11.24.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:19 am by Anne

note to self:

Never Never EVER get another perm. and I mean never. I freaking hate this. hahahahah. There is nothing like hating your hair even more than you did before getting something done to it because you hated it in the first place. sheesh.

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11.23.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 9:39 pm by Anne

Today was Grandaddy and Nonnie’s 65th wedding anniversary. 65 years! To me, eight years is a long time to be married to the same man, but 65! The best thing about them is how sweet they still are with each other. Last month for Nonnie’s birthday, we had a birthday party and right before she blew the candles out on her cake, she gracefully reached over to Grandaddy, pivoting on one leg like a dancer, and they kissed softly just like in the old romantic black and white movies, very chaste and very sweet.

In any event, it was a nice party, lots of old beautiful photographs on display…my favorite was one with Grandaddy in his WW2 naval uniform, an arm encircling a very lithe and beautiful Nonnie (who was just barely pregnant with Shan’s Dad), on one of his wartime leaves. Shan and I took turns circling in and out of the group taking photos with my badassed camera. I just hope a few of them turn out.

Here is a very good poem I came across this evening. It is by Wendell Berry and he wrote it for his wife.

The Wild Rose
.
.
.

Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,
.
.
.
Suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade,
.
.
.

and once again I am blessed, choosing
again what I chose before.

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11.20.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 9:47 pm by Anne

You know, cleaning:
the highchair
the floor
the dishes
and of course
the baby
after a feeding is kinda getting old. I have come to the exciting decision to stop doing it. There is a reason we have a dog in the house.

The last time I got a perm was hmmmmm…18 years ago. Well, I got one today after deciding I was completely tired of my hellish thin and lanky hair. Nothing like Weird Al Yankovic or Shirley Temple, mind you, just a ‘body wave’ for volume…and something a little different. I had forgottn how freaking SMELLY they are. I keep waiting for my nostrils to get used to the smell and thereby become blind to it, in a sense (as it were), but so far no dice. So what gives? The other reason for the perm: in a few months when it starts wearing out, Im sure I wont want another one so it will give me the perfect excuse to cut it off. I LOVE short hair. It’s that husband who gets all pouty when I bring it up that’s keeping me down, Man!

I also got my lip waxed for the first time and very closely resembled fred flintstone for about 20 minutes thereafter. nice.

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11.18.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 11:38 am by Anne

Baby has a new tooth coming in! Just as I suspected, it is an upper front tooth so soon enough she’ll have some nice opposition going on there. What a good baby. I also finished buying her Christmas gifts for this year, basically 4 new toys…two of which are these really nice german wooden things. I like those old timey wooden toys. and that’s the important thing, what I like. HAH.

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, my family will be here in less tha a week and thiscoming weekend is Shan’s grandparent’s 65th wedding anniversary. I am baking two cakes for the luncheon, a glorious and enormous coconut cake and for non-coconut lovers, a splendid a toothsome bittersweet chocolate french almond cake from the depths of cake goodness. So basically, I am totally busy.

It’s good.

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11.14.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:44 am by Anne

Yesterday was more or less shot in terms of accomplishing a whole lot. Shan picked me up at the oral surgeon’s office, following wisdom tooth extraction, and I was plenty woozy and apparently repeating myself for a few hours. Then the pain set in. Once again the grandparents saved my homely booty by taking care of baby while I holed up in bed. I will say this, hydrocodone is my friend.

A dental assistant started me out on nitrous oxide to ‘relax me’ before the doctor administered the knock-out IV and while breathing in, images of Steve Martin playing the dentist in ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ started playing in my mind. It got to the point where I actually had to stifle a titter and when the assistant asked how I was doing, I really had to concentrate to form a sentence. Obviously, I didn’t want her to think I was totally out of it (which I was becoming) and I answered, “Oh good. I was just remembering the dentist scene from Little Shop of Horrors.” She smiled vaguely as if she didn’t know what I was talking about which made me want to laugh even more. “Great, she thinks I am high.” Then the doctor came in and he was happy and smiling, He said, “You’ll be surprised to know that I have great hearing and i heard you talking about me.” So now I was embarrassed and high as a kite and could only laugh. Then the doctor said, “Breath deeply.” A hilarious reference to the movie and all was joyous in the land. At least to me.

Today is much better. I got some work done and Lily is at her grandparent’s house until noon. woohoo! Since her nursing schedule consists of morning and evenings, the pain medicine I’ve been taking is not a problem. If she starts getting drowsy, too early, then I need to either lay off the nursing or the vicodin. Well, last night, after feeding her at 9, I took a vicodin. She woke up squalling at 10:30 and I nursed her to sleep again. Well, she woke up agian a few hours later so either my perscription is very light or else Lily is immune to it. This morning she was her usual cheerful and smiling self. I love getting her first smile of the day.

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11.12.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:11 pm by Anne

Tomorrow I am getting my two tiny little miniscule upper wisdom teeth extracted. They are the only ones to form and kinda started growing again once I got pregnant. All the growth hormones and whatnot, you know. All I can say is it’ll be my Christmas present to myself this year. With no dental insurance it costs 600 clams. and that’s cash. If I were going to charge it, the price would be 750.

On a brighter note, today Lily yand I went shopping and I got Shan’s paternal grandmother the sweetest Christmas sweater I ever did see. So that’s one less gift I need to figure out. And Lily is pretty well taken care of too, They had those nifty Peek-a-blocks on sale and I got her a nice set. Naturally it included the neatest floating fish peek-a-block.

But on the best note, the calendar I got from ofoto came in today and it is awesome. I had a coupon for fifty percent off the price of a calendar and thought my folks would like to have one filled with pictures of their only grandchild. The picture quality is just mesmerising and they are pretty big photos on a standard sized calendar. We may order a few more and give them out to other family members for Christmas this year. What a great service.

Towards the end of our shopping trip today, Lily started getting a little verbal. So we made our way out of the baby clothing department while another infant began squawking nearby (Baby noises always trigger responding baby noises..they are like crows.) As we approached the baby I said to Lily, “Now look at that little baby!” hoping to refocus her attention on something other than whatever unpleasantness she thought I was subjecting her to. Immediately the baby’s ‘older’ sister scowled up at us and said, “No! Don’t’ look at the baby!” I was flabbergasted and amused at the same time. She couldn’t have been more than 4 years old but what a petulant expression. Was she protecting her baby sister from the eyes of strangers or jealous of attention focused elsewhere? Who knows. I will never forget the look in her flashing eyes though. So fierce!

Other Lily news. She likes cows milk. I know, I know, you aren’t supposed to give them cows milk until they are over a year old but the grandparents slipped up last weekend and fed her some reduced fat organic milk. And she lapped it up like a parched sailor. She’s never been a fan of water, no matter how often I try, so if she likes milk..More power to her. Maybe it will help with the weaning process too. She turned 10 months old today and we’re getting closer to the year mark as far as nursing goes. I am ambivalent about it. On the one hand I am really looking forward to not having to nurse her to sleep at night anymore but on the other hand, I know I will miss the inherent closeness of these feedings.

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11.11.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:35 pm by Anne

man. I had made an entry a few days ago but I guess it didn’t take. so what gives with that?! gahhh. now whatever I wrote is old news.

Today we had Grandaddy and Nonnie over for supper. I roasted a chicken after placing fresh sage leaves under it’s skin and filling the cavity with the fragrant stems. It’s really the best way to season a whole chicken I think. Also salt, pepper, and olive oil on the outside. Beneath the chicken was a medley of large chunked carrots, celery, onion, red and sweet potatoes and a cup of water. And a saute of fresh sugar snap peas. and a fresh loaf of sourdough. If you haven’t made your own sourdough starter, I highly recommend it. The breads I’ve been baking lately are the best I’ve ever baked.

As They were getting ready to leave, and Lily had crawled over to the table and was looking up at everyone, I asked her, ‘Can you tell Grandaddy ‘bye-bye’?” and she looked at me and then looked at him and said ‘bah-bah!’. It was incredible. Where did she come from?

The other day while I was paying for my loot from Central Market, the twenty-something (HAH I can say twentysomething now that I am thirty!) gave me a baleful look and said, “I just LOVE kids.” Lily had been strapped in the cart and was taking the whole check-out process all in. I gave the checker a small smile, not really knowing what she wanted me to say, what, should I have said, ‘oh that is so wonnnnderfullllllll you would make a great parent I can tell!’ Then she repeated it to the bagger, who was some twentysomething male. He was okay by my until he said, ‘Really? I guess I like kids too. Well, not that I WANT any right now…’ and then the checker got all kooky and effused ‘Oh no! I don’t want THEM right NOW either!” I just paid and got the hell out of there. Give me a break.

Yeah I remember being a twentysomethingknownothingicehole. But let me honest, these kids couldn’t have been more than twenty or twenty one (Yeah, I remember MY first beer.)so it is patently unfair for me to lump all people in their twenties into the category.

So there’s that.

and I forgot to tell of dessert. A freeform apple pie…aka a galette. It was freaking amazing.

Did I mention? I want to get some of these for Lily for Christmas. They are very cool. I like the fish-one the best.

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11.03.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 1:59 pm by Anne

The sour dough starter I compiled and allowed to ferment wildly is finally done and stashed in the icebox. That thing got pretty stank-assed although I don’t believe it was responsible for the onion-stench that assailed me when I came back home from the store this morning. As much as I love onions, they sure can foul up a place.

Yesterday Lily ate an entire grapefruit and part of an orange. At one point I thought, “Hmm…this is an awful lot of fruit for such a small body.” but then I shrugged it off and told myself it was good for her to eat fruit.

Well.

This morning her diaper greeted me with a startling new world of thoroughly disgusting pooh. In fact, there was so much of it in so short amount of time, that I thought she had regressed backwards to the time of baby blow-outs. It nearly pushed out the sides of her diaper ther was so much of it. So I cleaned it up and we left of the store. She wasn’t very hungry this morning, and I gues sit was because she was full of doo. Then, she woke up when we got home and as I extricated her from the baby bucket, I caught the familiar whiff of a second showing. Again, there was a lot of poo. She must have a felt a lot better because she ate some bread and a jar of turkey and sweet potato mush. Delicioso!

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11.01.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 6:56 pm by Anne

I need to do a better job here with keeping up. A number of things have happened but the main big bad thing is that Lily had a high temperature of 104 around midnight last night. We stayed up administering tylenol and re-taking her temperature and in the morning I took her to the doctor. The dr couldn’t find anything wrong, though, and told me as much. Poor little miss received some infant motrin (dr said it brings down temperature faster than tylenol) and a prescription for some antibiotics.

Meanwhile, I am convinced she got this illness from the daycare at the gym. There is just no way in hell anyone can keep their child well in an environment like that, kids from all over with runny noses, sticking errant fingers in noses and mouths and eyes and of course all over the communal toys. If her fever clears up over the weekend, her dr will administer this years part one of the flu vaccination (I got mine yesterday) otherwise we’ll have to wait until it does.

My girl Cecily lent me a very very good book by Ann LaMott. She writes with exquisite honesty, copious profanity, and mildly irritating political references in a journal-type format (pre-blogging I guess) all about raising her son by herself his first year. It is hilarious and heartbreaking and I can’t recommend it enough. So go get it already; it’s a very fast read and so worth it.

So our Halloween plans started out with a beautiful plush giraffe costume. This was replaced with an idea, concocted by her stick-in-the-mud father no less, for us to dress up as the Flintstones. Shan has never been much of a Halloween celebrant, I just got him to join me in carving jack-o-lanterns last year, for crying out christophers! Long story short, we all drove near Dallas Friday to one of his newer jobsites and spent most of the day there such that by the time we got back to the house everyone was tired and not in the mood to get all decked out and traipse around the square. Lily, in fact, went to sleep two hours early!At least we managed to carve the three pumpkins (2 white, 1 regular) and get them out in time. I freaking LOVE pumpkins. love them. Then, while waiting for trick-or-treaters, I watched Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, and part of the Son of Frankenstein. Only 8 total kids! WTF?! Our neighborhood must be full of older folks. oh well, next year I’ll know.

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