2009 August

Archive for August, 2009

Money Monday follow-ups

August 31st, 2009 |

Author: Lorry

In my very first Money Monday, I told you about my dish soap octopus. He made an impression on my mother, apparently, because now she has her own dish soap octopus. Hers is yellow. She thought his eyes were too small, so she took a Sharpie to him. I don’t have a picture, but maybe I’ll get one the next time I’m in Florida, which will probably be Christmas 2010. I know you’ll be anxiously waiting until then.

In another previous Money Monday, I mentioned that I was looking for a second pair of shoes, and I asked for advice about which to get. I since learned that there is a Crocs outlet store near my parents. They’re coming next week for D.L.’s birthday party, and Mom has a pair of Olivias coming for me. I hope I like them.

Posted in Money Monday |

1 Comment »

Suck it, part 2

August 31st, 2009 |

Author: Lorry

When it comes to the breast vs. bottle debate, I’ve become a very strong advocate of feeding your baby. Feed your baby, and I’m happy. If you choose to ever feed your baby from a bottle, whether you fill it with your milk, someone else’s milk, formula, or chocolate syrup and rice cereal (ok, maybe there really are wrong ways to feed your baby), you will probably learn that not all bottles are created equally.

Avent bottles are awful.

I was looking to replace the craptastic Avent bottles that came with the craptastic Avent breastpump I bought, and I came across many rave reviews for Mam bottles. They’re a fraction of the cost of Avent, and they:

1) don’t leak all over the damn place,

2) have vents in the bottom,

3) are really easy to clean, since the bottom comes off,

4) also happen to come in cute colors. (For once, this wasn’t the deciding factor for me, but it’s a very exciting perk.)

Posted in Money Monday |

1 Comment »

Lost in Translation

August 28th, 2009 |

Author: Lorry

røv = ass (not as in donkey, mind you)

banan = banana

røvbanan = perfectly acceptable, not at all peculiar, no one bats an eyelid nickname for a loved one

Danes are weird.

Posted in Frankly Foreign Friday |

2 Comments »

Hip Hop, but the good kind

August 26th, 2009 |

Author: Lorry

Dagmar has always been longer and thinner than average. She was born on the smaller end of average weight and really long, and she’s pretty much kept that up. This makes for interesting clothing decisions. Should we get pants that are long enough, or pants that fit around the middle? Should her sleeves cover her arms, or should the neck look sensible? We’re not going to get both.

I was very excited to find some drawstring trousers at H&M. I bought four pair. Even with the drawstring, they’re loose. You can only do so much. But hey, they stay on.

Thomas said she looked hip-hoppish, “but the good kind, like the Beastie Boys.” So here’s our Beastie Baby.

By the way, I was previously under the grossly misguided impression that time would elapse between when a baby learns to walk and when they learn to run. Pshaw. I have now been schooled.

Posted in Wardrobe Wednesday |

1 Comment »

back from my blog sabbatical (I think)

August 24th, 2009 |

Author: Lorry

I know I fell off the face of the blogosphere for a bit there, but I’m feeling a lot better. I was just in a funk. Nothing big.

I’m happy I bought Shooting Fish on DVD. I probably spent enough on renting that I should have bought it long before I did, but nevertheless I own it now. I can watch it whenever I want, legally, and in good quality.

It is a movie that has never been the answer to “What’s your favorite movie?” but still, I could watch it 100 times and not be tired of it. I’m pretty sure there has never been a time when I would have said “no” to an offer to watch it again, except maybe right after having watched it. I’ve never been a huge fan of girls’ names that are slightly altered versions of a boys’ name, but because of this movie, I’d consider Georgie for a girl. (I’m not sure Thomas would, but if I have octoplet girls, the need might arise. You never know.)

We did an S-Train Saturday this weekend, too. We went to Høje Tåstrup. Before going, all I knew was that there’s an IKEA there, and I’m told it’s bigger than the one in Gentofte.

When we left the station, we walked for a couple minutes in a random direction and decided it was the wrong random direction because we were finding nothing exciting at all. Thomas used my iPhone to determine there was interesting stuff in the opposite direction, so we went that way. We still weren’t finding anything interesting, except this:

I am a big supporter of beautifying the community with art. It’s one of the things I really love about Minneapolis. But I’m not sold on this particular whatever-it-is. I want to like it. I do. But all I think when I see it is, “ugly!” Sorry, Høje Tåstrup.

We kept walking and walking, and we were wondering if maybe we should just pick another station. It was like a ghost town. I mean, there were buildings that looked like interesting things might happen there sometimes, or interesting things used to happen there maybe, but it was totally dead.

We found a sign to City 2. We thought this would be some kind of downtown-ish area with shops, but it was a mall. I didn’t take any pictures, because I expect my audience already knows what malls look like. It’s a large mall, by Danish standards, and typical of a larger city or suburb by American standards. Their website even says they were inspired by American shopping malls when they built it. I must say, I’ve never been inspired by a shopping mall, but to each their own. At any rate, this is where all the Høje Tåstrupians were. It was bustling. They must be inspired, too.

We walked around until we were tired of it, and ended up with two pairs of shoes and four pairs of trousers for D.L., a tube of Rolo-type candies for Thomas, and some pizza sauce that I forgot to buy the day before. Then we came home and I made pizza. Om nom nom. I make good pizza.

Posted in Money Monday, S-train Saturday |

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When "bored" is not strong enough

August 18th, 2009 |

Author: Lorry

Last night, I was more than bored. I don’t think it’s possible to convey the amount of boredom accurately, but I’ll try anyway.

First, let me say that I’m not one to get bored very often. There’s so much that I want to do that the idea that I wouldn’t be doing any of it doesn’t even make sense most of the time. I’m also fairly good at making the best of it when I have to do something I don’t want to, although certainly foul moods can be at play from time to time. Last night, however, I was lying in bed trying to sleep, so there wasn’t a lot to do aside from lie there. Unfortunately, I wasn’t tired at all. I wanted to be tired. It was the right time to be tired, but I wasn’t tired.

After lying there for a long time, my eyesight poor enough that I couldn’t read the clock to tell you how long, I became hungry, and I reluctantly got up and had a snack. I knew I’d have to start over with my efforts to become tired after leaving the bed, but I also knew I’d never sleep with a hungry tummy. After the snack, I was horizontally bored for another eternity.

I was so bored, that when Dagmar woke up wanting to nurse, I was elated to have something to do. I know some women apparently see nursing as some kind of enjoyable, lovey-dovey bonding time, but it’s never been like that for me. It’s something that happens, and that’s it. And in case you’ve never nursed a baby, I use “something to do” in the loosest possible terms. I mean, the baby latches on, and the baby gets the milk out, and the baby drinks it. All I do is… not get in her way. So being elated at this development, for me, is the best way to express just how bored I was. It’s kind of like saying I was elated to discover a blade of grass so that I could watch it grow.

Usually when Dagmar wakes for a “midnight snack,” it doesn’t take much to get her back to sleep again. This time, not so much. Maybe she could sense that I wasn’t actually tired and she wanted to take advantage of it, or maybe the same forces that kept me from being tired were at play with her. For whatever reason, she wanted to be a bouncy, squealy ball of glee at… um… some time after midnight. My eyes could only discern the fact that the time was made of three digits instead of four.

I put her back in her crib against her protests, and tried to convince both of us that we should be tired.

At some point during this most ridiculously-lengthed night, I mulled over how I might address the fact that I neglected to post the most recent Money Monday, and before that, the Frankly Foreign Friday. I came up with many clever ideas, but this morning I’m just going to say screw it. I forgot.

It is in this mindset that I am when I discover I’ve been tagged to list six things that make me happy. I can’t decide if this is the best or worst day to have such a task before me. Let’s see how I feel at the end of my list.

The rules:
Link back to the person who tagged you. (Oh! I did that already! Score!)
List six little things that make you happy.
Tag six bloggers and let them know they’re “it”.

Six Little Things that Make Me Happy
1. My husband switched computers with me, so now I have a bigger screen, a faster processor, and a better video card for my digiscrapping enjoyment.
2. My lovely readers helped advance me to the final round of Scrapping Survivor.
3. Bacon. Nothing particularly timely about that one. I just like it.
4. Getting mail. I have really fallen off the ball over at Postcrossing, and I haven’t gotten any mail in while. I need to do that again. I like getting mail, even if from random strangers.
5. Saying “random” incorrectly. You all know I can be really anal, but for some reason, I rather like how the meaning of “random” has morphed in colloquial use. I say things like “random strangers” and I like it, even though I know it’s wrong.
6. I have the absolute, number-one cutest daughter EVER.

OK, I admit it. I am in a better mood after that. I did start to list a couple things that I realized weren’t completely happy, and I had to change them, but overall I was thinking of happy things so that’s nice.

I have so many things to blog about but I think I need to do something else… nothing in particular, just something else… first. Like stare at my impossibly adorable daughter.

Tag, you’re it:
Jane, Catherine, Rachel, Kelly, Cara, and Jen

Maybe when I’m in an even better mood, I’ll actually make those into links. For now, that’s what you get. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, though.

Posted in Miscellany |

2 Comments »

I need you guys!

August 15th, 2009 |

Author: Lorry

I’m in a Scrapping Survivor competition and voting ends today. We can use any method we want to get votes, and I am resorting to begging all of you. Pleeeeease!

You will need to make an account at GingerScraps, but it only takes a second and your information is safe. You never have to go there again* and you’ll forget all about it.

http://gingerscraps.net/forums/showthread.php?t=4558

Then you vote for lorryfach in that thread. That’s it. You will make me SO happy. You just don’t even know. Thank you!

*If this works, and I make it through to next week, which is the LAST week, I’ll probably beg again. Otherwise, you never have to go there again.

Posted in Miscellany |

No Comments »

Homophones

August 13th, 2009 |

Author: Lorry

I seem to be starting a tradition of posting grammar and usage information on Thursdays. I’m not sure I want to come up with a cute name and all that, because I’m not sure how long this will last.

Today I want to talk about homophones. These are words that sound the same, but aren’t the same. The famous example is to, two, and too. Most people seem to understand how to use those, though, so I don’t want to talk about them. There are a couple of homophones that really trip people up, and are much more interesting to talk about.

I peeked out my window.

Window sales peaked in July.

The sales figures piqued my interest.

I got a sneak peek at the next Harry Potter book.

Harry climbed to a mountain’s peak.

Ron was jealous and raged in a fit of pique.

I’m just a little tired of people giving “sneak peaks” or having things “peek my interest.” It’s easy to remember peek because the two e’s in the middle look like peeking eyes. Admit it. They do. At least, now that I’ve pointed it out, they do. It’s also easy to remember pique, because it looks fancy, and doesn’t the phrase “pique my interest” sound fancier than “sales peaked in July?” I thought so too. Both mountain and peak have a’s in them that don’t really sound like a’s, so maybe that will help you remember.

Sweat poured out of my pores while I pored over a puzzling puddle of porridge.

People are so convinced that “poured over” is correct that they’ll start arguments about it. They’re still wrong, though. To pore means to examine closely. Although I can imagine some poetic, roundabout way that pouring over something makes sense, it’s actually just a misspelling. This should be easy to remember because people aren’t liquid.

That’s all for today. I think I’m going to change my poll in a minute, though, so check out my main page for that.

Posted in Miscellany |

1 Comment »

How do you feel about hats, Dagmar?

August 12th, 2009 |

Author: Lorry

I’ve never uploaded to YouTube or embedded a video in my post before, but hopefully this will work. Jane (and anyone else still confused about Dagmar’s name): Thomas says it in this video!

Posted in Wardrobe Wednesday |

1 Comment »

suck it!

August 10th, 2009 |

Author: Lorry

This weekend was a very eventful one. We were invited to Fritze’s (Thomas’ aunt) to eat fish frikadeller. Frikadeller are Danish meat patties, and when not preceded by “fish” are typically made with pork and lamb. Sometimes the fish variety are called fiskadeller to sound clever, with fisk being the Danish word for fish, but fiskefrikadeller is more common, it would seem. Thomas’ father, who takes great delight in things like alliteration, was excited to try to get me to say “Fritzes fiskefrikadeller” five times fast. I was fine with once.

Fritze’s fish frikadeller were delicious, as was the shrimp and avocado salad and the strawberry tart. Fritze and her daughter Janne met Dagmar for the first time, and Dagmar loved the attention. There was lots of conversation in Danish, and I was happy to understand much of it even if I contributed little myself.

We stayed the night with Thomas’ parents in Nivå, both because I expected we would be at Fritze’s somewhat late (and we were) and because I wanted to be in Nivå earlier than usual on Sunday so that we could go to the beach. I thought we would all be going to the beach, but it was just the three of us. That was fine, too, and we had a great time. Dagmar had never been to the beach before, and I hadn’t been to one in ages. I mean, I’ve been to beaches, but I haven’t really gone to the beach in forever. You know, where I’m actually in a swimsuit… where we lay out towels and play in the sand… that sort of thing. I don’t think I’ve done that since being forced to as a child. I was never really into it. It was fun, though, because this time I got to watch Dagmar experience it. I still think it’s kinda overrated, but it’s more worthwhile than I remembered.

We did the typical Sunday dinner with Thomas’ parents a little earlier than usual, because Dagmar refused to nap the entire day both Saturday and Sunday. We were hoping she would go to sleep when we got home. She took a very short nap, but then woke up again, fresh as daisies, and kept going Energizer-bunny-style until around midnight. To her credit, both Saturday night and last night, she slept like a rock until almost 10 in the morning. I’m happy to say she’s napping right now, though. I like her regular naps.

None of this has to do with Money Monday, though. I just wanted to recap the weekend. So what am I glad that I’ve spent money on? Today, I’m happy for

Sookies!

Because moms and moms-to-be seem to be able to debate absolutely anything, there’s a great debate about whether or not to use pacifiers/dummies at all, what age you should take them away if you do use them, and just about every aspect to their usage that you can imagine. In reading these debates, I learned two very important things:

1) I can’t stand the word “binky” or any of its derivitives (e.g. “bink”).

2) Everyone is wrong. Well, at least when it comes to Dagmar.

#1 is why we say “sookie.” “Pacifier” is too cumbersome, and “dummy” is too British, so I needed another term. Someone mentioned that “sookie” was the Canadian term. I don’t know if that’s true, but I like it, and it sounds somewhat similar to the Danish word “sut” so I went with it. My niece calls hers a “fo-fo” for reasons unbeknownst to anyone. If I had found this out before introducing a sookie to Dagmar, I might have gone with fo-fo instead.

As for #2, well, I just have the most laidback baby ever. Dagmar likes her sookie. She’s happy to take it whenever I offer it to her, but she has never once complained about not having it. She has the healthiest sookie-relationship ever. If it falls out of her mouth when she’s asleep, she still sleeps. If she doesn’t want it when she’s awake, she takes it out of her mouth, and if she does want it, she finds it and puts it in her mouth. Simple as that. I realize I can’t win the baby lottery every time and the next kid might not react so awesomely to the sookie, but at this moment in my life, I’m all about the sookie.

I’m glad I buy sookies because it makes her happy and there haven’t been any negative consequences to it whatsoever. Before the sookie, I was sore 24/7 from all the comfort nursing, and after, we were both happier. Woot for the sookie!

Posted in Money Monday |

3 Comments »

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