General

I had a wonderful birthday today, very low-key and perfect. My mom made my favorite soup for dinner, and I got some very thoughtful gifts. It’s funny – I generally don’t like giving gift cards or certificates, but I adore receiving them, especially when they’re from my favorite specialty craft stores – it means I can buy something that I’ve really wanted but would feel guilty spending the money on.

Carrie was so sweet, too, wishing me a happy birthday and helping me open my presents. My dad had a few of those birthday horns around and gave one to Carrie. We showed her how to blow into it to make a sound, but since she’s my little future horn player she put it up to her lips and buzzed instead!

Of course, the combination of not napping, a late dinner, cake after dinner, and a late bedtime meant that Carrie was insanely crazy for the whole bedtime routine and she literally just fell asleep a few minutes ago. (But unless I’m mistaken, she’s sleeping in her inflatable toddler bed!)

Carrie visited Santa again today, and not only asked for a game pleeeeeease, but also asked Santa to bring the doggies new balls. (All of their tennis balls are pretty ratty at this point.) Santa’s helpers are very pleased with this new request. (I won’t confirm or deny whether there was any coaching on the way there…)

I’ve been wrapping stuff all day today. I forget every year how long it takes to wrap everything. It doesn’t help, of course, that I had to design and print labels for all the handmade things. I did, however, pick up one of these Scotch wrapping paper cutters, and I have to say it really does a nice job. It may not really be quicker than scissors (at least not the way I use scissors) but it’s certainly less likely to cause paper cuts.

OK. Back to wrapping.

You might have noticed that, oh, 8 or so entries over the past couple of weeks just appeared…

I wish I had a good excuse. Really, it’s just that I’ve been too darn lazy to get the pictures off of my camera for a while, and then I was so behind it seemed too big a task. Oh, well. At least you know I’m still here, right?

I promise I’ll try to be better for the rest of the month. After all, unlike last year, I’m so far along in my Christmas preparations you could tell me that Christmas was all of a sudden going to be moved up to tomorrow and I’d be fine with that. (By the way, for those of you not finished yet, there’s only 21 crafting days left until Christmas…just trying to be helpful.)

I woke up this morning to “Jingle Bells” being sung over the baby monitor. I think Carrie is really excited about Christmas, even though I seriously doubt she understands it all. We’ve done some decorating already and she keeps asking, “Decorate more, Mommy?”

We went to a tree lighting ceremony that the town put on this evening. It wound up being moved indoors due to weather, and we were very, very late to it, but Carrie still enjoyed it. She had no problem with the big reindeer and polar bear walking around, and happily sat on Santa’s lap for a picture.

I can’t wait to put the tree up tomorrow! And later this weekend maybe we’ll bake some cookies.

I love December!

I’m relaxing my no unprotected photos of Carrie rule for the day to illustrate what I’m truly thankful for today: my family!

Myself, Carrie, our cousin Benny and my mom making pumpkin pie last night:

(And those were the best pumpkin pies ever, cheater crusts and all! I guess that many hands stirring the filling makes it taste better.)

My great-great-aunt Amy reading Carrie her Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks book:

(And for anyone looking for a nice way to introduce a toddler to the concept of Thanksgiving – not the history – it’s a really cute read despite the somewhat inane title.)

There are lots of other people in my family (and here I’m counting all of my very good friends as well) that I’m thankful for, of course!

What are you thankful for today?

We discovered this morning as we were about to leave for church that we’d both totally spaced and forgotten to pick up my car after we got the oil change yesterday. Who forgets their car?!? Luckily we have a spare car seat for Carrie that we could install in Denis’ car, because the Subaru place isn’t open on Sundays.

Really, I mean, how air-headed could we both be, that both of us could forget? It’s a good thing that Carrie and I don’t have anywhere in particular to be tomorrow morning, because I’ll have to wait until my parents are free so one of them can watch Carrie while the other one drops me off at the dealership.

Crazy.

It’s not that I don’t love blogging, it’s just that it’s that time of year again. The time of year where I abandon all pretense of sanity and decide to sew Carrie’s Christmas dress, while simultaneously knitting a way overdue baby gift (the gift’s overdue, not the baby) and creating dozens of handmade Christmas gifts. I know what you’re thinking. I can’t be bothered to make a Halloween costume and settle for buying a fairy costume when I really wanted a butterfly costume (to be fair, she was incredibly cute in that costume), but I can pass up the dozens of perfectly lovely Christmas dresses in the store in order to spend more money and hours of my time sewing tiny little hems on sleeves and fussy little collars. I can’t explain it. I’m pretty sure something’s wrong with the way my brain is wired. At least this year I’ve started the madness much earlier, and there’s a good chance that I’ll be done before Christmas. Mostly.

I just finished sewing in a zipper – since obviously that’s way more important than, oh, I don’t know, um, sleep?!?

So, big bloggy post tomorrow later today with…something…maybe a picture of the dress-in-progress. I promise. And to my Knit Mitt Kit Swap pal, I’ll get to that questionnaire ASAP! I just have to set in some sleeves… (Hmmmm. Sleep or sleeves? Sleep or sleeves? Do you think it’s safe to set in sleeves at quarter to one in the morning, or is that just asking for trouble?)

Oh! And did I mention I have a new laptop? We were at the Apple store on Saturday, and there was a super-duper, once-in-a-lifetime, can’t-pass-it-up deal on a new MacBook Pro. So if anyone’s looking to buy an original titanium powerbook, not quite 4 years old, 1 GB memory, 60 GB hard drive, and a new battery, let me know.

OK. Seriously, I didn’t need something like this to waste my valuable free time on. But in case you’re bored and looking for something to do, check out Weffriddles. I’m on level 29…

We had a fun adventure today. We had some errands to run, and the fastest way to get where we were going was to get on the Thruway for one exit. It was pretty windy (and cold) so I was fighting a little to keep the car steady. All of a sudden, I heard this big woosh and felt the car pull hard to the right. Apparently, you can really tell in a four wheel drive car when you suddenly get a flat tire! (I actually drove on a flat tire on the expressway for about 20 miles once in my old car, because it didn’t handle any differently at all and I had absolutely no idea I had a flat.)

I was sooooooo glad Denis was in the car, because even though I know how to change a tire, I couldn’t possibly have loosened those lug nuts myself. And did I mention it was cold? It would have been so much fun sitting on the Thruway waiting for a tow truck to come along and change a tire for me if I’d been with Carrie by myself. I didn’t even have my knitting! (Or gloves for that matter, but really, the knitting is way more important.)

Luckily, it was a clean puncture and I got us off the road really fast, so it was only $20 to have the tire fixed at Sears. Because if I understand correctly, four wheel drive vehicles have to have similar wear on all four tires, so with the 22,000+ miles I have on the car I would have had to replace all four of them.

Carrie kept asking me through the open tailgate, “Mommy, you ‘k?” as I was man-handling (woman-handling?) the spare out of the trunk and putting the flat tire back in. I was pretty surprised how not freaked out she was by the whole thing. Her biggest concern was that we were stopped, and she was still in her carseat, in her coat, and really, why on earth was she still in her carseat, in her coat no less, when the car wasn’t moving?!?

I’m starting to feel like I just don’t have enough hours in the day. There are so many things I should be doing right now that I just can’t figure out where to start. Obviously, the fact that I’m not currently doing any of the things that need to be done isn’t really helping the situation. And the sad part is that they’re all mostly self-imposed things, so I’m doing this to myself.

It would help if Carrie would actually go back to napping three straight hours – now I’m lucky if she naps for an hour and a half. This is an abrupt change, and I’m really hoping it’s only temporary, but considering she’s the last nearly-two-year-old I know who actually sleeps slept so long I’m guessing it’s permanent. I also know that I’m lucky she even still naps – I am was blessed with a really good sleeper. I’m also guessing the waking up at 7:15 thing is not temporary either – it was closer to 8:00 just last week – leaving me with no time to even shower in the morning. Trust me, that’s a bad thing. Aside from the unmanageable hair that makes it really obvious when I haven’t showered, I spend the day in a fog if I don’t get to stand under the hot water for at least a few minutes. I’ve started looking forward to gym days just so I can take a shower when I’m done working out.

Without my nice hot leisurely morning shower and without my customary break time when I can do constructive (crafty or otherwise) things, spending every day with a toddler who has more of an opinion about how her day should go and is becoming much more vocal about getting her way is starting to feel a little overwhelming. Then again, I thought that last year when she dropped to one nap, so I’m sure it will even out eventually.

In the meantime, I guess I’d better start shopping for Christmas gifts, because until I can find a way to sew while actively watching and playing with Carrie none of my remaining gift plans are going to work out.