tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post6175326806729246502..comments2023-10-21T03:54:12.029-04:00Comments on A Gift Universe: Seven quick takesSheilahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10853868724554947854noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-36584498367465538372014-10-07T12:19:03.710-04:002014-10-07T12:19:03.710-04:00Perhaps you will find beautiful walks where you le...Perhaps you will find beautiful walks where you least expect them. I've never yet lived in a place where I couldn't find beautiful walks -- even Rome, where I had to resort to a cemetery. But it was a very *beautiful* cemetery! (I know Rome has beautiful *buildings,* but what I needed was quiet green space. I go half mad without it.)<br /><br />Every spring and every fall, I put off going for walks I ought to go on, don't go to the park when I should. I just always don't feel like it and the days slip past. It's only when they're over that I realize (again) just how short the period of nice weather is around here, when it really is perfect to be outside. I'm trying to fix this -- which fits right in with my efforts to get Miriam to nap, because walking with her in the wrap is the one thing that *always* works. (Although she is in the wrap right now, and I'm standing up with my computer on the kitchen counter. Wearing her makes my feet tired, but I suppose it's good for me! Babywearing was invented in cultures where there was always some kind of work to be done, and work wasn't done sitting down. Babies hate it when you sit while wearing them.)<br /><br />About always having something to say -- you reminded me of this quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide the Galaxy, my current light read:<br /><br />"One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about human beings was their habit of continually stating and repeating the obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working."<br /><br />Who knows *why* it is -- I suspect just a desire to connect on some level with people that you mean, plus the knowledge that saying anything that *isn't* trite to a complete stranger ("Why, hello there. Did you ever consider how vast the universe is, and how tiny our own part in it?") would weird people out. So we go with the same old things like "you have your hands full." Which I heard again yesterday, coming back from the park.<br /><br />I tried listening to podcasts, but the kids kept breaking out fighting at the interesting bits and drowning it out! And then there was a theme song, and they begged and begged to listen to it over and over, and it was quite impossible to listen to it. I watched a ton of videos when Marko was a newborn, but that too doesn't work out so well with big kids around. Dr. Who would give them nightmares, and if I watched something they actually liked, they would just sit around all day watching it with me and whine when I finally turned it off. For that reason, I don't watch even a one-minute video while they're around -- they just demand more and it's more trouble than it's worth.Sheilahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10853868724554947854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-25106044596122514582014-10-04T15:55:54.286-04:002014-10-04T15:55:54.286-04:00+JMJ+
#1 -- Hooray for Miriam! It's too bad ...+JMJ+ <br /><br />#1 -- Hooray for Miriam! It's too bad about the pictures, though. =/ <br /><br />#2 -- I'd type something like, "I wish I lived in a place with lots of beautiful walks . . ." but residual superstitious tendencies are stopping me from going all out. You see, my grandmother passed away a few weeks ago and the rest of us have decided to sell her house, which is also our current home. We actually <i>need</i> to sell it, so there's no way to go but forward, but at the moment, we have no idea where we're going to end up. And we can't make definite plans until we know how much money we're going to get from the sale. Everything is up in the air. While a place with beautiful walks <i>would</i> be nice, it would also be hours away from our relatives and friends. But we'll see . . . <br /><br />I know how you feel, though, about wondering why you don't go some place more often when it's so accessible. Perhaps taking them as a given (because it's not as if they'd fly away tonight!) makes us feel like we have forever to visit them again. <br /><br />And I <i>love</i> Marko's fire hydrant question! LOL! Save that up for the future. ;-D <br /><br />#3 -- People who say, "You've got your hands full!" remind of something a well-traveled friend of mine observed about Americans: they've always got something to say! On the one hand, that's nice and quite friendly. On the other hand, as a social convention, it leads to people blurting out things that <i>could</i> be taken the wrong way, just because it might seem ruder not to say anything. <br /><br />When my friend said that, I had to laugh and reply, "That's what I have to do for work!" Seriously, when I'm helping someone to learn English, I reply to everything he says, to show him that the message was clear (or that it wasn't!) and to simulate a natural-sounding conversation. And "You've got your hands full!" is totally something I would say if I heard that a client had two toddlers and an infant. (Actually, no: it's too much of an idiom, so I'd say, "You must be very busy!" instead. LOL!) It really is just saying something for the sake of saying something. <br /><br />#4 -- And now I see that they <i>are</i> a handful. ;-) <br /><br />#5 -- Hmmmm. I'm not sure what to recommend if you want to read a free digital copy, but if your library book has <i>Downsiders</i> by Neal Shusterman and you're okay with paper, then READ IT!!! It's about a community that lives under New York City and has developed its own culture. It's light, it's easy, it's original, and it's got just enough Fantasy in it to be worth your while. =) <br /><br />And speaking of having difficulty with paper books . . . Now that I'm SO into knitting, my reading is suffering. LOL! A Twitter friend told me that she can read and knit at the same time . . . because she doesn't mind getting a scarf full of holes at the end! ;-P The compromise I've found? Audiobooks! I never thought I'd be an audiobook "reader," but I never thought I'd be good at anything crafty, either! This has been a season of big and small changes in my life. <br /><br />#6 -- I love your dream! LOL! And if you ever need a Beta reader for the second book, remember that I'm still around! =D <br /><br />#7 -- Why am I not surprised that girls' clothes are so much more inconvenient than boys' clothes? Good luck sewing the dressings! I'm sure that they will turn out as well as all your other projects have. =) Enbrethilielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03414765854670926854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-12647383727660379592014-10-04T13:50:13.287-04:002014-10-04T13:50:13.287-04:00I went to Aldi a lot less when he was small--I did...I went to Aldi a lot less when he was small--I didn't have time to go to multiple stores and it doesn't have quite enough selection to be my only store. <br /><br />I really don't remember what I did. I think I frequently threw stuff loose into the trunk and just bagged it when I got home (I'd stick him in his pack-and-play or something and bring up the groceries as quickly as I could.)The Sojournerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04559244806125834569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-86022950523755191572014-10-04T13:20:38.351-04:002014-10-04T13:20:38.351-04:00On the whole I much prefer good solid primary colo...On the whole I much prefer good solid primary colors and neutrals to either neon or pastel colors! <br /><br />I am constantly plagued by old ladies thinking my babies are cold. "Where are his shoes? Where are his socks? Where is his coat?" Always when nobody is dressed warmly because it's plenty warm. I understand that very new newborns need a bit extra, but by the time they're chubby, I dress my babies in what I'm wearing. They don't seem to be cold!<br /><br />Today I took Miriam to the store with me in a wrap and I got that comment I so often get from older people ... "I wish they'd had carriers like that when mine were babies! So convenient!" Makes me laugh, because babywearing is neither new nor difficult .... but the older generation was in that funny gap between babywearing as a tribal custom which everybody did, and babywearing as a yuppie thing which crunchy people do.<br /><br />I must say, though, bagging my own groceries while babywearing is quite difficult. I go to Aldi (you too, right?) and it's hard to bend over the cart to get stuff out of it to bag without squashing the baby. I'd a zillion times rather take the boys (who love it and behave great) and leave the baby at home, but then she might need to eat while I was out. And I am not yet up to taking all three to the store, so daddy watched the older two.Sheilahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10853868724554947854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-19050784873295747752014-10-04T10:57:13.578-04:002014-10-04T10:57:13.578-04:00I get the "hands full" comment a lot wit...I get the "hands full" comment a lot with just one baby. Although admittedly I get it less now that he sits in the cart when we grocery shop--when I was juggling groceries and my wallet and a baby strapped to my chest in the sling, then it was certainly understandable when the cashiers all commented on it.<br /><br />J lived in sleepers when he was a little baby. Now that he's older and makes diaper changes a challenge, he usually crawls around in an unbuttoned onesie, with the end flapping in his wake like a little duck's tale. When we go out I usually snap it up and force him into pants, because a) I like to look minimally civilized when we leave the house, and b) the old ladies comment on his poor cold legs when he's not wearing pants. It's only just gotten cool here; I haven't adapted yet! (The other day at the store I was wearing short sleeves, a skirt, and sandals, and the baby was wearing nothing but a onesie, and the resident old ladies were quite concerned for him.)<br /><br />Girl clothes can also be rather hard on the eyes, color-wise. It seems like a lot of them are practically neon nowadays, not soft pastels. (So, hot pink instead of a baby pink.) Boy colors are much more soothing.The Sojournerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04559244806125834569noreply@blogger.com