Ladies who bake

Yesterday was the first time in years we've bought sandwich bread. Eric keeps saying that now that he's used to "real" bread, he'll never be able to go back to the storebought "bread" (complete with scare quotes). It's very endearing, if exaggerated, but with him still sick and Chloe too, and me suffering from my sleep loss (Maia gets up to five hours between feedings, but only every once in a while and only right after she goes down for the night, and I never go to bed when she does), I haven't been able to make bread and we had a grocery run and needed something simple for dinner. So Aunt Millie's whole-wheat bread went into the cart and we had grilled cheese sandwiches when we came home. And it turns out I really can tell the difference; there's a slightly odd taste to the storebought bread (which admittedly might be the length of time it's sat in the plastic bag, but might also be the additives) and while it's nice and soft, it doesn't stand up to buttering or grilling the way mine does. Eric's made me promise to make bread this weekend.

I joined a new writing site, Ladies Who Critique, intended to help members find critique partners. I'm not quite actively looking yet, as Shoelace isn't done, but I'm close. I hope. I've reclaimed my lunch hour from my work to-do list and am plodding along. It's really interesting how easy it is to write a scene now, assuming I know what I'm doing in it. I know these characters; I know this world; I know this story. I just haven't happened to write this scene before. After this long, I should know it this well, I suppose. I think that if I do not finish Shoelace by the end of the year, I'm going to stop. It's enough. I'll give it up and start something new. With luck the deadline will spur me on. (Getting away from work clients helps, too.)

A small illness

I wonder how many blog posts/diary entries/letters have begun with "I hate being sick." Or how many have begun with "I wonder how many..." (but let's not go down that recursive road). At any rate, I've had a nasty cold that knocked me out of life other than what was absolutely necessary: feeding Maia, caring for Chloe, going to work because the US sucks for maternity care and I don't have any sick days and we can't afford to lose any of my time. Ahem. I went to bed as soon as Chloe did for several nights running, or tried to; Maia's close to but not yet at the point where we want to start sleep training her (she needs to space out her meals a little longer first) and so if she wouldn't sleep, I couldn't. Theoretically Eric could watch her, but he's got a deadline on the textbook he's writing, and I do want to let him have the evenings child-free when he can since he has them all day. Of course that doesn't, or shouldn't, mean that he goes off duty when I get home, because that would mean I was working all hours while he wasn't, but I can be kind.

I'm still not well, but my body is in cleanup stage: cough winding down, gunk removed not being replaced, hunger starting to come back. I read the other day a description of shingles that ran something like "They don't just give you medicine for the pain, they give you antidepressants to manage your mood" and realized with interest that I'm never depressed when I'm sick. I mean, I'm unhappy about being sick; but I don't have that my life-is-worthless, the-future-is-dread kind of mopeyness. Maybe it's because when I'm sick, the future is bright because in the future I won't be sick. Or that when I'm sick my body shuts down higher-level things like existential angst and focuses on survival, which is wholly appropriate. At any rate, I look forward to being able to afford existential angst.

As you know, Bob, you like to read

I'm reading Five Odd Honors, the last book in Jane Lindskold's latest trilogy which started with Thirteen Orphans, and am distressed. The entire series has needed tightening, writing-wise--way too much chattiness and wishy-washyness of word choice and as-you-know-Bob-itis. I feel certain that the phrase "or whatever" should not appear nearly so much in fiction as it does in real life, especially when not in dialogue. Now in the third book, there's an as-you-know-Bob of such proportions that we've actually got one character telling a second character about the events in that second character's history. And it's not as if the second character has amnesia or anything. He was there, and he remembers. And we already got this information in a previous book. I can think of at least two other ways this could have been handled. I've been extremely fond of Jane Lindskold's books up until now, and so I'm deeply distressed by this. (There was also the issue early in the first book of a character saying she knew instantly that a particular person was Chinese, and then went on to describe his clothes and said she couldn't see his face--but that could have been the character's own problems, of which she had many.) I'm still interested in the story, and I'll still buy her next book, but I'm going to be a lot more wary about it, and that saddens me.

Nursing gives me a ton of time for reading...or would if I didn't have a toddler trying to climb up my knees all the time...which is one of its few advantages. For me, I mean. I've gotten through a bunch of books of Eric's, and several new ones of my own. I'm finding it difficult to get through the nonfiction reading I want to finish, though. I think it's because fiction is comfort reading for me, and the newborn months require a lot of comforting. I feel like a bit of a wuss, but that's the way it is. I also feel a bit like Rory from "Gilmore Girls," in that I have three or four books open at any given time now. Right now there's Women and Gender in Islam in the nursery, and Mirage (about Napoleon's expedition to Egypt) in the bathroom, and Five Odd Honors floating. Perhaps my real problem is that I don't like to focus.

On not moving

I dreamed last night that I was making my way from here to Seattle, broke and on foot, like in a video game. Sometimes I had companions, sometimes not, and we got into all kinds of adventures and distractions, and if I made the wrong choices I'd just fade out and end up back at the beginning, not always knowing what I'd done wrong. I'd just about made it and was noticing that the mountains made me a little uneasy when I woke up.

I've stopped talking about moving with my family. We're still trying, or still trying to try; but the house isn't selling and job-hunting isn't easy in the current economic climate and particularly not when your two-month-old is crying whenever she isn't feeding at night and your two-year-old wants to be played with all the time and wakes up at six. I don't know if my family figures I've given up or is bored with the topic or is just trying to give me a break. I hate that we're not leaving. The house isn't right for us and neither is the climate, either geological or sociopolitical, and Eric doesn't want our daughters in the local school district and I miss my family more than Eric seems to think he'll miss his; but we can't go. I've already wasted my youth in the Midwest (why did I decide I wanted to experience the Midwest?) and it's so much harder to move with a husband and two kids.

Blah. I will try to get to the job-hunting as I can. I will continue with all the little things that are nice about our life. Maia is now stopping in the middle of nursing to smile up at me. It's inconvenient, but it's very endearing. Chloë can do complicated sentences and minor reasoning and her hair is long enough to put up into pigtails. It's ice cream and tomato season. And work is slow enough that I can write every day. These are good things.

It just takes the cake

Let's talk about cake. My aunt decorates cakes as a serious hobby--she made them for her daughters' weddings and would have for mine if she hadn't lived 2500 miles away. (Should have asked her anyway, though. My wedding cake was lousy. It tasted fine, and that was about all that could be said for it. Luckily we also served homemade ice cream.) My sister-in-law got interested in cake-decorating a couple of years ago and produced some awesome cakes for her daughter's birthday parties. Personally, I've never been that big into cake (ice cream and brownies are my preference), so I admired from a distance until it came time to make Chloë's first birthday cake. Because of course I had to make it from scratch and decorate it. That's what moms do, right? Or at least that's what moms who like to cook and bake and fancy themselves quick learners do.

So I made a lemon cake from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, with lemon curd filling and Italian buttercream frosting (I had to go online for that one--and was thrilled because I'm not fond of American frostings as a rule), and decorated it just before serving because there were issues and I couldn't get to it earlier, and it was nothing special looks-wise but it tasted good, and I was pleased. I decided I would get more interested in cakes--mainly the baking, since I didn't want to be seen as competing with my sister-in-law. Eric got me The Cake Bible for my birthday this year, and I made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and ate about half of it myself. Then I got out the Wilton decorating books my aunt gave me for my wedding shower long ago, which I'd brought out for Chloë's cake but nothing since.

And now? Now I'm fantasizing about the truly awesome cakes I could make and frost. Chloë's birthday this year is water-themed, kiddie pools and a sprinkler and water balloons for the kids to play with. I was going to make an underwater cake, with cookie fish and seaweed and maybe some sea stars and piped shells and graham-cracker sand, but then I saw this cake and decided that I must make a backyard cake, complete with kiddie pool and sprinkler and hose.

Luckily, this idea is actually going to be less strenuous, piping-wise, than the fish one, which is good considering I have a two-month-old and a two-year-old and no time to sit down and actually practice piping. It will involve constructing a pool, probably out of pie crust, and cutting up some licorice and other candies, but that I think I can do.

So I don't think this will become a new hobby, but it's definitely a new interest. I have to go out sometime in the next two weeks and get a grass piping tip. And when will the next cake be? I don't know, because our nuclear family's next birthday is in April and anyone else would probably be covered by my sister-in-law. Maybe a fall cake is in order.

Being back

I realized yesterday that I've been working on Shoelace for ten years. This is absurd. I was single when I started it. Now I have a husband and two children. Admittedly those have been distractions, and also admittedly the story has gone through some drastic changes since I started. But seriously? Ten years? What idiocy. I'm finishing it this year (didn't before Maia came, obviously) and putting it away, for gods' sake.

So yes, I have two children now. I've realized I hate the newborn stage of life. I mean, not hate exactly...no, maybe that is what I mean. I resent walking the halls with a screaming baby every night. (Lack of colic would make the newborn phase easier, I admit.) I resent nursing every hour and a half--though that's gotten better recently. I do like her portability, and her smiles, and the way she snuggles up to me when we fall asleep together (though I don’t like the frequency with which we fall asleep together, though this is mainly because it hurts my back). And I know that things get much better from here. Chloë continues to get awesomer, though at the moment also more histrionic. Still, she's great fun. I'm having a slight rocky patch with Eric at the moment--totally one-sided, and totally due to the new baby and the adjustments (and maternity leave) that came with her. Life is crowded but good. I'm just now starting to get back to writing--and I want to really get back to it and put this away. This is ridiculous. Ten years!

Giving it a try

I posted at the baby blog about the frustration I've been feeling lately with housework and hobbies and free time in general. It only touched on the ambivalence on child #2 that I was having in the first trimester and that is coming back now that I'm actively counting weeks until my due date. I'm not sure whether I ought to be discussing that in front of my friends and family. (I guess I don't think here counts. Dunno if anyone reads it.) Also I don't want to give the impression I'm trawling for sympathy or something. A friend wrote to me and offered her services for housework or whatever, which was very sweet but which I don't think I could take her up on (however: if she were willing to entertain Chloë while I worked, that might be different), and Eric expressed concern and wanted to talk about what these projects were that I was stressing out about. (The fact that he had to ask sort of underscores my point, though, I think.)

However, we've been working on laundry and dishes the past few days, and I did some vacuuming tonight despite a very tantrum-y night (Chloë, not me), and having finished my nephew's quilt at last I'm feeling somewhat better about the state of things. Not great, but better. I'm working on the Shoelace rewrite at the moment--or anyway avoiding working on it. I'm at a scene that involves politics, and I haven't actually developed the politics of the region for this world beyond a vague sense of small countries with ever-changing alliances and very few certainties. I think this means I am not writing a good book, or at least that I'm not writing this book well. I've learned a lot these past couple of years about writing, I think, despite the fact that I haven't done much of it. It's been interesting, and useful, if disappointing at times.

In any case, I have some politics to work out, and a scene to write. I'm currently at 34,596 words in draft 2, most of it new. I'm not sure I can get this done before the new baby comes (April 26, or thereabouts), but I'm going to give it my best try.

Whine, whine, whine

Okay, now I'm depressed. (In the sense Eric doesn't like me using that word--the nonclinical one.) There are plenty of good writers out there and I'm no better than any of them and my mind is too fuzzy to focus on being really really good at anything. And I don't want to take the time to write Shoelace right because I don't think it will ever amount to anything. But I can't just give up either. Blargh blargh BLARGH.

In a good place

I am so tired. This is mainly because I set myself up to be so--I'm sitting in bed after taking my shower and having my now-usual bedtime snack. Today's was more necessary than usual because we visited the mothers for the evening and had no real dinner--or rather, I didn't. Chloe had dinner with her cousins, meat and noodles and carrots and grapes, and Eric had an enchilada and part of a frozen pizza. My niece Addie wanted to play, so I had her play chef and make me a fruit salad and a piece of toast, which seemed like things she could handle. (I cut up the apple and peeled the orange that went into the fruit salad. Eric helped her wash the blueberries. Michelle helped her operate the toaster.) She was pleased, and I was happy, but dinner is usually more substantial than that.

Anyway. I'm working on Shoelace. I'm doing very well on my self-imposed schedule. I want to have the rewrite done by March 31 so I can submit it to my novel crit group (and wash my hands of it a few weeks before the baby comes). This requires getting through about five scenes a week. I'm a little behind, but not as much as I feared. I'm working on it during lunches (which involves bringing my netbook to work, which in turn involves selling the netbook to everyone who notices me with it--a coworker walked up today and said "What's that?" and it was really hard not to say "Really? You don't know what it is? Exactly what do you work on all day here?") and completing scenes at night, and it's actually very pleasant to sit down with the netbook after Chloe goes to bed and write. Maybe I'll even get into the habit again by the time I'm done...in time to forget it again when the baby arrives, I know.

I've got a lot on my plate at the moment, almost all self-imposed. There's the Shoelace rewrite. There's Fiberscapes, the secret project Carol and Charlotte and I are working on--we're going to (we think) take a booth at the Ann Arbor Fiber Expo in October, and so are working on spinning yarn, dyeing fiber, making ornaments, writing patterns, and generally indulging in fibery productive goodness. I'm a bit more concerned about our pace and output than either of them seem to be, but that's just my style, and with luck my fears are completely ill-founded. Then there's Gabe's racetrack quilt, which I hope to have done by his birthday, which is in less than a month. (I spun tonight instead of working on the quilt, but I really need to devote the rest of the week to finishing the top. I need to applique a grandstand. How do you applique a grandstand?) And then there's the packing up of the craft room to make it into Chloe's room. Oh, and constructing my new dresser and doing taxes and putting up new curtain rods and so on.

So I'm busy, but delightfully so. It's really, really nice to feel I have a lot to do and I'm doing it. That I'm capable of this while having a child and supporting a family. I know everything's going to go off-kilter again when Maia is born, but I have faith that I'll get back to this place, eventually.

Christmas crafts

Christmas finds me almost ready this year. I keep thinking that Christmas is tomorrow, because we get the rest of the week off work, but no, it's Saturday. Good, because things are still undone, but (even though I feel like it's Christmas Eve) I know I've got time to get them done. We're doing candies for friends and family; two more batches (one easy, one moderately involved) and we'll be done. I've got a doll to finish for Chloe; it needs jointing and clothes. I've got a quilt wall hanging to finish for Eric; it needs a couple of appliques (done McKenna-Ryan-style because it's a wall hanging) and some mild quilting and then binding. I've got a couple of bracelets to make for little girls, which will just mean stringing beads onto jewelry elastic, already purchased. I'm doing all right.

I've been knitting a stocking of my own design for Chloe, which has been quite enjoyable despite my tension troubles with colorwork. However, I realized a couple of days ago that it looked awfully small. I finally measured it last night and found that my 5 st/in gauge somehow shrank (increased?) to nearly 6, and so the stocking I thought would be nearly 15" around is more like 12". This is too small, especially since the length is correspondingly shortened, so I'm going to rip it out and start again in a bigger needle size. Sigh. But since it's been an enjoyable knit, it'll be okay...especially since I've got a year to do it. (I never expected to finish in time for this Christmas.)

Every day goes by

I'm chugging along on Christmas crafts. To do: one woven scarf, one mitten (not actually for Christmas, just to avoid my child freezing her fingers off), several ornaments. Also cookies, etc. I'm looking forward to the holidays. I don't know why. Maybe because I'll have to make myself clean the house again. Mom and Dad coming to visit in three weeks is also good for that.

Life is straightening out quite a bit now that I'm into the second trimester. I haven't felt the baby move yet, but I'm okay with that. I'm regaining some foods, including chocolate, and now that it's citrus season I feel able to face the kitchen with reasonable fortitude. We've finally caught up on the dishes and laundry, and I'm working on crafting again, and even critting. No writing. I want to finish the Shoelace rewrite by the time the baby comes, but it isn't looking good.

Carol, her friend Charlotte, and I are working on a secret craft project. I'm not sure how secret we're making it--it's not like it's anything illicit, just blue-sky-ish for three busy moms--but that's part of the fun. Anyway, it will involve craft days and financial calculations and should be tons of fun, even if it doesn't work out, just like the Book Club Eric and I used to talk about. Pretty dreams are nice things. I'm starting to realize that's all they are. I'm really not very ambitious. Lazy? I'm not sure. Busy? Am I on the nineteenth story? Is that bad?

R.I.P.

Alas! My sourdough starter is dead!

I really am sorry; I've kept it going for two years now, and made some good breads with it. It survived my previous first trimester, but this one apparently defeated it. I was rooting through the fridge last night for something to eat (a quest that was much easier to fulfill before I got a parasite growing in me) and thought, "What's in this old jar?" What was in it was sourdough starter and black mold. It went into the trash.

I have some dried starter from a year or so ago that I should be able to use to start over. I'm thinking I'm not going to bother right now, though. I'm not finding the time or the stomach to either make or eat a lot of bread these days, certainly not anything experimental, which sourdough usually is for me. And I've got cookbooks full of recipes for yeast-based breads. But it makes me a little sad; this is the first true casualty of this pregnancy, other than maybe the garden (and my jeans). Though I fully intend to grow a few things in pots next year. Tomatoes, if nothing else. I went out last night to pick the last of the tomatoes because there was a frost warning, and took Chloe with me. I put thumbless mittens on her to keep her warm, but she got out of them anyway and chomped happily on the tomatoes I'd just picked, getting seeds all over her jacket and pants. She's going to be so sad this winter, and so happy next summer.

Knitting like mad, or at least a little eccentric

Workin' on Chloe's sweater. Not because it's gotten cold. Because I just realized we're leaving for Seattle in eight days (Eight! Days!) and I have to have Addie's kitty hat finished by then, because it's for Halloween as part of her costume, and we won't be here after that Wednesday. And the needles I need are the needles Chloe's sweater is on. So. Knitting tonight.

We're going to Seattle because I got great tickets--$700 including taxes and fees for the three of us--and I'm sick of Toledo and my job and I need to get out of this town and this routine. So we're going somewhere I'll hardly have to look after Chloe and can laze about all day, or go sightseeing or shopping, or take over the kitchen and make cookies, just as I like. And where I can see my family. I miss my family. The plan to move out there hasn't been working out. I've been job-hunting diligently, but no bites, not even any false alarms. No nibbles on the house other than one showing. I'm trying not to let it get to me. It would help if the shelf in the bathroom closet wouldn't keep collapsing on me, and if my dresser weren't suddenly, rapidly deforming under the weight of my clothes.

I'm also a little depressed a bout giving up the garden, though I've known that one was coming. With a toddler and a pregnancy, there's simply no way I'll get out there and do what needs doing. This seems ridiculous, until I remember everything else I'm also trying to do.

So, lots of knitting the next several nights. When I'm knitting I want to spin. When I'm spinning I want to read. When I'm reading I want to quilt or garden. When I'm...you get the idea. But I do get things done. I've got to remember that, right?

Matters of state

Well, hello again. I've just recently closed down another blog, the garden one, so maybe I'll be able to remember to turn to this one. So far it's mostly been the baby blog and my worknotes (e-mails to myself).

Let's see. Important news: I am pregnant again. Go ahead, ask me if it was planned. I'm due April 26, and have just given up job-hunting because I couldn't in good conscience accept a job and then go on maternity leave five or fewer months earlier. I hate this, but there it is. Eric is a stay-at-home dad, teaching a class at a local community college and doing online tutoring at night, and it's working out well except that I need a new computer (or at least a new OS, but the new computer would be really nice too) and we don't make enough disposable income that I'm comfortable getting one. It's going on the Christmas list. Chloë is doing very well; she can walk and say "up" and "Dada" and can point to various body parts, and gives marvelous hugs. I'm alternately excited and scared of having a second one. We're just growing into this nice family. Nevertheless.

I finished my most recent craft project, a quilt for my new niece (born last Sunday, I shipped it today, so that wasn't as bad as it could have been). Currently in progress:

-a baby sweater for Chloë, nearly finished
-a kitty hat for Chloë's cousin's Halloween costume, nearly started
-designs for Christmas stockings for all of us
-various attempts at making fleece hats and mittens for Chloë for the winter

Chloë's already outgrowing the baby blanket I made her, and she'll be moving to a toddler bed next summer anyway, so I'm contemplating a big-girl quilt for her. Also one for the new baby. No ideas yet on either.

And I've started the Shoelace revision. Rewrite, rather. I've been doing some research and some thinking and have, I hope, a much better background and outline. Currently I'm some 3500 words in, mostly new. I joined the Novel Club, a quarterly novel-critiquing group, on FMwriters, and I'd like to have this finished to submit by March. Ideally I'd say December, but I know that's not going to happen.

My current plan: finish the above craft projects, start on the quilts, do this quarter's crit early, and plod through Shoelace. I've been taking my lunch hour at work to either craft or write, since if I don't I just end up working through, and that's been helpful. It's also been nice that Chloë has become more independent, and importantly very regular in her sleeping habits, so I have a little time every day to work--not much, but some. So that's the plan. (Rule the world/you and me/Any day--I watched Dr. Horrible twice this weekend, and now I want to keep watching it so I can acquire the music and not just keep singing the same phrases to myself.)

Frittering away my night

Gah. I have this huge list of things that need doing and I've done little bits of things tonight, and yesterday, but nothing's gotten actually done. I made cookies tonight, which was totally unnecessary; yesterday I read some archives of a new-to-me online comic. The quilt isn't quite done, the Mother's Day cards haven't been sent out, the garden isn't ready, the job-hunt lies dormant, the house is filthy. I hate feeling always behind. And this is without getting into things like exercise, or writing, or crafts. I suppose it does account for cooking, since I just said I pushed my actual list aside for cookies. Good cookies, I must say. But still.

Is it appropriate or wildly wrong to say something about old dogs and new tricks here?

We went to Penguicon this past weekend. I like ConFusion, the other SF/F convention we go to yearly, better, but there was a lot of fun stuff in this one. I didn't get to see half of it because Eric slept during my Chloe-free time (I let him because he had an upset tummy), but for example, one of the panels was on real-life superheroes and legal and ethical issues attending them. Intriguing and great fun. There was one on humor in SF/F, and one on DIY blogs, and lots of things I missed. (I did have a good time, don't get me wrong. I'm just not used to not being able to do most of what I want to do at a con.)

One of the panels I attended was "The Emergence of the Female Superhero." It was fun, though it started and ended with a discussion of whose superhero costume was the best. The discussion progressed through "what is a superhero" kickass women who are too self-conscious (as in, trying too hard to say "I'm a girl and I kick ass"--the panel's example was Buffy) and kickass women who aren't (Zoe from Firefly) and the Bechdel-Wallace test and so on.

At one point, one of the participants said something about "I'm going to ask a controversial question: are we making too much of the difference between men and women and focusing too much attention on women?" He didn't say it nearly that directly, but that was how I interpreted it. Nobody else on the panel appeared to pay much attention. Later in response to a question I don't remember, he said, "Well, maybe the feminists in the room think so, but..." Nobody, panel or audience, appeared to notice, and that was the last thing he said. He sat for the rest of the panel with his mouth closed, looking angry.

When I told Eric about the "maybe the feminists" comment later he said, "And he walked out of there with his balls?", which amused me, but kind of made me sad because there was never a chance of him (the panelist) being confronted about his pretty apparently antifeminist mindset. It wouldn't have been polite, and it would have ruined a mostly enjoyable conversation about women in media (not totally, since a lot of it was about Castle, which I've only seen one episode of, and when the Bechdel-Wallace test was mentioned one of the male panelists instantly said, "But women never talk about anything other than men," which irritated me since that sort of joke is part of the problem). The discussion itself was never really about female superheroes, more about how women are portrayed in (fiction) media, which was still interesting; but I'd been hoping for a more positive perspective than a rehashing of all the stories in which women must be isolated or freaks in order to be featured as major characters.

I suppose I'm glad the panelist didn't attempt to derail the discussion by talking about how the problem of women in the media was vastly overblown and if people would just be sensible it would all go away and we'd realize there's really no problem. I hope he knew it wouldn't be well received. And I'm glad it wasn't my last panel of the con, or I'd have gone away more depressed than I did. As it was I went to the DIY blogs one and was pretty entertained, and newly interested in writing up my quilting patterns.

Yuck

Ugh. I've had what I think is food poisoning all day, waxing and waning, and have just concluded it with a communion with the porcelain god. Amazing how immediately I feel better, though. I wonder if other parts of my life are like that. But not much. Mostly I need to take my pills, prep for tomorrow, and go to bed so I can do tomorrow the things I meant to do today.

XXX

I am thirty years old today. My baby is sleeping on the floor (having been sung to sleep by Mom, who's visiting for a week) and my husband is sleeping in the bedroom. I'm sitting cross-legged on the comfy couch in my living room, recently cleaned, and the sun would be shining in if we didn't have the curtains closed so Chloe could sleep better. I'm in my prepregnancy jeans and typing on my little netbook, and tonight Eric is making brownies for my birthday (I'm not all that fond of cake, so it's brownies and ice cream and strawberries instead). It's a good day to be thirty. I keep thinking that birthdays will change me, for some reason...maybe because everyone asks, and gets asked, the same stupid question: "Do you feel any different?" I don't feel any different, and I never will. I just feel like me. I think that's pretty good.

Technology love and baby love

Well, that was fun. Friday I had my e-mail hacked into; Sunday I got a pair of viruses on my netbook and only just now got them fixed. Well, I hope it's fixed. And it was actually Eric who did it. But anyway. What I'm trying to say is, I love technology.

Work is insane, and has been ever since my coworker went on medical/maternity leave. I consider it an accomplishment that I'm down to one to-do list from the previous two ("To do" and "To do first"). I'm sorely tempted to take tomorrow off, but then I'd only be further behind when I got back. Blechh. I'm very glad that we're getting a child-free overnight date on Friday, though. It's not so much that I want to be away from the kid as that I just want not to be obliged to do things.

I went to a fleece fair in Chelsea with Carol on Saturday. We left the babies at home, ran into some friends, bought stuff for ourselves, went out for coffee and ice cream afterward...why did I have a baby again? I guess because when I left work today, I left at five exactly, even though I wanted to stay and try to catch up, and I was eager to go pick up my baby because I knew holding her would make me feel better after my rotten day. It did until she started screaming, but to be fair, that wasn't until I put her down to get her in her carseat.

Considering research

Chloë is in her crib, moaning, "Why did you wake me up just to put me in bed? Life is pain!" We just got back from a Tupperware party, where I considered getting her that red-and-blue put-the-yellow-blocks-into-the-holes thingy but decided I should leave for her grandmothers to get later on. Instead I got more containers for flour. I routinely have at least four different kinds of flour around the house now, and get nervous if there isn't an extra bag of AP at least in the freezer. (There isn't now. But we need to go to Kroger soon.)

We went to Confusion this weekend, and had a pretty good time. Not as good con-wise as previous years, but there was good Chloë-time; she loved the new scenery and the new faces and all the people who tried to make her smile, which isn't hard. I went to some panels and took the swing dancing tutorial and stayed in the hotel room at night, playing with my new netbook while Chloë slept. I'd meant to try working on some writing, but I played a game instead (it came pre-installed on the computer--luckily it's only a trial version).

I'm starting to think about how to revise Shoelace. Mainly, I'm thinking I need to do a lot of research to better build the world. I'm not all that keen on world-building, and it probably shows. I first started realizing how lacking I've been in the research department at the Penguicon writer's workshop last year. And I think a recent conversation of Eric's and mine solidified it:

"I miss college."

"The best time of my life. It's all been downhill from there."

"Unfortunately you can't get a job where you're paid to learn all the time."

"Writers do."