Category Archives: Ghost in the (sewing)Machine

The books forgot to mention this…

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Being astronomers, our life is full of electronics. Both Jay and a I are fluent in calculator, I am fluent in several programming languages (but not python or LOLcode) and we have abandoned the home office for an entirely wireless setup including having our iTunes connect with a served disk in one room and with airports that are directly connected to our stereo receivers.

We are the geeks. The kids are way into imaginative play. They like to use their blackberries (ie- the blackberry pearl phones that Jay and I no longer use because they both died) to facebook and play games. Yes, they make up video games to play and facebook each other on their (non functioning) blackberries, only once in a while being interrupted by phone calls.

Why do the parenting books not explain that you can snort you brains out when your kids do things like this?

Last night, I needed to go out. Jay has the kids alone most of the weekend as I am attending a birthday party for Mrs. Figby, a former blogger. I was making myself a beautiful satin dress, but the pattern was too small for the measurements it claimed. I am so angry about that. I let out all of the seams, but it is still too small. Damn. I can’t get the zipper on the side up the last 2 inches. So I decided to punt and I went to Talbot’s Outlet last night and picked up a very nice LBD on a major sale ($36 for a dress that was originally $174). I decided to take the girls with me. I realized that I had never really taken the girls clothes shopping. Luna corrected me and said that she picked out the fabric for most of the dresses I make her, which is correct, but still, I don’t actually take them when I shop (because I do most on-line!)

After buying the dress and explaining why I have a nice little roll of fat on my belly (it’s from YOU TWO! YOU DID THIS TO ME), I took them to the discount shoe haven warehouse. Luna nearly fell over seeing the rows and rows of designer boots! Soleil immediately asked where the kid section was. I had to explain that there wasn’t one here and didn’t I just buy her new sneakers in October? Hello?? She said "But MOM, You don’t get my STYLE" (said with all of the drama of a 14 year old). So I took them to Payless Shoes around the corner.

 

Is there anything cooler than shoe shopping with your girls?

Luna picked out THESE:                                                While Soleil picked out THESE:

 

Since I needed something that was more adult I got these little flats

The post Halloween Sugar Crash- GO VOTE!!!!

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Halloween was fun. I spent most of the night watching "Ghost Hunters live" on SciFi Channel. Very cool, but we crashed around midnight and they still had two hours to go.

The girls only (HA HA HA HA HA) got 6 lbs of candy this year. Last year was 8lbs. However, they donated their full sized candy including Butterfingers to Mom! Thanks Guys! They went with the neighborhood posse. Great, my kids are in a posse now!

All in all, it was a fun holiday with candy, sugar, more candy, etc.

Yesterday, Luna asked for an eye pillow. At yoga (yes, they do yoga at daycare) they get eye pillows. We were at a quilt shop yesterday, so I let her pick out a fat quarter and I made her a vanilla scented eye pillow. Am I a cool mom? Or a push over? 

A few things for November, 1) Please vote today. I don’t care if you vote for Nader/Gonzales, just VOTE. 2) This is the write a novel month. I picked my book back up. I was surprised to see I have 13,000 words already. I will try to make the 50,000 goal by November 30. Please support me in my quest, which is hard with work and girls and meetings and everything else. 3) I joined facebook last night under my real name! If you happened to get a friend request from a Nancy you aren’t sure about, email me at my spacemom address and I’ll let you know if that was me. 4) A friend has gotten me into quilting. OMG, this is BAD… Very Bad.

 

Have a great day!

Survival of the fittest

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Well, I survived yesterday. I will post photos later, but I got Luna in her new princess gown I made her!

As expected, I was jostled and crazed and at the end wondering why on EARTH did I take 3 girls to this? They all had fun, but MAN!

Soleil did a cake walk and won a cake. Yippie. We now have a 7inch cake which is taunting me. When my thyroid meds went nuts earlier this year, I kinda of sort of gained 10 lbs. I have been having trouble losing it. I need to lose it. So I am working on it. Trying to keep my workouts in. Trying to sort out time for everything.

I’ve done it before, lost weight that is. And it’s not as if I am saying "la la! Poor body image I’m so fat!" I really can’t wear clothes I fit in earlier last year! So, I figure in 7-8 weeks I should be able to remove these 10 lbs. No high calorie evening snacks. 1 serving of the main meal and extra veggies at dinner. Simple low calorie snacks… Put away the Girl Scout cookies…

Will I do it? Time will tell….
 

I think I am back…

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Man, it’s been a long two/three weeks. I have been fighting fires at work and in my personal life. It’s been crazy. My experience last week is just a sampler!

I’m on call this week, and it does seem like we are looking at another crazy week. There’s a celestial object that is in X-ray outburst and may be observed this week with our telescope. We’re waiting to see if the scientists are going to trigger their TOO (target-of-opportunity) and if they do, the week is shot to hell. Oh well.

I got time this weekend to finish Luna’s dress. I want her to wear it for Purim. It’s a princess dress for a costume, but it should hold up better than most costumes. It came out really well. I hope to post some pictures of it after Purim. Now Soleil wants HERS done (I started making two of them) and I had to run out tonight to get the fabric for the skirt. I under estimated the amount of fabric I would need because the pattern specifies the fabric for the dress AND a cape. Screw the cape. As Edna says in "The Incredibles", NO CAPES!

Still trying to find a sitter for April 5th. The Sabres are in town and the next day is my birthday, so I would love to go to the game. The trick is getting a sitter! :)

We bought a play set for the kids this weekend. It will be installed in May. This will bring on another post about how horrible I am as a parent… :)

Okay, gotta run, but I think I am back in the blogging spirit!

 

Today is only slightly better

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(I typed all of this in for a private web group, but I figure I could edit names and put it here too!)

 
Jay arrived home Friday morning! YEA! We had lunch and got the girls
early. Then we went to temple for Tot Shabbot. The girls really wanted
to go. Saturday, we had a Girl Scout Shabot at an orthodox temple. Then
Skating. Then on Sunday (with the time change) we had Girl Scout Sunday
(Soleil really wanted to go!) then an ice skating fund raiser, then our
Girl Scout meeting plus her winter ceremony.
Oy!

Monday- I was planning on a nice quiet day. We did gymnastics, then
lunch, we went to Backyard Adventures to look for a playset. At 3, I
got a call from my Friend Kobyashi. 

Crazy H was in the ER getting an IV and
chest x-ray from this flu. Could we take their kids? Of course I said
yes. Then I realized that I had swimming at 5. I couldn’t take 4 girls
in my car unless I put Soleil  in the front.

So I went to our neighbor
and she was able to babysit! She came over for the hour while we went
swimming. Her mom came over for the beginning to make sure Erik’s kids
were okay with a totally new person.
We had a meltdown at swimming because Luna had the wrong panties. Sigh. I had her go commando instead of forcing panties on.("NO! I WANT THE ARIEL PANTIES" "honey, those are dirty and stinky and at home" "GO HOME AND GET THEM!")
Then I get home before 6 and find K and Crazy H at our house, they paid the babysitter and I made the kids mac&cheese because their kids needed to eat
before going home.
Then Jay picked up our babysitter (yes, we were going out that night our first night out since DECEMBER!) and she came while everyone was there.
Sigh.
The Crazy H family left, then we left. We had a nice dinner and got home.

Tuesday-
Jury Duty in Cambridge. I had to leave the house at 7 am to get there
in time. No internet. Got let go at 2, went to the Backyard Adventures
to setup another congfiguration. Sigh. Took a nap, had a girl scout
adult meeting at night. Got sucked in to do the Volunteer Awards Ceremony in May.

Wednesday-
Discovered a 1/4 inch bulge on the sidewall of my tire. Called the tire
place in town, gave them the size and the guy there  got 2
tires for me so they could replace it in the afternoon. Had teacher/parent meeting with Soleil’s teacher. Dropped
off Jay so he could go back to work (telescope proposals are due next Thursday). Got tire replaced, bulge was now
1 inch! The steel belt had broken and was starting to break through the
wall! EEEK! (damn pot holes)

Then had a playdate for Soleil and talked with the mom whom I had met before and always found talking to her ackward. Then she explained she had been in an accident as a teen
and had a brain injury, so she was sorry that she kept repeating
herself. The conversation kept jumping from 1 topic to another then
back to the first because she kept forgetting that we moved off of it.
It was really odd.

Thursday-Today.I am working late tonight. Jay’s home. After Soleil’s
temple school, he’s getting Luna, picking up his parents from the
airport and we’re all meeting at Friendly’s in town

Tomorrow- Girl Scout meeting at my house! Then movie night for the girls at my house! 10 5 & 6 year old girls at my house from 3:30-7! Yea me!
Oh, and we were asked by Temple to take our turn for the coffee hour
(oneg) after services tomorrow night. Jay and his dad are going.

And I need to finish sewing a dress for Luna for Purim. Sigh…

For work?

Figured out the Spacecracft anomaly. Looking at ways to detect when this electronic board resets by checking the voltage which depends on the observation. Got a BIG assignment today from Mission Planning. Need Tequila. If you see Jose? send him my way! 

MMM.MMM.mmm.mmm.

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I came home today from a particularly tough afternoon to find a box on the doorstep. Jay asked me what I bought. I won an EBay auction yesterday, but there was no way it would have shipped yet.

The box said "Perishable" and then I noticed it was from L.A.Burdick. They have the most MARVELOUS chocolate. They make these great little mice and penguins. They have a store in Harvard Square and their hot chocolate is to die for!

I have the most wonderful little box of chocolate to share with Jay. Thanks Johnny! I appreciate it! You’re the bomb!

And by allowing me to work on the project, I have now gotten the confidence to make THIS for myself. (the dress, I have purchased this lovely brown patterned linen for it) 

 

School Daze

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Tomorrow is our first "Back to School" night for public schools. This is the first of MANY.

We will meet our over caffeinated principal, Mrs. Brown (I kid you NOT, this woman is way way too perky. Makes me want to give her some Quaalude) and then talk with Soleil’s teacher. Last night, Soleil recited two stories from school. The first involved shapes. We drew out the shapes and talked about them. We discussed the Trapezoid and how you can make one, and the rectangle and the square. We discussed how a square is a rectangle and a rectangle is a trapezoid. Then Jay pointed out that she’ll have to get pretty far into geometry before she can stump him on that. (true…so true). We drew hexagons, pentagons, octagons and then decided that  a rectangle should be a quadragon. Luna got bored with this, but Soleil was fascinated.

Monday night, my back gave a loud relaxing crack in the middle of the night. Last night helped too, so I can now move. This is a bonus.I tried to sew the Chilly Willy jammie top, but only got far enough to do some work on the neck line and pin the pieces together. My back was hurting too much to continue. Sigh. Plus, I think I need to do one more piece of cutting. You see, I am matching the jammie top to the one that the blogger sent me. This is different from my pattern. The neck line is the big difference. So I might need to have a special collar in the back for this.Sigh… I need to look carefully at her shirt tonight before I go too far.

 Luna has adjusted well to the changes in our lives. She loves walking to the bus stop every morning with Soleil and I. She likes to wave goodbye and ask when she can ride the bus. Then she goes on to discuss how she want to go to Kindergarten. She also loves having Jay and I both drop her off at daycare.

We are finding that we have entered the "transitional years". We have 2 of them. Luna will be at daycare for 2 more years. Soleil is in school. We have two places, about 10 miles and 30 minutes of driving, apart. Once Luna is in Kindergarten, we’re going to have to redo the whole plan. How to have one of us at home in the afternoons to get the girls. How to be able to be there while getting work done. How to travel between work and home with just one car? (why double pollute?) Sigh….

 

A moment of silence

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Not to memorialize anything. Just that right now, I have a moment of silence. The commanding for our test is approved. If Selene launches on schedule, we will be fine over the weekend.

So I breathe…

I finished the chilly Willy Jammie pants the other night. The waist is 1 inch too high. Depending on my paranoia and perfection, I might rip it out and redo the waist. Or I won’t. Length is perfect. As part of my lessons learned from prototyping the pants for myself, I made a little Chilly Willy tag for the back of the pants. I can’t figure out the front or back of my jammies for lack of a tag. And the way you put them on makes a difference.

I am ready to start on the top. I need to start that tonight. I hope to sew the sides to the back. That’s not asking too much is it? (Asks the woman whose daughter went to bed after 10:30!!!!)

 

Recreational math:

Last night, Jay was at Temple for services, so I put the girls to bed. Luna was first. I asked Soleil to have her snack, brush teeth and read a book or something until I was done with Luna.

When I walked in, I found her hard at work:

2+2=4

4+4=8

3+3=6

10+10=20

12+12=24

1+1=2

8+8=16

 

What’s this? I ask…

"Oh, I’m just doing some math" she replies

"Who taught you these?" I ask, rather surprised

"My brain taught me"