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1. Listening to Thriller. I revisited it as a tribute to Michael Jackson and I am amazed at how well it holds up. Amazed. It’s excellent music for cleaning the house, too.

2. Not writing blog posts (duh). I have come to the realization that although my life isn’t boring to live, once I start writing stuff down… whoa. BORING. It’s boring as hell to write about, so I can only imagine it is at least twice as boring to read about. However…

3. Gardening! Well, not so much gardening as much as ’sticking seeds in the ground to see what happens.’ The lettuce was pulled out weeks ago because it bolted a lot faster than I expected it too. Oh well. The scallions are just hanging on, so we’re about at the end of that. I planted peppers, which are… slackers. I’m not sure how well they’re going to do. But the tomatoes… oh the tomatoes. We’re going to have a lot. 38 plants and they’re all THRIVING. I also have cucumbers. I’ve never grown them, so I am not familiar with how they grow but… I have a few that are as big around as my daughter’s entire body but they’re only about 4 inches long. Weird.

4. Beer. Our first batch of homebrew came out AMAZING. So the second batch was brewed last Thursday and we’re hoping our beginner’s luck holds out for that. We have decided that we need a boiler for outside though, because the house was stinky for four entire days. This will also help when the tomatoes arrive, because the thought of canning tomatoes in my sweat lodge of a kitchen makes me want to cry.

5. Potty-training. Jillian is getting the hang of peeing, and the pooping is coming along as well. I can’t get her to dress/undress herself yet - she is content to let me do it. Hmm. Still, not having to change diapers except for naptime/bedtime is a wonderful thing.

6. Knitting. I’m working on Preppy Sock #2, which is almost done. I turned the heel the other day and now it’s just a matter of getting to the end. I started this pair way back in March, so it’s about time. Then I can move on to something else, like…. more socks. Actually, I’m going to knit a new sweater for Jillian who refuses to stop growing and has outgrown the one I made for her two years ago.

7. Party planning. Jillian’s 3rd birthday is at the end of this month. I am gobsmacked that she’s already three! In one sense, it feels like she just got here, but in another, it’s getting difficult to remember what life was like without her. She’s talking (constantly) and growing (constantly) and learning stuff and just being delightful.

8. Working out. Because $40/hour for a personal trainer is a bit expensive, we have acquired a lot of the tools I was using at the gym and can work out at home. We have BodyBars, medicine balls, resistance bands, and sometime in the next week or so, we’ll have dumbbells. I also have a treadmill and a stability ball, so there is no excuse at all, ever, for me to not be working out. I worked out in the backyard with Freddie on Saturday and I’m pleased to note that 2 days later, he is still hurting a bit. Story of my life - I know what I need to do… I just need to do it. I’m trying to build up my running stamina and I’m planning to start working with a swim coach…. and Freddie wants to buy me a bike because he thinks I’m going to be ready for a triathlon next year. Errrrrr….. I’m not so sure about that. There is one at Cedar Point that I would LOVE to go to, but I was thinking more along the lines of Freddie doing it. Turns out he thinks I should do it. I suppose it would be fitting. There are few places on Earth that I love the way I love Cedar Point.

9. Maybe getting a dog. We have been talking about getting a dog for awhile now, and we finally found a few that we like on Petfinder. The application process is interesting - it’s no wonder people just go out and buy dogs because it seems like there are a lot of hoops to jump through to get one through a rescue. It should be the other way around, i think. Still, we’ll see. The dog we’re interested in is a Border Collie/Whippet mix, which translates into HIGH ENERGY OMG! But I have a three-year-old, so they will match up well.

Yes, I’ve been neglecting the blog. It’s an occupational hazard, I think. There just isn’t all that much to write about. This isn’t to say that life is boring (it is), because it’s not (no, it really is). It’s just that… well, I mellowed out a bit, I think. And when I’m not angry about something, I don’t need to write.

Who knew happiness would lead to writer’s block?

Things are good. I did just drop $400 getting the refrigerator’s motor replaced, which was making me unhappy. Then I called the cable company about my wonky internet connection and spent a day raging about that…. how boring. Fridge is fixed, cable is fixed, life is fine.

Jillian is officially a Big Girl. She has been in her Big Girl bed since shortly before the new year started. And while I do miss the Baby Cage and the bonus hour of sleeping we would get in the morning, it’s nice to wake up to toddler morning breath right in my face. Sometimes she pokes my eyes and says “Mama’s eyes open! It’s morning!” Yes, it’s morning, but only in the sense that 5AM is after midnight. Sigh.

We still haven’t made much progress with potty training. Please do not call it ‘toilet learning’ because that phrase makes me want to punch you in the face. With my foot. It’s potty training, dammit. And we’re not doing it. We had a couple of weeks when it was The Thing To Do, but now? Not so much. I’m in no rush, and like everything else the kid has figured out how to do, she’ll wake up one day and decide to pee in the potty and that will be that.

Jillian is growing much too fast. Her language skills have exploded, along with her imagination. Her new favorite thing in the whole wide world is the movie Toy Story, so we watch that approximately 32 times a day. While it’s on, we draw pictures of Buzz Lightyear and Sheriff Woody, and Jillian uses her blocks to build action figures of her own. It’s very cute, and because we do all of these other things, I don’t worry too much about the fact that the movie is on repeat pretty much all day.

Of course, that’s not EVERY day here. We have been getting outside to stomp around the neighborhood. Lately it’s been very chilly so we haven’t been out as much as we’d like to be, but most days we bundle up and head out. Jillian is a big fan of snow and her one true heart’s desire is to make a snowman, but we haven’t had enough snow to do that this season. Me? I detest snow. Freddie thinks he’s going to get us all to go skiing either this season or next but he is obviously deranged.

The knitting is going well - I finally figured out socks! I made a pair each for my mom and dad, and I’m currently working on a pair for myself made from Harry Potter-inspired yarn from Opal. I am totally in love with this yarn and when I manage to get pictures, I’ll put some here because it’s amazing stuff. Once these socks are done, I’m not sure what my next project will me. I may make a shawl for Jillian, since I usually have mine on and she wants “a cape like Mama has.” And then… I don’t know. Jillian is getting to a size where she’s not considered a baby anymore but she’s not yet a kid, so the knitting patterns for this size of person are few and far between. Plus I haven’t been looking that hard. Girlfriend does love her hats, so perhaps I’ll make a bunch of them for her.

As for me, I am trying really hard to get into an exercise groove and stick with it. I managed to acquire a Wii Fit, whom I have named Harold. Harold tells me I’m obese, which is laughable but… not terribly far from reality. Ooops. Shut up, it’s baby weight! Yes, she’s two and a half years old. I said shut up.

I’m trying to hit the gym at least 2 times a week. I wish it were more, but the schedule doesn’t really allow. I have a treadmill which I use fairly regularly, so…. it’s a slow process. I feel good about it, though, which is a huge difference from before. I know I won’t ever have the body I had when I was 17 (I tried to sell my soul but couldn’t find a buyer), but I can at least be a little less fluffy, eh?

Oh, and Phish decided to go on tour this summer so I am anxiously checking the credit-card statement to see if I got tickets yet.

Bask in the glory of my craptastic knitting! I’m a spaz knitter who doesn’t like to follow directions all the time. Occasionally, I create something wearable! And my model is pretty cute, too.

I know Ms. Prufrock is not a fan of the bulleted-list-of-random-crap-style of blog post. I’m pretty sure she thinks in complete sentences, wheras my brain spews out random words and phrases on a fairly constant basis. So, HERE WE GO!

1. My doctor visit went well. I can breathe again, with the help of a $50 inhaler and a $50 bottle of amazing cough syrup. The bottle has so many warning stickers on it that you KNOW it’s good stuff. Can’t drive, use heavy machinery, or sign contracts while under the influence of this stuff. Also causes blurred vision, dry mouth, extreme sleepiness OR hyperactivity! Yay! I’m supposed to take 1 teaspoonful every 12 hours, but I find if I’m not ready to go to sleep right then, I am useless (well, more than usual) for the entire day. I take it before bed and sleep so soundly that I wake up and whichever arm I happen to be sleeping on is numb. Excellent.

2. The Jillian is talking up a storm lately. She tends to repeat the last three words of whatever I say, so we’re hearing a lot of “Holy shit!” these days. We keep trying to get her to say “President Obama” but have been unsuccessful so far. I think she’s just hedging her bets, but god help us all if she turns out to be one of those close-minded, bigoted right-wingers. I’ll disown her ass.

3. My brother is our long-term houseguest. He’s got a job working for The Man in Homeland Security and needed a place to stay until he finds an apartment or a room or a cardboard box or whatever is in his price range in the NYC area. He found out yesterday that The Man is sending him to Texas or Jupiter or similar for 6 weeks or so of training in How To Be The Man, so he’ll be with us for quite a while. Well, his stuff will, at least. I must say, it’s been nice to have the kid around, plus Jillian loooooooooves him.

4. Something in my fridge died. I just cleaned the fridge out, like a month ago and there’s already some new casualty. Good thing we use those reusable plastic containers instead of the expensive Tupperware crap! I just toss the whole thing in the fridge even if it has arms and calls me by name. In the trash you go, Fridge Alien Baby!

5. Apparently we’re supposed to get smacked around by Tropical Storm Hanna this weekend. To be followed by TS Ike Turner. We need the rain, but I don’t want it all at once. Sheesh. My tomatoes will be unhappy and my basement will flood. Someone needs to schedule these things with me ahead of time.

6. I am knitting The Less-Big, Less-Ugly Sweater and it’s already giving me fits. Apparently, I cannot do math. I’m supposed to increase until I get a certain number of stitches, then decrease until I have a certain number of stitches. I decided to be really smart-like and figure out how many rows it would take to get to the right number of stitches and either they’ve changed the math or I’m extremely stupid and have not counted correctly. Either scenario is equally probable. Math is not one of my strengths, though I used to be really good at it. Anyway, I think I will get it figured out. If not, Freddie will just have to wear it however it gets made.

Please ignore the crazy woman wearing it.

Please ignore the crazy woman wearing it.

The Big Ugly Sweater is DONE! I finished it last night and I am so happy. It’s big, it’s ugly, but I made it all by myself! What’s more amazing is that I actually FINISHED a project. Finished knitting projects are rare jewels in this house.

There must be something in the air today because I have been wicked productive. I cleaned the fronts of the kitchen cabinets (they were grody), did laundry, and reorganized a portion of the yarn stash. I’m afraid to dig any deeper into it, but I did manage to put a bunch of it away and pull out the yarn I’m going to need for the Less Big and I Hope Less Ugly Sweater which I am about to start. I hope it doesn’t take me 8 months to do this one.

I will post a photo later, I promise.

1. I have given away both copies of the book I promised to the Tomato Nation Comment Army. Thanks for the interest and good luck to all! Once the NCDS is over, we’ll get started in earnest, yes?

2. I have been trying to ignore it, but apparently I need to re-organize my cupboards a little better. This morning, a bottle of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce fell out of the cabinet and splashed me in the face. Not an awesome way to start the day.

3. I made a big batch of waffles this morning. Ever since I discovered Jillian’s intense and burning love for all things leavened, I have been making waffles about every 5 days. I figure I have saved approximately $527.32 just this year alone by making them from scratch (ridiculously easy) instead of buying Eggo. The child can put away two of them each morning, no problem. She’s a machine.

4. While Freddie and I both have our own iPods, we share the iTunes. Therefore, EVERYTHING that is on the iTunes ends up on my iPod (18GB) because there is no way in hell I’m manually managing 5,000 songs. During the day, I like to put it on shuffle and let it go but today I found I may have to re-think that. Collective Soul came on. I mean, Collective Soul? On MY iPod? Ew. I do believe this is grounds for divorce.

5. I have a fairly eclectic musical palate. I’ll listen to most things, but there are a few things that make me want to stick rusty scissors in my ears. The Eagles come to mind. Collective Soul is another one - they were EVERYWHERE in the mid-to-late 90’s and I’m sick of them (still) on top of the fact that THEY SUCK. Freddie already had that CD in his music collection when we got together because I for sure didn’t authorize that purchase. Thank God he dislikes country as much as I do or I really would have to call my lawyer. If I had a lawyer, that is.

6. I… like the smell of Murphy’s Oil Soap. I didn’t used to - when we moved out of our last apartment and into our first house, I scrubbed the shit out of the hardwood floors in the apartment using the MOS. And for some reason, the smell of it was unpleasant to me, but in hindsight that might have had more to do with the fact that the whole apartment was kind of stanky when we got there. It smelled like the dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant - like old sesame oil. Hrm. Perhaps that’s why sesame oil still makes me heave a bit when I cook with it. Interesting. Anyway, I finally got fed up with the grody milk driblets all over my TV stand and coffee table (thanks, toddler!) so I busted out the Murphy’s and went to town. Much better.

7. Technology, which is sometimes the bane of my existence, is actually doing nice things for me these days. Via Facebook and MySpace, people are falling back into my life after long absences and I couldn’t be happier. As I reconnect with these people, I feel like the pieces of me that are connected with them are joining back up with the whole of me. It’s a nice feeling, even if talking about it makes me seem a little less than sane.

8. My little brother is coming to be our houseguest for a few weeks. This means I have had to shovel out the 3rd bedroom and make it habitable for him. I also needed to buy curtains, since the previous owners left little valances across each window which is fine when nobody is living in there, but now that there’s a tenant, he might want some privacy. So I went to Target this morning and picked up some curtains. For ONE window, despite the fact that there are two perfectly useful windows in that room, both of which need curtains. Because I am… how you say… RETARDED. Therefore, once The Jillian wakes up from her nap (blessed, blessed naptime, how I love you so), we are headed out to Target AGAIN. Because I’m a dumbass.

9. I wonder what kind of proof-of-address the library needs in order to issue me a card. We moved here last October and I only just recently got around to getting on the DMV website to change my address on my license. You can do it online and they send you a sticker to put on your license and thus saves you the immense hassle and ass-pain of actually GOING to the DMV. Yay, right? WRONG! While I might sit in the DMV with a speed-freak toddler for a few hours, at least I would HAVE MY STICKER. Because I did it online? Three to four weeks. Yes, WEEKS. For fuck’s sake.

10. But I need to go to the library. Small and dismal our town library may be, at least it has books. And I have read all of my books. ALL OF THEM. Even the shitty ones that I got for free at some of my various and sundry book-related jobby jobs. Most of the books I have read twice. Or three times. Or, in a few cases (Gone With The Wind), upwards of 150 times. I need some new books. That I do not have to pay for.

11. No, that’s not a typo. I have read Gone With The Wind more than 150 times. I got a paperback copy of it for Christmas (or my birthday, I forget which) waaaaaaay back in 1983. I was eight, and [duh] reading at a much more advanced level than most people are at that age. Books written for my age group: a) bored me to death; b) had stupid, condescending plotlines; and c) took me roughly 15 minutes to read. Since I wasn’t athletic (that’s putting it extremely diplomatically), I read. A lot. So the parents, pissed off at having to drag my nerdy ass to the library every two days, bought me Gone With The Wind in hopes that it would shut me up for a good long time. It took two weeks for me to read it that first time, and once I got to the end I promptly started it again. It’s my favorite book.


12. I don’t hate the movie, exactly, but it has so little to do with the book that it bums me out to watch it, even though I think I could rock a hoop skirt.

13. In knitting news, I am about done with my Big Ugly Sweater. I ran into a bit of a problem in that the sleeves are a bit longer than the body pieces will allow so I sort of have to do a little bit of hillbilly engineering to get them to look presentable. This problem will be fixed next time because I will knit the sleeves first and then make the body pieces fit. If there is a next one. I initially knit this in the ugly color scheme as a test run before I knit one for Freddie. The ugly color scheme doesn’t bother me at all but it will blind most people (wait for the photos).

…and there you have it - today’s brain mush!

1. I finished knitting the pieces of The Big Ugly Sweater that I started around last Christmas or so. Go me! Now all I have to do is sew the pieces together, figure out how to do the neckline and I will have a sweater! Freddie suggested I knit things to sell, but if I were to sell this sweater at a price that would give me an above-sweatshop wage, it would have to sell for $500. I’m a slow knitter, what can I say?

2. At some point during this knitting odyssey, I discovered that I have arthritis in the pinky finger on my left hand. This is not awesome. I am 33 years old, which is far too young to be busting out the arthritis pills. Then again, I’ve had various hand/knuckle issues for a long time so I’m not shocked about it, just pissed off!!

3. Now I need a new knitting project that I can ignore for a bit. I have resolved to learn to knit socks, but I do not get along well with double-pointed needles and the frustration has been insurmountable so far. Perhaps I’ll make a few hats to appease the knitting crazies and then I’ll be able to indulge my penchant for self-abuse.

4. Just… don’t let me go to a yarn shop, okay? I do pretty well with restraint when my only option is to buy online, but get me in the actual yarn shop and I sort of lose my head a bit. Storage is tight here (and about to get tighter as we welcome a long-term houseguest).

5. I wonder how old Jillian needs to be before she can figure out knitting? Right now is probably not a good age, since she’s still a bit of a dervish, whirling here and there and leaving a wide swath of destruction in her wake. Perhaps around age 4.

It’s not that I don’t love you, my four blog readers… it’s that, well, things are a bit of a tornado lately and there just hasn’t been time to sit down and write about how awesome I am.

So here’s some random junk.

1. WTF is up with my right foot? The sole of it is all hard and leathery and has cracked in places, which is uncomfortable at best and fucking painful the rest of the time. Getting a pedicure is out of the question at the present time, since I’m sure they want someone with oozing sores getting germs all around the place. I suppose I could maybe quit wandering around the backyard in bare feet and put some damn shoes on, but I probably won’t.

2. I managed to catch a cold. In July. At first I thought it was allergies, but after the initial early-spring pollen showers, I haven’t had any problems. Until this week, which brought on the sneezing and the sneezing and the sneezing. I think it’s going away now, but I still have that sunken-eyed feeling. Sexy.

3. My garden is quite a sight. The front garden was strewn with wildflower seeds in hopes that SOMETHING would grow there until I can actually sit and look at it and decide on a more permanent way of going on. It’s very pretty, with lots of blue and orange flowers that Jillian enjoys chewing on. Hope they’re not poisonous! I also have a few sunflowers that are still alive, which is a miracle to me since I have never been successful with those.

4. The back garden is… a tomato jungle. I planted sixteen pods with tomato seeds, thinking I was going to do it right and thin them before sticking them in the actual ground. I overestimated myself and ended up just putting the whole pod in. So now I have a veritable rainforest of tomato plants, which are being held up by a combination of cages and yarn. I need to stake them, like yesterday, but haven’t yet been able to carve out the time. I am hoping beyond hope that the hornworms don’t find us. Those things creep me out SO MUCH (more than soggy Cheerios, if you can imagine anything more horrifying than that) and if I see one, I’m busting out the Agent Orange.

5. The cantaloupe and the zucchini didn’t make it, sadly. It seems that buying plants from Home Depot is a bad idea - I have never done well with them, because they’re always diseased or something. The peppers I bought seem to be doing okay, and the eggplant… might live… but the others I bought DIED. DIED DIED DIED! Fuck off, Home Depot. Next year we’ll be more organized (ha ha!) and start zucchini and other fun things from seed.

6. I am trying to get Freddie to let me bust up the front lawn and put raised beds in there, but there is something encoded in his suburban DNA that makes him shrink with horror whenever I talk about NOT HAVING A LAWN. As it is, I refuse to water it no matter how brown and grody it gets because using fresh water on something that is ornamental and ultimately USELESS is so wasteful, it makes me want to barf. So… brown lawn. I did convince him to use a more or less ignored strip on the side of the house for next year’s veggie garden. We’re going to build the beds in the fall and hope that when spring comes, we’ll be able to grow stuff there.

7. My knitting projects are coming along nicely. I have finished the front of the Big Ugly Sweater and have started work on one sleeve. I might get it done by the time winter rolls around, but let’s not hold our breath. It’s my Aries nature - I love to start things, but the finishing… not so much.

8. Sewing is happening as well. Sort of. I am far too impatient to actually follow directions, so my projects tend to stall until I have some kind of brainwave that gets me through to the next section. Again - love to start things. I adore picking out fabric, but when it comes time to actually do something with it, I’m already bored and onto the next thing.

9. Tomorrow I’m heading up to Massachusetts to party with some of my Imaginary Internet Friends. I need some time away, badly. The last month or so of life here at The Butterfly Ranch has been extremely difficult, but I haven’t really been able to talk about it. It sucks, but that’s the way we roll here. I am thankful that I have my IIFs to vent to, or else this last month would have found me curled up under the dining room table, scratching at imaginary bugs.

10. Sunday Freddie and I are going to see the Mets! We weren’t counting on being able to get tickets at all this year, since it’s the last season at Shea Stadium, but thanks to his connections at work, we are using someone’s season tickets for this game. WHEEEE! Or, as Jillian would say “Yay Mets! Baseball!”

11. The Jillian is, as always, a constant source of amazement and delight. She is talking talking talking all the time, and putting words and sentences together left and right. Her latest obsession is airplanes, so every time we’re outside, we look up in the sky for airplanes. She is also a big fan of flowers, and after breakfast every day, she stands at the baby gate to the kitchen and says “Mama. Shoes. Outside, new flowers!” She also likes to learn new words and will happily repeat them all day long. Yesterday’s word was “greenies,” since she wiped some boogers on me and I said “Ew! Greenies!” So yesterday was all about “Mama, greenies in my nose!” And then she would cackle.

12. I fear the child has been cursed with my hair issues. I have cowlicks all over my head, which means the hair does not lie flat, ever. Jillian seems to have the same thing - her hair grows in about fifteen different directions and cannot be tamed. I am going to break down and get some barrettes to attempt to keep it out of her eyes, but I am not confident that this will help. Freddie is all for cutting her hair, but I refuse to allow him to do that! People just stopped telling me what a cute little boy I have, I’m not about to butch her up again!

13. I need to figure out what to do with this ridiculously large head of bok choy that I got yesterday. We joined a CSA, which, yay! But you get what you get, and a 2-pound (possibly heavier) head of bok choy was in the basket yesterday and… I’m at a loss. I know it’s related to celery and that I can use it in stir-fry and possibly also a soupy-thing (there’s a Naked Chef recipe that I have made before that was excellent), but other than that… I’m stumped. I tried last week’s [much smaller] bok choy in a tomato sauce over pasta, but I wasn’t thrilled with that combo.

14. I like the CSA. So far. We paid $350 for a 1/2 share, which looks like it’s going to be plenty. The farm is organic, and our farmer sends out a newsletter every week with little tidbits about what he’s doing and how he’s doing it organically. It’s very interesting. If I had the $$, I would love to buy a bigger plot of land out in the boonies somewhere and grow more food. I’m going to try, year by year, to take over more of the backyard.

15. And there you have it. Maybe, if you’re really lucky and you wish really hard, I’ll quit being lazy and post some pictures. Jillian’s 2nd birthday is coming up (I know - I can’t believe it either), so maybe I’ll post a bunch of her.