Dreaming of Hugh

I absolutely love when I have a dream about Hugh Laurie. It's just so rare. Usually I'm dreaming of beating the crap out of someone. Hmm, I really should find a new therapist.

Anyway, I can't remember much about the dream...just that we were in the audience of some game show...Laura was there sitting beside me. We had to choose someone...some kind of celebrity representative. I forget who we chose, but I noticed a sign for "House," and I said "damn! We should have picked the person from House!" And I looked it was some person named Louise something or other who had guest starred very briefly on an episode. I said "well, that's dumb, Louise was only on for less than two minutes or something." Then the lady beside me said, "yeah, that's what Hugh just said." And I looked over, and Hugh was sitting beside her. I can only remember flecks of the rest of the dream, but I was definitely hanging out w/Hugh, and even Robert Sean Leonard was somehow in it (and I think Jesse Spencer). Robert Sean was kicking a football in someone's yard.

So I figure tonight I am definitely eating provolone cheese before bed. That's what I did last night, and maybe the provolone somehow invoked the dream of Hugh....sigh.

OK, so does anyone ever question why I'm medicated? Didn't think so.

Choppin' Broccoli

I plopped Claire in the car and off we went to the post office (aka, the central business district of Hell) so I could pick up the baby food processor I won on ebay (brand new in the box, less than half the retail price, even with shipping, thank you very much). As soon as we got home, I could tell she was hungry, so I got to work right away. I bought broccoli yesterday---cheated, because I didn't feel like buying it fresh, so I bought frozen stalks. I plopped them in my handy dandy microwave steam tray I wisely bought last year at Bed, Bath & Beyond, and shoved it in the microwave for five minutes. I rinsed and washed out the processor, which kind of looks like the Magic Bullet. Claire was getting somewhat impatient and was not satisfied with the Gerber "wagon wheel" treat I had tossed at her. I grabbed two stalks of the broccoli and put them in the processor, buzzed it for a minute, and there was my wonderful broccoli mush!!!! Yay! I sprinkled a bit of organic shredded cheddar on top, nuked it for another ten seconds, then stirred the cheese into it. OK, here we go...

Got Claire strapped in her chair and spooned a little into her mouth. She got her usual crinkled face look as in "What in the heck is this new crap," and it took her a while to determine if this was going to be something she was good with. She rather preferred to take some of the mushy chunks and shove them in her mouth herself. She took about half, which was pretty good, although a lot of it was pasted onto her body at that point. She watched me as I ate the rest out of her little bowl...dang, it was good w/that cheese! She was definitely more receptive to her banana peach granola Gerber stuff I gave her next. She'd turn beet red, purse her lips together very hard and yell "MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM" until I got the next bite into her mouth. She's a trip.

So I'm pretty happy I was able to give her the broccoli. I am going to TRY (and "try" is the operative word here) to send a "lunch" into daycare with her as often as I can. I also bought the organic chicken breast again, and I'm going to use the processor to shred that up. I need to get a little divided plate with a lid, and I'm thinking I can puree some fresh blueberries and send that with the chicken and broccoli. I might try to think up some "menus" for her this week.

Oh, as always, a shout-out to my stay-at-home mommy buddies...ding dang, I am worn out after only being home w/her for one day! I just turned around and did a quick assessment of my apartment. I hope the Health Department isn't in the area or I'm screwed. I don't know how you keep it all together. I'm off to try and put this place back together.

Etsy Me Happy

Rose apparently didn't realize that I can't be responsible for my own compulsions when she introduced me to the etsy site. I'm on there constantly.

I'm searching for a unique but functional winter hat for Miss Claire...check out the adorable baby winter hats in Katie Segel's store...Minhae needs the one with the elephant.

Protecting them from this media-polluted world

Yeah, I'm on www.drphil.com again. I realize many think he's obnoxious, if not worse. But the man makes sense. I just finished reading a story about a 10-year-old little girl who was instant messaging with a 24-year-old man having EXTREMELY sexually explicit conversation. I almost threw up. That baby is 10 years old! What is happening to society?

Anyway, I know it's early for our babies, but these are tips offered for parents regarding their kids and the internet:

Five Ways to Protect Your Family from Online Predators:

1) Never leave your child alone in a room with a computer connected to the Internet.

2) Educate yourself on basic computer knowledge.

3) Teach your children to never give out personal information or photographs over the Internet.

4) Teach your children to stay away from chat rooms.

5) Make sure you have open lines of communication with your children.

And parental controls! Don't forget the parental controls! And I'm an advocate of the "family computer," centrally located in the family room/living room/somewhere visible where there's a lot of traffic. No computers in the bedroom!

I pray for the strength and wisdom to navigate through this technologically driven world with my precious baby.

Style inspirations

My fall style inspirations...I'm currently accepting donations toward fulfilling these, thanks.

Autumn equinox

Promises to Myself for Fall...

1. My fall colors are officially rich purple, dark teal, browns, nutmegs, rusts, and a dab of gold. I must find some form of apparel or accessory to satisfy these requirements. Maybe I can learn to wear a scarf really well. Rose, help me.

2. I will take the photography class. That sounds oh so hipster. Really, it's a "how to properly use your point and click digital camera" class for picture dummies like myself. I am friends with way too many people who take beautiful pictures. It's really annoying.

3. I will take the how to make biscotti cooking class. I tried to take this before but they cancelled it for not enough people signing up. Enough people better sign up. I want to make biscotti and give it as gifts. I don't care if people like it or not. Re-gift it.

4. I'm going to host a fall open house. I honestly just decided that right this second. I want to make cider and things involving pumpkin and maybe we can sit around and discuss art or the election or how I can't find brown flats that inspire me.

5. I'm going to find a volunteer project for Claire and I. I SO need ideas for this!!! Please, anyone who can give me suggestions on what I can do with an infant as far as volunteering, PLEASE DO.

6. I'm going to The Charles by myself one afternoon when Claire's dad has her and watching a film that I want to see. Me, myself, and I.

7. I'm going to finish reading A Confederacy of Dunces AND Invisible Monsters. All I do at night is sit on this computer, and I need to start reading. And I will. Just not right now. Since I'm sitting on this computer.

8. I'm going to bake at least one loaf of homemade bread from scratch again.

9. I'm going to take Claire to at least one public library story hour, even if I have to take a day off work to do it.

10. I am going to have a kick ass time at Rose's wedding and am going to feel deserving of having that good time! Obviously Jessica will have to drive, or we may not have a good time on account of being thrown into some random Orlando jail after I beat a slow moving granny with my ice scraper.

OK, so as I complete these, you're all going to hear about them. D*mn right you will.

Imitation is the finest form of flattery (subtitle: I'm a dork with no original ideas)

So I've been a blog stalker for a while now. I've stalked Rose's friend, Jessica's blog for months. She is cool because she has an adorable little boy and talks about her challenges in figuring this new little person out. Oh, and she equally dislikes when people view their Evites and do not RSVP. So that makes her uber cool. Then Laura joined the ranks and posts about Victoria. I try not to harass her to post blogs daily, but sometimes I might hint around. Rose and Nick have a super cool blog, but it is not updated enough...do i hear Rose walking around the corner to my cubicle to punch me in the face? Oh, and that is my new thing...thanks to Nick, now I want to punch people in the face. OK, so Laura blogs and posts recipes and cool stuff and I love reading them. Now Rose started her own blog, and of course it's all cool and Rose-like, so I was feeling left out. I blog on MySpace, and I blog about Claire on babyjellybeans, but I don't have space for an exclusive daily blog. So I decided I want to be like my cool friends, minus the mortgages.

I'm going to make a concerted effort to NOT make this a forum for my daily rants. That will be hard. There may be three days in a row where whoever views this may be reading about how I despise the people who park in the fire lane by the grocery store, Starbucks, etc., because they're too d*mn lazy to park in a legitmate space, and how 90% of the time they are people in luxury vehicles such as Lexus, BMW, and so on. OK, I said I'll try.

There may be a lot of baby-related stuff, too, cause let's face it, my world right now is pretty much Claire Lauren "The Fuzz" Anderson. She is the coolest person I know.

I guess that's all for now. I'm kind of excited about this. This may not be some fancy poetry or short fiction or whatever, but I'm still writing, and that's a good thing. Signing off for now! Until we meet again.