I’m watching the most recent (eighty-billion-hour-long) movie adaptation of Dickens’ Bleak House. I checked it out of the library and only have it until Saturday, so it’s a rush to the finish. I’m maybe two-thirds of the way through the story, about at the part where:

“They told me you were dead!”
“And they told ME that YOU were dead!”
“But we’re both alive!”
“And yet, we must never meet again.”
“Drat.”

Meanwhile: Evil lawyers! Misguided soldiers! Malevolent pets! Deployment! Disfigurement! Spontaneous combustion!

But questions remain: Will Ada ever marry? Will Esther? Who gets all the money?

And perhaps more importantly: Will I buy my own copy of the movie and make Dane sit through repeated screenings of the perfectly-coiffed Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock?

Stay tuned. All will be revealed. Probably.

Dear pumpkin spice latte,

You are my favorite. No, really. You are. At least until December rolls around, with its gingerbread latte and its peppermint hot chocolate. (And… isn’t there another one at Christmastime? A mocha, maybe? No? I’m not sure.)

Oh, pumpkin spice latte, at least for these fleeting fall weeks, you are my favorite. You are warm and spicy, though in all honesty not especially pumpkinny. You are tall and caffeinated, and I do not have to brew you myself. Thus do you have my undying affection.

However, I’d like to bring something up. Apparently the nightmares I had the other night? All night long, one after another—the ones I would wake up from, shaking and sweating and gasping for air? Yeah. Drinking the last few swallows of latte at eleven of the p.m. may possibly have had something to do with that little reign of (night) terror. I don’t want to use the word “fault,” but let’s just say it looks like you may have been the cause of that.

Some people would walk away. Give you up. But I have forgiveness in my heart, and I am willing to give you another chance. I just can’t see you after, say, nine o’clock at night anymore. I hope you understand.

Yours,
Melissa

Because you all know stuff I don’t, right? Stuff about blogging software? And stuff?

Okay, so here’s the question: Why do I not have date/time stamps on my posts? I mean, I know why (clearly I lack functional code to call for the date and time in my post template), but what code am I missing or have I disabled, exactly? Anybody?

And do we care if the date/time stamp appears at the top or the bottom of the post?

That was at least three questions. I can see that now. But will you answer them anyway? (And now we’re at four-plus questions. Sheesh.)

What I’m reading this week:

Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky
Happy Family, Wendy Lee
I’m Every Woman, Lonnae O’Neal Parker
Simple Sewing With a French Twist, Celine Dupuy
Alabama Stitch Book, Natalie Chanin

And a dinosaur for good measure.

How about you? What’s turning your pages this week?

You know, the funny thing about having a blog? You have to post every once in a while if you want people to validate your existence through comments; leave you comments.

I feel like I’ve been very busy around here. Very active, at least. Unfortunately most of the activity has been in the form of holding a teething baby while also trying to [fill in the blank: make lunch, read aloud, do laundry, get dressed, any other thing that you might prefer to do while not holding a fussy baby]. It’s been fun. We’ve got two bottom teeth through and visuals on a top tooth, which is a nice way of saying: we’re nowhere near done.

In not-very-related news, we finally put our furniture back in order, having rearranged it for a gathering way back on… I think the first weekend in August. Yes, I move slow. Did you not read the bit about the teething baby? (No, she has not been teething since the first weekend in August, but for a while it was kind of new and exciting to have out-of-place furniture, and then by the time I got sick of it, yes. Yes she was teething by then.)

Am I really this boring? I think maybe I am. Teething, furniture moving… yep, that’s about the sum total of the excitement of my week thus far. But hey, it’s only Thursday. The week’s not over yet. Anything could happen, and probably will! As long as by “anything” we mean “nothing much to talk about.”

ABIGAIL: Owen’s blowing kisses at me.
ME: Owen! No more kissing!

OWEN: Abigail wants me to squeeze her hand.
ME: Abigail! No more affection of any kind!

ABIGAIL & OWEN: This year, we want to have an old-fashioned-mixed-with-modern Christmas celebration.
ME: ???
DANE: No more reading craft books before bed!

ABIGAIL: For Halloween, I want to be—
ME: You can tell me in the morning.
ABIGAIL: —Michelangelo.
ME: Obviously.

I love going to the bookstore. What’s not to love, other than the gimmicky children’s books that either a) feature Caillou, or b) play obnoxious music?

If you like the Twilight Saga, look:

They have the Twilight Saga.

If you need a school story, no problem!

They have Where the Wild Things Are. Which I guess might be someone’s commentary on the first week of school.

I just have to remember not to take my eyes off Audrey for even a second, or every chair within walking distance will look like this:

The first time this happened, I thought a store employee had snuck up behind me and filled the chairs with stuffed animals as some kind of interesting display choice. Not so much. Audrey just thinks the “soft friends” prefer chairs to shelves. They don’t care much for personal space, apparently, but chairs: yes.

Alternate title: One of the Many Ways in Which I Lack Common Sense

ME: Exactly how dangerous do you think it is to use a leaky iron?

DANE: Probably not very. Unless maybe the cord was frayed or something.

ME: Well… I did accidentally iron the cord a little while ago…

And to think, I could have been ironing the cord of a brand-new-ish iron.

Kate tagged me for this one, and it’s not at all intimidating. Six unspectacular things about myself. Here goes:

1.    I don’t think I can think of six things about myself, unspectacular or otherwise.

2.    I am terrible about memes. I’m always flattered to be tagged, and then I promptly forget to do anything about it.

3.    I have a younger sister who started college this week. Art school. I also have two brothers (younger than me, older than her) and two other sisters (both younger than Owen).

4.    I’m still sick. Also tired. Sick and tired. And apparently somewhat unoriginal.

5.    I need to shop for these things: herbal salve; sewing machine attachments; corduroy fabric for fall skirts and pants, if the weather ever changes; new math books for Abigail; a refill of that mineral makeup foundation stuff; chocolate. I sound very domestic. (All of that will be online shopping, by the way. Except for the chocolate, for which I will send Dane to Trader Joe’s. Hmm, maybe I’ll have him pick up lemon tarts too.)

6.    I knew I was going to run out of things before I got to six. And half of those weren’t even really about me. What else, what else… How about this: I do not twitter. Tweet. I do not tweet on twitter. Even though everybody else does and I feel like I am totally out of the loop. Either I’m a rebel or I know I would get so tweet-happy that I would forget to eat, sleep, and bathe, and I’ve already got a baby to keep me from eating, sleeping, and bathing. So I do not need twitter for that.

Meme Terms & Conditions
1. Link the person who tagged you (Kate! Kate! It was Kate!)
2. Mention the rules on your blog
3. List 6 unspectacular things about you
4. Tag 6 other bloggers by linking them

I hereby do tag: Ryleigh, Cindy, Megan, Sari, Susan… and I’m leaving one open, in case anyone wants to nominate themselves. If you do, leave me a comment and I’ll add a link to you right here!

One of the great ironies of the common cold: The family members I’d most like to relieve of cold symptoms, are too young for over-the-counter medicines. And pulsatilla doesn’t seem to be helping.

We spent the weekend zipping from one party to another, and ended up with a head cold. All six of us. Happy three day weekend!

Sick babies and toddlers are just so pitiful, not understanding why they can’t breathe through their noses and why we insist on wiping the goo off their faces time after time after time after time. Then again, I do understand about those things, and I’m still annoyed to be sick. And if I could get away with making a sad face and having someone else carry me around slumped in their arms all day, I probably would. So maybe babies are just logical about their illness. Either way, I hope it’s a short-lived sort of illness.