Strange Days

Aloha friends. As you can see, Ceci had a play date with her BFF this week. The play date mainly consisted of them staring at one another and smacking their gums. Matthew reported that at one point Ceci attacked her BFF, as she is wont to do, in a fit of diaper-changing jealously. No babies were injured in said incident.
I didn't witness any of this cuteness because I spent the week orienting at Shiny New Job. I am exhausted. I am also intimidated. The Mean Little Voice that lives in my head has been on a steady purr all week long. Mean Little Voice likes to whisper gems like:
"You're not smart enough to do this",
and
"Your new boss will see that right away".
I've already considered going back to my old job if I get fired on Monday.
Of course I realize that Mean Little Voice lies. And I know that MLV is my fear of failure rattling the bars of its cage yet again. The history I share with MLV goes back decades. In the past MLV has gotten me all worked up, and then I DO fail because I listened to MLV and found a way to wiggle out of trying anything at all. Because if I don't try, no one can say I failed, right?
It's sick, I know. I intend on spending the weekend over preparing for Monday and telling MLV to shut the fuck up. It's the new me.
In other news, we had a quickie spring snow in Bellingham.

Ick. If you can't tell from the photo, it was a wet, heavy snow. It was a slushy mess that thankfully melted away within 24 hours. At this time of year, snow is just so unwelcome. I'm at the point where if I don't see some sunshine soon I'm going to go Yellow Wallpaper in this house. I've been scratching myself for days in what must be a sign of endless-winter induced psychosis. 

Also, the cat seems to have some sort of head injury. She has a large bloody wound on her skull and is wandering around looking a bit dazed. Why I didn't get pet insurance for this cat I'll never know. She is the most accident prone creature I have ever known. 

Happy Birthday, You Turkey

Happy birthday to Matthew and hooray for birthday cake! Sometimes I wish I could put candles in every meal, or at least every dessert. They make everything so festive, and the resulting lighting totally smooths out my wrinkles. 

I went ahead and made the chocolate Guinness cake I've been obsessing over and it was delicious. We have been grazing on it all day and I'm wondering why we don't have chocolate cake laying around the house all the time. It's almost impossible to be ungrateful or cranky when you have a chocolate cake in your kitchen, even when you are deeply sleep deprived with sore boobs. 

And Megan- I've got your pavlova recipe in my pocket for another night- but why must you taunt me with your fancy metric measuring system! You must know I am a lazy American and conversions make my brain hurt. 

Love and Happiness

In case you're wondering, not only has the snow NOT melted, but it has increased. It's been snowing all day.

It's really cold

Frozen herb garden

Anyway, it is Thanksgiving and I've got a lot to be thankful for. 

a beautiful and healthy baby

an awesome husband 

Robert Downey Jr. 

a loving and supportive family

a Buick Le Sabre with airbags 

a strong and healthy body

a mostly level head

and lots of other stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ready, Set, Snow.

Snow in Bellingham is a somewhat infrequent event. It snows four or five times each winter, and it usually melts away within a few days. That being said, when it snows here the city turns into a messy and dangerous mess. The city sold all but a few snowplows some years back, so only the arterial roads get plowed, and the sidewalks certainly don't get maintained unless the residents take it upon themselves to do so.
It's certainly a huge difference from the years I lived in Lake Tahoe, where the plows were so efficient that even when it dumped snow all night I would almost always wake up to a freshly plowed street and driveway. No such luck here. Ceci and I don't have any pressing engagements, so we're fine to hunker down and wait it out.
Happy Sunday.