February 2013
3 posts
2 tags
Emmett in the bath
Emmett: Ching chang ching chong chang.
Me and Jeff: [unspoken wonderment over where our 21-month old learned racist, fake Chinese]
Emmett: Ching chango!
Jeff: Oh, Chimichangos!
Emmett: Yeah. Skippyjon Jones!
Goals for the (not so) new year
1. Live music. (And we’ve already seen Freakwater and I have tickets to the Black Keys and Flaming Lips show.)
2. Write, daily, again.
3. Get into a better house-cleaning groove. So that we actually vacuum and dust more than quarterly.
4. Eat more hot lunches. More boulangerie beans. More homemade soup.
5. Watch more movies.
Saturday 2 February 2013
1. Where did January go?
2. My dad came over for dinner on Thursday night. We made this coleslaw that he really, really likes. And when Emmett pulled up his shirt to show off his belly, after the meal, my dad reciprocated by pulling up his shirt to show off his belly. The two went back and forth more than a couple times. And Emmett thought it was the funniest shit ever.
3. Emmett now has a stool...
January 2013
3 posts
Wednesday 30 January 2012
1. I had the best idea last night. And we put it into action this morning: drop Emmett off at daycare, keep driving into the city, and eat breakfast at Pamela’s before my midwife appointment. Holy cow, their pancakes. A toddler-less breakfast of bacon, eggs, and pancakes caramelly from too much butter. With my husband. God bless.
2. Emmett can officially put puzzle pieces into their proper...
Tuesday 29 January 2012
1. Fuck morning sickness. And this pregnancy. I mean, yay for a baby! But I seriously feel like crap. And it’s been over four months of feeling like crap.
2. Finally got to hang out with Meghan and her three kiddos. Helped clean up some pee after her three-year old spilled his poddy then decided to “swim” in it. While she was nursing. Good times were had by all.
3....
2012
Things That Went Really Well (and not so well) in 2012:
1. Weaning. That was probably the highlight of my year.
2. Music I very much enjoyed: Tune-Yards. Grimes. Black Keys (foreva!). Passion Pit. Fiona Apple.
3. Books I very much enjoyed: Gurlesque: The New Grrly, Grotesque, Burlesque Poetics; The Wednesday Wars; I Curse the River of Time (read in desperation as nothing else looked good, and...
October 2012
5 posts
5 tags
Sunday October 7 2012
1. Weeee, football season and baby at my parents and laying about all afternoon. And the Steelers pulled it out. Thank you, guys. Also, I find field goals much less stressful game-enders than touchdowns. So, again, thank you.
2. Saltines are good. Gingerale is questionable. Ginger candy, meh.
3. Work is such a slog right now. All my projects are kind of boring or on hold. And when they come...
6 tags
Saturday 6 October 2012
1. Rough, rough day. Felt hungover-ish and exhuasted. Seltzer with bitters is my friend.
2. Emmett, spinning in circles and listing sideways after from the dizziness.
3. Dinner with mom and Adam: city chicken, scalloped potatoes, pickled cucumbers, baked carrots and brussels sprouts. Yeah.
4. Emmett will be a dragon. His choice, over the tiger.
6 tags
Friday 5 October 2012
1. My GRE prep book came. I have to take that crap again. I have to teach myself math again. I have until Thursday. Whatevs.
2. Emmett thinks he is just the funniest. He was all tangled up in the curtain, hiding, jumping out and just delighted when we acted surprised. Today at Ikea, he ran in and out of their little circus tent and did his silent little chesty chuckle every time. And in the bath,...
4 tags
Tuesday 2 October 2012
1. How is it only Tuesday?
2. Big day for the Boyles: science center and library. When will this craziness end?
3. First night in a billion years where I legitimately do not have freelance work to attend to. Yes.
5 tags
Monday 1 October 2012
1. Massive cooking night in the kitchen. Waffles for the freezer, fruit/veg puree for Emmett’s yogurt, moutabal, chicken, caramelized leeks. It was crazy. How nice to not be so worked out, to be able to cook at night.
2. Writing questions directly tied to the Common Core State Standards is a mild pain in the ass. Some of those standards are meaningless. Take L.9-10.3: Apply knowledge of...
September 2012
28 posts
7 tags
Sunday 30 September 2012
1. Woah. Long day. Grammy and Pappy came, ate lunch, and walked all over the goddamn place with me and Jeff and Emmett. That walk tuckered the kiddo out. He was about passing out on Jeff as we watched “Sesame Street” this evening. And it was only 6:30. Lots of excitement = too much for toddler.
2. Made this macaroni and cheese. Stellar. Vegetably, not-too-rich, and actually really...
5 tags
Saturday 29 September 2012
1. Put up pickled hot peppers and Indian spice pickled romano beans today. Turns out I really should have (bought and) worn gloves before cutting up over a pound of assorted hot peppers. I finished over four hours ago and still, every time my hands get wet (which is all the stupid time) the burn kicks back up. This page suggests all kinds of things. I’m gonna start with alcohol and god I...
8 tags
Friday 28 September 2012
1. And so ends another Friday. We hit the blue slide playground at Frick park today. Emmett loves a good park. Pretty sure there was a child predator of some sort there. He lurked. He lingered. He pretended to do some pull ups on what was obviously a kids’ jungle gym. He took notes in his little moleskine. No one acknowledged him, and he acknowledged no one. Gah. If there hadn’t been...
8 tags
Wednesday 26 September and Thursday 27 September...
1. Rain is no fun. I get the SAD and Emmett gets the cabin fever. Maybe also some SAD. And he’s got the saddest, worst diaper rash, so he doesn’t want to sit down. But he gets tired. But he can’t sit. God save us.
2. Blowing freelance deadlines is awesome. I seem to have earned myself some good will on account of writing well, though. Still, not my favorite. And I so thought I...
3 tags
“I never reached water … My Tung is stkig to my mouth and I see what i have...”
– Message scratched into empty water bottle by Coulthard, a farmer who got lost in 1858 in the Australian outback. Quoted in The Dig Tree by Sarah Murgatroyd.
6 tags
Monday 24 September 2012
1. I am so sick of those history lesson plans. But they are done. For now anyway. On to Burke and Wills!
1a. A little sad that I just picked up another four amazingly pulpy Kit Carson books, a few hours after submitting finished lessons. Perhaps I’ll write 10-20 pages about Kit Carson—the man! the myth!—for my grad school essay?
2. Emmett really likes to make himself laugh. And...
1 tag
5 tags
Saturday 22 September 2012
1. Watched Mikey get married. He’s not really Mikey anymore. Poor Adam, my brother the best man, went to fetch Mike’s computer, which he forgot, and it took him over an hour. Mike refused to enter the reception until his best man was there. Until he finally had to give in and go in without him. So sweet. So sad. Then Adam finally made it, entered to some Jock Jams (Jamz?), slammed a...
7 tags
Friday 21 September 2012
1. Gah. Long day. Emmett and I hit the park with some hip mamas. He was not pleased when we left. And then he refused to nap until, like, 1:30. And that was after a thirty-minute scream fest. And I’m so tired of writing lesson plans. Just sleepy in general.
2. Stouffers Mac and Cheese. Still really bad for you. Still amazingly delicious.
3. We read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish to...
6 tags
Wednesday 19 September 2012
1. Among today’s many highlights: Kit Carson books at the rare books and manscripts room at the public library. Oh, how I love stacks. Take my love of stacks and multiply it by ten: that is my love for rare book rooms. I looked at “biographies” of Kit Carson, ranging from 1860 to 1903. I learned the following utterly untrue things about Kit Carson: he is the grandson of Daniel...
5 tags
Monday 17 September 2012
1. So, yesterday began with Emmett screaming and tantruming and weeping for about a half hour. And it was my day to sleep in. I’m constantly impressed with how good coffee is at transforming a mood.
2. And today ended with Emmett screaming and tantruming and weeping, because Jeff took his gross wild pear before he was done with it. But then we put him in his crib—holding a slice of...
4 tags
Saturday 15 September 2012
1. Quarterly taxes paid. I’m really, really hoping that I’m gonna see some of that money again cone tax return season. Cuz I’m pretty sure my freelancing is not netting me nearly the money this year that it did last year. But! Paid! And we remain in the black!
2. Met more neighbors. Emmett is so friendly. If it weren’t for him we would only know the neighbors I’ve...
8 tags
Friday 14 September 2012
1. Emmett ate chocolate. It made him very happy. It may also be making it hard for him to fall asleep at this very moment. Parenting is awesome.
2. Visited daycare. So that’s going to happen. I feel like I could nitpick a lot of stuff about the place—church-affiliated (but who isn’t in the daycare world?), small rooms, outdoor play mentioned only as a “sometimes”...
3 tags
7 tags
Thursday 13 August 2012
1. OK, for reals, female explorers in the can. Hopefully this version is sexy enough for them. Book version 2.0 includes: Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir (so ready to be done typing that name over and over) stranded on the cliffs of Greenland after a deadly shipwrecked only to be rescued by none other than Leif Eriksson himself! Ynes Mexia walking next to her dugout canoe in the middle of a jungle in...
5 tags
Tuesday 11 September 2011
1. Continue to spend my news-listening minutes embroiled in RAGE due to politicians and assholes spinning the Chicago Teachers Union strike as pro-money and anti-student. Gah.
2. Female Explorers is out of the can. They want revisions. Sigh. I can do it and it shouldn’t be super hard. But, you know, sigh.
3. Bread about to go in the oven. This whole no-knead thing is super amazing.
4....
5 tags
Teachers Unions are Pro-Student
“I am disappointed by the decision of the Chicago Teachers Union to turn its back on not only a city negotiating in good faith but also the hundreds of thousands of children relying on the city’s public schools to provide them a safe place to receive a strong education,” Romney said in the statement, issued by his campaign as he was flying from Boston to a campaign event in Ohio. “Teachers...
6 tags
Saturday 8 September and Sunday 9 September 2012
1. In the time it took us to get through the checkout at Trader Joe’s—so, not a lot—it went from kind of gray and drizzly to flat-out pouring down rain. Craziness. Jeff got so wet he ended up taking off his shirt and driving home topless. Hot.
2. Emmett has not one but two more molars. Two! I am so happy I cannot even tell you that we got two for the price of one this time. He...
6 tags
Friday 7 September 2012
1. Female Explorers is in the can. I loved all those ladies. That’s how come I was over five hundreds over the maximum word count. Oops. We’ll see how that goes.
2. As we finish reading and say goodnight to Emmett, Jeff kisses him, then Emmett grabs his puppy and his Jojo and I kiss him. He snuggles up against those animals so tight as I put him into bed. I love that. That he knows...
5 tags
Thursday 6 August 2012
1. I am so close to wrapping up this female explorers book. I spoke to Meenakshi Wadhwa today on the phone. She was quite lovely, though the conversation was awesome awkward. Yay for talking to strangers on the phone! While a fire alarm is going off in their office building!
2. Emmett, again with the crazy fussy. I think I may have felt another molar breaking through. Which would mean that both...
7 tags
Tuesday 5 September and Wednesday 6 September 2012
1. I picked four pounds of crabapples today, cooked them up, and put them in a jelly bag. I’m going to let that sit overnight and hopefully it makes enough juice to do what I want. Which is make jelly. Jelly!
2. Yesterday I made a little over one cup of plum jam. I still canned a pint and put it up for Christmas. I’m killing it over here in preserving land.
3. Jeff is a wonderful...
7 tags
Monday 3 September 2012
1. Labor Day. This pretty much means I work all day. But, I actually got work done. A lot of writing. And I like a lot of it. So, go team!
2. Adam stopped by to say hi and hang out with us for a bit. He watched me make fennel pickles (merry christmas, family!) and pushed Emmett around in his walker and drank some beer. He is so much happier now that he and Lindsey decided running their own cafe...
3 tags
“I used to walk on ahead of my miserable guide, because even a bandit would stop...”
– Dame Freya Stark, on her travels throughout the Middle East in the 1920s and ’30s. Quoted in Women of Discovery by Milbry Polk and Mary Tiegreen.
10 tags
Sunday 2 September 2012
1. It’s a shame we can’t go out to dinner as a family. Emmett is far too busy—the exact word used by a waitress tonight at Mad Mex—for us to have a sit down dinner. One of us has to follow him all over for pretty much the whole meal, leaving the other one eating alone. Or drinking alone.
2. Uncle Brendon and Aunt Megan came with Liam and Sylvia to hang out for an hour...
8 tags
Saturday 1 September 2012
1. Maybe, hopefully, have found my work groove. We’ll see in about fifteen minutes when I force myself to get cracking on some actual writing. Yeah, I know.
2. I think I may have to read Roland Barthes. I read one brief essay by him, in an anthology of essays, and his whole third-person reflections on himself thing could be just what I need to make this horrid breastfeeding essay go...
7 tags
Friday 31 August 2012
1. When will I get this work done? I think I’m just gonna go crank some bullshit out sitting downstairs and watching TV. Oooh, American’s Next Top Model is on tonight. That would be perfect for half watching while I summarize the Temperance Movement, the Wild West, the Depression, the Sixties, and, you know, eight other periods in American history. Then I’ll just take the next...
August 2012
29 posts
6 tags
Thursday 30 August 2012
1. I totally forget how to work. I have a bunch of stuff to do. It is unfortunately not going very quickly. I just get really distracted. The internets beckon. The boy sounds cute downstairs. The boy sounds upset downstairs. The boy sounds delighted outside. There’s this awesome cookie cake to be eaten. The internets beckon. It’s horrible.
2. Took Emmett to Children’s for a...
5 tags
Wednesday 28 August 2012
1. Morning at My Little Outback. The screeching didn’t peak until around 11:30. But then, for about twenty minutes, it was insane. Insane children running around with insane levels of energy. Emmett liked it so much he didn’t want to eat. I called it quits after two hours, as he hadn’t eaten lunch or napped and it was past twelve. Which is to say, two minutes to meltdown.
2....
5 tags
Tuesday 28 August 2012
1. Jeff shaking pears from the pear tree in our front yard. Emmett yelling when a rotten one split open on his head.
2. Another new contract! This means we’ll have to investigate drop-off daycare for Emmett a few times a week. This is kind of awesome. I think he’ll love it.
3. Curried summer squash soup with tofu croutons. Thank you, Heidi of 101 Cookbooks. How did we never think of...
6 tags
Sunday 26 August and Monday 27 August 2012
1. In an attempt to get Emmett to let us brush his teeth one night—in the bath, cuz that’s how we do it in the Boyle house—Jeff put his toothbrush under the water, then zoomed it up towards Emmett’s mouth. Emmett found this delightful, giggled, and Jeff successfully brushed his teeth. It worked for two nights. And now Emmett likes to submerge his toothbrush in his bath...
6 tags
Saturday 25 August 2012
1. Emmett now dances by stomping both his feet really fast. Mom and I were in her kitchen, trying to get Emmett to show off his skills by performing the same trick. He thought we were hilarious. Then he got in on the action. And it was hilarious. All three of us stomping and dancing.
2. Favorite nighttime activity: taking dirt from the bocce court and pouring it on my legs, sometimes rubbing it...
Friday 24 August 2012
1. I am so tired. We seriously have to go to bed earlier.
2. See above.
5 tags
Thursday 23 August 2012
1. Spent an hour or so at the library. I went to find a book, leaving Emmett staring at two siblings who were around 10 years old, plus and minus. Then I heard him bawling. When I came back out from the aisle, he was still standing there, staring at said siblings, and quite upset. Either they did something to him—which I strongly doubt—or they hurt each other in some way, upsetting...
8 tags
Tuesday 21 August and Wednesday 22 August 2012
1. Aunt Megan asked Emmett, “Who’s the cutest?” And Emmet said, “Elmo.”
2. Watching Michelle pepper-spray the entire cast of the Nutcracker on “Bunheads” was perfectly hilarious. Getting to watch it with Megan, who has the best laugh ever, made it that much better.
3. Emmett said “dada,” perhaps even to Jeff.
4. Finished the Evliya Celebi...
2 tags
