Daddy's Girl

Chad has been home the past few days due to the crazy cold weather, and Ella has grown quite accustomed to his presence in the a.m. When I opened her door this morning, she took one look at me and vehemently said, "No! No Mama! Dada! Dada! Dadaaaaaa!" Good thing I have thick skin.

Oh, and Also

I got 9 inches of my hair unceremoniously hacked off at WalMart last weekend for a mere $15. I feel so much better, even though you can tell it was a cheap haircut and now it needs to be colored. But it feels great nonetheless - lighter, more manageable, and completely out of my way. I'll need to update my profile picture now.

Up and Down

The weather has been so bizarre this week. Has it been weird for everyone else too? Yesterday it was 67 degrees, a ridiculously high temperature for the Northeast in January. Hello, global warming!

Last night the warm wind howled all night long and made it hard to sleep. It was so disturbing that it scared our ferocious pit bull, who came into the bedroom at 3 am quivering and wide-eyed. Chad let him sleep in the bed with us, an event so rare that I can count on one hand the number of times it has happened.

Night Owl

We bought a new coffee pot over the holidays. Our last coffee pot was such a drag to use. It leaked 2 cups worth of coffee on the counter, it spit steam and spray everywhere, and I swear it brewed cold coffee, or at least lukewarm. It got to the point where I didn't even want to turn it on, which is really remarkable for a caffeine junkie like myself. But now, armed with a new coffee pot that brews an entire pot of steaming hot caffeine, I'm back to drinking a pot a day, and as a result I have been staying up until 4 am.

Staying up to the wee hours of the morning has actually been fun. I've been using the time to clean, obsessively organize, and write for a new blog that I'll share when it's ready. When I wake up tired and dragging ass the next day, I just brew a new pot of coffee. I'm sure it isn't very healthy or sustainable, but right now I'm enjoying this unfamiliar energy. I feel almost like I'm in college again.

Holiday Hangover

Christmas is finally over. Finally.

We have been running to and fro like crazy people for the past 6 days - visiting relatives, shopping, eating, and gifting. Our diet has almost solely consisted of cookies, chocolate, and ham. I haven't washed dishes in two or three days, and laundry has been sitting around for longer than that. Remind me next year that waiting until the last minute to do all of my holiday chores is not festive or merry. In fact, it is crazy and leads to a serious holiday hangover.

I'm anxious to get things back in order. I don't deal well with chaos.

Ella thoroughly enjoyed the opening of her presents once she got the hang of it. I tried to take pictures, really, I did. But I only took two and they are both poorly lit and poorly focused. I need a personal photographer to follow us around and document all of life's most precious moments for us.

Mad Dash

The mad Christmas dash is on. I have to do lots of baking and packaging and wrapping. It just doesn't feel like Christmas unless I spend a few late nights baking and wrapping in a flurry.

It's been a long time since I've felt excited for Christmas morning, but this year I am so excited to wake up with a toddler in the house. She will get a real kick out of the festivities, and it makes it all feel new for me too.

Petite Centennial

This is my 100th post and I feel like we need to do something special to mark the occasion. In that spirit, I am asking everyone who stops by to please leave a comment. Let me know that you are there, especially if you've never commented before. If you feel like you don't have anything to say, answer this: if you were guaranteed to receive any one gift during the holidays - reasonable or not, realistic or not - what would you ask for?

Now go forth and comment. (Please!)

Chantix Whore

Ten days ago I started taking Chantix, the newest rage in anti-smoking aids. I have to admit that it works pretty well. There are times that I still want cigarettes, but even when I break down and smoke one the immense satisfaction I once felt is just not there. I have not had a puff for six days or something like that, and I intend to be cigarette-free for the rest of my life.

I have been substantially smoke-free only one other time in the past 12 years, and that was when I was pregnant with Ella. Quitting smoking then was easier for me because there was a concrete reason to quit: the baby growing in my belly. My reason for quitting this time around is more nebulous: my health. That may seem crazy to some people, but caring about my health is such a new thing for me. (I mean, I used to be a raver. I cannot think of anything more detrimental to one's health than raving.)

The hardest time for me to not smoke is the morning. As a smoker, I would stumble out from the bedroom, pour a cup of coffee, and immediately go to the front porch where I would smoke my first (and most satisfying) cigarette of the day in the peace and quiet of the woods. It was a nice way to start my day, alone and quiet and caffeinated. Now I forgo the coffee until later (to quell that nicotine urge) and eat breakfast instead. Somehow it is just not as satisfying.

Maybe I need to work on my perspective. Smoking cigarettes was a way for me to get pockets of alone time and quiet in my day, since I smoked outside. Now I need to teach myself how to relax amidst the chaos, something I rarely had to do before.

Fight

We rented the Mayweather v. Hatton fight on Pay Per View last night, sent Ella to stay with Cousin Tina, and ate appetizers for dinner. It was a big night for us. While the title fighters were getting all psyched up and ready to brawl, the announcer pointed out the various celebrities in attendance. I was shocked to see Angelina and Brad. Doesn't it seem like boxing would be something that the humanitarian demigods would not enjoy? I enjoy boxing and I am nice, but I am certainly not god-like.

Finally

Oh my. I can't believe I left that lame Starbucks post as top billing for over a month, but I was without Internet last month. It nearly killed me but somehow I pulled through. I hope people will come back and read. While I brew up a presentable post (which I should have been doing during my month-long hiatus, I know), here are some recent pictures of my lovely daughter. She is 18 months old now. She has more hair, a few more words, and a lot more sass.

Here she is making some Coconut Frosting with mama.
In order to get any baking done (which I honestly love to do), I have to let her "help."
She is especially good at cleaning up, as you can clearly see in this picture.
(A joke! Could you tell?)



Bundled up and oh-so-happy on her first sled ride. (Good mom, capturing a "first"!)
Chad bought her a sled months ago, and they were both way too excited to use it.
I took some pictures and ran back inside while they played.
I felt dizzy from all the fresh air and activity and had to retreat to the couch and my book.

Starbucks From Scratch

Have you tried the new Peppermint Mocha Starbucks Frappucinno? If you like a chocolate-mint combination, these are heavenly. Rich, thick, chocolaty, minty, and caffeinated too! What's not to love? The price, that's what. I pay $5.99 for a four-pack of tiny little bottles. Well, I should say I used to pay $5.99 for four coffee drinks. Now I make them at home with stuff I already have in the cupboards. (But I will still shell out the going rate for Starbucks' Caramel Macchiato {spelling ...?}. Walking hypocrisy, that's me.) Here's how you too can rip off Starbucks, in a quiet, housewife-y way.

Homemade Starbucks Peppermint Mocha Frappucinno
1 c. cold brewed coffee (brew it double-strength, i.e. use the whole pot's worth of beans but only half the water)
1 c. cold milk (half-and-half would be even better, but I can't justify all that fat)
3 heaping tbsp. instant chocolate pudding mix
1/8 tsp. peppermint extract
sugar to taste

Stir the chocolate pudding mix into the cold milk. Stir in the peppermint and cold coffee. Add sugar to taste. If you want it thicker and frothier, whirl it all up in a blender. Serve over ice.

Golden

Chad will talk to anyone, and he has this special ability to relate to the one person in the room that everyone else avoids. A perfect example: he once spent the night at a bar shooting pool with a man who had elephantitis feet. I'm not even kidding.

Last night the phone rang and I heard him asking weird questions like, "How much is the minimum donation?" and "What address should I send it to?" Alarmed that he may be donating money to the Fraternal Order of Police or something else equally frivolous, I asked who was on the phone. "A stuttering telemarketer," he said. Imagine staying on the phone for ten minutes with a stuttering telemarketer while he fumbles to get his sales pitch out.

My Chad, he has a secret heart of gold.

Mother Lion

This morning an annoying person called our house and said annoying things, things that he has already said in previous annoying phone calls. I am not a person who snaps, usually. I typically keep my cool, maybe almost to a fault. But this morning something broke inside of me and I let the annoying asshole have a big, loud piece of my mind. It felt so good, especially because I actually said the things I wanted to say, which is so rare in heated moments. I normally don't think of the good comebacks or eloquent insults until much later.

Hear me roar?

Cosmic

Recently our old man artiste friend B. stopped by. He has a completely bald, shiny head, and he told me he has been rubbing it lately in hopes that his hair will grow back. "You know old man Gracie?" he asked. "He used to be bald like me. His hair grew back when his daughter started rubbing his head every night." This shocked me, that old man Gracie was once shiny bald like B. because I have only ever known him to have a full head of hair. It also shocked me to hear that old man Gracie's daughter rubbed his head every night, because that's just weird. But I still found myself rubbing Ella's head while B. and I talked. Maybe the mysterious mojo will work on her hair too?

I genuinely like the old man artiste B., and it was pleasant to sit in the yard and drink a beer with him and his bald, shiny head while the sun went down and Ella made a mess out of the birdseed.

B. is creating a fantastically involved book with a story told mostly in wildly intricate drawings of this cosmic universe filled with different creatures, each with very specific jobs in the food production chain. It is so involved that he has a corresponding 30 page glossary. The drawings are ten feet long and five or six feet high. B. promised us that he will draw our dogs into the story as "cosmic super spaceship guards." (Yes, he really talks about things that way.)

When B.'s book hits it big someday, which I am absolutely certain it will, I will be able to say wistfully, "Oh, I knew him back in the day, back when he was still bald."

Organized Mom

Yesterday morning I rushed to the grocery store so that I could get the shopping done before the precious, not-to-be-fucked-with-no-matter-what afternoon nap. At the store, I piled my cart high with the food we'll need for the next two weeks (according to the meal plan I had worked out in advance - go me!). I proceeded to the checkout. The cashier rang everything up. The bagger boy Wade packed it all in my cart. All I had to do was pay and get out, but guess what I forgot in my morning rush out the door? My fucking wallet. I could feel the collective dismay of the cashier, of poor Wade and of all the customers in line behind me. The entire cart of groceries had to be voided and I went home empty handed. How terribly embarrassing.

Hoot Owl

I wholeheartedly apologize for my recent blogging drought. I have no spectacular or outrageous excuse - just the stuff of everyday life. Ella has exploded into this little person who demands all of my attention during her waking hours, which are becoming longer and longer by the day. Chad has been working from sunrise till sunset almost every night. Our washer is still broken and (AND!) now our stove is too, so keeping my family in clean clothes and fed has become a rather arduous and time consuming daily task.

Like I told you, lame excuses, but there they are nonetheless.

Since Ella thinks that she needs during every waking moment, I have started trying to get shit done after she is asleep for the night. I have always loved the hushed, private hours of nighttime, but since becoming a mom the only thing on my mind most nights is sleep. Recently, though, I have been resisting the lure of the bed in favor of a a cup of coffee and a solo trip out the door. Sometimes I grocery shop at the 24-hour market, where I find the room and the time to slowly and methodically troll the aisles without Chad throwing extra things in the cart or Ella yelling to open a box of something. Sometimes I head to my Dad's to do laundry and write. Sometimes I just drive and enjoy the nighttime fog and quiet.

It doesn't really matter what I do. What these nights are really about is finding time to quiet my mind and shake off the clutter of everyday life. It's rejuvenating, even if it means I'll be tired as hell the next day.

Chronic

You know something is wrong when you spend two hours cruising the interweb for instructions on how to clean your house instead of just cleaning it.

So, on that note, I will go clean now.

Television

Over the weekend our home was graced with cable television. (That makes me sound so country, doesn't it? Don't worry, we've had indoor plumbing for a while now.) We had given up our $60 dollar a month cable habit last spring, when the weather was warming up and long summer days spent outside were just around the corner. But now, with football season upon us and a Steelers fan-man in the house, cable has weaseled its way back into our lives.

When we had cable before I would waste away hours watching HGTV or TLC or Law & Order. I had feared that would happen this time too, that I would get hypnotized by the glowing box and shit would get even more undone in my life. But instead, I find myself unimpressed by the television's offerings. The first channel I checked when I had a chance was HGTV. They were showing an episode of Freestyle that I had already seen, five months ago when we had cable before. Then I flipped to The Dog Whisperer and it was the same: an episode we had seen five months ago. And the same with Anthony Bourdain. It seems that nothing has changed in the world of television.

Tonight I walked in the living room and Chad was watching a show on the History Channel about 9/11 conspiracies. "What are you watching?" I asked. "Catching up on the news," he said.

Statistical Analysis

On July 23, I wrote about Pit Bulls. On July 25, fifty-seven visitors came to this blog. I normally get low double-digits visitors each day, so you can see why this spike was shocking. I guess controversy really does sell. That, or linking to CNN.com.

You should take a look at some of the comments on that post. Pit Bulls inspire such an extreme love-or-hate reaction. I had proposed writing a follow-up post to further expound on my experience with the dogs, but now it has cooled on my mind. Maybe someday I'll feel like preaching again.

My stats also show me that a lot of you are still browsing with Internet Explorer. You should really use Firefox. Trust me on this.

Also, most of you have a DSL internet connection. I do not. I have dial-up internet and spotty phone service, which make for an impossibly slow connection. I envy you city dwellers that, and only that: your DSL availability. (And maybe I also envy the variety of takeout foods you have available to please your taste buds each and every night. But that's it, just those two things. Everything else about the city sucks.)

Links Again?

Oh, woe is me, my friends. I have been without Internet access ALL WEEK LONG, and it looks like the drought will continue until the end of next week. As a result, posting here may be sparse for the next week or so, and that's why it was sparse all last week too. And also, I may go crazy.

In order to stop the shakes and headaches I've been suffering through in my Internet withdrawal, tonight I've come to my brother's house to commandeer his bitchin' DSL connection. I had over 600 new items in my feed reader and I've spent the last few hours reviewing them. Some might call that a waste of time, but me, I call it research.

Some highlights:

13 Creative & Simple Ways to Save at Least $100 a Week (via Lifehack.org)
I finally gave up my brand name habit - I now buy the cheap diapers, the cheap paper towels, and even the cheap face wash. It took a while to convince me that cheap stuff really works the way it should, but lo and behold, it does! I've also been forcing Chad to pack a lunch for work instead of eating out every day, and I have finally, finally, FINALLY quit my coffee shop habit (except when I'm out of town, of course). Now, to work on the smoking thing ...

Nicole Richie Grows Breasts
I am particularly fascinated with Nicole Richie's pregnancy (and also Katie Holmes' mothering style, but that's a whole post on its own). Nicole looks fantastic in this photo, so much better than the whole emaciated-heroin-addict look she had going on before.

Suddenly, the Hunt Is On for Cage-Free Eggs
Yet another reason I need to get my chicken coop built (hint, hint, my dear) . I agree wholeheartedly with Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society, who is quoted at the end of the article as saying, “While cage-free certainly does not mean cruelty-free, it’s a significant step in the right direction.”

Troubled Los Angeles Hospital Loses Funding
Los Angeles makes me sad (no insult to my L.A. sisters out there - I know there are good things going on out there too). It would just suck to be poor and sick in that city. This particular hospital "... was built after the 1965 Watts riots to bring health care to poor, minority communities in south Los Angeles. In recent years, poor patient care has been blamed for several deaths." Do you remember when they discovered ambulances dropping patients off on Skid Row?

Wedded to Work, and in Dire Need of a Wife
I was just telling Chad yesterday that we will need to get a wife when I go back to work (which will be soon - yikes.) This is a really fascinating article that brings up all sorts of issues and comes at them from all sorts of perspectives. If you've ever found yourself thinking "... women still generally shoulder a greater burden of household business (or fretting over how to do what is not getting done)," then you really should read it.

With Fixtures of War as Their Canvas, Muralists Add Beauty to Baghdad
"The new murals are part of wider beautification works financed by the American military, the Iraqi government and aid organizations as part of an often-foiled effort to renovate Baghdad, as well as to improve its security. More art projects will be planned for other sites if the program wins popular support — and if the artists stay alive." Public art is good. Always good.

Bento #97 & #98 - Toddler & Baby Bentos
When I make a bento box for Ella she eats much more nutritious food, both in quantity and quality, than when I make her an American lunch plate. I honestly think the bento box may be the cure to picky toddler eating.


So I guess I'll talk to you all next week sometime. Oh, the horror.