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Thursday, November 30, 2006
a million snippets. Or eight. Whatever.
Hmm. List, or rows of asterisks? decisions, decisions.
- You know what is really good? Or... are really good? But that construction is very awkward. The thing is, it's plural, but -- oh, shut up, Rachel. Hershey's kisses with peanut butter are extremely, extremely good. Oh my gosh. I needed a little bit of chocolate to use while transcribing, and as I reached out my hand for the Roast Almond bar (the Jolly Ranchers were already in my basket), I saw Hershey's Kisses with Peanut Butter and couldn't resist. Like I wasn't fat enough already! Guess what I'm going to buy to give to T to put in my stocking!
- Something else that's really good: "White and Nerdy". I have always loved Weird Al, but he has totally surpassed himself here. I can embarrass myself in record time (which, considering my history, is quite an accomplishment) singing this song aloud, especially at, say, a Bible-study potluck when Debi is showing me her iPod. Not that I've DONE that, of course, that's a purely hypothetical example. Even my kids can sing along, and they get the humor although they don't quite get the concept of "nerdy". 'Why can't people just like what they like?' That's homeschooled social deprivation for you.
- I have been sewing sewing sewing. Actually I have a little nightly All-Christmas-All-The-Time routine going (just when I had firmly resolved to start going to bed when normal people go to bed, instead of when some normal people get out of bed! Oh well. December 26th, maybe). As soon as the kids are in bed (which has to happen actually on time for a change or the whole thing falls apart), I transcribe my one file a day for this really well-timed job I've got going, which will hopefully enable me to purchase my husband's birthday and Christmas presents with money that he himself did not work to earn, for a change. This takes anywhere from an hour for a shorty where people speak clearly and the background noise is minimized, to two or three hours if it's a long one recorded inside a jet engine which I SWEAR I have had to do in the past. Or maybe it was a food court, or a trade show, or something. Same difference.
So. I transcribe. Then I get up from the computer where I've fallen into a kind of dozing-while-typing thing (the chocolate helps keep this at bay, honest, I swear that's precisely why I bought it; it was a medical/occupational necessity, see) and I go into the dining room where my sewing machine currently lives because we are RENTING OUT my SEWING ROOM (sob), and I work on whatever project is current. I just finished [whispering] a Jedi bathrobe for LT, and now I'm working on a nightgown for C, after which I'll make a robe for my mom (guess I don't have to whisper that one... she doesn't even have Internet access) and then matching aprons for myself and C and then if I have time a Jedi tunic pajama top and possibly some doll clothes. Also, on Saturday C and I made five adorable fleece hats (we fringed the tops) for her friends for Christmas. I am a busy bee, no?
So. I transcribe, and then I sew, and then I head back to the computer to read a chapter of Anne of Green Gables for Librivox/my dad. I have fifteen chapters to go if I'm going to give it to Dad for Christmas. I love, love, love that book, so it's not really a hardship; it's a great way to fit in some reading before I go collapse in bed, generally sometime between 2 and 3, but it has on occasion been as late as 4. - In case the above paragraph didn't convince you that I've gone around the bend, I was at Joann (fabric/craft store) at 6 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving. The dollar-a-yard flannel sucks me in every year. I had a great day shopping, I really did. Even buying a washing machine went smoothly. (what an UNsatisfying thing to spend money on, though. Ugh.)
- I've kind of given up on the bouclé sweater for now (got tired of it, honestly, and I think it's going to be too small, and it wouldn't be ready by Christmas anyway so it got bumped). Now I'm working on a camouflage-colored hat that I'm sure Kat would have had done in an hour but on which I have been doggedly working (in my vast stretches of spare time, of course) for almost a week. I LOVE CIRCULAR NEEDLES. They solve the biggest problem I have with knitting, to wit: I am extremely, terribly uncoordinated, as anyone who has ever read two words of this blog knows. Figuring out how to control the 14" needles weighted down by all that yarn while simultaneously making the two inches at the tips do what I wanted them to do was sometimes a bit of a stumbling block. The circular needles kind of hold onto themselves (itself?), leaving my hands free to mess up stitches with abandon.
- Because I am so awesome, I cooked a turkey on Monday. The thing is, I really don't like turkey. I like the stuff that goes along with it, but the bird itself I could take or leave, and I get so tired of it this time of year*, but honestly I just couldn't pass up $7 for a week's worth of food at Vons. And I couldn't keep it in the freezer until Christmas (which I am hosting, ack, in my cave of a house) because it took up too much space, and Thanksgiving was at my in-laws' so we didn't have any leftovers from that, so I made a big bang-up turkey dinner this week. Because two in the space of a month apparently just isn't enough.
*Because of this turkey-related ennui, one year when I hosted Christmas I had the brilliant idea to make lasagna and its fixings instead. If I do say so myself, I make really good lasagna, yet this went over like the heaviest, hugest, fattest, most solid of lead balloons. So much for bucking tradition in this family. - Somehow what was supposed to be very strictly a two-week trial membership to Netflix turned into $20 a month and a queue as long as my arm, with selections ranging from the first season of "The Muppet Show" to Bride and Prejudice which I've always wanted to watch and something called Junebug which I had never ever heard of but it looked really good. I think it started because the kids and T ran out of time on the Star Blazers series, so we were going to keep it for Just One Month so that they could finish. And then I started watching movie trailers one after the other one night. Is there some kind of award for the most insidious, clever marketing technique ever invented? Because that should win, hands-down. EAT MORE POPCORN has absolutely nothing on it. You just sit there, and movie previews just flow by one after the other in front of you (doesn't help that I LOVE previews, actually seek them out on DVDs, and am always bummed if I'm too late for them at the movie theater), and there's this ADD button, and... wow. Before you know it it's three AM (this was before the All Christmas All The Time routine got started) and you have at least five months' worth of movies lined up that you just can't not watch. Brilliant.
- You know, I've been a mother for over ten years now (sniff), and just yesterday I finally figured out how to elucidate something that should have been really simple. All stay-at-home moms, as well as all people who have ever spoken to a stay-at-home mom or, heaven forbid, insulted a SAHM by saying that she 'doesn't work' or that her 'life is a weekend' (Susan, I'm still flabbergasted by this one) know that the hardest aspect of our chosen career is the neverendingness of it. You're always on duty blah blah blah you've heard this all before. Of course I am familiar with the head-exploding frustration of this problem. And yet I chose this life and I truly love it and you couldn't pay me enough to give it up, and I don't want to sound like I don't love my kids or that I regret for a minute the decision to devote the most energetic years of my life to their care and education. Last night as I was dealing with bedtime, two tightly-wound offspring, and two of the possibly messiest bedrooms I have ever personally encountered, I thought, I need a vacation. Not -- this is key, this is where the guilt thing always came in before when I would let that beautiful V word pop into my brain -- not from my kids. I want them around. I just need a vacation (very brief -- and the thought of anyone else filling the position while I'm gone actually makes me, well, jealous, which probably means I have some undiagnosed psychiatric disorder) from being responsible for them, from being the person who has to bear the brunt of their messes and noises and feed them and wash and fold their neverfreakingending laundry.
Ha. Like that will ever happen.
Comments
All 3 of my boys LOVE "White and Nerdy" Jonathan will dance to it. We watched it this morning 3 times in a row, and jon just stood there staring at the screen. Nate did ask the other day what it means to be whiter than sour cream. =)
Posted by: debi at November 30, 2006 01:14 PM
Oh I too love movie previews. Love them. I wanted to see Junebug too, but I wasn't sure. Let me know how that goes.
I guess the reason people have kids at the age they do is because it is during their most energetic years. Can you imagine being sixty and having to take care of two small children? All the time?
Sounds like you need an on-call aupair. Just some to work on a contingent basis? :-)
Love you, miss you, ((hugs))
Posted by: jenn at November 30, 2006 06:54 PM
Your schedule is making mine sound slightly less crazy. :-) Thank you. Other random things:
* You're sure I would have finished the hat? Really? Do you READ my blog? Do you SEE how few things I actually finish knitting? ;-)
* Yes, circular needles are the bestest things ever. I'm sure you've figured this out, but you might as well just use them when you're knitting back and forth anyway. I generally do.
* Lasagna is totally traditional Thanksgiving and/or Christmas and/or Easter food in my family. Feel free to join us any time.
* Peanut butter kisses are lovely, but I am currently addicted to the cherry ones.
* I LOVE NETFLIX. With which e-mail address are you signed up? I want to add you as a friend or buddy or whatever they call it.
* Bride and Prejudice was really good.
* Unrelated to anything you wrote, but you're one of the few people I know who might actually appreciate this: In class last night I learned how to MAKE Dewey Decimal numbers for books. Isn't that basically the coolest thing ever?
I feel like I had more to say but this is the longest comment ever so I should stop. OH except that I am a horrible and selfish friend and therefore really hoping that in the midst of everything else you have time for a November Reads post (assuming you had time to read anything, but I know you, and you had to be reading SOMETHING), because I seriously do look forward to those all month.
Posted by: Kat with a K at November 30, 2006 09:11 PM
Jenn, wish you could come here and watch Junebug WITH me. :)
Kat, you would have finished it simply because it's so very small. And quick. It's about ten inches by eighty stitches of K2P2. And you are a pro and I am an amateur. So. :)
Re: books post: I did read books this last month. The craziness didn't start till Thanksgiving and I actually got through a few really good ones. I didn't write them down, though, so I need to pull up my Library Elf emails to remind myself of what I checked out when. I'll probably post about them tomorrow. Or maybe late tonight if I feel chipper enough after the other things on my list. :) Thanks for liking those. They're my favorite ones to write, too. :)
Posted by: Rachel at November 30, 2006 09:54 PM
Yay! Looking forward to your book post. I LOVE reading those :-)
"Bride and Prejudice" is hilarious. I loved it. And the songs in it are so catchy that you'll go around humming them for days.
Posted by: Maria at November 30, 2006 11:32 PM
Yay for an upcoming books post!!
Posted by: Kat with a K at December 1, 2006 11:29 AM
Thanks for posting the link to "White and Nerdy". Hadn't seen that one before!
I'm with Kat on the cherry Hershey's Kisses. Yum yum! I haven't tried the peanut butter ones, but I can just imagine how good they must be!
Re: buying candy for your husband to put in your stocking-- Not that I *mind* purchasing the stocking candy (because it means I'm always sure to like my stocking treats), but I wonder how many husbands ever actually buy the candy themselves. I know my mother used to do it, and now I've taken over the job for our little household, because I'm fairly certain that if I didn't, "Santa" would just forget the stockings altogether. ;o)
Posted by: Michael ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.1970dodgecharger500.com/oldsite/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 1, 2006 02:22 PM
Michael - Ever since I was six or eight or so, I've mad sure my dad gets my mom's favorite candy (Baci) for her stocking. But he's reasonably good about remembering. He also tends to pick up candy and other small presents for everyone without telling mom. :-)
Posted by: Kat with a K at December 1, 2006 06:53 PM
Just to put in a word for the working (outside) mother I'd be in an alternate universe where I had kids, I'm pretty sure that *also* having a paying just doesn't end the unending nature of parenthood. Kind of like the captain of a ship: even when someone else is on watch, it's still your responsibility.
Posted by: dichroic at December 6, 2006 06:19 AM
