nipperkin

I realized I was adding friends and not actually doing a very good job of making it look like I'm not all about doom and gloom with my job 24/7. So hi.

I'm a mama of an almost 7 year old, conceived via IVF. She spent the first three weeks of her life in the hospital recovering from a tracheoesophageal fistula surgery. I am a 42-year-old Oregonian, and I live in a small town in the valley with my husband and aforementioned kid and two cats. We are having cauliflower tacos for dinner tonight. And I promise I'll post more often, though it'll likely be friends-only.

So, a little while ago I turned on the dishwasher, and it was sounding kind of strange, like there was no water running through it. So I opened it up and poked around in there to see if I could see what was up, and noticed there was a straw down in the bottom so I grabbed it and touched the heating element at the bottom with the back of my middle finger.

I'm thinking it might be a second degree burn. It didn't hurt at first, and I ran it under cold water for 3 or 4 minutes and then laid down on the couch because I get squicked out when I look at even silly little injuries like this one. This looks different than any burn I've ever had though. It's white and I can tell it melted through the top layer of my skin 'cause there's a "dent" there now. It started hurting a little so I took an ibuprofen and now it's kind of a dull ache. I covered it right away so that I don't get it infected. And now all this typing is making it hurt more. So goodbye.

I forgot to mention this, and Nicoal rightly thought it deserved its own entry.

The other day, I went to Les Schwab because my tire was low. I don't know if I mentioned that in here before. My right rear tire was almost flat, so I drove it to the truck shop at work and had someone put air in it so I could make it to Les Schwab OK, and then when I got there they took the tire off and looked for a leak and couldn't find it. They put the tire back on and sent me on my way, and I didn't have to pay them anything, which is awesome.

Then yesterday when Nicoal and I stopped at the Indian place by my house for some lunch, I walked around the back end of the car to go inside and noticed that my hubcap is gone! It could be in Philomath, or in Albany, or in Corvallis somewhere... so it's almost futile to go out looking for it. I've never lost a hubcap before. I'm sad! :(

I had a lot of good food and good company this weekend. It was quite nice.

On Saturday, Nicoal came down to visit. We had planned on hiking, but many factors ended up coming together to exclude hiking from our day. So instead we went to Albany. We had coffee at Boccherini's, where we met Erin and Anthony and Erin's mom so that I could get the face soap I'd ordered from Erin. (She is a salesperson for Daisy Blue Naturals, and I like their tea tree & lavender soap.) Then Nicoal and I continued on to the Heritage Mall, where we drank Orange Julius and scoped out boys shopped at Old Navy and Target and spent some time picking out some cute frames for Nicoal's new reading glasses. It was fun whispering "Sarah Paaaaalin" in her ear every time she looked at rimless ones. :D

Nicoal got the glasses techs working on her lenses and we came back to Corvallis, and then swung by my CSA farm, Gathering Together Farm. It's pretty close to Philomath, which is nice. They have a really nice building with a fountain outside, and tables on the covered porch and a little farm stand with a big kitchen. (They host lots of meals during the week and on Saturdays, all with local food.) I bought some Gravenstein apples to make applesauce with.

Nicoal went on her way and then Cory and I stayed up way too late playing computer games.

Right around lunchtime today Cory's friend Mike and his girlfriend Angie stopped by to eat with us. We went to McMenamins since almost all the smaller restaurants are closed on Sundays. We picked up coffee at Dutch Brothers (I only drank half of mine; it wasn't very good) and they left soon after, which gave us time to do some grocery shopping and for me to make my applesauce. I've also spent some time talking with Julie, one of the tech editors for Interweave Crochet mag, helping her out with some issues with my pattern for the winter issue. It's slightly less painful this time around than with my first pattern, but I always feel bad that my pattern's not perfect as-is. Oh well - I'm assuming almost nobody's is.

The day is waning, and tomorrow is work again. I can feel fall in the air, and the leaves are even starting to turn. And so commences my favorite time of year!

This Christmas my family is trying something new. Mom made a list of 50 questions and passed them out to everybody, and once we give them back she'll be compiling the lists and sending them back out to all of us so we can give each other gifts based on the answers to the questions. I figured I'd save mine here ( for posterity )

Trout had a really nice weekend. On Saturday we cleaned out the spare room. We went through old books and papers, and went to Goodwill with a trunkful (and half a backseatful) of donations. Trout sat underneath something and watched us as we slowly cleaned up the room... and then dirtied it up again with piles of Legos.

This picture was from Sunday. We had an assembly line going - Cory was putting together sets and photographing them (we're going to sell a bunch of them online as Christmas gets a little closer) and I was taking them apart and bagging and labeling them. Trout was loving having mama and daddy sitting on the floor with her, and she dozed while we worked.

Then we went downstairs after about three hours, and a few minutes later we had to back up because Trout hadn't noticed we'd left and started yowling, wondering where we'd gone. Heh.

Unrelated to Trout, I had chai and good conversation with a new friend from Ravelry on Sunday evening. We chatted for two hours, and seemed to hit it off really well. She lives in my apartment complex, so she's super close. Hopefully we'll be able to hang out more soon.

We've had a pretty full weekend!

Yesterday, my friend Erin and her 13-month-old son Anthony came over for lunch and bubble tea and playtime. We don't have many good toys for little ones yet, but he made do with what we had, which consisted of a handful of dominoes and a plastic bowl, and then later my plastic Q hook and a metal bowl.



He was having fun making us laugh at his game of dominoes - he'd throw them into the bowl and then pour them all over his head.



We left him and Cory to play together while Erin and I went for bubble tea and half a game of Chinese Checkers, and then it was time to get back so we could go to our prospective evening activities.

Our evening activity was a BBQ at my aunt's house. It was good and I ate way too much. My uncle just got back from Australia and he brought back treats - we had pavlova and Turkish Delight. (YUM-O!) We were there for a few hours and when it got dark it was time to head home.

This morning we were up early to go for an 11-mile walk in preparation for the half-marathon in two weeks. Things were going well; we saw a couple of rabbits and a flock of sheep and were cruising right along, until about mile 7 when Cory started limping because his shoes were old and starting to be really painful. We ended up deciding to leave him on the south side of campus while I walked home and got the car and brought it back to pick him up, because after just a little while the pain was unbearable. Because we're trying to save money, Cory decided to skip the halfie and use the $45 towards a new pair of shoes, rather than spend $90 on both of our entrance fees AND new shoes. I'm still debating whether or not to go myself; it won't be the same without my walking partner!

I also made laundry soap and did some laundry and just generally rested. It felt like such a short weekend!

This week's veggies:
Cilantro
Cherry Tomatoes
Lettuce
Corn
Watermelon
Bell Pepper
Carrots
Tomatoes
Zucchini
Eggplant
Onion
Summer Squash
Potatoes
Garlic
Leeks

It's a good week, except for the cilantro! Cory's tired of roasted veggies, though, so now I have to actually be creative in the kitchen. I'm thinking some kind of pasta with sauteed veggies and a vinaigrette might be nice. We shall see what mood strikes me.

Eggplant
Onions
Honey-Orange Melon
Summer Squashes
Purple Carrots
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Corn
Lettuce
Purple Bell Pepper
Cucumber
Basil

I'm really excited for the melon tonight. Yum. I've never had it before.

I've been cooking most of the veggies the same way for the past few months - we have salad with cucumber, and then roasting the others in the oven. It's yummy.

I wish I knew how to spin, so that I could try my hand at Newspaper Yarn. It looks so pretty!