conversations with invisible pigs and sheep

Jim came down with a high fever last night, so he’s missing school and watching TV today. He’s got a bit of a cough and sore throat, and no other complaints, so I’m thinking its a cold virus and nothing more serious, although I’ll be on the lookout for kidney infection complaints.

Yesterday, I made a bit of a bold technology move, and now we’re in the process of being web hosting resellers. I’ve been very happy with the hosting that we use for the message board, and I use them for my (now defunct) consulting website/email, and for Dad’s media website, which is also our primary email. But they were all separate managed. They consolidated the billing info for me instantly, and then gave my the reseller option as a way to manage all the hosting aspects of the sites. Plus, they left the message board where it was and moved everything else to that server. This is great, because I don’t need the business site anymore, Dad doesn’t really need the media site, but we want to keep the email. And I want to move this site off it’s current host. So now I can completely rebuild this site over there with little or no interruption. So, it’s a little bit of fun, and if we ever want, we can sell hosting out of our pool of disk space and bandwidth. So, look for more info in the coming weeks about the new domain name (something easier to spell!).

And then there was snow. Friday morning brought us enough snow to cancel Jim’s school. I got the boys fed and corralled, and set out to locate all the appropriate snow gear. The only thing we lacked were boots for colin, we made do with some too big shoes, but he just sat on the sled anyway.

Jim and Dad made snowballs while I pulled Colin around on the sled, and then we all went down the street and met some of our neighbors.

Later that night, Michelle’s clothes came to the rescue, and the consensus was that her dress and my jacket from the two-piece outfit looked better than the dress I picked. Whew, $200 saved, and I got use out of the jacket, and that was still less expensive than similar jackets were selling for.

A busy day Saturday. Jim had his first sleepover, and Dad took him there while I got ready. Colin napped long enough for me to get a 15 minute rest. Then it was a rush to get ready and get everything into the car, and during that time I put a run in my stockings right at the knee. No time to change (and I didn’t want to risk another run in the only good pair left!). Then, two hours in the car and we’re in NYC! It was a short, brisk walk to St. Patrick’s Cathdral, a little confusion inside, and then, a beautiful nuptial mass. I was so blown away by the cathedral and all the detail — you could spend a whole day there and not take it all in.

The reception was wonderful, plenty of food and drink. We had a great time talking with our tablemates — a friend of the groom’s from grad school. And there was dancing and bagpipers! It was a great time; we couldn’t believe we stayed so long. The drive home was a little tough near the end. Colin had managed well without us (well, me), and had just woken up a little before we got home. So he got a nice long nurse and then, actually, slept with me the rest of the night for a catch-up.

Jim had a great time at his sleepover. I picked him up after RCIA, and then we all had a family nap when we got home.

The rest of the week has been about catching up on stuff we couldn’t do over the weekend. Dad took Wednesday off, and we got our closet finished, and curtains hung in our room. Just in time, because our neighbors closed on their house yesterday. Since they have the same model as us, only reversed, and they got the bedroom sitting room too, we can look out our windows into their bedroom and down the hall, as they could do to, if we didn’t have curtains. Anyway, the curtains are nicer than the blinds we have, although we’re keeping the blinds too. I made Dad go out in the cold to check out how much privacy we get with just the curtains, and they’re pretty good, but it looks like we need more on the side of the house. Which is OK, because they’re just plain white ones from IKEA, and pretty inexpensive. I kept buying them on every trip, and I still have about three or four packs left.

It’s been a busy week and half. President’s Day meant no school for Jim, so went to the mall to get him pants (and got a tie as well). I was also on the hunt for something to wear under my two-piece dress for the family wedding on the 23rd. I got lucky and found a silvery lycra tank.

The next day was my birthday, and we went to the art museum with Nan, and then out to lunch (the diet is already starting to take a hit). I got my Jim baby pendant from Jim, only to find that the merchant sent me something very different from Colin’s (that I got for Christmas), and also different from what is pictured on the website. I almost thought that I ordered it from a different place. So I sent a somewhat fractured email about it

Things really went downhill on Thursday when I found out that the tailor with whom I left my skirt to be altered (ten days earlier) refused to do the alterations, but didn’t think it was necessary to call and let me know. I felt left high and dry, and then headed to the big big mall for some major shopping (with the boys). I tried on nearly 20 dresses in five or six stores. Finally, in the last store (of course), I found something passable. For more than twice what I had paid for the first (non returnable) outfit.

What does seven hours of shopping do to Jim? After I paid for the dress, I called my trusty friend Michelle, who also has several dresses that fit me. While I was on the phone, Jim started making snow angels for the security camera. He was lying on the carpet, watching himself. We were all a little loopy by then.

So I took the boys out for a walk, and it was Jim’s maiden voyage on his scooter (that he got for his birthday). We missed trying it out during all the nice weather because he didn’t have a helmet.

He did really well. I expected him to bail on it, but he didn’t. I wanted him to bail on it, because he was so slow. But I think he’ll get the hang of it.

Afterwards, I let Colin walk around on the grass. Step-step-plop. Step-step-step-plop. Step-plop. So funny. He loved it.

I also gave in and cut Colin’s hair this morning. It took five tries to get it close to right. First it was long bangs, and he looked like a girl. Then the bangs were shorter, but too straight. Then they were crooked. So I evened them out, and they were too straight again. Now they look right, but I miss the long hair in his eyes.

So, we kind of screwed up and you didn’t get the big birthday celebration you deserve. The boys are getting baptized at Easter Vigil with us, and we can’t figure out how to make the big party thing work with the timing.

Anyway, you’re walking now, but then again you’re not. You crawl just as much as you walk, but you can and do walk. And you’re a cute little cuddle bug who likes your stuffed animals — you hug them them and get excited to see them and give them cuddles. You love your toys and your big brother’s toys, and when you’re not sick, you want to eat all the food. Not just the food we’ve given you, all the food. Your expression yesterday when you saw the two boxes of donuts was priceless. The yelling for the pizza later was more annoying but equally as adorable.

Our first Lenten season. We’re giving up the video games. It hasn’t been hard — there’s been reading and knitting to fill me time. Jim asks every day if he can watch us play Pokemon, or if we caught any Pokemon while we were sleeping, and we remind him that we aren’t playing them.

In cleaning out the pantry to make room for the “diet” foods (Dad’s joining my lowfat campaign), I got two bags of food for the church’s food pantry. We dropped it off at the rectory on Wednesday, and were going to kill time at Home Depot before the service started at the big church, but as I pulled up to the main street, I saw that the big church’s lot was filling up. Turns out I had the service time wrong, and we would have missed it if we hadn’t dropped off the food.

I’m working on a knitted blanket for charity, using up the bunches of Dale of Norway baby wool that I have. It’s too small a gauge for me to complete anything before it’s outgrown, but held double, it makes about worsted weight, and the blanket is nice and soft and sproingy. And it’s machine washable, so, there’s that too. I’ve also decided that most of my knitting will be done out of my stash from now on, until I can get the stash down to one tub.

Everything is getting posted all at once now, because the cold that had been lingering last week came back with a vengence early this week. I made it through Monday, barely, but Tuesday I was just miserable. Because I was already out to take Jim to school, I went grocery shopping Wednesday for tissues and some kind of medicine I could take while nursing Colin. I took it after we picked Jim up and ate lunch, and woo-boy, it knocked me out. I slept on and off from 2.00 to 4.30. That goodness Colin fell asleep with me, and Jim had TV and was good. I woke up every half hour to put on a new recorded show.

So today Dad stayed home, and I tried the medicine again, thinking I had just been tired the day before. Nope, I lost the whole morning today.

But, I am starting to feel better. The spray I’m using clears up 75 – 90% of the nasal congestion and that makes everything else better.

Colin loves to cuddle blankets, and he pulled down a pile of clean laundry to play in…

Monday night we got married. It was the real deal, a requirement before receiving the sacraments at Easter. We had our rings blessed and (re-)exchanged them. This time around, the party was much smaller — two adult witnesses and the boys. Jim always asked what he did at our wedding, and we told him he wasn’t there. Well, now he was there.

Afterwards we had pizza..

(BTW, as a lark I tried on my wedding dress while I was looking for something to wear. It still fits.)

I even got flowers!

This less than one skein wonder is the Knot Cap by Knitty Keen in white cashmerino aran (Debble Bliss). It’s the 0-6 month size, with two mods. Instead of knotting the “stem”, I sewed the end down to make a loop. I also made the ribbing much longer and folded it up. I made this same cap for Colin before his was born out of remnants of the same yarn, and wish I had been able to make the brim longer, and I wasn’t happy with the knot in his cap either.

This was a gift for a young woman in our RCIA class who’s due at the end of February.

Today is the first day that Colin ever threw up. Not bad — he went more than a year. He’s not super sick, it must have just been belly boogies from his cold. He perked up right after we got cleaned up.

So yesterday I took a quick trip to IKEA. I was missing a piece that I needed to get my table put together in my “craft” (slash guest) room. I also wanted a chair for the family room, because the sofas are getting so out of shape that they are doing me more harm than good. So, even with Colin in tow and the weekend crowd, we were in and out in no time. The chair is great — it matches our entertainment center.

Well, here’s the irony. I was sitting in the chair when Colin puked, so of course he got the chair and footstool, both upholstered in a rough brown fabric that was none too easy to clean. But at least the chair matches the stains on the sofa and love seat now.