2004-02-22 - 8:19 a.m.

Early Sunday morning, weekend has been pretty good so far. We had lovely people over for Shabbat dinner. I know the girl from my cookbook committee, and they live just a block away from us. She's very sweet and intersting and he's so funny! (and interesting too, but the one thing that struck me most was how funny her was! The boys really had a good laugh.) The apple/squash soup I made was yummy.

On a crafty topic, I've returned to my love affair with the sticks.... I'm knitting again. I learned to knit as a kid, picked it up seriously during my year abroad at 17 (made something like 12 sweaters in 6 months), then put it aside again when I came home. I might have knit once or twice in College, but really, I only picked it up again two years ago. I made a few sweaters, including one for my hubby, who NEVER wears it. When we went on our famous romantic weekend getaway to Wisconsin, I bought some really expensive hand-dyed wool, started a sweater and then got buzy with other things and never finished it. (And somehow I've come full circle, because the wool I bought in Wisconsin 2 years ago turns out to be from Uruguay, which is the ONLY place on our recent south american cruise where I didn't manage to pick up some yarn. I bought some in Chile and the Falklans and Argentine, but the day we were in Uruguay, we only visited a winery)

But last week, I decided to go at it again. I first made a hat and scarf with the yummy sherbert, fluffy wool I bought in the Falklans. I made both pieces in one day. I was amazed at how quickly it came back to me. So yesterday, I took out my sweater again and I made almost the whole left side of the front. I have about 10 rows to go, then the sleeves and the hood, that's it! I will be done this week!

In the afternoon, I visited my poor mom, who is still waiting for her radiation therapy and now has pnemonia to boot, and she let me dig through her knit box. I took home some cotton yarn I brought back from Austria 15 years ago, some 1960's plastic needles that I love to use and a pair of wooden needles from my grandmother that are almost an inch thick. I'll have to find some realy big yarn to knit on that!

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2004-02-20 - 11:04 a.m.

how do you make new friends when you are a grown up? It's hard. We don't work for big companies where we could meet people at work, so for the last year, I've been trying different ways of icreasing our circle of friends.

I started with the couple who own the doggy day care. They are great and we all get along, but they have a young baby, so until we have our own, it's hard to find things to do together, other than dinner at our house. Then I joined the cookbook committe, but so far, there wasn't really anyone interested in anything more than meetings. But there was this one girl who lives only one block away from us. She hosted the last soup tasting, and since she and her husband are also sort of Shabbat observant, I bit the bullet and invited them to have dinner with us this Shabbat. They are coming tonight and I'm very excited. They are a couple of years younger and don't plan on staying in the city (they will go back to Toronto after her thesis is finished), but still, they are both very friendly, I think hubby will enjoy meeting her husband.

So I've pulled out my tried and true recipe for beef stew in the slow cooker, a couple of veggie dishes I made last holidays and she is bringing dessert. We've sent the dogs to daycare for the day to hopefully tire them out and make them a little more quiet for the evening. Hopefully we'll all have a good time!

This morning, the electrician came over to check out the work we need done in the nursery.... He's on vacation next week but will come the week after. That's it. The wheels are in motion. Furniture, electricity, then plaster and paint. We will have a nursery sometime after Passover....

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2004-02-18 - 5:48 p.m.

Waht do I think of my new hair cut? Well, let's see.... I hopped and skipped the 6 blocks between the salon and my store, picked up the dogs and let them in the yard while I went inside and took a couple of self-portraits, uploaded them to my laptop, cropped and resized them, uploaded them to the net and then posted my 3rd post of the day.... I'd say I like it!

It's got retro, side-swept bangs, curls, layers, still lenght in the back but with the layers, it doesn't feel long. It's bouncy and fun, cute and sassy, in a grown-up but young sort of way... Why don't I just give you a look???

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2004-02-18 - 2:10 p.m.

you know what, I was so upset about the whole Dr. Phil thing yesterday, I forgot to tell you what happened at the vet... It's funny, especially if you have ever used injected-fertility drugs.....

So we take our lovely Lucy for her first desensitization allergy injections. The tech informs us that she will teach us how to inject it ourselves, because it's got to be done every week for 2 months, then every two weeks for the rest of the year. Obviously, we are not going to go to the vet every time. At first, I was really listening to the protocol, because it's all different increasing quantities, vial A and B, at different intervals. Pretty complicated. But then she got to the actual injection part. And she was going to tell me how to fill the seringe, get out the air, etc, etc. Lady, I could teach that class!!! I told her I was familiar with the process because of medication I had been on. So she gave Lucy her first shot, in the loose skin on the back of her neck, then gave me a saline solution to try it out myself. She kept telling me not to worry, that the dog wouldn't feel a thing, etc, etc. It's a grey-gage needle. The tiny little skinny ones for Pergonal. The ones that bend if you look at them funny. The ones that you absolutely do not feel going in, even in your inner thigh (OK, truth is, I never shot up in my thigh, but I did try a couple of times!). So you think I was worried about my silly dog who constantly falls all the way down the stairs and bumps into walls if she was going to feel this little needle? PPPLLLEEEASSE! You grab a handful of her neck, make a little *tent* shape and stick her with the needle. She doesn't have a clue what's happening! She thinks I'm petting her. She was wondering why I gave her a treat for that.

I can't believe we had to schedule a 30 minute appointment for this. If they had told me, I would have told them I was a graduate of the school of infertility, with a husband who is scared of needles. I hold a degree in shooting myself with 3 to 4 medications a day in the stomach. I *KNOW* she won't feel the needle!

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2004-02-18 - 12:56 p.m.

I'm going to cut my hair today. This is a momentus event in my life.... I have a love/hate relationship with my hair that was ill-defineid for me until I saw last week's episode of What not to Wear and the girl referred to herself as an *emotional haircutter* and it hit me smack in the face. That's me! For years, I have grown my hair, then cut it short or in layers, only to grow it again.

In college, I had long, curly hair. Lots and lots of hair. Then one day, brimming with self confidence brought on by a new boyfriend, I cut it into a bob and started straightening it. I then wore it straight for 10 years. In those 10 years, I've had Jennifer Anniston Layers, a bob, short and pixie, a bob, long layers with bangs, a bob... The bob was my safety net, the cut I would go back to between every other attempt at a change.

Then I met my husband and I got comfortable with longer hair (shoulder lenght). After my weight loss surgery and my new size 6 body, I suddenly went back to my curls. It's like the whole time I was big, I didn't want my hair to be big too... Somehow straight hair would make me look thinner. But now, I felt like big curls again. So I became best friends with my bottle of Aveda Be Curly and my diffuser. Except we've had so many weddings in the last few years that I've been reluctant to get more than a trim when I get a hair cut, because it's so practical to have longer hair for formal occasions.

When my buddy got married on new years' eve, I just LOVED my hair. Soft curls in the back, a retro sweep across my forehead, just lovely. But not an everyday look. My everyday look is one of three: a low, sleek pony tail (Think Gwenneth Paltrow 2001), pig tails (for my cuter days) or some sort of bun (I've even sported the double-bun, princess Lea look!). But my day always involves some sort of hair attachment. What's the point of long hair if I'm going to tie it up every single day.

So I decided to cut it. Obviously, it's been brought on by all the crazy emotions I've been going through about accepting our upcoming adoption and putting myself into expecting-mommy mode. I'm so freaked out about the whole thing, I've started to loose sleep and question everything... So my answer is to cut my hair. My usual hair dresser is away on vacation, so a different girl who has only done party hair for me will cut it this time. I think it's a good thing. A new perspective on the whole thing. I'm not one of those people who cries or freaks out, if anything, I'm very daring when it comes to letting perfect strangers cut my hair. It comes from the fact that my hair grows like weeds and I wear a lot of hats, so at most, I'll have a week or two of daily hat-wear!

I didn't even look at magazines or anything. I washed my hair this morning and didn't put any product in. Let her see the frizzy mess that are my untamed, unstyled curls, and then let her come up with something that will work for a lazy, 5 minutes in the morning, mommy-to-be. Wish me luck!

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2004-02-17 - 3:37 p.m.

aaargggghhh! The stupid internet-fearies just ate a whole post. And it was a rant too!!!!

Let me see if I can recapture some of my fuming anger and outrage. So I'm sitting on the couch in the afternoon, desperately trying to finish the dreaded cross-stitch birth anoouncement for my friend, and I decided to put on Dr. Phil. He's talking to his Dr.Phil family #2. G-d, are you kidding me? It's a big joke right? We can't get preganant, Shelba and Julie and Julia and Getupgrrrl and all the others are going through heck trying to have babies yet you've given this complete nutjob *6* beutiful children. One she sent to live with his biological father, 3 she's still got, one (product of an affair) she's just given up for adoption and now she's 9 weeks pregnant!!!! What sort of sick joke is this?!?!?

there are so many things wrong with this woman, I don't even know where to start. They are on the verge of bankruptcy, and when asked why she doesn't get a job, she answers that as a Mormon, she feels it's her husband's role to provide and she needs to be home to be a mentor to her kids. Wwwwhaaat???? Where were your religious beliefs when you were *sleeping* with another man and making a baby???? Pick and choose religious beliefs if you ask me...

Then, she wants to fly across the country to attend her adopted babie's christening!?!? But they are so broke, their own kids haven't been to the dentist in 4 years but she wants to FLY to her ADOPTED (as in given away, not hers anymore) son's christening..... What planet is this woman from??

finally, the last enraging thing I saw is how she treats and talks to her troubled 12 year old son. Grant it, the kid is pretty scary. But can you blame him??? His mother has babies with men other than his father, she's completely dillusional and, they have her on camera telling him "I can't stand you and I can't stand that you live here". OOOKKKKK! No wonder the kid is raging.

Looks like Dr. Phil is pulling the kid out of the situation and sending him to a boot camp of some sort. Thank the lord for that decision. I don't think the parents deserve in any way, shape or form to be helped so easily. But for the child's sake, for the sake of the other children in that house, I thank Dr. Phil for this smart decision.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

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2004-02-16 - 1:51 p.m.

so a few days ago, I "outed" my lack of knowledge about the Etiquette of Bikini Waxes. Turns out, I'm not the only one who's clueless! I got so many searches in the last 24 hours:

- Best Bikini Wax in Halifax

- shave my virgina (OK, about you learn to spell first!)

- bikini waxes ( a basic search, but still)

- brazilian plus bikini wax

- nair vulva (NOOOO!!!!!!)

- bikini waxing being done (my guess is that was not a woman doing this search!)

- heart shaped bikini wax

and......

- guy bikini wax!!!!

Also, I had been wondering why on some days, my stats were showing no readers, yet I had comments. Turns out, during the update of the "look", I forgot a line of code... You are still out there! In the hundreds! yeah! Thanks for reading!

This morning, Hubby and I used our day off to go buy some lighting. When we bought our house, we picked out all kinds of lights. But now, 3 years later, we realise the house is darker than we tought and we need more lights. So we picked out knew bed-side lamps, a ceiling lamp for our room, a beutiful ceiling lamp for the baby's room (!!!) and we are still in the market for a lamp for the living room.

When I told my mother about ordering the baby furniture yesterday, she seemed a little taken aback. I think she's worried about my reaction if something goes wrong and there are further delays. Obviously, it would be very hard to live with a room and no child. But I'm not prepared to open the door to that possibility at this time. I need to hold on to the positive possibilities.

Finally, if you know any good children's illustrators, please let me know. I did contact one person's who's work I found through Cootiehog, but so far, she hasn't responded. Maybe because my request is a bit unorthodox. I want someone to draw me a little chineese girl, a pagoda, a cherry blossom, some chineese lanterns, and a bunch of children of the world (ie all ethnicities). But I don't want a painting. I want to project them on the wall and draw a mural of some sort in the babies room. If you know of anyone who has a cute style, let me know.

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