silvermari & the stick

The last day of 2012 and it's actually chilly here in Baton Rouge. Jane and I have many errands to run. I have lots of things to do around the house too -- being at my mother-in-law's house was inspiring to purge and organize (although the turning of the calendar also has something to do about it I'm sure).

This year Jane went on five airline trips -- a total of 20 flights (takeoff and landing). I had miscalculated before and said 18. Glad I recounted:
BTR --> DFW --> LAXLAX --> DFW --> BTRBTR --> DFW --> OKCOKC --> DFW --> BTRBTR --> ATL --> CDG --> TXLTXL --> CDG --> ATL --> BTRBTR --> DFW --> LAWLAW --> DFW --> BTRBTR --> CNTCNT --> BTR That's a well traveled baby!

Jane's vocabulary is expanding. She doesn't say Mama very often, although it is what we consider her first word. Dada is her favorite word hands down. During our trip to Virginia she picked up "Popeye" or "Paba" for Gra…

This is the Christmas tree skirt that I crocheted for my mother-in-law this year. It took me over a year to finish because it was so many pieces. They're asymmetrical granny squares whipped together with a border -- from a pattern in a book Gran gave me. The number of ends I had to weave in was something else.

Unfortunately she doesn't have a tree that can make use of the skirt. (Hers is a small jobber that sits on a table.) But it's sort of draped around the tree anyway.

I'd like to make myself one, but I might look into a different pattern. I love green and red for Christmas, so this is perfect ... but I also like the idea of a filet pattern in white. For our tree this year I used some buffalo snow.

It's been a hard working Christmas for me in the kitchen. Since the day after we arrived in Virginia I've been making something every day. And nearly every step of the way something has gone wrong.

It started with the cake. I'd seen a recipe in a magazine and didn't think it seemed too hard. But the payoff looked gorgeous -- like it always does in magazines. After making the cake batter to perfection I was thwarted when the cakes rose over the sides of the pans and made the bottom of the oven super messy. Luckily there was foil on the bottom of the oven so cleanup wasn't too difficult. But the cakes were pretty much useless -- too soft in parts and crusty in others.They really seemed like brownies in consistency.

After pondering a while I gave up and decided to bake a regular box cake in two layers and go ahead and make the cream cheese frosting. With the excess frosting I mixed the half of the ruined cakes to make cake balls (kind of gross, and I never bothered t…

Finished this granny square baby blanket with the puffiest softest yarn, Red Heart Buttercream. It's bulky and worked up quickly. I interspersed some "Cupcake" purple yarn and embroidered an "A" in the middle (the baby's first name starts with "A").

I got it mailed off today. The baby was born 5 months ago, so I'm only a little late getting this finished!

I am fighting a losing battle with myself. I want to stop wanting THINGS and be content with all the amazing things I have -- and the people I have to share them with.

But I am susceptible to marketing and jealousy like woah.

It's Christmastime, so there are tons of "hot deals" and "buy now" messages pervading me. I have read so many gift guides and thought "oh, I want that!" And being at others' homes and seeing the beautiful decorations my tree doesn't seem like enough. And I want more-more-more.

Specific example: Christmas china. The idea of having special plates, bowls, cups, glasses to pull out for December is suddenly oddly appealing to me (although come January - November decidedly less so!). Bringing myself back to reality I remember that i have wedding china I've never used (and don't have a safe place to store so it remains in its box in the utility room). And I don't have people over to eat with any regularity anyway, ev…

The idea that blogging is similar to reality TV keeps tumbling around in my head (and I'm fairly certain I've written about it before...or at least I meant to). So while I'm adamant against watching shows like "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" and "Real Housewives,"* I LOVE reading blogs that give me a peek into someone else's life.

From the twee blogger writing about style and fashion to the mommy blogger presenting a realistic look at life with a toddler to the healthy food blogger who mixes in stories about her family to the trying-to-be-funny but missing the mark honesty of a decidedly non-crunchy blogger (brags about feeding her kids Little Debbie snacks; the feeding probably isn't uncommon but the unabashed pride in doing so certainly is among what I read anyway).

In some cases I know more about these women's lives than I do about my sister's! (To be fair I definitely know what's up with my sister's life, but I don't know the …

Something I didn't mention in my TV watching confessions was how much I like to watch TERRIBLE Christmas/holiday movies.

ABC Family, Lifetime, Hallmark. Those would be my channels in years past -- I can't count how many of the lame-oh, eye rolling movies I've watched. They're so bad they're good, at least to me.

I remember a particularly good/bad one we watched at Shawn's Aunt Diannia's house -- Wilford Brimley suddenly grabbed his left arm and Diannia shouted "heart attack!" And sure enough, that's what he had. Shawn and I still sometimes shout it out randomly and crack up, years later.

Last year I watched many while Jane was still small and sleeping all the live long day. But this year I'm not sure if I'll watch any of them. I've seen ads in some of the magazines I read -- which I'm letting subscriptions lapse as I can stand it, because seriously -- so I've seen a few I would LIKE to see. I think there's one with Tor…

MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search For A New Best Friend by Rachel Bertsche
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I checked out this memoir digitally, which I think is the best invention ever (or not, but I really like being able to do that ... I'm not one to crave zillions of digital files of books I'll never read again, can't sell or give away and never remember to try to loan out to someone who has the same device as me, etc.). I would even pay a couple bucks to rent books digitally -- maybe like Netflix for Novels & Nonfiction or something? I do have Amazon Prime and can borrow a book a month that way ... but the available titles are mostly self-published things plus the Hunger Games trilogy, which I've already read. Meh.

Anyway, the book itself is about the author's year-long quest to make friends in Chicago because all her friends live elsewhere.

There's a fair bit of friendship/relationship research information included but I didn't really like those parts of…