Coddling Your Child In Order To Produce An Obnoxious Brat 101

From a child-rearing article by an “expert”:

Frustration is also a big tantrum-producer. If you know your child is going to

insist on visiting the pet store when you go to the mall, make sure you have

time to do it or think twice about the trip. Thinking through his probable

reactions, the consequences, and the alternatives isn't really "giving in" to him,

it's being a wise parent.

Because he's out of control, a tantrum can be scary for a child. Once it subsides,

give your toddler hugs and reassurance. It's fine to acknowledge his feelings.

You might try to make leaving less painful by offering to read a favorite story

when you get home.

“Oh, my poor baby! Did you hurt your throat screaming in the middle of the store when I wouldn’t buy you a puppy?! Poor baby. Here, let Mommy hold you and read you a story. Mommy should have changed her entire day to accommodate her little angel’s every little urge. This is all Mommy’s fault. My baby doesn’t need to learn that he can’t do everything he wants; it’s Mommy’s job to only do things that will make her little pumpkin happy, regardless of Mommy’s need to get the grocery shopping done.”

Maybe I’ll just be a horrible mother, but I think this is ridiculous.

No Rest for the Wicked

I'm getting ready to go to bed... I know, I know, it's just after 9 PM, but I'm tired! This week has been exhausting for no particular reason, and both David and I have been crashing earlier every night. I just wanted to hop on for a minute to say:

Yay! Finally!!!

I'm now a Ravelry member! That makes me happy. I'm going to go to bed happy now.

Tired, must sleep now

"A watched pot never boils."

That's what my Gramama used to tell me, anyway. So, I figured I would quit obsessively checking my Ravelry wait-list status for a few days. Still not on the list yet. Now, there are 3,530 people ahead of me, so if they continued inviting 1,000 a day, I'll be in by Halloween. But, since there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to the number they invite on any given day, who knows how long it may take?

I did, however, score the most unbelievable find at the DAV the other day. I found a XXXL men's sized sweater for $2. It's in a gorgeous cranberry colour scheme, and it's in this fantastically soft and buttery 100% merino wool that's in incredible condition. No felting whatsoever, and remarkably little pilling. It really doesn't look like it was ever worn. Woot! I've begun the tedious reclamation process, and have reclaimed one sleeve and the ridiculously oversized cowl/turtleneck collar. I have 3 massive skeins of yarn already! This is going to be quite a haul, once the entire thing has been reclaimed. I can't even imagine how much it would cost to buy this much good merino right out. I still have all the work of soaking, hanging, re-shaping, and spooling to do, but in the end, it's going to be so fantastic! I have no idea what I'll do with it all. There will be enough, in the end, for a couple of pieces, to be sure.

Just wanted to whine and brag, and now I'm off to bed, as I have to be at work in 6 hours.

Birthday fun tomorrow!

I really wish that Ravelry had done personal invites, where friends would be allotted so many invites to give out to people they know, so that I would have my invite by now. Or at least that they'd take into consideration that it's my freaking birthday, and all I wanted for my birthday is to be on Ravelry with all my friends!!! But now, there's still 8,719 people ahead of me.

I'm pretty proud of dinner tonight. I made home-made chicken and dumplings, and mixed vegetables. David didn't seem too impressed, with sorta bothered me, but, whatever, I know it was good. It will actually be better tomorrow, 'cause that's just how dumplings work. They're better reheated.

Tomorrow is the day we're celebrating my birthday, although it's actually on Sunday. In the morning, we're going to the Southern Indiana Fiber Arts Festival in Corydon, where we will pet sheep and bunnies, touch delicious yarns and talk to other knitters! Whee! Around 8 o'clock we're meeting everyone at Tumbleweed for dinner (not my first choice, but inexpensive and vegetarian-friendly), and then heading to a 10 o'clock showing of 30 Days of Night.

I'm still trying to figure out how to get the pictures off of David's camera and onto my blog. When they sent his camera home from Malaysia, they only sent the camera, and not the cables or the instructions, so we don't really know how to do it. I think we can move them off the memory card without too much trouble, but David's currently on the PC playing a video game. (I'm on the couch with the laptop, as usual.) I guess I could just load the pics ontot the laptop, but it doens't have as much memory space.

Well, I've been babbling enough for tonight.

Birthday countdown and yarn!

First and foremost, I'm down to 9,012 on the Ravelry list! So, not too much longer now. I hope.

The work situation has been getting better. Or, at least, it will be getting better. I'm being moved to a new team next week. So, I'll have a whole new account list, and new clients, due times, and so on, and some poor schmuck will be saddled with my old list. It's part of a new, secretive shake-up that the higher-ups have decided to try, in the interest of weeding out the bad lists from the bad employees. More on this later.

I got one of the kids' Christmas presents done! It's a really cute (if I do say so myself) scarf with a dragon head at the end. It was inspired by a pattern I found online, but I didn't like everything about the way the original looked, so I changed it quite a bit. Once we figure out how to get pics off David's camera, I'll be posting them. I also got a big bag of yarn for my birthday from David's sister. There's two types; one is a fun fur, that I really don't know what to do with (I generally only use fun fur for trim, and this is enough to do an entire dress, if I were so inclined, which I'm not), and the other is a very pretty chenilly/boucly type yarn, that is enough for a hooded vest, which I've been craving.

It's late, and I'm tired, so I'll update more tomorrow. Just wanted to get something down tonight.

Frothing at the mouth

I just got home from the worst day ever! I'm starting to really feel like my supervisor has something against me. I've been telling him for some time that I have too many accounts in the 11-12 block. Yet, he continues to add more. He added yet another HUGE account today. Madonna. Do you have any idea how many times "Madonna" is spoken on news and entertainment shows during the day? About 500-600 times. And every one of those has to be edited and have video set. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I've asked him to slim my accounts down, or split them up, but instead, he adds more accounts to me to make life easier for his friends. That's the worst part of it. It's not just that he's giving me new accounts; he's taking accounts off other people's workloads because they don't want them, and making me do them instead. I went into the group list after my last account today, and did some comparisons, and I have 20 more accounts than the next highest in our team. I review an average of 4,000 hits a day, where the office average is under 2,000. Seriously, I didn't get any breaks today, and I ate my lunch at my desk, and worked furiously, and still had several late accounts today. I didn't even have time to save my day's work, which just leaves me more trouble and work on Monday. Argh!!!

Oh, and to top off my angry and frustrated rant, it doesn't look like Ravelry invited anyone today. The number ahead of me is still 12,919.

At least it's Friday.

Waiting and plotting

12,919 ahead of me now on the Ravelry website. So, good news is that they're adding new members faster than I'd been told. I was told that they were adding 500 to 600 new people a day, which put me at about 24 days 'til my invite. At this rate, I may get on in close to two weeks. Two weeks. Sure, it's better than nearly a month, but two weeks still seems like way too long to be left out of all the knitting fun.

David just left for the weekend with the guys. They're all going down to a campsite near Atlanta to dress up in strange costumes and beat each other over the head with foam sticks. I miss the old LARP, and Michelle suggested that we go too, but I promised David that I would leave him alone woth the guys for one weekend. Guys need their guy time. So, Michelle and I (and maybe Nikki) are going to Covington to see some haunted houses and then doing the girly sleepover with scary movies thing.

Besides scaring myself silly, I really hope to get the apartment cleaned some this weekend. It's getting to the unbearable point again. I really don't want to be a total bitch about it, but I don't know what to do to get David to help me keep it up. He seems to leave a trail of mess behind him as fast I'm trying to pick up.

Well, I need to call Michelle and verify our plans for the weekend.

Come on Ravelry!!! Send me my invite!

Catching up

So, I haven't been blogging for a while, so I guess I should do some catching up. David's home from Malaysia, and has been for a few months now. They cut his grant period short, which made us happy and disappointed at the same time. He was looking forward to a lot of things he thought he was going to be doing, and I would have been glad to have had more time to work on myself (losing weight, learning the fiddle, etc.). But, neither of us can say for a second that we aren't glad to have our life back.

Since he's been home, things have really gotten right back to normal. Unfortunately, that includes our horrible eating habits and lack of exercise. We've both gained quite a bit of weight back, and really need to work at losing it again. Also, I haven't touched my fiddle, guitar or mandolin in months. I can't bring myself to sit here and squeak and squawk with David here to hear me. It's so embarrassing! He's being uber-supportive and hasn't done the first thing to make me feel bad about it, but I can't help it. I know it sounds awful, and I feel very self-conscious about it. It's my problem. I need to just go ahead and buy the electric fiddle with the silent practice mode so that I can practice without feeling like I'm bothering everyone. Maybe I'll get one for my birthday!

In other news, I signed up for a new, all-inclusive, really cool-looking knitting website called Ravelry.com. They're still in beta, so they're only adding a few hundred a day. I'm currently #40,279 in line, with 13,411 ahead of me in line. I can barely stand the waiting!! I keep obsessively checking my place in line, hoping that I'll jump forward in line dramatically overnight. Since they do a link-up to your blog and allow you to post photos, I'm working on getting my blog updated and I'll be signing up for Flickr too.

I'll do more updating of what's going on in my life tomorrow. David just got out of the tub, and he leaves town for the weekend tomorrow, so I'm going to hop offline and spend some time with him.

Ciao!

Making music

I wanted to simultaneously teach myself to pick out a song by ear, and to read/write music. I chose the song 'Pan's Lullaby' from the movie Pan's Labyrinth. (It's the song that's hummed throughout the movie.)

Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names

I went to a scrimmage match last night for our local Derby City Rollergirls. It's a rollerderby group here in town. Whee!

This is one of the jams. I wanted to get pics of ppl falling down, but my camera wouldn't shutter fast enough.

This is an odd photo I tried. The rink was a little too dark without a full flash, but then this happened with one. I think it turned out neat, though. Kinda psychedelic. I'm going to try out Sunday! Let's see if I can do it, and how many bones I can break finding out!

And, today's pictures

Well, with David away, Andrea took it upon herself to be my Valentine this year.

She bought be this cute little tin, which was filled with horrible cinnamon candy. Really, the tin was the important part. In case you can't read it; it says "Sinimints". Very punk-rock!

And, I had to find a use for it so I can carry it around with me! Look what fits perfectly inside! "Sinimints" indeed!

Yesterday's picture

Okay, I'm lazy and I've failed this challenge. I accept that. But, I'm still going to put up pictures when I can, if only to share my daily (or roughly, daily) going-ons with David.

One of my favorite candies in the world is an Asian candy called White Rabbits. It's kinda like a Tootsie Roll in appearance and texture, but it's white and vanilla-y. Andrea found some at the ethnic store that come in red bean flavor. They were okay, but I thought the packaging was hilarious. It's hard to tell in this pic, but can you see the unfortunate placement of the beans on the wrapper? LOL. Mmm, now that's appetizing!

Paarty!

So, these are late, again. These are pictures from the party I went to Saturday.

This is me and Dustin. I love him! He's the best. My extra chinage, however, is not the best.

Well, it was a birthday party and we had cupcakes that started the evening spelling out "Happy Birthday Nick and Farley". As the cupcakes were eaten, we would use whatever letters were left to spell out new words.

That cute little baby in the sunglasses is Farley. He turned 18 Saturday. Isn't he a little cutie? It's so weird to realize how much older I am. Oh, the other guy is Jesse.

One more picture of the funny cupcakes. I'm pretty proud that I didn't actually eat any of them. Just rearranged them. I had more than enough calories in alcohol as it was!

Highlight of my day

Well, I had a really rough day. I'm not going to get into, but while I was running around getting increasingly more frustrated, I saw this:

Gorgeous, isn't it? I wish I could have gotten out of town to a better location to get a picture, but I think this one's okay. Still doesn't do this sunset justice. Gotta look for the beauty in each day.

I'm getting lazy, aren't I?

Well, I've definitly been slacking on this challenge. It's much harder than I thought it would be. There are so many days where I just don't do anything at all, and don't see a single opportunity for a photo. I'll try harder.

This is my new HUGE computer at work. I love it. I can now do everything our department handles at my own desk! I super useful.

These are some tracks I saw today in the snow. I think they're bunny tracks. This picture was too dark to see it, but there's a trail behind the back paw prints. Tomorrow, I'll try to get a pic of the poor, stupid, frozen ducks. I saw them today, but couldn't stop to get a picture at the time. Hopefully, I'll get that tomorrow.

Boring Day.

So, I've been really, REALLY bored today. I found this cool website: http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ and decided a good way to combat boredom would be to try out all the nifty ways to lace my shoes.

I bought these shoes last night. I used the double-back method of lacing them. I think the laces are a bit to wide for this to look right. I might have to get some skinnier ones.


I think I like this one the best. It's called a zipper lacing. I think it looks really cool.

And, this one is called the knotted lacing. It doesn't show up very well on these old shoes, but I bet it would look cool if I got some different colored laces. And, that, people, is my really boring day. I might try to find some people to go out with later tonight. If so, hopefully I'll have some more exciting pix for tomorrow.

Cute Baby Day!

I went out to dinner with Adrianne and her husband Tony tonight. Afterwards we went to Target, and Cloe got all fancy.

She's just too cute for words. She's one of those babies that, no matter where you are, people just randomly come up and ooh and aah over her. She's so wide-eyed and alert. You can really tell that she's taking in everything around her. Such a good baby!

Oops.

Okay, so I skipped yesterday. I just totally blanked out.

More snow! There was a lot this time. And, it stuck around all day. The roads are all clear now, but if it snows again tonight, like it's supposed to, we may have a real cover tomorrow.

My stash

I decided to do a little inventory today.

I've come to the conclusion that I don't have enough yarn.

Nope. Not nearly enough.

Really, how can any self-respecting crafter survive with so little yarn?!? Seriously. (This really isn't even all of it. I have more in various bags and satchels for projects in the works.)

Sweater Socks

Okay, so many people seemed interested, so here are the sweater socks I'm working on. I like to work toe up on long socks, because you can try them on as you go and get a perfect fit.

Here you can see how long they are already. I'm thinking of frogging back a little, because, since I've been working out my calves are a little bigger. Now the socks are a little tighter than I like around my calves. I think if I frog back a few inches and then go up a needle size they'll be more comfortable.

It's hard to tell in this pic, but these are the arch ribs. I have very defined arches, and I find socks to be much more comfortable if I put a 2X2 rib for about 2 inches right on the arch. This way, they don't bag in the middle of my foot or slide around. I like my socks to be a little tight.


Ignore my cabbage patch knees, and the blinding white skin. This is the sock from the top down. Coming along nicely, if I do say so myself!

Homemade sewing dummy

Okay, before you think I cheated, I DID take these yesterday. I thought I posted them yesterday as well, but when I looked today, for some reason this post was in the "Draft" folder. Erg.

Anyway, this is a sewing dummy that I made. It's modeled after my exact body dimensions. They are really easy to make, although it takes some time. I just put on a tight fitting t-shirt (over a bra, that's important), and covered myself with duct tape. I then cut the duct taped wrapped t-shirt off of me, sealed up the cut, lined the bottom with cardboard and stuffed it with polyfill. Oh, also, I put a hanger in the top so I can hang it up.

This is it from a side view. I named her Headless Betty. I took Betty's measurements right after I made her, and they matched my own perfectly. I took my new measurements today, and Betty is now a little bigger than I am around the hips. That seems to be the only place I'm losing yet. I guess, eventually, I'll have to make a new Betty, since this one will be too big. Maybe I'll keep her around to remind me of what my body used to look like!

Belly-dancing

Today, Andrea took me to a belly-dancing workshop.

This is Andrea and Christine, one of the instructors, doing a demonstration routine.

Here is the group, doing our routine together. I hate my belly. Got to work on that.

I don't think I look half bad in this one. I guess I must be sucking in or something. Hopefully, if I keep working on it, I'll be able to lose that gut!

Blah.

I'm not feeling all that spiffy today. I'm tired and grouchy and I had a bad day. I work in ad services and it's nearly Superbowl Sunday... you do the math. As a result, I don't think I feel up to going out tonight.

But, I couldn't skip a day on my challenge, so here's a picture of my newest toy. I bought this cheap student model guitar a week or so ago, and just got it the other day. I'm surprised at how good it sounds, actually. And, I love the color! It matches my hair! I really like the way this picture picked up the color tones. I started to take that glare out, but I kind of like it. It reminds me of those cheezy commercials where someone smile and thier teeth flash at you. Ding!

Dinner and Games!

Tonight, just as I was pondering what to feed myself, Jesse called and invited me to dinner. He and Steph had been grocery shopping all afternoon, and decided on the spur of the moment to cook dinner and have some friends over.

Here is Jesse, actually cooking! Well, okay, he's just mixing up a salad, but hey, it's a start.

This is Jesse and Megan, one of the other friends that was there. After dinner (which was delicious, by the way) we played Scattergories, and it was hilarious. Megan is Lebanese, and when we had "L" for the letter, and the catagory was Countries, she completely blanked out. I don't think Jesse will ever let her live it down. I didn't get any pics of the other people that were there.

Snow!

I got out in the cold early before work this morning and took these just for David (not the least because I think he's the only one reading these).

It snowed today! It was the first time that it actually stuck at all. Everything was so white and beautiful this morning.

These are outside of work. I wish I was a little kid; I would have really appreciated this snow. It was fluffy and sticky, perfect for snowballs and snowmen. Not good, however for getting off your car when you haven't thought to get a scraper yet. I had to start the car, then go back inside and dig around until I found the old scraper. I'm glad we didn't throw that one out, I would have really been screwed as there was at least an inch and a half on every surface of the car. It was all completely gone by lunch, though.

E-Date

Only one pic today.

This is a shot of my e-date with David tonight. I'm a little disappointed, because I was hoping you could see the text. He's saying "Anything coming out for 360 anytime soon that looks good?" I thought it was hilarious. You can take the man away from his games, but you can't take the gamer out of the man!