Customizing

I went to the customize spot under "manage" on the home screen, and selected "new system" for how to make my changes. Then I picked the ones I wanted carefully. I was happy with them.

There was no "save" button at the bottom of the page. When I went to look at my new journal, it gave me the default "generator" look, which I don't like.

I tried it two or three different ways, and it came back to that every time.

Finally, I gave up in disgust, went back to the old system, and found something I could live with. But I really want the things I picked out.

Can anyone offer suggestions?

New Layout, and other stuff about a morning off

This look should not surprise anyone who has seen my living room. I love these colours. I briefly fiddled with something in lavendar, but most of those also had a green with them that I wasn't crazy about. So it's back to the blue-and-yellow look for me.

So far this morning, I've:
1) Done baby laundry, including bedding.
2) Put said baby laundry into the dryer.
3) Had a nice cup of tea. Regular tea, with milk, sugar and caffeine.
4) Finished the first square of my baby afghan.
5) Decided on a slight change to said afghan. Instead of a nine-patch, which will take me forever and be twin-sized instead of baby-sized, I'm doing a four-patch with some wide sashing in between. I know the sashing will be yellow, but other than that I haven't decided what to do yet. Maybe some front-post dc for a ribbed look? Maybe straight sc to match what's going on in the blocks? Maybe afghan crochet in one colour, which I can then embroider on later? We'll see. I'm going to make the other blocks before I decide any of that.
6) I showered. I also let my hair dry naturally instead of blow-drying it. I love doing that.
7) I listened to Delovely (yes, again!) and started considering how I would do certain songs for karaoke if I ever got the opportunity. There are several spots where Diana Krall goes down, because she's an alto, where I would go up instead for a totally different effect. I think I could do a wicked "Begin the Beguine". The trick will be finding a karaoke bar/CD that has it.
8) I debated cleaning the mess of clothes in the bedroom, but didn't actually clean.

Not bad for two hours of a day off.

The nicest thing about today is the knowledge that I can let myself be content, get things done or not, and relax. I have two more days of school this week, which means any high I take away from today has a good chance of lasting until Monday. And next week is a short week. (Well, I'll be working on Friday, but a day without the kids is almost like a day off. The emotional stress of the job is nearly gone when the kids aren't there. I can handle writing report card comments that day. It won't even take me too long, because I got into the planning this term and I know EXACTLY what to comment on. So I'll do the comments, enter the marks, and then relax for what's left of the day. After my principal okays the comments, I'll apply them and be all done.)

I'm going to go see if I can make the edging come out flat on that square before starting the blue/yellow square.

Is my life colour-coded, or what? When I'm happy, everything's in blue and yellow. When I'm not, it's in beige. Go figure.

This should not have surprised me.

You are a Parisian.


What's your Inner European?
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Stolen from jinzi

Crochet issues

Okay, this post is specifically for those of you on my list who have done crochet or knitting before.

I finished the first square of my baby afghan, and something is bothering me. I did two rounds of single crochet around the edge to finish it off, and what I've found is that it's not square. It looks like the tension is off significantly on all sides, but most seriously on the top. It's got a slightly rippled look to it around the edges, and that's bad.

I switched from my afghan hook, which I'm pretty sure is a 4.00 mm G hook, to a regular hook of the same size. Should I rip it out and go down to a 3.5 mm? Is the problem with the edging, or with the square itself, or with both? For the moment, I've left it with a loose loop, so I can tear it out without much trouble, but I want the advice of those of you who have worked with gauge issues before.

Meanwhile, I started the blue-and-yellow square. The yarn itself is driving me crazy. It took me ten minutes just to find the end of the strand, and I had to pull half the middle out to do that. Now the yellow yarn in particular is tangled up with itself. This'll teach me to buy bargain-basement one-pound balls of yarn. It'll take me half the square to use that stuff up, and keeping it out of Elizabeth's hands in the meantime will be a treat. Would it be so hard for the yarn company to set their winder so the yarn end doesn't disappear inside the ball when cut?

That is the closest I'm going to come to a rant today.

I need to go put in another load of laundry, and fold the baby laundry that's in the dryer. And I'm still putting off those piles of marking. I wonder how guilty I'll feel if I don't get to any of it? Answer: probably not very.

Piet

Is stuck on the highway, hardly off the on-ramp to the highway outside his office. He's gone a few hundred yards in half an hour. So he's going to be very, very late, if he gets here at all.

If he calls me at nine and says he's still trying, I'll tell him to pull off and find a motel. If I thought he had any chance of making it as far as Milton, I'd tell him to go see thebitterguy, but it would still take a couple of hours to get that far, so it's not a good idea.

In any case, it means if the weather's still bad tomorrow, he'll be telecommuting. That's usually a good thing from my perspective.

*sending safe-driving thoughts to the 427*

Cute Elizabeth Stuff

Her favourite bath toy? Not the coloured boats. Not the rubber duckies. No, her favourite toy is the plastic cup I use to rinse her hair. (She used to hate this operation. She would cry at the sight of the shampoo bottle in anticipation of having her hair rinsed. Now she puts her hands over her eyes, bends forward so her nose nearly touches the water, and puts up with it.) She played with that plastic cup for a good fifteen minutes. We learned "plein", which she can't quite say, and "Vide!" which she says with enthusiasm as she dumps water over her "ventre". We went over other body parts as they got "mouillé", too - genoux, orteils, dos, cheveux. Bathtime is one of the few times when she mostly speaks French, because it's usually me who gives her a bath.

Afterward, we cuddled, we lotioned, we sang, we watched the kitty cat screen saver that she loves, and she read a book to me. Yes, that's right. I helped her turn pages, and she told me what happened on each page. It was Mercer Meyer's "All By Myself", which has the little monster dressing himself, tying his shoes, getting a drink, etc, etc. She can do most of it. Only one or two of them stumped her. She told me in whole sentences, too. She put two of them into French - "met chaussettes" and "brosse mes cheveux!" It was so cute! I have a pre-literate twenty-two month old!

She was entranced when I pulled her crib out from the wall, the better to put on the crib sheet. "WOW!" said Elizabeth. The caps were audible. She raced around the crib, pushed the garbage can out of the way ("Go, garbage!") and ran into the corner that is usually blocked by the crib. She threw one toy that had been resting there comfortably for weeks into the crib, from which I promptly removed it due to excessive dust.

We read one more book, we prayed, we sang again ("All Day, All Night," this time, followed by one chorus of, "Ma Mère Chantait Toujours," which she sang along with me.) With Pooh, Tigger and White Rabbit (to distinguish from Pray rabbit, the one who prays with us when we press its tummy) as company, she went down at ten after nine.