In case you’ve been too busy to uncover these useful morsels yourself today, I thought I’d pull them together for you in one handy location.

The nasty “I Did It” book and television special have self-destructed. Vengeful thought of the day: I rather hope that everyone involved in this ill-conceived publishing plan loses oodles of money on it.

If you need to pee next time you’re in Times Square, you’re in luck! As long as you’re done by 6:00PM on December 31.

Peter Jackson won’t be making The Hobbit? Can it be true? Dane’s holding out hope that it’s a lawsuit-settling tactic.

Also? My reading glasses broke today. Right smack in two. No link for that, it hasn’t had much press coverage.

So I’m a little seal-happy in the sidebar. Whatever keeps me sane, right?

Also: I maintain my original assertion that typing with crispy fingers would just. plain. suck.

Things I am liking about the new blogger beta:
• That sucker is QUICK. You hit publish, it publishes! No more of this “6% published… 14% published… 42% published…” nonsense.
• The new look of the dashboard. Okay, I actually don’t care about this at all, but it does not tick me off in any way.
• Blogger no longer tries to get me to switch to the beta every time I log in. Because I already gave in and switched.

Things I am NOT SO MUCH LIKING about the new blogger beta:
• It will. not. remember. my login and password, even though I tell it to Remember Me! every stinking time I log in.
• It does not remember that I am logged in.
• Every time I try to leave a comment on a blog, I have to re-log in. Every time. No matter what. Even if I just logged in ten seconds ago. Even if I am logged in to the blogger dashboard in another window. Every time.
• Re-logging in involves navigating AWAY from the comment page, thus LOSING my brilliant (hahaha) comment, unless I think of copying it first. Which I only occasionally do.
• The log-in bit is BENEATH the comment box, so I write a lengthy comment before realizing I’m not logged in. Every time.

Driving. Me. NUTS.

So that sounded like a resounding “we don’t really know” about the crib bumper. Or possibly “we don’t really care” with a side of “do whatever you want.” Either way, thank you, and we can stop talking about it now.

Let’s see, what else has been going on around here? The construction noise seems to be over, hooray! Yesterday was caulking day and today there was no work at all.

And remember how I said that funny bit the other day about them breaking a new doorway in the wall? Ha ha! So funny! Guess what we have in our interior walls? Brand-new cracks! Plus there’s the clock that broke when it was knocked off the wall, but that’s hardly worth mentioning.

We spent most of yesterday at the park, and today we had friends over for a while, but what you really want to hear about is Owen’s haircut. He had to have a trim this week, since next week is Thanksgiving and family and pictures and blah blah blah blah, so we finally got around to it tonight.

He’s had a long-ish bowl cut since… um, since his hair started growing, because it’s cute and toddler-y. Also because that’s what I could figure out how to do with scissors. But tonight when I broke out the clippers he announced, “I want it short. Like this.” And he pushed all the hair up off his forehead.

After a quick consultation with the short-haired parent, we decided to do a very short bowl-sort-of cut. Which we did! With great speed and minimal accuracy! And when I sat Owen up on the bathroom counter to check it out in the mirror, he smiled and said, “Great!” And then when he thought I wasn’t looking, he pushed the remaining bit of hair up off his forehead and glanced wistfully at his reflection. So. Clearly that was not the haircut he was looking for.

“Are you happy with that, buddy, or should I cut it shorter?” I asked. (I do not want to cut it shorter I do not want to cut it shorter I do not—)

His whole face lit up. “Shorter! Make it short like THIS!” And he demonstrated again. So I did. I cut it short-short-short all over; it’s sort of like Dane’s hair but with more bald-ish spots and more long spots. But that’s what you get when Mama cuts the hair of a wiggly three-year-old while he sits in the bathroom sink and watches in the mirror.

He looks like an entirely different kid. Also, he tells me it’s “yelling hair.” I’m sorta hoping he forgets about that part overnight.

Abigail then decided she needed new hair, too, so she’s gone to bed with half a dozen teensy little braids. We’ll see if she keeps them in tomorrow or pulls them out to have wavy hair. Should be an exciting weekend—no one will recognize my kids. We really ought to take advantage of this rare and brilliant opportunity to conduct espionage. But I can’t think of anything specific. Oh well.

An eight-month-old who can stand up. Crib bumper or no?

I probably have a book somewhere to tell me this stuff…

November is halfway over, and what do I have to show for it? Fifteen blog posts, that’s what.

Two nights ago I kept waking up in a panic: “I didn’t blog today! Oh wait, yes I did! Back to sleep.” Super. Last night I went to bed early-ish to make up for it, and Dane almost woke me because HE was panicked: “You didn’t blog today! [click, click…] Oh wait, yes you did…” But, lo and behold, I am still in the running for German chocolates! And knit baby stuff! And illustrations of bugs! Yee haw. I also have a new nablopomo graphic in the sidebar there. (Thanks, Ryleigh!) Because you never know when you may be burnt to a crisp, and I hear that typing with crispy fingers just plain sucks.

The construction continued today; from the sound of it, they were trying to carve a new external doorway in our playroom using nothing but a hammer. Excellent. One of my kids is especially noise-sensitive and spent the whole day giggling hysterically and running into the walls. I don’t know how that helped, but it was the coping mechanism of choice.

You won’t be too surprised to hear, then, that we jumped at the chance to go babysit a two-year-old who lives a few blocks away. “You want us to come over? Now? Yeah, sure, whatever, as long as THERE ARE NO HAMMERS. I mean, yes, we’d love to come lavish attention on your toddler.” We managed to dally there until the work was done for the day. I’m thinking tomorrow will be spent at the park. Unless it rains. Either way, I’m one step closer to a fabulous and possibly illogical prize, baby.

Rainy day! We finally have a rainy day! We had rain over the weekend, but it was overnight and we didn’t get to really enjoy it. And we did get rained on a bit while we were out at a party, but it didn’t rain at our house, so that didn’t count. (For the record, we will maybe get a tenth of an inch of rain all day. Every once in a while we can see the teensy drops hitting the puddles outside; mostly it’s just gray and damp. But still! Feels rainy to us!)

We went to play at a friend’s house this morning, and now we’re hanging out with movies and books and sandwiches and other rainy day things. Maybe I’ll make popcorn! Probably not. But it’s fun to imagine. We could munch popcorn and watch a children’s video Owen discovered. Because when else are you going to hear the line “I’ll keep doing what is right, despite incarceration”? Sung, of course, because how could that NOT be part of a musical number?

(And because you’re wondering: The construction dudes are back today, despite the “rain.” Though they’ve been much quieter.)

I spent the day yelling at my kids today. I wasn’t feeling especially mean-spirited or anything, I just had to holler to be heard over the construction noise outside our house. What’s that? You didn’t know we were having construction done? Yeah, me neither. But the homeowners’ association’s construction guys seem to be replacing the trim outside our house this week.

They dropped off a letter back in September saying that they were planning to do some repairs at some time in the future, probably on a Monday through Friday between the hours of 8AM and 5PM, or possibly other days and/or times. We were told to remove all personal belongings from “the area” (though we weren’t told which area that was), because they WOULD damage anything in their way.

The letter’s right, they really will damage anything; last summer when they replaced our backyard fence, they painted our vegetable garden. Because we didn’t move it out of the way.

So today at 9AM a guy rang the doorbell to ask me to let him in to our patio area “for work.” Yeah, okay. I’m game. But first I had to run around the house dumping out bags and purses in search of the key. By the time I opened up the patio gate he was chatting on his cell phone in my driveway, so he didn’t get to it right away, but when he did, it turned out that “for work” meant “spray paint patterns on the exterior walls of the house and then disappear.”

Hours passed. I started to wonder whether I had authorized an elaborate vandalism scheme, and whether you can report vandalism when you essentially invited the spray-paint-wielding fellow in. But before I could resolve that dilemma, he returned with a whole crew and set about doing I have no idea what. It was very loud. There were saws and hammers involved. The kids watched the action through the windows (though the construction folk did not, as a group, seem to appreciate the audience). My understanding is that they’ll be back tomorrow. Which could mean any time between now and the new year, most likely during daylight hours.

Went shoe shopping today. Bought nothing. Very sad. But the Nordstrom half-yearly sale is on, so I’m thinking I may have to browse the sale shoes. Because I’m still wearing my now-pathetic flip flops all the time.

The problem with shopping is that I feel like I have to buy the absolute perfect item—and get it at a bargain price—in order to use it guilt-free. So although I encountered several OKAY pairs of shoes, I couldn’t buy any of them. This one was not pretty enough, that one not comfortable enough, and the other one only came in black when I wanted chocolate brown. Never mind the fact that ANY of them would have been better than what I’ve got now.

Oh well. Blogging: not quite as useful as therapy. But cheaper.

I woke up this morning feeling sad about the ants, picturing them shriveling up and dying alone in the walls or clumped in their nest or wherever else ants go to die. Dane tried to assure me that we took care of them for a long time; we fed them, gave them water and shelter. But it was time for us to devote our energy to more important tasks. Ant removal was the best way.

I was not entirely reassured.

Then we got in our shiny car and drove to Los Angeles for a pretty party in the rain. And when we came home, seven hours later, guess what was waiting on the kitchen counters to greet us?

If you guessed KEYS TO A NEW CAR, you’re wrong. If you guessed WINNING LOTTERY TICKET, you’re wrong. If you guessed INGREDIENTS TO MAKE DINNER, SEEING AS WE GOT HOME AT 7:00PM, you’d be wrong! And by now you’ve surely tired of guessing, so I’ll go ahead and reveal our mystery prize. It’s small, black, crawly, and follows a trail of thousands of other small black crawlies—it’s… ANTS! Coming in from a fresh new spot.

I have ceased to mourn for the ants. I’m back to wishing they were gone. And I’m pretty sure they will be, within seven to ten days. At which point I reserve the right to once again express a twinge of melancholy over their demise.