• This was saved to drafts: “Lots of birthdays today! Best wishes and big love to James Lucas Jones, Heidi MacDonald, Kathleen Hudspeth and John Cecil.” That was more than a month ago. Doesn’t do me much good to wish them happy birthdays now, but what the heck. I hope they were lovely days, all.
• Rich and Maki just promised to take us to Fresh Flours on our next visit to Seattle. Look at those muffins! I’m already scheming.
• See that new badge down there? I posted some new videos of Henry Leo to Vimeo. Vimeo seems to be having issues, though, so they’re also on YouTube.
• Good News! Babies are good judges of character.
• I’m going to make an uberlist this year. I sat out last year and, well, last year turned out kind of shitty (excepting HL, of course). I’m not saying there’s a cause and effect relationship there, but, well… it couldn’t hurt. I love making lists, anyway. I’m not promising to track the list, but I’ll make it. Nikol’s is here. The livejournal community is here. I’ll post it when I’m done.
• We’re in the market for some cubicle track. Anyone know a good source? (Also called “hospital track.”) We have a wall in our bedroom that we want to cover with a large curtain and my decorator friend tells me cubicle track is the way to go. I’ll probably give these folks a call if no one has a better suggestion.
• We’ve used those UA bedspreads as curtains throughout our home — Fraction’s parents just put new ones up in our foyer in fact. I’m not crazy about their clothes, but I love their housewares and particularly their SALES. I have a wall grouping of theirs waiting to be hung in HL’s room and I think I need these for the kitchen.
• Speaking of home improvements, Fraction and I may have settled on a new couch. Well, I’m 90% sure we’ve settled on a new couch. We haven’t decided whether or not we’re ordering the loveseat that goes with it. We could use the extra seating but the loveseat isn’t on sale and it’s speeeeeendy.
• I GOT AWESOME LOOT FOR XMAS. I’ll post photos after a bit.
• Deadlines are passing me like assholes on the freeway. More on this later, too.
• I’m feeling flush with gratitude this New Year’s Day, despite the work stress and all the crap around the house begging for my attention. I have a good life, a good family and good friends. Thank you.
• EDITED TO ASK: Visited links turn blue for some reason.  I’d like them to turn dark green instead.  Is there an easy way to make that change?

• HL is sick. I sucked about a teaspoon of snot out of his nose with the bulb syringe this morning. Poor guy. Kara’s here watching him now; she’s a life-saver as I have a script to wrap up that I promised yesterday, “hell or high water.” Does an ice storm count as high water?
• In happier news, the splinter that’s been festering in my left index finger for 4 days finally gave up the ghost this morning. No sign of actual infection, either.
• We survived the ice storm. It wasn’t that bad, honestly. We never lost power and we had a house full of groceries so we didn’t have to venture out.
• Coffee is my friend.
• I made some difficult decisions about work and motherhood this weekend. More on that later.
• We’re tracking HL’s sleep again. In about a month, we’re going to try and institute regular nap and bed times. (This is dependent upon my getting the contents of our closet out of his nursery, of course.) I’ll let you know how it goes.
• Ivan and Kristyn are in South America.
• I’m on Day Three of my NO SWEETS/NO BREAD Two-Week resolve. So far, so good. Feeling better, though my appetite is still through the roof. That could be either stress or nursing or some combination of both. (Of course, our amazing neighbors, Kelly and Michael, brought over a box of goodies last night that nearly knocked me off the wagon. Rum cake, biscotti and homemade chocolate macaroons. I nearly died from the craving. Luckily, Fraction took the biscotti and macaroon bullets for me and Tony enjoyed the rum cake with coffee this morning. Disaster avoided!)
• I am having lots of IDEAS right now. I have to assume this is because I don’t have the time to follow through with them.
• If you want to play The Sixty One, go sign up and put Xtop down as your referrer. He gets points for it. I’m musically retarded (as is well-established), but I expect some of you might enjoy it.
• My psoriasis — the stuff that disappeared with my pregnancy? It’s back. My legs are growing hair again, too. (Mrroa!) Oh, well. I suppose the bright side is that my body chemistry must be returning to normal.
• EDITED TO ADD: Nikol’s calendars are up for sale.  Uberlisters will want to pick one up for sure.  This year?  Year of the Spitfire.

• What a year, huh? I love you, Cowboy.
• I’m completely smitten with this wreath. I wish I had time for crafting. Or… anything, really. Showering… Meeting deadlines… Exercise…
• Fraction and I got each other a visit from California Closets for Xmas. I’ll post pictures soon.
• Anybody know where I could find a phthalate-free pitcher for the refrigerator? I’d go with glass, but I need something with a lid.
• What’s the rule of thumb for substituting fruit for fat in baking? I know you can replace up to BLANK (a half? a third? a quarter?) of the fat in any recipe with mashed fruit — babyfood prunes in dark-colored baked goods, bananas in light. Ringing any bells?
• OH MY GOD I HAVE SO MUCH TO DO.
• Ahem.
• Sorry.
• Happy December, everyone.

• Big congratulations to Laurenn and Alex on their engagement! Team Married™ welcomes you.
• The TOTAL IMMERSION guy is doing a swim clinic in Kansas City in January.  I want to go sooo bad, but it’s $500.  $450 if you do it with a friend.  I might  be able to get somebody from Team in Training to sign up with me, but ouch, that’s a lot of money.  And I’m trying to pinch pennies right now so that we can switch to the fancy gym that has childcare.  I may have to sit this one out and hope he comes back.
• Keep Calm.  (Thanks, Old Aunt Amy!)
• Welcome to the world, Eleanor Mann!  Congratulations, Madeline and Merlin.  (I’m stupidly excited about Merlin’s kid and our kid being so close in age — not because I’m a creepy stalker — well, okay, not JUST because I’m a creepy stalker — but also because it means he’ll be addressing productivity and child-rearing issues just as we’re trying to figure these things out.  So… I am both a stalker and a N3rd.  But also?  Happy.  Yay, babies.)
• More ups: Harold talks to Publisher’s Weekly about Thunder Road.
• So, I downloaded the new NetNewsWire and to my delight, it found my license number (the one I thought I lost with the laptop) and registered it for me.  So now I’m trying to decide whether to switch back to it from the Google reader I’m using now.  I really like the STAR and SHARE features on the Google reader (and the amazing limitless search function that I don’t even understand) but the interface doesn’t please me.   Hm.  Droob?  Thoughts?
• This thread on Fraction’s board amuses me.
• I still owe 9,000 people thank you notes.  I’m giving up on writing most of them by hand and planning to send e-mail… soon.
• Rebecca and Ryan’s wedding was gorgeous and we were delighted to be there.  I cried.  (Duh.)  Also?  Incredibly grateful to Kara and Tony for watching HL and allowing us a night out.
• Okay, my dad and step-mom are visiting today and I have some mad cleaning to do so that’s all for now.  Later!

• Memory Harker sent me this with a note that said, “If there were more things like this, there still wouldn’t be enough things like this.” I am inclined to agree.

• My friend Rachel Stuart-Haas has entered her home in the Apartment Therapy Fall colors contest. (Regular readers of this blog know that I adore All Things Rachel Stuart-Haas. I own two of her paintings and if I won the lottery, I’d own a lot more.)

• Laurenn sent this link for lovers of Trinny and Suzannah. In real life, I’m a sort of shrunken pear. Post-baby? Maybe a skittle…? (I’ve only seen one ep of the Tim Gunn show, but I didn’t like it nearly as much as I do T&S. It didn’t seem as… practical. I am fascinated by that software they’re using, though.)

• HUGE congratulations to Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith on the success of the 30 Days of Night film! (Ahem.)

• The only thing that bums me out about the new iPhone thus far? No way to record video. So often I think I’d like to record something HL’s doing and upload it to Vimeo for posting on HenryLeo.com. Alas. I suppose I could go grab the digital video camera from Fraction‘s office, but I’m not in the habit of carrying that around with me. Hm. That camera doesn’t get enough use for what it cost. I need to ask Fraction to show me how to use it. Oh… it occurs to me that my Lumix might do video too…

• In the migration over to the fancy new computer* I lost a couple of programs, including NetNewsWire. I don’t feel like re-buying it, so I’m trying out GoogleReader. Is has this “share” feature, if anyone’s interested. Basically, I can flag anything in my reader that I want to share and it feeds onto that page w/o comment.

• Also on the new machine? Twitterrific, TextExpander, MailTags (yes; trying that one again) and the beta test of OmniFocus.

• Speaking of the latter — back to work with me.

*Named “New Baby” btw — oh, and the iPhone is “Motherbox.” Thanks for that suggestion.

• Gah. I accidentally closed the window without saving this post as a draft.  Let’s see how much I can remember…
• Has anyone ever had or made Swedish Egg Coffee?  Is it good?
• You know those vivid sex dreams you’re supposed to have in the second trimester?  I’m having them in the third, now that I’m at my puffy-footed, water-retaining, waddling height of sex goddess-dom.  Fraction and I were joking this morning that if JT is taking the sexy back, we’re actually giving the sexy back.  But hey, that’s just us.  We’re givers.
• Usually, I wear a shoe size 6 1/2 or 7.  Yesterday I had to go out and buy a pair of ballerina flats in size 8 1/2.  Hot-t-t.  (If you actually have a thing for giant feet, do keep it to yourself.)
• I went through the whole identity theft thing a few years ago* and I am not in the habit of locking my car doors when I pump gas, so this is disconcerting.  Guess I’ll move my purse and lock the doors from now on.  [via Dan Boone]
• A little slow, but I responded to all the comments on the previous post here.
• Closet’s coming along.  Pictures tomorrow.

*  It sucked; thanks for asking.

• Nikol found these GTD buttons on Etsy. Droob responds, “David Allen has a posse.”
• Steven, Sean and Jeff were on Up to Date today! I haven’t heard the show yet, but our friend Linda called to tell us that Matt got a shout out. They archive all the shows, so we’ll download and listen on the web.
• Becky Perry writes to pass along this list of recalled Mattel toys. Happily, our kid is too young [read: too unborn] to have any of these but yours may not be.
• J. Lu and Randy write to remind us that Harvey ballots are due TODAY.
• Pretty new magazine that I covet and yet don’t have time for: Artful Blogging. (via decor8)
• Does anyone have a picture of Fraction wearing his LISTEN TO BLACK SABBATH t-shirt?
• Did you know there was a site called The Unclutterer?
• Uh… giraffe softies. And if that’s not good enough: the home of the woman behind them. (Wow. Busy, but well-organized. That is truly living the dream.)
• Thank you, Miss Matilda.
• Martha Stewart’s tissue paper pom-pom kit! It’s back!
• Iron Fist is in EW! Nicely done, Fraction and Bru.

Making my way through the inbox:

• Isaac Cates, who I knew in high school, writes to say that Satisfactory Comics has a website.
• Fraction has updated the “reading” section of his blog — it’s on the right hand side of the main page. Scroll down.
• Uh… MAIL just crashed and now it’s gone from my dock. Restarting. More later.

EDITED TO ADD:

• Racy little lingerie site that makes me long for the day my body returns to a size smaller than that of a vehicle.
• Abhay has a comic online.  I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve been on a DL bender the last 12 hours, so it’s in the queue.
• I believe Corey Waits has the gotten the first CASANOVA tattoo — the first I’ve seen, anyway.

Over there on the right — my current contribution to Fraction‘s DESKSET on Flickr.

• Nested is a new shopping blog for baby and kid stuff. So far so good — I love the pointers to Nightmare Catcher Journals and Hand Knit Booties that look like Doc Martins.
• Take Your Jacket Off: Are you reading Kathryn and Stuart Immonen’s Moving Pictures webcomic? I’m thoroughly intrigued. Also, Kathryn is my current girl crush. If she sees how I’ve been writing her name over and over again in my notebook I’ll just die.
• I love the days between when you get birthday money and when you spend it. It’s a magic time when you can fantasize guilt-free about all the silly little things you could buy but since you haven’t actually done anything yet, the dollar figure never registers a change. I collect (well, it’s a new collection — I have only 3 thus far) brightly colored tea cups. The rules are: they have to have a matching saucer, they have to have gold trim and they have to cost me less than $10 each. I had ebay alerts this morning for two that make me consider throwing out the budget constriction for the sake of birthday bliss. This one and this one. The Aynsley ones are always really good and always over budget.
• Shit. Speaking of budgets, I just remembered we have an appt today to discuss life insurance. $@%$#@%$#@.
• Droob wrote this morning to point out that McSweeney’s is hurting. If you’re thinking about subscribing or buying books, they say now would be a good time.
• Can’t say I’m particularly blue to hear Jane is going under. I loved Sassy, but Jane always rode my nerves.
• Via WhipUp — this blog shows you how to crochet little amigurumi dolls that, it occurs to me, could easily be made into Duruma dolls. Part One. Part Two. (Instructions, I should mention, are in Spanish. Which is probably good news for me as I’m not exactly sitting on my hands and if the instructions were in English I fear I’d have a hard time resisting.)
• Do you know of my love for fresh figs? The cupcake bakeshop just posted a new recipe I’m going to have to try out at some point.
• Laurenn‘s been putting up some fantastic photos from Dr. Sketchy’s Kansas City. I haven’t been as I don’t, you know, draw, drink or get off the couch past 10 pm, but it looks like they’re somehow managing to have a good time without me. Such troopers! If you’re local, you should go check it out.
• Adrian wrote this morning to share her enthusiasm for The Bearded Men. Like me, she has particular fondness for The Bearded Men in Striped Shirts.  She passed along this link in case I wanted to try and get Fraction to play dress up.

• Go read: Paul Gravett on the New York Times’ dismissal of manga as “those Japanese comic books that feature slender, wide-eyed teenage girls who seem to have a special fondness for sailor suits.”
• The upper kitchen cabinets are in, the lower cabinets and pulls go in today. The guys have tomorrow off for the holiday, then the tile people start on Thursday. The cabinetry looks great. I’m especially enamored of the large cabinet over the refrigerator that’s divided vertically for trays and platters. We’re so fancy! Flickr photos of progress to date here. (We’re going to do a PB Teen tile thing next to the door as an organizer. I should probably order that soon.)
• Claude had an “accident” in the kitchen last night after dinner. Since there’s no evidence he’s feeling ill anymore, we decided he’s confused by the upheaval and thinks the kitchen is now “outside.” So we put the baby gate up before bed last night, blocking his access and that seemed to work. Hallelujah. Everything with that dog is two steps forward, one step back.
• Jason Aaron posted a few pictures from Tony Moore’s Bachelor Party: Day Two.
• Have you ever heard of Monkey Pants? Apparently it’s a Japanese thing. Holy crap they do excel at cute, don’t they? I lost about half an hour last night scouring the internets (and ebay in particular) for variations on monkey pants. These might be my favorites. Hard to say. If you turn up any cute ones, post links, will you?
• Baby news: the kid is cRaZy active these days — doing gymnastics in my belly, I think. It’s pretty fun, except for the poking at my pelvic floor. Ow, my aching vagina.
• We have our gestational diabetes test and 3d ultrasound on Thursday and apparently I’m nervous about it as I dreamed last night that we saw the baby’s face and it looked like some kind of hideous Simpsons baby monster — imagine Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel as an infant, in utero. Snaggletooth, unibrow, mustache camp, Christian Bale chin — I was horrified. I freaked, trying to figure out how it must be some kind of mistake… (“Is it time to start drinking again?” asks Fraction.) Eep. Does the fact that I’m apparently worried about having an ugly baby make me shallow? Or was I just shallow to begin with?
• ETA: Repro Depot appears to be out of the Amy Butler Nappy Bag pattern. Does anyone know of another source? SECOND EDIT: Terry found it!  Thanks, T2.  (Other Nappy bags on Flickr.  I figure I’m going to be sewing curtains as soon as I have a diningroom table again anyway…)