General

Our favorite grocery store, Wegmans, has recently begun selling reusable canvas grocery bags. They’re very roomy and sturdy. We bought one several weeks ago to try out, and when we remember to bring the bag with us it’s great. Except…

Not one single cashier at the store has the slightest clue how to use them. They have grommets on one side so they can be slipped right over the metal arms the plastic bags are on, and the gusset on the bottom allows it to stand open quite nicely. But every time we hand it over the cashier looks at it like they’ve never seen a bag before in their lives. And then when we point out that it can be used to hold groceries they proceed to fill it up to overflowing, shoving everything from cleaning products to frozen food to eggs in it together, and causing it to weigh about 50 pounds.

So we thought maybe we should buy a second one, because we’re merely trying to reduce the number of plastic bags we bring home every week – not totally eliminate them because they’re useful – but we thought maybe the cashiers were feeling pressured to fit all of our groceries in the one bag. So we picked another one up and put it on the belt first, expecting that the cashier would ring it up and then use it.

We walked out of the store with our nice, new, roomy reusable grocery bag folded up and shoved into a plastic bag all by itself.

I’m really glad we have a generator. The power started browning out at 7:30 this morning, and went down for good about 15 minutes later. Best guess as to when it will be back up, according to the power company, is 1:00. And really what the guy said was that that’s the earliest it might come back up and if we didn’t have power back after that we could call again.

Molly totally panics when the power is out. We have a house fan that runs all the time, so when the power goes out she sniffs at the vents and backs away in terror. She’s currently trying to climb into my lap. She is not a lap dog. Plus she’s stinky!

Murphy is napping on the couch.

Carrie is watching Signing Time, thanks to the generator we have to run anyway for the furnace and refrigerator. From my understanding, the generator will run as long as it has gas, regardless of the draw we put on it, so hopefully 30 minutes of power for the TV won’t use up any more gas than it would be using anyway.

The thing that’s really silly is that our power lines are buried. So the problem isn’t in our neighborhood, it’s somewhere else. But that weak point seems to go down so frequently that it would probably be cheaper to bury those lines too instead of having to continuously repair them.

All I know is that I need to keep the house warm and the freezer cold, and I hope there’s enough gas in the generator to last until the power comes back up!

I’ve been in rehearsals for the high school musical for the past 7 weeks, and I’ve noticed several girls wearing t-shirts that say something along the lines of “Brunette: it’s the new blond”. (Don’t get me started on the pants that say things across the butt. Carrie will so not be allowed out of the house in those.) So I wonder…why is it that every baby doll on the market seems to be blond and blue-eyed? Am I the only mom who has a daughter with brown hair and hazel eyes? Is it too much to ask to find a doll that looks vaguely like her?

And it’s even worse if you’re looking for a doll that isn’t caucasian. At least in the stores around here there’s generally only one or two to choose from, and you’d have to order anything else online.

I find it vaguely disturbing. Shouldn’t the dolls our children play with reflect the diversity of our society?

It’s not like Carrie really needs another doll, the topic simply came up with my grandmother the other day, and now I’m on a mission to find a doll that looks like her even if I don’t end up buying it. I don’t think – short of the expensive (and sometimes creepy) companies that do custom dolls – that such a doll exists. I’d be happy to be proven wrong though!

I thought it was pretty funny that today’s Blue’s Clues episode was all about “Love Day”. Is there a reason they can’t call it Valentine’s Day? Yes, I know what the Blue’s Clues episode was about. That’s one of the two shows I let Carrie pick between once a day – the other one being Signing Time. I ask her which she wants to watch, and she signs “play” for Signing Time, and “dog” for Blue’s Clues -although she’s starting to refine them both a little and sometimes will sign “blue dog” for Blue’s Clues.

So I completely forgot what day it was when I got dressed, and ended up wearing green. I remembered in time to put Carrie in a heart shirt. It was one of the first days we haven’t been accused of matching. Seriously, every time I go anywhere with Carrie somebody remarks on the fact that we’re wearing matching outfits. Here’s the thing about that…I really don’t do it on purpose. I do try to avoid putting her in clothes that clash with whatever I’m wearing, but it’s not like I’m going out and buying matching mother-daughter shirts. Besides, if I wear a pink shirt, well, something like 95% of Carrie’s clothes are pink so chances are her outfit is going to match mine. If I had a son and we both wore blue shirts I bet people wouldn’t say anything about us matching. Sigh.

Where did the weekend go? Seriously, I have no idea where the past 48 hours went. I feel like I accomplished absolutely nothing at all, although there is some progress on my knitting, most of the laundry is done, and there are groceries in the house, so I guess I must have done something. I just wish I’d found time to vacuum.

Part of the problem is that Carrie is sick with a runny nose and cough, and is a bit clingier than usual. Denis is feeling a bit under the weather too, although he doesn’t seem to be any clingier than usual. ;) When Carrie is sick we can’t go do all of her activities. (Plenty of kids show up to these things sick, but I’d personally feel really guilty if it were my kid that makes everyone else sick.) And let’s face it, occupying a whiny, clingy toddler all day is a lot less fun than going to playgroups and story hour. It’s going to be a long week unless she wakes up all better in the morning.

Plus I just really hate going into the week feeling unprepared, especially when I have rehearsals every evening. It’s going to be a very long week.

Yesterday I was so sick. I had one of those headaches where you feel like if you turn your head too quickly your brain just sort of sloshes around in your skull, and it was making me really nauseous. I’ve never had a hangover before, but if I had to guess what it feels like that would be it.

I felt like the worst mother ever, too. Carrie kept throwing books in my lap and I’d read them and she’d sign “again”, and I’d read them again, and then finally my head hurt so much she signed “book again mommy” and even followed it up with “please” and I had to say “no more books, watch T.V. instead.” (At least it was Blue’s Clues and Signing Time, and not Oprah or whatever is normally on TV in the middle of the day.)

And then I had a rehearsal for the musical and I drank a 20-oz. caffeinated bottle of soda out of desperation when the ibuprofin didn’t help. It worked, but I was up until after 1 – that was the most caffeine I’ve had in one day in over two years. Luckily Carrie slept in until 9. Unluckily, that means my sleep schedule is now completely off and I’m not tired enough to go to bed.

Sigh.

We went to a Superbowl party tonight, but left at halftime so we could get Carrie to bed. Obviously, I missed a lot of the commercials, but of the ones I saw my favorite is definitely the streaker sheep Budweiser commercial. There was a prize for most unique appetizer at the party, and I won with this:

The igloo is made out of a cream cheese and feta blend, and there’s a layer of pesto hidden inside. The penguins are made out of olives, cream cheese and carrots. They were a lot more fiddly than I expected they would be, mainly because it’s really hard to squeeze cold cream cheese through a decorating tip! I found the idea and recipe in the 2006 Wilton Idea Book.

Carrie had fun wandering around and generally acting cute. She rooted for the Bills, of course. It always amazes me when she just sort of fits in around people. As long as strangers don’t rush right up to her and try to pull her out of my arms, she warms up to them really quickly, and had a lot of fun being picked up and tickled by everyone. All this despite it being close to bedtime. Somehow we lucked out and ended up with a really easy-going child!

Well, I was going to post about how I finished my swatch for FLAK, except that it’s blocking right now and I haven’t taken a picture of it yet. So, when I stumbled on this fun little thing over at chrisknits, I figured why not?

I wish I’d known about the toes thing before I started knitting socks…

The groundhog predicted six “more” weeks of winter. But we haven’t really had any weeks of winter at all yet. I mean, by now we should be socked in with snow. I think Denis has used the snowblower once this winter, and only because it was the first time there was even enough snow to consider it. Since then, if we even get enough snow to cover the driveway it’s melted away the next day. Today it got up to 50°F, and the sun was warm, and the grass was green, and there were birds chirping away – hello, people, it’s not supposed to do that until April at the earliest!

It’s all because I bought Carrie the cutest snowsuit ever at the consignment shop. The only reason it’s snowed at all is because the boots I bought her are too big and fall off when she tries to walk in them, so she’s only partially prepared for winter weather.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining…exactly. But I do believe in payback, as this column from our local paper talks about, and I was so looking forward to a nice spring and a summer where we could use our pool. If we don’t get some cruddy winter weather soon, we can kiss spring and summer goodbye!

My youngest brother turned 21 today. I remember the night he was born, it was really late – he was born at 11:03 PM (is it scary that I remember that detail?) so it must have been well after midnight – and I was still awake in my room when my dad came home from the hospital. He brought home big sister and big brother certificates from the hospital for us, and was going to put mine on my dresser so I’d see it in the morning but I was awake and wanted to know if I had a new brother or sister. It’s really hard to believe it’s been 21 years since that day!

And speaking of birth days, Tina had her baby girl today. She arrived quite a few weeks early, so good thoughts and prayers would definitely be appreciated. Jenny has a few more details on her blog, with pictures of teeny-tiny fingers and toes!

I hope this little hat fits her and keeps her warm. It’s made out of some cotton/nylon sock yarn I bought ages ago and is so very soft.