I finished Scarf No. 2 that I am knitting for Christmas presents. Here’s the one for my 1o year old niece (sorry for another over-exposed pic):

I did something new–I went off the path of the pattern and added a decorative edge.  I dig it, even though there is a “right side” and a “wrong side” and I mixed them up so one end is one way and the other end faces the other way.  I seriously doubt anyone but me will ever notice (and if they did, they may think I did it that way on purpose; and therein lies the beauty of knitting–mistakes are allowed!).

Somehow along the way, I decided to knit two more scarves. So gotta keep going. Then I talked to a friend and committed to doing a hat for her 2 year old and maybe mittens too. Wish me luck because Christmas is fast approaching!

CS was not able to accompany me to Children’s Hospital to get Sun’s EEG. No matter. She and I arrive and are called in no time. First, the nurse cleans Sun’s head with gritty soap. She comments that Sun didn’t cry for that part and how odd that was: “What a good baby girl,” she exclaimed. Then the nurse explains that to keep from sedating Sun, she’d like Sun to be groggy and recommends that I nurse her. So the nurse leaves us alone and dims the lights. I nurse Sun. She stays awake. It didn’t help that I’d already given her her morning nap not knowing they’d want her sleepy. So I give her a bottle. She drinks it all. Still awake.

After about 20 minutes, the nurse decides to start with Sun awake. Oh, boy. We lay Sun on the gurney and then the nurse proceeds to put 21 (!) electrodes around Sun’s head. Yeah, that’s a lot. Gratefully, Sun didn’t cry or try to pull on any of them. Each one had goop on it and then a strip of paper over the electrode. Pretty. Then, once all 21 were in place, she wrapped Sun’s head in gauze, even under her chin. She looked like a soap opera patient. This wasn’t making Sun happy but she handled it pretty well.

Then the nurse said, “It’s almost over. We only monitor for 20 minutes.” She said that like it’d zip on by. I thought, “Dear God, it’s going to be a long 20 minutes.” And it was. Mainly because at about the 10 minute mark, Sun’s stomach groaned and then so did her butt. Then Sun started to cry. Greaaaat.

The nurse tells me it’s okay for me to change her diaper. So I put her back on the gurney and get the wipes and a fresh diaper. I grab her pants to pull them down and see the telling brown stain. “Oh, no, she leaked. . . a lot. . . dammit. It’s all over her. Ah, man. Is it on me, too? . . . Not that her discomfort isn’t primary to mine. . . .” Yeah, I said all of that as if the nurse cared. There was poop everywhere, people. It had soaked through her diaper, her onesie and her pants and was all over that gurney.

And I couldn’t change her clothes yet because I couldn’t get her onesie off without pulling out the electrodes. So we waited. Ten long, smelly minutes. Sun lay on the gurney bottomless–it was too messy to even put the fresh diaper on while her soiled onesie was still on.

Finally, we were done with the procedure and her electrodes came off. The nurse wiped her head down but left her with clumps of gel throughout her head. Not pretty.

I wiped Sun down. She had poop from her neck down. The nurse even commented that it was an awful lot of poop–she felt bad that she’d insisted I keep feeding her to get her asleep. After a lot of wiping, I got Sun clean and dressed and we were off. See all the fun Daddy missed?

The nurse told me that they’ll send the results to the pediatrician next week. I just hope (1) Sun didn’t move too much such that we need to do this again with her sedated and (2) that they don’t find something and want her to have an MRI. Cleaning the inside of that machine of her poop will take me forever.

A horse walks into a bar. Bartender asks, “Why the long face?”

A duck walks into a bar. He orders a martini and tells the bartender, “Please put that on my bill.”

A guy walks into a bar. The next guy ducks.

I confess. After 28 days (28!), I’ve got nothing for NoBloPoMo. So I am telling you jokes. My favorite kind–clean and corny. Here’s my favorite:

Guy walks into a bar. There is no one there but the bartender, who is cleaning glasses. Guy sits down and orders a beer. As he’s drinking his beer, he hears, “Nice shoes.” He looks around and sees no one but the bartender wiping bar glasses with his towel. Guy ignores voice and takes another sip of his drink. Then guy hears, “Awesome hair.” He shoots around and sees no one. Embarrassed, he continues to ignore it. Then he hears, “Snappy suit!” That did it. He can no longer ignore it. Reluctantly, he calls the bartender over and shyly asks, “Eh, I hate to bother you but did you hear someone talking? ” The bartender responds, “Oh, it’s the nuts; they’re complimentary.”

So what’s your favorite guy-walks-into-a-bar joke?

CS asked if I wanted to join him for breakfast this morning.  It was an out-of-the-blue oddball offer.  I jumped on it.  So Sun and I joined him at Le Madeleine and enjoyed a quiet meal together.  Then CS was off to work and I was off to run two errands.

First, I returned to the yarn shop to buy more yarn.  I have decided to knit two more scarves for family members for Christmas.  That will make four (plus one CS is knitting for one of my nieces).  I’ve asked what the recipients’ favorite colors were and damned if three didn’t say pink.  Pink.  Oh gracious me.  Having recently had a baby girl, I am up to my eyeballs in pink.  And I like the color pink fine enough.  But enough is enough already.  I think if I cried, my tears would be pink. But I aim to please, so if it’s pink they want, it’s pink they’ll get.

Then I returned to Nor-Joe’s to pick up more of their Gorgonzola stuffed olives.  Hot damn those are tasty!

Sun and I returned home and she went down for a 2+ hour nap.  Everything here is just pinky.

Yesterday as I was nursing Sun, she closed her eyes and relaxed. Then she started to shake all over–almost like she was jumping in her sleep. I gently shook her to no avail. I gently shook her again with no effect. I looked around not knowing what to do. CS was running an errand and not home, so I couldn’t call for him to come. Seconds later, Sun was calm again. No tears, no biting down; nothing to signify what had just occurred.

I tried to put it aside and do the “wait and see” thing. But then today, it seemed to happen again with CS, except when CS gently shook her, she roused out of it.

So CS took her to the pediatrician. They took blood from her heels and are sending us to Children’s Hospital this Thursday for an EEG.

My mind tells me it is nothing more than a “sleep jerk” and not a seizure indicating a potentially serious problem. But my emotional side is shaken up and anxious to get the tests done and the results back.

Some time ago, we gave our VCR to a sick friend. When we went shopping for a new one, CS said to me in the store, “We should get TiVo instead.” I responded, “What’s TiVo?”

That was a good three years ago. These days, if I can’t get my hands on the remote, I won’t even turn on the tv. I LOVE my TiVo. I love it more than my iPod; I love it more than my new fangled cell phone/pda; I love it more than our xBox and Wii.  (I am married to a techie junkie–we have a lot of cords in our house).

I love that even having a new baby who cries not just during commercials does not cause me to miss any part of my show.  I love that I can pause live TV.  I love that I can record a show while I put Sun to bed and watch it once she’s asleep without having to fiddle around with tapes.

Today was the perfect day for me to rekindle my love affair with TiVo.  Sun woke up sick and we spent the day inside.  Sun slept on and off, and CS and I watched live tv (go Saints!) as well as shows in our cache.  I got caught up on Boondocks.

And though it isn’t as nice as having breakfast out and visiting Santa with friends, it sure beats watching bad tv all day.

CS and I headed out early to hit the Arts Market of New Orleans. We got there about 30 minutes after it started and were at it for well over an hour. We bagged gifts for four friends in that time. Now that’s my kind of shopping! It had more artists featured than I can ever remember it having. It was awesome. Continuing on my trek of buying only handmade gifts for everyone for Christmas this year, I was all eyes. I found these magnets for two friends:

The top one is by Hanna Cohen of Red Beans and Nice, and the bottom two are made by Heather Newell of Le Jardin. All three together cost under $20. Sqwee!!

Then we came to the Bayou Salvage tent. Love this stuff! They find items that others throw out and salvage them into art. Very crafty, they are. So we bought two of Heather Mattingly’s NOLA cottages:

Friends had previously given us one of these little treasures, and I am tempted to buy several for me to make my own neighborhood! I showed restraint and bought only for others and checked two more friends off our list.

With all that shopping energy exerted, I then relaxed and found this sweet Madonna made from clay by Joy Gauss of Story Pottery. The hubs and I took a liking to her and bought her for ourselves:

Though the goal was to buy for others and not us, the way I see it, this is our vacation. And we always buy art for ourselves when we vacation. So why should we not do it even if we are just vacationing in our own hometown?

Now to find space on our cramped walls for the two additions we’ve recently purchased. . . .

With our vacation getting canceled, we attempted to have a little vacation at home. We slept in (til 8am, anyway, because of Sun), ate leftover cheesecake for breakfast, napped, then headed out for lunch.

After lunch, we headed to Magazine Street for shopping. Unfortunately, we didn’t get very far because my mild headache was growing. Once back in the car, we quieted down and my headache got back under control.

Next, we headed to Fulton Street to see its miracle–SNOW! It was pretty cool, albeit a bit small. We were there early and there was no band or caroling nor Santa. And the snow tasted like soap. But I’m not complaining! It was very pretty and festive and I will certainly return next year.

Inside the Harrah’s Hotel right next door was an awesome rendering of the St. Louis Cathedral in gingerbread:

Then we headed to the Fairmont Hotel and were reminded that it is no longer there. Damn Katrina. We are told that it will become The Plaza. Let’s hope they bring back the magical Winter Wonderland. It holds a special place in my heart.

We finished off the day of pretending to be tourists by going to Cafe Du Monde for cafe au lait and beignets. Not an indulgence I give into often. It was quite the treat.

Still on deck for this weekend, Arts Market of New Orleans, Celebration in the Oaks and Festivus Market. Let’s hope my head feels better.

For many years now, CS and I have traveled for the long Thanksgiving holiday.  We’d take advantage of the fact that my office is closed on Thursday and Friday and all I needed to do was take Wednesday off (or maybe Tuesday, too) to get a nice stretch of time away.

Last year, we took a cruise to Cozumel.  In earlier years, we’ve done NYC (I’ve seen the Macy’s Day Parade live–it’d be better if they threw stuff!), Taos, Denver, Dallas,  Houston, San Diego, San Francisco, Mobile…. This year, we were returning to Houston but the closed interstate changed our plans at the last minute.

So, ironically, this year, Sun’s first, will be spent doing what I did for countless Thanksgivings–returning to my parents’ home for dinner.  As far as tradition goes, leaving town to travel away from family is an odd one.  But it has always been a great thing for CS and me.

This year, we are doing the “traditional” tradition: joining with family to stuff our gills and play games.  Maybe it took a decade away from this tradition for me to appreciate it again.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!  Eat it Up!

My husband talks in his sleep.  Often, it is things like, “Tell Bob I’ll call him back when I am off the phone with the distributor,” as if he’s going about his normal day-to-day affairs at work.  Does he really dream about returning business calls?

Early on in my discovery of his talking in his sleep, I was reading in bed and he was asleep.  He opened his eyes (they looked very red and dull) and he said, “You put glue in my eyes.”  He sounded like a petulant child with a heavy tongue.  I didn’t understand what he said so I asked him to repeat it.  He did, several times as he rubbed his eyes.  Then I realized what was happening, I chuckled and told him, “Oh, you will find this quite funny in the morning.”  He gave me a glare then rolled over and went to another dream.

Last night as I crawled into bed where he was already sleeping, he looked at me with his red-dull eyes and asked, “Which age?”  Of course, he had his splint in his mouth so I wasn’t sure what he asked and I got him to repeat it a couple of times.  Finally, I asked, “Do you mean how old?”  He responded, “Yes, how old?”  I asked, “How old is what?”  His answer back, “How old. . . cookies.”

Now, I am still not sure of what I heard.  But I guarantee there are no cookies in my house older than a week.  I don’t buy cookies or keep them around.  Maybe he was thinking of the school cookies we recently bought from a friend’s daughter that stay frozen until you cook them.  But even they are only a week old.

I did what I always do: I chuckled.  But this time I added, “Oh, I am SO blogging that.”  Maybe if it wasn’t NaBloPoMo I’d have skipped this story, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.