Organic Mama

As we currently have no home to call our own, things are totally upside-down. The baby and I are still living out of the suitcase of stuff we brought on the plane. Thankfully, the moving truck has been offloaded to a storage unit and we're beginning to bring over a few boxes at a time to figure out what we need for the next month. We marked boxes that would be required right away, but it was too much to bring them over all at once. As it is, my mom's den is inaccessible with piled boxes. I have several things in mind to post about, plus my project updates. But there just aren't enough hours in the day. I will be back to serious posting when the dust has settled just a bit.

We made it. We're there. Moved. Home.

YIPPEEE!!!

I'm busy whipping up another wholesome yet simple post. Let's do lunch.

Wal-mart Eyeing Organics
- The idea of Wal-mart selling organics is a victory with some significant risks for the organic agriculture industry. While there are federal specifications for being classified as organic (which can include the places that sell organic food), what happens when suppliers can't meet demand quickly enough? The article does a good job summarizing the issues.

Museum of Kitschy Stitches
- File this one under "F" for Fucking Hilarious. (Yeah, I swear a lot, so sue me). I will be adding this to the sidebar momentarily.

Garrison Keillor Is My Hero
- I must be having a more cynical day than most, because this article, which I found through Booksquare is totally hitting the spot. I adore Mr. Keillor, which means I'll need to start reading his fiction again.

That's all here folks. See ya next week. Oh yeah, and if things are really sparse for a couple weeks, then remember I'm flying out on Thursday (HOME!) and will be w/o hubby until the following Monday. We're Moving! We're Moving! Yippee!

(And then again, moving might give me LOTS to post about. We'll see.)

Heya folks, I found another interesting meme to do. Rachel at Milkbreath and Me put this one up on Monday, so I'm a little late in getting to it. Here are the rules: "Post a comment, I'll give you a letter, then write 10 things starting with that, explaining why." Any questions?

I got "T".

1.) Tweeze: This is something I rarely get a chance to do, and when I try the Chaos Machine, a.k.a. my kid, decides he MUST HAVE THE TWEEZERS RIGHT FRIGGIN' NOW. Thusly, I've had a uni-brow for a year and a half.

2.) Twins: My nightmare of kid-dom. I don't know how I got stuck on the idea, but every time I think things are totally nuts with Little J, I remember that it coulda been worse - he coulda been twins.

3.) Tan: Something I get to have while living on the East Coast, and something that will never happen ever again after moving back to the extremely damp Puget Sound Area.

4.) Toilet: A place that someday, god willing, I will get to go ALONE.

5.) TV: A crutch, my saving grace, and our decompression time all wrapped in one expensive, shiny, silver plastic box.

6.) Time: Because I need more of it. Preferably more of it to myself now and again.

7.) Two: The age at which I hope to wean my kid.

8.) Three: The age at which my kid will probably be ready to wean.

9.) Twenty-eight: The age at which I will stop teasing my kid for being such a boob-junkie. Also the age at which I will let my son start dating and possibly move out of the house.

10.) Twenty-nine: The age I am right now, and will always be. From here on out it's just anniversaries of my 29th birthday.

Oh darn, there's no room for me to put "Thirty" on this list. Gosh, there's a surprise.

I made it through six skeins (minus a tiny bit) on the felted shoulder bag. It was gi-normous pre-felt. It was gi-normous post-felt. This is the absolutely the LAST time I do anything without a pattern. Well, okay, the varsity sweater will technically be the last, but I'm patterning it after something I already own. Hubbo called the black felted monster a duffle bag. And no pics because the camera is in the car and nobody can be bothered to go get it out.

I'm knitting the shoulder strap for the bag and I already have two solutions in mind:

a.) I leave it really long (and sorta skinny), fold it over and make two places to tie in the shoulder strap so I can unfold the bag if I need a bigger one

Or

b.) I cut the bag in half, sew up the top half and use it as a shoulder bag and the bottom half as a (really fraggin' expensive) yarn basket.

As I have a cold and no energy to think, I'm lifting this list from Danielle at A Work In Progress. And just who do you think YOU are?

Bibliobibule--One who reads too much
Biblioclast--One who tears the pages from or otherwise destroys books
Bibliodemon--A book fiend or demon
Bibliognoste--One who is knowledgeable about editions, colophons, printers, and all the minutiae of books
Bibliographe--One who describes books
Biblioklept--One who steals books
Bibliolater--One who worships books
Bibliolestes--A book robber or plunderer
Bibliomancer--One who practices divination by books
Bibliomane--One who accumulates books indiscriminately
Bibliomaniac--A book lover gone mad
Bibliophage--One who eats or devours books
Bibliophile--One who loves books
Bibliophobe--One who fears books
Bibiliopole--One who sells books
Biblioriptos--One who throws books around
Bibliosopher--One who gains wisdom from books
Bibliotaphe--One who buries or hides books

I think I'd be a bibliomane (and I can say for a fact that Big J is as well), a bibliophile and hopefully I'm also a bibliosopher. At an earlier point in my life I could've added a bibliobibule to the list as well, but alas, the only thing I get too much of is The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Sandra Boynton books.

I have been working on a knit black shoulder bag since Christmas (2005, thankfully not earlier). Since it will eventually be felted, the knitting is taking a nightmarish amount of time. Much like that blanket I made for my sis's baby, actually. It's knitting in the round, so no counting, no variety, nothing to break the monotony except tying in another skein. Six skeins so far - times 190 yards - that's nearly twelve hunderd yards of black wool - times three feet - which is nearly a half a mile of yarn. The ends of my fingers get raw just thinking about it. I've done the entire thing without a pattern, just making it up as I go and hoping my estimates turn out alright.

Doing things the hard way - that's my motto.

Speaking of no pattern, the varsity sweater for Little J is shaping up nicely, though with a few regrets. I sewed the first finished arm together to see if it might work. It gets a passing grade, so now I'm going to work on the back piece and sew one whole side together to try on the munchers. This is my quickie project compared to the shoulder bag, so I switch over to get a break and let my poor fingertips rest. I just hope he can wear it for more than a week!

Nearly everything about being a parent is great, and the things that aren't so wonderful have their benefits down the road. I can be philosophical about the parts of my life that have changed in ways I don't necessarily enjoy 100%. I can also see how the things I made decisions about - like no TV or sugar - before Little J was born were made out of total ignorance. There is one thing, rather a small matter, but it hasn't changed one iota since having a baby. I dread have a house and yard full of plastic, primary-colored toys. Because? They're gaudy, cheap looking, and a disposable symptom of a super-consumer society. Yech.

So when we got to Toys R Us to look at things for the bubba, and he gravitates toward outdoor things like slides, swings, sand boxes and playhouses, I inwardly cringe because I know eventually we'll have our own personal collection of this stuff and we'll never get our money's worth out of it. Step 2, while being one of the biggest offenders in the ultra-plastic department, seems to have gotten a clue and made outside toys for nutty people like me.

Intorducing the Naturally Playful line of kids toys. We fell for it hook line and sinker (but not pocket book) today. The little Storybook Cottage was what really reeled us in at the store. I think it appealed to the Fantasy geek in both hubbo and I. There was a little matching sandbox that looked like it was made out of stone, too.

If I was really going for a not-cheap-and-plastic look, I'd think about a way to get this. However, the thing I keep coming up against is how do I justify all this money for something that will only a get a few years' use before Little J outgrows it? I can't guarantee that there will be another addition to the family that isn't furry and four-legged, either. Thus we're back to the thing that is easier on the budget: petrol-based (though no longer just brightly colored!). The road to debating the merits of children's toys is circuitous route, at least for me.

Eventually, with the price of a barrel of oil finally driving the price of petrolium to a normal (if heart-stopping) rate in this our fair America, children's plastic toys may start rival the wooden models in price range. By then, it might be possible that we've devised some more effective ways of recycling plastic so the content of plastic toys will be more enviro-friendly as well. Buying plastic toys for my child will always be something that I am skeptical about, even if things shape up a bit more to my preferred lifestyle. And for the time being, we won't be making any major purchases until we're settled back in our own place out West. But it is fun to look.

Chris Eccleston, the esteemed ninth doctor, has just announced that he will be starring as #6 on a remake of a show from the 60's called The Prisoner.

FUCKING RAT BASTARD!!!!

He is, was and always will be my favorite doctor, but I'm really pissed that he's coming back to doing television after using the intensity of filming for a TV series as his excuse to leave Doctor Who. Yes, I'm being ridiculous on so many levels, but..but...

Oh, foo.

Back in Seattle, I was friends with a married couple that had been together since they were like, twenty-one and nineteen or something crazy like that. The last few times I hung out with them before I left for the East Coast, the question of whether or not to have a baby was being bandied about rather heavily. I have since lost contact with them, so I don't know the outcome of their debate. I do remember quite clearly the husband's reason for waiting: he wasn't ready, i.e. he didn't feel grown-up enough. Can any of us ever be totally ready?

I do wonder at the element of chance that is involved for most people when it comes to having babies. For starters, there are those of us that comprise the "oops" crowd: Big J and I certainly didn't intend to be six months gone on our wedding day. Pretty much everyone I know who has children is also in this group. Then there are people who plan it, the people who put it off, the people who plan not to do it, and there might actually be a few people who don't bother to give it any thought at all. The problem is that you can start off in one of these groups (I have planned my whole life to have babies, but wasn't planning to have Little J when I did) and wind up someplace completely different. And it changes from one pregnancy to the next.

More specifically, I wonder at how all this possibility affects women. There are so many reasons now to put it off: career, education, spouse, lack of spouse, lack of maturity, lack of funds or health insurance or stability. Obviously, there are a lot of folks who don't take any of this into consideration, or aren't in the mindset at all when making the coital decisions that lead to the "oops". But because a baby can completely derail all our well-laid plans, shouldn't we be thinking about it and helping our daughters think about it from the moment we begin menses? I'm going down a more serious path than I meant to oringinally, but my interest remains. The universe seems such a fickle and flighty thing, so can any of us really "plan" to have children?

How about all of you? What are your stories? I'm really curious to hear what has motivated other people to make the choices they have, so feel free to go on. And what do you think of this whole element of "maybe" involved?

One of my biggest complaints about living in the South (yes, this is going to be THAT kind of post) is how sincerely unhelpfull people are. There is a lot of blustering about "don't worry, we'll take care of you", but it doesn't inspire confidence when that statement isn't accompanied by any details or a game plan. It doesn't matter to me what you say you'll do, because if you don't follow through then what you say is worthless.

For example, I have some very serious dental work that needs to be done, but we've run out of time here. The work will have to wait, but the dentist I was seeing offered to call in a prescription for antibiotics in case something went awry in the next few weeks. Last weekend, I sent Big J to pick up the scrips and the pharmacist had NO RECORD of anything for me. This morning, I called the dentist to find out what had happened, and they don't have any notes on the business past the last time I was in their office. They tell me they'll call it in today, but will they really?

Then I called the Uhaul place to find out what they had on hand for moving supplies and how to get there. The person who answered the phone couldn't give me directions and could barely locate the MAJOR HIGHWAY that I'd be coming in on. Yikes. At least he could tell me which boxes they had.

This last bit about not being able to give directions is the weirdest part, in my opinion. I've had delivery people calling me to drop things off at my house but they needed to get directions. DELIVERY PEOPLE. A.)Get a job you can actually do. B.)Get a FUCKING map!

In terms of how this affects our move, I'm just that much more ready to leave. Two weeks from today, I'll be finished with this place except for the occasional holiday visit. I can't wait to be HOME.

Dear Reader, let me preface this next bit with an acknowledgment of sorts: I don't like TV for its vacuous nature and addictive qualities. I have a problem tearing myself away from it, so we don't have cable or satellite. That said, there are a few shows we do watch, obtained through various means: Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, Desparate Housewives, Doctor Who, and Lost. I seldom feel compelled to talk about what we've watched outside of post-game wrap-up with hubbo, so don't expect regular TV posts on this blog. There will be times, as with everything, where I actually feel like discussing parts of episodes, though, so if you aren't a TV person, please bear with.

Watching the latest installment of Desparate Housewives last night, I began to wonder just who is being parodied in the bit about Bree's sex-addict lust object. Background: Bree offered to be her "boyfriend's" sponsor for S.A.A., or Sex Addicts Anonymous. Now, I'm no expert on sex addiction, but the scene where he calls Bree to come pick him up because he was "in trouble" just made me laugh. The "orgy" Bree comes to rescue him from is quite a joke, if you ask me. I've never been a participant, but after reading Carol Queen's Real Live Nude Girl, I think sex addiction might involve something more depraved than a few feathered masks and a topless host. That isn't to suggest that Queen's book is an encyclopedia depravica, but it has a few chapters dedicated to a realistic depiction of positive sexuality in a group scene. Granted, we're talking about prime time Sunday-night airing, so there wasn't going to be any greasy, sweaty, grinding and hollering depicted in the show either. I just wonder if the writers aren't actually trying to make Bree and her "boyfriend" look ridiculous, compared to oh say, the don't-take-my-baby scene at the end.

I haven't done a meme in such a long time, and I keep seeing interesting book ones on A Work In Progress, so I thought I might give it a shot.

Review the following list of books. Boldface the books you've read, italicize those you might read, cross out the ones you won’t, put an asterisk beside the ones on your bookshelves, and place brackets around the ones you’ve never even heard of.

* The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
* The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman)
* Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J. K. Rowling)
* The Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story (George Orwell)
* Catch 22 (Joseph Heller)
* The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Mark Haddon)
Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
* 1984 (George Orwell)
* Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J. K. Rowling)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
* Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
The Secret History (Donna Tartt)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)
Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)
Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell)
* Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
* Atonement (Ian McEwan)
The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)
* The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)
* Dune (Frank Herbert)
Sula (Toni Morrison)
Cold Mountain (Charles Frazier)
The Alchemist (Paulo Coehlo)
White Teeth (Zadie Smith)
* The House of Mirth (Edith Wharton)

Why in the world would I say I'd never read a book? EVERYTHING changes, that is my only constant. Also, it is interesting to me that these lists try to cover a generality of genres and canonization. But what do they really tell us?

Knitting

I had a realization that I wanted to relay quickly before I talked about what I actually got done today, and I think it will mark a bit of relief for those of you who read but don't have any interest in yarn. I love talking about my projects, but if I post something every stinkin' time I finish a pair of booties or a crocheted baby blanket, then I'll be dedicating a lot of time to saying very little. None of us want that.

I never did get a good picture of those felted booties because they were a gift for my neighbor and I took them over when the opp presented itself. However, I have since knitted another pair in a smaller size - that pattern is fabulous and the making of them just whips by - and hope to get a photo this time. I've also moved onto the fifth (or sixth?) skein on the felted shoulder bag. I'm losing count, and the thing still isn't nearly long enough to put a bottom on. It is a very good thing the Brown Sheep Co. does a good match on their black dye lots. I've also restarted a sweater project that was plagueing me a while back. I have a cotton sweater for Little J that was totally wonderful all winter, but has since become too small. So I decided to reinvent the wheel - or pattern it out - instead of buying a new one. So far, the second attempt is looking much better. I'm working on the front left panel, and I've changed from Carolina blue in the ribbing to off white for the body with a cute little cable on the inside edge. I love these smaller projects for sense of accomplishment.

The House, or Packing

Big J's dad came over today to play with Little J while I tried to get some things taken care of. Since we've never attempted this arrangement before, and since I am not on the easiest of terms with Big J's parents, I was therefore a bit nervous. Everything turned out quite well: they played together inside and out, read books, and had a snack. All of three hours went by without Little J freaking out or melting down. Okay, that made my kid sound way higher strung than he is. However, his usual M.O. if I'm not focused on him 24/7 is to fly off the handle at some point out of sheer frustration. At the end of the day I still had energy (holy cow!) AND I worked had fewer dirty dishes and several more packed boxes. Now I'm left wondering why we didn't attempt this before!

Blogging

I'm deleting a post, so in answer to Lorna's question: try this website for the Marble yarn. It's a company based out of the UK, but at least you'll get the look of it and can find it locally. I've used the Moss, and have several skeins of Berries in my stash. Good stuff for being petrol based.

Dorian, sorry for deleting your comment and link.

I have been trying to get time in to read the blogs I've got running into my RSS feed, but I find myself scanning and not having the patience to comment most of the time. Too many priorities to juggle, I'm afraid. So I'm a lurker for the mo' unless I feeling totally compelled to say something. I suppose that should be the way it is anyway, right?

As for keeping up appearances - I want to but can't seem to find the time to tweak. And I think just getting a post a day is a good enough goal for right now.


The Kid

Little J is earning the moniker "Terry Dactyl". BF's mom coined it about Little G, my nephew, who adopted the high-pitched shriek around twelve months when he wanted but wasn't getting. The face and body language that accompanies the shriek for LJ makes me shake with laughter - but that probably isn't good parenting, is it. It must all be part of the new language acquisition phase we're going through because in the last week LJ has added the sign for "please" to his bag of tricks, as well as a couple of attempts at the sign for "help", and "teetee" for kitty. This evening he even sounded like he was repeating "door" as he opened and shut the back door. I love watching him pick things up on a daily basis! His little sponge brain really knocks me over.

I also have a couple funny asides if you've got the time:

1. I accidentally bought a dried veggie mix that was spicy and fed it to him without realizing. Instead of wigging, he likes it and stands at the pantry door asking for it. Today, he ate it until he was gagging and pulling on his tongue but wouldn't relinquish the snack trap.

2. We've been working on saying "please" both as a word and a sign, and twice now when I've asked him to say it and showed him how to sign it at the same time, he's gone to the refrigerator and asked for cheese. (He also uses the sign for more in some random ways, so maybe I'm doing something wrong.)

I wanted to say sorry to Dave for being so harsh at the end of that last post. Dave, you can give me grief any time. I've been worrying about it since I wrote the words. By way of expalaining myself, I want to talk about my relationship with my dad. Oh yeah, another sob story about how "my dad didn't love me enough, blah, blah blah". Actually, not the case.

My father is a bit of a critic, and not the constructive kind. I cannot remember him praising me for anything, ever. I definitely worked hard in the hopes that I might do well enough to make him like me, but nothing seemed to break that barrier. I have called him on it since growing up, and he says he just didn't want us kids to get to attached to what other people thought of us. I don't know exactly what bullshit gave him that idea, though I could manage a rough guess, but I'm here to testify that it worked to exactly the opposite effect on me. I have taken much of what happened in my own childhood and made some rough estimates of my own about what I DO NOT EVER want to happen in my own child-rearing experience. However, my interaction with my father has left me with a heavy-duty critical side as well (as my poor-hen-pecked hubbo can relate) as well as a GIGANTIMOUS sensitivity to anything resembling disapproval or criticism from others (esp. men). And wacky hijinx ensue.

There you have it, Dave. I think I might have 'splained this one to you before in my previous blogger incarnation. Sorry again for being rude.