Next fall will mark 10 years since my first semester of college. Can you believe that? It’s spring fling this weekend and in spite of nearly a decade’s having passed not much has changed. I was feeling all nostalgic watching Chase check out the campus, I’d better start making my donations on the regular. She was all over the green as if she knew exactly where she was going. Danielle couldn’t help but remind me about the thousands of times I ran around freaking out in my pyjamas talking about turning in papers two minutes (or less) before the deadline. I remember express breakfast and the single art history recitation I ALWAYS slept through in Jaffe. That TA was such a jerk, she always waited until I fell asleep to call on me. Her point was lost on me obviously, she was no match for the power of a warm room, low lighting and a slide show. I remember moving every four months and the 4 different dorms I lived in. The mound of dirt that used to be the Blauhaus. The only place I don’t miss? DRL, I hated that place then and I still hate it now.
Ahh college. If you want to see the captions I guess you have to click through t view directly from Picasa.
Poor love is in so much pain. If you take a peek inside you can see a molar just beneath the surface twisting and turning its way up through baby girl’s gums. I do what I can to keep her mind off of it but the poor thing is suffering. Top Chef is on as we speak. Ming Tsai is the special guest. That frat boy look he’s got doesn’t seem to wear that well. I wonder how old he is now?
I started digging through my fabric stash and patterns to see what I have to work with as far as Chase’s shorts go. Turns out I don’t have a whole lot so a trip to the fabric store might be in order. I did however find the little pants I made for he last summer. They are still not anywhere near short enough to be capris but I’m happy that they still fit. I doubt the matching top will but they’ll be cute with a little tshirt anyway.
I don’t know why I thought trying to post during the show would be a good idea. So, I’ll leave you with some pictures and call it a night. I need the next commercial to make popcorn anyway.
Ugh! This new picture feature from wordpress is useless. I don’t know what to do about it right now but if you want to see a bigger version of the pictures you have to click them twice. Once from the thumbnail and again once it opens in its own window.
That’s what I’ve got. I fought it off two weeks ago but it’s back. At least it’s kind of gray and dreary so nobody really thinks it’s weird that I’m wearing a scarf. A scarf is the first thing I want when my throat starts up. A scarf or a turtleneck but I don’t have any of those.
So I was in Babies R Us yesterday and I picked up a set of three t-shirts on clearance for six bucks. Not a bad deal. I also looked at shorts, picked them up and put them back because, as always, I convinced myself that I am prepared to make shorts for chase to wear this summer. Truth be told, supply-wise, I am well equipped but as for time. Well, I never have enough of that. So we’ll see how far I can get before I have to break down and shop. I know I already have two pairs of overall-shorts and one pair of irreparably damaged sweatpants that I can turn into shorts to wear with her big white sneakers, heee. She also has a handful of dresses which are presumably easier to wear in the summer without going through all the trouble of tights. Back in my bib making phase i bought a presser foot to apply bias tape so maybe I’ll start plain and add a little flair that way. In any event I figure that the daydreaming about what to do alone might just be satisfying enough a diversion from everything else going on.
I’ve been diligently crossing stuff off my list, life insurance, a 529 plan for Chase, I even took care of our taxes and found a CPA to prepare them. I sent out the packet last week and he called today with some questions one of which was it looks like you did a decent job preparing your taxes on your own last year so why did you come to me? At the time the only reason I could think of was just not wanting it on my plate anymore. That’s true but until he said that we had NO idea that we did a decent job and that’s the reason I went to him. I think I’ll mention that to him tomorrow, it’s too late now but maybe had I known I just would of hired him to do a review. Around this time of year I always find myself wondering when tax time started coming around every 6 months… because that’s absolutely what it feels like. I still have a couple of big projects coming up and of course exams but I’m trying to stay on top of it all. So far so good. Of course, any time you cross something off the list something else gets added and there’s always that list that’s been following you around, haunting your dreams for months with projects that should have been tackled a year ago. Hopefully I won’t really get sick. I’m more than happy to have a cold anytime after let’s say May 15.
A couple of weeks ago I picked up a bunch of frames on clearance at JoAnns. The stairwell here is tall and narrow.. and plaster. It’s been painted but after 100 years is less than straight or smooth for that matter. That’s what the frames are for. They were a steal I got about 6 8×10′s and one big 16×20 or something along those lines. They stayed in my trunk for a while before they migrated into the house and are now stuffed inside the bench in the entryway waiting for me to make a decision on a picture for the 16×20. I was thinking of something kind of funky although a family portrait was tossed around too. I was thinking about this because it really does kind of capture her baby spirit.
So my experiment was a success. Chase wore her jeans today and even though the weather was crappy most of the day got to try them in the yard briefly this afternoon. They went together so quickly I want to make another pair. I have to go dig through my craptastic wardrobe to see what else I can part with. I used Ben’s photoXhibit plugin and Picasa to do a little mini-tutorial on how I turned the adult jeans into baby jeans. You have to scroll all the way to the bottome to see it.
Our errands today took us up north a ways to White Marsh and no trip to White Marsh is complete without stopping at Ikea. The trip was necessary though as in the last week I’ve pretty much broken all f the cups and bowls in the house. Those needed to be replenished as did our energy so we stopped for lunch in the cafe. Lunch at ikea is brilliant. Swedish meatballs, mac and cheese, pizza, everyone was happy. Not to mention the play area they have there, it’s the perfect respite from errand running. The only impulse buy to which I gave in was a tiny picnic table. It was one sale and try as I did I could not resist it. It’s perfect for enjoying a popsicle with a friend.
Ben’s impulse buy was much more costly than mine but also much more of a necessity. We finally put new tires on the car. It rides like a cadillac now. It still looks like a saturn but on the inside you can pretend you’re riding in luxury. It’s always hit or miss at Costco. Sometimes they’re giving out crappy soup sample and some days, like today you can really clean up. Just when Chase thought this canNOT get any better, we would turn the corner and oh, a raisin samples, oh, peaches, oh, look at that, cream puffs. It held her over nicely until we could get to lunch.
I can’t believe I almost forgot, this was probably the highlight of my day. The emergence of girl hair! Chase woke up this morning with one tiny curl… and it stayed to play all day! A couple of barrettes and not one person asked me how old is he today. Usually even the barrettes don’t make a difference it’s all the curl.
AND 500 posts today!
Start with a pair of child-sized pants. These are one full size bigger than what is actually fitting her right now. Trace along the outside of the pants on the wrongside of the jeans. My jeans are 2\'s, the rise of my pants and hers were the same
I pinned along the line to make it easier to see. When marking the waist think about how the pattern pants fit. The ones I used were so big I didn\'t have to account for the stretch in the waist and the button and fly allow them to slip on easily
Cut the excess length off. I allowed an inch hem since I thought it best to err on the side of length.
Stitch along the line you marked. I used pinking shears to trim the excess fabric away.
This was the trickiest part so I forgot to stop and take pictures. I used a seam ripper to open up the waistband and sewed in about two inches of 1/2
Here they are finished and waiting for a model.
Like my new jeans?
Perfect for working in the yard.
... and to think I was going to just give them away :) Now to put a hem in them.
Since Chase proved her mettle out in the yard today I’m thinking she might need more jeans. I get all funny about her clothes. She has good jeans, cute jeans for wearing to the store and what have you. Gardening jeans are something different altogether.
So I was posting about dinner when I stumbled across something unknown to me up to this point. I’ve been snacking on that delicious cheese for years completely ignorant to its history. I was going to say provenance (cause I watch a lot of antiques roadshow you know) but I can see the road this post is going down and think history is a better pick. There’s some connection between this cheese and a french gastronome by the same name. I’ll bite, what’s the deal with your delicious cheese mister? So then I see he wrote all of these books. They will be next on my reading list. How will I get my hands on them? The library has them in translation AND in their original French. How nice for me.
So I had my first poop adventure today with Chase. I let her run around diaperless for a few while I got things read for her bath. That’s when she paused… and dropped a turd! A turd! That’s the first time anything like this has happened. So I picked her up and ran her down to the potty before she could expel any more… well, turds. So she finished up on the potty but I had to go back and clean up the carnage in her bedroom. So back down the hall we go. I reach for some wipes and she’s running for the mirror where she was dancing naked just a minute ago. What are the chances that she steps in the turd? Oh, pretty good. So I manage to get her to stop moving and to sit for a second so I can clean her up. I get her foot cleaned up and move onto the floor when she decides to help clean up too. She’s got socks in her hand so why not take a swipe at it? Thankfully it was pretty contained at that point but man talk about excitement.
Thanks Erin, for the heads up on this great recipe from the Cheesetique. It was a little bit of a grown up mac and cheese. I’ll admit that I improvised a little out of necessity so you’ll have to take my account of the recipe with a grain of salt. Mysteriously, I couldn’t find parpadelle at Whole Foods so I bought something that looked like the swept of broken ends of lasagne noodles. They served as an adequate substitute. I was also short on some of the ingredient so I scaled the recipe back to about 3/4 of the original. At 5 bucks a pop I only bought one carton of mixed cherry tomatoes and so was a little short on the required amount. I had two leftover bits of triple cream in the fridge but decided one was a little too ‘ripe’ and tossed it ending up on the short side with cheese too so I subbed in a little cream cheese. This probably affected the sharpness of the sauce but that was probably fine because Chase gobbled it up and Ben didn’t complain. The recipe calls for two table spoon each of parsley and basil. Let me preface this by saying I love cheese and anyone who knows me knows that I also have a weakness for Brillat Savarin triple cream but honestly, I didn’t measure the basil, I just kept adding it until the smell didn’t gross me out anymore. So in the end, it tasted good but man, that’s some stinky cheese to begin with now add a little heat and wow that really pops.
I ate it and it tasted great. UB hosted a reception tonight for a professor with a recently published book. To celebrate they ordered a huge likeness of the book fashioned from chocolate cake and fondant from, you guessed it, Charm City Cakes of Ace of Cakes fame. News spread throughout the building like wildfire. Sure, I and others talk a lot of smack about how it’s not as cool as everyone makes it out to be and I was in class but you know I had to check it out. I sneaked down there to check it out, the cake was cordoned off being doled out by two nondescript women. They could have been law students or shop lackeys it was impossible to tell. I got my piece and a can of coke and scurried off to put it to the test. Much to my surprise it wasn’t tainted by rice krispie treat or pieces of wooden dowel. It was simple, tasty and moist chocolate cake and I didn’t have enough of it. I was suspicious of the frosting however which looked exactly and I mean exactly like the cover of the book. Read the rest of this entry »
Our guests came and went and I am woefully behind in my work but it’s been a long time since I’ve just sat around on a Saturday night watching movies. On Sunday we went to Fort McHenry. It was c-c-cold but Chase loved it. You have to pay admission to go inside the buildings but the grounds are free. At less than 15 minutes away we will be taking advantage of the grounds this summer to be sure. They have ducks there that are so used to being fed that they come right up to you. Assuming that you give them something so that they don’t attack you it was pretty cool to get so up close and personal with them and to hear them going quack quack quack. The fort sits on a vast green space that provides lots of space for running around.
Tax time is upon us again. As always we are unprepared. Last year we ended up filing with Turbo Tax but I vowed never to do it again. So today, April 1, only two short weeks before the filing deadline I got a referral for a reputable CPA and stuffed an envelope full of bits of paper to mail off to him tomorrow. Talk about a sense of relief. He reassured me that he could get it done in time and didn’t even make me feel bad for waiting until the last minute. Why does it feel like tax time comes around every 6 months instead of once a year?
Wow, I’m so glad to finally get to post again. Things get busy, you miss a couple of days and all of a sudden it’s out of the routine altogether. The weather today was beautiful. Almost beautiful enough to make me want to play hooky. I was this close, but the truth was either go to class or work on my paper, so I went to class. It’s probably a good thing too since I’m not likely to study for finals. I took Chase to the park to play with a friend. On the walk over Chase rode in the back of her double stroller. She loved every minute of it. She gets along so well with this little girl and they genuinely seem to like spending time with each other. They both had a really nice time at the park. Well, with the exception of the unfortunate hill incident. Chase had a quick but thorough lesson in gravity today. It’s ok she came out unscathed just a little shaken up.
There hasn’t been much cooking around here. I made franks and beans for Chase’s lunch one day but she wouldn’t eat it. In the next few days I made her a hot dog, which she ate. Then one night we had burritos, she didn’t want filling just bites of whole burrito. On another night I made her her own burrito but she didn’t want it. She only wanted the beans in the filling. So today I made her not franks and beans, which apparently offends her palate, but a hot dog and beans which she gobbled up. The very same hotdog with cuban style black beans. I know the two bean preparations are very different but honestly, she wouldn’t even taste the franks and beans. It makes no sense!
