Still Here

Hola friends, I'm still here. It's just that the flipping sun doesn't show up until August. So blogging is on my back burner. But last month, while I was ignoring this blog, my one year blog birthday came and went. It felt kind of good. I'm always picking up projects and abandoning them, so it feels good to do something for a year. It's small accomplishment. And it was a wild year. I had a baby. I changed my job. They didn't fire me. The cat ran away. Then she came back. I had mixed feelings.We were attacked by fungus,  and we prevailed. We went to Hawaii, and the volcano did not erupt violent torrents of lava upon us. Through this blog, I reconnected with some old friends, and I made some new ones. I'll try for another year of blogging. I'm so glad you people make encouraging comments and such.
Here's what we've been up to.

 

Matthew at Shipwreck Day snagging a funky old toy while creepy dolls look on. 

Ceci playing on the floor of her room. Maybe some of you remember this situation? Well, I covered that terrible floor with some fake wood soft tile stuff. It's a dream come true. The baby's room no longer looks like a scary dream, and the floor is SOFT. So we can roll around on it and she can bang her baby skull against it while she throws her baby tantrums and no one ends up with a head injury. It's a win win situation. 

Admiring the yellow brick road our neighbor built in our garden space.

Mommy Likes

I've got a bit of a wall hook fetish. I think it comes from living in a one hundred year old house with teeny tiny closets. You're forced to get creative storage- wise. I'm obsessed with these DIY wall hooks from Bloesem kids. It's been a while since I've gotten crafty and now I'm feeling insprired...

A Few of My Favorite Things

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,
Bright copper kettles and warm woolly mittens!
Oh my God, I'm so sorry. Occasionally I am possessed with the spirit of Maria Von Trapp and those damn exorcisms never quite take. Hahaha. Seriously though, my brain is a pile of quivering goo.

Anyway, what am I blathering on about? I just want to share a few of my favorite baby things. Because really, isn't half the fun of having a little girl all the cutesy stuff you can put on her body and in her room? I sure think so.

There have been times I've gotten frustrated with my Mom for being a bit of a hoarder. She's not bad enough to get her own episode on that one show, but it's been touch and go over the years.
But God Bless her for saving my baby clothes. As soon as Ceci gains some girth on that little body she will be sporting this Oktoberfest beer wench outfit from my childhood!

Here I am in my parent's front yard in June of 1977.

Pilsner anyone?

And this hippy- dippy crocheted dress.

I'm not sure how I feel about the hat that goes with this outfit. It might be a bit too Holly Hobbie. What do you think?

My Paddington Bear overalls.

Also! Please admire our beautiful Ceci Pearl finger puppet handmade by her talented benefactress and lover of she-babies Karie Jane.

This is the last thing, I promise. Dragon shoes from San Francisco Chinatown. 

Slow Progress

I'm making some progress on the baby's room. It's starting to look more like a real nursery and less like a cluttered storage room. Of course, in typical neurotic fashion I now feel guilty for obsessing over the room so much these last few weeks. Baby X isn't going to care about her room for a few years anyway, right? It's my own hangups that pull me into this room when I could better spend my time reading about infant care or attending a breastfeeding class. I need to shake off the voice in my head telling me that if the nursery looks perfect, then I'll be a perfect Mom. 

Perfect house does not equal perfect life. Good to remember. 

Le Weekend

Doesn't the weekend seem so much more sophisticated when you call it "le weekend"? Also, your friends will be deeply impressed by your international flavor. Either that or they will find you pretentious.
Le weekend was quite nice around these parts.
We had some old friends drive up from Seattle and spend Saturday with us, and it turned out to be one of the nicest days of the year.

We snacked on the beach.

We admired the glowing orb in the sky.

If the rest of autumn was this lovely I'd be a happy camper.

For dinner we made an oddly shaped chanterelle and leek pizza. 

It was glorious overall. On Sunday Matthew and I drove to Ikea to get a few things for the nursery. Ikea on le weekend was not glorious, just full of screaming toddlers and shopping cart traffic jams. However, I did make some progress on the nursery and I'll post some pictures soon when I can display an obvious improvement over this situation. 

I've become obsessed with this wall pocket made by Graziela. How adorable and handy is that? I did see something like this at Ikea, but when I showed it to Matthew he gave me the "that's tacky" face. So of course I went home, surfed the net and found the expensive version from Germany. This company does not have any US distributors so I would have to pay 40,00 euros ($53.90), plus shipping from Europe. It's tough to have expensive taste and be so darn international. 

The Nursery Blues

The theme of the week at our house has been neurotic obsessing over baby X's nursery. Specifically, I've been melting down a little bit because I'm due in 5 weeks and we have no where for baby to sleep and no bedding for our non-existent crib/bassinet. My Dad was helpful and suggested we stick her in a drawer. Thanks Dad, for feeding my Ma Joad insecurities.
The instigating factor for my meltdown was a casual conversation with the owner of my favorite antique shop, who happened to mention that her baby showed up a month early last year.
Christ Almighty. A month early would be next week and we are not even close to being ready. First of all, the baby's room looks like this-

Sad isn't it? It looks like a place where bad things happen to babies. And yes, the floor is a disaster. Every time I go in there to try to organize I get upset. There is one dresser and a pile of boxes. That's it.  All my attempts to furnish this nursery have been thwarted. Last month I won a beautiful Persian rug off ebay that never arrived. After trying to contact the seller for 3 weeks I ended up filing a complaint with ebay. Eventually I was refunded, but I'm still without a rug to cover that terrible floor. We are going to Ikea this weekend to get a few furniture items and rumor has it that our crib has been shipped, but I'm not sure I believe it. I guess I have no one but myself to blame for waiting this long to get my act together, but that can't stop me from whining into the blogosphere.

There is nothing sadder than a pregnant woman pumped full of nesting hormones with nothing to nest with. I've found myself folding and refolding the clothes in the dresser to soothe myself. I feel like I need to be swaddled and carried around. It's not good.

Here are a couple of lovely nurseries from Bloesom kids.

I'm telling myself that both of these nurseries were once "before" pictures. Am I right?