dancerjodi

I've been enjoying the cooler air, getting excited about fall. I love summer 'stuff' but hate the heat. Fall is surely my most wonderful time of the year. I do regret not getting to the drive-in yet this season, though we still have some time. We only made it to the beach once. We did enjoy our neighborhood spray park a good deal. And walked a lot. And ate a lot of local ice cream. We've been enjoying the free concerts on the common a good deal. Mina has a 'boyfriend' there that she calls "Bat". He had a Batman shirt on the first night she met him, a month or so ago. Last night's band was really kickin', called "Legit", they are a huge wedding band. That girl was ripping up the dance floor, getting a lot of attention from the locals.

Our summer ballet hasn't come back which makes me feel lazy, but the studio will open again for the year in a little over a month. Mina will start lessons in the baby class. Just nuts! She is growing like a weed, so I'm hoping she can get away with wearing the size 7 tap shoes I have for her. She is just almost out of a 6 now. We went to buy her some more shoes this week, a 6.5 and a 7. The girl loves shoe shopping. I am doomed! She picked out some BRIGHT aqua blue Saucony sneakers. The bigger ones are Stride Rites. Investing in proper footwear is important to me, because I want to keep her walking well.

She is talking up a storm. And counting! At school yesterday the director said "look at these two pretty girls!" and Mina replied "Kyla 1, me 2". She counted them! We talk all the time, do our abcs and 123s and count things out for her. All kids reach things at different times and by kindergarten they are all pretty on par with each other. It is just nuts to hear her conversing in sentence-like phrases and she's 19 mos.

Sleeping is getting better. She's staying in her bed more, and we are putting her down awake, though still sitting with her, holding her hand/rubbing her until she is asleep. She is surely a snuggle bug.

Work is getting interesting with lots of people leaving and things up in the air while we are in the process of a potential merger with Partners and are waiting for new IT systems to go in (unrelated to the Partners thing). Last year I had a reading from a reputable psychic/medium, and she told me that she saw great change/upheavel in my professional life coming, but didn't see me moving location. This could surely be it (if you tend to believe in those sorts of things). One thing is for sure, I am never bored here.

I'm looking forward to a few days in the White Mountains and then some local day trips for our (finally) vacation.

Convention season is ramping up. I need to figure out what I want to wear.

And I want to get sewing and knitting again. And cooking and baking. And cleaning/organizing our house. Fall/Winter is the best time of year for these kinds of things for me.

Lately I've been trying to be more present in my life, with my family, in my home. I've been trying to spend less money and enjoy what is right in front of me. A resolution for the new year? Maybe.

We had dinner at our neighborhood Mexican Restaurant on Friday night, after a particularly stressful work week. I love seeing how Mina makes friends with nearby diners. She is so good at restaurants - we are so lucky! She'll eat whatever we put in front of her. Maybe these things won't continue, but for now, we are enjoying it. On Saturday morning after having breakfast we took a hike in our neighborhood along the Charles Riverwalk. Brian carries the brunt of the work for these, with Mina on his back in our Kelty backpack. I'd like to get strong enough to handle it that way (at this juncture, I'd prefer her in my Lillebaby carrier on my chest). We trudged through the snow along the river, stopping to see ducks and geese and neighborhood dogs along the way. It is such a joy to live so close to such a quiet slice of nature in the city. On the way home we stopped in the Italian store on Newton Street for some lunch subs and homemade pasta and sauce for dinner. Brian had to work for a good chunk of the day in the office, so Miss M and I spent the afternoon together, braving the crowds in Burlington for some supplies and Joanne Fabrics and a latte (for both of us) in the cafe in a nearby supermarket.

Sewing for her has reinvigorated my interest in it. My time is surely limited, but I finished an apron for her birthday gift, and a little birthday crown (inspired by Amanda Soule) http://soulemama.typepad.com/soulemama/2007/03/a_little_about_.html. I've had a lot of fun, and little nephew Mason's birthday is also coming up, so time-willing I'd like to make him some things. I also picked up some supplies for Mina's birthday party. It is an intimate shindig with immediate family and some close special 'friend family' folks. I cannot WAIT to try the cupcakes we've ordered for it. I'm having a lot of fun trying to plan something special but something that also doesn't break the bank or kill a lot of trees in the process.

Mina started in the new 'bigger kid' group at http://www.cobblestones4families.com/ yesterday. She's the youngest in the group but given her extreme mobility they thought it best for her to be in there. It is just amazing to hear the kids in there and see them so vocal! A picture of things to come. She moves as well as all of the older kids, but you can definitely see how she is not as far developmentally along verbally or socially. I am so happy that we have this resource nearby and would love to share it with everyone. We have all been so happy to be a part of the Cobblestones family.

This is the first full work week in a while. I'm trying to stay motivated and engaged. Lots to work on! The dance studio is also back in full swing this week. Getting the body moving again after holiday breaks is always - interesting.

Sewing was a constant in my life. My Mom was always doing it when I was a kid (making our clothes) and I learned from her and my Nana how to muck around with a pattern. I took a class in high school to fill in a needed practical art credit. I did some in college for goth clothes or ren faires, which lead to costuming.

Over the years the tools have gotten fancier. I've gotten very good at following patterns, though tailoring just doesn't work for me (my lack of a spatial brain isn't good at interpreting shapes to paper or cloth). I go through waves where I sew sew sew and where I don't want to even think about it.

I have a ton of fabric in my attic leftover from projects that Brian and I have created over the years. It is nice to look back at them and remember the things we made, but I'm not actually doing anything with them. I have the costumes or the clothes or the photos of these items to jog my memories too. Most of it has to go, since most of it isn't actually reserved for one project or another. There were things left over, things I picked up because it was pretty and a good price, things I'm not even sure how we ended up with (freebies from a friend or something).

It was a nice exercise to go through it all and I was happy to start the process of passing these things on to others so that they could make their own creations. I'm going to empty the bins into piles of like materials on the big table in our craft room to make the parusing easier. Sort by fibers and colors and that kind of thing. What's left will go to the thrift store, though I'm sure that some of you will want to take some of the goodies from me first, right? :)

I was feeling like we were being so lazy with eating out. We had a particularly stressful couple of weeks and I thought that doing this was fine - you can't do everything all of the time and the ease of not having to worry about what to cook for dinner took some of the burden off. How we get too comfortable with being lazy though!

I'm happy to say that we've been cooking at home this week, though we'll be out tomorrow night and Saturday. Last night we ate the chicken that we had crock pot roasted the night before. Brian had rubbed it with some Indian seasonings, so I threw together a pseudo indian spinach side dish (and we had some frozen naan we bought who knows when from Trader Joe's). Not bad!

After dinner we browned some stew beef and threw it into the crock pot with other stuff: broth, lentils, black beans, KALE (we have a ton of this stuff frozen to use up), corn, and some southwest seasonings. It is a huge, huge pot and will net us leftovers, and has a lot of healthy goodies in it to boot. Yay for easy dinners!

We still need to figure out what to do with the big hunk o' pork (butt). I'm trying to plan based on what we have in the house so that we can use some things up. We've been spending more on food and on gas for the car, so cutting back in one of those areas would be a good thing. We don't need to scrimp and save every penny, but I feel wasteful when we don't (to a degree).

I'm sewing tonight for the first time in a long time, for a friend's birthday. I figure if I keep telling you people that I'm doing this, I won't blow it off for some other reason I seem to always manage to find around the house. :)

Lounging on our new mattress with cats, books and the air conditioner.

Repurposing an old beaten Croscill sheet set that was once fancy (it was a gift to me from Brian back when we lived in the Shaghouse - our first 400 thread-count set). I'm making some placemats and still have some fabric left over for something else, when the mood strikes.

Related, inspiration from http://www.amazon.com/dp/1590305957/?tag=soul01-20

The craziness at Lizzie's ice cream on a Tuesday night. The group in front of us was comprised of 18 people!

Wandering around our hood at night. I don't know if this will ever get old.

Having neighbor friends wander by our home. I know that this will never get old.

Equal pay for equal work (this makes me all teary):
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99995431

One of my goals has been to get some Mary Poppins costuming done. I've always wanted to do the Jolly Holiday dress, and I need (as much as anyone "needs" historic costuming) a Victorian/Edwardian dress for going to themed teas, so I've thought of doing a Suffragette outfit along these lines. I spent some time yesterday trying to clean up the craft room and am getting inspired for more projects in there. First things first after cleaning up the mess though; I need to finish my Leia Ceremonial before our resident Wookie beats me up for the delay ;).

Out of Town News is staying open http://www.wbur.org/news/2009/82902_20090129.asp