General

I think at this point it’s safe to say I’m not changing any more diapers this year!

I didn’t quite manage to finish everything I’d planned, although all that’s left is something for Carrie that I’m going to give her for Epiphany and Sammy’s quilt – I remember now why I hadn’t finished it: the top is all pieced but it’s bigger than my backing fabric so I have to piece that now. Those are projects for this week, since I want to participate in the selfish challenge but I’m not going to until those two projects are done!

I also didn’t get the house as clean as I’d like, but the beds all have fresh sheets, the dishes are done, and the floors are vacuumed. So I’m going into the next year with a moderate amount of laundry and messy bedrooms. Oh, well, everyone always needs room for improvement, right?

Off to watch the ball drop! Happy New Year!

I may (or may not, depending on your perspective) have cheated with the last few days’ blog entries. I was too lazy (or was I just too tired?) to get the pictures off of my camera, so even though the posts were all written I hadn’t published them yet. So in case you were wondering how you missed those posts…well, you didn’t. I did. But they’re worth the wait!

Santa, along with everyone else, apparently thought Carrie was a very good girl this year, judging by the carnage on Christmas morning! I don’t even think I can list all the things she received without forgetting something! There were clothes and pajamas, musical instruments, legos, bath toys, Little People, books, CDs, puzzles, DVDs… Carrie has a lot of people who love to spoil her! I am also now an expert on which toy brands have the most obnoxious packaging. (Fisher Price is the absolute worst, with Leap Frog a close second.)

By far the largest gift that Carrie opened was from my parents. For a week now we haven’t been allowed in their house on account of the “pony” they had gotten for Carrie, which was residing in their living room. The “pony” turned out to be one of those indoor/outdoor playhouses, which Carrie absolutely adores. It has a realistic-looking and sounding phone, a working doorbell, shutters and a door to open and close. We’re already planning to add a light, some curtains and a rug, and I’m going to use a Toys ‘R’ Us gift card she got for her birthday on some dishes and play food for it. Now we just need to find some space for it in our house!

Denis and I were also apparently very good. He got a turkey fryer…actually two, because my brother thought my parents weren’t getting him one but then they decided to anyway. Between us we have some new DVDs, a computer-turned-kleenex box holder, an ice cream maker that doesn’t use electricity…and I got another really neat gift that I’ll blog about tomorrow since this entry is already incredibly long. (I’m such a tease.)

At least one person, probably two, are going to open gifts on Christmas that aren’t done. And I’m OK with that. (And they’d better be as well.)

Instead of staying up all hours tonight working on gifts (yes, I know it’s 1 AM, I’m up for other reasons at the moment) I’m going to go to bed now. And then tomorrow I’m going to turn on my 6+ hour Christmas playlist and spend the day doing the following: leisurely wrapping presents, baking a simple cake for my mom’s birthday, and playing with Carrie. If I have some random free time I may work on those last couple of things, but only with the goal to get them a little further along, not frantically trying to finish them. There’s no point in doing this if I’m not enjoying it, which I really wasn’t today.

Besides, it’s the twelve days of Christmas, right? So I have plenty of time!

Well, I almost estimated right yesterday – I fell into bed at 2:45. I think one more late night might do it, and maybe I can get a (relatively) full night of sleep the night before Christmas Eve. (This is important since my mom’s whole family does the traditional Italian thing on Christmas Eve.)

Anyway, one consequence of this lack of sleep – notice that it’s not even six hours later and I’m already up, showered and dressed – is that I’ve started having mental “conversations” with some of my tools. I’m a little afraid to post this, because I don’t want you all to think I’m losing my sanity, but to my tired brain it’s kind of funny…

Ouch!
Hey, you! Yeah, you over there! Stop jabbing me!
Listen, you ought to be grateful that I picked you out of the entire box of pins. I could have picked some other pin instead, but I picked you. So show a little respect and stop trying to make me bleed all over my project!

Oh, iron, I realize that you’re thirsty and need a drink of water, but we’re so close to finishing this part of the project. I’m losing steam too. And if I have to stop, unplug you, wait for you to cool down and add water, I’m just going to give up and go to bed. So, please, please, please find it in your reservoir to give just enough steam so I can finish ironing this one…last…seam. Please?

Now that you’ve had a glimpse into my insanity, I hope everyone else’s holiday preparations are going a bit more smoothly!

I didn’t drop off the face of the earth, I swear! It’s just that we were away, then we came home and I had to get right back to work on Christmas presents. In fact, I should be working on them right now! So, I’ll leave you with a picture of my “candy cane cutie” (in case you were wondering what her shirt says) and go make myself something hot with caffeine so I can stay up until 2 AM.

For our family Christmas gift, we splurged and bought a new stereo head unit for my car that integrates with the iPod. Subarus have this unfortunate problem where there’s no easy way to upgrade the stereo, it doesn’t come with an aux input, and because it didn’t come with a tape deck we couldn’t use a tape adapter like we do in the Jetta. We’ve even tried FM transmitters, but something about where the antenna is in the car makes them not work very well. But Denis recently found a company that sells replacement panels for the dash and found a (relatively) inexpensive head unit which would work with the iPod. Denis hooked it up last night so we could listen to good music on our trip.

It sounds good. Really, really good. In fact, we listened to the iPod for six hours straight today. I’m not sure I like how the integration works, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. But it sounds great!

(We won’t go into the fact that 20 minutes into our trip we realized that there was hot air coming out of the vents no matter where the temperature control was set – the climate controls and the stereo head unit share a panel – and we had to turn around and go back home to fix it. Luckily, my brother has tricked out his car a bit and knew exactly what the problem was – I guess it’s happened to him before, too – and he happened to be at my parents’ house when we came home, so we were back on the road after not too much angst.)

Today is my 30th birthday. I feel like I should have something meaningful to post, since I’m so old and wise, but I don’t. :)

Saturday we had some friends over, who graciously helped me decorate my tree and gave me lots of goodies and delicious cake. And earlier this evening, my parents and grandparents took us out to dinner. (Note to the wise, try to intercept the waiter before he puts a sundae down within reach of a toddler. Otherwise, there will be chocolate sauce everywhere before anyone has a chance to blink, let alone move the sundae. And then, a tantrum will ensue because the sundae has to be pried out of said toddler’s death grip. I’m just saying.) My brother gave me booze and coffee (well, ok, good booze – kahlua and irish cream), and my parents and grandparents gave me knitting stuff: a gift certificate to my absolute favorite yarn store, a knitting pattern-a-day calendar, and several really nice knitting-themed books! Plus, my mom knit me a beaded(!) hat.

I’ve decided that tonight I’m actually going to go to bed while it’s still my birthday. Hopefully that won’t mean that someone won’t get a finished Christmas gift!

I will never, as long as I live, plan to make Christmas gifts for (nearly) everyone on our list and not actually start them until November.

It’s 1:30 in the morning.

I’m still up. Not because I can’t sleep, but because I don’t have time to sleep. In fact, I have so much to do in the next week I can’t imagine when I’m going to ever sleep again.

Oh, and before anyone on my list starts feeling guilty, part of the problem is that I am/was in three concerts over the course of a week and have auditions to play for every night next week for the high school musical. Someday, I promise I will learn how to say “no” to something.

I am so tired of being told that Carrie doesn’t speak yet because we’ve taught her to sign. I’ve lost track, because she’s learned so many this past week, but I can count at least 40 signs that she knows and uses regularly. Sometimes she’ll just sign them, sometimes she’ll sign and point to whatever she’s talking about (if I don’t get it the first couple of times) and sometimes she’ll sign it in response to me saying a word – it’s really cute when you ask her to say “cheese” for the camera and she signs “cheese”. In fact, there are signs I’ve never used with her that she’s picked up off of our Signing Time videos.

I really think she wouldn’t be talking if we hadn’t signed with her, and she’d just be a much more frustrated child because she wouldn’t be able to communicate at all. Because she can sign, she only has tantrums when we don’t let her hold the paper ketchup cup at Wendy’s herself, instead of having tantrums over wanting a banana instead of grapes with breakfast and not being able to tell us.

But I keep having to “defend” my choice to teach her sign to various family members, acquaintances, complete strangers, and even health professionals. Seriously. Just stop, people! I already know I’m a bad mom, so just keep your opinions to yourself! I swear, next time someone asks I’m just going to say that fill-in-the-blank family member is deaf, so we’re teaching her to sign so she can communicate with that person. Oh, and she speaks clearly and in complete sentences, except around people she doesn’t like!