Sorry guys. I just have been busy. In the last week I've become a little obsessed with homemade foods and baking. Are you wondering why?
Well. I finally got my new KitchenAid Mixer. I've been dying to get one for years. Actually, since December of 2000. I saw the bright red one in the Amazon wish book at one of my doctor's appointments when I was pregnant with Devan. Jon decided to get me one this year! He also got me tons of silicone bowls and stuff from ISI (one of his clients) and I love every bit of it.
I've been baking bread and cookies and compiling recipes to try out. This week I'm going to make New York style bagels, and I might bake some sugar cookies. I have these really cute snowflake cookie cutters that I never used at Christmastime.
Another fantastic present from Jon was this beautiful new iMac:
This present was such a surprise! I kept joking that he was going to get me one, not thinking he actually would. I had recently been fixing up a little work area/studio space for myself and I think maybe he noticed the giant gap in the middle of my desk, just waiting for a nice little iMac. Well it fits perfectly.
I got tons of great gifts: Harry Potter box set, several other good books, an expensive, rare old font (wow!) ornaments, picture frames, pig paraphernalia, etc. I'm so in love with all of them! The one thing I didn't get is a PUPPY. Someone must have overlooked this somehow.
We all had a great Christmas and a really nice, relaxing New Year. I'm trying to get back into the swing of the non-Holiday season. It's not as magical, so I'm a litle "blah" about things.
Tomorrow I'll be undressing the Christmas Tree and removing all of the decorations from the house. I've been avoiding it, because I don't like the emptiness that it leaves behind. Well, that's all for now!
I haven't been terribly busy or running around or anything, I have just been enjoying this time with my guy and my girls (dev & lily.)
How's your new year going? Mine's going alright so far! Today I made some peanut butter cookies in my new kitchenaid mixer that jon got me for christmas. Last night we had fun, just the 3 of us, watching Ryan Seacrest count down to the new year, while we played Monopoly Jr. and ate snacks. When the ball dropped, we all gave each other kisses and Devan danced around while Fergie sang "Clumsy." All was going well until Devan fell and hurt her butt and cried for about 20 minutes (mostly from being tired.)
I don't really feel like making a big post right now, so I'll save it until I have some time tomorrow afternoon. Dev goes back to school in the morning, so I should definitely have a few minutes to spare, to post some pics and stuff.
Finished putting my studio/office space together yesterday and I even pressed some stationary tonight (for a gift, I'll show pics when I can get some tomorrow) and the space is really nice and functional and I'm very happy.
I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner tonight, expecting a few guests and only Jon's brother came :( We have so much leftover sauce and meatballs. It's ok though, my brother has assured me that he will take care of the meatballs.
I just finished wrapping everything and can finally relax. Can't wait to watch Devan open her presents in the morning, she's so excited.
Finally. Time to relax, or organize my bedroom. or bake cookies. or fiddle with the uneven parts of the tree. or go shopping for more gifts. or work on some last minute crafty gifts. or blah blah blah blah.
I've got a lot of work to do. More than normal for this time of the year. My goal is to be cleaned and organized by Friday night because Jon and I are going away to Mohonk on Saturday.
We went shopping last week and bought the furniture I need for my studio space. Jon put it all together yesterday and we started moving all my supplies into the room.
There's another book shelf on the other side of the desk. I want to get a shorter table for my press because the one it's on is a little bit too high for comfort.
Tonight we got our tree. It's a little bit damp but it smells amazing, and it looks perfect. Here's a pic of Jon adjusting it to my specifications:
I'm just so irritated. It's December already. I've got so much to do.
The house is a mess. I still don't have my office/studio space set up. My press is still in a very dark corner of the family room, which makes it incredibly difficult to use. ...I won't even say more about that right now because I'll probably explode.
Every year I have the best intentions...Advent calendars, handknit stockings, handmade gifts, homemade cookies, lights and decorations everywhere...guh. Why do I do this to myself?
Tonight at my friends party, at 2 minutes til midnight and the beginning of the new year I checked my txt msg's on my phone. Here's what was waiting for me:
This has been a whirlwind Holiday season so far. I don't see it slowing down at all. Of course, if I'd stop making plans and just sit around and enjoy everything, things might not seem so crazy. I finally had my heavy duty root canal on Friday, and it was a success, but still is pretty painful. Hopefully by tomorrow or Tuesday I will be done with the Vicodin, which will help my head clear and maybe I can retain some of the Holiday.
Yesterday we had our friend Jenny and her daughter, Lauren, over to play and make cookies and have a nice sleep over.
It was really cute watching the girls play together. At one point Lauren had this idea to make a Devan cookie and a Lauren cookie holding hands. We were all like "awwww" but it's much cuter in theory. The actual cookie was like this bloated disturbing conjoined twin of a cookie. Kinda resembled a cloud but the girls ate it and it was fun.
The girls eventually pooped out, the way only tiny little girls can.
Once the girls were out (which was ridiculously difficult to achieve) we went downstairs and watched Little Miss Sunshine.... Such a good movie. And I love little Abigail Breslin. She was in Grey's Anatomy, as the little girl who thought she was a superhero ('c'mon, punch me in my stomach if you don't believe me!') So I looked her up and it turns out that she is Spencer Breslin's sister. Do you know who he is? Why, he's the KID in 'The Kid' and he's also Conrad in The Cat in the Hat.
Seriously. Cutest siblings ever. At least til Devan has a brother or sister.
Ugh. Well. It's so late. We've finally wrapped all the presents, and tucked them under and, er, all around the tree. Devan's gonna be so stoked. Merry Christmas guys!
I don't even know what to say right now, but I thought I should update. We got our tree on Sunday. (I was going to just put up our old fake tree, but a trip to Rockafeller Center with Jon and my good friend T inspired me to get a live tree.) So we got a real tree. Our first real Christmas tree. Pretty exciting. Devan stayed up late with me, decorating and marvelling at how much Santa will love our beautiful tree. At 6am the next morning I woke to Jon shouting "OH NO! Our tree fell over!" That woke me right up. Jon did a nice job of fixing everything up and cleaning all of the broken ornaments, but the event has sort of soured me. I don't want to get into it all right now, but I have absolutely NO time to spare... so after spending hours on the tree once -- It's a huge pain in the ass to have to carve out time to do it again.
I've also been having spells of getting very sick and vomitting lately. (No, no babies.) :( But it's striking at the worst times. At my new job I was sick all day Tuesday. This is the absolute worst day of the week to be sick, as it is print day, as well as Classified day... as well as being all around busy doing many many things. We stay late on Tuesdays. Well. All day long, from about 1pm on, I was afflicted with... something. My first thought was that I hadn't eaten and had then taken medicine for the toothache that has come back (there's an infection in my jaw.) But after throwing up once in the grass near my car in the parking lot (I went out for fresh air) I felt a little better, and that should have been the end of it. But it wasn't. All day and all night -- Oh, and during the middle of all of this, T text messages me and informs me that he has found out why his body keeps producing huge bruises. Leukemia. This is terrible. Ugh. Poor T. I suddenly feel sheepish for even feeling the slightest bit sorry for myself during all of these 'run to the bathroom with my fingers crossed hoping I'm gonna make it and not embarrass myself in front of everyone' moments. I called out of work Wednesday, due to still vomitting and feeling awful and not being able to eat anything- including TUMS. seriously, aren't tums supposed to help? Turns out they do the opposite. I'm pretty sure it's a stomach flu at this point, and not my Gall Bladder which has to come out soon, and sometimes afflicts me in similar ways, but not for such an extended period of time.
My jaw has swollen up again and feels like it's being stung by about 10 Yellow Jackets right now. That's why I'm not asleep. I just burst out crying a few minutes ago because I'm so overwhelmed. Staying home sick is so stressful, and it eats at me all day long, making it very hard to relax and feel better. Allthough I did watch lots of VH1 celebrity tv today and that did help a bit in taking my mind off it. When I call out there's the moment of relief followed by panic about what my coworkers and other people in the office might think about me (i've had to call off quite a bit recently, due to Devan getting very sick 2 or 3 times since mid-October. And 1 time there was the hellish Dental appointment that left me wounded both physically and emotionally. And one day I had a Gall Bladder attack) So as I was saying, I don't want people to think I'm just screwing around and taking advantage of sick time. I'm absolutely not. I would have gotten my surgery by now if I WANTED to be out of work. A week off would be sweet, even if I was all sore)
I want to talk about something else now. Ugh. Enough complaining, right? on to knitting then. I made 2 mini sweaters as ornaments. They're so cute.
Aaaand, Jon asked me to make him a hat a couple weeks ago to match his coat. Here's a pic of that. Other than these, I've had no knitting at all.
2006 - not the brilliant, shining year I'd hoped it would be. How do I know this, only 4 days into it? Because I'm smart. That's why. Not even a day after saying FUCK YOU to 2005, 2006 had turned to shit. Utter and complete shit. But on the bright side, at least I'll be visiting my family and friends next week. That makes me happy.
I have tomorrow off work, and all of next week. My boss is seriously like, my personal savior and I have to go to the store and pick up this awesome Elvis stationary and give it to her as a present (uh, and you know, buy some for myself too.. since Elvis=Love) Last night, after deciding I'd finally had enough of my husband's weird behavior, I told him i want to end it. I don't really want to get into specifics, but you know, we love each other, etc, but maybe we're better of as BEST FRIENDS FOREVER or something instead of husband and wife?? I don't know.
I'm a good, strong, loving, mildly attractive, and sort of talented person. Life has alot to offer and I need to stop 'selling myself short' Thanks to Patrick for that handy bit of advice. I deserve more, or somethin'
Creative Group called today while I was dropping my daughter at preschool. I gave Jessie an awesome reference and the company would also like me to come in for an interview, for freelance design, etc.
Tonight I have to go to work early. I want to stop at a florist and pick up a nice vase of flowers for Jon's mom. She's over at newton hospital and is very sick. She's been there since new years day, I think?
Tomorrow I have to run all over the universe, filling prescriptions, making plans, going to the bank, etc. (maybe picking up animal crossing for the DS?!??!??!) to get ready for my trip. Fingers are crossed that there will be no snow.
I am really loving my job right now and DON'T want to leave right now, There's a new girl, Jenny, and basically we're living parallel lives, so it's nice to be able to commiserate, and also get ourselves psyched about being single! yay! mothers! yayx2! living in one of the most expensive counties in the US! YAYYYY! wooooo. I'm not being entirely sarcastic. It really is kind of exciting to think about the possibilities. Being by myself kind of excites me. I dealt with it once, it's not the end of the world, it is just sucky and complicated at times. It's unfortunate though, that I'm married to the best guy already, and that we're just not compatible. He's got big shoes to fill.. and you know what they say about guys with big shoes ;) no... not that. Sorry, I'm rambling again. Well it's high time I got in the shower and cleaned up for work. Ugh. I wish i had more time. I want to go outside and take photos of the trees with snow all over the branches. It's so beautiful and perfect. BUT I GOTTA GO.
Seriously. All this talk of 'enjoying the splendor of the season' and how it's 'joyous' and how it's the 'most wonderful time of the year' is bull. Someone needs to just shoot me right now and put me out of my misery.
Not to be a scrooge or anything but christmas is so stressful that I sometimes wish I were a jehovas witness.Ok no i don't. I just wish I were martha stewart, or as rich as martha stewart so I could hire all of her people to make my holiday 'joyous'. It's 3:40am and I have to go clean my house so that I can spend tomorrow 'enjoying the splendor of the season' by shopping in packed malls and supermarkets with other thrilled shoppers with that shitty christmas music playing on the overhead speakers. And then I get to come home and clean and bake a little.
Saturday we're having a party. You can come if you want. I'll be putting my culinary skills to the test and dinner should be pretty awesome, unless I have another one of my 'failure at life' moments. In that case, I'm pretty good at boiling water and heating up pasta sauce.
If I don't blog for a few days, have yourselves some merry little christmases. I'm sure things will be merry over here once the gifts are bought and wrapped, and the turkey's in the oven.
I've been staying away from my blog as much as I can, because I'm in a baaaaaddddd mood and I'm sure no one wants to read all about that. Christmas is so close. We still have so much to do. Tomorrow Devan is going to a retirement home to sing the senior citizens some Christmas carols. I wonder how I can screw this up for myself, to prove to myself once again what a failure at life I am. I'll probably fall asleep or something. I'll keep you posted.
I'm not doing very well with my knit-alongs. I've got 1 sock finished and the first few inches of the second cuff for my secret santa pal. I'm so glad I didn't overburden myself with gift knitting this year. But I've kind of done the opposite. I've basically told myself I have no time for anything and I'm enjoying NOTHING. whine whine whine whine whine. I'm going to lay down and try to sleep. Maybe that will help my mood.
I have so many things I want to do. Not just for Thanksgiving, but for Christmas too! For Thanksgiving I wanted to make a cheesecake (maybe) and some little tiny bite-sized muffins in chocolate chip, chocolate, and blueberry. I have to work Tomorrow until 11:30pm and I have to work Thanksgiving night :( I'd make the muffins and the cheesecake tomorrow morning, but I have a dentist appointment (and I'm really really nervous.)
For Christmas I want to do a handmade advent calender. I had thought about knitting tiny little stockings, but then I saw on Loobylu a couple of ideas that would probably come together more quickly. I had also wanted to make myself cute little sweater garland for the small tree that I will be putting upstairs on the buffet in my dining room. I probably will still do that. I want to get a REAL christmas tree this year. Not that old fake thing. I think a real one will be more annoying but will smell really nice and be a lot prettier, and more festive. This year has been really tough on all of us and I feel like really LIVING IT UP and having a great time and trying to put some of the pain and hurt feelings behind us.
Well, now it's time for me to shut off my computer, lay down in my bed, cuddle up next to my warm, snoring husband and think about all of my holiday plans until I fall asleep.
So Tomorrow (er, later today) is Halloween. Unfortunately I don't get to watch my little girl trick-or-treat, but I'll get to watch her sing songs and parade around with her class at pre-school. I hope her costume looks good. I made it and I didn't really take my time, so it's a little bit sloppy. Oh well. Can't win them all!
Work is kind of busy now, I'm helping out with design in the sports department. I'm kind of excited about the work I'm doing because I really like sports photography. I had something else to say but I can't remember. Darn. OH. We started watching 24 last night and it's pretty awesome. We watched 7 or 8 episodes in a row and I'm hooked. At least we've got something to take our minds off of Lost, since there won't be a new episode for a few more weeks.
*****EDITED (because the njherald.com website only keeps pdf's in its database for about 5 minutes) So the link works now:)******
Happy 4th of July, people. I spent the day at home, alone. Jon and Dev are over at his parents house swimming and stuff. Now I get to go to work. Here's what I've been doing lately. Click it to go to the link.
I'm up to my ears in state fair projects. Tonight I will be working on a pullout tab that has the whole list of events and a map and blah blah blah and I am tired and don't want to work. Hopefully I won't be alone, but I most likely will.
Just a couple pics of little Doodle to keep you entertained until I have something interesting to talk about. Hey, that little pink sweater looks familiar... (if you weren't aware, it's the pink Debbie Bliss Molly sweater that I made Devan back in November)
And oh what the hell, here's a picture of Jon, since he was standing there with cute hair.
Well, I'm off to bed, I must nap you know. I don't feel good and I have to work tonight.
My brother and Tif got married. Their wedding was so beautiful and sooo much fun! I'll update this more later, I just wanted to post to let you know I'm still alive.
How was your Christmas? Aside from not finishing the vast majority of my gifts, we had a great time. On Christmas Eve we baked lots of cookies, a turkey, cornbread, etc. We had a grand feast, jut the 3 of us. After dinner Devan watched the lion king. I worked on some last minute cookies. After Devan had her bath and went to bed, we wrapped her presents and watched TV. I think we watched the Apprentice finale, which we'd Tivo'd a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, it cut off right before the winner was announced so it was a pretty big let down. Yes, we know Kelly won, we just wanted to see it.
I made a couple more mini-sweaters and then I went to bed. We woke up christmas morning and opened presents. Then I made a big breakfast and worked on some last minute gifts (that never got finished). We had a great afternoon and evening over at Jon's parents. When we came home I made a great bean dip and then fell asleep on the couch.
I still have to finish presents and deliver them to everyone. I hope they don't mind the lateness.
Unfortunately my wrist is sore, so my already impossible list of presents is being put on hold even longer. I've been trying here and there to work on things, but I have to keep putting them down. I need to definitely make a reminder for next year to have my Christmas knitting done way early. Like in November.
I still have cookies to bake, and cinnamon dough ornaments to make with Devan. We'd also like to do some felt ornaments. How did Christmas sneak up on us like this! We're not prepared! I don't think we're having a party on Christmas Eve this year. That makes me sad because I really like making the big meal and having everyone over. I just don't think there's enough time or money this year to do it right.
I'd like to lay down and take a nap right now, but I have a box waiting for me at the post office...*yawn*
-(8-08) LIKING:
baking, my bed, sleeping in my bed, indian food, my birthday, Ricky Gervais, tenament museums, linen, Air (the french band), Hugh Laurie, Intervention, babies, Iron & Wine, Clive Owen, buttered toast & strawberry jam, letterpress, Yeats,
Robin's egg blue, Fabrizio Moretti, 30 Rock, mini-pigs, hotel chevalier, steak, Paul Rudd, spring cleaning, tea, young Paul Newman, pigs, Quebec, Foreign Films, ginger ale, Rohinton Minstry, Montclair NJ,
modern simple quilts, sewing animals, summer, hating infertility, white on white, paper, cute french & japanese things, stamps and ink
Seriously. Cutest siblings ever. At least til Devan has a brother or sister.
