sueeeus

…or…  …List Friday…   …or…   …catching up…

• It’s Friday.  I’m taking a vacation day today, because I’m in a use it or lose it situation again.  Some time ago, our company switched its vacation accrual policy so that it accrues constantly instead of once a year.  We can have up to two year’s worth of vacation accrued at any time, but it caps off if we don’t use it by the time the hours accumulate.  My number is 320 hours, and yes, I know it’s pathetic that I have that much time saved up.  I had planned to use it up as part of my maternity leave and return to work schedule, but I ended up working from home and the baby slept all day and the job demanded so much at that time, etc etc etc.  So, I didn’t end up using it, and it accrued.  And it keeps accruing.  And Mr. Gadget’s job gives him only one paltry week a year, so it’s difficult for us to plan much of a hiatus as a family.  I treat myself to a day off here and there, during which I do whatever I want.  Which is usually catching up on housework, running errands, and blogging.  Because these things help settle me.  A clean and tidy home.  No loose ends.  These things bring harmony to my life. 
• Today, I plan to catch up on blogging.  I’ve been away for a while…  …Not so much away, but I have a toddler and a full time job and a household to run, so I don’t get much time to blog.  Plus, my husband recently rattled off some statistic that he heard on the radio about blogging interfering with couples, marriages, or some such blather.  (He made it up, but it was his special way of telling me that he thinks I spend too much time blogging, or really, that he wants more attention.)Things I’d like to blog about today:
1. The wonder of feeling connected.  Check.  Did that already.
2. My silly bathroom window situation.  Check.  Did that already.
3. Sleep apnea.
4. Coffee, and, even better, the gorgeous receptacle that holds it this morning.
5. The things that I want or need to do today.

• I have sleep apnea.  What a DRAG!  I have probably been living with it for many years.  Now I’m making cpap a part of my life.  CPAP.  Continuous Positive Air Pressure.  Or something to that effect.  It’s a machine that forces air in, keeping the airways open all night.  It takes some getting used to.  Mr. Gadget lovingly says, “May the Force be with you,” as we drift off to sleep.  It is very Darth Vaderesque.
  
  For the first several days I felt more tired than ever, but have since perused many forums and learned a few things:
1. Sleep debt.  Some people theorize that one’s sleep debt needs to be repayed, and until that is done, one won’t realize the benefits of a full night’s sleep.  Seems like a bunch of hooey to me.  How many mothers have years and years of sleep deprivation, yet function very well on limited sleep   Why would only people with sleep apnea have to repay a sleep debt, and not the general population.  Hopefully I won’t get a tirade of angry comments from the multitude of readers (ha!, do I have readers   I flatter myself, she says, with much sarcasm) about how little I know (which is true, I know very little about sleep deprivation, sleep apnea, sleep debt, and sleep disorders).
2. Humidity.  Aha, that humidifier thingy that is built in to the machine should be used.  Like an idiot, I had it set at zero, thinking I’d get cool air through these hot summer nights (oh, that reminds me, how I love Neil Diamond!), but lo, one needs heat to humidify, so now I have set it to 5, max heat, and amazingly enough, the air is not hot, but nicely moistened, and whodathunkit, I’m sleeping much better.
3. Masks.  People with allergies and general respiratory challenges that accompany germ-laden toddlers who attend day care with other germ-laden children tend to need a full face mask, because sometimes it’s nigh unto impossible to breathe through one’s nostrils.  Now I have two masks.  For bad days, the full face mask.  For days when my nostrils work, a nose-only mask.  Either way, the Force is with me.
• Today I’m drinking coffee from a bowl.  Because these bowls   I love.  And I had to have them, and I didn’t know what I could use them for, but I had to have them.  Because I love them.  They’re from Target, and they’re an exquisite crackled turquoise glaze on the inside, and a smooth matte slate color on the outside.  Zazen, they’re called.  Gorgeous!  There’s a whole line of plates, bowls, mugs (too thick around the rim, they’ll never do).  While I adore them, I couldn’t justify a set of plates.  We have many plates.  Or more bowls.  We have many bowls.  But I had to have something, so I got two of the rice bowls.  I use them for green tea, or today, for coffee.
  
  Sigh.  Coffee.  I have a Senseo machine, which is very overrated.
  
  Here it is in action.  I like the one cup at a time deal.  That works for me, as I’m usually the only coffee drinker in the vicinity.  I like the foamy froth.  That part is aesthetically pleasing.  The problem– is that it requires pods.  And pods have many problems:
1. They’re pods.  Pods.  ??
2. Pods are tres expensive.
3. Pods are too small to hold sufficient coffee to make a decent cup of appropriate volume.
4. Pod manufacturers don’t produce pods that contain good coffee.
5. Inserts that bypass the pod, thereby allowing the coffee drinker to use her own grind of respectable coffee, either don’t hold sufficient coffee to make a decent cup (and make a giant mess), or bypass the frothing effect (which is the only redeeming quality of this machine, rendering it a complete waste of time, effort, and emotion).
6. It takes two pods make a reasonable cup of coffee.
7. See items 2 and 4.
• Today, I have many things to do, besides blog.
1. Find a safe home for my chotchkies.  I still don’t know how to spell that word.  My mobile young man can now reach beyond the barrier that we temporarily placed in front of the glass cube display that they currently call home.
   
   If it looks tres department store-ish, it’s because it is.  In point of fact, when one of the old glamorous department stores of the region closed its doors several years ago, I bought a portion of their display cubes.  I’m not so sure how I feel about them any more, but I’m not quite ready to put them on Craigslist, yet.
2. Return sundry items to Target, and p’raps find others to take their place.
3. Sort through my closet and collect items to donate, as the donations truck is making its rounds next week.
4. Housework.  The usual.  Dishes.  Laundry.  Finding shoes that a certain young man has absconded with and since forgotten.  Water plants.  Dust.  Tidy up.
5. Relocate the surface of my desk, which is buried somewhere beneath a bunch of crappe important papers and whatnot.
6. Learn to use my new camera.  Yes!  I got a new camera.  A video camera.  Oooooh.  It’s a Canon (I’ve been quite pleased with my Canon PowerShot G1 that I’ve now had forever).  Optura S1.  Yes, it was on sale.  The footage taken in daylight is exquisite.  Indoors with low lighting…  Jury’s still out on that one.  I need to read the manual and find out how to use the thing before I judge it harshly.
7. Take a timeout, just for me.  (Oh, I forgot, this entire day is a timeout, just for me.)

…and I’m spent.

A list of lists of lists.  I’m blogged out.  But by the looks of things, I should also spend a little time cleaning up my blog’s style sheet, what with the embedded lists and such.  Perhaps another day.

Things of late…

1. Biff boom crash. Crash boom smash. Thud. These are sounds that are heard on an increasing basis at Chez Piggy. I’m thanking my lucky stars that these new sounds are not accompanied by six seconds of deafening silence (now isn’t that a fancy oxymoron ) followed by WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH at many many decibels. Because they could. But they aren’t. Again, Praise the LORD. ALMIGHTY.
2. There is one less Tiffany dragonfly torchiere lamp gracing my living room, as of last night.
3. Although there have been times when I have wished for nicer furnishings, I am quite thankful that the material goods in our home are nothing to write home about. It makes it much more tolerable when we have to part ways.
4. The Tiffany was one of the nicest things I have d.
5. It wasn’t a REAL Tiffany. But it was still nice.
6. I have an identical one in another, more BooProof part of the room.
7. Torchiere style lamps and one year olds do not mix.
8. Even when you put safety latches, plugs, or covers on all the doors, drawers, outlets, and knobs, and keep a keen and watchful eye on your little one 99.999% of the time, he will do amazing things in that 0.001% snapshot of unbridled freedom.
9. If you’re anything like me, your first thought after thanking God that the baby is unharmed, is to offload as much responsibility in the event as possible, as soon as possible; i.e., blame the husband.
10. If you’re anything like me, you will notice yourself doing this, laugh, and ask your husband if he thinks it’s funny that your first instinct after ascertaining all is well with the baby is to offload as much responsibility in the event as possible, as soon as possible on someone else.
11. If you’re married to someone like Mr. Gadget, he will laugh right back and say it’s a good thing it happened on your watch, not on his, because he was busy relaxing on the couch and watching tv, while you were busy cleaning up the kitchen (and supposedly watching the baby).
12. If you’re anything like me, you’ll still make the comment that the lamp might not have fallen over had the big new box of diapers not been left on the cedar chest, because everyone knows that boxes are a baby’s best friend, especially if they’re conveniently set at just the right height for a busy little boy who is also very strong and who loves to push things off of surfaces because it’s so fun to see what happens when they fall.
13. If you’re anything like us, you’ll still laugh, clean up the mess, put the broken lamp away, thinking that it might possibly be salvaged (and knowing that it will stay in the garage for a few years and then possibly end up in a yard sale for 50 cents), squeeze the baby and give him lots of hugs and kisses, blow raspberries on his belly until he giggles and squirms and laughs and giggles, and put him down in a safe place far from Tiffany lamps, and go on with life as usual. Which means staying up too late, watching too much tv, waking up at midnight and again at 4 a.m. to feed the nibbler who won’t eat enough at one time to hold him more than 4 hours, sleeping through the alarm clock, waking up feeling briefly happy that you might have actually had some decent rest until you realize that you slept through the alarm and you should have left for work an hour ago.
14. If you’re anything like me, you’re undyingly thankful that you have the kind of job where they are very forgiving if you happen to wander in an hour later than you intended.

At our house, the housework is accomplished by fairies. My husband and I are supposed to split the detail, but somehow, his chores almost always get done without him. We have a dish washing fairy and a laundry fairy. They are the most prominent. A basin, tub, and tile fairy makes a more occasional appearance.

Alas, these fairies can not always be trusted. Sometimes they use too much soap. Sometimes they don’t load the dishwasher right and things interfere with the spray action. My husband tried to blame one for washing a burgundy tablecloth with a load of darks, which also included the baby’s brand new pro sport sweatshirt and pants with bright white side stripes, now pink. But I know for certain that no fairy was involved. I know when my husband actually does the laundry. It’s not often. But it was that load. He still denies it.

The laundry fairy went too far this time. It was a load of whites, with one queen size flannel sheet too many. The machine went into its high spin cycle and started to hop across the floor with such a thundering thump thump clunk thump, that it scared me and the baby half way to Kansas and back. I ran to the laundry room as fast as I could, just in time to witness the mad hopping, and as I reached for the power button to make it stop, the front door gave way to the weight of the load. If only my reflexes were more honed. I could have saved my washer. But it wasn’t to be. The door latch would latch no more.
My husband tried to blame this event on me. ME! How could it be me, when we both know that we have laundry fairies. It’s a good thing that he fixes appliances for a living. We were up and running again in no time, and he finished the laundry that night.

Rather than work on my lengthy to-do list, I’ve been making goodies. It started with shortbread. My dad’s recipe. It turned out okay, but not as wonderful as my childhood recollections. It did help make things seem a bit more cheerful, having a house full of buttery sugary yummy smells. Next came the cashew brittle. I’ve never made it before. The recipe came from Mrs. Fields, and called for macadamia nuts. I had cashews, so cashew brittle it became. It was surprisingly easy to make. The house smells even more sugary and buttery. I couldn’t stop with the brittle. I decided to dip pretzels in dark chocolate. I like that salty sweet combo. And finally, the rice crispy treats. More butter. And marshmallows. I don’t really like marshmallows, but I do like rice crispy treats.
With a house full of goodies, I felt compelled to buy some holiday tins to package them in, and ultimately, give away. Otherwise, I will eat it. All of it.
Somehow, the cheer doesn’t linger long. I was thinking of making meringues, or ambrosia. I don’t know the correct term. I’ve never made it, but thought I’d try. I have a nice mixer that should make short work of whipping egg whites to a stiff peak. I also want to make candied popcorn, or popcorn balls. Popcorn is a happy smell to me. When we were young, we always had peanuts in the shell, an orange, an assortment of ribbon candies, and sometimes popcorn balls in our stockings on Christmas morning. But the tins are already full.

I am avoiding my to-do list well. And the cheer remains somewhat elusive. It comes and goes.

…before I go collect my boy.

I am actually on vacation this week, but it feels about the same as any other working week. Part of me feels guilty for dropping him off, but I can get errands done faster if I don’t have to bundle him in and out of the carseat. Good daycare is in demand. The waiting lists are long. To secure our spot, we pay whether he’s there or not. So I’m taking advantage of this time. In fact, the cool cat and I actually went out to a movie on Monday. Our first theater movie since the Boo was born. We saw King Kong. It was gory in places. I had to look away. And I jumped on several occasions. And squirmed. And smiled. We had a good time.

I have a list. A very ambitious list. I wanted to get my life organized during this break. So I can feel more at peace. More calm. Less stress. But I’ve been blowing off the things on my list. I’m having such a hard time getting into the swing of things this year.

I went to JoAnn’s today to get some tins for baked goodies. I appreciate the price reductions of 70% off all Christmas items. But they’re busily putting out the Valentine’s Day stock. I can’t even say how deflating this feels to me, this pushing of the next commercial occasion. I want things to SLOW DOWN! I want to kick back, drink some tea, and read a book. And not worry about the bazillion things I think I need to do. I don’t want to think of Valentine’s Day. I don’t want to be surrounded by pink and red fuzzy hearts quite yet.

Here’s my new list.

Rest.
Drink some tea.
Have some more tea.
Read a book.
Take a nap.

But not now. Now I have to go get my love bug. He needs some serious snuggling. Or rather, I do.

I took Boo to his daycare this morning and he broke my heart because he started crying the most heart-wrenching cry when he realized I was dropping him off again. I’m working from home today, which is wonderful, but I just can’t get my work done and give him the attention he needs, so off to daycare he goes.

It’s such a beautiful day that I decided to try and set up my laptop outside on the patio, so I could get some of the cool morning air. In the process of unplugging the power cord, I managed to shock myself, which shook me up quite a bit. I realized how easy it is to compromise one’s life. It only takes a twinkling of an eye and life can drastically change. I must be more careful. And I must baby proof my house SOON. All that drama and the traffic was too noisy for me to concentrate, and the cool morning was quickly replaced by stifling heat, so back in the house I went. Now the day is over and I’m off to collect my precious Boo, and I feel anxious that I’m surrounded by things to do that I haven’t done. I must learn to let it slide and not worry about it.

Can’t wait to see my beautiful boy!!