It's a Christmas Lois!

Merry Christmas everyone! I know I haven't been around for a while... there were Events and Things and Brain Surgery. But all is well now, and so we are having a great Christmas. This was our tree before Lois woke up and came out to open presents. She got up, saw that little dump truck and said "WHAT A COOL TRUCK!" and started playing with it.

Seriously. A veritable mountain of presents were there behind her, and she just wanted the truck. It was adorable. Then we went on to opening and playing with some of the other unwrapped presents.

She was entranced by the spill-proof bowl. Turning it around and around. She also loves the tea set that Hope gave her. It sings! She dances! It's a match made in heaven.

We finally got her to try and open a present! It's a Sofia the First lunch box for when she goes on expeditions.

She got this sweet piano and book from Grandma and Papa. She loves it and will carry it around then sit down randomly to play it. She went to a breakfast with Santa where there was a little toy piano that she played with too. We might have a little musician on our hands!

Moar toys and a great sleeper! She loved finding all these neat new things to play with and to wear. She may or may not have draped the sleeper over hear head and ran down the hall.

I finally got an action shot! She needed help getting the wrapping off, but she got there in the end.

Once she got the Duplo block ambulance open, she was done finding new toys. She then used the little Duplo man to open and play with everything else.

Christmas was so much fun! She has so many new friends and things to play with. Also not shown here are the dollhouse, the shopping cart, and the fridge food she got. I think she was on new toy overload. She says Merry Christmas everyone!

Procrastination is my friend. To make it less friendly, I have a new method of getting things done.

So you all know that I am in the death throes of this phd. And there are lots of things that need to be done in order to complete this degree. In order to make it clear, I made another pie chart. I may be slightly addicted to these now.

To help me manage all of these things, I have found a super awesome tool that has gamified my life. It's called Habit RPG. I love it for many reasons, which I have totally detailed in (shocked face) another pie chart along with reasons you should join too.

For example, I grabbed a screen shot of my task list a little bit earlier today. There are four columns. In order, they are Habits, Dailies, To-Dos, and things you can buy with gold/spells to cast. The colors mean different things. Blue means I've been really good at keeping up with something in the Habits and Dailies columns. The grey in the Dailies column means I've done it for that day already. The red in the To-Dos means that that has been there for a while.
When I check things off, I get xp, gold, and sometimes loot. The loot is usually in the form of pet eggs, potions, or food for the pets. It's been incredibly motivating and fun to play with. I highly recommend it for keeping yourself on track and getting things done. ESPECIALLY with all the fiddly things I need to do to make sure I get this PhD done on time. I've used it for getting results, for writing sections of papers and my dissertation, for remembering to send things to my advisor/committee members, to apply for my degree... anything you need to remember to do can be put on your list of to-dos. And then you get to check it off. AND THEN YOU GET GOLD. I mean, that is just awesome.

Like I said above, I've been recommending it to everyone. It's an open source work in progress, and the tireless volunteers are working hard to add features and fix bugs. Once I have some free time, I plan to contribute to the site. It's been that helpful.

Bonus picture of Lois and a puppy dog:

My orchid bloomed, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

Last year sometime, Jeremiah bought me an orchid. It was big and pretty and covered in blooms. I put it on my desk and appreciated the heck out of it. I think it felt my appreciation and used it in place of water because I am bad at plants.

Well all the blooms fell off eventually, as happens. The poor orchid sat, bloomless and neglected all winter. I watered it every once in a while, when I remembered.

Imagine my surprise when this happened:

The orchid made it! Who knew?! Apparently it should now bloom for most of the summer and I should repot and fertilize it in the fall. If it survives the move.

Speaking of moving, moving is contingent on graduating. And graduating is why I have grey hair. Well, actually I have grey hair because Lois seems to thing flinging herself off things is fun and games, And I think it's an exercise is mass-production for my adrenaline glands. So far, so good, she hasn't seriously hurt herself. Yet.

This is a short post because I have dissertating to do. I'm trying to get back into the habit of posting, and you may get some short posts. Short but witty. Or short and boring. I guess that's an individual thing. In other news, I saw this somewhere and I like it. Therefore I share. You are welcome.

Pie charts are my friend but I'd like them a LOT better if they were actual pie.

Reasons I have not updated this blog:

Reasons I now want to update this blog:

Also: Jeremiah hates the map song from Dora. "I'm the map, I'm the map, he's the map, he's the map, I'M THE MAP!" So just now, being the kind and understanding partner I am, I tried to get Lois to sing it. It didn't quite work... she only spend the next 5 minutes going  "Map map map map mapmapmapmap."

Jeremiah thanked me for teaching Lois a new skill. I'm not sure he was sincere.

Heard in our house this morning:

These jokes are eggsellent,

Hey! The jokes don't just lay themselves, you know!

Stop poaching my jokes!

What, scrambling for a comeback?

I've got jokes by the cartonful over here.

These jokes are just too over-easy.

That was grade-A, honey.

Something something WHITE!

Yolk, yolk, yolk.

...

You know you're jealous.

Holy crap, Laura. What's with the picture spam? Also, we went on a trip. And I made cheesecake.

Is this the camera lens, mommy? This right here?

Hello, my loyal blogstalkers! I know you all have been eagerly awaiting the next installment of As The Munchkin Turns. Well, wait no more! This edition includes a car trip to Georgia, a trip to the park, and mommy's first foray into making cheese cake.

And magnets. Because we always need more magnets, right? Right. Glad you agree.

Reddit has random gift exchanges every so often. The theme of this recent one was magnets. While I wanted to buy magnets and wrap them up all pretty and send them in a really cool box with a nifty poem, I had to face facts and realize that was just not going to happen any time soon. Especially when by "any time soon" I mean "ever before I die." So I had the magnet exchange store send my selections along: little wooden rabbits, frogs, and mustaches. They were cute, and the recipient loves the mustaches the most. Win!
My Secret Magnet Sender sent these --->
Bacon poetry magnets, an I <3 <3 the doctor, and this really great sticker. The world needs more stickers. Especially of monkeys.

Onto the good stuff: We went on a trip to Cleveland, GA. If you don't know what's there... well... join the club. I didn't know either until we got there. It's the headquarters of the Cabbage Patch Kids company.

They had some GORGEOUS flowers outside. These are them, although I don't know what they are called.

There were some bumblebees flitting around too, and it was a beautiful day. These flowers just looked so luxurious! I was tempted to take one and bring it back with me, they were so healthy-looking.

Um... I'm not sure anyone has told you, but did you know
you have broccoli sprouting from your head?

These... things were all over the lawn as we walked up to the main building. There were several varieties, with and without broccoli-hair. I thought it was odd that they weren't painted in any real way. We later saw parents sitting their kids in them for pictures and decided it was so that the kids wouldn't burn when they sat down for the pictures, but it was still really odd. On the way in to the place, on the veranda, we found these cute little baby birds. Momma came by and fed them, and they piped up and let their needs be known.



As you pass down the veranda, you come upon these doors. Beyond them (and unpictured) is a stereotypical nurse's desk with a woman dressed as a nurse behind it. You have to sign in, and if you bring in any dolls with you, they all need visitor stickers. The people who work there are all dressed in scrubs and they do not break character, treating this like a real hospital.

Yes, Warhol!

Just Chillin'

On the walls, they have a few of these Warhol paintings. It's pretty impressive, actually. I had no idea that Warhol had done these kinds of paintings, but after a moment's reflection, they made sense. They were huge parts of popular culture in the 80s.


A little further in, you find this awesome cabbage leaf chair. It is nice and roomy, big enough for the whole family to sit in!
In a fit of terribly appropriate parenting, we dressed Lois in a onsie that proudly proclaims her to be a "Little Monster." This prompted almost everyone to assume she is a boy. The line to get to sit in the chair was impressively







They also had a bunch of cute stuffed animals all over the place. I took a picture of this one specifically for my friend Tina. They had all kinda though, and a lot of them made by Ty! Not just beanie babies anymore.










Ok, so this blog post has languished in my drafts folder for a week or so. Maybe more. I am not going to have time to properly finish it, but these pictures demand the light of day! So, here they are in all their uncommented glory. And I have at least 2 more posts I want to write!