Santa Got Hosed!

The other day we were at Target in the baby doll aisle (because we are ALWAYS at Target in the baby doll aisle) and we saw a doll that Santa brought to the girls for Christmas. At the time it was just a single doll (Cinderella) in the package, whose dress comes off. Now she has a change of clothes as well. I pointed this out to Martin. "Yeah!" he said, "But it's the same price! We totally got ripped off!" He kept going on and on about it, completely ignoring the fact that I was kicking him and telling him to shut up about how much Cinderella cost from the checkout aisle at Target. Finally he gave me that look that says "What? Why are you kicking me?" Me: "Cinderella came from Santa, you moron!" Martin: "Oh. Well... Santa got HOSED!" And now some pictures. Sisters helping put on shoes: Cousins dressed as ballerinas:

An extremely unattractive picture of Anja sitting in the window because my mom was looking over my shoulder while I was posting and wanted to see what this picture was:

Jack (aka, best dog in the world), wearing shoes and socks and beads:

Grace with her sleeping baby sister:

Cousins!

My sister and her baby girl, Avi!

WHERE'S JACK!?!?

Anja being a ballerina:

Anja

Anja with a lollipop:

Anja sitting on the kitchen counter looking sad, even though she was very happily eating apple slices at the time:

Celebrating Johnny Appleseed Day by painting with apple halves:

A couple of cute feet:

Greta reading Goodnight Moon to Jack:

Most Beautiful Cat in the World, Matilda:

Cousins, making bread pudding!:

We've all been sick around here with a monsterous cold/sore throat, which because we are us, also includes ear infections. Blah. But at least we're not throwing up! Last week it was fevers, so I consider runny noses and ear infections a step up.

Greta turned two! I forgot my SD card so I have no pictures of her birthday to share today. I can't believe my baby is two years old. *sniff* The day itself actually will probably go down in our family's history as The Worst Birthday Ever, but it doesn't matter. We've been lighting candles and singing Happy Birthday to Greta every day for more than a week, so I don't think the events of the actual day really matter so much. Not in the grand scheme of things, anyway.

Wellllllll..... I wish Winter would hurry up and end because I'm freezing and I'm tired of being freezing. I've planted my peas and lettuce and radishes. It was 70 degrees when I planted. This is a far cry from seventy, that's for sure. It was 26 degrees at 11:00 this morning!!!

Not much else is new around here...

Anja Louise, Age 3

Have I mentioned I love three-year-olds?

Hot Off the Needles

Wahoo! I finished my very first adult-sized sweater yesterday! I had always intended to call it the "Wing-It" sweater.... Little did I know, it would turn out having wings for sleeves! LOL!

Overall, I think I'm happy with the result. Not exactly what I was expecting, but definitely wearable.

And there's nothing like a photo shoot in your dirty bathroom mirror, right? I definitely should've cleaned the mirror beforehand... Also pictured is my awesome new camera!

Raglan sleeves, coconut buttons, seed stitch edging.... I think I like it.

Beyond Anger

Okay, really.

I've always been against progress. You should've seen the fit I threw in highschool when my parents replaced the carpet at our river cottage. I just don't handle change well, and I'm not ashamed of it either. Why can't things stay the same? Why does all this damn PROGRESS have to screw up my perfectly merry little life?!

Earlier this week I noticed that NPR has begun to refer to themselves as "public media." They're really stressing the "American Public Media" part of their organizations. They chummily say "Brought to you by APM... American Public Media." BARF. Because their news isn't confined to their radio broadcasts. It's all online as well. LiveStream Audio! You can find every program in full in our Archives section! Want to contact us? Find our email address on our Website! Do you know that they don't read the local snow closures on the radio anymore? They give you the newest closures, then tell you you can find the full list on their website. Martin is told by text message that he doesn't have to go in to the office during a blizzard. Everything is so amazingly technological these days, it seriously disgusts me. If you want to be tech savvy, go right ahead. But I don't see why everyone on the earth has to follow suit just because it's convenient. Convenient for whom, anyway?

Mothering Magazine has now become a "web only" publication. This infuriates me. I am absolutely crazed by this. Mothering Magazine has been my drop of love in the mailbox for the past three years. Before I was a subscriber I would go to Barnes & Noble and flip through the pages while enjoying a mocha. (I didn't buy it, I admit this. I wasn't even pregnant when I started read Mothering, and I thought it would look really weird to be buying a magazine on natural parenting when it wasn't even a guarantee that I'd ever have children.) Since those days I have looked forward to every issue, checking the mailbox repeatedly until the mail arrived, day after day, until finally the blessed new issue would be there! And Martin would happily send me out for my bit of time alone to have a cup of coffee and enjoy every page of every article, every pretty advertisement, every letter from their readers. I enjoyed every PAGE of Mothering Magazine and I never threw away an issue. I have them all still... I've even ordered a few issues from the days before I had kids. You might say I'm a little bit obsessed. I don't care.

And let me tell you something else: I've been to the Mothering.com website. I've been there maybe two or three times because I find it to be SO overwhelming and SO confusing that I just can't stand it. And now I'm being FORCED to keep up my subscription to this fine magazine ONLINE?!?!? IT'S A NATURAL FAMILY MAGAZINE. I cannot BELIEVE that they've moved to be "web only." Ugh. The very term makes my skin crawl.

I am fuming. Really fuming. I might add that Martin saw the email in his inbox saying that the online issue was now available.... he didn't READ the email though, so I just did, and so just found out about their new..... sculduggery.

And you know what else? I don't WANT another computer. We've been talking that maybe we need to break down and get one. I've been missing the blogs more lately, and paying more attention to emails and stuff.... or at least thinking about them more. But I'm done. I'm moving to the Ozarks. Or the Amazon. Yeah, I bet that got you! Remember when the Amazon was a river? Does the word "rainforest" ring a bell? Type it into Google and see what comes up. Those times were long ago.

It's a sad, sad, sad, sad world, that's for sure.