Gettin' my geek on

I'm sure the general sogginess of southeast Minnesota and south central Wisconsin is news to no one by now. But I have to get my geek on and revel in the hydrology for a moment. Although there is one day left in August, the forecast is for no rain for a change, so I will go out on a limb and assume that things won't change today or tomorrow. First up, daily precipitation for the month:

I would like to point out that prior to August 4th, we were having drought conditions...dead lawns, watering restrictions, the works. Since then we have had rain almost every day (about half the days that look like zero on the chart actually showed a trace of precip). And may I point out that 1/2-inch of rain is a decent amount (ten days of the month if you include the 27th with 0.48 in) and three of those days over a half an inch set record daily rainfall amounts (3.39", 2.13", and 3.20" on the 18th, 19th, and 22nd, respectively).

So what do a lot of wet days add up to? A VERY soggy month:

The line shows the cumulative rainfall to date for each day of the month and the blue arrows highlight some interesting monthly totals for the Madison airport. From top to bottom, they are

• Average monthly rainfall for August = 4.33 in
• Record monthly rainfall for August = 9.49 in (set in 1980)
• Record monthly rainfall for any month = 10.93 in (set in July1950 and based on over 100 years of data)
• Total for August 2007 = 14.88 in
  

Fortunately, our apartment is located where flooding hasn't been a problem, though there have certainly been some impressive flooding in our county and in the surrounding areas. Our problems have been limited to too much indoor time since everything has been staying wet all the time and a bumper crop of mosquitoes. Fortunately, today is lovely and the forecast for the next few days is sunny and clear, so the mud may dry up and we might get a little outdoor time if the skeeters don't eat us alive!

We will return to our regularly scheduled kids and knitting content shortly...mostly depending on little brother's plans (we are officially at the "could be any time now" stage) and my general crankiness/will-to-live level (see "could be any time now").

Farmer's Market Supper

Although we haven't been visiting Farmer's Market as regularly as last year, due to the combination of weather and Mama's will to live waxing and waning hourly, I have started trying to do Farmer's Market supper on Thursday night when we do go. Last week, we bought some zucchini, green pepper, onion, and garlic and made a stir fry with a little bit of beef we had had hanging out in the freezer (you know the type...too much to throw away, not really enough to make a main course). This week, we decided go with scrambled eggs and toast. I got the eggs from one of my local fiber pushers (I got my drop spindle at one of the events she holds at her farm last fall) and yes, two of those eggs are green! She only gets a few green ones, but she found a box with two since the kids were delighted by green eggs! Ummmm...I'm drooling for dinner already! We also sprang for a bag of squeaky cheese curds to eat with our supper. After all, this IS Wisconsin.

While we had our Farmer's Market treat (cookies and/or bars from the same place we got our bread from), Bean built a "snowman" out of the bark chips on the ground. Clearly, she has the polar bear genes that dominate her maternal line! Further confirmation is that after we got home, she announced in very somber tones that her snowman had "burned down." I'm thinking the two of us just need to set up residence in the frozen foods aisle of the local grocery store and be done with it.

Pictures

Yeah, yeah...I never did get around to posting any vacation pictures, but my dad has been working on editing and putting them together into a slide show right now. He sent this one to me and I just HAD to post it...

It is Bug playing with an interactive water display at the A.C. Gilbert Children's museum in Salem, OR and the group just captures Bug at four so well...intense, serious, curious, engaged, and, well, goofy as a loon and always making me chuckle. He is so like this whenever he plays...he takes the "work" of childhood very seriously...not that he doesn't have a lot of fun in the process, too.

Next up is birthday fluff. Kitty Daddy and the kids got me a gift certificate to the LYS near where KD works, so I combined some birthday money and went sock-happy. Some red, orange, and yellow socks with orange heels and toes. There should be enough of the heel and toe yarn left to make a pair of kid socks, too.

This is my other score, the color isn't great in the picture...it's more of a darker burgandy color, not nearly as bright purple as the picture shows. Since I have big feet (size 10!), 50 g socks tend to have fairly short cuffs, so I splurged on two 100 g skeins. That way I can have some socks that are a bit longer than anklets and probably get a pair of kid socks, too (can you say "fourth sock syndrome????)

Other than that we have been having rain, rain, and more rain. After being very dry...brown lawns, watering restrictions, and the whole nine yards...August has been just soggy. We are already past 10.25" for the month and both yesterday and the day before set records for precipitation amounts (2.13" and 3.39", respectively). The bright side is that things are much cooler, but the cool weather has come at a price of constant damp, a bumper crop of mosquitoes, near-constant flash-flood warnings, and an ever-increasing case of cabin fever.

And a couple of gratuitous kid pics. We have been looking through baby pictures in preparation for little brother's arrival. Here is Bug at one day with Daddy...

and Bean at three days old, tucked under Mama's arm...


ETA: Late Breaking news on the Rain front...I found this in a Special Weather Statement issued mid-afternoon on the 20th:

... Record August rainfall set in Madison...

Up through 1 PM CDT today... 10.50 inches of rain has fallen so far
in August at Truax field in Madison. This breaks the old record for
the month of August... which was 9.49 inches back in 1980.

10.50 inches also makes this the 4th wettest month ever in Madison.
Below is the list of heaviest calendar months in Madison history:

Jul 1950 10.93
may 2004 10.84
Sep 1915 10.69
Aug 2007 10.50 (so far)

Obviously, with 11 more days in the month and a wet pattern... it is
possible that August 2007 will become the wettest month ever in
Madison WI history.

From noon CDT Saturday August 18th to noon CDT Sunday August 19th
5.00 inches fell... which is the 3rd highest rainfall recorded in any
24 hour period at Madison.

In addition... records suggest that August 18th and 19th... with 5.52
inches of rain measured... was the 2nd wettest two day period in
Madison history. The wettest 2 day period is 5.79 inches set on may
31st and June 1st 2000.

Dude, the hydrologist in me is digging this...the tired, pregnant lady with the stir-crazy kids, not so much so.

Ugh.

Yeah, I'm still here, but I have been nurturing my inner hermit. We have had a rough couple of weeks. The weather has been pretty typical August yuck...hot and unbearably humid, which is my least favorite weather. Add waddling, uncomfortable, and toes in my ribs and we are all working on a bit of cabin fever because I just can't bear to leave the house. We do manage to go swimming when we can, but the yucky weather has also been unsettled and stormy, so we have to skip the pool on those days.

In addition, we had to say goodbye to our little, orange Kitty Man last Friday. He hasn't been eating well since we got back from vacation in early June, which we attributed to the stress of us being gone and the hot weather, but he just kept losing weight. By the time we got him in to see the vet, his liver was in bad shape and he went downhill quickly. He was a sweet, affectionate (in a pathological, can't-take-no-for-an-answer kind of way) boy and will be missed. It's amazing that someone so little and orange can leave such a big hole.

Kitty Man (1998-2007)

Bulky Butttock Muscles

A couple of weeks ago, we got three books about the body from the library and it turns out that Bug is fascinated by the whole thing (as evidenced by his nude kidney lectures of a couple of weeks back). We are on our second book now and read about muscles a couple of nights ago. Unfortunately, it was at the end of a long day and the phrase "bulky buttock muscles" pushed all the giggle buttons. Poor little dude almost fell out of bed, he was giggling so hard. Of course, since Kitty Daddy was reading his own book nearby, I'm afraid the phrase was repeated by both of us quite a few times, as watching him collapse in giggles was as amusing to us as "bulky buttock muscles" was to him.

When we were at the library on Friday, they had some watercolor paints out and Bug and Bean made some masterpieces. Bug painted a picture of bodies, inspired by our reading. The cute part was that he was telling me about it and was identifying the "body parts" using nonsense words. It made sense to me, since "coccyx," "mandible," "maxilla," and "phlanges" probably sound like complete nonsense to him. Incidentally, I know where all those bones are (at least for the moment)! To appreciated the impressiveness of that, I need to point out that, even though I am married to a nurse, I have long been pretty icked out by much of biology and the parts that don't ick me out (like plants or classification) slide off my brain like eggs on teflon...I would take chemistry or physics over bio any day. So I'm enjoying my biology "expertise" while I can...just don't ask me to identify bones a month from now. Unless Bug is still on his body kick.

No tan lines for you!

The heat and humidity have been gradually creeping up, which means my general will to live have been gradually sagging down, so I haven't blogged even though we have been doing some fun things. We'll go backwards...

Yesterday was pretty quiet except for a quick dip in the apartment swimming pool to try and cool off. We were mostly recovering from our Tuesday play date. Okay, actually, it was just me recovering...

On Tuesday, we went to a play date with a friend of mine who was taking care of her three-year-old niece for the day (aka "Mommy's bren with the little knees"...it took me the longest time to figure out why Bug was fixating on her knees...duh, niece!) We walked to their "close park" and played for a while and then played in the little plastic kiddy pool in her yard. For my little water sprites, it was heaven. When we got back from the park, Bug jumped in fully dressed, so I managed to rescue his clothes so they could lie in the sun to dry and let him play in his already soaked underpants. I managed to get Bean down to her diaper, but as I turned to grab the diaper bag and get out a swim diaper, she was already out of her diaper and in the pool. As long as my friend and her neighbors weren't offended by the nudist, I just shrugged and gave it up as a lost cause. Bean had a ball. Since then, when we get dressed in the morning, as soon as I get her jammies and diaper off, she announces "I bwee! (I'm free)." She is a little lady who loves her nakies! The good news is that we didn't wind up with a sun-burned butt. I obviously didn't think to put any sunscreen there before we went!

On Sunday, we went to Greek Fest at the local Greek Orthodox Church. Lots of very yummy food...both Kitty Daddy and I are big Greek food fans! And very decadent pastries (including baklava) for dessert! They also had live music and dance demonstrations. We fully expected Bean to be letting her inner Zorba out, but she must have been tired, because she mostly zoned out rather than shaking her groove thing.

On Saturday, we drove to Milwaukee to visit Kitty Daddy's dad. It was a pretty low key road trip...we just drove over, grabbed some lunch together and then spent some time at a neighborhood park. We had toyed with going to either the Milwaukee zoo or the Waukesha county fair, but between admission and parking, we decided it wasn't worth it with two littles with short attention spans and one waddling mama who doesn't like to be on her feet very long. We ended up having a very nice time at the park. The kids played with Grandpa and thought it was a great tragedy when we had to leave!

Mama and Little Brother have been having some differences in opinion over real estate. After some negotiations, we came to an agreement that my stomach is his, as well as my bladder. I get uninterrupted access to my fingers and toes. After getting that settled, apparently he has invited an invisible friend to live with him as he has been spending all of his time completely to the right of my belly button. If I don't concentrate, I tend to walk in circles from being lopsided. Less than two months to go...seven and a half weeks based on due date, but I'm trying not to get too hung up on that as Bug was early and Bean was late...

FO: Baby Kimono

Specifications
Yarn: Blue Sky Organic Cotton, Bernat CottonTots for Trim
Needles:Denise Interchangeables, size 7
Pattern: Baby Kimono from Mason-Dixon Knitting. Used stockinette instead of the ubiquitous M-D garter stitch, also added a crochet edging and made crocheted ties instead of using ribbons.
Verdict: Other than the fact that I suck at seaming, this is a great baby knit! It was very easy and turned out very cute! As usual, when looking at tiny baby clothes, it blows my mind that they make people that small. Of course, I am used to looking at my big hulking four-year-old and two-year-old and still thinking "baby."

Since we were out running a couple of errands on the west side this morning before going to the library, we stopped in to Best Buy and got a card reader, so I am back in the picture business. It's a little mini one, so I'm going to have to figure out how to keep from losing it, but it was only $15, so if I get a new camera someday that uses a different kind of card, I won't be too heartbroken!

And, because I can, gratuitous kid pics:

Bug's new favorite hobby. Being fascinated by pulling a t-shirt up over the top of one's head must be a four-year-old thing. I don't get it, but he's happy.

And Bean, because if I take a picture of Bug, she wants to see herself on the camera screen too.

Fellow Bloglines users...

I'm just curious..last night Bloglines belched and updated a bunch of feeds that I hadn't been getting updates on and reposted a whole bunch of stuff for blogs that have been updating. I occasionally get a bunch of back posts on one or two, but between the new ones and the reposts I had around 200 unread threads this morning (I usually have less than 30 if I am keeping up-to-date). Anyone else get this too, or am I just lucky?

Tragidal!

That's Bug's pronunciation of the word "tragical," which, for a drama-prone four-year-old, is essential vocabulary. We are always in the midst of some tragedy or another, but now Mama is the one with the tragedies!

Tragedy, the first: Near misses with the Yarn Harlot. In late May/early June, we were in the Portland, OR area. We left early Wednesday morning to return home and while we were driving, the Harlot was appearing at Powell's Books in downtown Portland. In my finest display of stoicism, I sucked it up and accepted the fact that sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles (or the vacation schedules work out). So, a couple of days ago, I was blog reading at Chez Harlot and there were new tour dates listed. My eyes immediately picked out the word "Madison" from the list. I clicked the link to see the tour schedule and skimmed through the list until I found the word "Madison" and, lo and behold, it was positioned squarely next to my birthday! At this point, I was wavering between complete hysterics and wanting to maintain a little grown-up dignity (and not frighten the children), when I get smacked between the eyes with two little letters following "Madison": Dude, they looked way more like "CT" than "WI." Fer cryin' out loud, our Madison is over ten times bigger than their Madison. No stinkin' fair!

Tragedy, the second: Related to the recent laptop tragedy, I have discovered that I haven't the slightest clue where the USB cable for my digital camera is. My laptop had the right size memory card slot built in (well, still has, but only in the sense that a rock with the right size slit would have a memory card slot built in), so I would pop the card from camera to laptop and copy pics and off we go. Well, the desktop has no such slot. I even have a new FO picture in my camera. *sigh* I need to either find the stinkin' cable or invest in a card reader. Until then, a pictureless blog, I'm afraid.

Tragedy, the third: My lace shawl has continued to grow and is rapidly reaching the point where a single round has 1000 stitches! It is a little demoralizing to knit and knit and knit and discover than I can't mark off any rows finished! Fortunately, the chart I am working on is worked four times per round and has a central 34-stitch repeat and edges that only grow to about 50 stitches before another central repeat is added, so there are LOTS of stitch markers, so it remains pretty easy to pick up and put down frequently. Besides, now that I am on the fourth time through the chart, I am familiar enough with it that I only have to look at it at a few key points rather than slogging along one stitch at a time like I did at first.

Okay, so maybe these tragedies don't compete with stuff like human rights violations or world hunger, but dang, I'm 31-1/2 weeks pregnant, it's hot and humid, and I'm tired. Cranky is about the best I can manage on a good day! I feel entitled to a little drama. Hah! I'll do my best to get back to cute kids and knitting stuff again, though. Meanwhile, I promised said kidlings that we would go to Farmer's Market this afternoon, so I had better go round up shoes (and shorts for Bean) and deliver...

And I shouldn't forget to add that Kitty Daddy appreciated the well-wishes and sympathy! The stone is out and, as is inevitable when general nurseness and Y-chromosomes are combined, he took it to work to show it off to his co-workers the next morning. As a non-medical-professional and a female, I just roll my eyes. We happen to have a book about the human body out of the library, so we found the page with kidneys and talked about Daddy's owie. Since then, both kids like to pull out the library book and explain the whole situation. Bean's two-year-old interpretation is absolutely hilarious, if a bit difficult to understand. Bug's explanation is clearer, but last night after his bath he didn't want to get dressed, so he got the book out and explained it all to Daddy. Between the four-year-old earnestness of delivery and the nudity, Daddy had to work pretty hard not to crack up!

No good deed goes unpunished

We had an unusually productive weekend (read boring if you are a small person). Since it was cooler than it has been, we got motivated and cleaned out our rental storage unit. When we move last September, a lot of boxes that had been in our garage at the old apartment (and unopened since we left Iowa) we just shoved willy-nilly into the storage unit. If we needed something, it was almost impossible to find anything and pretty much every time we tried, something fell over. So on Saturday, we took everything out and organized like crazy. Some stuff, like my journals and work files were put way in back, since I'm not likely to need them soon. Other stuff, like the Christmas decorations that never actually surfaced last December were put together and left more accessible toward the front. We found all the crib parts, so we can get them out before too long and sidecar it to our bed. The kids got bored, even though we brought the trike and wagon for them to play with, but we got done anyway.

On Sunday, we did our usual house cleaning and then cut Kitty Daddy's and Bug's hair out on the back patio, since we desperately needed to clean up the patio. Our unit got new windows on Friday, but the replacement process left a heck of a mess, especially on the back patio. The windows are a grand improvement and will hopefully make a difference in heating costs next winter! As an aside, the widows each had a label that said, "This fenestration unit complies [with some gobble-de-gook]." Seriously? "Fenestration Unit"???? I still snort and roll my eyes when I walk by one of the said fenestration units. Can you see it? "Dear, it's getting warm in here...could you go open the fenestration unit?" Anyhoo...it did give me the opportunity to recall one of my favorite words: defenestration, which is the act of throwing someone or something out a window.

In spite of the fact that it was cooler than average, it appears that Kitty Daddy overdid things and didn't stay hydrated, as he wound up in the ER this morning with a kidney stone. Not fun, but last I heard, he was getting good drugs. That did put the kibosh on my day's plan, which was to get both cranky, overtired kids down for a nap, come hell or high water, because you know the minute one or both FINALLY falls asleep, we will need to go pick Daddy up! Just for the record, I'm not trying to compare the magnitude of my personal nap tragedy with the unpleasantness of a kidney stone. I wouldn't trade with him for the world. Of course, if I had been the one to overexert this weekend, it would have probably involved a NICU instead of a kidney stone, so I am extra appreciative!