Monthly Archives: November 2007

Baby Announcements

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I haven’t been writing here much, and on my other blog not at all really. I usually put a picture at the top of the front page of my other blog, something “recent” and that has been the intended plan to do it frequently, I also have intended to put pictures in some posts here, but I just haven’t even put much of anything on my FLICR account either. Why? Partially or mostly it’s all because of the new baby, and my lack of getting his Announcements out in the mail. That problem is partially solved, I got one Announcement into the mail yesterday! :) I have more to get out, but that first one was the important one, to the only “grandparent” that remains, my DH’s Dad.

I wanted to get a photo printed in wallet size to include in the Announcement and that is what was the final straw of keeping them from going out for awhile (before that it was the “making of” the announcement that kept it from going out …)

I had originally planned to get the most recent good photo of the baby printed, and then laminate it with my Xyron 900 laminate/magnate cartridge (a cartridge I got entirely for this purpose.) I finally got a picture printed by uploading one to Ritz and having it printed for pickup the same day. It worked. But I used a photo from when he was just 3 months old by a couple of days. He’s 4 months old now, so it’s not the most recent photo as I had intended. It’s not exactly the sort of photo I’d wanted to use either, but with me being tired and not wanting to search through the myriad of digital pics on my hard drive and knowing I didn’t want to set-up to take something new right then, I just looked in a few folders here and there for a nice set and picked one out from a session of cute ones. I actually picked one out, then changed my mind later and then later changed it to another one again … before committing to actually uploading it to order.

I also messed up then, when I went to laminate the first two. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used that machine with a new cartridge and “forgot” to crank it out a couple of inches first to get that ugly ‘blech’ out so I have a clean nice project outputted, I can guess it’s nearly every time. Sigh. So I had the first batch of the nice project ruined. I don’t know how many of them I’ll make, I’ve made a whole sheet of pictures into the project thus far, with 2 of them trashed, of course. I don’t even know how many announcements I’ll be sending out. I am still trying to get addresses collected (I’ve lost all my address listings by not saving things from old computers or updating things here and there the past few years, and not sending out any Christmas cards the past couple of years, and getting very few in the mail anyhow for longer than that, frustratingly.)

I’m happy to send one to anyone i know who wants one — so if that applies to you, dear reader, feel free to let me know so I can email you about your mailing address. Just a comment here and I can contact you (your email address is required to post a comment, but will not be visible to anyone but me [inside my blog admininstration.] ) I would only contact you at your request, as well. Fear not of spam attacks or unsolicited email of any sort from me or this blog.

I’m semi-duplicating this post to both my blogs, tailoring the beginning to reflect the right blog. FWIW.

November 8 ’07 – First Fireplace Morning

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I’ve known for a few days that the weather would be cooler and cooler this week, and so prepared for wanting a fire in the fireplace this morning. Indeed, it’s nice. Outside it’s frosty. It was frosty yesterday, but not nearly so much as today shows Jack’s visit (on the grass and the vehicles parked outside.)

The weather site I use says it’s 30 degrees with a 28-feels-like temp. It’s not super warm in the house, but going outside and then back inside, the house interior does feel quite warm, for a bit.

I’m not putting the fireplace into full force work yet, just a morning fire today, maybe something later on after sundown, or right around it. The fire isn’t only about warmth, but about living light and spark of spirit. The days are getting darker, it’s a needful thing for us humans to get light from nature, and I do think the old-fashioned fireplace is something we do need in Autumn and Winter climes of less daylight than nightdark.

My sweet Baby Q wasn’t comfortable during the night. He’s exhibiting his first Cold signs. Poor baby. I heard funny sniffling coming from another child’s room too. :(

I meant to start vit. D stuff (cod liver oil, etc.) with the children earlier, but didn’t. Oops. Less light means less vit. D production in our bodies. I keep the children in from mass sun exposure year round, so with the different light now shining daily, they need a bit more sun exposure than “the norm” and 3 days to have the body convert that to usefulness. Supplements are useful :)

So the weather outlook for the next 15-days isn’t looking to be as cold as yesterday and today have been. Even so, a nice little fire some mornings will continue to work, for the comfort of spirit and soul they bring to us.

This will be our 11th Winter season in this house. I didn’t grow up in houses that had fireplaces. I lived in PA until I was 13, and I don’t know of anyone then that had a fireplace. Hmmm. I read about them and longed for those days in my books. I’m glad we can have lovely fires in a box, and that my children have this experience.

November – Holiday Season begins

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Holiday Season is right around the corner. It’s November now, which means in our household we have Thanksgiving and then our DD’s Birthday, or visa-versa, depending on the year. (She was born in 1998 on the 25th, the day before Thanksgiving.) This year Thanksgiving is three days before her b-day.

It always makes for a more hectic last-half-of-November than ever since 1998.

I’m in the mood for Pumpkin Pie, which it doesn’t have to be Turkey Day, November or December to have, but I haven’t made any “out of season” this year, I haven’t done much cooking overall (with a new baby in the house!) At this point I consider it best to wait until Thanksgiving Day to have Pumpkin Pie, but the urge is so strong to have some NOW so I don’t know what I’ll do in the coming days leading up to TD. Why do I consider it best to wait? So I’m not “Pumkined OUT” by TD, which is possible if I give in to my urge now. FWIW. :blush:

The weather has been cooler lately. Finally Summer has broken in NE Georgia. It’s still getting quite warm, into the 70′s, some days, but getting down in the 60′s at the most at night, all the way down way into the 40′s many nights. This makes things seem more Fall-like, and gets me in the mood for Autumn/Winter thicker clothing, crisp new clothes that just wouldn’t work in the Summer, no way. Boots are my love, for instance, and jackets.

I’m still not fitting into my old things to wear, post-pardum 4-months, so I’m going through my things and trying to figure out what I’m going to do about it. I hate buying “fat skirts” and such, when I know they won’t be needed. I’ve gotten away with wearing my summer skirts just not done up, they stay on and the openings don’t show with my Nursing (BF) Blouses usually covering them up fine. That won’t cut it for the cooler times outside, nor inside the house eventually (as Winter sets in.)

I’ve been Dresses/Skirts only for quite a few years, and did cave to wear pants sometimes when I was pregnant (starting in late ’06) and have a couple of pairs of jeans now for the “transition” but I don’t like them, I am supposing I wouldn’t mind some jeans now if they fit me nicely, but none actually do (since I’m still toting baby fat, which is alright since I am BF the baby, of course. It’d just be nice to have something to wear that looked good and fit nice. :rolleyes: Especially for “winter” wear.)

My DD got a toy sewing machine last Nov. for her BD, but since I was newly preggo then and since and also now have a still “little” baby, I hadn’t showed her how to use it yet … but the other day she was bugging me about it and I told her to just get it out and read the booklet about it. So she did that and started pestering me about this and that in the booklet, and I finally just had her get the machine by me and I showed her some stuff … and thus I now also have the ‘sewing’ bug and want to find a place to put my big machine so that i can use it. Lastly I used it way back in 2000/2001 when I had my 3rd baby, to sew for.

I have had the idea to make nice simple things for DD and myself all along, but I just “haven’t” done that. I really want to and now that I am so blah shaped, it’d be nice to have skirts that worked the way I need them to, you know, custom made by one’s self. I’m going to do that, therefore. I have gotten my DD to want to make T-Shirt Dresses since I told her how easy they are to make, and she wants to get a purple T-shirt for that purpose and is nearly wearing me thin talking about it, so I will have to be sure to find her one ASAP – and get to a fabric store as well.

I did get some Hanna Andersson dresses and tights and leggings and socks and clogs, this week, for DD. Every thing like that has “Blossoming Pink” in it. Also got another skirt and blouse that are not “pink” at all. So a custom made T-Shirt dress that has a purple top will have to have NO PINK in the skirt at all, IMO. In any case, the HA stuff is really nice, a good base for getting more things to mix and match with, every day wear. The blouse I got is has a peter pan collar and buttons up the front. It’s white Pima interlock cotton, long sleeves, very fine yet not “too fine” and will go well under the winter jumpers she has (I bought them a couple of years ago, big on purpose to have later, and later is now!)

We got the boys a few new things from Osh Kosh this past week, as well. Jeans and shirts. The baby too, as well as Carters for the baby. All three of the boys have shirts from Osh Kosh that match each other. A is 7 years old and I have determined (since last year) that he actually looks great in Orange, so he has an orange plaid flannel shirt, R is 11 years old, he and Baby Q both are blonde haired with blue eyes and have fair blue-toned skin and look awesome in blue, so they have the same dark blue plaid flannel shirt as each other, in respective sizes, R has 12 and Baby Q has 6m :) All three have neat Osh Kosh jeans too, so I hope to get a nice Brothers photo with them wearing all that stuff, very soon.

I haven’t uploaded any baby pictures to the web still, as I haven’t yet gotten those announcements sent out :veryshocked: I’m appalled at myself for this. I have finally determined that I like one photo I have from September, right after Baby Q turned 3 months old, which I like enough to duplicate, so I’ll use that one, or maybe take something in the next couple of days that will be good enough, and more recent … and have wallet or some other small-ish size photos printed out at a shop, to include with the announcements. I really, really, really intend to get this done THIS COMING WEEK!!! I hope I can do so.

So with all that pressure, needing to get some sort of warmer clothing figured out for me, get the right clothing ready for the children, and get the announcements mailed, and plan Thanksgiving and V’s 9th Birthday, plus wishing to really start sewing parts of us girl’s wardrobe, and bake for the holidays and get things ready for Christmas, which hopefully will be a Christmas Card that will get mailed this year (for the first time in many) … pressure … it’s heavy, tight, pressing down.

On a good note though, I have a more comfortable bed now: we got a topper for the mattress at Costco this week. It’s a micro filled top with something like 3 inches of memory foam beneath that. It was a pain to open and unfold … the foam was vacuum sealed into a tiny (for it) package. Literally the hardest work I’ve done all week, or in many, many, months. That is on the mattress and I have a waterproof/allergy cover over that (it goes around the whole mattress, zips up to keep all ickies out of the bed) then a thin mattress cover and the sheets. The next thing I want then is a memory foam pillow (with an allergy cover sealing it) as the memory foam is a dream to be on, no pressure points. Lovely to sit up in bed and feed the baby now, just need to get the pillow situation fixed to complete the comfort. Sleeping is nice too, no need to shift around finding a comfy way to be, I mean, just choose what direction to lay in, and if it’s the way you want to be, it’s comfy now.

A second good note: I now have a chair in the “dining room/living area” next to the kitchen. The couch was moved downstairs and I was without a nice place to be with the baby (not liking the “basement” as it is currently) and wanting to be on the main level with the baby mostly anyhow.

So I now have an Ektorp chair and a Bromma foot stool, with white covers. From IKEA, for those not familiar with those product names. Our couch is an Ektorp Corner sofa 2+2. (corner seat with 2 seats on each side, a couch with 5 seat cushions that can hold up to 6 people if you don’t mind sitting right by someone, not bad for visiting, just annoying for basic TV watching, reading, with children, everyone wanting lounging space.)

What is so great about that IKEA Ektorp line? The styling is classically beautiful, in my mind’s eye, and the outside of the couches and chairs are slipcovers entirely, so it’s easy to get a clean couch when needed or wanted. Unzip all the cushions and take the cover off of the frame, into the washer, then drier, then back onto the frame and cushions. It’s work, but worth it. The chair is even easier since it’s just a chair, compared to the corner 2+2 couch. Not only that though, the next best thing is: extra slip covers. The white is cheap, $29 to get an extra set. Other colors start at $79 and go up. The couch, we can get a color we like for $199,a complete new set of slipcovers, making the couch so versatile, brand new-like when wanted. We only have one set of slipcovers for the couch and also the chair right now, but will be getting extra’s sometime sooner than later, I hope. I also want to get an Ektorp Loveseat, which has a really cheap white slipcover set, just $11 … FWIW

To have all this furniture it will be separated in the house we live in now, but I hope to have a house with a very large family room someday …

For now though, I’m more comfy in the main living area again. A place to rest, feed the baby day or night other than in bed, watch TV, read, or even nap … a nice chair that is Mama’s and no one else may sit in it unless I say they may, which is no one. :smile: