Like I need a hole in the head...

Yeah, that's how much I need another hobby. Seriously. But I got all these gift cards to the craft store for Christmas. So I gave in to the hobby that's been teasing and tempting me for about a year. I started making beaded jewelry. I'm not sure I love it, but it's a fun new thing to do for now. I bought a kit to learn the basics and see if I was even interested in going any further with it. I made the pieces in the kit and now I'm kind of hooked.

I was a little...concerned that DH would freak out at the idea of my taking on yet another hobby, but he was surprisingly supportive (good damned thing, considering how supportive I am of his toy-collection obsession). He likes it when I wear jewelry and I like wearing the things I've made, so we both win.

And can I just take a minute to talk about how much I love that a two-loss team won the National Championship? All you BCS idiots who want to talk about how we don't need a playoff can blow it out your ears. We NEED a playoff. Never has this been more clear. I've finally figured out (and once I did, I'm not sure why it took me so long) why the conferences are fighting it so hard - they stand to lose a lot of money. With the exception of the national championship game, all those top (high-dollar) bowls have conference tie-ins. So my suggestion that the top tier bowls become the semi-finals puts a lot of conferences at risk of losing a lot of money. Somehow, I'm sure it all comes down to money in some variation.

My hope for the writers' strike is...

that the glut of reality television that is headed our way will be the nail in the coffin of such trash. Honestly, I feel like I"m the only person in America who cannot stand the embarassing glimpse into the lives of all these poor people who go on these shows. I confess to watching American Idol and I sort of got caught up in Dancing with the Stars this past season, but things like Big Brother and Survivor in particular skeeve me out. Why, oh why do these people feel compelled to share every intimate detail of their lives with the entire world? I'm way too private a person (seriously. If I shared half the real stuff about me here, I'd be freaked out. It would probably be more interesting, but I always think about how I feel about those people on reality shows and get weirded out by people thinking that about me).

So bring it on, networks. Continue to screw over the talent you employ (and let me assure you that I love a well-written show and appreciate it as such) and overload our screens with reality television. Fill every minute with unscripted junk. And may we never have to watch its like again.

Ribbons Baby Blanket

Ribbons Baby Blanket
Originally uploaded by christyc730

So it's been a while. I've finally finished the baby blanket I was knitting for my neighbor. It took two days of college football and a visit to the 1980s (aka my in-laws, who have since leaped into the 21st century - they got DSL). But I haven't been knitting or doing much of anything else lately. Why not? Well, I'm pregnant. With a baby who doesn't like me to sit upright, apparently. I'll be twelve weeks on Friday and I'm finally starting to come out of the fog, so hopefully more knitting and more posting now that the second trimester is almost upon me.

My favorite....

I've been feeling guilty lately because I think I have a favorite child. And not in the "each one is my favorite for a different reason" sense, which I also believe. No, I've really felt like one of my children over the other two was my favorite. But this morning I've had an epiphany. It's not that Baby S is my favorite. I mean, she's just so freaking cute and sweet and loving and mischievous that it would be impossible not to love her. But my thinking of her as my favorite is not because of who she is.

It's her age. She's two and a half. My favorite age with each of my children. So I probably don't have a real favorite in the long-term, just a child who happens to be at my favorite age. I feel better. There's just something so incredibly fun and amazing about this age. She talks all the time and you just never know what she's going to do next.

Mojo? Where have you gone?

I seem to have misplaced my mojo. Normally fall is the time of year when I furiously get creative projects done. I'm inspired and enthused. I start things and actually finish them. I get all sorts of new ideas and tackle some ideas that were just seeds in the spring. Fall is my time.

And yet...I'm not taking photographs, knitting is slow-going, scrapbooking is non-existent. It might be this crazy weather. One day it's 70 degrees and fall-like, the next I'm debating whether or not to turn the A/C on. It's wreaking havoc on my hunt for my mojo. Not to mention our heat pump seems to object to having the heat on one day and the A/C the next, so it needs to be serviced. Not what I need right now.

I posted a few weeks ago about someone close to me being pregnant. She miscarried. I'm devastated for her and completely at a loss how to help her. There's so much more going on in her life than this that complicates everything beyond reason. I'm afraid to say anything that might upset her so I've ended up saying very little, which I don't want to do either. Mainly I'm just trying to listen to her when she wants to talk. I'm trying to think of something to do for her but I'm completely blank.

Where IS that mojo?

Clutter...the bane of my house...

I really try to keep my house clean. And by clean I mean free of dirt. But clutter? Clutter and I just don't know how to get on together. I'm just not very organized to start with. And our house is small with very little storage space. So we have clutter. Tons of it. Sometimes it just doesn't bother me, especially when I'm able to accept the limitations of our house and my young kids and not having a whole lot of extra money. Right now it's bugging the crap out of me. Maybe because I finally got to visit the house of my husband's grandmother who died a year and a half ago. They've been cleaning the house out ever since. You couldn't prove it by what I saw. The place is completely filled with papers, sewing supplies, collectibles (both junk and treasures mixed together so that an expert would have to tell what's what), you name it. Stuffed.

My mother-in-law wishes her mother had spent less of her money on little knick knacks and saved it for her multiple prescriptions. I don't know that saving a dollar a month would really have helped her, but I get the idea. Seeing that house, then my MIL's house (which is much thes same as her mother's) makes me reevaluate myself and what I'm doing. And I'm not happy with myself. I'm looking all around me for things I could be doing better and finding lots of them. Now I just have to figure out how to change and make it last. I've tried all these organization systems. They just don't work for me. I think I just need to remind myself of what I want to be, how I want to live and what I want my kids to see.

As the stomach turns...

Ugh. Evil stomach virus hit our house on Monday. I'm guessing Miss G brought it home from preschool. Then Miss S drank from G's juice cup Tuesday night. She got it Wednesday afternoon. Not surprisingingly, after cleaning up two kids' puke, I got sick Wednesday night. Yesterday I could barely pick my head up off the pillow. So far Tom and Mr. T have been spared (knock on wood). Today, I'm full of energy - well, sort of. I have lots of mental energy and physically enough energy to do what needs to be done, but just folding the laundry made me so tired I had to lie down for a few minutes. Still better than yesterday when just walking to the bathroom was too much effort. I actually went to bed with my teeth unbrushed. Um, ew. I don't do that. Ever. The few other times I've been that tired, I woke up halfway through the night because I needed to brush my teeth.

I was so sick yesterday I couldn't even knit. My head spun every time I picked up the needles. Here I had such project enthusiasm for my baby blanket and couldn't even take advantage of it.

The worst part of being sick? I couldn't drink anything with caffeine in it (the very thought made me sick). I had such a caffeine headache. Actually, I still do. I could probably keep down some Excedrin today.