Happy Holidays and all that!

What a wonderful Christmas!!!

I have to say, this was the best one in a long time. Both kids were fantastic and got presents they really seemed to enjoy. Mike and I didn't really exchange gifts, we haven't for a few years because we feel like we would enjoy the money more if we spend it on the kids. But we did little stuff for one another all the same and it felt nice and cozy. My aunt and uncle stayed with us and they are fun houseguests! I finally decided on knitting a fishtail fan scarf pattern for my aunt with a really nice hand-dyed Italian wool and it turned out extremely well! I have obscenely high standards for myself but this time I actually met them and I hope it looks as nice as I think it does. She really seemed to like it. If she's not careful I'll have to knit her something else next year.

We had 13 people over for dinner; I am one very obsessed and neurotic hostess but this year it went very smoothly. (Except for one point when I began picking up flecks of mud off the floor and saying loudly, "Somebody's got mud in their shoes! Somebody's got mud in their shoes!" But hey, it's Christmas, they expect that from me.)

I also gave the family a present just from me to thank them for helping me get back to work. We are going to Kalahari Water Park! It is a phenomenal indoor water park and I know the kids are going to have a blast. I also want to make sure the kids see some kind of tangible benefit to helping me get back to work. Of course, after all the gifts were opened I made the big announcement. "Because of all the help you've given me, I'm taking you to Kalahari!!" Even though I explained what it was, both kids looked at me blankly with that "she's talking again, I wonder why she does that" look they get and then turned back to whatever they were looking at to begin with. But comprehension will dawn and pictures will be posted.

My in-laws come on Friday. Even though I blog only for imaginary friends I will be proud to point out that my in-laws are wonderful and very supportive. The kids look forward to seeing them and a good time is had by all.

So that's my holiday! If anyone actually reads this they should post a comment. I am even considering trying to draw traffic to my blog, but then people would read it, and have opinions, and might hate it. So therapy is apparently in order.

Have a very Happy New Year!

Oh, the Guilt!

Well, I went and did it last week - I went back to work three partial days per week and I'm sorry to say I enjoyed myself immensely.

Keep in mind, I am doing three 5.5 hour days per week and some vicarious e-mail and form-filling-outness at home. I can't exceed 20 hours per week (and get paid for it, anyway). This is a teeny, tiny, itsy-bitsy work schedule, people! Once upon a time I was the mega-work, 50 hour per week speed demon. Why do I feel like these days are these huge blocks of missed time? What is wrong with me?!?! What about all the women who have to work, who have to be gone 12 hours every day in order for people to eat? And as long as we're talking about it, what's the deal with me not being satisfied as a housewife? So many women are, am I not appropriately appreciating my children because I want to go out and work? Yikes. What a head case! I guess being at work feels like more of a luxury for me. I feel selfish, like this is a decision that benefits me alone instead of the entire family.

It's the kids. As long as they are happy and doing okay, I am fine. But on the mornings when I tell Alex he's going to the babysitter and he says, "Not today!" or when Elizabeth demands I quit my job so I can be home in the event she breaks her leg at school, I feel like something I peeled off the bottom of my shoe. And at the same time I'm kind of impressed with my own resolve. "Too bad, guys," I think. "We've got places to go..."

This morning I actually breathed a sigh of relief once I had dropped everyone off at their respective places. (And promptly swore loudly when I realized I was halfway to work and had forgotten to take the garbage out. Hate that.)

And when I get to work I feel so great! I have clients again, people who might eventually need me for something once they get to know me. I get to deal with knotty, shades-of-grey problems where you only know the right answer six months after you make the decision. I'm working with people I've known for years and haven't seen in forever, it feels like coming home! So eventually this will have to work for everyone. I know it will sort itself out but I feel horribly selfish in the meantime.

I'm not giving the kids everything, I'm not giving the job everything. I guess I'm spending enough time at each one to be mediocre at both. Cool, huh?

Back to Cheater's Lace and other stuff

I frogged my Karabella Mirage hairball yarn scarf about a week ago and started the Cheater's Lace scarf instead. The yarn did, indeed, look better! Although it did stripe up kind of strangely. I will take a picture at some point but Alex dropped my digital camera on the kitchen floor and cracked the door to the battery compartment. It is taped together with heavy duty tape but tends to time out at really inconvenient moments. Like tomorrow - the Wiggles concert! Alex is going to have a fit! At first Elizabeth was a little upset that she wasn't going. But, as my friend Conni said, "It's not like she's going to go back to first grade and tell everyone how much fun she had at the Wiggles concert!" And, to the tune of $45, I agreed. Instead, Elizabeth is going to play laser tag with her dad and I think will have a great time.

My refrigerator is fixed and I need to start going after people for returned funds on this one! It was apparently a coolant leak caused by a design flaw.

I also had a job interview and might be going back to work for about 15 hours a week. Now here's the thing - when Elizabeth was born I had the world's biggest post-partum freak out session ever. Depression, anxiety, panic attacks - you name it! A lot of it was triggered by the guilt associated with working and it honestly never went completely away. I am a little worried how I will do leaving Alex if this all comes through. He would stay with a neighbor, not a daycare center (although we had a FANTASTIC daycare experience and I would recommend a good daycare to anyone, I just can't afford it on a part time basis) and I would only be gone for about six hours total each day. It should be okay, right? He needs to get some time with other little kids, right? I am pathetically insecure about this but I'm just going to do it anyway... As long as they pay me enough money!

Anyway, both kids are over at my parents' house and I need to go sit and listen to the eerie silence now...

The Fridgenator

So I shall now discuss my new refrigerator.

We bought it on October 6 and it was delivered 13 days ago. It is an LG, deluxe model with the fridge on top and the freezer on the bottom. Initially I was in LOVE! This fridge is gorgeous, roomy and seemed to have everything we wanted.

Except for the power to freeze my food.

The first twelve days it did an admirable job in the freezer. But then yesterday afternoon we started to notice that things were, well, soggy. Watery popsicles, warm vegetables (without the hassle of microwave cooking). Defrosted lasagna. No more ice. You get the picture.

I called the place where we purchased it and explained that I didn't even have the bill yet but my freezer was dead and could they please get it the hell out of my house and replace it with something that was actually cold? No. Today is Friday and the little appliance guy will come on Monday. (Let's see, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday... FOUR DAYS.) Upon speaking to the afore-mentioned little appliance guy he assured me he would need to order mucho parts which would not come in until next Wednesday at the earliest. (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... SIX DAYS.) If you count the days up they equal approximately 50% of the time I have actually had the fridge in my house.

Imagine my delight.

I honestly don't know if they store is going to do the right thing or not. Everyone has been very apologetic but this is really, honestly, the very best they can do. Promise. Pinkie swear. And they'll keep in touch. And reimburse me for the melted ice cream. And I am left with a brand new $1,200 fridge that looks very pretty...

So everybody please hope Monday comes quickly!

chachaknits: Cheater's lace scarf pattern

Check out this pattern:

chachaknits: Cheater's lace scarf pattern

This pattern inspired me to buy a ball of Karabella Mirage yarn in the mink color. It was lovely! I wanted to knit this pattern for my aunt, but after I started it suddenly looked like something I pulled out of my hairbrush. I will frog it but frogging this stuff is a nightmare because it sticks together and tangles. I think I'm going to try the Cheater's Lace pattern with it instead. So, knitting question #1 - why did this stuff look so terrible on a regular lace pattern? I mean, it's lace yarn! I only did one repeat of the pattern, did I need to do more before it showed up? Or was it the multicolor nature of the yarn? Were my stitches not even enough? I don't want to post a picture of this even with zero people reading it, it's simply too embarrassing to even show to imaginary friends.

Oik. It's been over a year since I posted. Obviously my faithful following of exactly zero people continue to be, well, zero people. Nothing like building on success.

So much has happened in the last year. First, my daughter Elizabeth has been working on overcoming symptoms of Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder. Thank God she doesn't fit all of the diagnostic criteria, the psychologist said it was only a "tendency", but that "tendency" was so incredibly disruptive that she spent a good portion of the last year meeting with him to get a handle on it. If you go back and look at the entry "When Gingerbread Men Attack" you will see it shows all kinds of exciting OCD stuff that I was too dumb to notice at the time. Her kindergarten teacher sat me down and had a hard talk with me, after which I acknowledged that spending the day putting markers up to your hair and freaking out because you might have gotten marker on yourself instead of doing your worksheets and hanging out with the other kids is Not. Normal. Go figure. Fortunately she is doing much, much better and I think her improvement has made a big difference in everyone else's lives, too. We're all happier and more relaxed, for the most part.

Alex, now 2, has become my comic relief. He is currently in L-O-V-E with The Wiggles! Truly, I limit my children's TV viewing like a nice, responsible mother being given a loving pat on the back by a smiling American Academy of Pediatrics. (Who must smoke funny cigarettes at lunch and then come back and recommend children no longer take cold medication. But I digress.) To hear little Alex talk he does nothing but watch TV 24/7! Wiggles this, Wiggles that. I want my Murray shirt! Let's see Little Wiggles! I cut his viewing down to one episode per day (I didn't have the heart to make him go cold turkey) after Elizabeth had a nightmare about a Wiggles picture that came alive and started dancing in her room. My poor husband had the "Music Bug" theme stuck in his head so badly he couldn't sleep one night, and I have had my own sudden, inexplicable urges to grab the MP3 player and let my old friend Prince chase out the occasional lingering refrain of "Toot, Toot, Chugga, Chugga, Big Red Car". (I've found that keeps it from turning into "Toot, toot, Chugga, Chugga, Hit the Bar".)

Of course, I'm all talk! Am I taking Alex to The Wiggles concert next month? You betcha!!! And with a smile on my face! Truthfully, I have nothing but respect for The Wiggles, who do a fantastic job of entertaining the preschool mosh pit facing them wherever they go. (In their Big Red Car. Toot, toot.) I took Elizabeth to their concerts in her day and they put on a great show, they are enormously generous with their time and make a sincere effort to personally meet as many of the kids as possible. Who can argue with that? I simply think they need an antidote for the parents who have heard a few too many "Chugga, Chuggas". I'm just sayin', is all. Plus, once Alex learns to actually pedal his tricycle and gets a little more mobile I think he'll probably try to stalk them. They need alternatives.

I've started working in the last year, mostly from home. I was a music major in college and this year started giving piano lessons to local kids. I'll be honest, at first I did it for the money. I loved music up until my college music experience, when reality hit home and I realized I was not the next Beverly Sills, after which I crashed, burned, did a 180 and went into Social Services. I lost my joy for music and didn't do much of anything with it for almost fifteen years. But then one day I was sitting there watching the world of music open up for the first time for one of my students, and I realized I was having an absolute blast! I just love watching these guys soak things up, watching the "ah-ha" light go on when they do something and understand it for the first time. I had forgotten that music didn't need to be perfect to be beautiful, and these kids helped me remember. How lucky am I?

Oh - and I learned to knit. I have so many knitting questions, I hope real knitters maybe actually read this and I hope I actually write some of the questions down and get answers some day. It's good to have goals, no?

All right, I'm going for the semi-annual blog entry this year! Wish me luck!