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Monday, September 29, 2008

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Disappointing, At Best...

I went to see The Women tonight with my mom's group for our movie club. While I was thrilled to be out on my own and love going to the movies, I was really expecting more from my girl Meg after not seeing her in anything for so long. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of the chick flick, but there was just something off and a little contrived about it all.

There were a lot of big names aside from Meg Ryan; Annette Bening, Candice Bergen, Cloris Leachman, Debra Messing, Eva Mendes (actually gave a pretty great performance), Bette Middler, Jada Pinkett-Smith (worst performance she's ever given), Carrie 'Princess Leia' Fisher for Christ's sake and the list goes on and on...

It felt almost like they were doing a parody, but then just when you thought it was completely lame they'd have a fairly genuine scene where the dialogue flowed smoothly, building momentum and then...What? Why is this happening here? It's not like I went there expecting the next Schindler's List but again, Bitch, Please! It's an update of a 1939 George Cukor movie, and I've come to the conclusion that some things are better left alone.

There was cool aspect that I didn't think about until it was over...there was not a single male actor...I mean no pictures, voices, extras, nothing. The only male character was the baby born at the end (believe me, I'm not spoiling anything. If you're watching the movie and you don't see that one coming, well then...draw your own conclusion of what I think of you.) You're also a little thick if you don't see that the Dove Campaign For Real Beauty is a sponsor of the movie...who has a bottle of anti-aging cream next to their hand sitting perfectly face up as they're writing an apology note?!
After all the disappointment with the movie, Ms Ryan did not fail to deliver the perfect hair, yet again...I found myself thinking "Would I look good with a spiral perm and long hair?"

In the end, was it worth the money? Sure. But only because I really like going to the movies, and eating greasy popcorn and paying $4 for a small Diet Coke. If I only went to the movies a couple times a year would you still be happy? Probably not...I'd advise you to wait until Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist comes out. Michael Cera has yet to disappoint!

Cozies Completed

Here are the cozies before being felted.

And after.
This was a super quick, easy project. I knit each one in about half-hour, then I felted them with just a little bit of regular laundry detergent on a hot/cold cycle. They may be a little nerdy, but I'm all about the quick, easy projects to try sometime new (like felting).
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Saturday, September 27, 2008

Frustration Station

(Sung to the tune of Kingston Trio's MTA)

Let me tell you the story
of a mom named Sally
one rainy and fateful daaaaaaaaaaay.
Bathed and fed her boy, but H would not go to sleep
without the song about the MTA.

So, a little background. J's parents were in town for two weeks. Most nights, J's dad would sing H to sleep with the MTA song. For those of you not familiar, click here or check out the song on iTunes.

By 10pm, I had listened to and sung the song a minimum of times, and rocked H for 40 minutes (he never lets me rock him anymore, so it was a whole new level of stalling for him). At 10:15 I tucked H into bed sound asleep, and went to fold the load of laundry waiting for me. As soon as I swept the wrinkles out of the last shirt I heard the yelping sound of C waking for his first feeding frenzy of the night.

J walked in the door ten minutes later and I went to bed. Unlike Alex's kids, H wakes by 6 or 6:30 regardless of the time he went to bed. I was sitting in the living room trying to knit and have about two seconds of peace when H requested to help me knit. I emphatically told him that mommy needed some quiet time, and that he needed to sit and watch PBS kids (have you seen Sid the Science Kid yet? It's kind of obnoxious.)

So began the countdown to when I could leave the house for Playtown Express, and sit on the couch while H runs, jumps and plays himself silly.

If I had that stupid magnet with the different emotions so that you can identify your feeling (as if the expression on one's face weren't social cue enough) I'd move the square so that the exhausted-and-desperately-in-need-of-a-massage-and-time-at-a-quiet-spa-sans-kids, without-having-to-use-babysitting-tokens-because-my-husband-is-at-home-with-them emotion were exposed.

It's just one of those days. Now I'm taking a deep breath, taking my last gulp of coffee and going back downstairs to re-start my day with H...sometimes you just need a little do-over.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Cozy Up To Something New

Here's the latest project I'm working on. No, I'm not making the caraffe version, I'm only dorky enough to make the cozy for the disposable cups. Hopefully, it's something that I'll actually remember to bring with me, but I figure it'll add my own flair to my dose of Starbucks...plus it uses 100% less paper than a second cup. It's knit and then felted, so it insulates well also.
The pattern can be found online at the Bernat site...it's super easy.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

The Disenfriendchised

It seems like the older you get, the more narrow your circle becomes. Sure, there are the social butterflies who have a large group from which to choose when it comes to seeing a movie or going to dinner, but I'm talking about the people you call at 11pm because your kid just barfed for the fifth time and you can't leave the house to get Pedialyte.

While I hold accounts on MySpace and Facebook, I have to admit that I rarely check them, and primarily started them to be able to keep up with pictures of my friends' kids from afar. After being a member of one of them for a little while, a new wrinkle in the 'social' aspect of them was brought to my attention; the opportunity to expand upon one's penchant for passive aggression.

Did you know that you can cease being 'friends' with someone without the other person's knowledge? I'm not talking refused return of phone calls, or even public snubbing. Oh no, with the simple click of a mouse, you can break an electronic tie with someone and they won't even know until they try to initiate a game of Scramble or Word Twist. How Rude!

I think I'll stick to movie dates and book clubs.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Go Fly a Kite!

Wow! It's been awhile since I've posted...the reason? My husband's parents (otherwise known as 'the in-laws') just left after visiting for two weeks. It was a whirlwind of showing them around the great Commonwealth, including two trips into Boston, picking raspberries at Tougas Farm, seeing the sights at Plymouth Rock and then venturing down to Cape Cod. It was a lot of fun, and a great opportunity to see things that I hadn't yet, or wouldn't necessarily take both kids by myself.

While the visit was great, J worked the majority of the time leaving me to entertain and demonstrate my stellar parenting abilities. J's parents are very involved in their faith, so I was crossing my fingers that the phrase mentioned in this post would not grace H's lips. For the weeks leading up to the visit, I was as pious as a pilgrim in the hopes that I could erase his memory of any phrases that I might have uttered which don't sound great coming from a grown woman, but sound horrible coming from a three year-old boy.

I was starting to breathe easy on the way back from Cape Cod, as it was the last day of their visit, and there had not been a single questionable incident. It had been a long day, filled with a touch tank at the aquarium in Wood's Hole and his very first time flying a kite on the beach.

Jacked up on chocolate milk and Munchkins, he was sitting in the very back of the trusty Freestyle, and it was clear that he was quickly losing steam. Almost out of nowhere he started thrashing around and swinging his head back and forth yelling the dreaded D-word clear as a bell. I yelled his name and pleasantly requested that he never say that again, and he replied "Oh my gooooooooooooosh! Oh my goooooooooooooosh!"

Awesome. Nothing like children to reveal your inadequacies as a parent!

Monday, September 15, 2008

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Back in the Saddle Again...

Tonight, J and I went out for the first time since C was born...we have NEVER gone that long without having a night sans kids, so this was much deserved. We went to a favorite restaurant of ours, The Flying Rhino, and since it was a night of favorites (my favorite husband at a favorite restaurant) I decided I'd go for my favorite drink; a lemon drop martini. Since we were seated in the bar, our waiter was actually the bartender and he assured me that his lemon drop was fantastic and yes indeed-y it was!

We were dining with my husband's co-workers, who all knew that I'd recently had a baby. I ordered two drinks for myself, and one of his co-workers treated me to a third...plus a glass of wine. (over the course of three hours.) I must have screamed "mother of infant out for drinks" because the bartender even poured the extras from the shaker into a glass for me. That's even better than when you get the extra milkshake glass at Denny's!

Let me just say that I am writing from a happy place. Alex watched the kiddos and let me know when I got home that she'd successfully fed C three ounces from a bottle, so no worries that I'll be an abusive breast-feeder.


As I type, J is on his way to pick up his parents from the airport so I guess I should finish picking up my crafting crap from the area in which they'll be sleeping. Ahhhh...nothing like a few drinks to make housework exciting again. I guess that's the slippery slope that makes fabulous alcoholics. Cleaning toilets would be a lot more fun if vodka were involved!

Monday, September 8, 2008

The Next Big Thing!

My friend Alex asked me today if I would knit mittens for OS and YS. She described what she wanted and I set off to find the perfect pattern (read: easy, yet will look impressive). I found this pattern at Crossroad Knits and busily set about finding even more perfect yarn at KnitPicks.

I love starting a new project. The possibilities are endless and the do-overs or thrown balls of gnarled yarn don't yet exist, so there's a general sense of warm fuzzies every time you imagine yourself sitting on the couch peacefully making the next big thing (which I will naturally mass-produce and retire with the proceeds).

Alex has become my BS sponsor; I can't just talk about some project that I'm working on, because she actually expects progress and an eventual finished project to ooh and ahh over. She's the entire reason I got those shirts done this summer when, after asking about them on three different occasions and my response was still "I've got all the pieces cut out!", she just smiled and nodded (No Judgement!*). Fine! I'll finish it!

The pressure's on, because I'm getting the distinct impression the mittens would best serve her children before winter ends.
*SATC reference, of course!

Friday, September 5, 2008

Read on, Readers

I haven't done this before, but I so consistently love his posts, that I'm going to refer you to Mr. Uncool over at Always Home and Uncool. His most recent post on Gov. Palin was great...

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Sarah, Palin and Tall

While watching the RNC last night, it dawned on me that I now see where Trey Parker and Matt Stone got the inspiration for Mr. Garrison...did you see Rudy Giuliani speak? All he needed was a hand puppet.

As everyone talked about how much more experience McCain has, I looked at J and said 'Of course he has more experience, he's 400 years old!' Also, while I have great respect and appreciation for his service and dedication to our country, that does not mean that I want him to be my next president. People should not equate non-support for his presidential ticket with a lack of respect for his POW experiences and other service.

There are so many things that are issue for discussion from last night's speeches. As I was watching the PBS commentary, they interviewed former Massachusetts Governor, Jane Swift (the first (and only, aside from Palin) pregnant Governor), who very candidly talked about the issues of balancing career and family. She pointed out, and I agree, that it's disheartening that one of the first things to happen is that Palin's children came under fire. The McCain campaign issued a press release stating that Palin's 17 year-old daughter is pregnant, and it's also been pointed out that Palin returned to work just days after giving birth to a child with Down's Syndrome. I know that by virtue of blogging about this, I'm contributing to it, but I feel like it's really sad that her kids, who did not choose to be a part of this campaign, are being used to create sympathy or spite. I don't think it's an accident that McCain, having never met Palin until about a week ago, chose a woman who will provide so much fodder for pundits (or pundints as she called them in her speech) and the public in general.

I'm not going talk much about her speech last night, because it was so incredibly predictable. I have to say, however, that I'm surprised they didn't do more to try and get an aura of Hillary from her after all the talk that Hillary supporters would come a'flocking to her side.

I'm glad that she didn't address the issue that has been raised about her being at the center of the "mommy wars" now, because a) I've never been a fan of that phrase and b)at the very core, it's sometimes hard to keep in mind that if we wouldn't be asking a question of a male candidate, we shouldn't ask it of a female...because you know we would not be questioning a man's ability to balance having a family and being Vice President, he would be lauded as a family man with great ambitions for his legacy.

Wow, I'm starting to sound like a Palin fan...but, never fear, I'm well-aware that the McCain camp searched long and hard to find a candidate who they thought could do just that.

But the best part of the whole night was this...this is exactly why you don't put the two littlest together...little Piper was just making sure that Trig was camera ready.