Queen of Rambles

I have a great idea for a quilt project, but am not sure if I will ever be able to find the colors I need. As I’ve mentioned before Mike and I use the European bedding method. We each have our own twin sized duvet. In the summer it is so danged hot that we don’t want the duvet in the duvet cover, so we just sleep with the sheet/duvet cover. But then in middle of the night it gets a little chilly so we have somehow ended up with two ugly quilts on our bed. Both quilts were gifts from my grandmother that she bought on clearance sale for our wedding. They don’t match at all–each other or the room. I have a beautiful king sized quilt that fits the bed and looks lovely, but we are unable and unwilling to share a big blanket. I’m a cover hog. When I hog the covers Mike becomes a bed hog. When he hogs the bed I get grumpy. Thus our two ugly quilt solution.

New solution: I make two matching twin sized quilts that I love! Then our bed will be pretty and match our beachy room and I will get to make quilts and everyone will be happy. Alternately, I may search out two twin sized quilts that would match our room since that would probably end up being cheaper and would be a more immediate solution. But finding something to match my taste? May be well nigh impossible.

I saw THIS the other day and sort of fell in love. I’d like to do something similar with slightly different colors. I need to start measuring and planning and finding fabrics. As if I ever get to go fabric shopping. Ha! You can’t take a three year old to a fabric store and expect happiness. It’s just not worth the trouble.

In other news, my neighbor brought me a batch of chicken curry today. Wasn’t that sweet? Or hot. Very, very hot. It sort of burned my tongue off. But still! Who brings their neighbor food in this day and age?

My house was even presentable when she showed up because I was supposed to host a MOMS club thing, but then no one showed. I was not disappointed. It meant I got to go to BodyPump for the last time in a month. I am almost back up to the weights I was doing before the plague. I wish I could find a class in Oregon, but I know I won’t have time to go to something like that anyway.

I’m sure I had something else to post about, but my mind is blank. We’re watching Arrested Development. We’ve only been watching the first season DVDs for over a year. We like it. I don’t know why we don’t watch it more often.

For years and years and years I’ve had a weird rash on my hand. It started when I got my first job at a little restaurant. I remember it clearly because it would burn like hell when I had to chop tomatoes. It was a Mexican restaurant, so I had to chop a lot of tomatoes. The bosses didn’t believe in things like pre-packaged vegetables and they didn’t have any nifty tool to chop tomatoes.

I was 16 at the time, so that makes how many years? Nineteen?

So for the past 19 years I’ve been treating this rash with a variety of prescription and non-prescription creams. One doctor told me it was eczema but I never really believed that. No other doctor ever gave me a name for it. My mom and sister have both been battling the same rash and no one has ever been able to give them successful treatment either.

Do you remember when my friends from Ireland visited? Shaun is a pharmacist. I showed Shaun my hand, since I’m sure he loves looking at stubborn, scaly, dripping rashes, and he diagnosed me with a fungal infection in about 0.5 seconds.

The only anti-fungal I had sitting around was not exactly a hand cream, but the very second I applied it to the rash it calmed down. I’ve been faithfully using it for the past several weeks and to my amazement and delight the rash is G-O-N-E. A few days ago some new bumps appeared and I growled. I happened to be cleaning the mildew from my shower with a mix of white vinegar and water and spilled some on my hand.

It instantly killed the little dots.

My god, people! I’ve been a victim of mildew poisoning for the past 19 years!

I never, ever, in a million years would have dreamed of putting anti-fungal cream on the rash. Nor would I have thought vinegar would have done a speck of good. It burned like hell and I expected it to make things worse, but it was the ultimate cure!

You have no idea how exciting it is to get rid of this horrid rash. I’ll share the secret with my mom and sister when I’m in Oregon and see if they are also mildew victims.

And yes, I know it is probably not actually mildew, but that’s a lot funnier. I’m all about the funny.

By the way, does anyone read Gene Weingarten’s humor column? We’ve been getting the Sunday Post, so I’ve been reading him. He’s not all that funny, but I’m a reader and must read anything that finds its way under my nose. I can’t believe the article they printed last week. It was worse than my most rambling blog posts. It was just Gene saying his editor didn’t like his first article so he was going to write an article in 10 minutes. Then he wrote an article in ten minutes that had no purpose, theme or plot. Blog rambling. Not even good blog rambling. It offends me that we pay good money to the Washington Post when I should be able to get that shit for free in my Google Reader. Heck, I probably could get it for free in my Google Reader, but why would I want to? My Google Reader is reserved for people I actually enjoy reading.

I tried to be strong. I really did. The latest Koontz book has been out for two or three weeks and I’ve not sought it out. Instead, I put it on hold at the library and was content to wait a few months for my turn to read.

Then yesterday I got a bug up my butt and suddenly the book is in my possession and I’m enjoying it immensely. As long as the whole thing doesn’t turn out to be the devil causing an alien invasion we’ll be ok.

I also let Erik pick out a book. The child went for a classic–I’ll Love You Forever–because it had a toilet on the cover. Oh man. I never should have let him get it. I read it tonight and was crying by page 8. I was a mess by the end, but at least Erik didn’t seem to notice. He just wanted to talk about the toilet.

Tangent: Why would anyone eat Cool-whip when real whipped cream is readily available?

Back on topic: Oh yeah. I’m done with that topic.

We had preschool today and it was fun for a change. We did a camp out in a tent, then went on a hike by a creek. We finished with fake s’mores. Some person decided it would be less messy if we didn’t use chocolate. What is a s’more without chocolate, I ask you? Just a roasted marshmallow! Granted, roasted marshmallows are tasty but when you want a s’more you want a damned s’more.

I’ve got to stop resisting temptation. I’ve been on a sugar kick ever since I started my pneumonia recovery. The more I eat the more I want. Must. Stop. Must. Stop. Maybe I need to get my jaw wired shut, but then I would just drink milkshakes.

In better health news, we harvested our first vegetable tonight! Yellow squash! I made fajitas for dinner with steak, red peppers and yellow squash. Odd combo, but it worked. I wasn’t really planning on harvesting it just yet but something totally ate one of the smaller squash so I decided I better pick it before nature claimed it as it’s own.

Great. Now I have to beat Mike with a rubber hose. He left the TV on one of those Save the Children sob story commercials before he went to bed. Why does he want to make me cry?

Ok, now Ghostbusters is back on. I can’t believe I saw this in the theatre when I was 10 years old. And now I really want s’mores. Stay Puft is being roasted as we speak (or I type, whatever). Will they or won’t they cross the streams?

Btw, thanks for all the sunscreen advice. My eyes are so sensitive that I’m going to take the hat advice. My head gets hot, so I’ll use a visor instead. How could I have forgotten my cute little visor that I wore all last summer? I have no idea where it is, but it would be worth investing in a new one.

And now I have to shut up and go continue my date with Deanie. Relentless. Oh baby. Just how I like it.

Summer is finally here and seems to mean business. And now we’re back to that old conundrum. Sunscreen. Have to have it. Have to slather it on my face. Have to protect my skin from wrinkles and cancer. Yet my eyes? My poor, poor eyes. They hate it when I put anything on my face (the number one reason I don’t wear make-up). By the end of the day my eyes are burning and tired and it makes me cranky.

Maybe being a leathery old woman is preferred. I don’t know.

We had a pretty nice day today. Our regular Monday playdate was moved to a pool, so we were both happy. I need more pool playdates. It seems like it would be harder than other playdates since there’s the whole “prevent your kid from drowning” aspect of pool play, but I just slap the kid into a life jacket and off he goes.

I finally got smart and took a few toys for him to play with. He doesn’t actually play with them. He just holds them and doesn’t let the other kids play with them. Nice. But other kids always bring toys and do the same thing, so I guess toys to possess it is. Is that the right word? He doesn’t want to put his soul into them and make them spin around. He just wants to own them. Or you know? He would probably love to put his soul into them and make them spin around. He’s been having daily meltdowns because I won’t use a magic wand to send him into the TV to play with Ruby.

If I had a magic wand, do you really think I’d let him play with Ruby of all rabbits? Why would a child want to play with that little brat? Max, yes, but Ruby?

I need to go to bed. Not only are my eyes tired from the sunscreen, my body is tired from BodyPump and my mind is tired from no sleep. I woke up around 3 am after a very vivid dream about someone breaking into the house. I never really got to sleep after that. It didn’t help that dear Mr. E joined us around 3:30. I went to the guest bed, but it is too noisy in that room.

On a totally unrelated note, has anyone noticed that the TNT dramas are getting good stars lately? I guess the networks have given up on real shows. It’s all reality, all the time. I hate reality TV. Except Project Runway, of course. Who doesn’t love Tim Gunn?

I can even watch Raising the Bar now that they gave Zack Morris a decent haircut. I know, I know. I am way too obsessed with hair. Not that you’d know it by my hair, but if I was a guy I wouldn’t have these problems. I’m sure I’d have a whole host of other problems.

I need bed.

So I go back in the dressing room with six different suit/skirt/top combinations, determined that I am going to be modest and stylish at this party.

The first skirt worked well.

Then came the top.

Did I mention these halter top things are not meant for boob storage? I put it on and just started laughing my ass off. I suppose Mike could have worn it, but there was not even an indent for a boob like appendage. Not going to work.

Eventually I found a skirt/tankini combo with a built in bra band that could contain the girls. Not exactly my colors or style (brown with orange flowers), but anything was better than walking around the party with my fat thighs showing.

We got to the party and I was the only woman in a swim suit. I had a shirt on over the top, but was just wearing the bottoms as my bottoms. All the other ladies had on cute capris. They all giggled and said it was their husband’s job to get in the pool with the kids.

Mike did a bit of pool duty, but he hates swimming and I love it so I ended up in the pool with Erik.

Guess what?

There’s a reason no real swimmer would ever wear the get-up I was in. The skirt floated up to the top of the pool and the top? Well. Let’s just say it was a good thing there was a bra band or I would have been topless. It was practically floating above my head!

I was very glad it was a slightly cool day and the only other people in the pool were three and/or my good friend’s husband. He was oblivious to my dilemma.

Now that I’ve shared my bathing suit horror story of the summer, how about some pics of Erik from his first sleep over? I am still very sad that my new camera is so blurry. I tried to find a way to make it less blurry but I obviously don’t have a clue what I’m doing. I think I may just gnash my teeth and go back to old fashioned Polaroids. Or not. But a girl can get angry and say things she doesn’t mean, right?

Watching Wubbzy before bed.

He was extremely excited to sleep in Irish Lad’s bed.

In the garden before breakfast. Dr. Saturn baked some delicious currant scones. I didn’t think I liked scones, but hot out of the oven with lots of butter and whipped cream? Delicious.

Building rockets with canned goods.

My baby! Where’s my baby! It’s so quiet here!

Erik had his first ever sleep over last night. I think 3 1/2 is a little young for that, but we are going to be taking care of his little friend Irish Lad towards the end of October while Welsh Lass is born. Dr. Saturn is planning a home birth and Irish lad will need to be out of the house, lest he jumps in the birthing pool and starts swimming while his mom is popping out a baby.

Dr. Saturn wants to make sure everything goes smoothly, so she suggested that we have a few practice overnighters when parents are all available to jump in the car at 2 am and rescue the boy if things go south. Hopefully the practice will lead to a smooth birthing night/day/whatever.

She wanted to make sure it was fair to us, just not us having their son over multiple times, so Erik had his first taste of a sleepover last night.

We talked about it all day and he was excited, but at one point he told me “Mommy, I was just kidding. I’m not sleeping at Irish Lad’s house.” He quickly changed his tune when we arrived and informed us that he was staying there forever. The good Doctors didn’t quite agree.

Anyway, we stayed through bedtime and Mike helped settle him down at one point. We thought for sure Irish Lad would be down first because he was exhausted, but Erik beat him by a few minutes. They were finally both asleep at 9:30, but we hung around until 10:30 watching Coupling and chatting.

*****

We just got back from picking Erik up at his sleep over. Apparently it went great. He was up in middle of the night, wanting my friend to sit with him but he didn’t cry or anything. The only great drama we had was getting him home. He really meant the “forever” part of wanting to stay forever. Success! I can’t believe my little baby was away from me all night. That’s the first time he’s ever been away. We don’t have family near by so he has never had occasion to go on an all-nighter.

And now I have to go off to the dollar store to buy crap for a pool party this afternoon. I also have to figure out what to take as a side dish. It’s so damn hot I don’t want to turn my oven on, so this should be interesting.

So tired. Very, very tired. I went against my husband’s direct orders and went to BodyPump today. Really, the option was kill myself at BodyPump or kill my child at home. The boy is driving me mad. Mad I tell you! Doesn’t help that my period is due any second, though I don’t know precisely which second since I haven’t been charting this month. It’s hard to chart when you have a fever. It’s even harder to chart when your thermometer disappears. I only truly charted for one month, but it’s amazing how addictive it is to know exactly what your hormones are doing. This month I’m lost in the dark again.

I went really easy at BP, but I was still shaking by the time I was done. During the cool down at the end I couldn’t even lift my legs up to roll my ankles around and do all those stretches you are supposed to do. Maybe I should listen to my husband once in a while, eh?

This evening we went over to my friend’s community pool for a little picnic and swimming. I am Grouch Monster of the World so it wasn’t all that fun. I spent two hours yelling at Erik. I hate being a yell-y parent. It’s not easy when he is a typical three year old and doesn’t get the no running rule. He thinks it is hilarious to throw water at other people and steal toys from babies. Gah! His behavior has been driving me over the edge for the past three weeks.

I have gotten a lot tougher on the “eat real food before treats” bit. I always had the best of intentions. My kid wasn’t going to eat sugar until the first grade! My baby was fed homemade organic baby food. My toddler ate every thing we ate, including lots of fresh fruits and veggies. His first sugar experience was his first birthday. His second sugar experience was. . . I don’t even know. Quite possibly his second birthday.

As soon as he learned how to talk it was all down hill. I didn’t have much capacity to say no. More like I didn’t have much capacity to listen to whining. Mistakes were made. Lots of mistakes. Not only food mistakes. Sleep mistakes. Weaning mistakes. Lots and lots of mistakes. Live and learn, right?

But now I am hell bent to correct some of these food mistakes. I am holding firm. The boy is actually getting the message and eating his nuggets and pasta without too much of a fight. Of course, as soon as he’s done he brings me the empty plate and says “Ice cream.” I am also working on the one word commands from the little dictator. I’m making him say “Mommy, may I have some ice cream, please?” He generally gets “Mommy, ice cream please?” and that’s good enough for now, but I am sick and tired of the one word commands. I have always corrected him, of course, but would be up and moving before the “please” was out of his mouth. Now I sit until I get something more polite from his mouth.

And with that I am going to bed! I ran out of sleeping pills last night, horrors! I am one tired mama today. I’ve been staying up late, watching the BBC version of Life on Mars that Mike got me for my birthday. I’m really enjoying it, but is sure is different from the US version. I think I’m glad I saw the US version first since it was the knock off. Personally, I liked the US version better, but that’s because I don’t like things that are too serious. The US version is much more fun and light hearted. The BBC version is very dark and serious. Good. But serious. And I am not a serious person. I’m pretty depressed because I know how it is going to end and it’s going to make me cry. I’m glad the US version had a happy ending. I’m a sucker for happy endings.

I feel like I am rambling on and on and on and have no idea what I am saying. Another sign I should lock my fingers in a cupboard and get my butt in bed.

I just put the last stitches in Erik’s quilt! I’ve been working on that sucker for . . . oh. . . a year? Maybe? I have no idea, but it sat on the back burner forever because I couldn’t get motivated. Now I just need to throw it in the wash to get out the chalk lines and then it will be picture time! I feel liberated! Without that project hanging over my head I can start other projects and do something fun and fluffy and girly.

In other news, I totally overwhelmed myself today and will probably pay the price tomorrow. I had to pick up a couple of things from Target. While there I had a fantastic idea for a Father’s Day gift for Mike (shamelessly stolen from Reebert). We don’t really celebrate those holidays, but Mike looked really sad yesterday and he’s a fantastic father and husband so I decided I wanted to do something for him.

So then we had to go to Michael’s to get the supplies make the magic happen.

And then we had to go to the grocery store so I could feed my family.

Whew! I was exhausted by the time we got home, but I still had a big project to complete.

I bought a four picture frame and took four pictures of Erik holding a different thing each time. I (heart) MY DADDY. Erik did ok with the first three, but he was d-o-n-e by the time we got to the last one and it took every single molecule of self-control I’ve ever owned to not beat the child senseless.

Click through to see the rest if you are really interested.

It turned out really cute, though the words are so small that it took Mike a while to figure out what the heck the pictures were supposed to be of. It mainly looks like a bunch of greenery. I was trying to get him to stand by the petunias, but he preferred the bell peppers. I guess it could be worse.

My computer wouldn’t cooperate and I was getting really frustrated, but eventually everything all worked out.

Then we went on a swim play date.

See? Told you I wore myself out. What was I thinking?

The good news is Mike didn’t ride the metro to work. He never rides the metro to work. If you are a news watching person, you have probably seen the images of the two metro trains on top of each other. My heart goes out to the families of everyone involved. People are just minding their own business, trying to get home after a long day at work or a long day of site seeing and BAM! That happens. How horrible.

And with that, I am going to bed. I did do one good thing today. I was talking to my mom about our flight out there and mentioned that I wanted to get economy plus seats for the trip home since it is a red eye and I don’t want someone leaning in my lap the whole flight. She said she’d pay for the upgrade, so Erik and I are going to have a much more comfortable flight home. Whoo-hoo! When I used to travel with him as a lap infant I’d always get the upgrade (sometimes I’d buy it, a lot of times they would just offer it). It was well worth the money, but it is harder to justify when it is twice the cost on top of an already hefty ticket.

The quilt is washed and dried and looks fabulous! Even though I’ve made several quilts, I always hold my breath until they come out of the dryer. I’m always convinced they are going to fall apart. I don’t understand how I am capable of creating something by sewing it together. It seems like magic. I know it is just hard work, and lots of it, but still the magical quality is there. Probably because my grandma was my crafty influence early in life and she is the very definition of Negative Nellie.

Ok, I’ll shut up and show the goods. These aren’t great pictures, but they’re what I have. I maybe try to take some outside tomorrow if the weather continues to be nice.

Very blurry–not loving my new camera yet.

Erik wanted his picture taken with his new quilt. I had to oblige. Also, he got his new Threadless.com t-shirt today and was one happy camper. I still don’t get the humor, but it has made the boy extremely happy.

You can click on any of the pics to view a larger version if you are dying to see it more closely. Again, they are blurry and it pisses me off. My new camera was supposed to be sharp and crisp. That’s what all the reviews said. I think I got a lemon.

In other news, I am feeling MUCH MUCH MUCH better! Today is the first day in weeks that I cooked a dinner that required more than three minutes of microwaving stuff. Ok, so Mike did a lot of it, but still! I can’t believe how much better I feel. Maybe I can go to BodyPump on Thursday.

I was even the preschool teacher today and it didn’t kill me. The kids had a great time measuring themselves in different ways and the moms were really happy with the little photo keepsake I made for them. I am such an over achiever. Next week is our last week of homeschool preschool for a month! We are off in July, then come back for four weeks in August. Then it is real preschool! I’ll be throwing a huge preschool party the first day of school. Anyone free for celebratory cupcakes the Wednesday after Labor Day from 12-2:30?

Did you miss me yesterday? I missed you! We had no cable, internet or phone service from 10:30 am till after I went to bed at 10:30 pm. It was a long, long day and we weren’t even home for most of it.

Uhhhh. Why does Erik have a knitting needle? And why is he pointing it at me, telling me he is zapping my boobs. The kid is obsessed with boobs.

Anyway, how about a series of good and bad from the day?

The bad: I got stung by a bee! Yes, it was just a few weeks ago that I was stung by a bee. Apparently there isn’t some kind of bee stinging immunity. We were at the park, walking through the grass, when a bee got under my little toe and stung me. Very, very painful.

However, it was no where near as painful as the previous bee sting experience. This one was about a 6 on a scale of 1-10. The other one was at least an 8. This sting stung for an hour. The other one stung at least four hours. This one had a big, ol’ stinger that I had to pull out. The other one didn’t. I just thought that stingers must be tiny and hard to see and so I scraped and scraped at the sting with my credit card, making sure it was out. Uhhhhh. Yeah. No way in HELL I would have missed the stinger. The one in my toe was unmistakable. So maybe I was stung by a yellow jacket or wasp or something earlier this summer. I don’t know.

The good: My babysitter’s mom lives right down the street from us, so our babysitter was driving by our place. We chatted for a minute and she told me there is a community swimming pool in our area that is really cheap and not dependent on HOA fees. Whoo-hooo! I’m going over there this afternoon and joining! I can’t have a hot DC summer without a daily dip in the pool.

The bad: We were out almost all day yesterday and I stupidly forgot my sunscreen at home. I rationlized that Erik had never had a sunburn so he must not be as sensitive as I’ve always treated him. Uhhhh. Yeah. DUH! I’ve always had so much sunscreen on him that a sunburn didn’t have a chance to form. No sunscreen=sunburn. It isn’t that bad, but his neck is glowing red. So is my nose.

The good: A friend invited us over to her place for a dip in her pool, so we spent a couple of hours over there instead of sitting at home wishing we had cable and internet. I found the sunscreen and we were covered, though we were already a bit crispy.