Happy (Day Before Your) 1st Birthday!

 

 

This is my favorite face.

Wordless Wednesday

Monday, Monday...

Oh wait, it's Tuesday.  So yesterday was a lovely Monday; as a state employee, I enjoyed the Seward's Day holiday  :D  Without yesterday, this past weekend would have been pretty lame (had a migraine all weekend).  


I finally checked Blackboard today & grades were posted for Big Test #2 (took it Saturday, mid-migraine).  Yay! I got a 102 out of 105.  Yeah, the teacher grades on a curve, but yay for me averaging 100%!  We still have yet to see if this class provides proper preparation for next year... 


Tonight I finished up the Covert Robin gift  :)  OK, this was pretty fun, but I am very poor at time management.  I don't know that I'll be doing another one of these for a while LOL

THREE most excellent weekends in a row!

None of them was totally good, but each had something wonderful that outshone everything else  :D  What a lovely March this has been.  The Moose turns ONE YEAR OLD on Saturday, the 31st; I am still reeling at the thought!

THREE weekends ago, I was showered in kisses for the first time by my beautiful baby.  She'd started kissing about 2 weeks prior, but this was the first time SHE initiated the kissing.  And then, when I thought nothing could be better, she did it again.  And again.  And again.  For like a dozen times in a row.  I was sitting on the floor and she was standing next to me, holding on to my shoulder, like she does now.  She was poopy all day from teething pains and hadn't eaten much, so I made her some oatmeal, extra milky.  This kid gets SO excited about good food; Yobo & I love this, she has a hoppy happy dance where she bends her knees and the pops them straight, causing her to bounce, bounce.  She was bouncing up for a bite, bouncing up for a kiss, bite, kiss, bite, kiss, kiss, kiss  hahahaha it is the most awesome moment of my life thus far  :D

LAST weekend, Bee and I took the kid out to the Eagle River Nature Center to check out Ruth's Earthwatch presentation (which was, as usual, fun, educational, and with good humor).  The Moose was such a good girl!  I didn't even ask her to be good hahaha  We made it out of town earlier than expected - this really turned out to be a blessing because it took longer to get out there than I'd thought it would; plus, we scored one of the few couches  :D   Plans were made to make another girl's day out to see Ruth's next presentation & a summer exploratory trip back to the ERNC (none of us had been before), and there was a whole lot of good, old-fashioned girl talk.

THIS weekend started out horribly, with a migraine that started on Wednesday.  This morning, we dropped the Moose off with mema, the first time she has ever babysat for us.   We were apprehensive about this at first, but it turned out wonderfully.  Yobo & I went to my doctor's about this migraine thing; we're trying a new approach, so we'll see how it goes.  When we picked her up, mema was just glowing!  The Moose kissed her & finally showed her she can stand up on her own now & hang out for a minute!!!  There was no crying or freaking out, just love  :D  Later, Mimi came over for dinner & play with the baby for a while.  The Moose hasn't seen Mimi since Christmas and the freak out happened; she cried for almost 15 minutes if I wasn't holding her or Mimi got too close.  Thankfully, she eventually came around and then it was on like Donkey Kong!  There's was lots of smiling & giggling & dinosaur noises.  We got all the family birthday plans figured out - Friday night is with Mama2 (Yobo's mama), a night on the town!  Saturday is with mema & my sissies.  Mema is making japchae & bulgolgi, got the Moose her first hanbok, is ordering the rice cakes, and we'll be getting together some items for doljabi.  I'm SO freaking stoked!

Wordless Wednesday

Covert Robin

So, I am a slacker.  If you didn't know/guess that already, then... well, okey dokey and maybe you should go back to bed  ;)  

I signed up for this Covert Robin thing and, by golly, I'm going to be done on time.  I hope I didn't read my recipient wrong & she digs what I've dug up for her.  It's mostly going to be gardening stuff I think... will post more when I finally narrow things down.

Anyhoo, to MY dear Covert Robin, if you are reading this & are, like me, stuck for any last minute ideas, let me give you a very scattered run down of the things that I love: attempts at good grammar, awesome t-shirts, music (most anything not pop/country or techno, classical's OK but I'm honestly not going to listen to it of my own volition), tattoos & tattooed freaky people, sitting & spinning (fiber, that is!), handwriting letters, getting my hands dirty (gardening, painting, playing with goats or dogs, feeding my daughter, feeding myself, but not cooking), foods that are (somewhere in the world) socially acceptable to eat with your hands, pretending that I like exercise, learning to sew, sometimes reading, Jackie Duluoz, typewriters, James Dean, the best ever music video, and goats.  I love goats, especially cashmere ones!  In fact, I told Yobo I'd rather have a goat than a dog.  Maybe.  They're not quite as snuggly, but they're way funnier.  

In need of being spun right round

Tonight, I will bust out the spinning wheel & spin what I can spin. This wheel is old, not mine, has a cracked wheel, and is a mini traveler... Maybe the tahkli's looking a little more reliable.

UPDATE: 10:18PM, in the kitchen, with the camera, happily spun.  The wheel is dead.  The treadle won't peddle, but that's okay  :)  It was a borrowed wheel & it's taken me a year to sit in front of it, so it is ALL good.  Busted out the tahkli & spun up some silky threads; haven't done this in a year and, man, it was a bumpy start, but it really is like riding a bicycle.  Luckily, I wasn't very good to begin with, so I'm totally stoked with what I did!!!

 I have no memory of buying from Crystal Creek Fibers.  This sample was alright; not awesome, but just fine for a free sample! 

Thor(a) the Destroyer

I was showered with kisses!

The Moose is not doing well today, poor baby.  It's my 1/2 day at work; I came home, fed her, and the 3 of us went to the library for sing-along time.  She hadn't napped all day; I figured if we went anyway, by the time we got done, she'd be totally ready to pass out.  She lasted about 20 minutes - other babies were close, but she didn't want to get too close to any of them.  When she started pooping out, Yobo scooped her up in his arms & we just left to keep the experience pleasant and it seems to have worked. When we got home, I fed her & put her down for a nap.  She slept for almost 2 hours.  Poor baby.


When she got up, we had lots of snuggle time.  Yeah, she's one of those babies who loves to snuggle when she doesn't feel good.  She also doesn't remember how to chew when she's hurting, so I made her some very milky barley cereal.  I was sitting on the kitchen floor and she was standing next to me, as is our normal meal-time placement, holding on to my arm, with her mouth wide open and dancing in between bites.  She was so happy & excited, she started giving me kisses!  For the last couple of weeks, she'll occasionally give me A kiss (rarely more than one at a time) when she's in the right mood and no one else is looking LOL  tonight though, she was giving them left & right!  I would smile & say "thank you!" and she'd get that "I just did something new" smile on her face.  My lips were smeared with baby barley; I was in seventh heaven  :D  she was SO sweet & happy about it!  

On top of that awesomeness, Yobo made us some maple pecan ice cream!  It was freaking amazing!!!!!!!!!!  Holy yumminess!!!!!!!!!!!!  Loads of kisses & homemade ice cream - it's been an incredibly lovely evening.  Now time for more sleep  :)  Good night, world.

Block #3 COMPLETE

OMG.  I am so behind on these!  So I FINALLY got this 3rd block done, and I'm going to have to redo it... just not now.  I did everything according to the directions, or I thought I did, but it came in at just about a 12" square and it's supposed to be 12.5".  So... someday I'll redo it, after I have some more experience.  Stupid points.  

It's been slower in sewing around here because the Moose has been staying up longer (no naps = no sewing time).  Poor little bugger - I feel so bad for her.  Teething is icky!  I'd never really thought about what teething entails before, and it really is some nasty business!  Well, the next pattern's a chevron pattern... stay tuned!

Happy Thursday!  Last night, it was still light out at 8pm  :)  Closer comes spring.  Now, if we could just stop with these snow dumps.  I LOVE the snow, but this is getting a little ridiculous - what are we, at like 103" now?

Finding Rhythm

I don't even remember how I found it, but I subscribe to the Rhythm of the Home blog and they have this series where every month they have 2 guest writers do a weekly piece.  I have yet to be disappointed.  I need a subscription to the paper magazine... now added to my birthday wishlist.

This morning I read the latest post and, hot damn!, did it hit the nail on the head.  If this doesn't bring a tear or two to your eye, well, then I guess it doesn't!  ;-)  I thought it was beautiful and had to share.

Surely every person has their own feeling on it, but I never wanted babies.  Or to be married.  And then I met this crazy mustachioed baker who breathed life into dreams I didn't even know I'd had.  Blink.  And then I woke up one morning after a crazy dream & just KNEW I was pregnant (happy 2nd anniversary!).  Blink.  And then this beautiful, amazing babe was born and everything else in the world fell away in less than another blink.

Blink, blink, blink, blink.  The Moose will be a year old in less than 2 weeks.  How did this happen?  WHEN did this happen?  She started giggling & clapping this morning when I changed her diaper.  Seriously, an incredibly wonderful way to start the day.  Who knew? 

The Clapper

We have a clapping baby!  On Thursday, after she'd done her usual round of pulling 1/2 of her books off the bookshelf, she sat there, looking around, and started clapping.  I was not too far away, doing some homework at the coffee table.  As soon as I saw her, I couldn't contain myself & I said "Yay! Clap clap clap!" and started clapping too!  This excited her and she started clapping again and we were both clapping with me singing "Yay! Clap clap clap!"  It was fantastic!!!!!!!!  Yes, ALL of the exclamation points were necessary, crucial even!  She wouldn't clap for anyone else, not even Yobo. 

Her "normal" bedtime routine is brush teeth, followed by quiet playtime in her room with the door shut, then it's lights out for a final (boob) feeding & she's put to bed.  Since Yobo rigged her room with pink LED Christmas lights, it's not super bright and rather conducive to the sleepy effect.  Friday night, we were in the final feeding part; she was tired, I could tell she was winding down, then there was a clap clap clap clap, zonk.  Out like a light.  BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHA it was so sweet & so wonderful, and I totally just got a round of applause.  Boob is good.  Clap-worthy even :)


P.S. She finally clapped for Yobo yesterday!  I am now trying to teach her to stomp her feet.  Clap, clap, clap.  Stomp, stomp, stomp.

The Growing Season

It's getting closer!  

Baby I was born to run

Not really, but I love the Boss and this really is a post about running :)

I have never been a fan of running.  Ever.  I am pretty sure that running is something people do when being chased.  And only then!  So then how did I get sucked into participating in an annual run??? 

In May 2010, some of the girls from the Lab were all "blah, blah, blah, we're doing the Heart Run."  Then one of them said "hey, I'm just back from maternity leave & need to get back into shape.  why don't you torture yourself with me & we can run really slow together.  it's only 3.1 miles" or something to the effect anyway.  I said "what the hey; I'll give it a shot.  if nothing else, I can just walk it."  So I did and I ended up running the whole thing.  OK, well "running" might be a slight exaggeration of what I did, maybe it was more like jogging.  Anyhoo, it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be, so when the girls said "join us for the Run for Women & support breast cancer research!"  I did.  Holy crap, did I ever.  This 5 mile run was more of a solo effort - I completely surprised myself by finishing in one hour.  Even more surprising was the feeling when I was done; it was rather empowering (at least it was after my legs stopped feeling like Jello).

Last year, I birthed the Moose on March 31, and ran the Run for Women in June.  Not only did I run the whole thing, I beat my previous time by 5 minutes!  Also, in February of last year, I found out that one of my aunts actually had breast cancer AND kicked it's ugly butt!  So when I ran last year, even more empowering than the run itself, was running in her honor.  Talk about some amazing feelings, man.

I just got the Save the Date email for the 2012 run, it'll be June 9th this year.  I didn't do the Heart Run last year (that would have been a bit excessive).  So I think I'm going to shoot for walking with the kid at the Heart Run and maybe attempting the Run for Women again.  Now accepting donations of resolve  ;-)

Crampin' my style

Ug.  Ever since I got my lovely monthly reminder that I'm an ovulating female back (post pregnancy), it's been rather hurtful and unkind in an excessively hemmorhagic fashion.  Maybe my body's upset at getting such a long vacation from it; even though my mind was on Cloud 9 with the stay of execution.  Today's gonna be a loooooooong day.

Wordless Wednesday

Are You Ready Fur Rondy???

I was!  But then we didn't go downtown until yesterday :(  And, being that it was the last day and all, it was a bit lacking.  Luckily, the Moose doesn't know any better LOL  she was wide-eyed and taking it all in.  We watched some kids go down the super slide, I won her a stuffed duck at the fishing game, and we saw some kids on the elephant ride.  Unfortunately, we got there just as they were finishing the blanket toss!  I had really hoped she'd see that, but there's always next year  :D  We didn't get to watch either of the Iditarod starts since I was in class.  Next year we'll really be ready.  Hopefully I won't have any Saturday classes.  Actually, I may just take a day off work or something.  By then, the Moose will be walking around and can actually go on some rides, maybe even the blanket toss.  

After the slight disappointment of events, we drove around the Port & Ship Creek as me ma has somehow lived here for... lots of years and never been down there.  Then I drove her by the Lab so she could see where I work, the outside anyway.  We went over to Pho King (BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA) for lunch and I had some pho-king excellent pho!  I actually remembered to bring food for the Moose, so she had a cup of peas & red beans.  Me ma was astonished at how voraciously the Moose ate them - she couldn't believe a kid would love beans so much LOL Yobo & I often joke that we have a beanie baby  :) 

The Moose did so well on our outing - I hope she stays this way.  If she's cranky and/or can't sleep, the best thing to do is take her out.  This really works best if I hold her though, that way she feels secure to explore with her eyes, taking in the whole world around her.  She rarely makes a peep, some giggles, but no babbling.  And when we get home, she is wore out!  When we got home yesterday, she breastfed really well and went down for a nap without fuss and slept for 2 hours.  LOVE.

Block #3 is coming along

OK, with the passing weirdness of my sewing machine (this has been resolved & it is now working just fine; what the problem was, I may never know), sewing has slowly been resumed.  The Moose was all but down & out last week - this latest tooth was just horrible!  She barely got any sleep - she even had those little baby bags under her little eyes  :(  Thankfully that tooth finally erupted and she's back to napping & sleeping the night through - which means I, once again, have sewing time!  Yay! 

So I got back into it last night.  This block has been a bit of a bear.  I've already redone it twice, this is the 3rd time around, so hopefully it actually works out.  Stupid points.  The triangles were cut & made into squares, then the squares were connected into 4 rows.  I got about 3/4 of the way through sewing two of the rows together when my bobbin ran out.  Since it was already 10pm and Mondays are early days for me at work, I decided to take that as a sign to stop for the night & not let frustration ruin my evening  :)  This turned out well as I got to finish a show I'd been trying to watch over the past few days, I changed the sheets & made the bed, brushed my teeth, washed my face, picked out clothes for work, pumped, and was in bed by 11!!! 

Without further ado, progress thus far (only the bottom 3/4 of the strips on the left have actually been sewn together):

Mood Music

I have a really annoying (to other people anyway) habit of sometimes listening to the same music for days or weeks or months on end.  Sometimes a good album just needs to become a part of your soul.  Well, that's my defense anyway  :)  I have been dancing along in my chair at work and in the car to Jimmy Cliff's Black Magic for almost a month straight now!  OK, maybe not solely listening to it, but it's certainly the majority music stakeholder in my daily commutes and work day.  I love this album because, while there are some sad songs on it, it just makes your body move!  LOL  And I am not a dancer.  People BEG me not to dance (or sing along), but it just can't be helped when Jimmy belts out "Mama always told me there'd be days like this, so my advice is don't think twice, live your life, and everything will be all right."  It's just fan-freaking-tastic.  If you need a lift in your day, song #s 2, 12, 13, and 14 will sure get you out of your rut and lighten your step & shoulders  :D  

Book Club!

I'm part of a book club at work - a fellow bibliophile suggested it and we have now been doing this for almost a year.  I have read some books I'd never otherwise have thought to pick up & am having a wonderful time so far :)  We've had some real stinkers (gag me with a spoon Eat, Pray, Love), but this latest one certainly makes up for it!

I just got done reading the Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.  It was fantastic - comic book style, easy to read, heavy on the snark.  LOVE.  I have to say, and am slightly embarrassed by this, I never realized that Iranian is interchangeable with Persian.  A lovely thing about having read this is that I now know more about Iran than I'd ever previously known.  If you don't want to read it, but happen to see a copy in a library or bookstore, PLEASE READ PAGE 150.  It is the most sweet and romantic and inspiring page!  It made me wish I'd had better memories of my dad's mom and has inspired me to add jasmine to the list of things to grow when we move. 

Grandmas... do you know yours?  My mom's mom lives in South Korea, so I've only met her once beyond the time we lived there when I was born (we moved to the States just before I turned 2).  Baby sister & I went to visit when I was 12 - that's almost 19 years ago, folks.  Luckily, my memory of her is sweet, though financially motivated.  Neither baby sister or I could speak any Korean, but mema at least taught us "I love you, Grandma."  We would say this to her in the mornings, before our aunt would take us exploring and Grandma, not speaking any English, would reach into her bra and pull out some money for us to enjoy ourselves LOL  My dad's mom is another story entirely.  She passed away many years ago and suffered from uterine cancer in the end.  My memories of her are at her home, which I remember being dark and super smoky.  I remember her wearing moo-moos and constantly hacking up a lung (heavy smoker).  Unfortunately, I don't remember any specific interactions with her and the "scenes" I recall made me think she was mean.  BOTH of my parents, who rarely agree with one another, tell me that she was actually one of the sweetest women ever.  How I wish I remembered that :(  Because of this, while mema & I don't really get along, we have patched things up enough to allow for weekly visits so the Moose will know her.  Luckily, my class is on Saturdays out in Eagle River, which is where Yobo's mom lives, so I can drop the both of them off there for a few hours most weekends :)