I Just Can't Win

The sleep gods are toying with me. I know pregnant women tire easily. I know I can expect some sleep disturbances. But it seems that no matter what I do, I'm still exhausted.

Part of the problem is that I tend to stay up later than I should. So last night, when I started feeling sleepy around 8:00, I went to bed. I relaxed and read until James came in at 10, and we turned off the lights. This is good for us, since lately it's been closer to midnight or later.

But then I was wide awake. We talked some, then I tossed and turned and dozed intermittently until 1:30. Then I woke up every couple hours. Of course I started to settle into a good sleep right about the time I needed to get up. I still made it to work pretty close to on time, though.

So I'm wondering how to approach tonight. Can I force my body into a better sleep routine? I sleep pretty well with Tylenol PM, but it usually makes it harder to get up in the morning. Maybe if I take it earlier....

Anyone have any suggestions?

More Birdies

I totally dig these mobiles. I found them here, and there are more cool designs in both mobiles and jewelry. I don't particularly like their prices, but I love the crisp silhouettes and the not-too-cutesy design.

I've been admiring the intricately cut paper designs on angry chicken and other sites (check out this tutorial, which I found via curbly), and I've been thinking about doing some myself. I know plagiarism is bad, but if I'm not going to sell it, could I get away with copying one for myself? I don't think I want to cut through museum mat board like these, but maybe heavy black paper matted and framed? Or some other easier-to-cut material stabilized somehow?

I don't think I'm going to start on these anytime soon, but they're definitely on my list.

Birdies and More

This was a crafty weekend for me. Here are the fruits of my labors.

Birdies
These are the felt birdies for the mobile I'm making. James will make the frame, and we'll hang it from the ceiling rather than try to attach it to the crib.

Once we get it put together I may add some felt foliage to the center to give it more punch. But it might be fine with just the birds. We'll see.

I did the embroidery and beading freehand, so it's not always symmetrical or well laid-out. (These are the "good sides" of the birds--the other sides aren't as pretty.) I had the hardest time finding the right fabric for the red bird's wings. I still don't love it, but it coordinates with the other birds and I'm ready to be done with the project.

Tie-Dye
I had the holiday off yesterday, so I decided to do some dying while James was at work. He tends to get stressed out when I undertake complicated and potentially messy projects like this, so I thought it best to get most of it done while he was gone. (I tend to jump into things without figuring out all the details first, and he's very much a details person.) So he was happy to help when he got home and I was halfway done and had a better idea of what I was doing.

I dyed my diaper bag (no, I didn't make it) and nine onesies:
The colors are a little brighter than in this photo. I'm really pleased with how they turned out. My favorite is the dark blue one with stripy arms. It was one of the last I did, and I got that effect by using tiny clear hair elastics, the kind I would use to tie off the end of a braid.

I plan to embellish the diaper bag a little bit. I'm planning an appliqué yellow bird on the bottom right corner of the front flap, with maybe some swirly embroidery around it. Now I just have to find the right fabric.

Bibs
These are the fronts of some bibs I'm working on. I dyed the flannel backing for some of them at the same time as the onesies. They're all a little wonky because I haven't ironed them yet, but I just wanted to show you a work-in-progress. I really like the sock monkey fabric. (Pattern is from Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol, aka angry chicken.)


My next project is a "tummy time" play mat. I haven't drawn it out yet, but I have some ideas. It will have a plain quilted (flannel?) center, with "activity" squares around the outside: different textures of fabric (furry, silky, bumpy), a shatterproof mirror, and various dangly things to chew on or make noise with. I'll also have a "crinkly" square, and lots of ribbon "tags" to suck on. I already have a lot of the textured fabric, and I have a bunch of canvas I can back it with. So it's just a matter of laying it out and deciding what goes where. Do any of you moms out there have other suggestions of what could be added? What attracts your babies' attention? I see this as a pre-crawling toy, and I'm assuming he'll be able to grab things and maybe scoot a little. What do you think?

Assorted Photos

Ok, so we bought the digital camera a while ago, thinking it would be easier to share photos that way. But we still aren't great at transferring photos OFF the camera onto the computer in a fairly regular manner. So here are some of my favorite photos from the past year, working backwards chronologically.

Rocker Alice
She had the right outfit and the glazed-over "duuuuuuuuude" expression, but she didn't seem to know what to do with the guitar. She does seem more interested in drums, so maybe we need to encourage her in that direction. Or maybe not. Maybe Susan and Bobby like the relative quiet without a one-girl garage band in their home. We'll see....

Halloween

















Here we are at trunk-or-treat. To the left is James with our other favorite head-banger, Charlie Lewis. To the right you have Eggs and Italian Bacon (pancetta). The mustache makes it Italian for some reason. Costume design by James, of course.

Atlanta
In September we went to Atlanta, Georgia, to see the artist-poet-musician Wild Billy Childish at the Decatur Book Festival. Well, Billy got a kidney infection and skipped out on us, but we still had a good time. Here are a few highlights:

The Margaret Mitchell Museum. The real museum is the apartment where she wrote Gone with the Wind, but across the street is this museum devoted to the movie.









Abdullah the Butcher's House of Ribs and Chinese Food. The name says it all. Abdullah was a professional wrestler who went into the restaurant business. This restaurant isn't far from a Nation of Islam mosque, so when we went in we were the only white folks there with a bunch of men in immaculate suits and women in long headscarves. They were having Chinese food (unfortunately pork ribs aren't halal), and we had the ribs. They weren't that great, and James almost died choking on cornbread, but it makes a fun story regardless.

Bun E. Carlos, James's new favorite dog. He's an Australian labradoodle. Anyway, he was a spaz and had a thing for chewing on my arm. And he liked chasing after sticks but wasn't so keen on bringing them back.

Bun E. is owned by Henry, the man behind Chunklet magazine. Henry is very involved in the Atlanta music scene, and James had had some contact with him online but never in person. So it was good to finally meet him. And his dog.

Stone Mountain. It's this big granite hill outside of Atlanta, and they've carved a memorial to Confederate generals on the side. There are nightly light shows and a theme park of sorts built up around it. We just wanted to get the view, so we rode the sky tram up to the top. It was lovely and peaceful and I loved looking out at all that green.

And don't worry, Moms, James's perch isn't nearly as precarious as it looks. He was perfectly safe. This is my favorite photo from the entire trip.


James's Hair


If any of you have wondered what James's hair would look like all picked out, here you go.

Crater Goddess
Last March we spent my birthday weekend at the Homestead in Midway, Utah. One of the great features of this resort is the "crater," a natural hot spring enclosed in this dome. When it was first discovered, you could access it from the hole in the top. The water level has since dropped considerably, but it's still warm and womb-like. I floated around in the warm water and mist, loving every minute.

It was even mistier inside when we went back the next day for pictures, giving this photo an ethereal effect. James has dubbed it the "crater goddess." I kind of like that.


So those are our recent photos and adventures. I hope you enjoyed them as much as we did. :)

Cloverfield

James and I saw this movie a couple weeks ago, and I'm still thinking about it. I can't say why, exactly, since it's not like it has any deep meaning or anything. But something about it is compelling.

It's your basic monster-attacks-New York movie, with lots of destruction and mass hysteria. (And why do monsters only seem to attack New York? Why not Baltimore or DC or Boston? Or heck, LA or Seattle? Maybe it's because those cities don't have iconic structures for the monster to destroy--only in NY can it rip off the head of the Statue of Liberty and throw it at people. That must be it.) The difference with this movie is that it's all told from the first-person perspective of a small group of friends.

It's very much the "Blair Monster Project," a hand-held camcorder being the only camera. The premise is that a group of friends is having a farewell party for a friend moving to Japan (small nod to Godzilla there), and someone is going around with the camera recording farewell messages when the monster attacks. Another layer is added because the party is being taped over the recording of the Japan guy's weekend with the girl he's loved forever, so every once in a while some of that recording will pop up in the middle of all the monster chaos.

This format makes it so we don't have any real context for the events. The introduction says only that this camera and tape were found in the destruction zone, so we know that Manhattan has been destroyed. We don't get any back-story on the monster or any neat wrap-up at the end. We don't get the standard monster-movie intro where some unlucky extra stumbles upon the monster in its natural habitat and somehow unwittingly brings it back to New York. We don't see the top-secret military project that created/discovered the monster or the asteroid carrying the monster hit the earth. We don't see the president and his advisers arguing over what to do. There's no previously misunderstood expert who comes in and saves the day. So maybe what makes this so interesting is that it's a movie very much embedded in the monster-movie cliche, but it doesn't use most of the cliches within that genre.

Anyway, that's probably way too much analysis for a movie that really isn't that deep. The characters are flat, the plot simple. But maybe that's what keeps me thinking about it--if it's really that shallow, why did I like it so much? That J. J. Abrams is a genius.

Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, there is a little sound byte at the end of the credits that, when you play it backwards, sounds like "It's still alive" or "We're still alive." Apparently it's on YouTube. I can't imagine they'd make a sequel, though.

There Goes My Million-Dollar Idea

Or maybe it was Susan's idea originally. I can't remember. But it was going to be great and make lots of money. And now someone else has made it happen first: http://www.babyplays.com/. (The link was "temporarily unavailable" last I checked, but it did load earlier today.)

The idea is that you can rent baby/kids toys with a system similar to Netflix. I mean, some of these toys and play gyms cost a lot of money, and the kids are only interested for so long. So you shell out the bucks and then have to find a place to store them when your kids aren't interested anymore.

So this idea is brilliant--for a flat fee you can rent four to six toys a month and keep them as long as you like. This lets you try-before-you-buy, or you can keep trading them to keep your toy stash fresh.

It's probably good that this woman started the company instead of me, though, since according to a news article (news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080210/ap_on_hi_te/toy_rental), she's invested quite a bit of money to get this started. More than I could ever muster (or would want to borrow) to start the business. And now I can enjoy the fruits of her labors.

Now I just need to come up with another million-dollar idea....

Something to Think About (and a little self-justification)

I ran across this sentence in a book I'm reading (see left), and it really struck me: "[O]ur lives are not stories, at least in the present tense--we don't passively consume a narrative thread. (We turn our lives into stories after the fact, after the decisions have been made, and the events have unfolded.)" (page 56)

In context the author is using this to justify video games, but it struck me as much more profound. I've been thinking a lot about history lately, and I think this is why there is so much debate and confusion over historical events and narratives. Yes, we may be able to prove that a certain person was at a certain place and did a certain thing. But when it comes to why that person did a certain thing at that time and how it ties into everything else going on at the same time, that's where we get into trouble. Because the person in question doesn't know the bigger picture at the time--that's usually for us to determine and interpret.

Joseph Smith didn't know about the Book of Mormon or Nauvoo or temples or anything when he walked out of the Sacred Grove. Everything came piece by piece until we get to today, when we can look back and see a narrative that didn't exist at the time. It's the same thing with any historical figure or event. Sometimes the people involved write memoirs and create that narrative for us, but even then it's their interpretation of the events after the fact--another participant will have a different point of view. As one friend pointed out, when it comes to history, there are very few "facts."

And it made me think about my own life, what my narrative will be. Right now I can see how certain events led to decisions and my current life path, but I certainly didn't know it at the time. I have imagined the rest of my story, but I have no idea what lies before me. And I have to say, if anyone were writing/reading a minute-by-minute account of my life these days, it would be incredibly boring. Should I try to make it more interesting? Is there more I want to do with my time before it passes?

Ok, enough pondering. On to self-justification. Later in the same book (page 119), the author is talking about blogging and online diaries: "[T]he screen is not just something you manipulate, but something you project your identity onto, a place to work through the story of your life as it unfolds." I like that.

Tiny Kicks

Last night was a first: James felt the baby kick. We were both pretty excited. I don't know if this means he liked the stir-fry we had for dinner or that he didn't like it. Or maybe he was just bored. Who knows. I've been feeling him move around more, but he's never kicked that hard before. I swear you could see my pants move. I'm looking forward to interacting with him more as he gets bigger and more active.

I'm feeling pretty good these days, and I'm making progress on the nursery. We've picked out a crib but feel no need to buy it for a while. A friend is lending us her bassinet for the first few months, so he won't need it until the fall. And we don't have much room to store it until then anyway.

We went baby shopping on Saturday, and James got a little traumatized. We went to Babies R Us, which had everything we were looking for and at good prices, but seeing all the other super-fancy overpriced pretentious stuff was just a bit too much for him. His comment: "It's surreal to see this ridiculous $5000 crib and realize that's normal for some people. I'm not saying our baby is better than this, but he's definitely different." I couldn't agree more.

Neither of us is very fond of the standard baby gear, all the lights and noise on the playmats and bouncy chairs, all the pastels and WAY too much blue. And the matching nursery sets and miniature-adult clothes--it all makes me a little ill. There's nothing wrong with these things in moderation, but there isn't much out there to balance it with, nothing that suits our family's personality.

So I've decided to do something about it. I started by buying a bunch of white onesies, and I plan to dye them bright colors. Maybe do some tie-dye, maybe add embroidery or iron-ons. I have plans to make my own mobile of felt birds with wings made of fun fabrics, and in purging my fabric stash, I rediscovered some great fabric for little shorts and even a psychedelic blankie. The problem is, I have to make it all. And I need to get started now before I get too big and uncomfortable to sew. So we'll see if any of this actually happens. But I like knowing I have options.

The Oceanic Six??

Any "Lost" fans out there as curious as I am to find out who the rest of the "Oceanic Six" are? We know three of them: Jack, Kate, and Hurley. Is the person in the coffin at the end of last season one of the six? If so, why didn't anyone else show up? The rumor going around is that the other three are Sayid, Sun, and Jin. But I can't think of a reason no one would go to the funeral if any of those three (or Hurley) died.

And why are there only six? There are rumors that more than six got off the island but only six are known publicly. Did any "others" get rescued? They weren't on the Oceanic flight, so how would they explain who they were and why they were on the island?

So how many people are left on the island? The implication is clearly that more survivors are still there and want to be rescued/need help, but who and how many?

Two more boggling questions from last night's episode: why could Hurley see Jacob, and why could he make the cabin disappear?

*sigh* This writers' strike better end soon so they can film the rest of the episodes slated for this season. I don't know if I can handle a year-long hiatus.

Paying Respects

photo (c) Don Busath

James and I paid our respects to President Gordon B. Hinckley this morning. They had a special "Church employees only" session before the public viewing, so it wasn't too crowded. I hadn't felt too affected by his death, and I didn't expect to be too affected by his viewing. I mean, he's 97 years old, and he gets to be with his dear wife again, so it's not like this is a sad occasion.

But the Spirit there was very tender and sweet. Walking through the main auditorium of the conference center that is so much his legacy was a strangely reverent experience. And then to see him lying there in his temple clothes was moving. But what really got me was a photo they had on display near the exit, a snapshot of him and Marjorie when they were much younger and laughing. I actually cried, and it took me longer than expected to regain my composure.

I can't say exactly why I cried. I wasn't sad, and though I feel great fondness toward him I had no real connection with him. But the whole experience was very tender and sweet. I know I already said that, but I can't find better words for it. It was worth getting up early on a snowy day to go, and I'm really glad we went.

Reigning Champion

I am pleased to report that James has held his title as 11th Ward Chili Cook-off Champion for two years in a row. The competition was tighter this year--more contestants, better chili--but he still pulled it off.

He was originally banned from this year's competition--he does set the bar pretty high--but at the last minute he was asked/invited to compete. His standard is hard to beat because he gets really involved in the process. He doesn't like to eat chili as much as he likes the process of making it.

He makes his own chili powder. He buys several varieties of dried chilies, roasts them, then grinds them to powder. He toasts and grinds whole cumin. He uses premium beef roast, never hamburger. He cooks it slowly for hours, then makes sure to give it time for the flavors to blend.

As the judge put it last year, all the chilies were good, but in all the other chilies you would take a bite and taste tomato or beef or beans or peppers. In James's chili, however, you couldn't necessarily distinguish the different ingredients, but you knew there was a lot going on in there.

If you're interested, the recipe is from Cook's Illustrated. We have The Best Recipe cookbook, but Albertsons is currently selling a checkstand booklet of Cook's Soups and Stews, and the chili recipe is in there. (If anyone wants a copy, email me and I'll send you a PDF.) James made a couple modifications, most notably the addition of red kidney beans, but it's mostly the same.