Doodle Update

The Doodle is growing by leaps and bounds. We are constantly amazed at the things she has figured out regarding her surroundings. Lately, her big thing is to bring us trash - little pieces of lint, scraps of paper, receipts - to be thrown away. "Shash", she says in her little voice, and hands it to us, or toddles over to the cabinet where the trash can lives and tries to get in around the child lock to throw it away herself. We have no idea where she learned what constitutes trash or what needs to be done with it. Or, for that matter, how much more frequently we need to vacuum.

A couple of days ago, she figured out shoes - up until now she's pretty much just been wearing Robeez knockoffs, those little leather-soled, elastic-backed abuse-takers that won't come off no matter how hard she tries (I love them, and am already mourning her outgrowing them). My Hero bought her a pair of big-kid shoes (size 6 or 8, I think - about eight inches long) for fun for her birthday, because she was always fascinated with our grown-up shoes by the door. Now she wants to wear them.


She's a thing of wonder and joy!

Birthdays

This month, My Hero turned 32 and I turned 31. After spending Christmas with my family in Illinois and enduring 19 hours to and from on a train with a one-year-old, we were suffering from an overdose of partying, not to mention post-traumatic stress syndrome (NEVER. AGAIN. with the train thing). We laid low for our birthdays, which are a little over a week apart. Nevertheless, I think I won on the "most effort" competition - to wit, my made from scratch yellow cake with chocolate frosting. You may be impressed, but I just didn't want to go to the store to buy the mixes, and we didn't want a whole 13x9 cake.

This was also my first run-in (after living here for six years) with high-altitude issues. You can't see it because of the frosting, but my cake ended up with a rather sinky middle. Tasted good, though - not as light as the Doughboy's, but excellent nonetheless.

For my birthday, I told him I just wanted ice cream:

Hey, works for me.

Back to life

Funny how being out of work drastically decreases my motivation to blog, even though I have yet to discuss my work in my blog. It's probably the combination of ennui resulting from having nothing to do all day and guilt from being on the computer and not using it for job-hunting. But all is restored, my friends - tomorrow I begin gainful part-time employment once again, this time for a general contractor about 30 minutes from my house. I'm looking forward to the change in venue (I've worked in a hospital - administratively - for the past five years) and the challenge of learning some new systems and terms and whatnot. And also the casual dress code - can anyone say "steeltoed boots" with me? Oh yeah.

Being unemployed doesn't mean I've been sitting around doing nothing. Or, in addition to doing nothing, I've been knitting (which, depending on who you talk to, is the same thing). Behold, the baby gifts.





The top is a hat and socks for my newest nephew, born the day before the Doodle's first birthday (I'm a little behind on the posting - these got to him for Christmas); the second is the Elizabeth Zimmerman February Baby Sweater from Knitter's Almanac, knitted for a friend's baby who was born on New Year's Eve (more timely on this one), and the third is Trellis 2.0, a sweater I've had in pieces for months that finally got seamed and is for another friend whose baby was born on the 11th. More details will be posted on Ravelry, for those on the inside.