Delusions of Grandeur

Waaay back when (August or so?!) I started a scrapbook for Tabby. I wanted to keep up with it and have her first year allll put together for her first birthday party. I was reasonably pleased with how things were going, but then things got busy, as things do, and the project was shelved. You know how it goes.

Apparently, I am completely nuts, because now I'm determined to finish it in the 16 days before Tabby's party. This could probably be done relatively easily with just a few hours of work if I would just use pre-made element,s but since I'm nuts, I insist on making most of if not all of the elements for a page. Me and my laptop are getting waaay cozy.

At least I have a lot of photos to work with … that's one spot where I did not slack off. It is so amazing and fun to see how big she's gotten and to think about how much she's grown and changed. I look forward to having my project finished and being able to see the year in snapshots.

Party Time


Here's the invite I sent out last week. I think everyone's gotten theirs by now. Like I said, it's going to be a small mostly family affair, but I still wanted invites for the scrapbook. I made lots of versions of this and drove Matt a bit nuts.

In other news, I have a new pimp tooth (sometimes called a crown). It is gold. It is covered with porcelain … but still. I now have 5% more bling. Yea, it's way late in my world. Goodnight.

Already Behind

And my week hasn't even started.

But I did ….
* Finally put Christmas stuff away (90%)
* Pick up some stuff for Tabby's b'day party
* Have a lovely 2 hour nap with my baby girl
* Make us a delicious (and slightly time-consuming) dinner
* Get allll of the returns handled
* 4 (or was it 5?) loads of laundry
* Picked up the house
* Had lunch out with Matt
* Logged a couple of miles

Hmm… I'm actually feeling pretty good about everything I accomplished now. And heck … there's always tomorrow.

I'm so sick of #*@% Winter!!!

Yea. The ski trip was … crappy. I enjoyed the comradarie with my fellow employees and all, but the drive sucked both ways and I didn't even get to ski. Matt was supposed to bring up my ski equipment this AM and I-70 was closed. So we sat around all morning waiting for it to open … and not so he could get through, but so that we could go home. By the time he could've gotten through, it would have been pointless to hit the slopes. Worst part of all was that my mom was up there with us and she is flying to Mexico tomorrow morning and we were worried she was going to miss her flight. Just as we were leaving town to take a really long alternate route down, they opened up I-70 and we took off.

I am soooo glad to be home.

Separation Anxiety

It's getting late … I just spent the past 20 minutes tossing stuff into my weekender bag. My clothes are laid out. My teeth are brushed. I should head to bed … and yet. I can't quite do it. I've got one last thing to do. I need to sneak into Tabby's room where she's been happily sleeping since 7:30 and give her a snuggle. I guess that it must get easier over time, but now it's still very hard for me to be apart from her. I haven't even left yet … won't really leave for some hours yet and still … and I'm already looking forward to Friday night when I'll get to see her again and hear her funny baby laugh and see that bright smile.

I sure like being her mama.

Links and Such

Happy Friday everyone! I thought I'd share some (hopefully) excellent links I've found recently.

Food First!
home made pop tarts that look amazing (Alton had a show where he suggested these too, once)
♥ or how about Cream Cheese Chocolate Cupcakes (perhaps for Tabby's birthday??)
♥ I've also been enjoying the amazing recipes available at Parenting.com … they're healthy, quick, and guaranteed to please the little ones (though my little one will eat virtually anything set before her)
'Tis the Season for Valentine's Day Crafts
♥ I really like these felt fortune cookies
♥ sweet personalized chocolate bars
many ideas from sew, Mama, sew!
♥ love these boxes from A Little Hut
♥ some nice things to do for your mate
♥ cute Valentine book
Baby Stuff Galore
this carseat would be perfect for Mork & Mindy's kid
♥ and here's how to change the changing table into something a bit more adult-centric
♥ and have you guys seen the cool nursery decor they've got at target now??
♥ we have this placemat for Tabby to take to restaurants … it's awesome.
Miscellaneous
♥ love this menu planner from Future Girl
♥ have you seen this program that optimizes your printing to be as green as possible?
♥ this is a great Family Launch Pad
awesome studio/retreat/whatever
♥ don't waste a broken diaper!

I'm out … have a GREAT weekend.

Randomness

So … I guess no one really did care about my Google reader sharing. Hahahaha. Oh well!

My thoughts are really scattered right now. I'm going through one of my overwhelmed phases. I feel like there's just not enough time for anything and I can't get it all done … not what I need to get done and definitely not what I want to get done. It will pass … it always does. And not because things are any better together; just because I'm not being neurotic.

Matt is going away this weekend which is a big bummer in my book. Since we sort of missed out on the past two weekends with illness, I feel like I've been very deprived of his company and it sucks. We both miss him a lot when he's gone. We want some time to hang out as a family.

I had some fun playing with the camera tonight. Using the Lens Baby again. I do like the Lens Baby, but man, it is not meant for keeping up with an almost-toddler (can't call her a toddler yet, it's too painful). It is WAY too slow to focus and get all lined up. Much better for things that don't move.

And speaking of Tabby's impending Toddlerhood, I am still way behind on party planning. I think we're going to do a purple and green theme, since it's been a purple and green sort of year and besides, she hasn't formed any attachments to commercial characters yet and I figure I should probably take advantage of that while I can. But I need to spend some time getting ideas, etc. together. Anyone wanna send me links or suggest things?

OK … shutting up now!

This comes under the heading of …

“I'm not sure anyone will actually care about this,” but some of you seem to enjoy the bizarre array of links I occasionally provide, so here goes.

I've fallen deeply and madly in love with Google Reader. It is my new muse. And I noticed that you can “share” your favorite reads. So I can pick stuff I really like and share it with anyone else who's interested. They've got an RSS feed and a regular old HTML page available. I will put these as an item on the right before the end of the day. I really think you should be able to set up different share pages. For instance, I'd share vastly different (mostly nerdy) articles with Matt, whereas I share cool stuff, crafts and recipes with y'all. But for now, it seems like it's all in one spot.

I'm still planning to write my egregiously long posts of links, etc. but this will give you a more real-time and more complete list of the things I enjoy reading or looking at in the 91 strong (and growing) list of blogs that I read (or at least peruse). Lucky I'm a very fast reader.

Weekend Wrap-Up

We had a largely uneventful weekend. Though Tabby and I were mostly well, Matt was still feeling pretty crummy, so we laid low a lot. The weather was gorgeous and so we took Tabby to the playground in our neighborhood and she got to go down the slide and swing on the swings. Both were a huge hit. I was feeling too lazy to carry the camera with us, so I don't have any photos. Boo.

Sunday we tried out a new Greek place and did a little shopping. Then we had dinner with my parents at my Uncle's house. Good food and excellent company.

Gawd this post is boring… what to say?
Oh … recipe to share. Have made this twice now: Hot Chocolate Cake. It's soooo easy and it tastes AMAZING. It's like those molten choclate cakes you get at restaurants, all gooey in the center. Just perfect. Didn't take a photo either time. Boo.

What else? I really want to get back to running. I (obviously) took all last week off. We are seriously thinking about running Bay to Breakers in May. It's supposed to be one of the neatest foot races in the country, complete with crazy costumes, fun music, etc. Plus, since Matt works in Oakland, we can two for the price of one on airfaire and no hotel room costs…. And it's really hard to pass up an opportunity to go to San Fran. But to do that, I'd have to actually be able to run the race and all (well both of us, actually), so I really need to get back into it a bit and train some, etc.

Alright, enough of boring you to death. Have a good Monday.