Lisa's Musings

Ok, the neighbors got a fancy new Jeep.  And it's fancy new alarm system goes off all. the. time.  At first I thought it was growing pains with them getting used to it (I don't think they've had an alarmed vehicle before).  But it's going on weeks now, and I really don't think my neighbors are that incompetent (even though they, among several of my other neighbors, seem unable to get their garbage *in* the community garbage cans in the alley; I shudder to think what the floors around their toilets look like).  This thing goes off, among other times, every morning around 5:50 am, which to make things extra annoying, is 10 minutes before my alarm is set to go off.  Early enough that I don't want to just get up anyway, and late enough that I can't really go back to sleep after waking up in this adrenaline-pumping fashion.  This does not make me happy.

Well, I do think I figured out why.  Just now a helicopter flew overhead and the alarm started.  As the helicopter got quieter, the alarm stopped.  I'm pretty sure we have a traffic copter that flies overhead every morning (since we live near a major freeway).  Now you can definitely hear the chopper, but it's not insanely loud or anything.  I can't believe this alarm is that sensitive.

So, I'm annoyed.

I've been dying to get up to the forest lately. I get cranky if I'm away from trees for too long. Jim just called and said that the company he works for wants him to install some cameras in their cabin up in Pine (northern Arizona). We get to go up Friday night and stay until Sunday. Jim has to do some work, but the cabin's free and he'll have time to geocache with us, too.

I can't wait...I'm so excited! Just as it's starting to heat up down here in hell Phoenix, too.  This is the hardest time of the year for me almost; even though it's not ridiculously hot yet, the anticipation alone just kills me.

Well, I guess all's well that ends well.  I was quite peeved when lovemonster posted about the National Pork Board going after a breastfeeding activist who was selling pro-breastfeeding shirts with a slant on a popular pork advertisement.  I wasn't really upset that they were trying to protect their slogan (although I think it's silly, because I think it can only help, and certainly can't hurt them).  What upset me was the manner in which they issued the cease and desist, including implying that using the phrase cast a negative tone on pork (how is breastfeeding negative???) and that the woman was promoting some kind of adult breastfeeding fetish (ok, that's how..but HTF did they draw that conclusion???).

Anyway, since I griped on a number of message boards about this, I feel I should also do my part to publicize the resolution.

So I've been doing some knitting for the kids as of late.  I'm learning that small children are great for learning projects...they don't notice your mistakes, they love new things, and since they're small, their items take less time to knit.


x-posted to knitting

Ok, I get that reservations are a pain to maintain.

But what, for the love of God, is so hard about putting your name down over the phone?  If I'm not there when you call my name, too bad for me. I  could live with that.  But why the $#(@ do I want to pay so that I can go stand around like cattle in a crowded waiting room for 45 minutes (if I'm lucky), or outside in the rain and inevitable smoke?

On the positive side, those leftovers suddenly sound very tasty right now.  And cheap, too.

I'm in the boring pre-design phase at work.  Add to that the fact that I don't think I've quite recovered from being up most of the night on Monday, and I'm having a *tough* time focusing.  Thank goodness it's Friday, because I don't think I could make it through another day!

Michael's 6th birthday is coming up next month, and he is sooo excited about it.  He already scheduled a "meeting" with us this week to "talk about stuff like cake, presents, and what park to have it in".  This is the first year we're doing a party with his friends, so he's very excited.  Even cuter...at his school, usually the birthday kid will bring some kind of small gift for the other kids in the class.  Nothing fancy, just some pretty stones, or homemade necklaces...stuff like that.  Yesterday, all on his own, Michael sat down and drew/colored 17 different animals, flowers, etc., cut them out, and then asked for a basket to keep them in until the big day.

So, naturally, I've been thinking about him a lot, and as I guess all moms do, wondering where the time has gone.  It seems impossible that he could have grown up so fast, yet at the same time, his babyhood seems a distant memory.  Sometimes at night I will get him up to go to the bathroom (he's still just a bit shaky on keeping dry all night; this seems to help) and I'll carry him back to bed.  As he clasps his sleepy arms around my neck, I think about what it was like, all those dark nights when I would be up walking the hall with him.  He always had a tough time settling down to sleep.  Oh, how exhausted I was those sleepless nights, but I did make a point of cherishing the quiet time alone.  It's strange to think that that cuddly baby has grown into a still-very-cuddly, but big boy who I can hardly carry back to his bedroom anymore.

I remember when he was born, that I found myself not wanting to go home from the hospital.  Not because I love hospitals...who does?  I hated the whole feeling of someone else being in control of my sweet little baby.  But somehow I felt that maybe if I didn't leave, that those precious early hours would just last forever and ever.  Of course I knew that that wasn't true, but part of me wanted to believe that it could be.  I lived the whole first year of his life acutely aware that every moment was so very fleeting, that I just savored it.  I love that I can appreciate these moments as they happen this way, but it's also an incredibly painful way to live, when you're always so conscious of how time is slipping by, how those moments are gone forever.  And this one...and this one...and this one......

The *one* day the kids sleep in, I wake up at *6:30* and can't go back to sleep!

On a good note, I got to spend a good 2 hours knitting.  All by myself.  With no interruptions.  It's amazing how quickly and mistake-free the knitting went!

On another note, I hope they're not sick.  Especially Michael...he *never* sleeps in.

( *Warning*...Nerdy knitting content herein )

I finally finished my first Clapotis (and my largest project to date) last night.  I'm so excited...so much so that I had to take pictures before I washed/blocked it.

I did it in Bamboo by Southwest Trading Company.  The color is "electric blue" and looks a bit more electric than any of the pictures show.  I used the size needles the pattern suggested; I have no idea if it is to gauge or not, and I don't care.  It's a reasonable size, and I think that's all that matters.

Unfortunately, this is for my friend's birthday, which was 11/9, so it's late.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

You Are a Snowflake

You live for the winter - blizzards, cold nights, snowball fights! The holidays are just a bonus!

This is serious stuff, folks. If you can't or don't want to watch the video, you can read more information here: http://healthfreedomusa.org

"Nutricide - Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs" on Google Video
The Codex Alimentarius is a threat to the freedom of people to choose natural healing and alternative medicine and nutrition. Ratified by the World Health Organization, and going into Law in the United States in 2009, the threat to health freedom has never been greater. This is the first part of a series of talks by Dr. Rima Laibow MD, available on DVD from the Natural Solutions Foundation, an non-profit organization dedicated to educating people about how to stop Codex Alimentarius from taking away our right to freely choose nutritional health.

Michael sometimes has this great belly laugh.  He's almost 6 years old, so he doesn't sound like a baby anymore by any means, but this laugh is the kind of unrestrained laugh that a baby has when you get one really going about something.  It actually reminds me of Bart Simpson's laugh, but not in an evil way.  It is just pure, unadulterated joy.  Anyway, I heard him laughing like that, and wanted to preserve the memory for myself here.  Some day I will look back on this and remember what he sounded like.

And for those of you reading this, don't forget to take joy in those little things about the ones you love.

Yeah, I'm avoiding some particularly distasteful work for a moment, so here's a

This is a topic that is becoming ever-nearer and dearer to my heart.  I always knew it was "a good thing" to eat locally, but this article emphasizes the point to me even further. I can also see that the stupid fucked up FDA will make it such that I *have* to grow a garden, simply because I won't be able to afford to buy locally grown food (because of stupid regulations).

Support your local farmers

You Are Guinness

You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world. Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them. When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well. But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around.