Lately Charlie has been a bit cranky and clingy in the morning, making it difficult for me to get anything done. So I've tried introducing him to the ubiquitous object we all love to hate: the television. Sesame Street is my first choice - I remember growing up with it so it must be good. Without me or Coulson sitting with him watching the show, his interest doesn't last longer than 2 minutes. For me, the idiot box is strictly a baby-sitter. If I have to sit down and watch it with him, it's not worth it and I'm not going to try too hard to get him to watch TV. So he'll watch it for a few minutes and then he'll join me wherever I am and start unfolding the laundry that I was folding. But when the music for Elmo's World starts, he'll run to the TV and start watching. For those of you who don't have toddlers of your own (...yet) Elmo's World is a sub-show of Sesame Street that runs during the last 20 minutes of the show. It has it's own theme song and everything. I've heard that Elmo's World is especially designed for the younger toddlers. I don't know how they do that, but it works. Elmo's World was also Coulson's first favorite show. (Perhaps we should refer to it as the gateway drug for television addiction.)
Barney follows Sesame Street, so I make sure to turn off the TV after Sesame Street. But yesterday I really needed to clean the bathrooms and I didn't want Charlie following me around while I was using the cleaners and stuff. That and he likes to scrub the toilet with his toothbrush. So I missed the end of Sesame Street and before I knew it, everyone's favorite purple dinosaur was singing sappy songs to him. I looked at him and he was engrossed. I said to myself, "Self, you're going to regret this." Thankfully, after 15 minutes he was done with Barney and I was done with the bathrooms, so I quickly turned off the TV. But I was worried about what would happen when I tried to clean the bathrooms next week.
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood follows Barney. I also grew up with Mister Rogers, so this show is also very good. We caught the last 15 minutes of it today and I was surprised that he seemed to like it. So maybe I'll just clean the bathrooms a half hour later next week. And I just discovered that the website has links to his wonderful songs!!! Casey and I will be singing these all week!
Last fall I learned about these adorable stuffed animals crocheted in a Japanese style called Amigurumi. I finally tried it out myself.
This poor blue frog was my first attempt. He's blue because I had extra blue yarn. But apparently not enough blue yarn because I had to use another color for one of his fingers and the backs of his eyes. Unfortunately, I lost the magazine where I found this pattern, so I can't show you what the frog is supposed to look like. The frog in the magazine is very cute, and although I'll admit that my frog has personality, it's not anything like the adorable frog in the magazine. My blue frogs eyes are uneven and his arms and legs are attached awkwardly and the look on his face is just goofy. But Coulson likes him, so that's enough for me.
I just finished my second and third attempts at amigurumi, this time with a smaller scale project. I got this pattern from a store on Etsy and if you follow the link you can see what they are supposed to look like. I think these "Roly-Poly" animals are just adorable. They're like a crocheted version of Weebles ("Weebles wobble but they don't fall down!") I think these little guys came out pretty cute! It helps that I used plastic eyes for them so they didn't turn out like the poor blue frog who has problems focusing.
In June, my mom's family is having a big family reunion. About 100 people get together every three years in Townsend, TN and it's always a lot of fun. To help offset some of the costs, and to have some fun, we hold an auction at the reunion of stuff that we all bring. I'm hoping to have a set of these animals to sell at the auction, if I can get enough done by June 20th.
I got lots of other adorable patterns from Etsy and I can't wait to try them out!
Recently I've been spotting these around my neighborhood:
If you had asked me back in January whether I liked Obama or Hillary, I would have responded that it didn't matter because I wouldn't need to decide - the candidate would already have been chosen well before North Carolina's May primary. I learned this lesson back in 2000 living in Pennsylvania when I realized that I wouldn't be able to vote for Bill Bradley because Al Gore already had the spot months before PA's April primary. So I was resigned to my role as spectator in the primary circus. But, barring any craziness from the PA primary on Tuesday, now it looks like I might have the opportunity to participate! So now I have to go and do all the research and form an opinion.
Some might be surprised that I should even have to think about this decision. For my one brother, the choice is obvious. For the rest of my family, there's no reason to make a choice in the first place. Casey wants someone with experience. I told Coulson about the three people who want to be the next president and he said he would vote for John McCain because there's a boy in his class named John. I think he's just sucking up to his grandparents.
So yesterday the boys and I went to an Earth Day Celebration in the city. We had a great time riding in on the light rail train and then taking a trolley-like bus to the celebration. They had booths from lots of city and county services about keeping the water clean and recycling and conservation landscaping and using public transit, etc. They also had booths for all kinds of "green" products and services. It was great to learn about all the programs going on the in area to make Charlotte a better place to live. (Makes me sad that we'll be leaving it soon.) But I love the irony - the water conservation people were telling me to throw away food scraps (not use my disposal) and to use paper products instead of dishes on weekends, but the landfill people were telling me not to throw away so much stuff and not to use disposable products.
But my favorite was a natural/organic lawn care service. They use vermicomposting (composting with worms) to create a nutrient-rich soil that's really good for plants. They had a bin of the worm castings at their booth so people can feel for themselves how rich the soil is. The man was telling me how the castings are all natural and completely harmless. Coulson was playing with the dirt in the bin and a girl came up and also started playing in it. I know a little bit about worm composting because I'm planning to start doing it when we move, but I'm a plain-English kind of person, so I ask the man, "Isn't 'castings' just a fancy word for something else?" He tried to dodge the question at first, but then he saw the devious smile on my face and admitted that yes, it's worm poop. At this time, the little girl's mother walks up and asks her daughter about the dirt. She turns around and smiles and says, "It's worm poop." Confused, her mother says, "Worm Food?" The man is busy talking to someone else, and since I love this kind of stuff, I gladly volunteer, "Oh, no, it's worm POOP." Oh, the horrified look on the mother's face as she grabbed her daughter's hand and went straight for a sanitized wipe. At this point the man steps in with his "harmless" talk, but the mother, furiously rubbing her child's hands raw, shakes her head and says, "No, she bites her nails, this is not good..." I got a great laugh!
Vermicomposting was the highlight of the day. The guys from that booth did a demonstration on composting with worms and then helped the kids make their own mini-vermicomposter. You can feed these worms almost anything (except fats and protiens) and they'll turn it into super-soil for you. We had already decided to do a family sized vermicomposter when we moved to our new house, but now Coulson has this mini-compost bin to help us get started.
Coulson likes it a lot, but I think Casey and I are more excited about it. But that's probably just because he hasn't caught on to the fact that worm composting is all about worm poop. Once he figures that part out, he'll love it!
My new favorite blog is Stuff White People Like. Many of you have probably heard of it already because I've heard about it on NPR, from my brother, referenced on my friend's blog, and read about it in Newsweek. But it is very funny. Although I recognized parts of myself in many of the entries, I especially own up to numbers 12 (although I wasn't paid a competitive salary, so the last paragraph doesn't count), 16 (of course, did you expect anything less?), 25 (I've never laughed out loud so much reading a book before) 39 (but mostly because we were paying too many late fees and we're lazy), 44 (all day long!), 53 (pre-kid requirement), 64 (I might even be considered an "advanced" white person for this topic) and 78 (although I'm a fan of Spanish, apparently it's a "poor substitute").
None of this will make sense unless you go to the website and read the entries. I could have been nice and made links for each of the numbers, but I wanted you to enjoy browsing through the website - click on the "Full List..." tab at the top for the easiest way to find everything. Remember, don't take the blog too seriously. It's all in fun and it's written by a white guy.
Now I want to know (for all my white readers out there) - Which entries describe you most accurately?
