We are back from our great vacation. It was way fun, but as always, it's nice to be back home. After being gone for five days, I've come back to many blog updates to read, lots of email, and almost 500 new posts on my AP board. I like to read all that stuff, but there is no way I can do it so I'm resigning myself to the fact that I'll just have to skip most of it. Boo hoo.

I'm off to knit and enjoy the thunderstorm raging outside, but first a couple pictures from the trip:

Here is the little swimmer looking cute, as always.



















Dude, wakeboarding is SO hard. After many, many attempts, I finally managed to get up on the board and this was the best picture anyone could take?!?!

I started sewing the bedroom curtains, but didn't finish because I think the fabric blends too much with the wall. I love the fabric, though, so I have to think of something else to do with it. Sewing curtains doesn't sound like much fun to me right now, anyway, so it looks like our bedroom will be curtainless for awhile longer. I am, however, in skirt-sewing mode. I sewed this one yesterday and today while Emma napped. The fabric is from curtains I found at Goodwill because I didn't want to try it out on good fabric without knowing for sure I could sew in a zipper. Apparently I can, so I'll probably be churning out some more skirts in the near future.

I'm also working on this log cabin blanket, which I'm enjoying. For some reason I get a blister on my pinkie when I knit it for too long, so that slows down the process a bit. I'm not sure how big it's going to be eventually - I guess we'll see how soon I get tired of knitting it.













Tomorrow Ems and I are heading to Table Rock Lake with my family. We'll be back Tuesday. Toodles!

Last year Steve's car started acting weird. He often had trouble starting it, and it would just randomly die on the highway sometimes. Not good. So we took it in to get it fixed, paid $1000, and it still did the exact thing when we got it back. Argh. Luckily, a few weeks later it seemed to stop on it's own. Well, it started doing it again so we took it to another place last Friday. They've been trying to figure out what's wrong this whole time. It's been a big nuisance, because with Steve off work for five days, we've been driving around a lot. I usually love driving around in his car because I can knit, but for the past week we've been taking my car. He won't drive when we're in my car, hence, lots of lost knitting time. Yesterday morning we all had to get up at the crack of dawn to drive him to work and neither Emma nor I ever recovered from it and were extremely cranky for the rest of the day. This morning I told him to just take my car and go, which means Emma and I are stranded here. The good news is that the car is supposed to be finished today, and also that it's only going to cost $272. We were worried about shelling out another $1000, but $272 is much more manageable. I don't know how families do it with only one car - it's a pain in the butt!

Tonight FIL and his girlfriend took Emma, Steve, and I to the Royals game. Great, right? We love baseball games, the Royals won, the fireworks afterwards were great, and all was good. Until the ride home. We were all riding in the girlfriend's car, driven by Steve's dad. On the highway, suddenly I heard someone honking a super long mad-sounding honk, and Steve's dad starts ranting about changing lanes or something. Some guy in another SUV passes us on the right and glares at us as he goes by. FIL says "two can play at this game, buddy" and he gets in the other lane and starts following the guy SO, SO, SO closely. We were barreling down the highway with mere inches between us and another car. Just as I yelled at him to stop it, the other guy slammed on his brakes. FIL of course had to slam on our brakes hard to avoid crashing into him, and we all flew forward in the car. Emma's carseat pitched forward as well. I was so furious that I started crying. How dare he risk my baby's life because of some stupid, petty, immature road rage?

Gah! I just had this whole long post typed out, then suddenly one of those lovely boxes popped up and told me that, "Firefox has encountered a problem and needs to close," and I lost the whole thing. Stupid computer. I'm way too tired to type it all again.

Some pictures from the zoo yesterday...

We've been having a wonderful couple of days. Steve was off work yesterday, and he really wanted to go see Superman Returns. I didn't want to see it at all, but we made a deal that if we could go to the quilt store and the yarn store in the morning - and he would watch Ems while I browsed - then we'd go see the movie. Emma, of course, was tired of the movie after about 25 minutes so she and I spent the rest of the time playing in the car. Not the most fun ever, but better than watching Superman.

Today we were planning on taking Emma to the zoo, but we didn't leave soon enough and ended up going to Loose Park instead. It was a beautiful day and we had a blast. Afterwards we went to Barnes and Noble, where I got Denyse Schmidt Quilts, because I've been wanting it SO badly and the library is taking much too long to get it to me.

Tomorrow, the zoo!

Today is Steve's birthday. I was going to get him the 24 Playstation game, but he bought it last weekend and said it would count as his present. By now, he's already beat the game so it's like he has no present at all. I was going to bake him a cake, but his dad is taking us out for dinner tonight so it's not like we want to fill up on cake and then go eat a big dinner. Plus, we're going to Cinzetti's (yum!) where dessert is included, so it's not like we want to eat dessert there, and then come home and eat some more cake. So, other than cards from Emma and me, we're doing basically nothing for his birthday. I'm feeling kind of lame about that, but don't know what else to do.

Emma had a bad fall yesterday and scraped up her face. Here she is yesterday (with our farmer's market treasures), but you can't see the scrape that much.

Whenever I'm knitting something and I notice a mistake a few rows back, I just let it go. The whole idea of unraveling stitches is just too scary. I can imagine myself desperately scrambling to stop the unraveling, only to have stitch after stitch, and eventually the whole project, come apart in my hands. Well, today I was about to start decreasing the toe of a sock, and I was congratulating myself on finishing my fastest sock ever. Too bad I had to notice that I completely, totally screwed up the gusset. I tried it on, hoping it wouldn't matter, but no dice. The left side of the ankle was so floppy it probably wouldn't even have fit in a shoe. I had no choice but to unravel the entire foot and fix it. I set to work performing the surgery with my teeniest needles and an itty bitty crochet hook and...I did it! I managed to get back to the gusset and pick up all the stitches with no major unintentional unraveling problems! This means that, if you are someone who can expect to receive a knitted object from me in the future, know that now you can also expect fewer mistakes!

Remember that baby stuff I wanted to get rid of? I put it on craigslist.com, and eight people emailed me expressing interest. Most told me they wanted everything. I emailed them all back, thinking that I'd give it to whoever could come and pick it up first. I only heard back from ONE person, and she said sorry, but she had decided she wanted more girly stuff. The other seven? Nothing. Why did they email me if they didn't want the stuff anyway? So annoying.

So I ended up cutting off the curtains and they look MUCH better. I'm going to use the extra fabric to make pillows (Thanks, Catherine!) as soon as we get a better couch.













Yesterday I deserved some sort of horrible parent award. Emma likes to play in the bathroom sink, which she can reach if she leans over from the tub or the toilet. I'm always worried she's going to slip and fall when she does this, and yesterday when she was playing in there I mentioned it to Steve. He brought in the stool from the garage and put in in front of the sink so Emma could splash and play more safely. After awhile, I noticed that there was no sound coming from the bathroom, so I went back there to investigate. Emma was standing on the stool, which apparently gave her easy access to the medicine cabinet (!), holding a nearly empty bottle of Hyland's Teething Tablets. Her face was smeared with chalky whiteness, she had three of them in her hand, and there were eight on the floor. The bottle originally had 250 tablets, and we hadn't used up very many. All of which led me to believe she'd downed at least a hundred of them. I know they're homeopathic and all, but 100 tablets??? I called poison control, where they assured me she'd be fine. Whew! She was maybe a little irritable the rest of the afternoon, but otherwise seemed okay. How's that for horrible, neglectful parenting? I've been feeling guilty about it all day.

Okay I need some advice. We like the living room curtains, but they make our living room - which is already freakishly small - look even smaller. Here is what they look like, and please excuse the bad picture.













We're thinking it might be better if I just cut off everything but the top 1.5 feet or so, and ran that all the way across. That would give us the benefits of probably not shrinking the room, it would hide the blinds when they are up, and Emma wouldn't be able to wipe her grubby fingers on them all day long. BUT, is that too kitchen-y of a look for living room curtains? We're not sure. What do you think?

Picture this, but with the bottom 3/4 of the fabric gone.

I finished the curtains for the living room. I have no idea why I put those off for six months, because they only took me just over an hour to sew. Pics to come tomorrow after I get Steve-o to hang the curtain rod.

Today was a good day, except for one traumatic incident. We were playing in our backyard with some friends, and having a lovely time. When we tried to go back inside, however, I discovered the lock on the door had flipped shut when we went outside. Poor little Emma was naked and her clothes were wet from being in the pool, and here we were, locked out. This isn't even the traumatic part yet. So we're trying to devise a way to break into the house, when suddenly I almost step on a monster of a snake. He was laying there, looking all black and sinister, and of course I screamed and freaked out and looked like an idiot. Not only that, I just stood there stupidly while my friend walked by the snake to get a chair, then stepped into some dense flower bushes by our garage (which may have been harboring who-knows-what), then hoisted her very limber five-year-old into the garage so she could let us in the house. Tell me, does it seem fair that I, who am probably more scared of snakes than anyone else on this planet, have to live smack dab in the middle of a freaking snake infestation? No, it does not. Stupid snakes.

I want to learn how to quilt. Someday it'd be nice to make something like this or this, but for now I just want to try a simple quilt with simple squares for our bed. However, I'm not doing that until I finish the curtains for the living room and bedroom. Still, I just requested about ten quilting books from the library so I can soak up plenty of quilting knowledge until then.

I can't think of anything else to blog about so I'm off to sew some curtains!

I dyed some yarn today. This one turned out okay, but those weren't really the colors I was hoping for.













This one I love, but the picture doesn't accurately represent the colors. They are much better in person.













Emma came up with a game today that kept her busy for hours. She'd color on her arm with a (washable) marker, then stick her arm in a glass of water. The marker would wash off, turning the water whatever color the marker had been. Oh, the excitement!

Last night was the worst night we've had since night-weaning. She woke up around 4:30 and cried to nurse for almost an hour. I kept telling her we'd nurse when it was sunny outside, but of course we were still awake when the sun was coming up, so she eventually just got to nurse. Hopefully that was just a one time thing and tonight is better. I SO don't want to go back to all that night nursing!

Our weekend was good. My mom and dad came to visit, which is always wonderful. They brought my composter, which is wonderful as well.

After months of talking about flying kites, Emma finally got her chance this weekend. Steve and I managed to get the kite in the air, and about thirty seconds later, Emma said, "Get it down. Go swing!" So much for that, I guess.

We did go swing, and Steve impressed us all with his jumping skills. Not to be outdone, my dad and I followed up with some pretty remarkable synchronized jumping action. I know you're impressed, right?

Emma is a funny kid. She does the weirdest stuff.

Yesterday we were reading a book about five little ducks who get dressed to play in the snow. Emma got so excited about the snow that she put on her own boots, sweater, and hat, and insisted we go outside and play in the snow. When we got outside, she was so disappointed to find no snow that she actually cried. :( Not only did she want to keep wearing the snow garb in ninety degree weather, but she called to everyone who walked by, "Ready for snow!"

Then today she donned a bathrobe and birthday headband and refused to take them off to go to the store. Lots of people stopped to talk to her and she told them all proudly, "Ready for a bath!" They all of course asked her if it was her birthday and she, of course, told them all that it was. I felt like a big old meanie telling them it was, in fact, months after her actual birthday.

Also, she has discovered static electricity. She now asks to watch TV, but only so she can stand right next to it and laugh at her crazy hair.

I want to learn to make candles. Well, I really want to learn to make soap, but the very first instruction in the soap-making book I got says, "Set aside at least three hours when you know you won't be interrupted." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Yeah, right. So, since candles are apparently easier, I will have to settle for those.

This afternoon we'll make a fun trip to Joann's to get the supples I need. I'm also going to buy fabric to sew curtains for the bedroom - never mind that the fabric I bought six months ago to make living room curtains is still sitting in a nice, folded pile in the basement.

In addition to both of those things that I absolutely must do this week, my cleaning plan is coming along very well. So far this week I've cleaned the living room, our bedroom, the office, and part of the kitchen. I'm talking like cleaning the windows inside and out, moving the fridge and cleaning underneath and behind it, organizing closets and junk drawers - things I never do. I've also been sticking with those little things, like making the bed and wiping off the table all the time. And honestly, I'm loving it! I know that it's only Day Three of my new plan, but I really really really want to keep it up because this clean-house thing is pretty great.

All this cleaning has made me realize one thing: I will never move into another house where I don't have my own room specifically for craft stuff. Yesterday I was at a loss over what to do with all my craft clutter sitting around. See this knitting stuff? And this scrapbooking stuff?













I don't have any place to go with it. The scrapbooking stuff has to stay out because if I put it away I would never talk myself into working on it. And the knitting stuff...well, that's self-explanatory. In the end I consolidated everything on that card table, which is in the office and I'll just have to deal with it's being there. Now I just have to figure out where to go with the soon-to-be-sitting-around candle stuff and sewing stuff.

I'm thinking about getting Emma a haircut. Some days, her hair is curly and adorable, but other days it's straight and looks very mullet-y. Are part-time curls worth the price of a part-time mullet? I'm not sure yet.

Emma loves to cook lately. We bake things every day, a few of which have been ruined because I tried to make them too healthy. The good news about that is, if Emma helped make it, then by-golly she wants to eat it. She apparently hasn't developed an aversion to eating cardboard yet.

I've been going through piles in our basement in an attempt to reduce the amount of "stuff" we have sitting around. We have a large collection of baby things that were never used or used maybe once or twice and I'm tempted to get rid of them. They take up a lot of space and, if we didn't use them the first time, we probably won't use them for the rest of our kids. Crib, Pack N Play, walker, Diaper Champ, cradle, bath seat, an unopened bouncy seat...hmmm, what to do with these things?

The mess and clutter in this house were really getting to me, so today I implemented a new plan. In addition to regular things - picking up toys, laundry, etc. - I am going to have a set area to clean every weekday. Not just moving the junk, but really deep cleaning. Also, I am going to work on that whole "clean as you go" philosophy, at which I have always been an abysmal failure. I am going to make the bed in the morning, which, really, is a complete waste of time, but will probably help me get into a clean house mode. This may seem like pretty basic stuff, but today I actually did the dishes and wiped down the counters after every meal and after various baking activities. Right now, my living room and hall (today's areas) are cleaner than they've ever been probably, and my kitchen is cleaned up and crumb-free. The dishwasher and washing machine are both running, and it feels GREAT! I am very much looking forward to waking up in a clean house tomorrow morning.

Right now Steve is still at work and Emma is in bed. I have a margarita to drink, a sock to knit, and a baseball game to watch. Ahhhh...this is the life. Toodles!

Lately when we ask Emma not to do something, she quickly retorts, "YES!". She then often contines to do it, which results in a childish exchange of "No!" "YES!" "No!" "YES!". I need to brush up on my redirecting skills. So anyway, today she was trying to play with my scrapbooking stuff, even though she knows it's off-limits. Following another no-yes-no-yes argument, she ended up on the floor in tears after I took away a stamp pad. I left the room to use the bathroom, and moments later she came barging in, pointed her finger at me, and in her toughest little voice said, "You JERK!" I probably shouldn't have, but it was so funny and she was so cute that I laughed and laughed. Of course that made her laugh too and repeat it about 100 times. I asked her where she heard that and she said, "mommy". Oops. I really do say that to Steve a lot when we're joking around. So we had a talk about how we should both try to not say jerk because it might hurt someone's feelings. Now if only I can remember to not say it...

This new knitting stitch, the right way to do it, is getting on my nerves. My stitches keep being all uneven, so for now I'm going to work on making matches for all the lonely socks I've knitted. I have to do those the same way as the others, so I don't have to worry about the new stitch for awhile. At least this way they will actually get done!

Every time we go to Target, we go to the suitcase aisle so Emma can play with the little rolling suitcases that she loves. Since we do a fair amount of traveling, we decided to get her one. She was so excited to pick one out and has been rolling it everywhere since. Last night during dinner, it sat in the fourth chair! Tomorrow we are going to visit Steve's grandpa, and I have been telling her we're going on a little vacation. She's been packed since yesterday, and keeps asking me when we're going to "weave for yittle 'cation".

It's getting HOT outside!

The worms are history. I still hadn't separated them from the castings, and was getting more and more reluctant to do so because every time I opened the bin I found more creepy crawlies. There were probably more snails slurping their way around in there than I have ever seen all together the whole rest of my life. The final straw was the trio of flies that flew out when I opened it today. Not being one who is fond of waiting around for maggots, I dumped the whole bin in the barren spot in the garden. After it settles a bit, I'll spread it around to the plants. Good-bye, worms. It was nice knowing you.

Today Emma was eating some delicious Chicken Lo Mein from cooking club when she dropped a spaghetti noodle on her foot. She was so amused by this that she demanded, "Mommy, take a funny picture!"

This morning I was talking to my mom on the phone. As soon as I hung up, I heard Emma exclaim from down the hall, "Uh-oh! Made a BIG mess!" Swell. She had squirted out my entire new bottle of Burt's Bees lotion and smeared it all over the pillows, comforter, sheets, and nightstand. And I just changed the sheets yesterday! We salvaged what we could and now have the moistest skin ever.

Today I realized that I have been knitting incorrectly! My stitches have been twisted, so now that I know I can actually start knitting the right way. I had no idea! I'm going to rip out my three current projects, which will be tough, but worth it in the long run.

The night weaning process is over and was a complete success, BUT - now Emma is waking up at 7:00-7:30 in the morning, which is not good. I certainly do not want to get up that early every day, plus she is getting crabby from lack of sleep. At first the whole thing was not nursing in the bed, but a couple days she was up at 6:00, wanting to go out to the couch to nurse. Then I told her we could nurse in the bed, but only when it was sunny outside. The trouble? It gets sunny long before I actually want to get up. It wouldn't be so bad, but it's been taking forever to get her to sleep at night so she's not going to bed any earlier at all. Hopefully this is just an adjustment period and we'll soon be back to sleeping in a little more.

Yesterday I got to go to the yarn store and spend the giftcard I got for my birthday. Yay! I got this













to make this bag, and this














to make this sweater, sans the stripes. The sweater will be the biggest project I've attempted to date, so I'm a tad nervous.

Yesterday I worked on weeding the garden for twenty minutes, and I swear to myself I will never weed the garden without applying bug spray first. My legs look like a bad case of the chicken pox, and are equally itchy. I also promised myself that I would spend 20 minutes every day weeding, but already I'm not doing so well because I never did it today. Sigh.

After ignoring the swing coat for awhile, I finally finished it last night. I think it looks really cute and Emma loves it. Today we went to Joann's and I let her pick out buttons, but I still have to sew them on. The white attached I-cord looks good, I think, so maybe it's for the best that the yarn I got didn't match.

Emma and I really did cook all that stuff yesterday. I was so tired of cooking by the end of the day! Everything was delicious, except the pasta, which was just so-so. And Emma hates the bread we baked, but I think it's fabulous - which is a good thing because we made six loaves! Here is the recipe for the Strawberry-Almond Shortcake. It's from (of course) the Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook by Cathe Olson. (And Grandma, the recipe calls for it to be made into single servings!)

Strawberry-Almond Shortcake

4 cups sliced strawberries
1 to 2 tablespoons honey, brown rice syrup, agave nectar, or maple syrup
1/2 cup almonds
3/4 cup rolled oats
1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter or coconut oil, cut into small pieces
1 egg or egg replacer
1/2 cup milk (dairy or non-dairy)
2 tablespoons honey, brown rice syrup, agave nectar, or maple syrup
Vanilla Yogurt Dessert Topping(2 cups plain yogurt, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 1 tablespoon honey)

Toss strawberries and 1 to 2 tablespoons sweetener gently until fruit is coated.
Preheat oven to 375. Oil baking sheet. Grind almonds and oats to coarse meal in food processor or blender. Mix in flour, baking powder, and salt. In a mixing bowl or food processor, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal.
In separate bowl, beat egg, milk, and 2 tablespoons sweetener together. Add to flour mixture. Stir gently just until mixed. Scoop out 1/4 cup balls of dough and place on prepared bakign sheet. Flatten slightly to about one inch high. Bake 15 minutes, or until edges and bottoms are golden. Cool slightly.
Split warm biscuits in half horizontally. Place one half on place. Cover with fruit and then a layer of topping. Place the other biscuit half on top. Add a little more topping and fruit.

Note: The picture has whipped cream, but only because Steve didn't want yogurt on his. The yogurt was wonderful on ours!

My worm bin is dreadfully overdue for a clean-up. Most of the bin is worm castings now, and I've just been adding more bedding for awhile, but I can no longer put it off. The castings are toxic to the worms and I don't want them to die. When I got the worms, I didn't think I would mind digging through them to separate them from the castings, but now that that time has come, I'm not looking forward to the task. Sorting through thousands of worms, worm poop, and rotted food just doesn't sound like all that much fun. Go figure.

After a swap this weekend, I'm dropping out of cooking club for a few months. Steve has been complaining about our lack of fresh food for awhile, our freezer is already stuffed with meals, I'm tired of picking through my food to remove onions (which I HATE with a passion), and I am suddenly consumed with this overwhelming urge to cook things. On the menu for today: Avocado-Feta Salsa, Bread, Penne with Vodka Sauce, Bruschetta, and Strawberry Almond Shortcake. Mmmmm!

I am in the midst of a gardening disaster. Remember how just a mere four days ago I was showing pictures of my potatoes and calling them "healthy" and "lucious"? Not only that, I was down there on Sunday (only two days ago) and they looked perfectly fine. Today I went to check on everything, and somehow in the last 36 hours, my potatoes and green beans have managed to become mostly dead. According to Miracle Max, there is a big difference between mostly dead and all dead, but I'm pretty sure there is no hope for these guys. Every single plant is now filled with wilted brown leaves, and some of the plants have collapsed and are on their way to becoming compost. Those would be the potatoes in the picture on the left and the beans on the right. What on earth could I have done to cause this? I watered them, I did my best to keep them weed-free, I loved them, what more is there? I might as well just hang up my gardening gloves for good. Strangely, the tomatoes and spinach still look great. (Well, as great as the spinach ever looked.)

Emma and I swam in her pool today. There wasn't much swimming going on, due to lack of space, but we still had fun. I want to get a pool like this one, but Steve is reluctant because he's worried about killing the grass. I think his exact words were, "There is no way. Ever." We'll see about that, I suppose.

Tonight we got bought some really good coffee at World Market. We wanted to try it out, so I went ahead and brewed some. I only had one cup, because I was worried about it keeping me awake. When I was younger, caffeine had no effect on me. A few years ago, my brother and I had a bunch of time to waste at a hospital, and, to prove my amazing caffeine tolerance, I promised him I would drink ten cups of coffee in thirty minutes. I did and, to his amazement, was completely unfazed. Apparently I have lost that completely useless skill, because I'm practically bouncing off the walls now. This is unfortunate because it's almost 1:00 now and we're getting up early tomorrow to go pick strawberries. At least I'll have good coffee to drink in the morning!

Last night went really well, considering I'm trying to change what is a lifelong habit for Emma. She woke up when Steve and I came to bed, and of course wanted to nurse. When I wouldn't let her, she cried inconsolably for about five minutes, which was really hard for me (not to mention her!). I felt like, after always teaching her that she can trust me, I turned my back on her and confused her. I didn't really turn my back on her, of course, because I was holding her and trying to soothe her the whole time, but I still felt terrible. Anyway, after crying for a few minutes, she said she was hungry. I went and sliced up an apple for her. She sat in bed and ate it, then laid down, cuddled up to Steve, and went to sleep. This is crazy because, no matter how much she adores Steve during the day, she wants nothing to do with him at night. Ever. I know he was thrilled that she was finally cuddling with him at night, and I know I was thrilled because I had a little space to myself. After that, she woke up four more times during the night. When she couldn't nurse, she cried for a minute the first time. The other times, she asked to nurse, I told her we'd nurse in the morning and just cuddle for now instead, and she just went back to sleep! Amazing! I am so relieved that she's taking it this well!

I finished another sock yesterday. Yeah, that's right - one sock. I'm going to learn the two socks on two circular needles method before I knit anymore socks. I have a bunch of lonely single unmatching socks piling up, and no desire to ever knit matches for any of them. I do like the way this last one turned out. I dyed the yarn myself, and at first I was annoyed that the brown color was so streaky, but I think it turned out okay.

I have some stupid spyware on my computer and it's driving me crazy. Every time I open Firefox, some Internet Explorer pop-up ad comes up. In the past two days I've downloaded SpyBot, ADV, SpyDoctor, AdAware, and Yahoo AntiSpy and none of them have gotten rid of it! ADV found it, and acts like it's getting rid of it, but then it pops up again as soon as I open Firefox. Gah!

It is thundering like crazy here and starting to rain. I love thunderstorms, but I feel sorry for anyone who is trying to have Memorial Day parties or picnics today.

So I have my blogs I read every day, and I'm always checking my email, plus there are a couple forums I frequent. Those things pretty much take up all my computer time. However, I have just discovered two new things that are going to force me to eke out some more time spent in this chair: cooking blogs and crafting blogs. I am so impressed and inspired by what these people, most of whom are mothers, can accomplish. How could you look at this or this or this or this and not be inspired to go create beautiful things and cook fancy, delectable meals? I can't. Unfortunately I'm too busy using Emma's naptime to look at other people's beautiful creations to go and make some of my own.

I am going to night wean Emma. I tried doing it back in January, but after two miserable nights of NO sleep, I figured at least some sleep was better than none, and I gave up. By now, I've gotten to the point where I really can't take it anymore. It's not like she wakes up a lot to nurse, she just never stops nursing. There is no down time. Steve said a few days ago, during the night I told him, "If she starts nursing again, I'm going to gouge out my eyeballs." I don't remember saying that, but it's pretty much how I feel. During the night I feel like my body is no longer my own. Both mama and baby need to be satisfied with the nursing relationship, and this has not been working for me for awhile now. Last night at about 4:30 a.m., I really couldn't stand another minute. I tried to give her her binky and explain that we weren't going to nurse anymore. She almost seemed to panic. I literally haven't seen her that upset since the last time I attempted night weaning. After a few minutes, a drink of water, and two plates of grapes, she seemed to calm down. I explained some more that we could nurse in the morning, but that now it was time to sleep. She said, "Nurse sunny outside?". I said that yes, we could nurse when it got sunny outside. She seemed to accept that, because she took her binky, laid down, and closed her eyes. I was SO thrilled, but doubtful that it was really going to be that easy. It wasn't, in fact, because she never went back to sleep. Consequently, we've been up since 4:30 this morning. Ugggg.

Steve's grandpa and step-grandma are in town and are staying at his aunt and uncle's house. We were invited over there for dinner tonight, which was good news for me because I love going over there. They are incredibly nice and fun, they have great wine, and the food is always fabulous. When we were leaving, Steve's aunt jokingly asked Emma if she wanted to move in with them, and I almost yelled, "I do!"

Today Emma and I made this ooey-gooey, terrible-for-you, absolutely insanely delicious cake. I'm thinking about it in the kitchen now, and trying my very hardest to resist. I think I can, I think I can...

Tonight at the aunt and uncle's house, everyone was amused because Emma ate an entire orange pepper and an entire green one - just taking bites out of them like you would an apple. When she turned down ice cream in favor of cherry tomatoes, they were really shocked. I like to tell myself that Emma is not a picky eater because I offer her a variety of healthy foods, but my next kid will probably not want to eat anything and my whole theory will be trashed.

Speaking of food, I guess I am not as strong as I thought. I'm off to eat some cake!

I am way late on this.

G is for Garden.

Here is the garden that Steve built for me last spring.













Here are my potatoes - right now they are my favorite thing in the garden, just because they look so healthy and lucious. They have a newspaper mulch over them, which is saving me lots of weeding time.













Here are the asparagus plants. They have grown into ferns and are hopefully gearing up to produce some big giant asparagus for us next spring. Yesterday I read that, although they are not producing anymore this year, I still need to be carefully watering them and adding compost to ensure a healthy crop next time around. Oops. I am halfway through the process of newspaper mulching them.



















The tomato plants, interspersed with Marigolds to hopefully keep away those nasty tomato hornworms.



















Beans.



















A very, very meager spinach crop.













And, lastly, this lovely barren spot where nothing grows but weeds. I planted some spinach here and failed to get a single sprout. Tried again with carrots - nothing. I should get a soil test to see what the problem is, but I'm going to plant broccoli there first to see if it grows. More than likely, it will probably just be more wasted seeds.

Our sleep schedule is all screwed up again. What with having visitors, and then staying at my mom's, Emma's been going to bed well after midnight and we've been waking up around 11:00. Gah! Why do we naturally gravitate to staying up really late and getting up really late? Why can't we go to bed and wake up at a reasonable hour like the rest of the world? The night we got home Emma went to sleep at 10:00. I thought that was a good sign, but it must have just been sheer exhaustion, because last night didn't go so smoothly. I started to put her to sleep at 9:45. At 11:45, she was still awake and was crying and I was snapping at her. At that point I luckily remembered that that was not the parent I'm trying to be, so I just gave in and let her get up. There was no point in making her miserable and getting mad at her, although it did ruin my plans of finishing my current sock. Here she is at 12:30, way after I would have liked her to be asleep.

The battle against the fruit flies wages on. We've been using the traps and making sure they are not in the sink drain, but they still linger. Steve is making a sport out of killing them, which I am pretty sure he sort of enjoys. I told him I could go downstairs and let some more in, but I guess he doesn't enjoy it that much.

I'm already getting behind with the weeding in the garden, so today that is my top priority. This morning we're going to a program at the library and then meeting some friends at a park, but this afternoon is all about the weeds. Even if we can't seem to win against the fruit flies, I WILL dominate the weeds!

Our trip home was not the best. I always time the trips so Emma will sleep a good chunk of it, and today's drive started off perfectly. She was out, I had a new CD to listen to, and some cut-up fruit to munch on while I drove. About twenty miles in, my car started doing this weird bumpy wobbling thing. I remembered this story about Steve and his brother taking a trip together during which his brother's car spun a bearing, causing one of the wheels to collapse, and sending them careening off the highway. I was certain this was about to happen to us, and I had visions of Emma and myself slamming into a semi. Stopping somewhere would probably have been a waste of time, so I called Steve to warn him that he might never see us again, then we forged ahead. A little while later, we hit the worst thunderstorm in which I have ever driven. Everyone was creeping along at about 5 mph on the highway. I couldn't see a thing out the window, which was exacerbated by the fact that my windows were fogged up and my defroster didn't seem to be working. If I rolled down the windows, I knew the windshield would clear somewhat, but I also knew that water would come pouring in and wake the baby. I never thought I'd purposely wake her on a long drive, but when faced with that or blindly driving into imminent danger, I chose to open the windows. Of course she woke up, and of course one second later the rain stopped and it was the most beautiful sunny day you ever saw. Argh! Towards the end of the trip when I thought she was going to go crazy from being strapped in her seat and I was going to go crazy from all the whining, we stopped at the Gap Outlet. It's amazing how some new clothes can make any situation look better!

On a better note, I found out that my grandparents have one of those compost tumblers I want, AND - they want to give it to me! Woo-hoo! I have to get my mom and dad to visit me soon so they can bring it up with them.

We've had a busy few days. Some family was in town for the weekend, and my grandma and my little brother Peter stayed at our house. While it was great to have them visit, we gave up our bed to my grandma, and it turns out I do NOT like sleeping on the living room floor. Probably any floor, for that matter. It was wonderful to have our own bed back last night - after the floor, it was like sleeping on clouds.

Last night I decided I wanted to drive to St. Louis today. My mom and dad had been in London and Scotland for the past 10 days, so Emma and I went with my brother David to surprise them at the airport. Now Emma and I are here at my mom's house. Emma loves my family and is having way too much fun to go to sleep, but not for lack of trying on my part!

The fruit fly situation is getting worse. Not so much in the house, but in the bin, which is no longer allowed in the house. It's awful. When I get back home, I'm going to call the worm farm and see if they have any advice. If not, the worms are getting dumped in the garden. :( I've been nagging Steve to get a compost tumbler, but so far he's not going for it. I guess I'll just have to step up the nagging a level or two!

The spinach I planted hasn't done too well, but this morning I finally did get to pick some. It was delicious in our scrambled eggs! It's so cool to eat something that I have actually grown myself. Speaking of gardening, last night I was reading The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, and I discovered how totally clueless I was about gardening last year (not that I am any expert this year). We had zucchini plants last year that produced these absolutely huge zucchini. I was really proud of myself for growing such big zucchini, but last night I read that you have to pick zucchini at a certain time, because if you wait too long they get too big, and therefore stringy and tasteless. Oops.

I'm having some trouble with my worm bin. The book I have says that a few fruit flies are to be expected, but my few fruit flies have turned into a swarm. Suddenly there are hundreds of fruit flies surrounding the bin. Ick. Today I took the bin outside, hoping the fruit flies would follow. Unfortunately, they migrated to the kitchen. Double ick. During dinner I had about five fruit flies drown in my iced tea. Lovely. I hope they will all die soon - I suppose I could just set out some iced tea and they will all eventually commit suicide. But what to do with the worms? I'm worried a raccoon or something will get into the bin if I leave it outside. For now, I brought it back in the basement, but I will take it outside again in the morning. I'm sure this is solving exactly nothing.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to get my hair cut and colored. I really have no desire to have my hair colored, but it's part of a gft certificate. I'm not even sure what color to choose, but I'm sure it will look interesting. Even if it looks awful, the couple hours of free ME time will be worth it!

I am feeling guilty about two things today.
1) This afternoon I was carrying Emma down the hall. I was thinking about something else and I banged her poor little head right into the corner of our bookshelf. She bled for awhile, but took the whole thing like a champ. I still felt terrible.

2) Steve went to the grocery store with us the other night and, consequently, we ended up purchasing a bunch of junky crap that I would never buy otherwise. This morning Emma saw the Lucky Charms on the fridge, and I was too lazy to talk her out of them, so that's what she ate for breakfast. I might as well have just given her a bowl full of sugar, preservatives, and dyes. Normally when she wants a snack, she asks for black beans or some kind of fruit. Ever since she ate those darn Lucky Charms, she's only been asking for more of that "pretty cereal".

I want to learn about photography. Every time I start to read books about it, it just seems like a whole lot of trouble and, honestly, really uninteresting reading material. I've been trying to mess around with shutter speed, aperture, and some other stuff on my own camera to get better pictures, but I really have no clue what I'm doing. That's my goal for the next few months - beefing up my photography skills. It's too bad there probably aren't any classes that are child-friendly.

Hopefully I didn't bore you to tears with this incredibly dull post.

I have been trying hard not to pass my ridiculous irrational snake phobia on to Emma. Sunday morning I saw one next to the house and just shrieked a teeny tiny bit. So much so that I think she hardly noticed, which was good. Feeling proud of my braveness, I patted myself on the back for doing such a good job of showing Emma that snakes are nothing to be afraid of. Later in the afternoon, I ventured into the shed to get some flower pots. I was nervous because I had seen a snake in there before, so I stupidly banged on the side before I went in to scare away any slithery intruders. Emma followed me in and messed around with the gardening tools while I looked through the pots. I picked up a stack of them and flipped them over to pull them apart. A freaking snake fell out and landed ON MY FEET! I screamed enough to make myself hoarse and, in my haste to exit the shed, I knocked over all the rakes and shovels. Still screaming, I stumbled over them and they all crashed to the ground. By this point Emma was crying frantically so I grabbed her and carried her out of the shed by her arm. The rest of the day she refused to stand on the ground by herself, whimpering about a big scary snake. So much for her not being afraid of snakes. She did play outside much of the day Monday, and the incident seems to be forgotten, thankfully. I, however, will never again venture into the shed.

Steve is in the middle of three weeks off work, and the housework is seriously suffering. I normally try to do lots of cleaning and laundry when Emma is napping, but now we are using her naptime for more of our intense Scrabble matches.

We have to go pay an unpaid ticket for which Steve is about to be arrested. More later...

Steve and I just finished a really intense game of Scrabble (Could we be any dorkier?). We played this afternoon and I lost. It was a pretty close game so, feeling hungry for a win, I insisted we play again tonight. Final score - Steve, 312 and me, 313! Yes!! Victory is mine!

Tomorrow should be a good Mother's Day, at least until the late afternoon. At that time we are going over to MIL's house, which should effectively ruin the rest of my day. Blah.

I have to get up and water the garden before church, which means I'll be getting about four hours of sleep. Don't ask me why I'm sitting at the computer instead of snuggling into bed. I think I have some weird disorder that makes it difficult for me to tear myself away from the computer at night. The later it is, the more dumb stuff I find to do. Must. Go. To. Bed.

This morning I stopped in at only two garage sales, but still ended up buying Emma more clothes than any one little girl could ever need. I'm so excited about everything I bought, but now I've banned myself from going to any more garage sales this year. If I hadn't done it myself, Steve would have anyway. Emma certainly does not need any more clothes. At least, that's what I'm telling myself so I won't be tempted anymore.

We suddenly have ants in our kitchen. Like, armies and armies of ants. For the last week I've been militant about keeping everything wiped down and crumb-free, yet they are still apparently enticed by something. I have washed the walls, scrubbed the floor, and even cleaned out the insides of my cabinets. Still they are here. What to do?

We had a wonderful time at the Bed and Breakfast. There were a couple fleeting moments when I wished it were just Steve and me, but overall the three of us had lots of fun together.

Ever since Emma's birth, I've felt this all-consuming love for her. From the very first time I saw her sweet little face, my feelings for her have been more intense than any I've felt for another person. Lately, though, she has somehow managed to step it up a bit. She is just SO adorable, and SO sweet, and SO perfect that I feel like I'm going to burst every time I look at her. I've been saying, "Do you want to rock on my shoulder?" a lot lately and she'll come over and cuddle with me for awhile. Today she was pushing her doll around in her little stroller. They went in the kitchen, and a minute later I heard her say in her cute little toddler voice, "Rock on mine shoulder, yittle baby. Rock on mine shoulder." I went to peek at her and she was sitting on the floor, holding the doll to her shoulder and sweetly rocking back and forth. As I watched, she kissed the doll on the top of it's head. When she noticed me watching her, she placed her finger on her lips and said quietly, "Shhhhhhhh. Emma rock yittle baby." Could she possibly be any sweeter? I seriously doubt it. You'd better hope not or you're going to have to deal with more of these sappy, gushing posts.

The three of us have been having so much fun together since Steve's busy season ended. It almost makes me not hate his non-stop working for six months out of the year, because this way we appreciate the time we spend together so much more. Almost, but not quite. Emma adores him and won't leave him alone for a second when he is here. Luckily, he is pretty darn fond of her as well.

She has started calling us by our real names, or "Say-ah" and "Teve". I am amazed at the things she picks up from us. Several weeks ago, I told Steve he had big teeth and jokingly called them horse teeth. It was a 30-second conversation and the whole subject was completely forgotten until last night Emma sat on his lap, pushed up his top lip, and exclaimed, "Horse teeth!".

Another one of her new tricks is unlocking and opening the screen door. This is bad news because I can't leave her alone in the living room for a minute or she's out the door. Today, however, the little escape artist really came through. We were in the backyard and, when we tried to go back inside, I discovered that when had I closed the door, the lock had flipped down, thus locking us out of the house. I was about to call Steve when I realized that (duh) the windows were open. I was able to hoist Emma in through a window, where she then went straight to the screen door and unlocked it!

Tomorrow the three of us are going to stay at a Bed and Breakfast in a nearby town. It should be lots of fun, with hopefully a little romance thrown in! ;)

Remember that old Hungry Hungry Hippos game? I always wanted it when I was a kid, but never got it. When I saw one at a garage sale Friday, I figured I could make my childhood dreams come true, so I bought it. Since then, the three of us have been playing some pretty hard core Hungry Hungry Hippos. Because there is no taking turns (Emma's downfall with other children's games), it works perfectly and hours (and I mean hours) of fun can be had by all. Another good garage sale score - we got a pair of barely-worn Robeez boots for a DOLLAR!

I finally finished the Jaywalker sock! It has the least mistakes of all my knitted socks to date. I can't bring myself to cast on the other one just yet, so who knows when I will actually be showing off a picture of the actual completed pair. Let me just say, don't hold your breath.

Remember how I said I was going to plant all those things this weekend? Well, at this point I have planted exactly zero plants. It's been raining every day for what seems like forever, so our whole garden is a muddy slop hole. Can you plant in saturated soil? I have no idea. I guess I may just have to try it and find out, otherwise my tomatoes, green beans, carrots, sunflowers, pumpkins, and watermelons are going to miss the boat.

I need some knitting advice. You may remember that I'd been knitting a coat for Emma, and I ran out of yarn and ordered some more. I ordered the same colorway, but of course the dye lot was different so I was somewhat concerned that the yarn wouldn't match perfectly. It came on Friday, and was worse than I expected. The yarn in the coat is a light pink, with a few different shades. The yarn I just got is like a solid icky grayish pink color. All I have left to do on the coat is an attached I-Cord all around the edge. I don't really want to use the gray-pink yarn. I could try to find another color (white?) in another yarn, but in the same gauge, and use that, or I already have two other colorways in the same yarn - one pink and peach, one pink with reddish colors (I think I overdid it a little on the pink that day). Any other ideas or advice would be appreciated.

Emma and I just made some whole-wheat cinnamon rolls. Mmmm! They should be finished rising now, so I'm off to pop them in the oven and play a few rounds of (what else?) Hungry Hungry Hippos while we wait.