holy twenty twelve.

oh my poor blog. malnourished, neglected, and feeling abandoned. i have not yet given up on posting...it just seems that since i returned to work, my blogging time is gone. literally. quantity of time and quality of time. a) there are not enough minutes in the day and b) my favorite time to write (3am) is no longer available, because i have to be sleeping in preparation for working the next day. the good news is that little pringle is suffering from none of the aforementioned neglect. on the contrary, he is thriving...well fed, adorably clothed (thanks in large part to hand-me-downs from his cousin), and infinitely loved.

pringle at the park...back when miami was still warm.

you are probably wondering how i found this time to write this post...i thought you would never ask!!! let's see, it is 4am, so the writing juices are flowing. i should be sleeping, but 45 minutes ago, a car parked almost directly below our bedroom window suddenly started honking. woke up the entire family, including the baby who had to be coaxed back to sleep. thanks to the mister for taking care of that. anyhow, being the wildly imaginative person that i am, i immediately assumed that someone had a heart attack and was face first in their steering wheel, so i called 911. of course, i am the world's most curious creature, so i stood on the balcony and waited. speaking of outside, it is 47° out there. why didn't anyone send me the memo that we would be experiencing a 40 degree temperature drop overnight?!? i have to know these things...i can't wear sandals when it is 47° outside!!! okay, back to the night's craziness. eventually a police cruiser rolled in, stopped next to the car, got out, shined his flashlight around, and apparently found nothing. after watching this mind-numbingly boring scene unfold with excruciating slowness, i finally wandered back to bed. and then my brain started writing this post. so here i am at 4 in the morning, tucked in bed and typing a post on my phone, because otherwise i will forget it. that said, my brain just turned into instant mush...like instant pudding, only without the milk..so i am abruptly going to sleep. i guess i will finish this post tonight. 

ringing in the new year...party animal.

[14 hours later]. i was a wreck today. first day back at work after the long winter recess and i was running on empty. most folks arrived at work looking refreshed from their vacation. and then there was me. rolling in at the last minute with bloodshot eyes and no tea in hand. thank goodness i teach art...otherwise spending the day with boatloads of other people's children might have been tantamount to torture. this whole, skip the caffeine for the baby's sake is starting to wear on me. seriously people, i want a gigantic cup of caffeinated coffee. alas, pringle is already a bundle of energy and i am not going to up the ante by adding caffeine into the mix. okay, so i think it is safe to say that we have a reached a point where continuing this post will take us on a long, slow, ride through my completely exhausted brain. i will spare you. you are welcome. 

and happy new year. for reals. happy new year.

movin' on down to the west side.

oopsy poopsy, i seem to have once again wandered off on an unannounced hiatus. sorry about that. i am back and with an updated dandelion design. i have been hibernating...alternating my time between the couch and the sewing machine. ain't life grand?

today the mister and i went on a "quick" shopping trip, which turned into a seven hour adventure. only us. we leave the house and something inside our brains (okay fine, my brain) snaps and we enter some sort of time warp reserved for shopping. now i am still semi-banned from shopping, but we were on a mission to find gifts to give to our friends and family when we visit lesotho. the mister has already taken care of buying the "big" gifts, but today was the day to find all the filler stuff. my territory. to stay on budget we decided to visit dollar stores, but my favorite one closed last year. my attempts to find a replacement store have been greatly hindered by my instinct for self-preservation which has prevented me from entering the seedier neighborhoods which are home to the best discount shopping experiences. so i dragged along the hubby and we found not one, but two fabulous stores.

the first one was almost too much for me. i was not sure if it was a good idea to get out of the car, but i did. once we got inside i was thrilled, because the place was a gold mine. i even found a hot pink house dress. yay! and then the announcements started. some sort of live video and audio surveillance. the voice on the loudspeaker kept saying that we were being watched live and police would respond to any suspicious behavior. and then she asked the clerk a question to which the clerk was required to respond. all of this over the loudspeakers! the mister and i were kind of dumbfounded and wondering what we had stumbled into. we took it in stride and then the announcements started again. and again. and again. we got a little paranoid that maybe we were the suspicious characters, but we persevered. and we emerged unscathed.

the next store was a doozy. a GIGANTIC store with the world's most random collection of stuff. which i suppose explains the name of the store...."stuff." no joke. once we got over the name of the store we entered and discovered that two large and noisy fans are responsible for the climate control. result...sweltering. we wandered the aisles with sweat dripping off our brows. by the end the mister was ready to melt. but we found.......MSG! whaaat? don't get me wrong, i have seen this stuff on ingredient labels my whole life..my mums is allergic to it, so naturally the name is seared in my memory...but i have never actually realized that i could purchase a bottle of monosodium glutamate. never a dull moment in a dollar store.

seven hours, three dollar stores, two kmarts, and costco = nail polish, lip gloss, perfume, pencils, socks, radios, and shoes. might not seem like much, but finding the perfect bargains is a lot of work. today's trip was glorious. total success.

hiatus.

it has become obvious in the last thirty days that i am simply unable to continue my blog-writing while i am in the midst of writing my master's thesis. so until the middle of december the pickel juices will cease to flow into the stream of brine.

happy november to the lot of yous.