Monday fun

It's Monday. The weekend went by rather quickly, although I don't feel like I did very much. I guess when I look back, there were a few things accomplished:

1) Purchased/installed/programmed a new 7-day programmable thermostat. Why on EARTH we didn't invest in one of these earlier is beyond me. Not only for the fact that we can select an actual numeric temperature setting and KNOW to what temperature it is set, but also because we can know the ACTUAL interior temperature! (What a concept.) Of course, it spent the last 24 hours OFF because it's been rather warm out, but I've just put it back on this evening because it's supposed to get cold again. And for those of you wondering about the whole "aren't they renting" question, the answer is "it's coming with us when we move."

2) Carved pumpkins. Nuff said.

3) Went swimming.

4) Walked the dog. Had my hand slammed into a signpost (the metal kind with the holes up the middle) when Jake spotted a squirrel off in the distance and decided that he needed to get all cozy with it. He was on one side of the sign, and I was on the other. You can imagine.

5) Baked "The Great Pumpkin". Yummy pumpkin loaf goodness. It's from the "Company's Coming Muffins and More" book. It's old, but I have yet to find a bad recipe in it. This one called for 4 oz. of cream cheese, a cup of pumpkin, 1 1/2 cups of sugar and 2 eggs. (Not necessarily health food, people.) I make two at a time because it uses up an entire package of cream cheese and a whole can of pumpkin. (Aside: does it EVER make sense to make only one of anything? I fully prescribe to the mentality that when you're making one of something, you might as well make 2 or 3 and freeze the extras. It doesn't take a whole lot more effort, and it's double the productivity! why I didn't realize this years ago is also beyond me.)

6) Watched like 5 1/2 hours of House. (the TV show - not my home.) I've never seen it before, but I enjoyed it. (obviously). House (a doctor who specializes in hard-to-diagnose cases) has a really dry wit. Makes me laugh. It also makes me frequently writhe in disgust, but that's what happens when I watch any medical show. There's a reason I'm not in medicine. Okay, so this isn't overly "productive", but I was tired last night, and there was a 10-hour House marathon on USA.

So yeah, I guess I did stuff. I'm still recovering from the time change. Yeah. Time changes are great when you have little kids. For some reason they don't get really excited that they get to sleep in for an hour. I even kept Kai up for an extra hour or so on Saturday night, but he was still up at 0615 MST.

Speaking of sleep, I have bad news. It seems that we've finally, actually, really and truly lost our friend the regular-afternoon-nap. It has been great. You were around a lot longer than I could have hoped. You had the odd vacation, and you rarely followed us on our vacations, but on the whole you were very reliable here at home. Really. But I guess all good naps have to come to an end. Especially because you were starting to interfere with the somewhat-more-important regular-bedtime.

He's been replaced by his distant cousin, rare-and-unpredictable-nap. I'm guessing this new guy will only be visiting once in a while.

One last thing, here's one of my new favourite ad campaigns. I really like the one with the hamster. I don't even like the Element. They're just fun ads.

Housekeeping

I'm procrastinating. I have been on the phone what seems like all evening, and although I really should work on the two papers I've just had returned to me from the reviewers, I'd rather post a couple pictures and catch up on the last week or so of life in our household.

First, late last week, this goodie arrived in the mail from sweet Sara + h:

and inside was this pretty little washcloth: (thanks!)

On Sunday, we went to a local pumpkin patch. Good fun all around. It was quite warm, and I almost regretted not wearing shorts.

Then today, Mother Nature remembered that it's supposed to be October, and made it possible for us to create this little friend for Kai. We actually made a second after I took this picture, but it was already very dark by the time we were done... I'm excited because I don't think we ever had a significant amount of packing snow last year, so this was a big treat! (Generally the snow here is either to sparse or too dry and fluffy to make anything.)

Thankfully, I had JUST YESTERDAY picked up a new pair of snowpants for Kai. Perfect timing!

Preoccupied

I know. It's been over a week since I last posted. We won't talk about Keith... in his defense, he has been just as busy, if not more. In the lull of life returning to normal after my folks left, it has been difficult to come up with a reason to post. More importantly, it's been difficult to prioitize it. I don't know if it's a guilt thing, but for the similar reasons I have been unable to comtemplate sewing, knitting or even baking lately, and yet I can still find time to veg in front of the TV.

Well, I've been TRYING to veg in front of the TV. Is it just me, or is TV lacking this year? I'm down to only 2 shows that I feel like I really want to make time for (I'll give you a hint - they're both about being trapped on an island). Otherwise, it's flip-flip-flip... give up... power button...

So the guilt. Am I posting because I feel guilty NOT posting? Or should I feel guilty for not working?

... pause ...

Case in point. I wrote the above yesterday morning. It has taken until today to actually justify coming back and finishing the post. Evidently, the not-working guilt won over.

I have an incentive this time. Keith took some pictures yesterday, and I'm in love with a couple of them. I'll share them in a moment.

But first, how to break out of the funk. The tedium? The ennui? No... both words indicate a sense of boredom. This is more of an in-between-ness. A waiting... hopeful, but anxious.

Whatever. I think the problem is that I have too much to do to be introspective. I have a flow controller that I need to go callibrate, so that I can run my experiment at some seriously low NO/O2 ratios to determine what happens to the alpha values. Yeah. Super-interesting stuff, I know.

Okay. Yes. Here are the photos: