a Christmas gift

Chandra, do you read this blog? I don't think so, but if you do, avert your eyes!!! I don't want to spoil the surprise!


la de da


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do de day




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But for the rest of you,




look at this pretty plaque I made my sister for Christmas!



It's a silhouette portrait of me, since we're so far away from each other! (too narcissistic?)

I haven't decoupaged in a long time, so I sort of forgot the technique. It's bumpy and not perfect, but I think it turned out pretty nice.

Great news!

Miracle of miracles, Kohl's is granting my vacation request, so I get to go home for Christmas!!!

In other news: I still love this song. It's just not getting old.

Me. The single girl.

Tonight I remembered that it can sometimes be fun to live alone.
I'm watching my friends' cat/apartment while they are on vacation and mostly I've just been dropping in to say hi, fill the food and water bowls, give a little scratch, play a little mousey, and I'm out the door. But I didn't have to work tonight or tomorrow so I'm staying the night so that I can give this needy cat a little more attention. My vacationing friends left plenty of food for me to munch on should I so choose, including a few bananas that have progressed from 'delightfully tasty' to 'too mushy to peel,' so I decided to make some banana bread for them to come home to this week. As I was getting ready to make the bread tonight I realized that there weren't any eggs in the house. I set out for eggs, a lighter (I've been wanting one for the candles in my room, and couldn't find one here either), and maybe something for dinner. As I was wandering around the grocery store, I remembered back in the day, when I was a single girl, living alone in my apartment in Erie. I had great dinners a few times a week, pieces of meat or fish from the store that were prepared and ready to bake. Fish with seasoning. Chicken and stuffing. Pretty simple meals really, but nothing that a single girl would normally make for herself. So I found my way to the back of the store and there they were! I was going to get fish, since I never eat fish anymore and I am very concious of the lack of fish in my life, bu then there was this absolutely deliousious looking piece of chicken that I couldn't resist. Chicken breast, stuffed with cheddar cheese and fresh asparagus spears! I left the store with one of those, 6 eggs, a lighter, a log of clean-burning wood, and a bottle of white zinfindel, and tonight has been wonderful. I lit all the candles in the living room, started a fire in the fireplace, cooked my dinner, poured myself a huge glass of wine, and made a yummy looking loaf of banana bread. What a cozy and nice night it has turned out to be.

A dream realized

The day before Madelyne came Stephanie mentioned that she wanted to buy a sling or wrap of some kind, and me being me (the baby/birth lover who has no reason to know this stuff, but does anyway) I gave her some info about a few carriers that I've heard people mention, with special emphasis on the Moby wrap. I even told her where she could get one downtown. I am such a baby fool... So Steph went and bought one that day.
Fast forward to this past Friday.
It was a busy day for both Stephanie and I. I had errands to run in the morning, and work in the afternoon, and she was getting the house ready for the holiday work party that she and Lloyd were hosting that night. I got home from running my errands just as she was getting ready to run to the grocery store. Relieved that I was home, she asked if I would watch the kids while she went to the store. I said no problem, as long as she was home by 2:30, which was when I had to leave for work. As the minutes ticked by, and I realized that she was probably going to get home just in time for me to leave, I decided that I had better start getting ready for work.
The problem? Madelyne had been really fussy all day, and was really only content when she was being held.
The other problem? The hems in the (only clean) pants I was planning on wearing to work fell out and I needed to sew them back up. (They actually fell out when I was in Baltimore because I wore some sequiney shoes that caught on the threads and tore them out. I did a 'quick fix' then too, by taping them up with scotch tape!!! I had forgotten all about it, then washed them last week, and there went my first solution.)
The solution? Become a domestic goddess!
I found the Moby wrap, and having helped Steph with it a few times, was able to wrap Maddy to me very securely. Then I admired myself in the bathroom mirror. Carrying a little baby in a wrap is something that I have wanted for so long. It's hard to explain I guess, but it's like a fulfillment of some part of me. I hope some day it will be my own little one, and I think that's a little part of the pain in this whole break up process that I am (yes) still going through, but for now I'll take what I can get. (ha)
Then I got out my thread, found a brown spool, and hand-stitched my pants up (not enough time to get my sewing machine out from the garage, but I should do that soon.) I also fixed my hair and makeup, and was ready to go before Steph walked in the door! I felt a little like Super Hannah that day.

P.S.

I heard this song last week and thought that maybe if I were the dancing doll in a music box, this is the song that would play when you opened it.

This is just to say

(to borrow from William Carlos Williams)

I feel lonely, lonely, lonely.
Lonely.

The adventures of baby Madelyne

First, I must say that I've realized what's behind my blogging patterns. Basically I only like to blog if I'm in a good mood, a 'blogging mood,' and that just hasn't been very prevalent as of late.
But anyway, I promised a story, so I'm going to tell it.

Last Tuesday, November 25, I heard a strange sound coming from downstairs. When I got to the kitchen, I found Stephanie on the phone, crying. I was worried. She had just returned from visiting her hospitalized father on Sunday, and though he was doing better and was at home when she left, it was the first thing that came to my mind. I must have looked panicked. She turned to me and said, "it's good!" and after quickly ending the phone conversation she again turned to me and asked, "So are you ready to have a newborn in the house?" My response: "Yessss!"


Then I got the rest of the story, piece by piece throughout the day as more information came in from case workers and family members. Stephanie tells the story much better than I do, and will continue to tell the story on her blog, Maddy's World.
We've had Maddy for over a week now, and she's doing really great. She's completely precious and is just a really good baby. I am so grateful that she's with us.
Maddy and I on Thanksgiving