Obsession du Jour

Elephant!

This is his sign for Elephant, which - since there is an elephant on his water cup - is how he asks for water at dinner.  Clever monkey.

A day in the life of Chez Obsession

ETA:  Turns out that even when I think I'm being uber clever, I am merely plagiarizing my friends. Dang, I guess now I can never be President.

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For a long time I thought that I was just being inefficient with my time, and THAT was why I never had time to knit\read\watch TV\call my friends.  That if I just wrote out my schedule, cleaned out the extraneous time-wasters, and got myself a good, clean schedule, I could start to have a bit more of my old life back.  So, a schedule. I can do that.

5:30 am -  Wake up

5:30-6:00 am  (6:15 if we're feeling lazy) - Nurse/Cuddle with WB

6:00-7:00 am - Pass WB to Dad to clothe, clean, feed and drop off at daycare; Get ready for work.

7:00 am - Catch bus ( please, please, please let my new scooter get here soon. please.)

7:45 am - 4:30 pm - Workity, workity, workity.  Crazy, flippin', too much work for a four-day work week.  100 miles an hour from the moment I arrive 'til the moment I slip out the back door to catch my train before someone can find another reason to talk to me.

5:30 pm - Pickup WB from daycare & walk home.

5:45 - 6:00 pm - Nurse\Cuddle\Chat with WB.  Reconnection and giggles.  Tis good.  Often the best part of the day.

6:00 - 6:30(6:45) pm - Make something approaching fast, simple, and edible for dinner while defending the grapes in the bottom drawer of the fridge, trying to convince him to just let me cook already, and fielding whiney cries of "Up, Mama"...."Down, Mama"...."Up, Mama"..." 'ood, Mama?"......"That?  That?  THAT? (while pointing at whatever I happen to be touching at that moment....hot pan...sharp knife....juicy apple...whatever.)  Oh, for the days when he would just happily hang out in the Ergo on my back, contented to simply watch the kitchen circus. Not so much anymore, but he still wants to be right in the thick of things.  Frustrating as hell, but also too cute to discourage.

6:30 - 7:15 pm - Dinner/Modern performance art involving multi-colored foodstuffs and an enthusiastic toddler with a joy of smearing.  I'm still unclear why we don't just feed him naked.  Oh wait.  Because he knows how to undo his diapers now.  Right.  That's a bad skill combo waiting to happen.

7:15 - 8:00 pm (if we're lucky) - Abandon dirty dinner plates and leftovers where they sit and head upstairs for Bath\Stories\Bedtime.  The Going to Bed Book, for those who might wonder.

8:00 (ish) - 9:00 (9:30) pm - Unload diswasher, clean up dinner dishes, swab down dining table and floor, quick kitchen clean up, put away the EXPLOSION of toys, misc chores; laundry (one load a day keeps the mountain away), sweeping, dusting, etc. So that a) we don't die of botulism, or worse, and b) weekends can be...weekends, and fun, not all workity, workity.  Fun like this:

9:15 - 930 ish - Collapse into a chair and stare dumbly at work email trying to decide which emails can be ignored (most of them) until morning, and which Need.To.Be.Answered.Right.Now. which is far more than I'd like.  Kind of hate people a little bit at this point.

9:30-9:45 ish(If I'm lucky in the email wars.) - Figure out which mindless thing to knit on while relaxing, think fondly about catching up with blogs.  Open Bloglines. (OMG! HOW many unread posts?  Holy crap!) Pick one at random. Spend 10 mins trying to read while knitting on a plain, unadorned, stockinette sock, drop a stitch, figure it out two rows later. Mutter some expletives. Stop reading. Fix dropped stitch. Try to go back to reading.  Fail miserably at forming some sort of coherent comments to all the really cool and interesting things all my imaginary friends are doing and making and....  Drop stitch.  Again.  On a plain sock.  Put sock away.  Too annoyed to cuss.  Close computer.

10:00 - 10:15 ish pm - Brush teeth, wash face.  Go to bed.

10:30 pm - Wonder briefly if child will ever get all his teeth\not be sick so that he can reliably sleep through the night. Decide it's best not to think about it. Go to sleep.

3:30 am - ? 

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Hmmmm......OK, I give. What's the secret? I am certainly not the first person in the world to have a kid and face life balance issues.  Others do it, and many of you do it quite gracefully - without losing touch with friends & family, without missing birthdays, without a lot of drama.  I want to be one of you. How do you hold it all together and keep up with house, family, blog, work, hobbies, sleep - without going insane?   Do you save more time for yourself in the weekday evenings and just sacrifice some of the weekend hours for cleaning?  How do you manage that and still get good family time? Just set a time that's inviolate? Always?  No matter what kind of fun might otherwise be had b/c you need to clean the house? Pick one weeknight to stay up late to do chores and just let that be that?  Stuff cottonballs in your ears & ignore the waking child?  I'm kidding.  Mostly. 

But seriously.  How DO you do it?  What are your favorite coping mechanisms?  Tips? Tricks? Routines? I'm all ears.

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The power of positive thought

Awhile back, I bought one of these from Caro:

....even though I almost never use my SLR anymore.  I felt a little foolish, since I was sure it would rarely see the light of day, but holy crap -- look at it.  How could I resist this?  Fast-forward a month or two to my birthday (Saturday), and shockingly ...

THIS showed up to keep it company!!!!  Woohoo!!!!  Please, for the love of cashmere, don't tell my contractors, OK?

I've been utterly insufferable this weekend, unable to go 5 minutes without it in my hands.  I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have a 'real' camera.  I gotta go, I can't type and fondle the camera at the same time, so instead I'll just leave a smattering of twenty-gajillion photos from this weekend.  Mostly - don't faint from the shock - of my kid.

Balloons!

Lunch preps

Bow wow wow wow

Coasters...not just for beer anymore.

Sexy Stitchy

Bowl-o-Rama

Shenanigans

Birthday Bouquet

Mondays are for navel gazing

Shamelessly stolen from an old friend.  Miss you, hon.  I wish I wasn't such a terrible slouch of a friend and pathologically incapable of keeping up long-distance. :

Bold the stuff you've tried.

1. Venison
2. Nettle Tea
3. Huevos Ranchero
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese Fondue  - oh yeah.  every new year's eve, baby. and, as it so happens, the night I met the person from whom I shamelessly stole this idea. 
8. Carp
9. Borscht Hot and cold
10. Baba Ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
14. Aloo Gobi
15. Hot Dog from Street Car
16. Epoisses
17. Black Truffle
18. Fruit wine made with something other than grapes - not so fond of this. ever.
19. Steamed pork buns - OMG yes. all dim sum all the time, if I could.
20. Pistachio Ice Cream
21. Heirloom Tomatoes
22. Wild berries
23. Foie gras - oh so bad and yet oh so good.
24. Rice and Beans - duh, like every week.
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper - never, ever again.  I'd sooner sing karaoke in front of my bosses. Sober. And then still have to go into work the next day.
27. Dulce de Leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi
32. Clam chowder
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Cottage Cheese
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream with tea - oh America, why must your clotted cream suck so, so much?
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects - on purpose?  not so much.
43. Phaal - heh. see #26 above. no way, no how.
44. Goat's milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more - ah...one day. just for the record? my 40th is in a week, so if anyone's feeling generous....or foolish.
46. Fugu
47. Chicken Tikki Masala
48. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut - *sigh* one of the few things I regularly miss from home.
49. Chutney
50. Sea Urchin
51. Prickly Pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald's Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini - I must admit it publicly.  I prefer a Vodka martini.  Sue me.
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob Chips
61. S'mores
62. Sweet Breads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs' legs
67. Churro
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu - wow. no, but now that I've looked it up......
77. Hostess Fruit Pie - please. can anyone honestly answer no to this?  really?
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky - so many flavors it seems like this should have a meme all it's own.
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe Beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate - my god.  there's a chocolate i haven't tried?
91. Spam - hi. child of the 70's from the South? you betcha.
92. Soft Shell Crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole Pablano
96. Bagel and Lox - is it really Sunday without this?
97. Lobster
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

I've no idea if this has made the rounds or not, being all out of touch, but if anyone feels like hopping on this band wagon that hasn't already, here's your chance.

Another gratuitous kid picture - I see a patern emerging.  This was "graduation" day last week.  Apparently, according to daycare, we are now officially the parents of a toddler and have a diploma to prove it.    

Eye Candy Friday

George's Island. Boston Harbor Islands.

Gratuitous kid pic:

A little slice of heaven

That's what this is.

Scaruffle in brushed cashmere and silk.  Lime.Green.

If one does not have much time to knit, one must knit something luscious in one's valuable time, no?

Pattern: Scaruffle from The Knitter's Book of Yarn
Yarn: Superior Filatura di Crosa : brushed cashmere on a silk core. color #23 - just over half a ball. What to do with the leftovers, hmmm?
Needles: no earthly idea.  oops.

Verdict: oh my, yes.  Quick to knit, beautiful, forgiving, versatile. The perfect little Fall/Spring scarf. Make one.  Right now.

p.s. Turns out, it's hard to take a decent picture of oneself in a scarf and get all of both in the frame.