as possible, so it doesn't bother me. We had to scoot the seat forward just a little, but not much. Even Nate at 6' tall is reasonably comfortable in the passenger seat. Again, if I moved the seat to the center of the backseat, this would not be an issue. And it won't be an issue when baby faces forward.
- As with ALL convertible car seats, it doesn't have any kind of hood to block out the sun from the windows. So if you do not have tinted windows, you'll need a roller shade (or similar) for the side and back. Even if you put your kid in the middle seat (where it's safer, and where we really should put our seat), then you'd need a shade for your back window.
- When we looked at this car seat in the store, Nate complained that the crotch buckle has a short tether and that it is hard to buckle the straps. This might have been annoying at first, I honestly can't remember because it doesn't bother me at all anymore.
- There is only one thing that actually bugs me about this car seat: To tighten or loosen the straps, you have to wiggle your finger into the little pocket at the "feet" of the car seat, and push a button. My pocket doesn't quite line up with the button, so I have to stick my finger in and fish around. I bet if I just gave the seat cover a couple good yanks, it would align correctly. So the real problem is that I am lazy.
To be honest, I have no real complaints about this seat. It works well. The functions operate smoothly. My kid is comfortable. The cover is VERY easy to remove, so when I need to clean it, no problem. It fits tightly and securely in the car. It is easy to install, and fairly easy to take out (if needed). I am happy with this purchase and would definitely do it all over again.
Feel free to roll your eyes at how long and agonizing I made this decision. I understand if you now feel like throwing up every time I say the words car seat -- I know the whole thing has been a bit of an ordeal.
At the time we got it (about two months ago), Britax had just started rolling out new versions of all their convertibles. But after quite a bit of deliberation, I decided not to wait for the newest version. My kid needed a new seat and I didn't know when the new Boulevard would become available. I also wasn't sure how the price would be affected by the new seats. Would the old ones become cheaper? Would the new ones be more expensive? Were the new, very minor, changes even worth the wait?
More of the new versions (maybe all of them?) are available now, and it looks like the new ones are "full priced" and that the old ones have actually become more expensive since we bought our seat. That makes me happy I purchased what I got, when I got it.
As I see it, here are some of the "challenges" with this seat:
- The shoulder straps tend to fall into the seat when we take out the baby. It's very easy to just pull them out of the way before I put her back in, or I can fish them out from under her after she sits down (it's easy to maneuver them out from under her plump little body).
- We have a Corolla, which is a smaller car. This is a good-sized car seat. We have it behind the passenger seat, which means we have to be careful as we maneuver the baby through the door and into the seat (or vice versa). I have bonked her head a time or two. But if you're slow and careful, it's not a problem. There's enough room to get her in and around. If she were in the middle seat, not problem. When she switches to facing forward, no problem.
- Since the car seat is behind the passenger seat, the passenger seat has to sit a little more upright than "normal". Personally I prefer to sit upright in the car as much as possible, so it doesn't bother me. We had to scoot the seat forward just a little, but not much. Even Nate at 6' tall is reasonably comfortable in the passenger seat. Again, if I moved the seat to the center of the backseat, this would not be an issue. And it won't be an issue when baby faces forward.
- As with ALL convertible car seats, it doesn't have any kind of hood to block out the sun from the windows. So if you do not have tinted windows, you'll need a roller shade (or similar) for the side and back. Even if you put your kid in the middle seat (where it's safer, and where we really should put our seat), then you'd need a shade for your back window.
- When we looked at this car seat in the store, Nate complained that the crotch buckle has a short tether and that it is hard to buckle the straps. This might have been annoying at first, I honestly can't remember because it doesn't bother me at all anymore.
- There is only one thing that actually bugs me about this car seat: To tighten or loosen the straps, you have to wiggle your finger into the little pocket at the "feet" of the car seat, and push a button. My pocket doesn't quite line up with the button, so I have to stick my finger in and fish around. I bet if I just gave the seat cover a couple good yanks, it would align correctly. So the real problem is that I am lazy.
To be honest, I have no real complaints about this seat. It works well. The functions operate smoothly. My kid is comfortable. The cover is VERY easy to remove, so when I need to clean it, no problem. It fits tightly and securely in the car. It is easy to install, and fairly easy to take out (if needed). I am happy with this purchase and would definitely do it all over again.
Now here are a few more notes about the final decision-making process: When I had narrowed the range of seats down to a handful of my favorites, I sat down and made a list of the car seats we liked with the color options and the prices.
I had the opportunity shortly thereafter to test out Peg Perego's convertible car seat, and although it was undoubtedly made of high quality materials and is a very nice car seat, there were a couple of things that I did not like. For instance, adjusting the head/shoulder part required two hands and was a bit "choppy" (i.e. it didn't slide as smoothly as I would like). It was also difficult to tighten shoulder straps, though that might have been because it was tightly fitted into a very small car. At the time I noticed another thing or two, though I can't now remember the problems. Suffice it to say that although the quality was superior the functionality was less than ideal.
I had the opportunity shortly thereafter to test out Peg Perego's convertible car seat, and although it was undoubtedly made of high quality materials and is a very nice car seat, there were a couple of things that I did not like. For instance, adjusting the head/shoulder part required two hands and was a bit "choppy" (i.e. it didn't slide as smoothly as I would like). It was also difficult to tighten shoulder straps, though that might have been because it was tightly fitted into a very small car. At the time I noticed another thing or two, though I can't now remember the problems. Suffice it to say that although the quality was superior the functionality was less than ideal.
So I put the PP on the bottom of my list, noted the pros/cons, and crossed it off. That left me with five Britax models: Roundabout, Marathon, Boulevard, Boulevard CS, and Advocate. The Advocate was out of my price range, so I crossed it off. I wanted the safest seat I could afford, and we had enough for either Boulevard model. (Note that with the roll out of the new models, the Boulevard CS is now called the Pavillion). There was only one differences between the two Boulevards: the "click-safe" feature. At the time, it was going to cost me an extra $20+ to get CS, I couldn't quite justify the cost. I still wish I had the CS just for the convenience of it, but it's not essential and mostly I don't even think about it.
NOW for some pictures!!!
In her old car seat (the last picture before we cleaned, wrapped, boxed, and stored the seat):
In her new car seat, a few minutes after it was delivered:
In the car in her new seat (approx. her second trip out and about):
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Tie the garlic knot
My house smells like a pizzeria this evening. Yum. I decided to make some garlic knots, which I haven't had since college. I found several recipes online. The one I used was good, not great; the directions are overly wordy and makes it seem like a complex process. It's not. My knots ended up a little too big, more like the size of crescents. Whoops! But they were tasty. Next time I think I'll use less salt (I went all in -- hell must be freezing over -- on the salt) and I'll use whole wheat flour.
The big news from this week is that Nate was gone. He left early, early Wednesday morning to go on a hiking/camping trip with a few of the boy scouts. (Two scouts plus one other leader, to be exact.) He got back about 2pm today (Saturday). I worked all day Wednesday and Friday while my mom watched baby girl. I couldn't find child care for Thursday so I took my one day of vacation. It was a pretty rough week and I could complain about it, would complain about it, but it's over and we survived. Whew.
...
I just wrote and deleted about five paragraphs. I'm in a bit of a sour mood and I'm having a hard time finding something nice to say, so I think I'll just go give up and brood for awhile. I'll post more when I'm feeling less crabby.
:o)
The big news from this week is that Nate was gone. He left early, early Wednesday morning to go on a hiking/camping trip with a few of the boy scouts. (Two scouts plus one other leader, to be exact.) He got back about 2pm today (Saturday). I worked all day Wednesday and Friday while my mom watched baby girl. I couldn't find child care for Thursday so I took my one day of vacation. It was a pretty rough week and I could complain about it, would complain about it, but it's over and we survived. Whew.
...
I just wrote and deleted about five paragraphs. I'm in a bit of a sour mood and I'm having a hard time finding something nice to say, so I think I'll just go give up and brood for awhile. I'll post more when I'm feeling less crabby.
:o)
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Another four-word week, with 75% repetition
I am just going to write a brief post. It's already getting late, and I'd like to go bed early and try to catch a little bit of extra sleep. It's been a long week with several poor-sleep nights, and I'm tried and a tad grumpy. Plus Baby Girl's is 13-months today, which means I need to write her a letter. So... now that I think about it, I'll be lucky if I manage to get to bed on time, even.
Four topics: Report, Garden, Girl's Day, Books
My report was published! You can check it out at: www.qualityinfo.org/pubs/skills/fabmetals.pdf. I spoke with at least half a dozen reporters this week. The report was picked up in one of the evening news segments, and in a couple of newspapers. Neat. Meanwhile the uber boss is sharing the report with people all over the nation and I may have to give a few presentations. It's cool that my work is getting some traction, but I don't like to be personally in the spotlight.
The garden had a good week. The weather was hot (in the 80s all week) and many of the plants thrived. My zucchini is especially happy, and by happy I mean huge. I will definitely pick the first "fruits" in just a couple of days. Here's a picture from Monday, in which he seems only big, not huge, given how much he's grown this week:
And here are some other garden pictures:
Today I attended my family's annual "Girl's Day at the Farm" and took Baby Girl, too. Every summer my great Aunt Marge hosts the little get-together for the women on my maternal grandfather's side of the family. (My grandpa was Marge's brother.) Some of the family members come from 5 hours away, and they actually spend a night or two; it's more like "Girl's Weekend at the Farm" for them. Those of us who live closer just come down for the day. I only made it for about three hours, since I had to wait until Darling was up from her morning nap, and then she got pretty cranky and clearly needed an afternoon nap. BUT since my kid doesn't like to sleep in the car, the ride home actually consisted of her complaining for 15 minutes, screaming for 10 minutes, and then sleeping for 10 minutes. Blarg.
In any event, we had a very nice three hours on the farm, sitting under the apple trees and eating sandwiches, poking fun at each other, telling stories. It was great. Several second and third cousins who are my age were in attendance, and everyone was in good spirits. I just wish I had more time!!! Next year, hopefully, we'll make a WHOLE day of it.
I finished reading The Loom last week. I didn't like it. The story starts out well enough and at first you like the main character, but then she makes some poor choices and she gets annoying. The storyline disintegrates at that point; I lost interest and started doing skip-a-page reading. The ending, which I don't really remember specifically, was disappointing. (I remember how I felt about it, even if I can't exactly remember what happened.)
I then read a book called Heiress by Susan May Warren. Overall I definitely liked it, though it had a couple of moments when it got bogged down in explaining minutia. (It's cool that you did research on how a hand-operated printing press worked in 1900, but I don't need to know all the nuances, it doesn't help the story line!) There was a sub-theme about God (how He works, what it means to have His blessing, etc.) that appeared in the middle of the book, suddenly and for several pages, then disappeared for awhile, only to repeat itself two or three more times before the end of the novel. The author's note after the end of the story clarifies the purpose of the sub-theme, but in context, it actually detracts from the story. It's abrupt, not persuasive, and doesn't tie in well with the overarching themes. But again, I definitely liked the book. I'm planning to check out some more of SM Warren's titles -- she has one called Duchess that I suspect I will like. Ha.
I wanted something easy and familiar after the density of Heiress, so I read the second and third Hunger Games books (just finished book 3 an hour ago). The second one was better than I remembered. The third one was also slightly better, but that only means it was elevated from being really bad to just plain bad. I don't blame Suzanne Collins for the deficiencies of Book 3; I think it was the pressure of popularity that forced her to squeeze it out and perhaps meant her editors didn't do a sufficiently careful job. In any event, it's still disappointing. I did get a better perspective on the Gale-Katniss-Peeta love triangle of annoyance. The first time through, I was always rooting for Gale, and I disliked the constant uncertainty of the story line, and I hated that Katniss-Peeta is the resolution. On my second pass, I understand the relationships better and the conclusion makes more sense.
Finally, Nate is getting into a good reading habit, too. This week he read the first Harry Potter book. (Finished it about 10 minutes ago, proudly declaring he was Done! when he snapped it shut.) He wants to read through the whole series. Good for him! I'm thinking about following his head and re-reading them too, but I better let him get at least 4 books ahead of me first. So maybe in a month I will start reading them. :)
For now, I'm going to try and tackle a couple of he classics.
Four topics: Report, Garden, Girl's Day, Books
My report was published! You can check it out at: www.qualityinfo.org/pubs/skills/fabmetals.pdf. I spoke with at least half a dozen reporters this week. The report was picked up in one of the evening news segments, and in a couple of newspapers. Neat. Meanwhile the uber boss is sharing the report with people all over the nation and I may have to give a few presentations. It's cool that my work is getting some traction, but I don't like to be personally in the spotlight.
The garden had a good week. The weather was hot (in the 80s all week) and many of the plants thrived. My zucchini is especially happy, and by happy I mean huge. I will definitely pick the first "fruits" in just a couple of days. Here's a picture from Monday, in which he seems only big, not huge, given how much he's grown this week:
And here are some other garden pictures:
Today I attended my family's annual "Girl's Day at the Farm" and took Baby Girl, too. Every summer my great Aunt Marge hosts the little get-together for the women on my maternal grandfather's side of the family. (My grandpa was Marge's brother.) Some of the family members come from 5 hours away, and they actually spend a night or two; it's more like "Girl's Weekend at the Farm" for them. Those of us who live closer just come down for the day. I only made it for about three hours, since I had to wait until Darling was up from her morning nap, and then she got pretty cranky and clearly needed an afternoon nap. BUT since my kid doesn't like to sleep in the car, the ride home actually consisted of her complaining for 15 minutes, screaming for 10 minutes, and then sleeping for 10 minutes. Blarg.
In any event, we had a very nice three hours on the farm, sitting under the apple trees and eating sandwiches, poking fun at each other, telling stories. It was great. Several second and third cousins who are my age were in attendance, and everyone was in good spirits. I just wish I had more time!!! Next year, hopefully, we'll make a WHOLE day of it.
I finished reading The Loom last week. I didn't like it. The story starts out well enough and at first you like the main character, but then she makes some poor choices and she gets annoying. The storyline disintegrates at that point; I lost interest and started doing skip-a-page reading. The ending, which I don't really remember specifically, was disappointing. (I remember how I felt about it, even if I can't exactly remember what happened.)
I then read a book called Heiress by Susan May Warren. Overall I definitely liked it, though it had a couple of moments when it got bogged down in explaining minutia. (It's cool that you did research on how a hand-operated printing press worked in 1900, but I don't need to know all the nuances, it doesn't help the story line!) There was a sub-theme about God (how He works, what it means to have His blessing, etc.) that appeared in the middle of the book, suddenly and for several pages, then disappeared for awhile, only to repeat itself two or three more times before the end of the novel. The author's note after the end of the story clarifies the purpose of the sub-theme, but in context, it actually detracts from the story. It's abrupt, not persuasive, and doesn't tie in well with the overarching themes. But again, I definitely liked the book. I'm planning to check out some more of SM Warren's titles -- she has one called Duchess that I suspect I will like. Ha.
I wanted something easy and familiar after the density of Heiress, so I read the second and third Hunger Games books (just finished book 3 an hour ago). The second one was better than I remembered. The third one was also slightly better, but that only means it was elevated from being really bad to just plain bad. I don't blame Suzanne Collins for the deficiencies of Book 3; I think it was the pressure of popularity that forced her to squeeze it out and perhaps meant her editors didn't do a sufficiently careful job. In any event, it's still disappointing. I did get a better perspective on the Gale-Katniss-Peeta love triangle of annoyance. The first time through, I was always rooting for Gale, and I disliked the constant uncertainty of the story line, and I hated that Katniss-Peeta is the resolution. On my second pass, I understand the relationships better and the conclusion makes more sense.
Finally, Nate is getting into a good reading habit, too. This week he read the first Harry Potter book. (Finished it about 10 minutes ago, proudly declaring he was Done! when he snapped it shut.) He wants to read through the whole series. Good for him! I'm thinking about following his head and re-reading them too, but I better let him get at least 4 books ahead of me first. So maybe in a month I will start reading them. :)
For now, I'm going to try and tackle a couple of he classics.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
My week in four totally unrelated words: Teething, report, garden, books
Sometimes when I'm having a full week and I want to blog about several things, I write a little reminder note to myself. I could've sworn I did that at least once this week, but I'm not finding any little notes to myself hiding anywhere. So I guess all the notes I made were in my head...? If that's the case, I'm definitely going to forget to mention a thing or two. My brain is a bit mashed potato-y after the last couple of sleepless nights.
Yup, it's another round of pain and suffering in our house. Baby Girl is going through a monstrously tough round of teething -- fevers, inconsolablity, trouble sleeping and eating, and a bit of diarrhea. The last couple of nights we were up and down with her about half the night, so today we took turns watching the baby so we could each nap. I'm happy that it's only just 8pm as I sit down to write this; it means I can blog for half an hour and still go to bed at 9pm. Yippee.
Other than that, I don't think there's anything else new to report about Baby Girl. She has her one-year checkup on Monday (I know it's happening late, but the doctor's office didn't have any openings in June!). She was a trooper with the last couple rounds of shots so I am hoping it goes smoothly once again.
There's exciting news coming out of my office this week: My report is finally done and will be released to the public! After a long six-month project which involved designing a survey, distributing it and collecting responses, analyzing data, writing my report, and re-re-re-writing my report, it's DONE and it's about to be public! I feel very accomplished and proud of myself. This is the first major project that was basically entirely my responsibility (though I had a lot of help executing the various tasks), and I think it went really, really well.
Now I don't know if I should mention this, but the report is actually already out there on the web, so if you go to QualityInfo.org and hunt around, you can find it :o) But since it's not "officially" available (i.e. we haven't sent out a press release on the report), I will wait until Monday to give you, my dear blog readers, the specific URL of the report.
WHEW. Relieved. Excited. Pleased.
And moving on...
The garden is doing great! The corn we planted last Saturday has already popped up. The zucchini plants are huge and starting to flower, so I should be able to pluck some "fruit" in just a couple of weeks. Awesome. (We've been munching on lettuce for ages, so the zucchini won't be the first yield of the year, it's just my favorite.) When we were grocery shopping this morning we had to buy a couple of zucchini and I said to Nate, "Pretty soon we won't be buying any, just going out back and picking it!" I love having a garden. I feel very grateful and blessed that I can grow my own food, and that it is coming up happily. (I know, I still need to get some pictures. One of these days... in my free time... it will happen.)
Reading: I really love books. I don't make enough time to read. And I have a hard time finding books that I like. I keep telling myself that I'm going to read more classic literature, but every time start a classic, I get distracted (i.e. Catcher in the Rye, Grapes of Wrath, Anna Karenia, etc.) and I don't finish. I hardly get started.
But I digress. What I really wanted to say is that this week I read a couple of books. I re-read the original Hunger Games book. I ready the trilogy about a year ago, and if you read them altogether, the obnoxious conclusion that is the entire third book can really sour you on the whole thing. The first book, though, it was good. Pretty good, anyway. The first half or so is excellent, then it drags on, and it is left totally, irritatingly unfinished. But the world that Suzanne Collins created is fascinating, and I think that's the real draw of the books. Panem. The Capitol. The system of governance and the culture. That's the good stuff.
I'm about to finish a book called The Loom. Meh. The main character annoys me. It starts off well enough, but then she makes some bad choices, and the writing is a bit slow. The storyline gets convoluted at times. And the plot is a total mystery. What's the point? What are we driving toward? What is the writer trying to say? And since I don't like the main character all that much, I'm not really rooting for her to succeed... and what's the point in that? Anyway, if anyone wants to recommend a good book, I'm all ears. I have pretty broad tastes. :o)
As for now, I'm off to make some chocolate peanut butter shortbread cookies (trying a new recipe, http://theviewfromthegreatisland.blogspot.com/2012/03/peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-shortbread.html) and then go to bed! Happy July to you all.
Yup, it's another round of pain and suffering in our house. Baby Girl is going through a monstrously tough round of teething -- fevers, inconsolablity, trouble sleeping and eating, and a bit of diarrhea. The last couple of nights we were up and down with her about half the night, so today we took turns watching the baby so we could each nap. I'm happy that it's only just 8pm as I sit down to write this; it means I can blog for half an hour and still go to bed at 9pm. Yippee.
Other than that, I don't think there's anything else new to report about Baby Girl. She has her one-year checkup on Monday (I know it's happening late, but the doctor's office didn't have any openings in June!). She was a trooper with the last couple rounds of shots so I am hoping it goes smoothly once again.
There's exciting news coming out of my office this week: My report is finally done and will be released to the public! After a long six-month project which involved designing a survey, distributing it and collecting responses, analyzing data, writing my report, and re-re-re-writing my report, it's DONE and it's about to be public! I feel very accomplished and proud of myself. This is the first major project that was basically entirely my responsibility (though I had a lot of help executing the various tasks), and I think it went really, really well.
Now I don't know if I should mention this, but the report is actually already out there on the web, so if you go to QualityInfo.org and hunt around, you can find it :o) But since it's not "officially" available (i.e. we haven't sent out a press release on the report), I will wait until Monday to give you, my dear blog readers, the specific URL of the report.
WHEW. Relieved. Excited. Pleased.
And moving on...
The garden is doing great! The corn we planted last Saturday has already popped up. The zucchini plants are huge and starting to flower, so I should be able to pluck some "fruit" in just a couple of weeks. Awesome. (We've been munching on lettuce for ages, so the zucchini won't be the first yield of the year, it's just my favorite.) When we were grocery shopping this morning we had to buy a couple of zucchini and I said to Nate, "Pretty soon we won't be buying any, just going out back and picking it!" I love having a garden. I feel very grateful and blessed that I can grow my own food, and that it is coming up happily. (I know, I still need to get some pictures. One of these days... in my free time... it will happen.)
Reading: I really love books. I don't make enough time to read. And I have a hard time finding books that I like. I keep telling myself that I'm going to read more classic literature, but every time start a classic, I get distracted (i.e. Catcher in the Rye, Grapes of Wrath, Anna Karenia, etc.) and I don't finish. I hardly get started.
But I digress. What I really wanted to say is that this week I read a couple of books. I re-read the original Hunger Games book. I ready the trilogy about a year ago, and if you read them altogether, the obnoxious conclusion that is the entire third book can really sour you on the whole thing. The first book, though, it was good. Pretty good, anyway. The first half or so is excellent, then it drags on, and it is left totally, irritatingly unfinished. But the world that Suzanne Collins created is fascinating, and I think that's the real draw of the books. Panem. The Capitol. The system of governance and the culture. That's the good stuff.
I'm about to finish a book called The Loom. Meh. The main character annoys me. It starts off well enough, but then she makes some bad choices, and the writing is a bit slow. The storyline gets convoluted at times. And the plot is a total mystery. What's the point? What are we driving toward? What is the writer trying to say? And since I don't like the main character all that much, I'm not really rooting for her to succeed... and what's the point in that? Anyway, if anyone wants to recommend a good book, I'm all ears. I have pretty broad tastes. :o)
As for now, I'm off to make some chocolate peanut butter shortbread cookies (trying a new recipe, http://theviewfromthegreatisland.blogspot.com/2012/03/peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-shortbread.html) and then go to bed! Happy July to you all.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Funny pictures
I just posted a dozen new pictures of Baby Girl on Facebook. They are the pretty or humorous snapshots. For the blog readers, I present a very different set: The Ridiculous Collection...
^^^Happily showing off her corpulent thighs. Delicious.
"Nooooooooommmmmmmmmm!"
"Enough of this -- get that camera out of my face!"
Angel face.
Maniacal expression. She's a little bit frightening.
"Oh I love my mess, I love it soooo much!"
Impish look. (Love it.)
That's all for now. More tomorrow, when I will share the joys of teething fever, a happily growing garden....and more!
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Highlights from the week...
- My mom retired this week. It was her last week of work! (Well, one kind of work, anyway!) She had a retirement party at work and we drove up to attend. It's really exciting, and surreal. We are very, very happy for her. I'm pretty sure my mom is going to be one of those busier-in-retirement types; she's probably going to pick up a cool new habit, or at least find more time to pursue an old passion (cough, cough... novel-writing or sewing, anyone? :o)
- She and my dad also found a house they liked. They made an offer, reached an agreement, and are moving forward with inspections and such. If all goes well, they could be in the new house by the end of September. My mom has already started packing. (Typical.... I'd be doing the same thing.) The house is not as close as I'd like (yes, I'm selfish) but compared to their current house, it's only about half as far away (about 35 minutes).
- Nana (that't Nate's mom; Darling's paternal grandma) is back in town from her extended trip to another state. We're happy her travels were safe. We haven't had a chance to hear about her trip, but I'm sure we'll be able to catch up soon. - Nana's not the only family who came home! Mike, Amy, and Maddie are in Oregon for a week; Amy's family is having a reunion. The three of them spent a couple of hours in town before heading off to be with Amy's family, and it was great to see them. I think it still hasn't hit me that they are far away... somewhere in my mind, it's like they're still just an hour or two away, you know? We miss them, especially now that we both have babies.
- Gardening update: We finally planted corn seeds. I was waiting for the weather to be warm enough. The next week is supposed to be beautiful, and I decided to just get it started. Supposedly the squash needed a little more heat but they have been doing great even with the very cool/mild weather, and we need to get the corn down before it's too late! Overall the garden is looking wonderful -- the onions are very happy and I love it -- so I am pleased. I'm impatient to clear out another section of the backyard and plant even more goodies. (That's the plan for next year.) I will try to take and post some pictures soon!
- We need to get sunflower seeds in the ground, too. I meant to do that when we put in the corn, but Darling was fussy and there just wasn't time. This week, it'll happen. Maybe tomorrow!
- Baby Girl's language abilities are starting to expand. She has discovered a few new consonants, and she is starting to mimic us a little bit more and better. For instance, my in-laws have a dog named Hava. Darling spent a little bit of time around the dog last week, and she started saying Bava. Nate is convinced this is her word for the dog; I'm not totally convinced, but I wasn't there when she was interacting with the dog. There's no doubt that she understands mama and dada. She uses ma and da to indicate lots of things, but she definitely also says mama and dada in reference to us. It's awesome.
- I hope that Darling will start signing some words soon. She's using more hand gestures (pointing, clapping, waving, flapping her arm, grabbing for certain things) and she studies us carefully when we sign and say words. It makes it much easier to remember to use our signs, when we see her gesturing and trying to articulate.
- I've had Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah stuck in my head for about three days now. I think I am driving Nate crazy. I know that having one song on an endless repeat in my brain is making ME crazy. In case you want to join in on the madness: www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8AWFf7EAc4
See the next post, too; it's new and I go on a crazy rant.
- She and my dad also found a house they liked. They made an offer, reached an agreement, and are moving forward with inspections and such. If all goes well, they could be in the new house by the end of September. My mom has already started packing. (Typical.... I'd be doing the same thing.) The house is not as close as I'd like (yes, I'm selfish) but compared to their current house, it's only about half as far away (about 35 minutes).
- Nana (that't Nate's mom; Darling's paternal grandma) is back in town from her extended trip to another state. We're happy her travels were safe. We haven't had a chance to hear about her trip, but I'm sure we'll be able to catch up soon. - Nana's not the only family who came home! Mike, Amy, and Maddie are in Oregon for a week; Amy's family is having a reunion. The three of them spent a couple of hours in town before heading off to be with Amy's family, and it was great to see them. I think it still hasn't hit me that they are far away... somewhere in my mind, it's like they're still just an hour or two away, you know? We miss them, especially now that we both have babies.
- Gardening update: We finally planted corn seeds. I was waiting for the weather to be warm enough. The next week is supposed to be beautiful, and I decided to just get it started. Supposedly the squash needed a little more heat but they have been doing great even with the very cool/mild weather, and we need to get the corn down before it's too late! Overall the garden is looking wonderful -- the onions are very happy and I love it -- so I am pleased. I'm impatient to clear out another section of the backyard and plant even more goodies. (That's the plan for next year.) I will try to take and post some pictures soon!
- We need to get sunflower seeds in the ground, too. I meant to do that when we put in the corn, but Darling was fussy and there just wasn't time. This week, it'll happen. Maybe tomorrow!
- Baby Girl's language abilities are starting to expand. She has discovered a few new consonants, and she is starting to mimic us a little bit more and better. For instance, my in-laws have a dog named Hava. Darling spent a little bit of time around the dog last week, and she started saying Bava. Nate is convinced this is her word for the dog; I'm not totally convinced, but I wasn't there when she was interacting with the dog. There's no doubt that she understands mama and dada. She uses ma and da to indicate lots of things, but she definitely also says mama and dada in reference to us. It's awesome.
- I hope that Darling will start signing some words soon. She's using more hand gestures (pointing, clapping, waving, flapping her arm, grabbing for certain things) and she studies us carefully when we sign and say words. It makes it much easier to remember to use our signs, when we see her gesturing and trying to articulate.
- I've had Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah stuck in my head for about three days now. I think I am driving Nate crazy. I know that having one song on an endless repeat in my brain is making ME crazy. In case you want to join in on the madness: www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8AWFf7EAc4
See the next post, too; it's new and I go on a crazy rant.
... And then I got pissed at a pie.
When I started writing this post, I had every intention of writing mostly about the highlights of my week and the latest good news, with just a couple of paragraphs about a pie failure from yesterday, but when I started ranting about the pie, there was no going back. So this post is mostly about a Pie that ruined an otherwise good week (and great day)....
It was a busy week; yesterday was especially hectic. We started off with our usual Saturday morning routine -- of grocery shopping, grocery unpacking, and naptime. While the baby slept I set about making a peanut butter "cheesecake" from a recipe that a friend recommended. It called for a crust made with chocolate graham crackers and melted butter. Sounds yummy, but when I pressed it into the pie plate it wasn't really holding together. The next step was to melt chocolate chips and pour/spread it over the crust. Uhm, yeah... fail. The chocolate stuck to the crust so when I tried to spread it, the whole crust came up and it all started mixing into a chocolate/crust thing. I had to scrap the crust back out of the dish and mix up all the chocolate and grahams, then wipe down my plate and put the new chocolate/graham mix back in.
So that was really annoying.
Then I mixed up the other ingredients -- peanut butter, creme cheese, sweetened condensed milk, sugar. Made some whipped cream and folded it in. Sounds delicious, right? Licking the spoon gave me a serious sugar high (and corresponding, serious crash, later in the day). I put the decadent filling into the obnoxious crust. I made the mistake of trying to put a crisscross design of melted-chocolate over the top; I won't go into all the details, I'll just say that it was messy and difficult and did not look pretty when I was done.
The directions did not say to bake the "cheesecake" -- they just said it had to sit in the fridge for at least three hours. Which it did. Then it came with us to my in-laws house (where we had a big family dinner for nana, who just got back from an extended vacation, and Mike/Amy/Maddie who are in Oregon to spend a week with Amy's family). After dinner we got the pie/cake out of the fridge and cut into it.
Ugh.
The crust totally fell apart and the filling was like pudding. It was just a gooey mess. And I don't know what anyone else thought, but I thought it tasted yucky, too. I was -- and still am -- incredibly disappointed. Everyone told me it was fine, it was just like having a rich peanut butter pudding, but I think they were all just being nice. I thought it was disgusting. I'm also kinda ticked off because I spent $12 to get ingredients, and I feel like it was a total waste of my money AND all the two-ish hours I spent making it, then cleaning up. I really wanted to make a nice, tasty dessert as a special treat for my in-laws, and I failed. Grr.
I talked it through with Amy, who is brilliant when it comes to making "treats" like this. She said that cheesecakes is usually baked, and she hypothesized that part of the instructions were missing. So we decided that I should take the disaster home, make more crust to fill in what we ate, remove the remaining chocolate crisscross, spread the filling over the new crust, and bake it.
That was my plan. But we also had a wedding reception to attend, so we were only home long enough to change our clothes, then we went out again. By the time we were back and the baby was in bed, I was exhausted and didn't want to tango with Evil Pie. So I ignored it until this morning... when I remembered that I am teaching a Sunday School class all month! Thus I had to prepare a lesson and couldn't fuss with Evil Pie. Not that I really wanted to fix it -- I'm still mad at the dm'd thing! After church I poked it a bit and discovered that it has firmed up quite a lot in the last 24 hours. In fact, I think I could slice it and it might hold....
In any event, I don't really care anymore. It is gross, and I just want to take the remaining $6 worth of pie, throw it on the street, and spit on it.
It was a busy week; yesterday was especially hectic. We started off with our usual Saturday morning routine -- of grocery shopping, grocery unpacking, and naptime. While the baby slept I set about making a peanut butter "cheesecake" from a recipe that a friend recommended. It called for a crust made with chocolate graham crackers and melted butter. Sounds yummy, but when I pressed it into the pie plate it wasn't really holding together. The next step was to melt chocolate chips and pour/spread it over the crust. Uhm, yeah... fail. The chocolate stuck to the crust so when I tried to spread it, the whole crust came up and it all started mixing into a chocolate/crust thing. I had to scrap the crust back out of the dish and mix up all the chocolate and grahams, then wipe down my plate and put the new chocolate/graham mix back in.
So that was really annoying.
Then I mixed up the other ingredients -- peanut butter, creme cheese, sweetened condensed milk, sugar. Made some whipped cream and folded it in. Sounds delicious, right? Licking the spoon gave me a serious sugar high (and corresponding, serious crash, later in the day). I put the decadent filling into the obnoxious crust. I made the mistake of trying to put a crisscross design of melted-chocolate over the top; I won't go into all the details, I'll just say that it was messy and difficult and did not look pretty when I was done.
The directions did not say to bake the "cheesecake" -- they just said it had to sit in the fridge for at least three hours. Which it did. Then it came with us to my in-laws house (where we had a big family dinner for nana, who just got back from an extended vacation, and Mike/Amy/Maddie who are in Oregon to spend a week with Amy's family). After dinner we got the pie/cake out of the fridge and cut into it.
Ugh.
The crust totally fell apart and the filling was like pudding. It was just a gooey mess. And I don't know what anyone else thought, but I thought it tasted yucky, too. I was -- and still am -- incredibly disappointed. Everyone told me it was fine, it was just like having a rich peanut butter pudding, but I think they were all just being nice. I thought it was disgusting. I'm also kinda ticked off because I spent $12 to get ingredients, and I feel like it was a total waste of my money AND all the two-ish hours I spent making it, then cleaning up. I really wanted to make a nice, tasty dessert as a special treat for my in-laws, and I failed. Grr.
I talked it through with Amy, who is brilliant when it comes to making "treats" like this. She said that cheesecakes is usually baked, and she hypothesized that part of the instructions were missing. So we decided that I should take the disaster home, make more crust to fill in what we ate, remove the remaining chocolate crisscross, spread the filling over the new crust, and bake it.
That was my plan. But we also had a wedding reception to attend, so we were only home long enough to change our clothes, then we went out again. By the time we were back and the baby was in bed, I was exhausted and didn't want to tango with Evil Pie. So I ignored it until this morning... when I remembered that I am teaching a Sunday School class all month! Thus I had to prepare a lesson and couldn't fuss with Evil Pie. Not that I really wanted to fix it -- I'm still mad at the dm'd thing! After church I poked it a bit and discovered that it has firmed up quite a lot in the last 24 hours. In fact, I think I could slice it and it might hold....
In any event, I don't really care anymore. It is gross, and I just want to take the remaining $6 worth of pie, throw it on the street, and spit on it.
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