Archive for December, 2009

First, you might notice that my WW image has gotten a makeover. I decided to make a consistent theme across my post images, and I used Avatar Creator to make something kinda resembling me, because it’s my website and my rambling. Since that’s not enough me, I also used fonts of my own handwriting. T thinks my chin is too big in these, but none of the other chins look better, so you get fat-chinned images. We’ll all live. On to the goods….

You might remember my previous entry regarding a dress I bought for Bean. If not, here’s the story again, in verse this time.

The Dress by Lorry Fach-Pedersen

I was out shopping Friday morn

to buy us milk and bread

To my delight, there was this dress

that made me turn my head.

On sale? No way! It’s just your size!

It’s too good to be true!

I bought it, bagged it, took it home

and didn’t have a clue…

That very next day’s afternoon

would be a Christmas fest!

A better timing for this dress

I never could request.

Delighted on that Saturday,

I dressed you up so fine.

The dress was everything I’d hoped!

We’re ready, too, on time!

The bag is packed; we’re looking smart.

Just grab your hand and leave!

I left you not two seconds, I swear…

That’s long enough, I grieve.

For in the time it takes a mom

to turn her head around,

a toddler finds a mug and spills

the contents to the ground.

And on the way from mug to ground,

I’m sure that you can guess,

some of the soda stayed behind

to soak up on your dress.

We were late to the party,

and you were wearing red.

I fortunately found another

dress to wear instead.

At least the soda did not stain;

you’ll wear this dress once more.

And if we’re lucky, next time

it will make it out the door!

It did make it out the door, and Bean wore it all day Christmas Eve.

I was going to write a belated Money Monday post about our new 27-inch iMac, but I wanted to include a picture. I know I’ve taken a picture already, so of course I looked in iPhoto first. It’s not there, so I found the camera, found the camera cable, hooked it up, and imported everything into iPhoto. It’s still not there. So I must have taken the picture with my iPhone, so I plug that in, and it has a dead battery. I wait until it has enough charge to respond, and then iTunes wants to update the software. I guess I could have said no, but I didn’t want to forget, so now it’s updating and has been doing for a couple minutes.

I don’t want to wait anymore. I’m in the mood to type. You’ll have to see our massively gargantutitanicolassal iMac later.

Last night, I finally downloaded Google Chrome, and that’s the inspiration for this post.

Like many of you out there, I use my web browser a lot. A lot a lot. So I want a really good one, and I’ve yet to find my dream browser.

(Disclaimer: I just want to say that I know about Firefox and OmniWeb. I used them long enough to decide I didn’t want to anymore, and I don’t want this post to be about them or a totally comprehensive rundown of every browser available for the Mac, k? Feel free to argue their strengths and weaknesses in the comments, or those of any browser I haven’t named, but don’t criticize me for leaving them out of this post. It’s just not what I wanted to write about.)

Opera is so very close to my dream browser. I love the UI so much. It’s highly customizable, has smart and innovative features, and although I’m not a huge fan of the default theme, it can be made pretty. I used Opera for a very long time. I even paid for it back when it cost money. I even applied for a job there, and even got an interview there, and was willing to move to Oslo to be a part of the awesomeness that is Opera. But I don’t use Opera anymore, because there were just too many sites that weren’t loading properly. I didn’t dig too deeply, and it may well be that those sites aren’t using valid code so it’s really their fault and not Opera’s, but as the end-user, I don’t want to care whose fault it is. I just want it to work. It was with great sadness that I started using Safari.

Safari is the browser that comes on Apple computers. It’s gotten a lot better in the past couple of years, and it generally does a better job with the pages I visit regularly, but I never found myself satisfied with the UI. In Opera, if you accidentally close a tab, you can command-Z (the “undo” shortcut in all programs) and it comes back. In Safari, there is no way to pull up the last closed tab, short of going into history and finding it, which may or may not be near the top of the stack. Ugh. There’s also no way to tell it to always open to a set of tabs or to the tabs from your last session. You have to open it to your homepage (or a blank page) and then go into History and click on “Open all windows from previous session.” That’s always what I want, and to have to tell it every single time is pretty annoying. I have several minor gripes about the UI that I won’t bore you with, but I will state that I have looked into a few add-ons and complimentary programs to use with Safari, and not all of my gripes can be addressed. I also think it’s kind of ugly, and having tabs that go upwards, not to mention tabs below the address bar, is just illogical. But it did most of what I needed it to do, and although my list of complaints is long, on a typical day, I could use Safari and be reasonably happy with the results. Still, I want better.

Although I fancy myself to be somewhat of a nerd, I don’t read all the nerd blogs and keep up with the latest nerd news. I’m not a cutting-edge nerd. I’m a stay-at-home mom nerd with non-nerd priorities who still likes to nerd it up occasionally. So I’m probably the last to find out that Google Chrome finally had a beta out for Macs. At least I knew what it was.

So I finally downloaded it last night, and here are my first impressions.

Positive Bits

1. The Finder window that opened after downloading had a shortcut to the Applications folder so that it was trivial to drag the program into it. I’ve seen this before, and it’s a minor thing, but not everyone does it, and I do appreciate it when I see it.

2. Any browser worth the time it takes to download will import your bookmarks from whatever browser you were using before. When I first started Chrome, it asked which browser to import from, which is nice, because you know what it means to ASS-U-ME. It also imported my browsing history. Wow. That’s slick as snot. I was already impressed not 5 seconds after installation. It also asked if I wanted it to be my default browser. Nice again.

3. Tabs on top! I know this is one of those things like curly brace placement and vi versus emacs where all the nerds seem to have strong opinions, but seriously, I’m right about this one. The address bar contains the address of the page you’re viewing. It’s entirely dependent on what tab you’re looking at. So of course it should be on the tab and not above it. Duh. Otherwise it changes every time you click on a tab. It if isn’t on the tab, it should be constant.

They also put the bookmark bar below the tabs, which I have mixed feelings about. My bookmarks are relatively constant. I can change them, of course, but they aren’t tab-dependent, so I expect them above the tabs. On the other hand, when I click one, it only affects the current tab. I suppose if forward and back buttons go on the tab, then this makes sense too. I haven’t used a browser that did it this way before, but it’s not something I’ll get upset over.

4. Spot on password management.

One of my Safari gripes is that it asks if it should save your password when you hit the login button, but before it submits it. This means you could be saving the wrong information. If you’ve fatfingered your password, or you just plain can’t remember it and you aren’t 100% certain you put in the right one, you could end up saving the wrong password five times before you finally get the right one, and then you have six password records and only one is right. In Opera, it popped up when you hit the login button, and went ahead and submitted it as well, so you could wait and see if it worked before you picked an option on the pop-up. Chrome does it even better by waiting until you’re logged in to ask, and by asking within the window in a cute little yellow bar. No pop-ups! *heart*

5. Speaking of little yellow bars, the entire address bar turns yellow when you’re at a secure site. I love this. It’s so obvious. No more squinting to see if the infinitesimal lock icon’s itty-bitty semicircle has shifted 3 pixels or not. You don’t even have to avert your gaze from the page. It’s in your periphery.

6. This is one of the many little things I missed from Opera. The favicon is on the tab instead of in the address bar. When you have a billion tabs open, you see the favicon instead of less helpful snippets of the page title such as “Th….” *cheer!*

7. It seems every browser now has page thumbnails on your new “blank” tabs, so no surprise that Chrome does too, but they’ve upped it a notch. When you hover over a thumbnail…

…you get the option to sticky it or remove it. By default it shows your frequently visited pages, but you can edit it. I’ve only seen one or the other: frequently visited pages or you have to select what pages you want there. Best of both worlds. Love it.

8. That’s not all they’ve added, either.

It’s not quite as cool as Opera’s tab trash, but it goes a long way to making me stop caring about tab trash. Which brings us to…

9. …being able to open my last closed tab easily. This isn’t as intuitive as command-Z, but at least it’s friggin’ POSSIBLE.

10. In Safari, I have to decide to always open every file type it thinks is safe, or no files at all. I download a lot of zips, and I like them to automatically open so that I can see immediately if there was an issue and I need to try downloading again. Sometimes people don’t zip their templates (a decision I’m firmly against, but nevertheless it happens) and then when I download them, Pixelmator automatically launches. Ugh. I hate that. Chrome lets me pick! I can always open zips but not Photoshop documents. *dance*

11. I have the option of showing all my downloads in a usable way. This really takes me back to my Opera days. Aaah. But it’s prettier!

12. When I open a new tab, it opens to the right of the current tab, instead of at the end. It also has very pretty animation when it happens. When the link I’ve clicked opens a new window, it opens as a tab without my having to press command. Halle-friggin-lujah! As if I should have to read minds or check source code to see if a link will open in a new window or not! This drives me crazy about Safari! It’s so rare that I want something in a new window, and I can’t tell Safari to never make a new window unless I explicitly ask for one.

13. I can drag a window into another and turn it into a tab.

14. Is it just me, or is this like 10 times faster than Safari? I swear pages don’t even load; they just appear.

15. The Omnibar. I’ve been saying “address bar” because I don’t want to confuse people, but it’s actually called the omnibar because it’s more than just an address bar. I think this is meant to be a major selling point, and it’s simply not for me, but I do like it.

In the above example, we see a few things pop up when I type “quin”: the option to search for exactly what I’ve typed, the option to search for suggested search terms based on what I’ve typed so far, a suggested site I’ve never been to based on what I’ve typed so far, and items from my history and bookmarks based on what I’ve typed so far. It happens as I type, so each letter I press gets me new suggestions. Note that the last two don’t have “quin” anywhere in them. It searched the content of those pages. Very nice, though not new to me. What’s new is having all these in one place instead of having separate search field and address bar. I like that it’s in one place, but it doesn’t excite me as much as Google seems to think it will. Still, thumbs up.

(Note: I have Inquisitor installed, so I’m used to suggested search terms in Safari. It just occurred to me that Safari doesn’t have that by default, so maybe this will look more impressive to some of you.)

16. The whole URL highlights when I click anywhere in the omnibar. It’s the little things.

17. Most importantly, it seems to render all my regular sites perfectly fine, and even does a better job on one of them than Safari did. (Note to Mac-using INs: the PIP button works!) I’m sold!

Negative Bits

1. I don’t particularly like the look of bookmark folders. It functions like an ugly drop-down menu that doesn’t look like a drop-down menu until you click on it. In other words, before you click, it isn’t obvious what’s going to happen on the screen. Safari’s little downward arrow next to the folder is more elegant. The way Chrome displays the bookmarks over to the side instead of directly below the folder seems awkward and unnecessary to me.

  

2. There is no way to open all of the items in a bookmark folder at once. I found this surprising since it’s been in both Opera and Safari for ages.

3. There is no bookmark management tool. To delete a bookmark, you have to go to the site, click the bookmark star, and then click “Remove.” Clunky! Apparently the Windows version does have a bookmark manager, so I have to assume it will eventually find its way to the Mac version too. Surely, right?

4. There’s no built-in RSS reader, which isn’t really a negative since I use Google Reader anyway, but the upshot of this is that there’s no RSS button in the address bar and I have to go hunting for it on the page. I like knowing it’ll always be in the address bar if there’s a feed. Look in one place, and if it’s not there, then the site has no RSS, and if it is there, just click and now the feed URL is in the address bar for each copy-paste into Google Reader. I miss that.

Probably positive bits

When I was reading about Google Chrome, I liked what I read about how it handles pop-ups, but I haven’t experienced it yet, so I reserve final judgement until I’ve BTDT. I do know that Safari’s handling of pop-ups doesn’t impress me. There’s just one setting: block them or don’t, and it doesn’t always work perfectly. Some get through that I don’t want, and some don’t get through that I do want, and there’s no way to fix that. It seems like Chrome will do a better job, very similar to what I had in Opera, but I want to see it in action.

I’m calling them things I think I should do. Hopefully I’ll even do them. It’s not that I don’t want to try, but I just want to be realistic. Everyone knows that’s what “new year’s resolutions” are anyway.

1. I want to be healthier in the physique department. I would call this “losing weight,” but the last time I tried to do that, I got pregnant and I don’t think that growing a baby in my girl parts should equate to a failure. A corollary to this is that I want to get better about menu planning and FLYing in general.

2. I want to comment on blogs more. I love getting comments, so I’m going to project my own feelings onto the rest of the world and assume that y’all do too. Unless, of course, you don’t have a blog, or have one with comments disabled.

3. I want to finish that baby blanket I started last year, and made embarrassingly little progress on. I’m not sure if it will still be useful to Bean when I’m done with it, but it will still be cute and I’m sure I can find a use or a new home for it.

4. I want to make significant progress in my Danish language acquisition. I was originally thinking I would complete module 5 this summer, but after talking to a teacher at the school, I think it may be in my best interest to wait until winter. Basically, she said that just because you CAN pass a module, doesn’t mean you should, because if you finish before you’ve learned all you can, you don’t get to go back and redo it. So even though I know I could pass module 4 right now, it’s not as easy for me as module 3 was, and I should at least wait until it’s coming more naturally. Makes sense. Since the module 5 test is only offered twice a year, spending an extra couple of months is module 4 likely pushes the whole plan back six months. It’s a bit disappointing, but if it means better Danish skills, it’s worth it.

5. I want to more regularly attend playgroups with Bean-Bean. She loves them, and although I always dread going, I’m always glad I went.

Oh, and if you’re grumpy that this post isn’t Christmassy enough, check my previous one.

In Denmark, almost all the festivities happen on the 24th, which means my Christmas is basically over. Other than a julefrokost tomorrow, we’re done.

Yesterday, before we arrived at my in-laws, the tree was erected and decorated. They were careful to put any that a toddler shouldn’t have access to near the top. Smart folks. (Our own tree has no ornaments at all on the bottom half, although it didn’t start out that way.)

We ate flæskesteg, potatoes with gravy, sugar-browned potatoes, beets, and red cabbage. Apparently duck is also a tradition here, but I guess not for Thomas’ family. I really like duck, but I can’t be bummed because flæskesteg is also very, very yummy. We finished up with some ris a la mand, and father-in-law won a small marzipan pig. (Fine with me. I don’t like marzipan.) While still at the table, Dagmar opened her first gift, since she was getting a bit restless. It was an adorable, wheeled wooden elephant on a leash. Apparently his name is Elmer, but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to recognize him from somewhere or not.

We sang songs while walking around the tree, eventually speeding up into a run for Nu er det Jul Igen, which I’m proud to say I have memorized now. Dagmar was particularly happy with the running part, and we got lots of laughter from our tiniest participant.

I was then designated present-hander-outer, and all the presents were distributed from under the tree, having only been put there a few hours earlier. (I still prefer the American way of having tree and presents looking pretty for weeks, but hey, no one’s perfect.) Then we took turns opening presents, thanking each other, and oohing and aahing.

Dagmar got a rocking horse, apparently purchased before we acquired one at the party earlier this month. Although she’s not shown any interest in the one we have at home, she was eager to experience this one, and has mastered getting on and off it herself in no time at all. She looked so delighted rocking on it! When I put her on the other one, she didn’t care at all. Interesting. Maybe because this one is all painted and pretty. It’s quite fantastic! She also got an easy chair, which I dare say looks nicer than my own rocker, but is more suited to her bum size than mine. Her new tea set is just incredible. Wow. I love it, and she does too! The box says 3+ years but it has no small parts and it’s wooden so I think I’m ignoring that. You might just see some of her other presents in an upcoming WW.

Then again, you might see mine or Thomas’. I just this week cleared out my closet of all the cruft that no longer fits or flatters me in any way, and although I can’t say it was in the LEAST bit surprising, I finally got a clear visual picture of how dire my clothing situation is. I had very, very, VERY little to wear. But now I have several new tops, and as they are almost exclusively items I’d never have picked out for myself but manage to look fabulous on me, I think I will refrain from shopping without my mother-in-law or sister-in-law ever again. Wow. Thomas got several new shirts as well, and a really great scarf. I was teased for admiring it, since I also received one for myself, so just to set the record straight, I think it’s really great on him. I don’t covet it.

The presents we picked out seemed to be well-received, too, which is always nice to see.

A bit of a downer is that all the presents I ordered for my family have still not been shipped, and if I think about it too much, I’ll probably get really fuming mad at the company, so I’m just going to stop here at least until I hear their side of the issue. I’m sure my family will have a fantastic day tomorrow regardless of the status of this parcel. We’re spending the night at my in-laws and I’m hoping to be able to Skype with them in the afternoon on the 25th (today for me, tomorrow for them ) and see everyone. Yay!

Whether you celebrated already, haven’t celebrated yet, or won’t celebrate at all, hope you do/did it well and are happy! Mwah!

I’m so over Christmas.

I almost wish I didn’t celebrate it because I’m so tired of hearing about it that it makes it hard for me to get excited about it. Why? Two reasons.

Part 1 – Digiscrapping: The Great Holiday Buzzkill

October was all about Halloween. November was all about Thanksgiving. December is all about Christmas. That’s three solid months of hearing about nothing but holidays.

For those of you who aren’t digiscrappers, here’s some background. There are lots of communities out there for people into digital scrapbooking, based around specific designers, stores, styles of scrapping, etc. and they have challenges. Most of the time, these challenges earn you participation prizes and/or some type of credit you can save up to redeem for stuff, but the main purpose of them, really, is to inspire you.

I’ve been doing challenges on various sites since May, and they’re usually really good at doing what they’re intended to do. They get me to think of things I might not have otherwise, to experiment with new styles, to approach my layouts in new ways, and get out of my comfort zone. Hooray for challenges!

Until October.

Part of the problem is that, for whatever reason, despite the fact that Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are at the end of their respective months, challenges about them start coming at you right at the beginning. I have nothing to scrap about Halloween until it happens. Maybe there’s a party a few days before or something, but generally speaking, before October 31st, I don’t have much to say about Halloween. Even if I make a layout about the making of the costume or something, that’s one layout and not a month’s worth of challenges. Then on the 31st, I take a bunch of pictures and have lots to say, but the very next day everyone’s asking me to scrap Thanksgiving! What. The. Hell.

By the time Thanksgiving actually rolled around, I’d been asked to scrap what I’m thankful for so many times, that the thing I was most thankful for was that Thanksgiving was ending! (And I haven’t even touched the fact that there’s only one country in the world that celebrates Thanksgiving in November, and these communities? Yeah, they involve people from OTHER countries too.)

And now it’s the same with Christmas. Scrap in red and green! Scrap your Christmas traditions! Scrap your hoiday décor! Christmas is in a week, and I’ve basically done nothing worth scrapping about it. Perhaps that makes me really strange, but I still don’t get how you pull a full month of challenges out of Christmas before it even happens. And I don’t think I’m the only one, because hardly anyone seems to be doing these challenges. Take a clue, people! Let us scrap Thanksgiving in December, and Christmas in January.

Or *shock and horror* make the challenges flexible enough that I can scrap whatever needs scrapping. Seriously, requiring that I put Christmas in the title of my layout or use Christmas colors doesn’t leave much wiggle room for people who don’t celebrate Christmas, much less the ones that do so, you know, on Christmas Day, instead of all bloody month long.

Part 2 – What do you MEAN “people who don’t celebrate Christmas?”

Oh yeah. I went there. I’m a Happy Holidayser.

All these people pretending there’s a war on Christmas are starting to piss me off.

I celebrate Christmas. I’m not offended when people tell me, “Merry Christmas.” I make things easier on myself by taking these sorts of greetings in the spirit they’re intended. If someone tells me “Happy Hannukah” and they think I actually celebrate Hannukah, and they aren’t being snarky about it, then I’m not offended. I’ll smile and say thank you.

I’m also not offended by “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings.” Why the hell would I be? I just don’t get it. Am I supposed to be UPSET that someone either a) failed to assume what my personal traditions are or b) just gets sick of saying the same exact phrase over and over and so mixes it up a bit? (That’s what I did when I worked retail.) Why? I’ve got better things to do than give a crap what greeting you choose to give me in the month of December.

I do think it’s possible to go too far with being “PC.” The “holiday trees” or “family trees” thing was pretty silly. There’s only one holiday where people decorate evergreen trees in December, so just go ahead and call them Christmas trees. (I’ve not seen any convincing evidence that they’re pagan in origin. If you want to correct me, give me a real, trusted source, and not some random website, and especially not that verse in Jeremiah 10.) But even then, I don’t see how failing to use the word “Christmas” is an affront to anyone. If I say “Happy Holidays” to you, does it in ANY WAY AT ALL hamper your efforts to celebrate Christmas? Of course not. Want to celebrate Christmas. Fine. So do I. So go ahead. No one is stopping you.

There is no war on Christmas. The only thing people have a beef with, is when the American government gets involved in religion. Newsflash: you don’t need the government to erect a tree for you! You can do it yourself! There’s private property friggin’ everywhere! So put up your own tree, decorate it, dance around it, do whatever you want to do, and we’re all happy for you. The fact that the mayor, governor, or president didn’t do it doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate Christmas. And if you are the mayor, the governor, or the president, you can still put up a tree too! On your own property. Want to celebrate Christmas? Fine. So do I. So go ahead. No one is stopping you.

How the debate about religious symbols on government property got people to thinking they couldn’t say “Merry Christmas” on their own personal blogs or with their own personal mouths, I don’t know. If you say “Merry Christmas” on your blog, and I see it, I will smile and say thank you. Unless you follow it up with “Oh yeah. I went there.” and a mini-rant about a fake war on your rights. (And yes, I did read this in a blog recently. And a digiscrap blog, of all bloody places.) That just makes you look like an ass.

If you celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas to you. If you celebrate some other holiday, happy holidays to you. And if you don’t celebrate anything at all, have a really fabulous week, just because you deserve it.

I mentioned on Monday that I’d be posting this later, and I’m on vacation, so that totally counts.

Monday was a good day. Thomas’ fabulous sister, Charlotte, lended her driving skills to us to bring home our IKEA loot. Yes, we spent 2 hours and some kroner at IKEA so that we could make magic happen.

Magic.

We live in a teeny tiny flat, with one bedroom. When we originally moved in, the bedroom was, well, our bedroom. When I got pregnant, we discussed how to make that work out, and decided to make the living room our bedroom, and make the bedroom a fun room. This was because we wanted to sidecar Bean’s crib, and the crib and the bed would not both fit in the bedroom. It’s a small bedroom.

My mother complained a lot about this decision. She thought Bean should go in the living room and we should stay in the bedroom. I’m very happy with how we did it, though, and wouldn’t change a thing about that path we took.

But we did decide to choose a new path going forward. Bean hasn’t been sidecarred for several months. We all sleep better if she’s in a separate crib. The crib was perpendicular to our bed, so I could get to her easily, but needing to get to her steadily became less and less of an issue. Additionally, we found ourselves stuck in the fun room, scared to go out and make too much noise, whenever she was sleeping. It just wasn’t making sense anymore, so I suggested giving Bean the fun room and making the living room our combo bed/fun room. I was expecting Thomas to ask for an explanation, but he said he’d been thinking about it too. Well, that was easy.

I went ahead and moved her crib in there the next day, and a couple days later, we moved our bookshelves and stuff out and her toys in. It was her bedroom, but it looked like a crib in a junk room. IKEA to the rescue.

I’m so pleased with the results! My mother still complains that we don’t have a proper bedroom for ourselves, and my mother-in-law still has little to say other than it’s small. But, dammit, I’m pleased and it’s my flat so MAGIC!

So, the history of this little room in pictures:

First, it was a bedroom! We went with a black and white color scheme. The floors and curtains are solid black too, though you don’t see them in the pictures.

Then, it was a fun room.

And now…

Other than the photograph, I made all that art on the walls. *beam* With all the black we’d put in previously, I wasn’t sure I could make it look like a little girl’s room, but I think I did a pretty good job. It is small, but Bean is small too, and she’s quite happy with it.

I don’t want to do a Money Monday post today, at least not a good one, and I’m on vacation so I’ve decided that on vacation, I can mix it up a bit. I do have some money-related stuff to talk about, but it’s not blog-ready yet. It’ll be worth the wait, though, I promise.

In the meantime, I’m going to do a Wardrobe Monday. It sucks to lose the alliteration, but it doesn’t suck enough for me to change what I want to post.

I’ve been posting a lot of Dagmar pictures for Wardrobe Wednesdays, and hey, who can blame me? She’s super cute and she makes pretty much everything look good. But I’m on vacation, so I’m mixing it up a bit, and we’re bringin’ it all back ta ME.

I used to be tiny and cute too. I’d still say Dagmar is cuter, but my mother disagrees.

I am about three or so in this picture. I had never had a haircut at this point, and it’s worth noting that Dagmar already has hair this long. Unfortunately, it’s not as thick, and I’m still waiting to be able to put barrettes in it. And that’s saying something, because I had circus freak fine, thin hair. Mom had to get special circus freak barrettes for me, and I could still take them out just by yanking on them gently, and they just slid right off. I wonder what Bean’s hair will look like when she’s three….

Oh yeah, I’m supposed to be talking about me.

I am rocking the plaid blouse with big, lace-edged collar. There’s a blue jumper over it, of which you can just make out part of one strap. Pure gold. I was so cute.

Unfortunately I don’t seem to have a picture of me with one of the hair clips Mom made for me. They were all lacey and ribbony and sort of my signature style back then. No one else had them. Mom told me later that other mothers offered to pay for her to make some for their daughters, and they got turned down, because that was MY thing. No one else can have the cute hair clips. Mom passed down the hair clip supplies and technique to me so that when Bean’s hair is ready, it can be HER thing.

If you guys like this, I can try to find some more and scan them in, and/or pester my parents to use their scanner. The mamarazzi at my house has plenty of material from my early days. But I’ll probably just keep posting more Bean in the future, because I have plenty of material for that too and I can’t seem to stop acquiring more.

And now I’ll get back to my three-weeks-of-vacation dance.

Sixthly (still continuing!), Thomas and I won a contest!

When we arrived at the party, all the adults received a sheet of paper with trivia questions on it. It said to answer the questions and submit the paper by 4:20. The party started at 3.

Thomas accused me of cheating, but it didn’t say anywhere on the paper that I couldn’t use my iPhone to google all the questions. Plus I think having to figure out what the questions were even asking put me at a handicap. Anyway, I found all the answers. The questions were things like, “On what day to Italian children get candy in their stockings?” and they were multiple choice. Once I found all the answers and them marked on my sheet, I put them on Thomas’ sheet too.

I didn’t know what we were playing for. Since it was an adult competition, I thought maybe we’d get a bottle of wine, or some movie tickets.

As we were leaving, we saw a big easel with a list of names on it. Thomas asked what it was, and we were told it was all the winners from the trivia contest. Both of our names were on there, but we had different prizes listed for us. I’m not sure how they decided what prizes went to whom, and I don’t know what all the possible prizes were, but we got two different prizes. Neither of them were prizes I was expecting.

I’m not complaining, but I do think it’s weird. What would you give as prizes for a contest like this? If you thought…

a regulation-sized basketball hoop, a child-sized basketball, and a child-sized soccer ball

and/or High School Musical 3 Mystery Date board game

then you may have a future in Thomas’ company!

And if you were wondering, yes, those balls do say “Crocoroo” on them.

No transitional forms? Ha! Take that, creationists!

Fifthly (I’m continuing from Monday’s post of course), Dagmar was ridiculously cute.

I’ll start at the beginning….

I was walking around the shopping area of Herlev, because I had some stuff to do anyway, and I noticed that TIdernes Børn had some pretty dresses on sale. I looked through the rack, and was confused as to why the dress I thought was the prettiest was also the cheapest, by half or more, than all the others. I spent several minutes debating whether or not Bean really needed a party dress, and finally decided to go for it. I mean, it’s so cheap!

So I took it up to the cashwrap and the guy asks me if I want both pieces. In a split second, I suddenly realized why the price was so cheap. It’s a dress with a shirt under it, and the shirt is what’s so cheap. I look down and see two price tags, add them together in my head, and decide it’s still worth it. I mean, it’s so cute! So, with very little hesitation, I said I did want both pieces.

Check out this cuteness.

without the shirt… still cute!

closeup of the corduroy top

with the shirt! I just love this!

I know what you’re thinking. Why are you showing me a baby dress lying on a bed? Show me on the baby, you ninny! Well, just you wait.

I got home with this dress, and I still didn’t really know why I needed it. I thought we could put her in it for our Christmas card photo. Thomas came home from work and reminded me that his work had a Christmas party the next day. Score! She needs the dress!

The next day, we figure out what bus we need to take to get there on time, and we plan Bean’s nap and everything around it. I’m feeling unusually organized and with-it. I am sooo awesome. I’m gonna make this bus. I’ve planned it all. Go me.

I’m dressed. T’s dressed. Bean’s dressed. Diaper bag is packed. Have keys. Have wallet. Have phone. Just grab Bean and head out the door….

Dagmar had climbed into my rocking chair and found my mug of Mirinda, and poured it down her front. Seriously.

If you aren’t familiar with Mirinda, it’s an orange soda. It is not created to be worn. We missed the bus.

Before continuing, I’ll go ahead and ease your concerns regarding the ultimate fate of the dress. The pictures above were taken after washing the Mirinda out. The dress will be worn again. Now, back to the story….

T started getting Bean out of the dress, and I tore through her wardrobe looking for anything else that might work as a party dress. Fortunately, my failing memory had forgotten that my mother had bought a Christmas dress after last Christmas (hooray for after-Christmas sales!), and my hand finally fell upon the perfect replacement dress. It had white instead of cream, so we had to change her tights and everything, but it worked out well in the end!

So, I’m sorry you won’t see the dress above on the baby just yet, but I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with the pictures I do have.

Check out those cute little white shoes! It wasn’t easy to find dress shoes for Princess Tiny Toes, but these lace-ups looked non-sneakery enough to work and I think they did. I mean, hearts! Look at those little hearts on the side! So cute!

Thomas’ work had a juletræfest, which literally translates to “yule tree party,” but I think I’ll just call it a Christmas party. We had to buy tickets to go, and I’m glad we did. So glad, in fact, that I’m devoting this week’s posts to it.

First, it was fun. I finally got to see where Thomas works, and meet a few colleagues.

Secondly, I got to eat æbleskiver. It literally means “apple slices,” as the linked entry says, but the entry fails to mention that neither apples nor slices are involved in them. Still, they could be called Toe Fungus Delight and it wouldn’t change the fact that they’re yummy. A rose by any other name, and all that.

Thirdly, Dagmar got a Christmas present. When we bought the tickets, we were asked to list our children, their ages, and pick two presents from a list for each. There were several gifts per age group, and I couldn’t remember what was on the list much less what I had picked from it, so it was truly a surprise, even though there should have been a 50/50 chance of getting a particular item. Hooray for failing memory!

And I’m not going to check my sent messages to see what else I picked, either, because I’m very happy with what we got, and if it was my second choice, I might just be disappointed. It must have been my first choice, though, because what’s better than this?

Yeah, we got a rocking horse! Dagmar seemed mildly interested when I put her on it, and she figured out how to make it rock, but then oooh shiny she got off and went somewhere else. I think she’ll get into it a bit more later though.

Fourthly, Bean got to go to her very first live show.

We don’t have a TV. We do watch some TV on the computer, but it’s not Danish TV, so when it comes to stuff that’s big in Denmark, I’m not your girl to ask. I’m aware that there’s a program called X Factor that involves singing. That’s about as far as my knowledge of that goes. So some people are up on stage speaking Danish and all I really catch of it is “X Factor.” My Danish is getting a lot better, but when they’re speaking fast and there’s lots of background noise, well, it’s not the easiest. Anyway, I didn’t really know what the connection to X Factor was until I asked T later. The band that performed, Alien Beat Club, won second place on the show.

Here’s Bean’s favorite song from the performance.