braids and baby and britain

i figured out how to do my hair up in milk maid braids. by "figure out" i mean, of course, youtube. hooray youtube!

the best thing about this hairstyle is that while it keeps my hair up and out of the way, it doesn't tire my scalp out. you know how if you wear a ponytail all day, or a bun, by the end of the day your head is like, "shit man, take this thing DOWN?" for whatever reason, these braids don't do that. i love that.  i love it so much. i've been doing my hair like this a lot lately, and i don't see it slowing down any time soon.  for one thing: summer is coming and when it's hot, i hate my hair. for another thing, i'm definitely going through a i-want-to-cut-it-all-off phase.  up and out of the way is just what the hair doctor ordered.

i have already bought like three different fabrics for my sister's new baby quilt.  this is the one i think is winning, though. those little red riding hoods just kill me. plus, the tiny bees match the fabric my sister picked out with my mom for the quilt mom is going to make her. this will come as a huge surprise, but this is an improvised quilt.  i started with some stacks of wonky squares and filler fabric, and am just going to town. i've been listening to a lot of elliott smith while working on it, because it's one of my and my sister's favorite singers.

there is so much to tell you!

but it's all kind of minor, random stuff, so you get to hear about it in list format. ready? here we go:

• i took maggie to her first drive-in movie, at oak harbor's blue fox drive in. i have been to this drive in many, many times. as a teenager, i spent a lot of time necking in the backseat of cars there, as well as drinking disgusting alcoholic concoctions and smoking joints. my night with maggie was much more tame. we saw wall*e, which was very cute, and surprisingly enough, she stayed awake through the whole thing. of course, she was dead to the world seconds after we pulled out of the driveway. i think she had fun; drive-ins are nice for kids because you can talk and wiggle and even get out and run around and no one complains. it was a pretty inexpensive night as well, so i think we'll be going again.
• the next day we hit up the north whidbey lion's club car show (slideshow here!). it was crazy rainy, as in, totally down pouring, so i bundled mag up and we wandered around for a while before packing it in. i didn't get to take many photos, i was busy wrangling the stroller through wet grass and mud, and the light was bad anyhow. maggie liked the cars, though. a little rain didn't ruin it for her at all. she was very pleased, and had a good time looking around.
• it was inventory time last night. we did a weird shift, midnight to 8 a.m. the inventory itself went really well, although i spent the rest of today sleeping and napping and snoozing. truth be told, i pissed today away. i have higher hopes for tomorrow!
  
• my camping trip is coming up, and i'm getting more and more excited! i want to take maggie with me, but i'm feeling like my sister is going to change her mind. that might be okay; i'll be sad not to bring her, but truthfully, she'll probably be easier to take next year. my weekend with her was great, but had some challenging moments. maggie just learned how to pull hair when she is unhappy, and the yelling and pinching is also not so fun. she's just pushing boundaries and testing me, i know, and it didn't take long for her to realize i wasn't going to budge, but we probably all need to get on the same page as far as her discipline goes.
  
• tiernan turns five any second now! i can't believe how big he is, how grown up my little man is getting. i need to find him the perfect present, five is kind of a big deal.
  
• did i mention the camping? jeez, i can hardly wait. we're going here, which means i need to get my ass in gear and get a new swimsuit. i'm excited about being out in the woods for a few days, with my friends, drinking beer and playing with the kids, swimming and goofing off. i bought my pocket farkle months ago, i am ready for this trip.
• i've been working on my knit christmas presents. i know it sounds early, but i'm actually sort of behind. i need to get on with it!
  

tomorrow i plan on cleaning my room, doing laundry and going the library. i know, my life is so exciting, but it should be a fun day.

your mama was a monkey

going to the zoo today with my favorite little monkey! it will either be super fun, or mostly fun with a chance of one or two meltdowns. we're at that age, you know. here is a short list of things maggie does now that crack me up:

• when you say "maggie!" to get her attention she yells back "what-ie?"
  
• she will admit when she is feeling rotten. this is useful information, but it's hard for me to keep a straight face. i know that my job is to remain impassive and stern when she's being a tiny jerk, but sometimes she has that look on her face; that sparkly, ha-ha twinkle, and i break. i am a weak auntie.
• she grinds her teeth and talks in her sleep like the rest of us.
• it's retarded and i know soon we're going to have to crack down on it, but she's still hellen keller at the dinner table. we make her a plate of her own, but she never eats off it. instead she travels from lap to lap, taking what she wants and giving you that little shit-eating grin.
  

the fact is, she knows she's cute, she knowns we adore her, and she's doing her damnedest to get away with murder.

off to the zoo! i'll take photos of your mom while i'm there.

things i love about baby

part one million and two:

• she says "bless you" now when you sneeze. and she says it very seriously, with her little hand on your arm.
  
• she calls spongebob "sponge-in."
  
• when she wakes up in the morning she comes and finds me, and crawls under the blankets with me on the couch and cuddles.
• she lets me play drums on her tummy.
• when i ask her if she's my sweet baby she says "yeah!" like it's the most exciting thing on earth.
• she calls her head her "melon." as in, "ow! i bang my melon!"
  
• when she tries to say her name, margaret, she says "magret." kills me, every time.
  

there are a million more things i love about her, like her tiny hands and the way she's learned how to say please and thank-you, and her general cuddle-y cuteness. she's a fun kid to hang out with, and every time i get to see her i'm glad my sister moved home.

yay for baby!

man, i missed my niece a lot while she was on vacation with her pop. she came into the store yesterday and did a full-on run and hug when she saw me, which just thrilled me to the bone. she was all huggy and kissy and sweet and i gave her a few balloons and we took a walk through the store together. she likes to point at stuff and tell you what color it is, and count stuff, and she does this new little hop or skip thing, it's all stiff-legged and retarded looking but damn it makes her laugh. then she runs and yells "maggie running!" she talks about herself a lot in the third person, which is common for two year olds, right? i vaguely remember tiernan talking about him about that way, although he used to say "din-iin," which i loved. i sort of miss him as a little boy, but he's a lot of fun to talk to now, so this is not me complaining.

a list of things i want to do in my next apartment:

• get a loft bed. i miss the bunk on the boat, i miss living on the boat actually a lot, but having my own bunk will be nice.
• hang up my pictures. i haven't done that at all here because a) we were waiting for furniture and b) the fisherman doesn't like any of them.
  
• set up a desk and do some little paintings again. someone on flickr found an old one of mine and was all "awesome!" and i thought, "i haven't done that in forever." it used to make me happy.
• never shack up again!

i have used my little zen stone a bit, and i love it as much as i thought i would. it's a lot like a shuffle in that you can't see what's playing or what's next, but i kind of dig that. it's like every song is a surprise, except for the fact that i put it on there. i put very few whole albums on there, either. just a lot of songs that have sort of the same feel with a few random bits to perk it up. i've been listening to transatlantacism a LOT lately, which isn't my favorite death cab album but is the saddest, which i don't think is doing much for my outlook. it's time maybe for some liz phair, exile always me feel invincible.

they get so big

this picture breaks my heart a little. just when she's old enough to say, "yeah!" when i ask her if she's my sweet baby, she's getting bigger. she looks like a little girl, not a toddler or a baby. i love laying in bed with her in the afternoon reading and talking, and singing songs and listening to her dorky jokes, but i'm going to miss my baby. i have a sneaky suspicion she's going to be tall and lanky, but hopefully cuddly for a few more years. and by "few" i mean until she's thirty.

jesus invented dsl

i mean, that's the only logical explanation right? something this awesome must have come from above. getting it set up last night was a bit of a pain in the ass, thanks to my fussy computer, and this morning we had to do the whole shut-it-all-down and start-it-all-up shit to get it working, but now that i am on line, in my home, i am a happy girl. i spent all morning reading papers and blogs and achewood; drinking coffee and half-assed watching a movie with the fisherman (when i do that i basically ignore it until i see something i don't get and then ask him a bunch of questions that annoy him!).

baby is sick with some sort of flu so i spent yesterday sitting her. she's over the puking part of it, thankfully, but still sick enough to be mildly annoyed and prone to fits. she spent all day being mad at me, throwing a fit, then running to me crying and miserable. her birthday is a week away--she will be two years old. just in time too; her newest favorite words are "mine" and no!" she's become a bit of a bossy dictator, but she's also developing quite the sense of humor. she's a sweet and sour baby right now, and while i don't love the tantrums and screaming i do love the cuddles and the way she says "i love boo" when she cozies up next to you. i do miss living with her, but i like leaving my knitting out without fear of her tearing it to pieces.

my little brother, the sweetest black cocker spaniel on earth, died this weekend. i was wrong about what he was sick with; it was end stage liver failure and not kidney. he was perky and sweet up to the very end. the last day i got to spend with him we spent a lot of time rubbing his chest and playing with his soccer ball, and aside from how skinny he'd gotten you wouldn't have known he was sick. i'm going to miss him. baby asks for him all the time, looking around the house for her uncle dog. she got to say goodbye to him, but when she went to kiss him and he didn't move i guess she burst into tears. poor kid. my dad seems bummed out, and he's decided no more dogs ever. he and mom packed everything up and said it's just too hard when they go. like we did with our first dog, cuddles, daggett will be cremated and later this week we'll get him back in a pretty ceramic urn. as far as little brothers go, he was awesome, and he will be missed.

i miss this face

baby is as cute as i thought she would be, also funnier and smarter. before you get all "of course you think she's smart, she's your niece," let me point out that she's already upright and cruising at 9 months old. she also does these funny little things that let you know she's paying attention. at our thanksgiving dinner (which we held a day early) she grabbed a napkin, put it up to her nose, and made a nose blowing sound. then she took it, wiped down the table, wiped off the couch, then her face. the whole time she was cracking up and talking to herself and us with her baby jabber, and when she did the nose-blowing routine she nearly fell down she laughed so hard. plus, she let me decorate her face with cereal every morning and chew on her cheeks whenever i wanted. that's all i really need in a baby!

okay, one more post

in just a few hours i get to see this baby, chew on her big cheeks, and feed her illicit treats (like bacon!). i'm pretty excited. look at that face! okay, i'm off. wish me luck getting to the airport and not getting lost...which seems to happen everytime i head there.

bleh

the roomies are sick! i am loading up on vitamins because i do not want to get sick myself. i do not want to sneeze a lot, feel all tired, loaf around the house, or generally feel yucky. i am not in the mood!

this weekend was grand mal kind of shitty, and none of it i can talk about! that's annoying, but probably what makes it more annoying is mentioning it in cryptic tones on my blog. when people say to me, "god this weekend was terrible and i don't want to talk about it" i always say "now you have to! you can't say that sort of thing without explaining!" trust me, if i could tell you i would. it's just not my story to tell, and my angst comes mainly from not being able to do anything about it. i am protective of my people, and it's awful to not be able to keep them all safe and cozy at all times.

if i could, i'd wrap you all in down blankets and tuck you in with cups of hot tea and cookies.

also, tell tiernan's new brother or sister to hurry up! god, i am sick to death of waiting to meet this new member of the family. first it's waiting for baby to born, then it's waiting to teach baby dirty words, then waiting until it has enough teeth to chew bacon...i have things to do baby, hurry up and get here already! the sooner you show up, the sooner i can start corrupting you. (i mean that in the best possible way!)

goodbye and hello!

the shoes i was selling on ebay came out to almost half of what i paid for the shoes i bought on ebay. that makes me feel better about buying them. i feel like this is more of a trade, really. i get to make some room in my closet, some other woman can wear the shoes i ignore on a regular basis, and i only have to feel half as guilty about spending money on shoes. we all win!

started my christmas lists today; what i've already made, what needs to be finished, things to buy, and all that jazz. i really should get on top of my cards, too. i liked the ones i made last year well enough, but to be honest, i think the ones i made the year before were more genius. i don't know if i'll ever make a card that great again! maybe i can shave "merry xmas" into the back of the cat or something...

i know it sounds all early and stuff, and it's true i hate how early the holidays start now (i think two months of christmas is entirely too much, and starting with all the chrismas stuff right after halloween totally ignores thanksgiving, which has to be one of my favorite holidays), but since i like making the majority of the things i send out, i have to think a little early. to be honest, some of the presents i'm finishing right now i started months and months ago. i hate feeling rushed when i'm making something, and this way i don't. out of all the people i know, i am the laziest and best at procrastinating, and so i have to work around it. i'm late all the time too, so my clocks are all set at random times ahead. i try to make it so they all aren't the same, because then i can do the math too fast. it used to be that i'd have my sister set my clocks, so i never actually knew how fast ahead they were, but she lives far away now and explaining this neurosis to my roommates seems mean. see? you have to work with you have sometimes.

p.s. my sister called tonight to tell me that baby had her first slice of pizza and loved it. i could tell, because baby wasn't making a peep in the background, and the only time she's quiet lately is when she's eating. i know it's a teensy milestone, but baby's first pizza should definately be celebrated.

she's not mine, except she sort of is

maggie doesn't look like me at all. except for our big cheeks, that is, but i have that in common with most babies. she doesn't look like my mom or pop either; she looks exactly like her dad, with my sister's eyes and perfect little mouth. sometimes this makes me sad, because i want her to look like us, at the same time i know she's ours so i could care less who she looks like specifically. no matter what, you have to admit she is one cute baby.

i got thanksgiving off, finally, and i can start planning on going to california and being surrounded my people for a few days. i can't wait to see maggie and chew on her for myself, and as dorky as it sounds, no one hugs me like my mom. i don't get a lot of hugs in my everyday life, what with getting yelled at by crazy customers and stuff, but mom hugs me. i miss that the most about home.

we've been celebrating my new job at the house for a few days now (um, okay, two!) and i have to say, coming home to cocktails and happy good times is fun. my roommate's new house is coming along beautifully, and i just found out that for the first time in something like five years i'll be living above ground. i'm going to ask my roommate really nicely if i can paint one of the walls in my new bedroom robin's egg blue, because that's what i've always wanted.

i might be too tipsy to write this post and have it make a lot of sense, but fall is here, i have a fridge full of things that taste like pumpkin and apple, and the whole day off tomorrow to catch up on emails, laundry, movie and phone calls. i'm very much looking forward to that. (and seeing baby!)