Having two kids is totally easy.

If you never go anywhere and one of them sleeps 22 hours a day.
It seems de rigueur to have some deep and profound brain things inside my head regarding the end of the year. However, a mild case of PPD and an utterly flattening case of stomach flu have rendered me incapable of even the general and vague thoughts I can usually come up with, so I will clean up a few loose ends.
First, I received a passel of lovely things from bloggy friends and I will now show them off.
Chronologically, we have



Two skeins of Claudia Handpaint from Blogless Lynn. Not pictured: the tray of chicken enchiladas, bucket-o-pork-roast, 6 pack of beer and limes, and head of cabbage we lived on for the first week after Noob arrived. (Sorry Lynn, since Noob had nursing problems we just went ahead and ate the cabbage, but it was still deeply appreciated.)

Next up,



The adorable onesie that Lene sent all the way from Canada, because apparently boy-scent is international. I can't freaking WAIT until Noob is big enough to wear it. (I also can't wait until he's old enough to train to blame Daddy for all yucky smells he encounters. Bug is well trained on that notion.)

Next,



The fantastic Crazy Aunt Cookie set. It's a *tad* large and the hat may be loved more by me than by its intended recipient, but he'll get used to it. :-)



It's already been put into service, on the hayride to see the Christmas lights on Christmas Eve. (I forgot MY coat, but the Noob was nice and toasty.)

Finally,



The ubiquitous Stacey box. (There's actually a good chance, now that I think about it, that I did not even TELL Stacey I received it, which means I didn't thank her either. I blame the Noob and the hourly nursing between 1-7am. Must remedy.) The black sheep (a mark of my evilness, apparently), some delicious yarn in a color that will complement the eye-searing neon confection I will be wearing to her Texas wedding, should she ever bother with one, blackberry soap, a sparkly girlie notebook, and a bright green pen that is not shown because the Bug made off with it almost instantly.

Since I totally did not deserve any of this largesse and am a bit embarrassed seeing it all collected in one place (an aside - does anyone else feel like there's a really fine line between showing appreciation on the blog for gifts received and the "see the wonderful things I got and be ye jealous, peasants!" thing?) I will now distract you with pictures of (pre-barfing) cuteness. (Lest we feel like the Bug is being neglected, I asked him to let me take his picture and was soundly refused.)

A day late and a dollar short

For Eye Candy Friday, and two days for Christmas. I couldn't buy enough of this card to send to everyone, so consider yourselves Christmas-carded.



I need to get caught up, but Christmas dealt us a cold that has flattened us all (well, except the Noob, he's so far managed to escape it) so it will have to wait a little longer.

Insert witty post title here.

Thank you for all the congratulations on the previous post. As you can guess, we're all over the moon about it. Bug thinks Noob is the bestest thing ever, and wants to kiss him and pet him every five minutes or so. Even tried to help me feed, but since I'm breastfeeding I didn't really need him to hold my boob for me. (Add that one to the therapy list.)

What the heck day is this, anyway? I can't even tell, they're kinda all blurring together. I can tell you, though, that compared to last week, Christmas is a bit...anticlimactic.
However, SOME PEOPLE are accusing me [winkwink] of having a baby just to get out of finishing my Christmas knitting, and here I have photographic proof that it didn't happen that way. (As a matter of fact, I removed the blocking wires and unpinned the second Aunt scarf after my water broke, before I went off to the birth center. I know where my priorities lie.)



Stats on Ravelry, here (for the green one) and here (for the other one).

Hmm, what else? Oh yeah, proof that it isn't only Christmas-knitters who procrastinate.



Does that look like a newly installed laminate floor and a new full-sized bed to you? Don't worry, the DH has, like, 47 whole hours to get it taken care of. o.0

Amaryllis watch...



I have a few more pictures of the Noob. (Yeah, like you're going to get away without looking at more pictures.)

Grampa came to see him:



The rest of the time he does this:



Unless it's 2am and then he's wide awake. You will forgive me for not having pictures of that. o.0

Now, I must brave the crowds for some last minute shopping. [weep]

Sorry I'm Late

I was finishing my best FO ever.



I'm pleased to introduce The Noob (aka Jack Michael).



Size: 19.5"
Weight: 7lb 6oz (DK, I'd say)
Pattern: my own
Finished: 12:20pm 12/14/08
Fit: Perfect.

My Christmas Spirit

Has been sucked into the ghost containment grid. It's hard to be all Christmassy and cheerful (even if you're inclined that way, unlike some certain someones, who for some reason fear sweet lil me) when you walk outside and think, "&($)@(&(*&$@), it's hot."



75 frickin' degrees. It's hard on a knitter who lives someplace where it's not all that unusual to have it be 75 frickin' degrees on December 12.
That means I have 13 days to get in the spirit. Don't see it happening, but the DH swears he'll have the floor in the guest room next week (which means he'll have tidied the shed and emptied the guest room of its current load of crap first) which will get me close. I did finally suck it up and get most of the rest of the Christmas decorations out last night. Behold, my hypocrisy knows no bounds, as my heathen self displays a nativity scene on the gingerbread horror. (I can't help it, I painted it, and I really like the camel and the sheep and the kings. At least I didn't bother with the tiny hay bales this year for authenticity.)





Knitting on the secret thing continues. Well, I don't suppose it's truly a secret thing - I'm test knitting for Sock Madness III. I just can't show you what it looks like. I don't feel like I'm giving away any details when I tell you it is, indeed, a sock.

[picture sock here]

I finally remembered a place to block and dry Aunt Scarf #2 - Bug's bed! He hasn't used it yet, preferring to sleep crossways on mine with either his head between my shoulder blades, kicking DH in the face, or with his hot hot feet and sharp toenails digging into my back. Sigh. At least I can make the best of it and block my scarf on his Thomas the Tank Engine sheets, right?

And because it goes so well with Christmas,

Which creature of the night are you? Your Result: Werewolf   You are a vicious fighter and a vicious lover, absolutely dedicated to your pack. You are pushed to anger by disloyalty and injustice and have a tendency toward sudden, periodic bursts of wild behavior.
Vampire
Cthulu Spawn
Demon
Sorceror
Incubus/Succubus
Ghost
Which creature of the night are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Courtesy of Rabbitch.

Finally, because when I touch the camera, Bug says, "Would you please take a picture of me?" Then he demands to see it, and when I show him, he says, "Awwww."



Oops, I forgot to post this: proof that Texas (blech) doesn't have a lock on the pretty sunsets.

So Cookie doesn't worry

No, I have not had any babies yet, I just WORKED. Yes, it's true, and some people were worried that I wasn't stalking their blogs as much as usual and sent in the Marines.
I did have A Day, though. It was going to be busy enough - going to view a dinner table/buffet set we'd seen on Craig's List at lunch, the ultrasound appointment in mid afternoon, etc. Effectively hosed my whole afternoon. However, about 12 minutes before I was supposed to leave to go see the furniture, the daycare called ME and the insurance people called DH. Long story short, Bug has pink eye, and DH needs more info for the insurance people. (Apparently, when talking insurance, the receptionist is really the only person who knows WTF is going on, and don't even bother talking to the agent or anyone else in the office.) Anyway, I picked up the Bug, dragged him to the house to look at the furniture, bought the furniture (whee, storage), came home and worked for an hour, toddled off to my ultrasound, then came home while DH took the Bug to the ped. Since he does indeed have pink eye, tomorrow will be more of the same since he can't go back to daycare until he's been medicated for 24 hours.
As for the furniture, it's nice enough. Someplace to hold extra dishes and napkins, whee! It has a hutch on it that I find mostly hideous, but DH insisted on putting it up, hoping it would grow on me. I put my snowmen on it and might let it stay until after Christmas. Maybe I will have the fortitude to take pictures of its gingerbread horror tomorrow.
Hmmm, nothing else new. No pics, because the knitting I'm currently doing is Not For Public Release, and I didn't take a pic of the furniture, and I haven't had the time or the space to pin out Aunt Scarf #2 yet. Earlier this evening I came out of the office while DH was mopping the floor (finally) to see what Bug was doing, and found him running around naked, covered in marker. I would have taken a picture of that, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to make it come out family-friendly without losing the whole effect of the marker.
So, you get nuthin'. I'd be sorry, but I had A Day.

Sunday Funday

Okay, not really, but it wasn't all bad. This was actually a pretty productive weekend. I cleaned a little, purged the guest room a little, knitted a little, decorated a little. I even planted the amaryllis I bought a month or so ago, which is a good thing because it had started without me.



That's about 6 inches of stalk there, and I'm doing my level best not to make jokes about its appearance. Sadly, it's quite crooked as a result of growing in a box (it's also as pale as a software programmer, same reason) but I have hopes that exposure to some warmth and indirect sunlight on my kitchen table will straighten it up and turn it green. Alas, because I am mentally 12, I have the only "boy" amaryllis out there.

Other than that, nothing new. We got the Christmas tree up and lights on it, but haven't made it to the decorations yet. I have an entire cargo area full of stuff going to Goodwill, and I might actually drop it off in a reasonable time period since it quite effectively blocks the view out my rear view mirror. I even found DH's missing pants and about ten socks I'd been looking for mates for - the cleaning lady used to use the guest room bed if she folded my laundry, and DH came in one day and dumped all the camper stuff on top of it without telling me. I only just excavated down to it today. SIGH. Anyway, the room is still a wreck but at least there are a couple of pathways available that allow someone to get TO the bed without breaking necks or ankles. I'm pretty sure there will be another Goodwill trip or six happening in the next week. You'd think DH would feel a little guilty seeing his gigantically pregnant wife hauling stuff out of the guest room for the arrival of HIS daughter, but you'd be wrong. o.0 (No, Cookie, you don't have to kill him. Yet.)
Oh, I did finish Aunt Scarf #2, this time using the EZ sewn bindoff as described here. It looks to have done the trick, but no photos until I soak and block. I'm pretty happy with the scarf itself and the appearance of the bind off, so I'm certain I'll pick out the edge of the green scarf and sew it EZ style. Then I'll wrap them and congratulate myself heartily, which will ensure I will either forget to deliver or forget to mail them for two months.

Just what the blogger ordered.

Last night, DH went into the office to putter on the computer. Bug ran between the office and where I sat, on the couch. I considered several times putting a movie in, so I wouldn't be subjected to either DH's lousy taste in sitcoms or Bug's penchant for watching the same Thomas video 132750 times in a row. (I've tried the "I'm watching that" when the TV is off, but no one listens.) Last night, Bug picked up the Thomas he wanted to watch, and I sent him off to DH and told him to have Daddy play it on Mama's computer. Surprise of all surprises, DH not only understood what Bug was trying to say, he complied. I got to sit in my favorite comfy spot on the couch for AN HOUR AND A HALF and knit in the quiet.
People, you have no idea.
Later after I figured DH had suffered Thomas enough and would be wanting to watch his shows (and after I'd fixed the missed YO in the previous repeat and knit another one) I went off to do some dishes. Bug came in and demanded a big cabbage.



Seriously, whose kid IS this?

And to continue on my "wow, karma is being nice to me and I'm afraid" kick, I went to JoAnn. I didn't want to kill anyone. In fact, I ran into a friend. AND. AND. I found The Buttons. So similar to the ones from that blouse I had 20 years ago that my dad ruined in the wash (the reason I started doing my own laundry), the ones from that blouse that I just THREW AWAY before I knew that I should remove the buttons and save them, the ones I have been lamenting for TWENTY FREAKING YEARS.



Angels sing every time I look at them. (They're the ones on the right, the square bronzy sun ones. The other ones I love too, and are going in the stash because I love them, but I will sleep with The Buttons under my pillow and mention them as a line item in my will, should I ever be organized enough to make one.)

(I know that's a sucky picture of Buttons About Which Angels Sing, but I dropped my camera and it's having focus issues.)

Now to find the knitwear worthy of The Buttons. I'm starting to think (since even Cookie is in on the peer pressure now) that they'll have to be paired up with some Silky Wool. And The Bestest Pattern Ever, which I don't know about yet. Maybe I'll design something. (Hey, in high school I picked my Big-Ass Earrings and Hairclip (TM) first and THEN found something to wear with them. There is precedent here.)

D'ya ever wonder

Why all my posts are about Random? (Hint: it's cuz my life is like that. All. Over. The. Place.)
No babies yet. This is the good thing about posting infrequently - if I posted every day and then missed a day or two, I'd get a thousand emails (okay, like two) saying, "OMG did you have the baby yet?!?!?!!!1!!" Instead of that, I just get to hear it from coworkers, daycare people, and random neighbors. "What, you STILL haven't had that thing?"
No, I had it, but I had the doctor insert a basketball into the empty space because I so enjoy the preggo cow look and the inability to fasten my shoes. o.0
DH can't even help me these days - he threw out his back. And yesterday, instead of going to the hairy male chiropractor like I suggested, he went for a massage to the cute little blonde with the blue eyes. And now it's worse. Since I can't say it at home for reasons of marital harmony (or maybe I already did, I can't remember) I'll say it here: HEY HON? I. TOLD. YOU. SO.
Whew, I feel much better.
He's figured out how he injured it, too. He was in the recliner the other day and the Bug came along and hung off the back of it, tipping the whole chair and the DH over on his little legs. DH said it took a minute to figure out how to get out of the chair and get it upright and off the Bug without putting more pressure on him. You'd think the kid would learn, but the reason DH figured it out is that Bug tried to do it again last night while I was off knitting.
Wanna see my favoritest new-to-me thing ever?



Yes, my friends, it's a bookshelf. A grown-up bookshelf. From Craig's List. DH thinks it's tacky. He thinks all bookshelves are tacky. (Before you ask, no one in his family is much of a reader. I can't think of a single bookshelf I've seen in any of his family's houses.) See that top shelf? With a few exceptions (mostly stuff that's tucked away that I haven't found yet) that's my whole knitting library. The bottom shelf holds half the Bug's books, that until now have been stacked in odd places, tucked here and there. He keeps finding ones he hasn't seen in a while and saying, "This is for MINE?" like he's received a great gift. I love that he can get at his books now. And that they're easy enough for him to put away. And that the bookshelf is securely anchored to the wall. o.0
I knitted a whole repeat of Aunt Scarf #2 last night and weighed, and determined that I have about six repeats left. This makes me happy, since even with the nesting and cleaning and laundry I can manage 1-2 repeats a night. I will be doing a sewn bind off, and if I like it better I'll pick out the bind off on Aunt Scarf #1 and do a sewn bind off on it too. That will mean my Christmas knitting is complete. WOOHOO! That gives me a little time to finish the remaining 2.5 votive sleeves, but since my aunts know nothing about those, if I don't finish them I'll still have Christmas knitting done early. Heck yeah.

No longer a loser

And other assorted tidbits.

See that?



That, my lovies, right there, is a box. With socks. And other stuff. Addressed. Postaged. Ready for dropping off at the post office to wing its way to the Great White North where people need their socks.



Only 10 months late.

ETA: Officially at the post office, even! Lene, 6-10 days, not counting whatever customs weirdness may happen. At least there are no bees, second-hand or otherwise.

****

Midwife says baby measures big. That means I get more ultrasounds. I'm mostly okay with this.
Midwife also tells me that occasionally, a doctor at my local hospital (which I hope to avoid) will threaten to call CPS if you try to check out of the hospital with your child less than 24 hours after giving birth. Why do they do this? What is it about people who get off on being mean to women who are all hormonal, uncomfortable, straddling ice packs the size of Texas (hi Stacey) and just want to be at home in the comfort of their own beds with their new babies? Seriously, do they like making women cry? Do they have a death wish? Half the post-partum women I've known are weepy, half of them are raging lunatics. (Peanut gallery can keep to itself which one I am.) Seems like taking one's life into one's hands by pulling that kind of crap. Especially since they're just bluffing and there's no legal reason you can't take your healthy baby home when you wanna.

****

It doesn't seem possible that fully-cooked humans can be this small.




****

It's hard to try to teach my kid good manners when a) Daddy is teaching him bad ones, and b) I laugh so hard when he burps. It's the name. He says, "Oops, I barched." I dunno where "barch" came from, but it makes me laugh so hard. It doesn't matter how many times I hear it, either. Try it - say it out loud. Barch barch barch.

****

Aunt Scarf #2 proceeds apace.



It's currently the only thing I'm actively working on, but I have this waiting to be cast on after Turkey Day.



****

All of you and your damn silky wool are killing me. I DREAMED about it last night, people. Don't you know that I have a queue and that there are scarves, socks, jackets, and selbuvotter to be knit? You don't even care. You're so mean, you just want me to run out and buy gobs of beautiful soft yarn to make lovely garments.

****

Yesterday we kicked back in our jammies.



Today we kicked back in our jammies.



Yeah, we got it rough.

Still a loser

But an organized one.
I got a wild (nesting) hair to clean again. I have been working in my bedroom for the last few days. DH has been nesting too, though his nesting comes in the form of removing every piece of greenery in the back yard that he doesn't want to maintain and that doesn't offer shade. (If he tried to touch my ash trees they'd never find his body.) So far we've lost two very ill citrus trees, some sort of tall shrub/short tree that had died, and its partner, and about 50 feet of shrubbery along the fence. I hear tell that the old cracked, leaking and scarily wired spa is going bye-bye too. The yard looks huge.
Since yesterday, I cleaned and rearranged the little stuff on the dressers in the bedroom, finished cleaning out my side of the closet, including the purging of shoes, installed my old stereo back again, and am currently in the midst of documenting and purging the rest of my stash. I started with this.



(That doesn't include the stuff in my yarn vase or in the WIP basket, but I think that's all catalogued on Ravelry anyway.)

I sorted through my box of no-longer-used needles, I made a pile of stuff to donate, I organized and photographed. Turns out that if you include the undyed sock yarn I have (roughly 1.5 lbs) I have a whole tote of sock yarn. (Well, there are three tiny skeins of laceweight in there too.)



I'm working my way through the bigger yarn tote, and a lot of that is going to Goodwill. (Why in the hell did I think I needed 10 skeins of black acrylic fingering weight yarn?) I had to stop and download photos since I'd filled up my camera card. I wasn't only taking pictures of yarn.







Back to the salt wool mines.

A random conglomeration of fantastamous junk.

So, the official "I'm done" poses of Aunt Scarf #1.



These are not actually "done". I have not woven in the ends yet, because I still haven't decided if I want to pick out the cast off edge (on the right in the top photo), redo it more stretchily (is so a word) and reblock that little end. I'm letting it marinate on my desk at home while I think about it. It's conversing with the Shetland Triangle at this time.

Occasionally he's extra cute even when awake. (You can't quite see it there but he had his hands clasped in his lap.)



Oh yeah, and I'm off the hook for Thanksgiving. Whee! I mentioned to DH that some of my Braxton-Hicks were a tad uncomfortable these days, and he kinda flipped and canceled the dinner. I may get to visit with my brother and his fiance (and maybe her family) but whatever we do, it will be low-key. I can't tell you how fond I am of the low-key these days.

Edited to remove stuff about not being a loser anymore. I still am, but I hope to remedy that by the end of the day tomorrow.

It's Sunday.

And I have more random.

First, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish terrible things upon all the people involved in the Bob the Builder videos. Extra fleas in the armpits for the writers and the people who do the voices.

Second, we did make it to the zoo yesterday after spending most of the morning cleaning. Somehow I managed to have this idea on the same day the city opened the zoo and train for free and had a festival in the park. This was neat, except that the train ride that usually had a 5 minute wait required Bug to stand in line for 30 minutes. There was enough going on to keep him mostly entertained and he only considered melting down once, but all in all he was great. He rode the train around the pond, then we went off to the zoo, and by the time we hit the ice cream store afterwards, he was out. We woke him up for the ice cream, which ensured that by 7:30ish last night, he looked like this.



Third, this makes me happy.



Fourth, so does this.



Fifth, have I told you how much I hate Bob the Builder?

Sixth, for Elizabeth and her shampoo-mohawked-son.

For Stacey

Yeah, I'm actually posting on a Friday because Stacey whined and told me I should, and laid the whole "I have a chronic disease and a brain cloud and my tummy hurts pity me" trip on me. If I didn't have a bunch of random stuff today, I'd have told her to get a hobby. Okay, I DID tell her to get a hobby, but it didn't work. (Personally, I feel like since she's got Super-Sexy-Cheese-Lovin'-Dude (SSCLD) who takes care of her when she feels ucky, and a new place, and gets to go to the beautiful lake all the time and roam around on acreage, she shouldn't be complaining. But that's just me.)

Aunt Helen's scarf may kill me. It's beautiful, I love it, it's soft, I had the pattern memorized ages ago so I can just pick it up and knit, and MY GOD WHEN WILL IT BE OVER? I got to the end of it, according to the pattern (31 lace repeats) and realized I still had about 20% of the ball left. Since that amounts to 20 grams and the scarf itself was probably a little shorter than I wanted and only weighed 75 grams WITH the needles, I figured I'd better go to the end of the ball. I'm having to bribe myself to do it, and wheedle, and whine, and cajole. Each lace repeat takes 3 grams. (Yeah, I know, the scarf should weigh more if each repeat really took 3 grams, but I don't care, that's how I remember it.) As of this morning, I had about 11 grams left in the ball. Three repeats more, plus enough left over to mock me. An hour and a half of knitting, then I can block this thing and admire its beauty instead of cursing its unfinished existence.
Gee, and then I can start on the next one.

The DH cleaned the stove. Yes, I WIN! (Yes, I am that childish, I can't believe it would shock you at this point.) He cleaned most of the kitchen, in fact, and acted like he'd be cleaning elsewhere in the house today. (I can't remember why I'd decreed it was his turn to clean the stove in the first place, but I'm sure I had a completely arbitrary good reason.
On the job front, he's updating and mailing out resumes, and also looking into the insurance he'd need for consulting with his old work. It's weird - he was told by the people who want to hire him that it should be in the $1500-2000 yearly, but he's been quoted up to $20,000 and most places don't want to write a policy on it at all. He has two promising leads today - if he can buy the insurance today it's likely he can start officially working on Monday, which means, YAY CHRISTMAS. (Cuz people? 41 days.) (And also, the other night I had a dream that between my normal Wednesday post and my Sunday post, I had the baby and had a REALLY good Sunday post. Alas, no.)(Which is fine because he's not done cooking yet, and all the baby clothes are in the box on the very bottom of the pile behind another stack of DH's heavy crap.)
Other randomness... Hmm, well, it's supposed to be in the low 80s this weekend, so I think we're going to have a family day and head to the zoo. We also REALLY need to get the Bug a hair cut. While it makes bath-time hair sculpting totally entertaining...





... it's getting a little ridiculous, especially since we usually don't brush it between bedhead and school time, unless he gets a shower. (If he had a bath the night before, it's Dennis the Menace hair for him.)

Anyway, Stacey, be careful what you wish for. A big fat post full of nuthin'. Maybe Sunday I will have a FO and some zoo pics.

Wednesday roundup

Since I mostly seem to post on Sundays and Wednesdays anymore.

First of all, a big fat political THANG. You may have seen it, you may have heard it, you may have read it. I'm of the opinion that it can't be heard or seen ENOUGH. (I know next to nothing about what else Keith Olbermann might have to say, nor what he stands for, but I can get behind him on this one.)



I am going to continue harping on the subject until it's fixed. (Myself included. I know it may come as a shock to you, but I'm not perfect. !!) And not just gay marriage, but discrimination in general. I'm fairly disgusted that discrimination in any form is even an issue. (Actually, if you want to read some interesting stuff on both the gay rights issue and racism, check out this post. Read the comments, too. With the exception of a few coughcoughminecough there's a whole bunch more learnin' going on down there.)

Ahem. On to the fluff and frivolity!

Thanks to Imbrium's comment on the last post, I have renewed my stubbornness obstinateness resolve to not clean the stove. I think he's going to cave, because I've been pointing out that until he has a regular job, assuming he ever does again, he gets to pick up a lot of the housecleaning. We'd made a deal that I'd give up my housekeeper and do it myself if ever I was home full time, and since we gave up the housekeeper (for different reasons) and he's currently home full time, the cleaning is mostly on him. He tried to weasel his way out of that one but he knows it's a losing battle. :-)

Regarding the coworkers and the extra work and all the complaining I was doing last time around, I should clarify. (Let's see if I can do this and still be sufficiently vague so as to not get dooced.) Our company is in the state it's in (at least partially) due to some serious gutting by our old parent company, who cut lots and lots of people (and refused to replace people who left voluntarily) to make the books look fantastic for a sale. We were bought by a new parent company who seems to take active interest in our well-being and growth, but we are a slow-moving company and it takes us some time to readjust our group mentality. This morning I was given the opportunity to speak frankly to The New Guy in charge of product development, and I was able (along with several others) to lay out my concerns. He's BRAND NEW, and so he's not going to go diving in and hiring a whole damn bunch of people, but at least I feel like he's hearing us. There is still much frustration, but the last few management-level hires have made me quite hopeful for the future. We just gotta work through the next few months while people get bearings and find out where we need the most attention. My coworkers are a fabulous bunch and they will do what they can, but if they're working on my deadlines, theirs aren't getting done. Ya know?

Hmmm, isn't this supposed to be a knitting blog?

Sunday means more of the same

I baked bread again last night. I am sick with what I'm fervently hoping is a head cold and not a slow-moving strep (I am particularly susceptible to strep, it seems) and am having a hard time sleeping anyway, so I cleaned the kitchen and finally used up those bananas I bought. (I was in the mood for banana bread, but the Bug eats bananas so quickly I had to buy two bunches and stash one in the garage.) No pictures, as they look very much like the bread from the last post, only less orange.
No, DH did not clean the stove yet, so that looks the same too, only the little pasta shells are charred. I. Am. Not. Cleaning. It.
Thanks for all the good wishes on DH's job. The company eliminated the vast majority of positions in DH's division in favor of using third parties and outside vendors, so his old boss suggested he get on the vendor list and keep doing what he had been. If it works out, it could be really good, allowing him to work from home during the better part of my maternity leave. There would be some travel, which wouldn't be fantastic, but we could deal. If it doesn't work out for any reason, it could be extra bad, since he is putting all his career eggs in this little basket. When you're not knitting, keep your fingers crossed for us.
Speaking of maternity leave, do you see the counter? 46 days plus a little. I am SO not ready to have a baby lying around the house in 46 days. There will come a point where denial doesn't work any more, and that point is barreling down on me. I have four million things to do at work and no motivation or brain power to do them. (I mentioned that to someone at work, and he was astounded that I'd even think about it. He kept saying, "It's not your problem." But, um, it is. There are 5 writers and 11 products. If someone covers for me and does my work? Their work doesn't get done. All our big products have big deadlines either during or immediately after my maternity leave. We are all a leetle stressed.)
Today, I am hoping for a tad more energy than yesterday. I think I went outside yesterday, but can't remember. Today I hope to take my long-haired hippy kid to the barber. And maybe take a shower. And maybe knit.

And this is entirely random, but did you know that angels occasionally fly with the RAF? Cuz WOW.

Beware of baked goods

Cuz it means I'm having issues.



Yes, my stove is really that dirty. It's DH's turn to clean it, and he likes to leave things to sit until I can't stand it and clean them myself, and I'm not falling for it this time.

Anyway, that is the rest of the pumpkin I made last weekend. In deliciously dense bread form, the perfect vehicle for a slab of cream cheese. That should be enough calories to drown out the fact that the DH got laid off today. (Yes, really.) I told him that the lesson to be learned there was that he actually really liked his job, and bosses can't stand it when you're not downtrodden and broken at work.
(LMAO - DH just now turned the TV on, and there was a news bit about how money stress causes pregnant women to go into early labor. Ironically, the story finished up saying that if it was the spouse who lost HIS job, most women went full term. Dammit.)

But look, I have a new button.



You know you wanna steal this button.