Dirty rotten liars

So, the other day, I signed up at the Crayola Online store. We moms do these kinds of wacky things. So, yesterday, I get in my inbox an e-mail telling me that I can now custom order a box of 64 crayons. Woah. That's so cool (Okay, I confess, I never did outgrow my love of coloring. There's something wildly soothing about it, what can I say?)

So tonight, I go out there, all set to go nuts picking colors. And what do I find? That the truth is, you can order a "custom" box of 64 crayons, but it can only have four colors in it. What the HELL good does that do me? Who needs 16 crayons that are all the same color, seriously?

Bleah.

Friday Five

1. What is your most prized material possession? Wow, this is a tough one. I have a number of items that I love, but I'm hard pressed to think of anything I truly "couldn't bear to part with". And I rize different things for their different meanings - I love my completed Mirabilia stitching project because it's the biggest craft project I've ever finished, and it's beautiful, I love my Seuss seriagraph because it's the only "real" art I own, I prize the scrapbook that belonged to my grandmother because it's one of the only things I own that was her's (and unlike the cameo that was also her's, it allows more of a glimpse of her), even though it has no actual value.

2. What item, that you currently own, have you had the longest? I still have the doll my grandparents gave me for my 8th birthday. It's a little worse for the wear, but I'd never get rid of it.

3. Are you a packrat? Yes and no. I'm a packrat who's worked very hard over the years to overcome the tendency. I've very much got it under control these days.

4. Do you prefer a spic-and-span clean house? Or is some clutter necessary to avoid the appearance of a museum? I'd prefer a spic-and-span house, but I lack the self discipline to maintain one - sadly, it's never worth sacrificing my limited amounts of free time to keep under control. I'm far better at it than I used to be, though.

5. Do the rooms in your house have a theme? Or is it a mixture of knick-knacks here and there? Heh. only if the theme is Early American Tag Sale. Yeah, it's pretty much a mish-mosh.

Wow. It's gorgeous today

Decided this morning that since I had no lunch date (*sniff*) that I'd flip our usual Friday routine around a bit - it was lovely outside, and I didn't want Widget's nap (or lack ofnap, as the case may be) schedule to prevent her from getting outside to play, even though the snow is still taller than she can walk through in a lot of spots.

We headed out about 11:30, and it was lovely - sunny and WARM. Like, high 50s warm. Poor Miss Widget in her snowsuit and boots, because I wanted to keep her dry, was sweating up a storm when we came in. We walked down to the park, with Widgete insisting all the way we were going to the swings. I kept telling her no, (knowing the playground wasn't cleared), hoping the wall of snow between us and the swings would make her realize. Ha. She started yelling "swing swing SWING!" and clambered right through the snowbank, and started climbing through the snow ruts on the other side. I followed (and this snow was better than knee deep on me, mind), until we could see that the playground was entirely uncleared, and the swings were still actually bottomed out in the snow. Plucked Widget up, through her howls of disappointment, trudged back through the snow and heading back towards the house, amid much tears and sadness.

On our way to the park, Widget had made the wonderous discovery of puddle stomping. I swear, she would have gone in puddles up to her knees if I had let her! SO, I tried to use new and exciting puddles as a way to entice her back to the house, and it worked, kind of. She also loves to carry snowballs around with her when there's snow on the grund, and she kept dropping her snowballs in the puddles and getting very mad when I wouldn't let her pick up the slush balls. She get oddly attached to the snowballs, and doesn't seem to get that she can just ask for (or make) a new snowball. So there was much crying over that. And she insisted on picking up this grotty road stick and carrying it home with her. Which she kept dropping because mittens are a great detriment to fine motor control. And yeah, much crying over that as well. Sensing a trend here?

Once we got back to the house, I told her I would build her a snowman, which I did, while she busied herself playing her own game with the snow. I haven't built a snowman since I was a little kid! It was fun, but more difficult than I remembered (or perhaps I hold myself to a higher standard now). Widget's ability to busy herself without my having to watch her constantly, or demanding my attention constantly gives me great hope for my gardening time this summer, especially if we can find the money to fence in the backyard. It's not like she can play outside by herself yet, obviously - she was never more than about 6 feet from me, but she listened and stayed close to me and didn't try to break for the street once. Yay! And now we have a cute but kind of sad little snowman in our yard, and we had a great hour and a half outside in the gorgeous day. I wish it would keep up, spring can't come soon enough for me.

And, of course, the bonus of the tiring outside excursion is that she was tired at naptime, and is actually taking a nap today. Woo!

Verb much?

I continue to be astounded by the rate at which Widget is gaining language skills. Yesterday, I was working on the laptop in my bedroom. When she came upstairs to take her nap, I came out to give her a goodbye hug, and she looked past me into the bedroom, and said "Momma work 'puter bed!"

Wow. That's almost a real whole sentence. Nifty, eh?

Grrrrr

Somewhere, somehow, I lost my ability to reply to journal comments from my e-mail client.

It used to work, it doesn't now, and I have NO IDEA what I did to break it. This makes me hugely cranky.

Chatty Cathy

My goodness, I think I've left more comments in journals tonight than I have in weeks. I wonder if I'm particularly chatty, or if people are just saying good things tonight?

Tomorrow, we're being uber-geeky, and going to a geo-caching "event". This should be interesting.

We watched this cool little movie tonight that I'd never heard of - Subway Stories. Lots of cameos, including Mr. Noodle! This of course meant, many repetitions of the conversetaion - "Oh, it's her. Yeah, shoot, what was she in?"

Sunday, I get to go see Gangs of New York with my favorite ladies. I should see if they want to do a late lunch kind of thing too. This will mean I'll have seen three out of five of the best picture nominees for the Academy Awards this year, which is better than I have done in recent years. And I get to see my Dad, who will be coming to pick up his new and improved computer.

I'm not doing well with this 50bookchallenge. I'm stuck on two so far, and I'm in the midst of five books at the moment. I can't even decide which one to work on half the time. And my "to read" pile keeps getting bigger and bigger. But I am making progress on the wedding sampler of doom. I've finally forced myself to commit to one variety of ecru silk. I've done the first cutwork bits, so now there is NO going back. Yay me. I've very proud of myself, because I had been wavering again.

Alright. enough random rambling for me this evening. I'm going to go do some reading before I pass out. Night all!