batten down the hatches

There's snow a'blowin this way. At lunch today they were saying we should get at least a foot here tomorrow. For now the city is shut down for tomorrow. We'll see if we're able to get out before the weekend, when it'll finally get over freezing.

We vacuumed the house tonight just in case we get stuck without electricity in a dirty house. So that's done.

Pottypalooza continues. She's doing okay and we're still celebrating every success. Today we went through three pairs of panties - not shabby.

My plans tomorrow include playing hard. Hopefully it'll quit blowing long enough for us to get some good pictures.

templatation

I'm tempted to change my template, so I made up a new word for this particular conundrum.

On one hand it's no big deal. Whatever. It's just a template and it's just a blog.

But on the other hand as long as this haiku has been in existence (5 1/2 years - can you believe it?), it's always been green. Of course that was before there were cool options, but even after there were cool options I persevered with plain boring green because it's always been that way and something has to be said for that.

For what? Being stubborn? For a blog that five people read?

(And I truly do appreciate you!)

Back to my templatation... There are options here. There are a whole word of options. I could fiddle with it myself and choose one of the more creative canned templates. This would be a different color and possibly have a different layout (but not much different). This option is free.

Another option is to pay someone to make something genuine-one-of-a-kind-hoity-toity-template. This can get expensive, but I think I could get it for $50-75. I've thought about this option in the past (back in the day when this was a wee little blog), but I've always dismissed this idea quickly because, well, I'm cheap.

However, now the free options (more my budget) are cooler than they were when they changed blogger over to the new system.

Indeed, this is a conundrum that bothers nobody but me. I'm fortunate that this is my biggest concern of the moment. I will continue to templatate (it just doesn't work in that tense) over the weekend.

Only slightly related - I read something this week about how all of the e-books will drastically change the publishing industry. And how in several years they don't think they'll be needing cover art for books anymore. (This makes me more than a little sad.) The thing I read said that an author's logo will be what they are known by, not the cover art. Maybe if I change this whole thing I should come up with a logo, too.

You know, for branding. So that my five readers will know how to find me without my lively green background.

it's been a good run

Dear Jeff Fisher,

Thank you for your time as Titans head coach. We'll never forget you bringing the team from the dingy depths to playoff contenders to Super Bowl participants and being four yards away from a championship. And the Music City Miracle - one of the greatest NFL plays ever - that was all you.

We wish you well. We're sorry things didn't work out the last few years. We were always fans of you and the team. Just so you know - none of this was part of our Titans plan.

We hope the Titans will get better, and we hope that you and your family have good fortune in the future.

Much Love,

The Hater, genderist and Baby

Pottypalooza Update!

Fantastic news! Guess who had zero accidents yesterday?

Guess who wore the same pair of big girl panties the whole day?

Guess who made more than one poo poo in the potty?

Guess who announced that she needed to pee pee?

(for the first time ever)

LLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRR...

(drumroll)

Baby! The routine is starting to stick. I think she's at least learning to "hold it" until she's sitting on the potty. It shouldn't be long before she always announces that it's time to potty.

Incidentally, I didn't have any accidents and wore my same big girl panties the whole day, too.

And when I say "it shouldn't be long" before she announces to us that it's time to potty I mean that will naturally be the next step in potty training, and hopefully it'll happen sooner instead of later. But in the scheme of things it really won't be that long...

big fat bummer

It's been a good weekend. Here are some highlights:

• Pottypalooza continues. Today was better than yesterday. We wised up and started pairing her big girl panties with the rubber/plastic bloomers for much easier clean-ups.
• Finished another baby hat this weekend. I heard that one of the nurses I know at work has a grandbaby who was born early - weighing in at 1# 5 oz. I knew I had some blue/green verigated yarn, so I thought I'd make them a hat. It was the same kind of yarn as the last one that's not the same width the whole time. I did exactly the same thing on my loom and it ended up bigger than the others. Not too big to send to the Caps for Good campaign, but too big for this particular baby:
• 
• Baby is getting a cold. She's been snotty and run a low-grade temp, coughing in her sleep (with the humidifier running). I thought we'd be good parents and used the bulb syringe in her nose about an hour and a half after a snack, which should've been plenty of time for the food to move from her stomach. I sucked so efficiently that she started gagging and threw up not only the snack from an hour and a half previously (banana and watered down juice) but also some breakfast (grapes and mixed grain cereal). We were both covered in vomit, which is a really bad bummer because it made us lose an extra pair of plastic bloomers and not to pee! I stripped us both and we jumped in the shower which was fast and traumatic. We didn't suck her nose again today.
• The dryer died. We're hoping it's the heating element in it. So when Baby went down for her nap I took two washed loads to a wishy washy to dry. The Hater is currently out taking two more loads to dry (including Baby's many accident panties and our throw-up wardrobes). Call in to the powers that be about the dryer - we're hoping it'll be fixed very soon and that it is something as easy (and inexpensive) as the heating thing. If it's too much more complicated (or expensive) than that we'll opt for a new dryer and say goodbye to our plans for a real vacation this summer. (That would be my first real vacation since the c-bomb hit. Or really my first real vacation since our honeymoon. So please keep your fingers crossed that it'll be a cheap and easy fix because if it's not I'll end up grumpy.)
• Baby is learning to play hide and go seek. She's starting to get the concept and loves to play, so long as someone is hiding with her and looking for the other person with her. She gets so excited to play.
• The theme song for the weekend has been "C is for Cookie". She has loved singing it over and over and over. I've watched all of the related videos at the Sesame Street page and after looking at them several dozen times I'm sure that I like the remake better than the original (gasp). The Candice Bergen skit was a nice attempt, but I'm sadly disappointed that the comedienne didn't ham it up better than that.
• I made a new carrot soup recipe and spiced it with Indian spices. It was good, but was so hot it made my nose run. The Hater liked it, too. It made a huge pot, so we've frozen some back to share when we have guests again. The Hater made salmon croquettes for supper and I baked sweet potatoes with them. Baby ate some leftover tuna and went goo-goo-ga-ga over the sweet potatoes. Yay! A vegetable! She's not eaten much lately, but she ate well for me all weekend (which really surprised me since we could tell she's feeling cruddy).
• We read lots of stories and spent lots and lots of time on the potty.
• Tomorrow we send her to day care in pull-ups. I hate it, but I hate the idea of taking a load of laundry to the wishy washy to dry every night this week even more.

I'm sure there were other exciting things that happened, but they're not coming to me right now. Probably because I missed my afternoon nap. I'll have to make up for that next weekend.

with pom-poms, no less

I finished baby hat #2 yesterday and the pink baby doll was eager to model again. I made it the same way as the first one on the circle loom, but this time I used a different yarn and it ended up a little bit bigger. I thought it'd be too big, but then it fit pink baby just fine, so I'm thinking it'll be okay. I also made two little pom-poms to dangle from the top. Super cute.

Even The Hater thought the pom-poms were adorable.

Pottypalooza update: The Hater stayed home today with Baby because his work was cancelled because of the ice storm. They had several potty successes. The day's total is 4 pee pees in the potty and one poo poo in the potty, plus 3 accidents. The Hater was Super Daddy today!

One of yesterday's pee pee accidents on the mat.

Please notice how the pee pools between the cushions - so fun to clean!