Most of my time the last couple of weeks have been spent trying to learn CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and redesign QuiltIndex.com using them. That done, I can now see how crappy my coding was; wasteful, slow, sloppy. Eventually I'll probably get around to making the same kind of switch on these pages, but that's pretty low priority at this point. In the meantime, I'll just write better HTML for the new stuff. Anyway, the QI site redesign is nice, I think, and I hope people eventually get used to it and like it. Change is always a little hard to "sell", but it needed to happen.
Yesterday was a very 1950's kind of day for me. First I spent the morning whining about a headache and kind of laying around the house. Then I had a flurry of housekeeping. I did about a bazillion loads of laundry, including (hold your breath) folding and putting away! All that was left was a load of mixed clothes in the dryer and the whites in the washer and I would actually be caught up on laundry, for probably the first time in 2 years. That doesn't count things like curtains, which are all badly in need of a washing, but I'm holding off on that in hopes that spring decides to show up. I have this fantasy about making spring curtains for when we put away all our drab flannel winter ones. We'll see how well this fantasy plays out in real life, since I also had a fantasy about remaking the flannel ones so each was one solid piece. Finances and this pregnancy got in the way of all that, however.
Last night I went out. I went and had dinner at The Top of China, a buffet in Pullman. The food in this part of the country really is nothing short of awful. That's definitely what I miss the most. Even Seattle has much better food than eastern Washington. I've tried most of the restaurants around here (ok, not everything in Spokane, but that's a 3-hour roundtrip commute!), and it all just sucks. I don't know why I even bother anymore. Anyway, I read through dinner and then went over to Wal-Mart. I was kind of wandering around aimlessly, so I stopped in there to look around. I got Mike a fluorescent light so he'd have a reading lamp on his side of the bed. Since we switched that room around and put Adam's mattress in, Mike doesn't have a light nearby, and has been making do with the one on my side of the bed. Anyway, so I got that and some stuff for Adam's Easter basket. We're not Christian, but Easter is fun, and I'm all over the pastel bunny thing. I don't think there's any reason we can't use Easter as a "Hooray for Spring!" holiday.
While I was at Wal-Mart, I ran into our farrier and his wife. I chatted with them for probably 45 minutes about farm stuff. They told me some very sad news - Chad won't be farriering anymore!! I don't know if the money was bad or the drive all over the countryside was too much, or what, but he took a job at Wilbur-Ellis and just started yesterday. So we're out a farrier. Farriers are very precious commodities around here, so I guess it's time to call the neighbors and find out who they use and see if he/she is taking new clients. *sigh* They also gave me lots of free advice about everything from sheep to cows to geese to horses. Chad's wife is a horse trainer/breaker, and between the two of them they know oodles about horses. I envy them that.
Thursday was pretty much a nothing day for me. The boys went into town together, so it was just me and the pets at home for that time. Wednesday was when I announced the new design, then kind of sat comatose for the rest of the day. I may have done some housework or something; I don't really remember. Tuesday was when we went to Pullman to pick Max up from the vet (he had surgery!). Monday Mike dropped Max off at the vet. He had a huge fatty tumor that needed to be taken out. They also discovered a urinary tract infection, so he has to be on some kind of special food for the rest of his life, and it ain't cheap. Figures.
Sunday night I went to the movies and saw In the Bedroom. It was a REALLY good movie, and Sissy Spacek deserves an Oscar. So does Marisa Tomei. As a matter of fact, everybody in that movie was awesome. I cried. If you go see it, bring Kleenex. I had dinner at Jack in the Box, so there's not much about that to tell.
Wednesday the 13th was the shopping trip from hell. It would have been okay, but being almost 5 months pregnant and dragging a 19-month-old around all by yourself everywhere is EXHAUSTING. First we met my friend Barbara for lunch at the Golden Corral. She was a big help, and looked after Adam while I went to go fill (or refill) our plates. She also sprung for the tab!! Then we went over to the new quilt shop in town to look around. Barbara missed the turn, so Adam and I were there for quite a while waiting for her to get back to the place. We had just about exausted the toddler time frame (20 minutes before destruction) when she showed up, so I didn't get to look around with her much. I did get some webbing to make a tote bag for myself, then we were outta there.
Next we went to the Mall, to Sears. Adam has just about grown out of most of his clothes and shoes, so it was time to do some shopping. Luckily they were having their winter clearance sale, so I got him lots of nice things at good prices. Some of the long-sleeve shirts were $1.50!! I shudder to think of the working conditions that produced those clothes, but that's what he got. I couldn't resist picking up a couple of things for Kayla, too. All pink and purple. :D
After Sears, we went to my friend Cresta's house. Her son Alex is about 15 months older than Adam, and Adam always looks forward to playing with "Addis". Alex just had a baby brother a couple weeks ago, and he seems to be feeling a mite territorial. Every time Adam would try to pick up a toy, Alex would snatch it away. Since I'm neither into forcing a kid to share his toys, nor into needlessly frustrating my own son, we didn't stay very long. I figured we'd go get dinner then go home, but Adam fell asleep in the car while I was looking for food. I got him out of the car at Red Robin and into a booth and he stayed asleep. I was eventually able to lay him down on the bench (God bless the nice hostess who gave a woman alone with a sleeping toddler one of the big booths) and have a nice restful dinner in peace. I even read the paper! Adam woke up just as I was getting ready to leave, and showed no interest in food, so we left. I had the foresight to bring along some snacks, so he had bananas, raisins, and Cheerios all the way home. Yay for snacks.
Monday I went to guild meeting, where I was the "program". I talked about stuff on the Internet for quilters, and the quilt design program EQ4. It went well, and I got lots of positive feedback.
The big news of the week is that we found out Spot is a girl. Kayla Reese appears to be completely healthy, and according to her measurements is still expected sometime late July/early August. I've begun updating the Baby Page again, though heaven knows how able I'll be to keep up with it. I mean, my track record with this journal isn't great. Oh, well. If you're really in need of some up-to-the-minute news, you can always read Mike's journal (though, of course, he won't say anything about, say, my preggo dreams. heh).
I had to go into Pullman yesterday to pick up the computer projector from WSU. I'm going to be giving the program at my guild (Internet Stuff for Quilters), and needed it for that. Then I took it over to Patricia's house to make sure it worked with Donna's laptop, since I'm using her laptop for part of the presentation (Pat and Donna are of Forget-me-not Studio). THEN I had to go get some fabric for the back of this commissioned quilt that I will have ready for the quilter on Monday (she's in my guild, and I promised it to her then).
I had planned on stopping at The Quilted Heart there in Pullman, but the parking was so bad and it was so cold and snowy that they lost the sale of someone who didn't want to walk far in the cold with a baby. I wonder how often this happens to businesses in downtown Pullman? I'm betting often. So then I went over to Moscow and bought the fabric from Quilt Something! Before fabric shopping, Adam and I stopped for lunch at Applebee's (so-so food, SLOW service). It was on the way to the quilt shop that the truck skidded on a patch of ice on the main road in Moscow. This is probably the highest-traffic area I was likely to encounter on my way back home, and the fact that it was slick rattled me enough to call Mike and tell him I thought I shouldn't chance the drive home. Largely because just the day before I had dropped my cellphone off at the grange to have it serviced, and didn't relish the thought of being stranded on the side of the road sans phone or weapon, and WITH a baby. He agreed, so I stayed at the University Inn (sorry-ass service; never again). Adam was pretty well-behaved, but I got gassy and grumpy and didn't sleep well at all. Wah.
My Adam has gone through an amazing vocabulary explosion. He can now say all kinds of things, and it's a welcome change from the days of all-"muhmuh", all the time. It never ceases to surprise me the things he'll come out with sometimes. Last night he was in his room playing with his new bedsheets (thanks Mom and Dad!) and he flipped his reversible pillow over and lo and behold, he said "Tittur". If you're wondering, what he saw was Tigger (Pooh is on the other side). I had no idea this child knew this word! I mean, sure, he's seen Tigger plenty of times, and heard the word, but we never did that dorky parent thing of sitting down with him and going, "Tiiiiii-ggerrrrrrrrrrr, tiiiiii-ggerrrrrrrr". We've done that with other words, mind you, so we're less surprised when he says those, but then he comes out with something we've spent no time on, like "froggie", and it just blows your mind!
I know he knows more words, too; we're just too stupid to figure out what he's saying. Took me forever (and some help from a friend) to figure out that "freeeeeze" meant "trees". I don't think I could make a list of all of the words he knows; it would be too extensive.
We went to the doctor today. Mike's sinus infection hadn't completely cleared up, so Dr. Parsons gave him two nasal sprays and a prescription for another round of antibiotics. That and a quick stop at the grocery store and we were out of Colfax. Yesterday, I went into Pullman to help the Needlers work on the 2004 raffle quilt. It's going to be a scrappy design, and I had already donated my scraps, so I went to help "discard" or "keep" other people's scraps, and cut 2 1/2" squares. We didn't find a background we liked, so someone's going to look at the shop in Moscow. I keep mentioning muslin, but no one seems real interested. Oh well. I just keep reminding myself; I only have to make this ONE quilt with group collaboration, then I can go back to hating my own quilts with no one else's outside influence.