Today’s gift

I’ll be in North Carolina on my birthday, so no party until I get back. Please get me this cake pan so we can really celebrate.

Giant Donut Cake Pan from Williams-Sonoma

Spring cleaning, in winter.

I made a list the other night (when I couldn’t sleep) of all the things I need to do in order to get our apartment thoroughly cleaned and organized. It’s a fairly long list…we have 5 main rooms, plus the hallway, laundry room, and several storage closets.

But I did manage to get our bedroom tidied yesterday. Unfortunately I’m not a tidy person by nature, so there was a lot of mess to clean up. Mostly it required doing 7 loads of laundry. I had a bright idea a few months ago to do one load a day during the week – whites, darks, lights, the Bwun’s clothes, and towels/bedding. I figured that way there would only ever be one week’s worth of dirty laundry at a time. Guess what idea never got implemented?

I had planned to start organizing the Bwun’s room today, but then I remembered that I have to take my independent study final by next Monday. I should probably start studying…

Books

I’ve updated my list of recommendations. New additions are in bold.

• Classic that won’t take 3 years to read: The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orzcy
• Classic that might take you 3 years to read: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Fiction you can analyze to death: Watership Down by Richard Adams (but it really is just about rabbits)
• Everyone should probably read: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
• Children’s to make you swear never to have kids: The Wouldbegoods by E. Nesbit (obviously it didn’t work for me)
• Non-fiction you can use for trivia: The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
• Children’s read-aloud: A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck
• Great audiobook: Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
• Excessively surreal and obscure: Under Plum Lake by Lionel Davidson
• One of the only WWII books I’ve enjoyed: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• One of my favorites: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• YA fiction to make you appreciate teenage hormones: Angus, Thongs, and Full-frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
• YA fantasy: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
• YA fantasy: Sabriel by Garth Nix
• After you read Hamlet again: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
• Underappreciated classic: Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
• Complete emotional drain: Song for the Basilisk by Patricia McKillip
• When you want to feel confused and not yourself: The Stranger by Albert Camus
• Bestseller: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (recommended with hesitation)
• Science fiction, I suppose: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
• If you’ve never read C.S. Lewis: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
• One of my other favorites: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (recommended with caution: vulgar language)
• Picture book: Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport by Marjorie Sharmat
• On a grouchy day: Judy Moody by Megan McDonald
• Movie adaptation: K-PAX by Gene Brewer (it’s ok to see the movie first)
• Because I don’t know what genre you like: Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann
• And one for good measure: A City in Winter by Mark Helprin

Also, I really want to read this book – Shackleton’s Last Voyage. I heard someone quote from it in a talk…six or seven years ago. I’ve been trying to get a copy ever since, but it looks like there was only one printing and copies easily sell for $200+. I saw one that went for $3,000. Imagine my luck, though, when I found an electronic edition yesterday! I still have a dream of owning a real copy someday. Check it out:

Picture go normal

It’s been a long, rough week. Last Saturday I went to the ER with an ear infection (and lest you think me ridiculous for going, I thought my ear hurt every bit as much as the almost-ready-to-push contractions, except without any pauses. And it was my ear, face, and neck instead of my middle.) and haven’t been able to hear much in my left ear since then. I’ve been exhausted, partially from the medication, partially because I’m still fighting a bad cold, and partially because I have a small child, so despite being back at home for most of the week I haven’t found the energy to write.

Yesterday I hosted a baby shower for my neighbor.

I decided I don’t really enjoy baby showers.

It went well: I made some amazingly cool cupcakes (but forgot my camera, so I’ll post pictures when I get them from my neighbor), came up with two great games, and crafted favors that turned out surprisingly well. Also I made an alligator stamp. It is super cool.

But I’m not a take-charge sort of person, or a comfortable-in-large-groups-of-strangers sort of person, so it was awkward for me to try directing and organizing a bunch of women. I mostly just wanted to go home and sleep.

This coming Saturday, I’m hosting another baby shower.

It will be much better, I hope.

The Bwun is crying in his crib. It doesn’t sound like he’ll give up anytime soon. Maybe it’s time to go get him and see if he’ll take a bottle of warm milk – I even added some Hershey’s syrup. He likes cow milk during the day, but at night just wants to nurse. So far weaning seems like way more trouble than it’s worth.

Anyway, here’s a nice gift idea if you need one!

Vine Floral crib bedding by Skip Hop

(I’m not expecting, but at some point I do want to have a girl; this is on sale and I love it. Even if you hate it, you could be nice and buy it for me!)

Pause

Hey, all you cool people who read my blog: I won’t be posting for a few days. I’m staying with my in-laws while I’m all drugged up, and mostly I plan to sleep. Which is what I’m off to do now.

Today’s gift

I used to be really good at journaling. In high school I wrote almost every day, and I was fairly regular my first few years of college. But since about 2005 (coincidentally, the year the Romgi came back from his mission and we started dating) I’ve been horrible. Every few months, at best. (It’s horrible for me. I don’t mean to imply that every few months is bad in itself.)

But I might be able to do something like this:

One Line a Day via Design Mom

Misery!

Last night around 5 my back started to hurt a little. Within an hour it ached so much I could hardly move. Taking some Tylenol helped, but I got a headache, I was stuffed up, and my throat started swelling. I put the Bwun to bed and then went to bed myself, hoping I’d feel better in the morning.

Instead, I woke up about every hour, and in the middle of the night I had a high fever. I think (though I haven’t confirmed with the Romgi) that I was delirious. The Romgi suggested I take a hot bath, and I’m sure the water was hot but within minutes it felt lukewarm. It did help, though, and I was able to go back to sleep until the Bwun woke up in the morning.

I hate the flu!

Luckily a friend picked the Bwun up and watched him for several hours so I could rest, and the Romgi came home early from school so I had help. But I sure wish I felt better already!

Maybe not

After my great post-Spark nap last night, I really couldn’t sleep. I was awake until 6:30. In the morning. And the Bwun woke up at 9. (He was up much later than usual because he had a post-dinner nap, too, when normally he takes just one midday nap. I thought he ought to sleep in because of the extra nap…no such luck.)

With so little sleep, I’m definitely not feeling the “clean the whole house” idea.

Is it naptime yet?

Florals

(I had a nap earlier and now I’m not tired. So I’ve been looking for flower photographs on Etsy. Apparently I like pink right now?)

Lavender Harvest by GeorgiannaLane

Dandelion by SmallHandsPhotos

Love by MelissaBeach

Dahlia no4 by AramsEyes

Light in Studio, Vermont Lilac 02 by MinaLucia

Vanishing by JudyStalus

Love Me Tender by katydid74

freshly picked by inspiredimagery

Open by kittyrogers

Family of Forget-Me-Nots by SheShoots

my favorite dahlia by blissfulimages

3 Blues by slgdesign

Lilies of the Valley by dsbrennan

Miscellaneous

I’ve been inspired to clean our entire house. Deep clean and baby-proof. My goal is to finish by the end of February…I have two baby showers to host coming up, a wedding in California, the final exam for my Social Psychology class, and the Bwun’s first birthday happening next month, so we’ll see how feasible my timeline is. As a sidenote, I’ve started planning the Bwun’s party, and it is going to be so. Cool. You’ll wish you were invited. (You probably are.)

Also, we have the Romgi’s externship dates pretty much tied down. He’ll leave for Korea just after our anniversary and stay for a month, then a few days after he gets back we’ll take a week-long drive out to North Carolina. He plans to work at a firm in Greensboro for about four weeks, and (I’m so excited!) we get to spend an entire week just exploring the area. So I’d love to hear what you like about the East Coast – and anything between here and there – what we should definitely put on our list of destinations. This should be a really fun summer for us. After North Carolina, and another week driving back, we’ll stay put in Provo and relax until school starts again.

Good times, I hope!