Miskullaneous

That's how I say it in my head, even though I know it's wrong. I have no idea why, and I can't stop doing it. It reminds me of something Nancy Pearl said when I saw her speak a few years ago. She was talking about how you get certain words wrong when you're learning to read phonetically rather than from having someone read to you, and how to this day she still feels like insisting the world "misled" is actually "mizzled."

Anyhoodle, here are some miscellaneous things from the past week:

1. Last Tuesday, I rescued this from the middle of the road:


Yes, that's a 10" snapping turtle, which I probably should've just left alone. There was a comedic scene involving the turtle threatening me, my feet popping up off the ground cartoon-style as I leaped away, and a sheriff pulling around the corner in his patrol car just in time to witness the whole thing, but it ended with me valiantly grabbing the turtle and carrying him to safety.

2. Nico has continued to hone his newfound walking skills. I have shot several too-long video clips, but I will spare you.

3. He also came down with the bitch of a cold that I had the week before, and it hit him really hard. On the worst day, my mom called me at work to tell me he was running a fever and she didn't think they had any baby tylenol at the house (they did, and it knocked the fever right down). He was wheezing so badly that night that for the first time in his life, I was almost afraid to put him to bed in another room. I spent several evenings this past week sitting with the baby monitor perched on my shoulder while I watched television so I could listen to him breathing. It was awful and I raise my glass to those mothers out there with chronically sick children. You all deserve medals, because this shot my nerves and he was only very sick for a few days.

4. I wanted to get a pair of khaki capris for my sometimes-outdoor job since it's getting hot already and we're supposed to wear khaki-colored pants. I say khaki-colored because they don't have to be the actual khaki / chino type of pants...just anything in that color. I generally dislike khaki-colored garments and only owned one pair from before I got this job, a super comfy lightweight pair that I bought in my second trimester with Nico, a pair of pants that literally slides right down off my ass now. Very professional, yes? I got one of those 50% off coupons courtesy of Oprah through a friend and decided to go to Old Navy. Their pants tend to fit me as long as I go for classic cuts and steer away from the godawful trendy skinny pants. I found a serviceable pair of capris and while they don't exactly blow my skirt up, being a plain pair of khaki-colored short pants, they are my pre-Nico size and therefore my second-most-favorite pair of pants in the world right now (after my newish pre-Nico-sized jeans from Target, natch).

5. Speaking of clothes, MB and I have a fancy-pants wedding and country-club reception to go to at the end of the month and I desperately want to avoid spending a bunch of money on an outfit. I don't wear dresses and therefore feel it would be ridiculous to buy a dress to wear to one wedding. I think the last time I wore a dress was to my high school reunion when I was vastly pregnant and none of my dressy pants fit. The last dress before that might have been my own wedding dress. Anyway, this wedding is a "formal attire required" wedding, which is not common here in the near-South, so I figured a dress was necessary.

I dug out a really cute maternity wrap dress that someone gave me but I never wore (it's the one I should've worn to the reunion instead of the one I picked...the photos from that night are horrible). I think with some stern shapewear it'll do the trick. I need shoes, though, and that's another thing I really don't want to buy. I can't wear my one pair of low heels now that my feet are a little bit bigger (thanks, pregnancy!) and I really shouldn't wear heels anyway, with my slightly jacked-up feet. I have a funky pair of black strappy platforms that I love and can still fit into, but one of the soles had come unglued from the shoe. Ah, hey...the shoes are here in this photo of the dress, which I took in Nico's room since there are two mirrors in there and none in my room. I wonder sometimes about the previous owners of this house.


I figured I'd try sticking the broken shoe back together with gorilla glue, since that stuff is supposed to work on anything. And that's why right now there's a cheap, strappy, slightly slutty shoe on my dining room table with a bag of flour on top of it.

6. I meant to start working on our pitiful garden yesterday, but instead spent two hours clearing out our shed. I found 3 million flower pots and a skeleton in there. (Okay, the flower pots part was a lie.) I've resurrected my long-neglected garden blog, so you can read about it over there if you wish. There are pictures, though only of the shed and not of the skeleton.

7. Have you heard that Rihanna / Eminem song with that guy from Lord of the Rings all buff and angry in the video? It's this one and I know I should hate it but I kind of love it. The shame!

8. Swistle has posted about freecycle a few times recently, and I always find the stories that come up in the comments sort of grimly fascinating. People are SO WEIRD, and somehow free stuff and the internet combine to bring out the weirdest of the weird. I regularly use the local freecycle board to both find and dispose of stuff, and I've also recently discovered the free section of Craigslist. Between that and the baby / kid sale page, I'm constantly refreshing looking for good deals. This week it paid off in a big way when some dude decided to give away a perfectly good Step 2 water table. True, I did have to drive across town in the rain and then I couldn't fit it into my car until I moved Nico's carseat and folded the seat down, but dude. Free water table! I don't mean to brag, but I think I won Craigslist.

9. Just over a month ago, I wrote about how my formerly full time job had started to really get me down, and how I wished my second part time job could somehow become full time. On Friday they made me an offer. I'm turning in my two weeks' notice at my workplace of five years tomorrow afternoon. I'm sort of excited but also sort of petrified. Change is good, right?


Reading:  The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

Playing:  that awful Eminem song, I admit it