Hubby birthday

A week ago Saturday we celebrated the birthday of the Hubs.


After changing the plan (because of the Hubs going out of town) and changing it again (because it's been so hot and monsoony), we just went with a laidback afternoon. In fact, it started with a post-work nap.

Once he was revived, we had coffee and a lemon tart at Liberty Market, and hung out there for awhile.

Then we walked across the street to Joe's Barbecue for a seriously good dinner. (Yes, in that order. Dessert first!)


Nothin' huge - relaxing, quiet - but he has at least one more birthday celebration in the works. Maybe more. Maybe we'll just keep partying until my birthday...and then start again. Sounds good to me!



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Photos by me. Thanks to Aunty for help on getting them from phone to blog!

Hi, remember me?

No, I didn't die. I'm still here. I just (accidentally) took a week off blogging. Didn't mean to worry anyone.

Here's what happened. I had a post mostly written up, but when I thought about posting it, I thought "I should add those photos off my phone first." Then I would think "where'd I put the connector thing for that?" Then I would think "well, I'll look for that in a little bit. First I need to call this client/finish up that design/respond to this email/etc. And then another day would pass.

The thing about blogging is it's a rhythm: read, write, reply, repeat. You get in the habit of working it during certain times of the day. Once you break the cycle (to go on vacation or because work is taking more time), it takes a little time to get your rhythm back. (Especially if you didn't have a lot to begin with. I'm pretty sure that the stereotype about white people not having any rhythm was started by someone sitting behind me in church watching me try to clap with the music. But I digress.)

I think we have a good thing going here with this Little Stuff of Life community (which, yes, you are a part of if you're reading this). I want to keep this going, but I can't keep up with my previous post-a-day pace.

Quickly, here are my thoughts on how this will probably look in the coming weeks:

• 2-3 posts a week
• Not always photos (I know! I love them too! But they're a huge time drain - even know that I know how to get them off the phone)
• When things are crazy, at least a quick post on what I'm up to

That's all I can say now - I've gotta get going. But feel free to let me know what you think!

Quick Takes: Better late than never?

One Friday I forgot to blog, the next Friday I just had some things I needed to finish up - a logo proof, a brochure quote, good stuff like that. Today I'm sneaking this in real quick while I wait for approval on an ad. So some of these items are a little overdue, but, still, here are my quick takes on this week the last few weeks:

(1)
Thanks to everyone who stopped by my blogiversary party! You made me smile and smile! I definitely felt the love! I hope you enjoyed "meeting" each other, too.

(2)
Also thanks to those of you who wrote a poem or chimed in for our Quatrain edition of Perfectly Poetical Tuesday!

(3)
The next PerPoTues is three weeks from Tuesday. Since the style is haiku, you could write one line each week and totally be done in time.

(4)
Work is still staying busy. I'm grateful. And tired.

(5)
The Hubs was pretty disappointed he didn't get to execute his meal plan last week. So he told me he'd take care of dinner this week. Have I mentioned lately that he's awesome?

(6)
We had a nice, relaxed Independence Day celebration with part of the Hubs side of the family. We didn't go see fireworks, but we did - at the insistence of his cousin's four-year-old - put candles on a cake and sing happy birthday to America. The kids blew out the candles on the country's behalf.

(7)
I'm pretty far behind on dealing with photos - getting them off the camera, posting them, etc. There's also a few things I've felt like I should post about, but haven't for one reason or another. I'm thinking of instituting Things I've Been Meaning To Tell You Thursdays. What do you think?


What are your 7 Quick Takes? Dish it at Conversion Diary!

REPLAY: Perplexing prefolds

I'm replaying a series of posts from the first year of this blog, in celebration of Little Stuff of Life's blogiversary. This one is from September 8, 2007.
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Getting back to the diaper discussion, I finally understand why "prefolds" are called that.

For those of you who, like me, are new to all this, prefolds are a type of cloth diaper (specifically, the kind in the photos). They lay flat - unlike disposable diapers and many cloth ones - but you can't call them "flat diapers," because that's a different type. This baffled me until I got a history lesson.

In my grandma's day, diapering a baby first meant "building" the diaper by stacking several pieces of cloth. You would fold the ones in the center to add extra layers where they were needed most.

The diapers my mom used for my brother and I had already been folded, stacked, and sewn together. Ergo, the term "prefold" is appropriate, even though, to the naked eye, they don't appear to be folded.

Everyone together now, "Ohhhhh!"

Photos by ZelenyOko. (Creative Commons license)

So. Much. Work.

A good problem to have, I'm not complaining,
But friends don't always get what I'm explaining.
If I don't call often, I don't mean to be a jerk
It's just that I am up to my eyeballs in work.


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A quatrain by me for PerPoTues.

Perfectly Poetical: Quatrain

Thanks for stopping by July's Perfectly Poetical Tuesday (PerPoTues)!

This month's style: Quatrain - For our purposes, 4 lines that rhyme. Every other line can rhyme (ABAB), the first two can rhyme with each other and the last two can rhyme with each other (AABB) or each line can have the same rhyming ending (AAAA). It's up to you, just have fun with it!

1. Write your poem.
   
2. Post it on your blog with a link back here.
   
3. Stop back by, click on Mr. Linky to link up, and then post a comment. (If you don't blog, you can post your whole poem in the comments.)

Next month's style: Haiku This will be English Haiku, of course, unless you happen to speak Japanese. Focus on simplicity, and write a poem with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second line and 5 in the last line. This one doesn't have to rhyme!

Mark your calendar! The next Perfectly Poetical Tuesday will be August 11. If you want an email reminder (and you didn't receive one this time around), just let me know!

So, please tell us, what does your life's poem say?

(P.S. My quatrain will be up later on today.)

A quick update

Philadelphia International Airport, originally uploaded by Suffrboy.

Remember how things were up in the air with the Hubs last week? Well, before we knew it, the Hubs was literally up in the air - flying to Philadelphia to be with his extended family and attend his Uncle Karl's funeral. He was gone most of the week, and, I have to admit, it was hard for me. We've been married almost 5 years without being apart for that long before. Needless to say, I was superglad to have him back!

So. This week. I'm not posting a menu plan, because we really haven't gotten back into our routine or figured out things like what we're going to be eating yet. All I know is that I'll be working late (at home) on a client project, and that the Hubs is picking up dinner on his way home. (Yay!)

Also, yes, PerPoTues will be tomorrow! So write up 4 lines that rhyme and get ready to join in the Perfectly Poetical fun!

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Photo by suffrboy. Haven't even seen hubby's pictures yet, much less gotten them off the camera!

REPLAY: Babies in Bolivia

Continuing to replay a series of photos from the first year of this blog, in celebration of Little Stuff of Life's blogiversary. This one originally aired August 31, 2007.

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I'm not going to talk too much about our Bolivia trip overall here, since you can read all about it here. But there are a couple baby/kid related thoughts and stories I had to share.

• DIY baby carriers. One other thing Naomi (official trip photog) really wanted a photo of was a woman carrying a baby in a bundle on her back. We saw lots of people carrying various things - including babies - in blankets they tied to their backs, but never could quite get that Kodak moment.
• Reusable disposables? Naomi is pretty sure she saw disposable diapers hanging out on a clothesline. We kept an eye out for them after that (would've loved to have a photo of that!) but never saw anything like it again. That would put a whole new twist on the diaper debate, wouldn't it? (Speaking of new twists, a certain new-father-to-be I know recommends skipping diapers altogether and just hosing the little one off as necessary. )
• No klutzy kids here! The kids at the orphanage we worked at were amazing. They knew how to do all kinds of cool stuff without hurting themselves. The ground was really hilly there, and you'd see a little girl standing right on the edge of a drop off, but she wouldn't fall. The Hubs saw kids under 10 cleaning up the grounds with machetes (they seem to prefer those over weed-whippers in Bolivia) and no one was missing fingers. Later, some boys talked the Hubs into helping them build a fort. When they showed him what they had done so far, they were placing large sticks into - not mud - concrete. (We're still not sure where they got that from.) The suburban kids I know tend to do things like cut themselves when opening a pocketknife or fall off the curb. What does it take to have kids that don't constantly injure themselves? Do you need to move to the jungle?
  

Ok, that's enough for now. I'll try to post a few more photos later.

On the Menu: Up in the air

Business is booming on Bold Avenue - lots of custom design and writing projects have been coming in. Which, of course, is fabulous! But busyness comes with its own challenges.

As I was looking at this week and feeling overwhelmed, one thing lead to another, and I ended up asking the Hubs, "how would you like to deal with the food next week?" And he was up for it! (He likes to cook.) I am so grateful! He already made a plan for Monday through Thursday and went shopping.

His plan (written on the back of one of my new menu plan pages):



Which means:

• potatoes and eggs (omelette) with carrot soup
• tuna casserole (which I didn't make again last week)
• chakchouka
• chicken and rice
  

Ok. So I wrote the above last night. But there was something neither one of us took into consideration.

Friday, my hubby's Uncle Karl passed away. (That's the uncle we stayed with when we went to Pennsylvania.) At first, the Hubs wasn't going to fly out for the funeral. Now he might. So a lot of things are up in the air.

So what's on your menu this week?

Blog FAIL!

Just realized I forgot to blog today. I had a list of quick take ideas I just needed to write up, and I got busy with my day, and it completely slipped my mind. Guess I'll have to save 'em for another time.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

REPLAY: Why diapers are like cars

In celebration of Little Stuff of Life's blogiversary, I'm replaying a series of "classic" posts. This one originally aired July 27, 2007 - before I got religious about including photos with each post.

On a side note, I'm glad now that we didn't buy that Pontiac.

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When my Hubs and I were looking for a car, we learned that a Pontiac Vibe is basically the same as a Toyota Matrix. Everything on it except the stereo is made by Toyota. But since it's called "Pontiac," the Vibe will cost less at the outset than the Matrix and have a lower resale value. It might also take longer to sell.

Yesterday, I learned there's a similar phenomenon in the world of cloth diapers. A lot of people buy used cloth diapers since they're quite a bit cheaper than new ones. (As the Hubs put it, "Diapers start depreciating the second you drive them off the lot.") If you purchase used cloth diapers from top-selling brands, you can sometimes resell them for your purchase price - or close to it (assuming they're still in good condition). However, diapers from brands that aren't well known may save you money initially, but they'll be harder to resell once your kids grow out of them. You may have trouble selling them at all.

Just like with a Pontiac, people are concerned about reliability, how much mileage they'll be able to get out of them, and whether they'll leak.


P.S. Thanks to Heather of Sleek Mama for enlightening me on this subject. I was interviewing her about her baby carriers, and we got a little off topic.