Guilty

A few years ago, a friend accused me of going to have servants in the future [oh, my, that sentence is impossible to get right]. At least, he used an accusatory tone about it.

He's right. We do have a nanny and I keep talking about hiring a house cleaner.

But we've now taken it one step farther; our nanny is cooking dinners for us. Frankly, I have no idea how she manages to watch two children and turn out dinner, but she has some kind of magic she uses (she also cooks professionally, so she is probably way faster at preparing meals than we are, but, still). It is *incredibly* nice to come home at the end of the day and just have dinner there - we actually all sit down as a family and eat together instead of feeding Turing while grazing out of the fridge. She even does the shopping for it, so I don't have to think about anything.

And then there are leftovers to take for lunches. In fact, there are so many leftovers, that I am barely cooking at all. Cooking has become kind of a treat and I put more effort into it when I have the chance. I spend far more time doing dishes than anything else in the kitchen. Usually, I claim I want to cook and have someone else do the dishes, but I AM NOT COMPLAINING.

Schedules on paper

We have mostly been sticking to our schedule-on-paper which makes it possible to plan our lives and know when it is appropriate to get some time alone. I think it has been working out fairly well, actually, though it would be nice to actually sit down with Trouble more often.

One of the nicer things about the schedule is that I have to get out of bed at 9 (which appears to be just enough sleep to keep me going though I get up to feed Huxley 3 times) and I have the boys from 9 to noon on most days. Since Huxley isn't nursing every 2 hours anymore, I actually get to take the boys out of the house - this has vastly improved my quality of life. We often run errands (groceries), but we also go to the zoo or just walk around the block. Occasionally, I'll pull out the stroller and we go somewhere. Sometimes, I try to jog a little bit, though that is hard work.

The problem with going somewhere in the stroller is that Turing assumes we are going to a place. I think this is one of the very few bad associations we've set up for him (the other would be expecting to get a cookie/candy at the end of a grocery trip though he is generally very well behaved at the grocery store . . .). As in, we cannot just go for a walk/jog - we must go somewhere and we must get something. While we sometimes get to walk to get the CSA boxes, the rest of the week we end up getting something like coffee or jamba juice.

The problem with getting coffee with the boys in the morning is that I really have no desire to then go back to the coffee shop later that day to work. And I don't want to buy tea at the coffee shop because I am now a tea snob; the tea habit is ruining everything!

I have been going into my office a little (though I want to avoid it so I don't get stuck with other people's work). That has worked out fairly well, but I feel silly driving when I could be working anywhere closer to home. But what is a girl to do when she doesn't want to be at the coffee shop? I don't know.

Terrifying

Yesterday, I got the official news that my proposed course will be taught (by me) in the spring.

I will also be teaching my advisor's old course (he is now retired).

Terrifying.

In a good way, but scary.

People have been inquiring about the course I proposed - faculty have been recommending it to students, students have been asking me about it - which means it probably won't just be me and 4 highly motivated folks. It might be me and a full course (I limited it to 15 for the first offering). Terrifying.

I was looking up the syllabi today to figure out how the two overlap (and to see how much I need to wiggle them around to spread out the student presentations and guest lectures so I'll have the chance to breath), so I logged into my university account. Which now has all these faculty links instead of student links. Terrifying.

It looks like spring will be ALL ADRENALINE ALL THE TIME - med school will seem like a cakewalk after it, right?

I have good taste

As I work my way through my yarn/project stash, I realize I have very good taste in yarn. I am a bit of a budget expensive yarn shopper (i.e., I buy really nice yarn on sale and rarely at full price), thus just making my knitting habit expensive instead of exorbitant. I've been doing a better job of actually buying budget-expensive yarn for a project, not just some random yarn. For instance, I've been working on a winter hat for Turing using Classic Elite's Princess yarn. It is like knitting with a yarn that is 10% cashmere because it is a yarn with 10% cashmere. For my 2 year old.

Well, it won't hurt his delicate ears? (update: when he grows into it - I made it much, much too large)

I've also decided to take up a tea habit. I like to drink coffee out of the house, but tea was starting to sound nice for home. And it has been a long time since I had a proper tea habit (I've gone through one tea phase since China). In China, everyone always threw a few tea leaves in their water, since it had to be boiled anyway. And then strong teas at meals. I was spoiled by the Chinese tea and am perpetually disapointed with teas available off the grocery shelf, so I ordered some Chinese teas online. My primary determining factor was the place had to sell ba bao cha (eight treasures tea) which was quite popular in the region in which I was staying. The teas I got are amazing and have made me very happy. This is the first real caffiene I've had in nearly a year!

Of course, I've been having chocolate, which has some caffiene in it. Mostly, I've had wonderful homemade cookies and cakes (from other people) or icecreams with chocolate. The other day, Trouble was going to the corner store and asked if I wanted anything. On a whim, I asked for a milky way, since I used to occasionally get one while at work. It was awful - nothing like some time away from vending machine snacks to put things in perspective. The next day I went out and bought the good stuff to override that memory.

Since I'm doing a good job of spending money (hey, there were a lot of things we hadn't done while super busy, including research for buying things like dishwashers*), I bought myself my PhD completion prize. I was feeling really guilty about spending so much money on it, though I have used my other sewing machine a lot in the last five years and this one should do everything I want to do for the next thirty years. Then I got over it.

*In retrospect, that whole dissertation-with-a-deadline thing was really stressful. Right.

Trouble has been back at work, but the plan had been that he would take the full 12 weeks off. When Huxley first arrived, I kept having this conversation with people in which they'd ask how things were going, I'd say they were going really well especially since we had two adults at home, people would inquire, I'd inform them that employees at large enough companies are federally protected and can take 12 weeks of family leave without pay. Most of the people then asked if we can afford to have Trouble not work for 12 weeks. The question always surprised and depressed me. I know we're financially blessed (no college debt, thank you parents and granting agencies), but, really, we had (at least) nine months to plan for taking family leave. It makes me sad to think that most people - even the responsible adults I hang out with - couldn't get enough savings together to take time off to spend with their kids.

Proofs

I'm starting to remember that I actually finished that PhD business. This was my favorite part of checking proofs today:

Speedy

Yesterday, I (with the help of Trouble) put a new hard drive in my laptop. And then reinstalled (most of) my software.

After actually backing everything up, it went shockingly well and just worked. And now my laptop is speedy. Vroom.

I also replaced the battery a few months ago, so I don't have to sit next to an outlet at the coffee shop. It is like an entirely new machine.

Except that Monkei and I just reinstalled WoW because we are suckers. I wonder if they have some count at Blizzard of people who finally give in and just reactivate their accounts. And they sit around and laugh at those people.

All about lists

I am all about lists. And crossing things off. I modify the time horizon on my lists quite often, depending on how my life is going and what sorts of things I need to do, but I think I have just added two inovations that are very new for me.

First, a project isn't finished until I blog it. This means I've actually taken pictures of projects and then actually posted them. Amazing.

Second, I now have a checkmark system for large projects. Large projects have a tendency to languish on my lists because even if I do work on them, they don't get done. Even if I break the project into subparts, some of the steps are still too large to tackle in one sitting. Now, when I actually put in effort to a project, I add a checkmark to my list. It feels like list progress. I've now knocked down cobwebs and swept in about 20% of the basement, which has been on my mental list of things to do for about a year. I've also been quilting. Woo!

I had been hoping to hire someone to come in and clean the house, occasionally. We do a fine job of week-to-week cleaning, but it would be nice to have someone come in every month or two and do the things we never do - clean the basement, the inside of the microwave, both mop the floors instead of just sweeping, dust the ceiling fans. I even signed up for Angie's list for my birthday in an attempt to find someone. The problem is that I want to hire a person, not a company, and Angie's list hasn't been here long enough to actually have a person listed. And hiring in help isn't exactly standard in the groups of people I regularly hang out with. Someday! A girl can dream.

In other ultra-exciting developments, we have a schedule. Like, written down on paper. This is good for me actually getting out of the house and having time to myself. Explicit expectations!

Another knitty hat

I can't cross it off my list until I blog it.

This is copies 2 and 3 of this hat I made. I started in June at a meeting. The night before, I realized I had no knitting projects, so I pulled these together. The pattern is from knitty and it knits up quick! Since I finished the first one in less than a day, I started the second. I finished the second on the second day of the meeting and started the third. I just finished the third a couple of days ago. I really messed up the pattern on the third one, but it must have been fatigue/boredom - I also ran out of brown yarn.

The first one turned out really great and I promptly gave it away, so no pictures. We actually don't have any use for these - it is just a stash busting exercise - so I'll probably donate them somewhere. The yarn is my favorite chunky wool. I had a lot left over from other projects, so I had started a sweater for myself, then I realized I actually never wear sweaters and certainly not chunky ones, so I ripped it out. I've still got enough yarn for another 3ish hats. This base pattern is great, but maybe I'll make something up off it . . .

64 stitches in the round, size 11 needles
5 rounds in 1x1 ribbing
20 rounds of knit
[ssk, k2tog, k14] x 4
decrease until 8
draw yarn through and tighten

hat #2 - the top is brown:
hat #3 - the top should be brown and the circles should have swapped colors by row: