The Littlest Penguin

Baby’s first Christmas

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 | Christmas, Liam, Playgrounders, family | 4 Comments

First off, I don’t know why folks buy babies clothes for use on specific holidays. The fact that the kid will only ever wear the outfit once makes it all seem wasteful. That said, Liam in the reindeer hat his G-G gave him is easily the cutest thing ever. I saved it in his box of one-year-old clothes just in case we can get another use out of it next year.

Christmas was a bit of an adventure, toting Liam around airports and seeing how well he handled the airplane. He actually did very well, though the unavailability of wiggle space eventually annoyed him on the flight home. (This kid is all movement.) He also had a rough first night while he adjusted to new surroundings. Thankfully we were staying in the neighbor’s house while they were gone, so we didn’t keep anyone awake and Liam didn’t have too much overwhelming him at bedtime. The rest of the time he charmed everyone and got to meet his cousins and other extended family. Gibson had a great time ripping into his presents. (And would not let the Thomas the Train toy carrier we gave him out of his sight!) We had a relatively small crowd at Christmas dinner this year, mostly mom’s family. It was warm outside, but still nice enough to sit on the patio. The Sunday after Christmas Rue’s crew and some of dad’s family came over to meet Liam and William. It was cool enough to have a little fire and make s’mores.

Zeb, Alarra, and Ceika drove down to Johnson City for New Year’s at the New Hippie Hut. We wanted to join them, but we didn’t want William to be that exhausted when he went back to work on the following Monday. Also, we weren’t sure what kind of shape Liam would be in after the trip to Florida. We opted for a shorter trip to visit Kevin and Stephanie instead. We missed hanging out with everyone in Tennessee, but we were kind of right about Liam. He would not have dealt well with a longer trip than the 3 hour ride to Durham. Not after the Florida trip, at least. We’re aiming to go to Tennessee over William’s spring break if all goes well. We didn’t do much in Durham, but we had a nice visit. Kevin and Steph have learned to make candles and showed William and I. Kevin also showed William how to make “bath bombs,” scented and molded bath salts that fizz when you toss them in the tub. Very nice, very nice indeed.

It was all fun, but it’s good to be home. Today we’re back to our regularly scheduled week, though we do have piles and piles of laundry I should be folding instead of updating my blog. Tonight we’re playing Star Wars with Mike via Skype and tomorrow Nick might come over and hang out with us before he has to fly back to Saudi. And maybe I’ll be able to catch up on some sleep, too.

Month of roadtrips

Thursday, August 27th, 2009 | Playgrounders, baby, family, travel | 2 Comments

You know, for someone who is no longer working a 40 hour job plus choir, committees, and gaming, I’ve been really lax on this goshdarned thing. Which is kind of sad, because late June and July were pretty interesting.

The last weekend of June was the Third Annual “Southeast Trogland” Giant in the Playground Meetup. The group was smaller than last year, but the number seemed to work better. Less chaos, less drama, more fun. Of course, I wasn’t technically a “local” anymore; I carpooled with Zeb and Alarra. (It was the last week of school at the JDC and William had to work.) All in all a great time, and I got to meet a few new GiTP forumites. Which is all the more interesting considering I haven’t really done more than peek at the forums in a year. But Playgrounders are almost always fun, no matter how you meet them. Zeb, Alarra, and Ceika are relatively close to me here in VA, but I haven’t gotten together with them yet. Zeb and Alarra are brand new parents, and I’ve only got 4 more weeks to go, so maybe once baby chaos settles down we can hang out. There’s even a mini-meetup in the works for October.

For July 4 we drove over to Smith Mountain Lake, VA, to spend about a week at William’s grandparents’ house. Apparently the area has become a popular place to build vacation houses since Nana and Granddad built their retirement home on the lake years ago, but they still manage to have a nice peaceful house under the trees. It was my first time meeting them, so I was nervous, but they’re really delightful. They met during the Second World War – he was in the US military and she the British. They wrote letters back and forth for a long while and eventually she came over and they married. And now they’re possibly the cutest little old couple I’ve ever met. Sadly we couldn’t see the fireworks from their house, but we did watch the Washington, DC, display on TV. (Not quite the same, I know, but it had to do.)

The following weekend we drove up to William’s mom’s for a baby shower. Nana and Granddad were there, and so were Lisa and her family. We spent one morning at Hershey’s Chocolate World. The whole place is really nothing more than a tourist trap designed to give you a sugar high and make you want to buy chocolate, but with the kids it was fun and I got to buy some t-shirts for my parents. Jan had tons of really wonderful food and we went to a nice, casual restaurant for the shower. The guys stayed through lunch and some of the silly shower games. Colin even won the game where you guess how round I am. After that I was on my own in a room full of barely-familiar women, but it was fun.

The weekend of July 18th we flew down to Florida for another baby shower hosted by Aunt Rue. It was good to see all the aunts and cousins down there again, even if it was kind of brief. Rue gave a great shower. Amy, Gibson and Alyce flew down, and we got to spend some time with William’s friend Mike and my old friends the Eastlicks.  William also got to meet my grandma for the first time, as well as my Uncle Rick and cousin Cookie. A few of my aunts were disappointed that he didn’t go to the shower, but we’re hoping to go down again at Christmas, so they’ll get to meet then. We don’t want to overwhelm the poor guy; my family is much larger than his.

And that’s pretty much all the travel I’m allowed until the little dude is here. The Florida trip kind of pushed my “no-fly” cutoff, but since my TN doctors never told me what that cutoff was and I had to make plans, oh well. (I had trouble with that office. Don’t get me started.) Four more weeks and hopefully I will no longer have indigestion that keeps me up and blogging until 1am.

Photos and some reflections on food

Sunday, July 20th, 2008 | Playgrounders, food, friends, pictures, site odds and ends | 6 Comments

My scooter, Meg.

Well, most everyone who’s commented here lately has blogging habits that put mine to shame. Especially Trog and his almost-daily insights into Life, the Universe, and Everything. But hey, it’s good to get to know you guys in a non-forums environment.

I still don’t quite know what’s going on with the gallery proper, but the latest upgrade in WordPress has at least corrected an issue I was having with the photo uploader. Here are some of the pics I promised to deliver in previous posts.

Yes, I name almost everything. The scooter is Meg. Meg, bloggy friends. Bloggy friends, Meg. Yesterday I did a little maintenance and fixed the loose handlebars. I still need to replace the rearview mirrors, but she’s in good shape. I drove Meg to church today and got some fun reactions from folks. My congregation is so cool. I think Sue wanted to test drive, and Bob and Lois stood giggling when they saw me driving off after lunch. Tanya and Reece chalked it up to me trying to be green. (Which I am, with very mixed success.)

Tanya gave a presentation today about whole foods and eating habits as a dimension of faith. It was really interesting, and I learned some things. (Did you know that ‘whole wheat’ doesn’t actually use everything the wheat kernel produces? I didn’t.) But at a time where I’m doing my best to reduce the grocery budget, hearing how bad processed foods are for you puts me into a quandary. The Angel Food program is great, and I think cut my grocery bill by about 25% last month, but it’s full of processed foods. The best happy medium I can come up with so far is to supplement the program’s groceries with farmer’s market produce and grocery store foods that are as minimally processed as possible. A reduction more than an elimination. At least at this point. Whole foods as a complete diet is a lifestyle for people with a little more disposable income than I have. Just a little bit more, though. I’ve cut back on eating out during the week and that also helps ye olde budget a bit. (And Sue notes, perhaps ye olde waistline too. Though I haven’t weighed myself in ages.)

Angel Food, for those of you who came to the Meet-up, was one of the ways we fed you all without breaking the bank. The organization is basically a food co-op that you can choose to participate in every month. For $30 you buy one “basic box” which they say has about enough food for one person for a month. Pretty accurate, too, though what they give you is primarily protiens and starches (lots of meat, eggs, and some pasta-ish stuff). I supplement it with some side dish kinds of things and fresh veggies. You have to buy a basic box to participate, but there are additional boxes you can add on if you want. In the case of the meet-up, we bought some extra bbq-themed boxes and had enough to feed 40.

A couple of projects on the burners, some moving from the back to the front under unfortunate and annoying circumstances. Though, really, I saw it all coming. On a happier note, William called me today for the first time in probably 2 years. We talked for over an hour just catching up, which was really wonderful. He’s grown a moustache. I think that’s going to take some getting used to on my part. Hopefully we can work out some kind of visit, even if we meet somewhere half way between us. I also need to figure out if I have enough money and vacation time to go visit Season in Baltimore in a couple of weeks. Good grief, that’s coming up really soon.

Anyway, it’s time for all little penguins to go to bed so they can get up for work in the morning. Peace.

Tags: Angel Food, meet-up, scooter, whole foods

Trip post #2

Friday, July 4th, 2008 | Playgrounders | 10 Comments

Actually, I didn’t take a trip at all for this one, but lots of other folks did.

What’s the saying: if you do it once it’s new but if you do it twice it’s tradition? If that’s so then the Second Annual Southeast(ish) Trogland OotS meetup firmly established our place in epic party-throwing tradition. Last weekend Jared, Sheri, Llama, Robb, Edie, Nick, Justin and I helped in our various capacities to welcome, host, feed, and entertain a little over 30 Playgrounders – fans and members of the Order of the Stick’s web forums – from as near as Knoxville and as far away as Canada. We had custom t-shirts for the locals, Kubb, Hippie home brew, lots of BBQ, late late night games sessions, a high-ropes course, and cute dogs. The Photobucket album that pretty much everyone is tossing their pics into is here. Jared’s album is here. Trog (among others) has posted a very humorous recap of the weekend’s highlights on the meetup thread.

Ceika and Tantolian showed up Thursday night and made cookies at my house while some others of us played video games. Friday most of the Playgrounders arrived and that evening we all played games and ate huge amounts of pizza in the church basement. Mom was with us and she got introduced to such card games as Bang and Man Bites Dog. Saturday Mom left and yet more Playgrounders arrived. Among them, Dave, who was at last year’s meet-up. Most folks (not me) did the high ropes course while Justin and I grilled for 40+. Later there was Kubb and Nick initiated a water gun drive-by. Then we all went home to shower before decending upon the Midcity Grill for more games and burgers the size of my cat. (The fat one.) There was also crazy-late (and I hear somewhat drunken) Kubb even after that. (My guest, Phoenix-backwards, got in at 5:30am, but I went to bed at 2:30.) Sunday there was breakfast, Wii, and departures at the Igloo. I left a little early so I could catch a nap, but a couple of people didn’t leave til Monday morning.

I actually didn’t mingle much since I was kind of busy cooking or otherwise hosting Friday and Saturday and was dead tired on Sunday. I’m a little mad at myself now… other people are being singled out on the forum for praise or ribbing or just chat. No one’s mentioned me except once. (And Shadow, if you’re reading, thanks for the compliment.) I should have been more social.

Yes, we called each other by our forums handles. Yes, I can tell you what some of these peoples’ real names are. No, I can’t tell you what all of their real names are. No, many of them can’t tell you my real name either. It’s kind of fun that way. In a weird, internet-y kind of way.

Anyway, here’s to a successful meet-up, to new traditions, and to some of the most  amusing people I’ve met in a while. Cheers.

Trip post #1

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 | Playgrounders, family, nephew, travel | No Comments

I’m going to break the last three weeks or so down into two posts. I’ve been up to a lot.

Three weekends ago I drove over to Durham to help Kevin move to a spiff new apartment. I got there Friday night and we went for Mexican and margaritas. Saturday we spent a longish day moving stuff. We didn’t get everything, but the 5 of us got most of the really big stuff and the basics for living (cats, tp, cooking necessities, Wii). It was hot and much Gatoraide was consumed before kicking back with pizza in the new place. Sunday Kevin and I moved a little more stuff around before getting a platform to hitch to my car so I could haul his (now my) scooter back to TN. Isn’t it awesome?

(Uuuum, trouble with the galleries is being looked into. Check back soonish for actual photo of the scooter, but for now just trust me that it’s awesome.)

The Thursday after Durham my mom drove into town and we went on a road trip to Chicagoland together – kind of a road trip / mother-daughter bonding / cleaning our old stuff out of mom and dad’s house trip. She brought some coffee tables up for Amy and some of the trinkets and memoribilia I’d left in my closet when I moved out 5 years ago. My part is still piled up in the corner of my living room, but it’s ok. We stopped in Renfro Valley, KY, for the evening and did a quick visit to the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame and Museum before hitting the road in the morning.

My nephew is still a little nervous around me… wouldn’t let me hold him. But he would play with me, and he really loves the little stuffed Milligan buffalo I sent him when he was just a few weeks old. Woudn’t let it out of his sight. While we were there we walked around the Taste of St. John festival. Amy and I went to see Prince Caspian. Mom sent Amy and I out one afternoon for pedicures, which was pretty nice.

Mom and I left on Tuesday morning and took a quick side trip to the Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum. Actually, pretty darned fun. I need to find a place to display my tiny souvineer bat.

Wednesday I skipped choir (again) because mom wanted to go couch shopping with me. She’d spent the morning going around town looking and discovered a good sale at Grand’s. I was expecting a thrift store couch. I got a brand new loveseat, couch, and matching chair. (Again, pictures to come.) They’re squishy and awesome. I invited Tony, Jared and Sheri, Nick, and Playgrounders Stacy and Tracey over on Thursday to bake cookies, play video games, and break in the new furniture. Mom was in Knoxville visiting family but returned Friday afternoon to spend one last night and meet most of the other Playgrounders.

Who are Playgrounders, you ask? Let me post this, fix the gallery, gather some links, and then I’ll post again about the Epic Win that was the 2008 Second Annual Southeastish Trogland OotS Forum Meetup (of DOOM!) *grin*

Tags: Amy, furniture, Gibson, Kentucky, Lousiville Slugger, mom, road trip

Planning stages, part B

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 | Playgrounders, family, travel, weddings | No Comments

Ok. (sigh) Tonight I officially declared that I will again not be attending Montreat this year. Works out for the choir; they were getting a little tight on how many people they could fit into the rental house. Works out for me some, too. The (rapidly-becoming-epic!) GitP meet-up is the first weekend of July and I would have gone from one fun, exhausting event smack into another. I’m going to Joel E’s wedding in May, once I book a flight, but so help me if anyone tries to haul me up to catch the bouquet . . .

I might also try to attend a summer Con. Maybe. Nick is going to Dragon-Con, and says I can tag along. I’ve never been, but I’ve been told I’d have fun (and go up a level in my Girl-Geek prestige class!)

What else? Oh. Mom and I are still planning to go to Chicago if we can. Grandma is moving in with my uncle in Alabama this coming week, so we’re kind of waiting to see whether she will stay there or decide she prefers to live with mom and dad. We all think she’ll be happier up with Pete and his family, and she’s really looking forward to it. Here’s hoping for the best. Chances are good that the Chicago trip will be sometime in July, though we might go in middle June. I just want to see the Nephew again. (The sister and brother-in-law are fun too )

Oh, and Nick left me a key to his house so I can check in on the cat. Silly man. We told him what happens when you give me keys. . .