Alternate titles for this post:
Take It Again From the Top People, 5-6-7-And
Chase 3, Kitchen 0

The first two titles are self explanatory. The third on the other hand needs from explanation. Twas another long and rainy day. We got most of the hallway painted before an unfortunate mishap that stopped progress dead in its tracks. The happy news is it’s almost done and won’t take too much time to finish up. To pass the time well daddy painted we baked cookies, read, danced, played in the yard and found a snail in the 5 minutes that it was NOT raining and then finally busted out the tickle trunk I’ve quietly been putting things in as I come across them. Chase was pretty excited to see what was inside the box and wanted me to put the necklaces and legwarmers on her right away. I dragged out one of the 10 cheapy full length mirrors that were foisted upon us right before the wedding and let Chase go to town showing off for the baby in the mirror.

Later, we made dinner. Chase broke two bowls. I have reconciled myself with the death of the dotted blue pyrex. Even though it was already chipped now I can find a nice new one to replace it. She also broke a salad plate which leads me to my next question. We use a set of dishes that we were given for our wedding. The soup plates arrived at this house as a box of shards and I’m ok with that because as it turns out I’m not really down with the formality of the soup plate. I would much rather have a nice deep bowl. As plates broke I replaced some of them but now we have an incomplete set and some have chips. So the question is, do I just keep replacing the pieces or do I just let the set run its course and replace the whole thing at once? How long will I be able to replace pieces? Crate & Barrel seem to retire their lines pretty frequently. Maybe I should just replace until they retire it? What’s the most cost effective solution? Any thought?

Well I’ve got some work to do and they’re puling the plug on the power on our block tonight at 11 for a couple hours so I have to get to work. Oh, and I got called for jury duty, bummer.

I’m trying to finish up a project and it’s not coming together as quickly as I would like. So to make myself feel better. I’m going to post up some pics of a gift I made for Sarah a few months back. It’s just simple sachets but it was the first time that I tried my hand at ribbon embroidery. It wasn’t easy even though I chose a fabric with a loose weave. Since then, I’ve done a couple of projects embellished with stitches in yarn so I’m still kind of confused about why pulling the ribbon through was so dang difficult. I would love to try it again on a little dress I had a lot of fun with it. The only thing I would do differently would be to have tied the bundle with twine to make the package cohesive but I didn’t have the twine at the time that I tied the inside bundle. You can see them here: lavender-sachets.pdf I sourced the lavender from a vendor at the Waverly Farmer’s Market who was happy to place a special order for me with a super quick turnaround time. Now that I’m thinking about him, I thought it was a little curious that he was serving up some kind of boiled shrimp a couple of weeks ago at 9am. I could have been persuaded to try them if I wouldn’t have frozen my little fingertips off in the frigid morning wind.

You know how people say that some things are so predictable that they could set a clock by them? Well I’m beginning to realize that given that I’m barely able to hold my head up off the desk as I type this and have nary a nice thing to say about anyone or anything if I didn’t already know it I could probably pinpoint the exact date. A good measure is how many times in a given day I have to repress the urge to tell people to shut the h*ll up for no good reason. It’s kind of a sad state of affairs. I wish it was a long weekend.

Here’s something kind of cool to check out. I was a sensitive taster but I would have categorized myself as hyper-sensitive. Maybe I should push the envelope a little. Maybe a trip to wine source is in order. I’ve been reading and hearing a lot about organically produced wines that sound interesting. I’ve cut myself off from JoAnn’s. That’s also making me a little sad. I made the decision partly because I don’t need to spend money on materials and supplies that I don’t really have time to use, I already have plenty of stuff to use at home and frankly, I get tired of driving to the ends of the earth for it. Baltimore has plenty of knitting supply shops but no fabric or notions stores that I know of. I’m I’m wrong please let me know.

I guess you can say I took it easy tonight. We had a quick dinner and then I tackled the dishes that never seem to all get done, did a load of laundry and cleaned the powder room. It’s one of those love hate deals. Who wants to scrub a toilet on their first night of freedom? On the other hand, a clean toilet gives you a great sense of satisfaction. Now to tackle my desk. Which leads me into our to do list tomorrow. Our office space remains unfinished. Though Ben has made some progress with the base moulding we are yet doorless and are suffering from a SERIOUS lack of storage. Ben can’t identify storage problems he complains about clutter but doesn’t seem to get the connection between all the clutter and the fact that there is just nowhere to put this junk. He doesn’t like it when I spend his money on stupid things like drawers and shelves but tomorrow, I’m going to Ikea. Well, tomorrow or Sunday anyway. It has to be done, end of story, I’m putting my foot down! I’ll also probably be able to get napkins and jazz for Chase’s bday party.

So Chase had a little run in with the paparazzi today. Ben said some lady was like your baby… looks so familiar to me… and then realized oh, she’s the catalog baby :D Sure, he was standing in the store that sent out the catalog but she was spotted nonetheless. I count it!

I can’t believe she’s turning one already! She’s just a little baby! Wee, little, just a tiny thing. This has seriously been the fastest year ever and I hear they just keep going faster. People are already asking when we’re going to try for number two but we are as of yet undecided on that subject. There are so many unknown factors at the moment that it’s hard to wrap your mind around much of anything. Am I going to work or not going to work? If I do, as what? Some extension of my current job? A litigator? A pastry chef? Well, not a pastry chef but you get my point. That’s just work related. There are house related questions too. Do we stay or do we go? We’ve been lucky that prices in our neighborhood have been relatively stable and have even increased some. We knew when we bought that we had missed or were right at the tail end of the whole wow, moving back to the city is a steal train but we didn’t know that housing prices were going to tank so quickly thereafter. That being said, do we cut and run and take the tiny bit of equity that we have in the house and buy something for half the price somewhere in the outlying (read: pretty damn far away) area? To buy a new car or not to buy? When is the tv finally going to die? Decisions, decisions.

Here are some pictures from the last couple of days. She’s looking like a big girl, no?

And just in case you’ve not seen the golden girls clip to which I refer:

Things with Chase are all crazy here. She’s moving at lightning speed. It’s like all the developments have her head spinning and her body is literally spinning too. She likes to sit on the floor with a fun toy and use her heels to turn herself around and around. It’s quite amusing to watch. At some point today I observed her do the crawling baby equivalent of running while screeching and giggling maniacally. At some later point I observed her devise a plan for standing that involved executing a downward facing dog type of a move. The fun never ends. Last night she barely slept a wink for getting up on the edge of her crib and then not being able to get back down again. I was up hourly from 3 am on. Needless to say when I finally got her out of her crib around 7 she fell back asleep in bed with me and we both slept until after 9 and I was late for class.

Our Halloween party is tomorrow morning and we are both really looking forward to it :) Her costume is ready and everything. We’re bringing Veggie Booty.

As we continue to unpack the boxes that are stashed around the house I continue to find things that I haven’t seen in many years. I’m astonished at how much of my childhood I’ve been lugging around with me over the years. Today I found this thing, I don’t even know what it might be called, it was a gift from my grandparents from one of their trips to the ‘old country.’ You turn it upside down and when you right it again it moos. You can see that it’s been well loved.

In other news, I made a note of this tonight in class. To set the scene, we are all sitting listening attentively to the professor talk about reasonably articulable suspicion when as an aside she says: You know, where you keep the gun in your pants… your dip (gentle chuckling and murmuring sweep across the room). “Dip,” she says, “D-I-P dip” trying to explain that she has not in fact made a crude joke but rather was demonstrating the street cred that she has earned over the years. These nights are what keep me going I tell you.