vices, indulgences, necessities

Some things are a combination of all of these.
1) Coffee. Yes, I'm down to half-caf in the morning, but I have slightly upped my iced decaf consumption. I've also tried cold-brewing my own, using the smitten kitchen's recipe with varying results. The key is not using artificially flavored coffees.
2) Foot Soaks. These do double duty to relieve my swollen toes and general relaxation. I love Earth Theraputics' tea tree oil soak with peppermint, and have already gone through two jars. In fact, I'm soaking my feet as I write this (and praying I don't drop my laptop)!
3) Massages. Spa vs. Bodywork--there's definitely a difference. I like both, but the bodywork is less expensive because they take insurance, and there's a certain professionalism that I'm more used to.
4) A special body pillow. I'm a back sleeper, but it's just not comfortable anymore. I also needed the back & hip support, so I broke down and bought a Snoogle. Seriously, it was like choosing a car, since I wasn't buying the $10 pillow at target. I like this one because it's firm, but spending an extra $20 on a cover seemed silly to me. For now I'm subbing in king-size pillowcases on the end for softness, but eventually I'll have to do something--either make one or co-opt a $10 target body pillow cover.
5. Makeup remover/ facial cleansing cloths. When moving from the couch to bed, these are great if nothing else but making sure I get all the junk off my face before crashing out early.

oh, and, by the way...

Part of why I've been horrible at blogging lately is because I wasn't sure how to break this news. You'd think it'd be the first place I'd tell the world we were adding to our family, but for whatever reason, it's the last. I was thinking that maybe I'd sneak it into a post about finding the right sandals or the best foot soak, but I haven't had the energy to write those up yet.

So, yeah. I'm pregnant! 24, almost 25 weeks along (6 months, just into the last trimester) to be as exact as a pregnancy can go. It's another boy.

Um, sorry? For falling asleep at 9pm on the couch, and being completely drained? Then, when I finally have energy, planning trips and keeping track of work and family? Dahyum, it's tough! I don't know how some women do it. Now I'm on a daily progesterone supplement (to try and prevent another pre-term birth), I'm back to being exhausted all over again. Luckily, I avoided being nauseous, but I did crave salty foods at first (Ceasar salads, Onion Soup).

We were trying? Yes, but we've been "trying" off and on for the last two years. This was just a slightly more concentrated effort once I got settled in my new job, before I got too old, and there was too much of a age difference between the kids. Maybe it was the lacy red bra from Intimacy or maybe it was the pink highlights that finally did it.

It's just funny how this second pregnancy I've been on the down-low. My first was just insane--I was working like a crazy person, we were in the midst of buying a place, and just being in the moment not knowing what the future would be like. Not that I have adopted a "been there, done that" kind of 'tude, but more like, "Oh yeah, I forgot how much my boobs hurt." It still amazes me to feel this new little guy rolling around in mah belly. It's magic.

smartphone envy

Within a couple weeks of each other, Apple slashed the prices on the swanky new iPhones, and the Palm Pre was released. Last summer I couldn't justify spending the money on an iPhone contract, so I went with the Touch, which I love. But my work has recently cracked down on "acceptable use" of Internet/personal email use, and combined with a crazy summer of running around, I feel like I can better justify having a smartphone. Plus, I'd love to be able to twitter and get directions from my cell phone.* It's funny that a year-and-a-half ago, going on the internet on my phone just wasn't a priority!

Why not stick with the Touch? The Wi-fi-only internet access, no camera, and no Flash(=no Hulu.com) pose problems for checking email anywhere. And OK, an iPhone would be gadget overload, but they are so slick and easy to use. The Palm Pre has a lot going for it: GPS, music player, replaceable battery, touch screen, and of course phone, camera, and internet. The "real" keyboard is also a plus. Having played with the Palm Pre briefly, it seems easy enough to get used to, but strange/new coming from using the iPod Touch. Both plans include "everything minutes" and navigation (*which Verizon doesn't). [Photo Credit: Corinne Schulze/cnet.com]

The main reason why I'm holding off is we really need to refi our place, and I don't want to screw up my credit with something as seemingly frivolous as a smartphone. Also the whole 1st generation bugs still might need to be worked out. If I do get a smartphone, I also will have a hard time waiting for it to arrive! Nothing like a little high-priced instant gratification.

enjoying twitter

So I have to say that I really love the twitter as mini-blogging. As I thought, it has replaced some of the blogging, but hopefully whoever is reading this is enjoying it!

exciting Monday night: winding yarn & watching Medium

While Tak was at work, I took advantage of his empty table to wind new & old yarn that I don't want Owen to "help" me with. Some of it is very new: the Noro Cash Iroha in teal & dark purple I got on sale for $5.99/hank from Webs (yay!); the sock yarn in the back is from Fiber Notion that I picked up in Brooklyn a couple weeks ago--a very cute shop. The yellow silk is Colinette Tao which smells like perfume. I think SWTC has discontinued the Love line from Vicki Howell; these are in "Mulder & Scully." I love both the color and tribute to the X-files. All of this was accomplished while watching the two-hour Medium special.

Trying out Twitter

I've been intrigued by Twitter, mostly because it feels like a mix between lazy blogging and a beefier status update. Also, since I haven't been the best blogger lately, it's a fast way for me to get around the "acceptable use" policy at work and have something fun to say as well. Let's see how it goes!

lost and found

About a month ago, I lost one of my favorite earrings. I’d just got my hair cut, and went to Hammersly’s for Tak’s birthday dinner. Carelessly, I’d thrown my earrings in my handbag, and when I went to get my sweater, one of them fell out. Just in case, I left my name, number, and a description of the errant hoop with the very nice hostess. While I was willing to let it go, I was really sad; I’d bought the pair at a cute shop in Brooklyn with my girlfriend, and they represented a time and place that was special, both in meaning and where I was in my life. Plus, I wear them all the time!

Luckily, the earring turned up (Tak had a feeling it would), and we were happily reunited. But it makes me think of my possessions in an interesting way. In Christopher Moore’s book A Dirty Job, people’s souls reside in their objects; when the person dies, a soul collector or Death Merchant takes the item and sells it, making sure it goes to someone new who will love it. For some of the characters in the book, the item is an entire clothing collection, breast implants, or a cigarette case. Sometimes I wonder in what thing of mine would be the lucky object/s that’s holding my soul.

inbetween series

I've caught up with all of the Jim Butcher Codex Alera books, and waiting to borrow the latest Dresden book that just came out, Turn Coat. The next Sookie Stackhouse installment won't be released until late May, so inbetween I just started The Time Traveler's Wife on several recommendations. I like it so far, and (for now) it'll be a good commuting read--something I can put down.

With the lack of obsessive-compulsive reading, I'm trying to organize and de-stash the yarns, playing around with stitch patterns, and swatching. It's nice to get back into the knitting, after falling asleep on the couch for the last few months. For some reason, socks have recently intrigued me. (Like I need another thing to do?) Whilst blog-hopping, I found a link to the Twilight-inspired Vampire Baseball sock yarn at Sunshine Yarns by way of the Blue Blog. It's so cute, although I have to say I like Alice (she's my favorite Twilight character). Knitting will be a great way to hang with the fam all day tomorrow. Happy spring!

art imitating life

Sometimes I forget how much Tak puts into Secret Asian Man that is, for the most part, straight out of our real lives. In a recent story line, we goes into our break-in from a couple years ago. (No, I don't actually have a vintage Woodface T-shirt, but it would be cool if I did.)

What else is funny--this is what our place looks like--the colors, the layout, the furniture. Only cleaner!

childhood comforts

We've been playing a lot of board games in the last couple weeks as a TV alternative. It's been fun to get back into Trouble, and Sorry! I found a new travel-sized version of Mastermind at a game & tobacco shop in Brookline, and rescued our travel-sized Othello dating back to the 70's from my parents' house. Owen loves Othello, and I've even downloaded it to my iPod touch (called Morocco).

Another blast from the past has been a recent run of dinners like "beef" stroganoff and American chop suey. We usually use ground turkey and whole wheat noodles. For snacks, we've been having cream cheese or peanut butter on celery, which I hadn't had for years until last Thanksgiving. Anyone have a good tuna casserole recipe?

series to series

I have been tearing through a couple of fun series lately: the Sookie Stackhouse books (the basis of HBO's True Blood), starting with Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris. Soap opera-y but with vampires, I've seen the show, but love love love the books. One of them I finished on a train ride to NYC, it was so engaging. With a break to read Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (a must-read for every comic book geek), a co-worker lent me Storm Front by Jim Butcher, the first book in the Dresden Files series. It's a great mix of noir and magic; at least two of the books I finished in a day, they are such fun and engrossing reads. Sure, they might get a little predictable, but I still need to know what happens; which is probably also why I've stuck with TV shows Battlestar Galactica and Heroes. Now that Medium is on after Heroes, my Monday nights are couch-bound.

Want a taste? Try Many Bloody Returns, a good collection of short stories edited by Charlaine Harris, Jim Butcher, and Toni L.P. Kelner. Also included is a short story by Kelley Armstrong, author of Bitten and the "paranormal romances" Women of the Otherworld." Yes, she wrote the short story "Twilight" and no, it has nothing to do with Edward and Bella.

The soundtrack of our lives

There's a fun Facebook meme about the 15 albums that changed your life. It was really hard. For me, music is so intertwined with memory. For the most part, I have very clear picture where I was when I heard something, who I was with, what I was doing. Being of an age where "albums" denotes an entire disc, turning the record or tape over, and listening to it--I did a lot of that, in the car, in my room or someone else's. To narrow it down to 15, though--I could do 20 and maybe be happy. Tak was running down a bunch of artists, and I wasn't able to include them. Either it was song-specific, or I couldn't pick just one album by one artist, whether it was the first one I heard by them or what I think to be the best one (e.g, the Police, Suzanne Vega, or Crowded House). Some are so part of my formative years that I had to exclude recent albums I've loved--or it's just too many from one time period. The most life-changing ones I heard in high school (and those are many).

Or--none of the great discs I've heard in the last few years from top to bottom rocked my world in a fundamental way. Which is not to mean I don't appreciate and love some of my recent faves--Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights, Death Cab, Bravery, Keane, the Matrix and Garden State soundtracks, or Amy Winehouse. Well, there were many mornings that I was able to get through the day fueled on Keane's Under the Iron Sea, but it wasn't life-changing. Then there are the potentially hazardous records associated with various romantic attachments from 20ish (eek!) years ago. Am I going to advertise that on FB, or here, even? Nope, sorry.

The other scenario is there are times we'd listen to a bunch of stuff, and all that music meshed together indicates a time & place, but to choose one artist/album would be unfair. For example, I heard Jane's Addiction's "Nothing's Shocking" about the same time as "Pretty Hate Machine" by Nine Inch Nails. Neither one made my list because even though they are life-changing albums back to front, they are both very spring/summer/fall 1990. Same with Depeche Mode/ Pet Shop Boys/ OMD/ the Smiths/ New Order/ O Positive/ U2/ REM/ 10,000 Maniacs. They are all high school for me, flowing from freshman to senior year. I did single out the Cure's Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, but cited the Singles, Head on the Door, and Disintegration; also War by U2. College? Some of these bands carried over. I have one mix tape (and I made a ton of mix tapes) with Bob Marley, CSNY, Sting, NIN, Jane's Addiction, RHCP, Dead Can Dance, REM, Kate Bush, and Bongwater. Or when Tak & I started dating, I had my crazy mix of stuff, he brought the hardcore (Tree, Sam Black Church, Minor Threat), ska (English Beat, Madness, Specials, Bim) and the inbetween (Bosstones, Op Ivy).

So, what would have been some of the others?
Stay Awake (various artists): This is an awesome disc from 88-89 of Disney classic songs being covered. Gems include the Replacements doing "Cruella DeVille," "Castle in Spain" by Buster Poindexter, Bonnie Raitt's "Baby Mine," and Suzanne Vega doing the title song. We still listen to it since I have the tape deck set up in the kitchen.

Best of Blondie (Blondie): I loved Blondie in 5th grade, but didn't get an appreciation until college & after. Classic.

Seven Worlds Collide (Neil Finn & various artists): I couldn't single out one Crowded House record, but we listened to this a lot the summer before I got pregnant. When I was pregnant with Owen, for my dad's birthday we saw Neil Finn at Avalon. It was an incredible show, and one of the best I've ever seen.

Which is another meme in itself: Most life-changing live shows.

From Thomas to Wall-E to Star Wars

It happened relatively fast: I got Owen the the Wall-E DVD when it came out in November, and suddenly, everything was all about Wall-E, and robots. He occasionally made a track, but by Christmas, that was all he wanted. It was pretty amazing, and it seemed like he was ready to move on to something different. Considering how much he was upset and sobbed when we took him to see it in the theater, he wanted to watch it every day. We were starting to get a little tired of it. He drew Wall-E, Eve, and the Axiom on the back of his papers or at after-school. Since he was fascinated with robots and ships, we decided to try a different tact.

He'd been pretty resistant to Star Wars up until late January. Except at Christmas, my mom dug my Millennium Falcon and some action figures out of the cellar, and he loved playing with it. So I got him a mini-graphic novel, with stills from the movie and word bubbles (and by "the movie Star Wars," I mean, of course, A New Hope, Episode IV). The boy was captivated, and we slowly watched it over a weekend. Woo-boy! Meanwhile, the tracks (wood, plastic) and trains are now sitting neglected in a bin.

He still won't watch Empire Strikes Back all the way through, but he seems curious about the Ewoks, and *someone* told him the truth about Darth Vader. We've also seen The Clone Wars, and he really liked that, too. But R2 is his favorite character, and he loves the Falcon. We invested in some flat Legos so he can build the ships (Knex weren't doing the trick), although he's made a serviceable Death Star and a "rebel base" from Duoplos. Maybe we'll give Return of the Jedi a try soon. May the Force be with us.

the Metro

Yelp collaborates with the Boston Metro once a week, a daily paper chock full o' AP stories. Today I was one of the highlights, and got top billing! Check it out: http://www.readmetro.com/show/en/Boston/20090108/1/12/
It's a pretty saturated scan, but I'm OK with it.

Another year

"Every year unfolds like a petal inside all the years that preceded it." –Naomi Shihab Nye

Oh, yeah, I had a birthday! Since we were in NYC, we met friends in Hoboken for lunch, went to the cray-cray Toys R' Us in Times Sq. with the indoor Ferris Wheel. While we were tromping around looking for a Disney store, I saw a pair of Tokidoki rubber rain boots and got an immediate case of the "I wants."* Then some solo shopping to The Point Knitting Cafe, Purl, and Uniqlo. Followed by pizza, cake (strawberry shortcake), and lambic. Owen went to sleep fairly quickly, followed by a drunken evening at Tom & Jerry's.

Remember: beer before liquor, never been sicker. And lambic *is* beer. You'd think I'd be old enough to know this, but older is not always wiser.

Being righteously hung over did not stop me from eating my two-day-old red velvet cupcake from The Point (which I think is really from Magnolia's) that survived intact the train ride home. The cupcake was smartly "packaged" in an upside-down coffee cup & lid. Sure, it looked like a Glade air freshener, but it worked! Oh, and I can thank my mother-in-law's still-warm and homemade omusubi, rice balls wrapped in seaweed.

*I did get the boots as my present to myself, but thought about it for a week first.

Merry christmas!

I'm procrastinating packing & cleaning to post photos. Hope you all have a lovely holiday!

art show!

Tonight is the night of Tak's art show at Space 242, so we'll have both of our art shows wrapped up and will be able to start celebrating the season properly this weekend.

Photos TK of my art show last week; to be honest, they're not very good, but oh well. Tak's compatriots in the Weekly Dig design crew are the other exhibitionists, plus there will also be a series of short films which seems appropriate: Girls Against Boys. Somehow appropriate will be catering by JJ Foley's, which is basically across the street from the Dig office.

stuffed

literally and figuratively...
We had a great, mellow Thanksgiving, with a lot for which to be grateful. My mom had dinner sort-of catered: all pre-cooked, just needed heating up, and everything but the pies were excellent. Tonight I'm using the cranberry-orange relish on pork tenderloins, which should be yummy.

If there's a lot of typos, it's due to stress & lack of sleep. I've been knitting and doing a couple new paintings for an art/fashion show for Yelp Elites: F.A.M.E. at Via Matta tomorrow night. photos TK, but so far I've done 2 new paintings, knitted 1 clutch, a "necklace," and cranking to finish 2 more bags to felt (or not). These are going to go on canvases (1 down, 1 that still needs to be stretched & gesso-ed) to complement the new paintings, but we'll see how it all looks once it's on the wall; could be really odd looking & need another solution.

For work-work, I still have to finish a chapter to report on at a meeting tomorrow, plus two other meetings. And I won't get to finish the second Octavian Nothing book, since it's due back at the library...also tomorrow!

What else? oh yeah, the cat is going to the vet (Thursday); Owen's school winter fest is Saturday & we're going to a housewarming party, and both need baked goods. Whee!

tired of sleeping

Part of the reason why I haven't blogged in awhile is that I keep falling asleep at 9, and am just really tired. Not sure why that is. I have a ton of stuff to do, too. Facebook is probably the other big reason. I love just the quick updates.

Anyway, I've been to Seattle (awesome), seen a few movies in the theater, no less (City of Ember, Nightmare before Christmas in 3-D with the Coraline trailer, Twilight), knitted like mad to get Lorie's scarf/shrug done for her totally gorgeous & fun wedding. We went to the Brandywine Museum which was a pleasant surprise--lots of illustrative paintings that were phenomenal. This is the same trip that we saw red truck balls in NJ.

Hmm...I feel like we've been super-busy with all kinds of stuff, but now (of course) that I'm trying to remember it, it's gone.

Barack the Vote

I've always hesitated doing a lot of political stuff on here, but obviously can't resist a cupcake. Here's a great two-fer, from my Seattle trip (thanks to work, and the cupcake--thanks to my new-old friend Kathleen).

And yes, it's chocolate with vanilla frosting.