General

Last night, that is. The wind was just whipping around the house, and there was rain (maybe sleet?) pounding against the windows – for the whole night. Want to know how I know? Carrie was up every hour, for at least a half hour, from 1:30 to about 5. This is the second night in a row she did this. She hasn’t slept a full night since she started cutting that tooth last week, but these last two nights have been absolute hell. Honestly, I spent most of today feeling like a complete zombie. (And that was even with Denis getting up with her a couple of times!)

It’s starting to scare me, too, because when I’m this sleep deprived I end up having really disturbing, vivid dreams. Both nights I had dreams that (different) close family members had died or were dying, and I woke up sobbing, really believing that it had happened. I’m starting to have a hard time falling back asleep in between Carrie’s wake-up calls, because I don’t want to have such awful dreams.

I have great hopes for tonight, though. The past two days Carrie didn’t nurse or nap well, and today she did both. So…maybe she’ll sleep through tonight…please?

Any guesses as to what this much pink wool is going to look like in 20 years? Seriously, though, how cool would it be to hike up a giant pink bunny mountain? Too bad it wasn’t there 18 months ago, maybe I could have talked Denis into making a pilgrimage while we were in Italy.

(There are more pictures here.)

I have caller ID on all my phones, but I’m not in the habit of screening my calls – unless it’s obvious from the number that it’s a telemarketer.

So the commercial I just saw for caller ID on your TV struck me as really odd. So…someone could decide that my call was less important than whatever TV show they’re watching without ever taking their eyes off the screen? I mean, really, how lazy can our society possibly get?

Though I suppose if you don’t have caller ID on your phones and don’t want those silly little boxes, and you have the digital cable and digital phone package that this comes with it could be a useful thing. But still… It just seems strange that anyone would screen their calls while watching TV. Then again, I am spoiled by the fact that I can pause my TiVo whenever I want. I do remember the phone always ringing during the last two minutes of the season finale cliffhangers…

I was going to write about how today was a really bad day. Our hot water heater started leaking at some point last night or this morning, and quite a few things in our basement got wet – not to mention that we’ve now spent a lot of money on a new hot water heater to be installed first thing tomorrow morning. It’s not a good time for it to happen, with school taxes due this month and Denis having important work commitments this week. Then again, when would be a good time for it to happen?

But the thing is, it pales in comparison to what people in the areas affected by Katrina have had to deal with these past several days, and to what happened four years ago today. It’s just stuff, it’s just money. My family is whole, and healthy, and fed. Since it had to happen anyway, I think today might have been the best time for it to happen – because instead of dwelling on this minor crisis I’m counting my blessings. There are so very many, and I am truly thankful.

Today was “Hang Around Victor Day”, so we decided to hang around. Carrie got to see fire engines and alpaca, and met a dog named Sage who cleaned up the food she dropped at lunch. I was pretty good about not spending money at all the tempting crafty booths, although I did pick up a couple of cute things for Carrie at the local consignment shop. (I think I may be a kids’ clothes junkie.)

Oh, and I picked up a halloween costume for Carrie today. I feel a little guilty for not making her a costume, but I don’t think I could buy fabric and a pattern for that price and it’s really cute too!

I can send mail again! Yay! Now if you don’t get a reply, it is because I’m ignoring you. (Just kidding!)

If anyone has emailed me in the past few days hoping for a reply, we’re trying out DSL and I’m having trouble getting my outgoing mail working. (Incoming mail is working fine – I’m getting all my mail, including spam!) So, I’m not ignoring you, we’re just figuring out how to make it work. Hopefully it will, because switching from the cable modem to DSL will save us a bit of money every month, and it appears to be faster.

OK, off to go draft my fantasy football team.

You know it’s time for bed when you’re just sort of randomly skipping around the internet, and you try to remember what you’re looking for, and all you can think of is nice soft pillows.

We had a busy day, and Carrie didn’t nap – despite being given several opportunities – so I put her to bed a little on the early side. Unfortunately, if I’d just put her to bed 10 minutes earlier she would have avoided falling and getting a huge bump on her forehead. She had reached super-tired-danger-baby mode. My poor little girl!

By 8:00 Carrie was sound asleep and we realized that we had a whole evening free to do…whatever. It says something about how geeky we are that we immediately pulled out one of our many variations of crayon rails. I love crayon rails. It’s a competitive game, but only peripherally – I mostly enjoy figuring out how to make an efficient track, and let’s face it – how often as adults do we get to use crayons? And a bonus tonight is that I won! It’s been ages since I beat Denis in a two-player game of crayon rails!

Anyway, one of our errands that made today so busy was to get a new shower head. Our old one was only half-heartedly trickling water down the wall of the shower, which made washing anything – except that wall – very difficult. We ended up getting one of those new-fangled hand-held ones with 7 different spray settings and a dial to control the water pressure. I’m (rather pathetically) looking forward to taking my shower tomorrow morning!

Oh, and I finally finished hiding all of the million ends on Carrie’s ladybug sweater and tacking up the hems. Now I need to finish digging out enough of my craft room to have a flat place to steam block it, and then it will be time to steek. I did make a dent in my craft room earlier. You can now see that there is, in fact, a bed in there, and it’s not just a pile of books and yarn. If I could just find a half hour every day for the next week, it might actually get to the point where I could call it “clean”…

I was talked into letting my stylist iron my hair today. It’s definitely a different look – I’m not sure whether I like it or not. Fortunately, all I have to do is get my hair wet and it will be back to it’s curly self. It’s very strange to actually be able to run a brush through my hair while it’s dry.

I was worried that Carrie might be upset by it, but she didn’t seem to mind. I know she likes my curls better though, because she plays with them while I’m holding her, and especially while I’m rocking her to sleep.