sueeeus

He has so many looks.  I love the blue of  his eyes.  In some photos he is absolutely gorgeous.  In others, he’s a silly little thing.  I love them all, all the funny looks he comes up with.  He’s so active now; I can hardly get him to hold still for a photo.  It’s wonderful that he has so much fun.  I’m loving it.

I’ve been busy busy busy lately.  Wanting to blog.  Not having time to blog.  That, and it’s taking me a long time to tweak my template to look the way I want.  I’m new to php, so I’m rather slow at it.  Little things can be so annoying to me, and I have a hard time just letting them be.  For instance.  I want my hundred things list to have numbers.*  Yes, I have it defined as an ordered list.  But when displayed on the About page, the numbers don’t show.  I have a style sheet, and probably something in there is overwriting my “ol” definition, but it’s not making sense to me.  It should be straightforward and for whatever reason, I’m not seeing it.  Exasperating!

Blackbird has asked to see windows this week.  I don’t have any particularly interesting windows.  If I did, I could integrate them into the corners of my home theme as well – I think Amanda Soule Mama started that one.  I might be able to find some interesting corners of my home to share eventually.  As for windows   I am remiss.  I see there is a window in the background of this picture of my Boo.  It will have to do.

My Boo is growing out of  his nickname.  He’s getting to be such a big young man, I’ll have to think of a more mature nickname.

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*update:  When I enclosed my list in a blockquote, the formatting took effect.  I chose lower case roman for my default.  Just because. 

Blackbird is on a quest for a butter dish.Not too long ago I was also on a quest for the perfect butter dish. I ended up coveting one of these French crock thingies, and I eventually gave in to temptation and bought one. It’s nice, and the butter stays room temperature, but my butter still spoils because I don’t use it fast enough.
The butter goes in the bell, and the bell/lid sits on the bowl of water. The water makes a seal, supposedly keeping the butter fresh. Before this I had a square clear glass canister/stacking jar from IKEA that fit two sticks of butter perfectly, but, alas, in the nimble hands of Mr. Gadget, the lid got away one day, and shattered into many pieces. It was cute too. The lid had all these half sphere dimples impressed in the top. I don’t know if IKEA still makes them. I couldn’t find them in their on-line catalog. It was only about $3. C’est la vie.

(*Updated to add Mr. Gadget)
Today, Blackbird asks to see our eyes.
These are the eyes to be looking at. Blue, beautiful blue.
He gets them from his dad. But the hint of almond he gets from me.
These are mine, complete with Cleopatra drag queen makeup, especially for the photo. I don’t really wear that much eye shadow on a normal day. One color is Copper by Naturistics, from the dollar store. The other is Big Bang by Urban Decay, a whole lot more than a dollar, from Sephora. The freaky halo light reflection (from the makeup mirror) is a nice touch too, yes I’m looking forward to seeing other blogger’s eyes. Eyes are the window to the soul, you know.

Show and Tell, a fun diversion brought to Blogworld compliments of Blackbird.
I’m partial to Tiffany lamps. I love them! My sister gave me this one. Such an extravagant gift. I love it love it love it! My great grandfather made the little oak table upon which it rests.
This is a much less expensive dragonfly lamp. It’s a torchiere. There used to be a pair, but there was a little mishap not too long ago.

I even have more Tiffany lamps! Well, just a couple, hanging from the living room ceiling. A purposefully unmatched pair. This particular one did much to help my baby through his colic. For some reason, he loved to stare at it and it calmed him down. The other (no pic) is also a pendant, and much less busy, but in the same color scheme.

There is much color at Chez Piggy.

What an exciting topic for me! I love leather! I love bags! Excuse me while I hyperventilate. Okay, I’ve caught my breath. Bags! Leather! Oh, dear, here we go again.

I must preface the dissertation with the information that, although I LOVE bags and leather, especially good leather, I’m very frugal and deny myself the truly exquisite. I admire the truly fine and exhorbitantly expensive from a distance.

I used this bag all summer. It’s a fun style and a fun color, and has a surprising amount of usable space. But I am fickle, and I am through with it. I am thinking of sending it to a certain somebody who has a raspberry hat that it might match quite well. It doesn’t seem quite her style… Yet, one word, and it’s in the mail!

I have returned to this bag, which I grew weary of and stashed away for a time, knowing I would one day return. This is a souvenir I bought in Paris. How cool is it to say, in an uppity nasal voice, when someone admires it and exclaims, ooh, Paris, when they see the word embossed in a chic and understated type on the front, Oh this I got it the last time I was in Paris. Implying that I often go to Paris. Of course, I work with men, and when I go out in public, wait, I almost never go out in public… Suffice it to say, nobody’s ever noticed. But I love it.

It’s probably on a par with the brands one might find at Target here, for all I know, but all the same, it’s leather, it has a nice finish, and I like it. It’s not perfect, but it’s got some good features. It can be worn over the shoulder, or backpack style if absolutely necessary (although the latter method is not very elegant, especially on someone of my size).

Look! It has a matching wallet with a well thought interior configuration. Yes, it was extra, but I was on vacation, and when will I ever go to Paris again I was just daydreaming this morning that my sisters and I could take a trip to Paris and see the sights, admire the paintings in the Louvre, nibble on delights at the corner cafes and stroll along the Seine. That would be a fine thing to do, indeed.


I’ve had these for quite a while. I’m thinking of putting them on eBay, because I never use them and there’s little point to holding on to them. I couldn’t quite muster the resolve to give them to Goodwill with the others I let go recently, so they are hanging in the office, waiting to learn their fate. The satchel/briefcase is big. The leather is extra thick and strong. It’s not a name brand bag, but it was still very expensive (to me), when I got it. The other is a Coach bag. It was my ultimate dream bag for years, and then I found it at a thrift store (still very expensive, by thrift store standards). I had a copy that I had been using, then switched to the real thing. I actually liked the copy better.

Go see Blackbird for more Show and Tell!

Blackbird has requested a peek at our computer(s).

I’ve worked with computers for quite some time. I remember when a 286 was considered sweeeet, and fast! One of my first jobs was in a computer lab, pulling batch printouts and distributing them to their rightful owners. Operations. Woo hoo. It was so very high tech, at the time. I even remember programming on a mainframe using cards. We’d painstakingly type out our code on a little monitor/terminal and our program would spit out a deck of cards with one line of code per card (if I recall correctly). Then we’d stand in line to submit our job, our program, to the mainframe. In would go the stack of cards and we’d wait for our printout to see if our code worked. What a process. Some of us have no idea how good we have it today! Punch cards. Now that speaks to history. Technology has come a long way, baby.
I have a work computer that is configured appropriately with all the approved corporate stuff. It’s a laptop, relatively new (upper left picture). I use a docking station and a 19 inch flat panel monitor, both at the office and in my home office (Santa suprised me BIG TIME with this monitor, this year, middle right). I need the big screen for the things I do. Those purple post-it flags They’re very important for my data analysis work. Low tech, but very useful. The yellow post-it has my phone numbers and office backup numbers. We just changed phone systems at work and got new numbers. Very inconvenient (remembering new numbers, but the new phones are quite nice).

My home computer is a home-built desktop variety. It had all the latest for its time, but is pretty much obsolete by now. I just installed a dvd-burner, and it has a 40GB hard drive, which is partitioned into two 20s, one of which is full. I’d like to remove the partition but don’t want to lose any data, so am struggling with mustering up the courage. The 20 that is full is the main drive, and I don’t even have enough room to defrag. Very frustrating. Things are getting slow, so I will soon be forced to do something about it.

I have a switch that allows me to toggle between my work computer and my home computer yet use the same keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Very cool. I just hit the Scroll Lock button twice and voila! Switcheroo.

Mr. Gadget gave me an optical wireless mouse and keyboard. They’re nifty, actually, but I can’t use the keyboard for security reasons. My work doesn’t allow wireless keyboards, so I bought a wired keyboard for $5 at a local drugstore, to use while I am working from the home office. It’s only a year old and the ‘e’ is nearly rubbed off, and the s, d, c, n, and o are close behind.

I run Windows XPpro on both machines, and I use the MS Office suite for many of the things that I do. I’ve also used ColdFusion quite a lot, but it’s been recently updated to something called Studio 8, which has a bazillion capabilities that I have yet to learn.

All in all, there’s nothing sexy about my computing setup. Maybe one of these days we’ll do a wireless LAN in our home, and then I can blog from the comfort of my couch while trying to keep the baby from chewing on the screen. Then again, maybe not.

p.s. Mr. Gadget has a collection of computers. Very few of which are usable. We have a computer graveyard upstairs. And in the garage. I’m afraid to even attempt to count or photograph what we’ve got. He collects them from people who give them away, and once in a while he gets them to work again. We’ve given some to his family members. Who have promptly hosed them by not following instructions and installing things that shouldn’t be installed. But I digress. Bottom line. Too much electronic junk is hanging around this house.

Ooh, I love hats. But rarely have occasion to wear one. I actually wore this hat yesterday. In fact, was wearing it when I read Blackbird’s announcement that today’s theme is a good hat. Voila! Okay, yes, I was wearing a fleece snow hat indoors. Why Well, you see, our recent heat bill arrived to the tune of over $200 for only ONE MONTH. Outrageous! Double from last year. Before the baby came, my husband started calling me Mother Russia because I insisted we keep the heat down in the house, 65 degrees while we’re in, off while we’re away. I programmed the thermostat and that was that. Once the baby came, we needed to keep the house at 68 degrees all the time, so I set the thermostat to Hold 68 and that was that. The baby is now a year old, and in daycare, and I’m back in the office a few days a week, so I set the thermostat back to Run Program. Only I worked from home yesterday, and was freezing! So I first donned a heavy sweatshirt over my jammies. Don’t tell my office that I work in my jammies! (I start at 6 a.m. and it’s so much easier to stumble out of bed and get to it.) I was still freezing, and the hat was conveniently nearby, and one does lose a tremendous amount of body heat through one’s head, you know, so on went the hat.
This hat I designed it. My brothers were talking about how cool they (the brothers) are on the slopes, catching air and whatnot on the snowboard, and the topic of cool hats came up. Wouldn’t it be cool to have dredlocks I’m no snow bunny, but I like a design challenge, and so was borne the dredhat. (Yes, one can get dred hats in Jamaica, but they’re costume, mainly, and not suitable for extreme snow antics. Plus, I didn’t know such a thing existed at the time. So you see, my design Still original in my small world.)

They were a big hit on the slopes. People kept asking the avid sportsters where they got those cool hats. And people kept telling me I should sell them. And I kept telling them that they’re not cost effective. One would have to hire slave labor in third world countries to be able to sell them at a price the public would be willing to pay. It’s those hand braided dreds. So time consuming. But a nice effect, eh

As it turns out, the dredhat is more suited to the non-extreme snow sportster, due to the long locks whipping in the wind and interfering with one’s vision. And as well, my brothers learned that a hard helmet is advisable, in the odd chance of a wipeout.

Now this is a good hat, don’t you think High marks for cuteness, but that’s mainly because of the model.

Show and Tell this week is our favorite room. This is my first house and I love that I finally have a house, although it’s by far nothing like my dream home. It has a somewhat typical American suburban development tract floor plan that doesn’t make much sense to me, but given my options and budget, this is what I have. I don’t have a favorite room, per se. I thought of posting a picture of my bedroom, as I long, LONG, for a good and full night’s sleep. But I spend almost no time there, unless I am sleeping. I thought of posting my kitchen, which I love, in that it is much bigger than anything I’ve ever had, has a pantry and an island and a deep sink. But it’s messy, and really sort of average, all in all. Plus, I feel like a slave to the chore of feeding the family sometimes, so it’s not always my favorite place. Especially when I don’t get as much help keeping things clean and tidy as I would like. The other living room used to be my favorite, but then we got this ridiculously big tv that doesn’t fit inside the armoire (I like things tidy and electronics concealed — it’s good feng shui, you know), so I had to move the armoire out, which is a very pleasing article, with nice bookshelf units on each side. The room used to be balanced and nice. Now we have a very comfy sectional sofa to go with the tv, but the room is too small for it, so it just doesn’t work. Plus, we also have a crib next to the sofa. It’s very crowded in that little room, so I don’t like it’s looks at all any more. But the function is nice. Many people can hang out in comfort and ooh and ahh at the amazing detail one can see in high definition tv. But. Not my favorite room any more. I therefore offer this picture. This is taken from the sofa in the diaper changing living room. I like to sit there on occasion and look up at all the crazy lines and angles in the ceiling. (Floor level is more cluttered than I like.) I like the tiffany style pendant lamps and the vaulted ceiling and the skinny rectangular windows. I like the skylights in the upstairs loft. I like to sit here and daydream about what kind of crazy lines and angles I want to build into my dream home. They will be more meaningful lines, though, with practical and useful features and functions.

Go see Blackbird for more show and tell!

This year I told suggested the cool cat make me something for Christmas. I tried to make him something as well. I had visions of making a photo holder with a concrete base, where the base is a hand or foot print, and there is either a notch or a stem to hold a photo (of the Boo, of course). I first tried making a sand casting. I mixed the sand to the proper wetness for forming, and I covered it with plastic wrap to keep down the mess, and also to produce a smooth finish. Unfortunately, it takes quite a bit of pressure to make a clear impression in the sand, and Boo, Mr. Magooboo, didn’t take kindly to that. I poured it anyway, to see what I’d get (which was an undefined lumpy foot). Not what I had in mind. Next, I made play doh, because it would be softer than sand and easier to make the impression. I found a recipe on the internet, and what do you know, it worked. Since I didn’t have the plastic film this time, the finished product didn’t turn out smooth. It looks sandy and coarse. But much more like a hand and foot print. I gave up on the photo holder details, and decided that these would just be paperweights or garden stones or something.
I tried, anyway. On the left are the play doh castings. They haven’t cured as long, and are a dark color with a coarse finish. On the right are the sand castings. They are smooth and white, having cured a week longer. Also, their color may be more white because of the smoothness factor. I like the smoothness and color of the sand casting better, but I like the definition of the play doh casting.
This is what the cool cat made me. Bless his heart. My BIL is an excellent craftsman, having built an incredibly beautiful and amazing home and furniture and whatnot. So. When the cool one presented me with my gift, he didn’t say, Merry Christmas, Honey. No. Instead, he said, I’m not D. By way of apology, I guess. Silly man. I love that he made me something. That he thought it out and made it happen. It’s a box that holds my ribbons. (I had mentioned that I’d like something to spool my ribbons on, as it would make gift wrapping so much easier.)
Now my ribbons spool oh so nicely. I like this gift quite a lot.
Since he was on a roll, he made me a spindle for the gift wrap as well. He got a little carried away with the dowels, bless his heart. It works, and holds quite a lot of paper. Incidentally, this was the baby’s favorite item on Christmas day. He kept pulling dowels out and swinging them about like a Kung Fu master. He had loads of fun.

Go see Blackbird for more show and tell!

Coats. Coats! Today we show and tell our coats for Jennifer via Blackbird.

My favorite coat is a deep berry boiled wool coat, very plain in style. I usually wear a paisley scarf of some sort with it. However, I seldom wear it these days, since the things I wear are quickly covered in baby snot and drool and whatnot. And I am not a fan of drycleaning. Those chemicals bother me, and somehow, in my head, I just don’t feel like drycleaned things actually get clean. One of my quirks. I also have a white wool/cashmere blend coat that my sister found at a thrift store. It has its own shawl. I have yet to wear it, as it hasn’t fit any occasion as of yet. Next is the parka. I haven’t worn it since 2002, which is the last time I went skiing. It’s a very nice coat, but I don’t spend much time in blizzards, so it stays in the closet. The coat I wear every day is a plain fleece jacket. Fleece, yes, blech, yes, but I can throw it in the washing machine any time. Plus, I can zip it over me and my baby, if I’m carrying him in a front pack.

Oh yes, the parka I am amused by its label. No endangered species have been shorn. And for some reason, this nylon garment is recommended for dry cleaning only. Perhaps because of the fur ruff Why is it that animals in the wild don’t shrink when their fur becomes wet I think the easy road is to place a dry clean only label on clothes, and that way the manufacturer doesn’t have to worry whether or not the garment will hold up through a wash cycle. It’s all about quality control and cost savings.