Category: another day in the life

Sidetracked.

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Saturday night when Edie said she couldn’t find something in her room, we went in there and started cleaning and reorganizing and tossing oodles of stuff. All of my creative energy right now is being channeled to clean and deal with the pile of dolls, books and art supplies.

I’m firmly convinced the child has at least 300 markers and twice as many crayons. Up next is a total overhaul of her art supply storage system. I’m going to have to give her another drawer in the sunroom, which means I have to get rid of stuff too.

I think we have scope creep.

Cute as a daisy.

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Had one of those lazy but productive days today. Lunch with my girl and took in her art piece up there which is hanging up downtown until tomorrow. Made headway on the happy corner. Made headway in getting her room reorganzied too.
Everything about today was as nice as the weather. I love days like that.

Why labels are good.

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All week I have had this notion of a nice pot of (chicken) noodle soup in my head. I make a big pot of it and Edie & I can eat it for a few meals, I can freeze some and pull it out again in a month when I don’t feel like cooking again. I just haven’t gotten around to it, with work and girl scouts and swimming lessons and you know, life happening, because this version I have in my head has to be a certain way, it’s going to need time. We had pizza one night with friends, mystery container from the freezer another night. Edie was slightly freaked out by that- I had no idea what it was, I knew it was recently enough, and it didn’t look freezer burnt, but it wasn’t labeled, so I wasn’t really sure….so I pulled it out and threw it in a pot, thawed it and served it, with a grilled cheese on the side, just in case mystery container was not good. About three bites into my soup, I muttered, “Oh, beef stew” and at that point I realized my child realized I had no idea what I just served her.

“Mommy, did you not know what this was?”

“Uhm, not exactly. I knew it had dumplings in it – did you get one yet?”

She was so NOT buying it and definitely slightly horrified by it.

Tonight’s pot of soup got bumped by wandering down to Betty’s for a cup of tea and staying longer than I had intended and I realized I just didn’t feel like cooking tonight. When I suggested something from the freezer, even with the disclaimer that I would only grab a clearly marked container, I got a look, so we had daddy style mac & cheese. Which is from a box. It is the one processed food I still keep around. I love me some box mac & cheese, we all do really.

As we were sitting there at dinner, I mentioned tomorrow I’ll make that pot of soup. I got a suspicious look. I said, well, maybe I’ll start it tonight and then if I’m tired when I get home from work, it’ll be here.

“Oh, so we can actually have dinner tomorrow?”

Clearly she is not happy with my dinner efforts this week, but at least she’s been polite about it.

I have a bad habit of putting stuff in the freezer with the intent of pulling it out again next week, so I don’t need to label it, and with having so many containers looking alike, I just don’t always know what I’m pulling out. And things stay in longer than next week. I’ll admit it. Mystery beef stew was definitely a strong argument for getting better about that.

Warming up.

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So I realized that what I really like about Edie taking swimming lessons during the winter is that I get to sit in a (nice) warm environment and knit for a good 45 minutes. I have been freezing since last December. Every time I touch Pat & Edie, they tell me how cold my hands are. Apparently ice cubes have replaced them. The parents viewing loft at the pool is really humid and warm and I was loving it today.
I took a few projects with me to to work on. I went on this flower knitting kick a while back – no idea what I was going to do with them, just did them because I could. I pulled one out, put a button in the middle of it, sewed a bar pin on the back and voila, a fabulous little gift for a friend who’s having a birthday tomorrow. When I pull that kind of stuff off, I don’t mind having piles of unfinished projects lying around.
A woman who has a son in Edie’s class at school and a daughter in her swim lesson today sat there and talked to me during the lesson. I can’t say I know her very well, and so as we were talking about our kids and what kind of year they were having at school and all that other good getting to know you parent talk, I found myself admitting I have one child and she’s dreamy. Really, I sort of have the perfect child and she’s really got no complaints (except for the fact that we’re making her take swimming lessons and she has so many other things to do and really, we’ve overscheduled her once again…also, I’m a mean mommy and didn’t let her watch any tv today….) and so therefore, neither do I. As I sat there knitting in my little cardigan sweater, saying that, I wondered if I was coming across as smug and perfect and you know, one of those people that I sort of dread and wonder if they are really that perfect all the time. I mean, my kid’s not perfect, but I realize that she is quite dreamy in grand scheme of things and we are very blessed with her. And I hear quite a bit from people about how great my kid is and how I’m sort of spoiled by that and yes, I know it and openly admit to it. Of course as soon as I say that, my dreamy girl is doing the backstroke in a definite diagonal line across the pool and about to take out her swim instructor….
In other news around here, I noticed signs of spring trying to pop up in the back yard. The hellebore has buds. A crocus is starting to open. A daffodil has a bud shooting up. This long winter just might end after all. I started getting excited about being able to dig. And plant. I think I want to grow some tomatillos this year. I got some from William & Sally last summer and made some salsa and stuck it in the freezer and man, that was good stuff. I want to grow that myself this summer.
Edie is sleeping upstairs with me again tonight, so there will be no work in the happy corner this evening. We both miss daddy, so it’s okay. It’s nice to have someone warm to snuggle with. I think I’ll just go knit and watch some Olympics. Did I really tell myself I was going to knock out that pile this week? I did wash the ironing board cover in a procrastination move. Well, tomorrow is another day….

The best intentions.

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That is the ironing/mending/unfinished project pile taking up a big portion of the happy corner. I had every intention of working on that pile this weekend and instead I went shopping, hung out with Betty and was in bed on a Saturday night by 8:15. Today, while having a Princess Diaries marathon, I did manage to pull something off that pile and fix it. A pair of Edie’s tights. So there. I did work on it this weekend. I’ll try to make it my goal to knock it out this week. It feels overly ambitious, but it’s also a good idea. If I can knock that out, I can start on other projects and have a little more room to work with. Betty says that one should be organized if one is going to have a good space to work in.

Wish me luck. Stuff has been sitting in that pile for years.

Home Alone

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Pat’s phone call last night confirmed what I had been joking about for a few weeks now – that there was going to be less snow on the ground in Alaska than there is here. The snow is lovely, but the frozen white landscape is starting to get old and is definitely not melting fast enough. I need some color around here!

With both of them gone, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. I made it about an hour and half before I felt really lonely, thankfully about 5 minutes after that, Loretta showed up and I was alone no longer. I crave alone time and then don’t know what to do when I actually get it in large chunks. I have a whole list of things I’d like to and should get done, but starting on them seems to be another story. It might just be that huge pile of mending/ironing/unfinished projects I have blocking the entry to what Edie calls my “Happy Corner”, where my sewing machine and all my craft supplies are. That seems like a very good place to start, and I can hole up and watch movies and the Olympics up there while I’m at it. I might be onto something… .

Master Plan, Day 2.

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So the idea is that I do this alot, make it a habit, which will then help keep me inspired to make stuff. Which seemed really easy in the master plan stage and I know is going to be hard in the execution stage. Today, I really was a wee bit inspired by all this, but also by all the crap I had to get done today. I had an overly productive day, definitely. Alot of it I needed to do, like laundry and dinner and figure out what Edie was giving as gifts at this weekend’s slumber parties, but making them T-shirts was maybe a wee bit over and above (although cheaper and really much less stressful and time consuming than going shopping with her to the toy store where we have to make sure we have time to fully take in the entire Hello Kitty display in all it’s glory while they wrap our gifts for us) and the zucchini bread was definitely over and above. I was in the mood to bake the other day and pulled the zucchini from last summer’s garden out of the freezer and had to just make myself get around to it. See? Overly productive. And worn out, I didn’t feel like doing this, but if I’m going to fall into the habit, I have to do it.
And now I’m going to curl up next to my honey and knit and watch some Olympics and call it a day.