she's just saying...

Confessions of a sleepaholic.

Mmmmm, sleep. What is more delicious than sleep, really?

Last year was a personally challenging period as I dragged myself through repeated breakups and eye surgeries. Sleep was my refuge and reward. I started going to bed earlier and sleeping later until I was up to about nine and a half hours a night.  Sometimes nothing was worth staying up for, sometimes it was my escape from obligations, sometimes I was just very tired. But it got me through the year in a relatively stable state of mind.

This year I have no good excuses, but now I'm hooked on it. And I have no interest in kicking the habit.

I'm a really good sleeper. I fall asleep within two minutes of hitting the pillow and don't wake up until  Flash's senior-dog bladder kicks in, the alarm goes off or cats start sitting on my chest. On the weekends, I get up, throw them all out and go back to sleep for another hour or two. I guard my sleep time and don't let anything interfere. Henry has learned to his peril not to wake me NO MATTER WHAT. Last night I slept over 10 hours. And I can't wait to get back to bed!

I don't think I'm suffering from depression or a low-grade illness. I just enjoy sleep, and it seems the more I get the more I want. (Isn't that the first sign of addiction?)

Kathi D says that getting a lot of sleep is the latest trend. (Her latest blog post is titled "Sleep is the new awake," a great title IMO). Who knew? I feel mildly disappointed that my recent obsession with sleep is just another car on the trendtrain, but that happens when you're smack in the middle of the baby boom. Nothing we do is original, ever.

I might feel slightly bad about all the time I "waste" asleep, except that I credit it for my mental and physical health. It's the only pleasure I indulge in that's actually good for me. 

I figure I'll eventually get enough, and will find a more balanced equilibrium between sleep and awake. But for now, I'm going to bed. Sleep tight and sweet dreams.

Grammar rant: verbs that aren't

I know you're all waiting breathlessly for a sock post, but in the meantime, allow me to complain.

There are some nouns that just shouldn't try to be verbs. Some have slipped in and are now accepted, but we have to draw the line somewhere. (For example, to table something seems to be legit. But you wouldn't desk something. Yet.)

Top of my list is "journal," i.e. to journal. Just typing that makes me itchy. I see wall hangings, a scented candle, new age music in the background and someone writing endlessly about nothing. (Unlike to blog which is perfectly acceptable.)

MyBigBro mentioned one he doesn't like: to gift. Actually I think there's a nuance there versus "to give," but I can't put my finger on it.

How about to parent? I don't know how to parent. I do know how to nag, cuddle, nurture, lecture, feed, support and yell a lot, though.

I can accept to medal and to impact. After all, I'm in advertising, where we concept regularly. To concept an ad is not really anything like conceiving. It's less physical, for one thing.Of course, we also wordsmith a lot.

And then there's dialoguing. This kind of fits with the crowd who journal and parent.

This brings up the old story about xeroxing stuff with a small x, but that one has kind of escaped Xerox's control. But I think Google likes the verb to google - I would if I were them.

When we worked on cell phones, Sony-Ericsson was attempting to verbify their logo, as follows:

as Logoblink.com shows it.

(I can't remember what they called that - the orb? the sphere? ) It was awkward.

As for me, I think verbing certain nouns garbages up the language. Really. So let's refusal it.

Top Ten Tues: sustainable or just cheap?

My parents are both very frugal. My mom grew up on a small farm in New England, a direct descendent of austere puritan stock. My dad grew up during the Depression in Germany. Though his family was well-off, it must have left an impression, because he's always been fiscally conservative. Putting four kids through good private college and grad school on an engineer's salary must have been tight, but we had a solidly upper-middle-class upbringing due to my parents' careful spending.

Regrettably, I can't say I inherited the trait. I think my family considers me fairly extravagant. However, I did pick up some cost-saving habits along the way. My friends used to laugh at me for them, but now they're kinda green and eco-hip.

So whether you want to save money or the planet, here are ten 3R*s I learned at home:

1. Rinsing and reusing ziplock baggies, bread wrappers, foil and paper plates - always some drying on a rack by the sink
2. Saving butter wrappers to grease cookie sheets
3. Using dishcloths instead of paper towels (sorry, KathiD: warshrags)
4. Picking all the meat off the turkey carcass for soup and stock
5. Carefully saving wrapping, bows and ribbon to reuse, sometimes for years (the common refrain at Christmas: "don't rip the paper!")
6. Putting cheese ends and bread crusts in the freezer for fondue and breadcrumbs
7. Pouring off bacon grease for cooking (I don't cook bacon, but I do render chicken fat)
8. Composting and growing our own vegetables (we composted back in the 50's - it was considered a bit weird in our suburb)
9. Adding water to dishwashing liquid to stretch it
10. All four of us taking a bath together to save water (OK, that was when I was 4)

Okay, I know a lot of you had a similar upbringing. Share your passed-down cheap green habits here.

*reduce/reuse/recycle, but you knew that

upcoming topics

Yes, it's been a little quiet here lately. Either my life is getting too boring to blog about or too busy to find time to blog. Weirdly, it's both, but that's no excuse. Topics to come:

• The art of sleep
• Knitting socks (I'll try to keep it interesting to non-knitters)
• how to make kick-ass limoncello (involves Everclear...)
• a review of Wii Sports Active (my latest attempt at a club-free workout)

Doesn't that all sound great? Now I just have to write it...

I'm kind of running dry, actually. Maybe I could try the improv approach: throw out a topic and I'll write a post on it. Could be fun! (for you) and probably scary (for me). I don't promise anything.

Mexican calendar girls, irony and my ex-boyfriend

I ran across this cool book while searching for a new calendar, and was reminded of an incident from my not-so-distant past.

My BigBro lives in Austin, Texas (don't get him started, please), and a few years ago sent me a calendar from his local diner that featured an illustration of a buxom Mexican beauty with straps of bullets across her chest and a gun slung on her back.

I thought it was lovely and generously thought it would be a great gift for my boyfriend at the time. (Yes, that one.)  I gave it to him for Christmas and waited for the appreciative response. He opened it, looked at me blankly and said: "Why would you think I'd want this cheesy calendar?"

I should have sensed at that point that we weren't made for each other. What I saw as an ironic, iconic, folk-artsy hip piece of Tex-Mex Americana, he saw as a cheesy calendar. Which, to be fair, it was. But that wasn't the point.

Well, never mind. I wish I'd kept it. So, hey, Steve, send me another one!

Fear of Flying: 2010 version

The not-so-friendly skies

I got this email from from Sister #1 and had to share:

"In the last 8 weeks I’ve had:

-- 18 take-offs and landings;

-- 3 de-icings;

-- 1 long delay at a connecting airport due to snowstorm fouling up schedule;

-- 1 delayed departure due to bad weather at destination;  

-- 1 pre-dawn flight in total darkness (cabin lights inoperable due to cold overnight temps);

-- 1 crew-change delay due to bad weather elsewhere causing late arrival of incoming flight with new crew;

-- 1 return-to-gate (mechanical problem) with rebooking on later flight on same airline;

-- 1 cancelled flight (mechanical problem) with rebooking on much later flight on different airline; and

-- 2 last-second aborted landings 15 minutes apart (pilot said he couldn’t see the runway), rerouting to another airport, 2-hour wait on the other airport’s runway, flight cancelled, and long bus ride back in snow and fog.

I guess the good news is my luggage was never lost and no one broke their hip putting my suitcase in the car."

[note: my dad fell with a suitcase last year and broke his other hip. He's recovered.) 

Blech.

Nooo! I caught my dear son's cold. I tried hard to avoid his swirling germ cloud, but what can you expect living with an outgoing and demonstrative 10-yr-old, hacking all over the place and leaving a trail of used tissues?

I really rarely get sick. I do get the big stuff: two sinus operations, glaucoma, broken foot a few years ago, food poisoning last spring, migraine here and there. To compensate for those, I've never had the flu, don't get colds, no stomach viruses. So I consider myself quite healthy. Henry's the same. Get this: he's NEVER had an ear infection or thrown up from illness. That may be a record for the Bend-La Pine School District. But we now have this annoying little cold.

On the plus side: I'm curled up on the couch, watching football, knitting and drinking tea with honey, lemon and bourbon with cats in my lap and Henry waiting on me. It could be worse.

No photo today, unless you want to see a mountain of tissues. Probably not.

:30 seconds and $10

Don't have a stamp? Don't have time to call? Don't want to fill out an online form?

If you have a text-enabled cell phone, text the word HAITI to #90999 and answer "yes" to the return text message. There. You've just donated $10 to the Red Cross to help Haiti survive.

Top Ten Tues: blog resolutions

New Year's Blog resolutions (a year or two late, but at least now I know I can stick to them mostly):

1. I'll always be nice, or at least not overtly mean.
2. Along with that, I will try not to embarrass anyone deeply.
3. Family-friendly, more or less. My mom reads it. Hi, mom!
4. Topics will include a little something for everyone. Almost.
5. Images will be inserted in just about every post.
6. I'll never run ads on my blog or shill for compensation.
7. I will post at minimum twice a week, and usually more.
8. Recipes will be kept to a minimum.
9. No long-winded travel posts - borrring. (IMHO)
10. I ALWAYS appreciate your comments, even if I don't respond.

Okay, in keeping with #5, here's a random photo that marginally meets #3 and #4. It clearly violates #2, but I'm primarily embarrassing myself, so that's alright. In fact, isn't that why you read?

Several unidentified family members.  I might still have those underpants.

England must be catching a chill...

because hits on my posts mentioning handmade fowl outergarments are WAY up.

Wouldn't it just be easier to just glue their feathers back on?  OK, I concede it might not be easier, but certainly more permanent.

Or cutting up old sweatpants and making drawstring ponchos?

Or how about electric blankets, as in our favorite book "Click Clack Moo?"

(click on the little thumbnails to see more)

• 
• 
• 

I'm not going to spoil the denouement here, but it involves the duck.

Maybe knitting a cape is the easiest, actually. Seems like a weird way to spend your time, but I really can't talk, having knit several apple cozies lately.   

Color of the (last) decade

Chocqua. It's actually two colors, aqua plus brown.

As shown in the Nines Hotel: 

From the NY Times: "The color scheme was present in the carpeting, which had putty, Tiffany-blue, beige and dark-brown stripes." (This photo is not the area of carpet of which they gush. That was in the hall, I think.)

Aqua is a lovely hotelly color, with or without brown. Check these out from the same hotel:

Actually I was kind of surprised the Nines used the choqua color scheme, because it's been way done already. I mean, when you can get a blue/brown striped crib ensemble from KMart, maybe professional decorators should be moving on.  

Though I do love this self-patterning yarn: (mitts courtesy of ADD Knitter)

Actually, after blogging all this, I'm over this look. What's next?

Interesting question: what do you think the next new-new color scheme will be? Has anyone spotted one that seems fresh, of-the-moment, and oh-so-modern?

What's in your cupboard?

I love and admire my big sisters. They're role models and (now that they're no longer babysitting me) friends. And they're both great cooks.

Sister #1 (the eldest) visits me at Christmas about every other year. She loves to take on cooking the big fancy meals and I love to let her. She always has a new recipe or approach she wants to try as well as the old favorites. We're both "foodies" (I know, I hate that word too) and use what some might call exotic or gourmet ingredients. But every year, there's an ingredient she needs for a dish that I don't stock.

The first year, it was white pepper. I'm a black pepper fan and had never seen the need to use any other color, but after not having it that year, I was sure to keep it in stock. (It's a more delicate flavor and doesn't mess up a white dish with unsightly black flecks, if you have to know.)

The next year it was capers, which I do normally have, but had run out and not restocked. Two years ago it was Kitchen Bouquet. "You don't have any Kitchen Bouquet???" she asked incredulously. I'll confess I had no idea what it was, though I'd seen in in my mom's cupboard. I also don't cook beef so didn't use it in gravy, which was what S#1 wanted it for. This sticks in my mind because my niece innocently asked what was wrong with the gravy, and was informed that it looked that way because "Melissa doesn't have any Kitchen Bouquet!" You better believe I went and bought some after that.

This year, I carefully checked my supplies, laid in several more pounds of butter and a quart of half-and-half and figured I was good. And I was, pretty much, except for dried tarragon and white wine vinegar. Honestly, how can you make Bearnaise sauce without tarragon and w.w.vinegar?  (I didn't get any points for growing fresh tarragon as it had already died. And I had FOUR other kinds of vinegar, but oh well.) 

Well, S#1 managed with fresh parsley and shallots (both of which I did have on hand), and the Bearnaise and the entire meal was incredible. Then she made Hopping John for New Year's and that was delicious as well. (I ran out of onions for that one but the neighbors came through.) It was a wonderful visit and I'm glad she made the trek across the continent to see us.

Of course, now I'm a little paranoid about the deficiencies of my pantry -- what will it be next time? Any guesses?

The mysterious "Kitchen Bouquet"

Handsfree

A new Oregon law bans using mobile communications devices while driving unless you are using a hands-free device. Though they built in at least 12 exceptions to the rule, so it's a bit of a gray area. For example, an exemption covers "a person activating or deactivating the mobile communication device or a function of the device (note: dialing is considered the same as texting and is not a 'function of the device')." Oh, and farmers. This from the actual law, really.

Inane as Bluetooth ear things look, they are somewhat more safe than taking up one whole hand to hold a phone, I guess. Though I'm always poking at mine to hear better or to grab it as it falls out or (accidentally, really!) disconnecting a call. 

But, hey: I'm an early adopter, especially if my company enables me, so I am now using a device that wins my vote for the most impressive brand name ever:

The BlueAnt Supertooth Light Bluetooth Handsfree Speakerphone

[And no, KG, I didn't steal it from the display case at Edge. I was awarded it as a Circle of Excellence winner. So there!]

Anyway. That's what that thing is on my visor. In case the name doesn't explain it to you, it's a speakerphone that works via bluetooth, a wireless technology. This company also makes ear things (what are they called again??), but personally, I'm not about to stick a blue ant in my ear. Unfortunate name choice, really.

Of course, the way I fiddle with the thing and drop it and forget how to transfer the phone call to the speaker and everything, I suggest not driving behind me. Not to mention one blurry eye and a burnt-out headlight.

Scintillating, fascinating, thought-provoking...

posts coming in 2010!

No, really. Seriously. Don't all drift away to find some more entertaining blogs. Or at least come back after.

Many promising blog post subjects exposed themselves over the holidays, so to speak. All will be revealed when I fight through the massive mountain of Christmas detritus keeping me from my home office (aka Holiday Central). Remember how organized my Christmas seemed? I won't even post a post-pic right now.

Here's some sneak shots having to do with topics to come:

Hmmm. What could it all mean??? You'll have to come back to find out...