Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

February is fired.

I just had a week that felt like it was about a month long so I think I can give February and its silly extra day the boot now.

Major systems issues at work Monday through Wednesday requiring lots of focus, major plumbing issues at home Tuesday (which remain unresolved), additional but different system “fun” Wednesday and Thursday, culminating in the home network going down in flames overnight for me to deal with Friday morning. (Fixing it for myself was easy… fixing it so the rest of the house could get access was another story best told when I’m no longer in danger of my brain exploding.) Oh and Friday also involved some fun little residual issues at work too.

That said, I gave the week the boot, saw my chiropractor and massage therapist last night and today is much better. It snowed overnight enough to be pretty when I woke up. I felt a little wonky when I woke up, either processing out toxins after the massage or fighting something off, so I opted to stay home today. Happily, it continued to snow a bit today though it’s not sure what it’s doing now… let’s call it sleet for sake of argument. The winter is pretending to show up. The best part about this new house is possibly that my office window overlooks a part of the garden that never gets direct sun. My office stays cooler (my last office got full afternoon sun of doom) AND it overlooks the last patch of snow to melt so I can pretend it’s snowier than it is.

Speaking of Winter, after some costume changes and such, Winter is napping happily. She is in fact napping so well that I currently have dough rising in one of my awesome new mixing bowls (thanks, Jon!). She did wake up a bit when I was kneading, but settled back to sleep before I could clean up to check on her. Good kid. We’ll keep her.

And despite the fact that the precipitation is undecided, I think I will make a fire tonight. This winter is apparently going to give me very few good opportunities to do so and I think I should take advantage of every one of them!

For baby photo fans, I finally uploaded a bunch of photos of Winter. Click the photo to go to the first of the latest uploads.

The last photo in the set is Miss Winter’s debut as a fierce Viking girl. (Also below.) My mother knit the cap for my brother 30-something years ago and her excellentness Alesone produced the wee Viking apron from her stash of scrap linen. She also has a tiny set of medieval mocs that she wore over hand-knit socks to complete the outfit. Unsurprisingly, our child is starting with better garb than most newbies.

The wee Viking photo is from Iron Bog’s Investiture this weekend – which was wonderful! Congratulations to Don Collin and Mistress Marion on their new positions! The event was wonderful and it was great to see folks. Dayboard was super-yummy and the kitchen smelled wonderful as they prepped for feast. Unfortunately, we had to leave before the 2nd Royal court as Miss Winter decided the day was over early. (Actually, she made that decision about when I expected her to make it given the circumstances… we just weren’t expecting there to be a 2nd court later in the day.) Congrats to Davius on his Silver Rapier! I hear our congratulatory kisses were delivered.

So the football season has been reaching its regular crescendo. I only watch football for about 4 weeks a year, mostly in January. I’m just not invested enough to care before the playoffs. This year has involved more football than usual though. Football is an excellent thing to have on in the background when you’re sick all weekend (like last weekend) or having a slow day because grocery shopping took it all out of you (like yesterday). Oh, and the Giants, the Fop’s team, made it to the playoffs, so there was added interest in football around the household.

The Patriots-Ravens game yesterday was more exciting than I’d expected. The Giants-49ers game was also fun… for me. Especially when poor, little Eli Manning got sacked. Repeatedly. The Fop, on the other hand, was rather tense most of the game. But it’s another Patriots-Giants Superbowl coming up. This time, the Pats are going to kick Giant butt. Sorry, dear.

Despite all my best attempts to thwart it, I caught a cold about 2 weeks ago. I’m still sick. This is annoying to say the least. Miss Winter caught my cold over the weekend. So did the Fop. The whole house is officially sick. I took Miss Winter to the pediatrician today. I hadn’t fully intended to but I called them to say, “Hey, I’ve got a sick infant. She’s not running a fever but she’s pretty congested. I’m pretty sure it’s a cold. At what point do you want to see her?” The answer to that was, “Can you get here in 20 minutes?” (The answer to that was “no” but we did take the appointment an hour later.) The pediatrician confirmed that yes, it’s a cold and no, her ears aren’t involved yet. No, she’s not running a fever. Yes, congestion sucks and it lingers in babies sometimes. I’m trying to keep a happy medium between my own laid back attitude towards going to the doctor for little stuff (like colds) and the ridiculous over-monitoring (and over-medicating) prevalent in the medical world these days. Sometimes I wonder if the medical profession is populated by hypochondriacs. (More likely, they’re just afraid of litigation… I know.)

By the by… Miss Winter is 11 weeks old today. I can hardly believe it. And she gained 9 ounces in the six days between appointments. Rock on, kiddo!

In other news, I’ve left the house one other time since this cold started. I needed to go to the grocery store and such for much-needed supplies on Monday. I was looking for something specific in a certain department store when I innocently rounded the corner to come face to … er … face with this microwave. I think I took these photos because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

Well, apparently, I wasn’t hallucinating the Hello Kitty microwave. As such, I wish to share my non-hallucination (which is totally in stock if you want one) with you. Because what are friends for, right? No, seriously, what are friends for? It’s not like I gave you my cold!

Happy New Year!

2011 was a pretty awesome year despite its challenges. There are parts I’ll choose to not remember and there are memories I’ll cherish forever. Oh, hi, Miss Winter Joyce.

I made a few goals for 2011. 2011, for the purposes of my goals, stretches until my birthday at the end of this month but I’m thinking about them now. In general, it’s safe to say that much of the list was derailed either by moving or expanding the family. I did use 100 stamps… more actually! Sending thank you notes and holiday cards certainly helped blow away that goal. But, I didn’t do much cooking or sewing this year. Nor did I get ComicPress up and running though I did fully reinstall WordPress this fall. I wrote a little more, but not significantly. I did sleep a lot at least! Not that I had any choice in the matter – the power of the pregnancy compelled me.

I’m still pondering my goals for 2012. I am resisting recycling last year’s whole cloth, but I am definitely tempted. I’ll at least add more to the list, despite the inevitable lack of time awaiting me in the new year. Winter is worth a few years of not getting much done. I wonder if I can actually get more done now that there are more demands on my time. It could happen, right? (I won’t hold my breath.) I have until my birthday to finish up any goals from last year anyway… and until then to come up with the next set.

We all went to pick out Winter’s first Christmas tree. She snoozed through it all snuggled in the sling. She also napped through most of the setup and decoration process. Special thanks to Leigh for his help putting up the tree!

Saturday night we all went out to dinner. Winter snoozed through the meal in her car seat.

Towards the end of dinner, it started to snow. The first proper flakes hit Winter’s cheeks on the way back to the car. And… she snoozed through it all.

Notice a theme?

To be fair, she spent Saturday as the center of attention with a visit from a friend and the first meeting of one of her grandfathers. As Tenny will attest to, being the center of attention is hard work and very tiring!

Holiday cards went out (if I don’t have your address and you want a card, you should send me your address) but I’m not doing my usual serious holiday baking this year. I kind of miss the enormity of it (and the enormous pile of caramel corn) but I can’t imagine getting it done this year. Or possibly next. I will be making pies, chex mix and a few cookies, but nothing on the scale of what I usually do. Maybe I’ll ease back into it slowly next year.

There have been some unexpected joys of becoming a parent and/or having a baby… one of them is that, when I decide it’s ok to fall asleep, I’m asleep in moments usually. The on-going and increasing sleep deprived state aside, this is pretty nice.

Photo: The wiggler doing her thing! This is one of my favorites so far.

Coincidence? I got sent to the hospital the day after I packed my hospital bag. See what happens when you PREPARE? ;)

Around August we determined (ok, the Fop determined) that to name our child we would need a whiteboard. I, having only ordered whiteboards for offices and work purposes, ordered one from Amazon that was the typical size I usually ordered. 3 feet by 4 feet. This was somewhat larger than we necessarily needed but we filled it anyway. Here, you can see what it looked like on November 1st when I went into the hospital. While I was in the hospital, we did start to narrow down the list. By the wee hours of Sunday morning, we’d finally settled on Winter. I filled out the appropriate paperwork and went to sleep, ready to be discharged in the morning. Discharge didn’t actually happen until afternoon, but schedules are all subject to change and it’s the busy season in the land of maternity wards…

My mom came down early to help and it was wonderful. Life is much easier when someone else is making sure you eat. We got some significant organization done in the house too and by “we” I mean my mother did most of the work and I supervised. My craft room now looks more like a craft room and less like a room full of boxes! The dining room also looks like we might have moved in. It was great having the help – with the cooking, the organization and telling me to slow down and stop doing stairs.

And to give you an idea of how we’re faring without her? I started this post a week ago, shortly after she left. So if I’ve not responded to your email, IM, phone messages or other mode of communication, I’m sorry. Keep trying and I’ll keep trying.

I’ll also keep adding pictures of the cuteness to Flickr.

Miss Winter Joyce Trommelen has arrived. A bit early.

Last Tuesday they admitted me to try to induce delivery due to a spike in my blood pressure. Thursday evening, we punted to C-section after modern pharmaceuticals failed to do their jobs. Winter arrived 11/3/11 at 6:38 pm. 20 inches long and 8 pounds, 14 ounces of adorableness.

For the record? This is what happens when you pack a bag. I finished packing the hospital bag on 10/31 and in my 11/1 doctor’s appointment my doc made a very compelling argument for inducing.

(I haven’t posted any photos yet… I definitely should be sleeping right now, actually. The photo here is one I took but it’s actually on the Fop’s Facebook.)

First: It’s snowing. In October. In SE Pennsylvania. This is absurd and wonderful. I thought the storm-mongers were being alarmist as usual, but it’s really snowing. Maine Girl says it’s really snowing – been going steady for half an hour. It started as big, wet flakes and now it’s a steadier, smaller snow that seems dead set on accumulating. If we’d had a hard frost (or any frost at all), the snow might have a shot. But as it is now, it’ll be lucking to hang out on fallen leaves for a few hours. The weather folks say less than an inch of accumulation which seems reasonable now that I’m seeing it come down. According to WHYY, this is the first snow forecast for Philadelphia in October in 30 years.

Second: It was 58 degrees in the house and snowing outside when I got up this morning so I did turn on the heat. I’ll probably turn it off again when it warms up outside later next week. The basement was nice and warm when I went down to make sure the furnace came on. And I’m enjoying living in a house that actually retains heat rather than leaking it in every direction. But it’s been cold overnight all week and it’s 36 degrees out right now, so I caved for the sake of my marriage. Plus we got a propane delivery yesterday, so my last excuse disappeared.

Third: Ever notice that “yippee” and “yipes” have some significant overlap?

1 full-time and a nebulous number of part-time days left until D-Day.

Work is crazy. Insane. Non-stop zoom. My lovely, well-behaved, STABLE processes are tossing me bugs left and right. People are coming out of the woodwork to give me “quick” things to get done before I leave. My own to-do list was not insignificant either… At least I’m running in some sort of exhausted zen state that gives me logic superpowers so the bugs are getting handled with relative expediency.

It could be worse. I could have been put on bed rest last month.

Despite work being busy, and me being totally exhausted, things are going well. If I went into labor right this moment, things are ready enough for the kid. Especially since I wouldn’t tell the Fop I was in labor until after I finished packing the bag for the hospital. (Yes, I’ve been putting it off all month. Are you surprised?)

The past week or so, it has almost looked like real Fall outside. Now snow. In fact it’s still snowing and things are starting to turn white. (I might need to take more pictures.) I win.

I totally resisted buying these adorable (and ethnically diverse) ghost marshmallows. Resistance is getting harder and harder. It’s not that I’m having cravings… more that I’m highly suggestible. Very rarely do I desperately need something. However, start talking about something tasty and I will start to want it. Watching the Food Network is pure torture. Damn you, Guy Fieri and Diners, Drive-ins & Dives! Shopping alone is not advisable either. I’m highly suggestible in the grocery store… “Oh, tortilla chips sound good.” “That’ll be a good, easy snack.” That kind of thing. The result is often a bunch of stuff that only has fleeting appeal once it’s actually home in the cupboard.

If you didn’t already know, I’m almost 38 weeks pregnant. The last preparations for the arrival of the squalling infant are falling into place. I ordered cloth diapers this week and picked up disposables today as well. Tiny, adorable clothes (OMG I LOVE ONESIES) are being washed and organized by size. The crib is built and even has a sheet on it now. I’m looking forward to taking Advil again. A lot. The next couple months will be interesting because I really can’t imagine being MORE tired. This week, 3 of 5 days were saturated with exhaustion in a rather extreme way, despite getting decent sleep.

I am driving the Fop crazy with my variable pronunciation of “diaper”. I happen to partake of both of the acceptable, documented pronunciations: [dahy-per] and [dahy-uh-per]. As a standalone noun, like “No, we are not going to put a diaper on the cat”, I use the 3 syllable pronunciation. In a compound, such as “Please keep the cat out of the diaper pail”, I tend towards the 2 syllable pronunciation. I have no explanation for this. Well, the 3 syllable pronunciation almost assuredly is a vestigial northern New England accent. And I could make up some stuff that sounds like legitimate linguistics for the variation (and I suspect there probably is a legitimate reason), but we’ll just leave it at: it’s fun to make the Fop crazy.

Perhaps I should offer to switch to “nappy” to soothe his offended ears. Nappies are for babies, not for cats!

At any rate, I’m optimistic for a good next couple weeks, an easy infant who sleeps through the night early and often, and a delightful transition into parenthood for us. Because what’s the point of being pessimistic now?

I hope Monster Cat will still love me after we bring home a mini-thumb-monkey…