Preludes And Nocturnes

Twitter me baby.  I’ve joined up.

jennpayson

Min was talking about posture and it reminded me of something said to me recently about being organised.  More than a few times over the past number of years I’ve had people comment on how organised I am.  When I teach my students about some research methods, I can see them marvel at (and, for some, scorn) my techniques as I outline some of their options. I have systems with index cards for early research, colour coded post-its for later research, highlighting text in different colours for end stage writing. I have advanced files. I have my crafts in various drawers according to all sorts of sorting criteria. And so on.

I have had a friend at grad school tell me how in awe she was of my organisation skills.

But, see, I don’t have good organisation skills!  I am horribly disorganised!  That is why I need all the systems and colours and markers!  If left to my own devices I’d be drowning under a pile of papers and articles.  I am “performing” organised.  I am acting like I think an organised person would act!

Thus we arrive at the question.  Am I actually organised or am I just acting like an organised person would act to counter my inherent nature?  Where does the organised essence reside - Within the soul, or is it simply a matter of outcome?

The Good.

Friday night we all got out together to go for sushi. I love taking Malcolm for sushi. People get a real kick out of seeing a baby getting some avocado roll off the chopsticks.

I got a bunch of books out of the library including two Buffy and one Angel comic.

I got a wonderful book on making collage ATC - and just the flip through I did already made me get special tingles at the thought of crafting this coming week.

The Bad.

None of that crafting got to be this weekend. It is 11:41pm on Sunday night and I just finished my prep for tomorrow because I’m doing up an amazing grammar review that will serve me well. Good long-term. But sucky for the crafting plans of the weekend.

The Ugly.

I’m being punished for enjoying the sunshine yesterday.  Jim, Malcolm, and I walked down to the library - we live up on a rather steep hill. It was all good yesterday, and we had a wonderful time.  It was such a nice break. Jim is writing all weekend as he has a deadline tomorrow, so I’ve been beeb-wrangling along with getting this skookum powerpoint grammar review ready for this week.

It was wonderful to get out for a walk.  But today - ahhhhh - my shins! I have amazing upper body workout built into the mom gig.  I get lots of stairs with our house. But I don’t get any of that particular ‘walking down a hill while holding a stroller worth of 22.2lbs of beeby’ workout in my daily life.

So today my shins are killing me. I just typed shits are killing me.  Seems about right.

Shin splints suck monkey butt.

Finished marking the last paper at 10:15pm last night.  I have one week until they write their grammar exam- why oh why did I think that was a good idea?  But, until then all I have to do is prep up their grammar review classes.  I’m going to do them on power point and I really like the idea of finally having a comprehensive grammar review that I can use going forward. All my other grammar stuff is on overheads and in bits and pieces in different fonts, etc, as I made them up over the past nine years.

Yep, I’ve been teaching this class for nine years!  Different institutions and with some breaks in the teaching, but my first uni class I taught was Septebmer 2000. I will point out that I had actually typed eight years and as I wrote sept 2000 I did the math again and just went and changed the 8 to 9.  Counting years gets confusing sometimes when it starts with zero.  Or something. And I’m always like, ‘do I count the year to year or do I count once it is done?’  Whatever. You get the gist.

Too busy.  Too crazy. But this weekend I might get some time to craft and paint.  Jim will be writing all weekend as he has a deadline on Monday for some chapters (he’s contributing to a text book), so I’ll be on beeb duty.  Okay, it is after 7am and I have to scarf down my breakfast and get to work!

New hairdo (excuse the bags under my eyes - Malcolm and I had been up that night at 12:30 and then from 3am-6am) I had under three hours sleep. But, my hair looked great:

Oh mom, you are zageratin!

No. No I’m not.

Please take a looky-loo here and let me know what you think of the following themes:

Butterflies

An Autumn Daze

Bright Spring

Thoughtlog

Night Whimsy

S’anks.

In other news, check out my youtube for many Malcolm videos.  I’ll try to post one here. But I’m never sure how well that will work.

Gah, I posted the embedding code into my code screen and it shows up on my preview, but then not on the entry.. Here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFkEV3f_8u8

Part of our anniversary day, today, was going to Toys R Us and getting some stuff for Malcolm.  He has just turned 10 months and we kinda haven’t bought him any toys yet.

Don’t get me wrong, we don’t keep him locked in the basement or anything. We were given a few things for shower gifts, we’ve bought him a jumperoo, and he got a few toys for Christmas. We also have gotten some very nice hand-me-down toys from friends.  So all in all he has things to play with, but I’ve kept the bulk down. We don’t have tonnes of space and I am not big on overloading on toys.

But past few weeks he is playing more.  And he seems bored with his more “baby” toys.  It just seemed he was ready for something new.

So up until now he has had mostly soft toys, some rattles/chew toys (we like that Sassy brand), Tiny Love, and then I gave him one of our phones and remote controls with the batteries taken out (he loves electronics). He has had a playmat, jumperoo, and ‘exersaucer/car’. So just enough random toys/stuffies to fill a medium sized tote.  Oh, and tonnes of books plus his bath tub toys.

So we spent about two hours in the store figuring out what would make him happy - what starts to bridge the time between baby and full on toddler.  So very exciting, today we got him some bigger boy toys.  We got the Little People Airport for his birthday, the Fisher Price Crawl and Cruise Musical Jungle, Bruin Xylo Pounder, sand shovel/rake/bucket, and a baseball (yeah, Jim insisted on that one..).  Best part, all items were on for 50% off!!  Yay!

One with noise, one without, one he makes noise on it, one for the beach… We’re feeling like this is a good start.

So colour me stupid, but I hadn’t really thought about needing to buy new toys yet. At times he seems like such little kid now… but can still be distracted by getting his sock off and into his mouth for 25 minutes at at time and can’t purposefully use a spoon or sippy cup. It confuses me. I never realised these levels of baby and what they might like at different stages.  And I had never really considered the levels of toys.  I just though “toys are toys”.

Yes, yes I *am* new.

So we’ll see tomorrow if he is all excited to play with the new things, or if he just leans over to lick the items once and then crawl off to find the kitty litter again.  His latest favorite toy…

*sigh*

Dear Diary,

Gah, school is hard! I don’t have classes today- but I still have all this homework! Why do students do this to me? Don’t they understand that I have a social life? They keep handing in these papers and wanting them returned - and now I have to make up that exam and the print shop says I must have it to them TWO WEEKS in advance to get it ready in time. NO WAY! *sigh*

So I was going to get to work right away this morning, but this new guy I’m hanging out with - Malcolm - he wanted to go to the mall. We had a blast hanging out, looking at books (he found one that doesn’t get soggy when he chews on it), and I *totally* blew my allowance. I got yams, frozen fruit, formula, lemon juice, feta cheese - so much stuff!! I had bags and bags when I got home!!

But I don’t know. Malcolm was really different later this morning. He was moody and kept yelling at me. Then he stuck his finger up my nose and pulled my hair. He said he wasn’t tired, but then he totally passed out upstairs.

I don’t understand boys.

Okay diary, talk to you later!

Oh well, at least he likes to vacuum!

Malcolm will be ten months next week! Ten whole months old!   We did his check up at the doctor - he is 22lbs 2oz and 29 inches long.  Oh, and he now hates the doctor.  Total freak out and acting like the man kept pinching him or something.  Poor bub.But he recovered quickly, and was soon happy to just sit and chew on the tonque stick thingy.

These days he quite enjoys ‘crawling’ around the house, but he can only move backwards so his life really consists of constantly moving away from whatever it is he wants at that moment.  Usually, though, backing into something else well worth exploring.  Like the cat food.  Or the cat. But he will also push himself backwards under the couch or loveseat and then get stuck. Cue frustrated screaming from baby.

I just finished reading the first book - Twilight.  Will reserve comment until I read the next one. But it says something that I’m reading the next one, right?

I have 69 essays sitting next to me here in a large box, waiting to be marked. Half were handed in Monday, the rest were handed in on Wednesday.  I set a goal of marking ten per day.  Then I asked if I could just get 5 done per day. I have, actually, marked 7 so far.  Oh yeah, lets see how well that pace is going to serve me… but Mr. Malcolm has been rather high-needs the past few days (doctor said today his throat was red and irritated indicating a cold coming on) and sleep has been minimal.

I have gone to the gym four times since last Saturday.  I’m working out like a crazy lady! Whoo!  Once for the treadmill, once for Zumba class, and twice for Centergy.  Zumba is so much fun - latin dance and lots of shaking of booty going on - and Centergy combines yoga and pilates into something that kicks my ass hardcore. If anyone wants some fun classes to go to, they should really see if these are in their area. I get so much more than when I work out on my own.  And times go quickly

I end, as usual, with cute pictures of mr beebers.  Thanks for the comments guys, even when you just wave and say hi - I love reading that you were here (as I’ve lost my tracker thing that tells me about the lurkers).  Yeah, I have a whole lot of things on my to do list. And I still want a whole new design here…

One day!

Oh, hai mom. You see, there was this evil blueberry. Yep.  Evil!

I can crawl anywhere!  What do you mean I might not want to keep on this path?! Crazy lady, I’m in control!!

Yeah, well. Okay. This might not be what I want. And the orange cat is trying not to smirk at me.