I made two pairs of baby sweatpants out of a sweatshirt I picked up at the Dollar Tree the other day. One pair used the arms of the shirt, and the other was cut from the main body, neatly avoiding the logo. The one made from the arms is pretty crooked and even a little tight: I was trying to adapt my commercial pattern on the fly, and if I were to do it again I think I'd try shallower curves for the crotch since the sleeve is not really as wide as the pattern. In both cases I was able to use the arm cuffs or waist band for the ankles, eliminating the need for hemming. I also used the serger to do all of the sewing except for making the elastic casing at the waist. The whole project was pretty quick n' easy: about 45 minutes total, perhaps. And two pairs of pants for a dollar (not counting a little elastic and thread) ain't bad!

In other news, it's funny how jet-lagged I tend to feel the week of the time change. Monday night at womens' Bible Study we were practially falling asleep in our chairs! James, unsurprisingly, wants to get up at about 6:15 instead of 7:15, but I haven't kept my own bedtime corraspondingly early. This left me with only about 6 or 6.5 hours sleep (not counting food interruptions) last night. I did manage to coax almost an extra hour out of him by bringing him in bed with us - a tactic I try to use only in emergencies! I would have Loved to sleep instead of going to Great Grandma's this afternoon, but it really is futile for me to try and nap during the day. Plus, she was expecting us!

Tomorrow we're off to a weekend at the coast for our church retreat. Of course, it is going to be very stormy! Sadly, we've outgrown the "Harbor Villa" retreat center and will be at the main Twin Rocks Friends Camp instead. It's perfectly nice and I've spent many a happy week and weekend here, but it doesn't offer the picture windows onto the ocean and cozy kitchen / dining / living room area of Harbor Villa's main house which is so perfect for autumn storms. In fact, I am afraid we'll all get soaked on our trips from cabin to dining hall / meeting area. Worse, I am far less than confident we'll be able to get a baby monitor to cover the whole distance, which may necessitate one parent to stay "home" in a not very exciting cabin. Oh well: these are the prices of growth!

Still reading up a storm while feeding JOC or hiding in the bathtub...

Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Plot in a nutshell: the "Benefactors" who rescued a couple of arks
full of humans from Earth in prequel "Forge of God" have loaded 85 teens and young adults onto a highly advanced space ship, given them some robots for training, and assigned them the task of carrying out the Law which states that any race that creates automated planet killers must themselves be eradicated. Martin, son of one of the main characters from "Forge," is the protagonist.
( Anvil Review Back here )

Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Liked it. Not quite as compelling as "One Door Away from Heaven" or the Odd Thomas series, but still enjoyable. Interesting plot twists, lots of his signature "non-sequiter" style humor, sympathetic characters (if not as memorable as some), and good family values. Worth a read!


Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The good: Spider Robinson (who actually wrote the book from a Heinlein-penned outline) sounds almost Exactly like good ol' RAH. You'd think it Was him if it wasn't for the references to Google and The Simpsons. :}
And, the plot was compelling and possessed of many unexpected twists, even if meandering at times. Lots of stock RAH characters: the irreverent geniuses, the TANSTAAFL-believing rugged individualists, etc.
( Variable Star review back here )

One Door Away from Heaven by Dean Koontz


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I've been thoroughly enjoying Koontz of late, and "One Door Away from Heaven" is no exception. I liked it best of any of the books outside of the Odd Thomas series.
( One Door review back here )



Odd Hours by Dean Koontz


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
( Odd Hours review back here )


Max by James Patterson


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Read this fully understanding that it would be as substantial as cotton
candy, but even so finished the book (in about 3 hours) rolling my eyes at the ridiculousness of it all.
( Max review back here )

I've fallen out of the LJ habit of late: I guess when I don't have real work to get distracted from, I have far fewer things to blog about. ;) (Or maybe it's the baby. Yeah.)
Anyway, I've fallen into a fairly predictable routine of late. I get up w/ DEC around 8, do household chores plus whatever baby care is necessary between 8:30 and noon, and run an errand or so in the afternoon between 1 and 3. Monday evenings JOC and I go to the Women's Bible Study / Prayer group and have dinner there. Tuesdays at lunch we have a new non-working womens' prayer group / Bible study with a slightly different membership and (thus far) even less formality than Monday's. Wednesdays my mother often comes to visit and we eat out at lunch, then she gives me a little baby-free (almost) time to do more intensive projects, or we run errands - anything that will work better w/ two pairs of hands. Thursdays I usually go to see my grandma in the afternoon: she gets lonely and loves a visit from her great grandson. Fridays are open, until dinner which is Always eaten out thanks to my wonderful husband. I cook Tuesday - Thursday nights, some Saturdays and most Sundays for a group.
Either Tuesday or Wednesday evening the three of us usually do a grocery shopping trip to WinCo, combined with a stop at the Cedar Mills Powell's for a bit of browsing and reading. Otherwise we stick to the home front. Saturdays we nearly always hit Costco for a little more shopping and, of course, hot dogs and mocha from the food court. Sunday mornings are church, afternoons are naps (ha! just kidding! JOC always gets his at church, meaning he's awake by the time we get home meaning no nap for Mommy, no way, no how! Oh well.), and we usually have between 2 and 6 people over for dinner that evening. Thankfully JOC's bedtime has gotten not only predictably, but Early: I can put him down in his bed, even wide awake, between 7:30 and 8 and have him drop off for anywhere from 4 to 8 hours on his own nearly every day. Wonderful!

I'm not yet to the point where I do much planning ahead for meals: I want to get there eventually, if for no other reason than to reduce the amount of meat I have to defrost in the microwave! But I still manage a variety of reasonably quick dinners. I use the contact grill a lot for chicken or fish. (You can start w/ frozen chicken cutlets and still be done in 6-7 minutes!) We have burritos w/ ground turkey fairly regularly, and lots of "beans, rice, and whatever" type of concoctions. Sometimes we have quinoa (it's pronounced "Keen-wa," who knew?!) instead of rice. Of course, there's always pasta.
Last night I really branched out and steamed some tillapia fillets in my rice cooker with an spicy orange-soy sauce. The rice cooked at the same time, for a true one-dish supper. (Next time I will try to have frozen broccoli around and steam it at the same time.)

My favorite "new" recipe of the last few weeks is definitely pumpkin chocolate cookies. I cannot get enough of them! I used this recipe, which is easy and fast. I found you can replace up to 2/3 of the oil with applesauce w/o impacting flavor, although the finished cookie is even "cakier" than it would be otherwise - they really don't get very solid. (Cook about 13 to 15 minutes, instead of the 10 suggested in the recipe.) But they taste wonderful!
Hmm... maybe another batch needs to be made tomorrow. Chocolate chips are on sale at Costco!

(1) Last time I was at Ikea, I bought a couple sets of these frames for JOC's bathroom. They're a very nice blue color and look quite cute with the rubber ducky pics I took. However, I am quite unimpressed with the "glass." It's not glass at all, but rather a very thin plastic - thinner even than what you'd find on your average "clam shell" package. One sheet was scratched either out of the box, or just seconds after I'd opened it. Another actually cracked when I hung it on the wall and pressed to hard against the nail. These frames worked out to $2/each, but even the Dollar Tree's frames usually contain real glass. Kinda disapointing, especially as I can't think of an easy way to fix the problem aside from removing the plastic entirely.

(2) Someone bought me a Camlebak water bottle as a baby shower gift, and I've been using it daily ever since March. It's great - does not leak, does not spill, is easy to drink out of one handed even when in the car, and is BPA free. The only thing it doesn't do is fit in James' "Baby SUV" stroller's cup holders! ;) I liked it so much I bought one for each of my friends who were having babies the same time as me: staying hydrated is a real challenge while pregnant or nursing!

(3) Bath and Bodyworks was having its annual "5 for 15" sale when I was at the mall last week. I have been using a fair bit of waterless hand sanitizer (i.e. Purel) after changing JOC but have been increasingly unhappy with the strong scent it leaves behind for seemingly hours at a time. Since I like the scents of B&B's soaps, I decided to try their waterless cleanser. The "Sweet Pea" variety at least still leaves too strong of a fragrance for my taste. I got a bottle of unscented as well: I will need to try it soon and see if just straight alcohol still bothers my nose...

My neighbor confirmed our worst fears this morning: Simon is no longer with us, having become the victim of a hit-and-run some days previous. We're a little sad: he's been part of our lives ever since DEC and I met, and for all his irritating foibles (yakking on the floor and couches, scratching up the furniture, boycotting his litter box when irritated), he had a lot of sweet traits as well. We'll miss him purring like a diesel engine, aggressively hunting down empty (or sort of empty) laps for a long nap, and following us around the neighborhood as if he were a dog. Even though he got passed from household to household a couple of times and finally was required to spend most of his time out of doors when JOC came along, all in all I think he'd agree that he had a good nine years.

You know, ever since I promised to keep baby-specific stuff over in jamesocollins 's blog, it would seem I never actually publish anything over here.  Do I no longer have a life of my own?  (Silly question: of Course not!  What Mommy of a 3 month old does?) 
Of course, Facebook may have something to do with this as well.

Anyway, I expect if I rack my brain I can come up with a few things that don't directly involve James.  For instance...
Thinking...
thinking...
still thinking...

Well, I made "Pasta Carbonara" for DEC's family last night.  Yeah, so the recipe was titled something like "Light Mac n' Cheese" when I got it out of the magazine.  I think I've made enough changes to made my own label. ;) 
( Recipe... )
We'll be serving leftovers tonight! 
I've continued to bake bread in my (friend's) bread machine, but not as frequently as in the beginning.  Have had a couple of spectacular failures in the form of dough refusing to rise, and thus I no longer trust the delay feature.  I can only assume the yeast is activating early and getting used up before it makes the dough nice and fluffy.  Favorite recipes are for Honey Oatmeal and Maple Oatmeal.  Wish real maple syrup wasn't so expensive! 

Every once in a while I steal time for a few crafts - like the T-shirt backpacks I doc'd here: tarkheenacrafts.blogspot.com/2009/07/make-drawsting-backpack-from-t-shirt.html
I also made myself a small wallet from felt this afternoon, after coming up with the design while I was trying to doze.  Nothing spectacular, but I think it'll do the job.  

And I've been reading lots - most recently Lawhead's "Celtic Crusades" trilogy and Eric Flint and Co's 1633 series.  Oh, I've also been reading "Make Your Place" (microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/2333/) , and despite my total lack of hippy-dippy save-the-earth pretentiousness (not that everyone who fits either of those categories is pretentious, of course!), and the fact I kill everything I try to grow, I totally want to go start a huge herb garden and start making all my own cleaning and/or healing supplies.  It appeals to the "DIY" in me.  :) 
Perhaps I should team up with one of my less black-thumbed friends!

Because it amuses me to record my random neuron firings...
( In which my parents' house acquires Dr. Who Technology )

In other news, we're going "camping" this weekend. No, we're not going to stay in a tent with a 3-month-old: we're staying in town a few miles away. But we'll spend the whole day w/ the group from City's Edge. I hope it is warm enough for the water fun that is planned: tomorrow's forecast is fairly cool, although it is supposed to hit the mid-to-high 70's Saturday and about 80 on Sunday. Oh well: if it's too chilly for my picky self, I'll be content with a ride or two on the ski boar with camera in hand. Hmmm... better not forget to pack said camera! I know I'll forget something important this trip: JOC has been making it awfully hard to concentrate. :}

My Political Views
I am a right social moderate
Right: 4.55, Authoritarian: 0.8

Political Spectrum Quiz


(And I wonder why I don't fit in 'round here: the average spot on the map among Oregonians of my age group is in the opposite quadrant. Hmmph!)

Fragging my laptop. It's become slow and unwieldy of late, and I am hoping to gain some ground with a rebuild. 'Course, it is more than 5 years old, so there's only so much improvement I can hope for. But I'm just not mentally committed to laptop shopping here in the next few months, so this is a reasonable interim step.
Biggest concern: will I be able to restore all of my Picasa data - albums, edits, and stars? My laptop is first home to the vast majority of my thousands and thousands of photos, and I have quite an investment in its organization through Picasa.
I tracked down where all this meta-data is stored, but experimental restores from backup have been only partially successful. At this point I am pretty sure that I can Eventually make it happen, but it may be harder than I hope.
Nothing else is too concerning.

I want one of these!
(Not that I'll ever justify that $, of course. Crud.)