Bibs and bobs.

Today's the kind of day for lists. I'm making lists. This one can be my list of notable, blog-worthy mentionables from the recent past. I won't publish my other lists. They'd bore you to tears.

* American Girl. As mentioned, we took another trip to American Girl, my sister, niece, mother, and I. Maria has been begging to go since November, so it was time to finally give in and go. She had birthday and Christmas (and grandma and mommy) money to burn! I got there about five minutes or so before the doors to the store opened, and you would not have believed the line to get inside. Girls from ages 4 through 12, either in groups or alone, with their parents, grandparents, or family, some dressed to the nines in their party best (likely to go to a birthday party inside in one of the party rooms), and some looking like they just rolled out of bed, but all so, so, so excited to be at American Girl. Many were being asked, "Can you believe you are actually here?" And many answering, "It's a dream come true!" All were in awe of the window display of Kanani, the 2011 girl of the year, who is Hawaiian and surfs with the dolphins, or some other such talent. Maria, who arrived with my mother and her mother a few minutes after the doors opened, did not have time to stop and stare at Kanani's window display; the excitement of getting in the store and getting her own Kanani in her own hands were just too much to bear. Maria had her Kanani fever satiated early into the visit with her bee-line to the Kanani display, but Lani, the one of Maria's American Girl dolls that she decided to bring with her that day, had her own needs to satisfy. Lani joined us because she had to get a pair of glasses (she's been having vision problems of late), and had to have her hair combed and styled (Maria can't get her to do anything with her hair). Plus, Lani had been begging, just begging, for her ears to be pierced like her mother's and her sister Kit's. And all of Lani's wishes came true - glasses to correct her vision, lovely hair, and a pair of earrings. American girl is truly a magical place.

* Quilt. I'm on the final phase of my quilt! My aunt and mother came up one Sunday to help me get more of my quilting done, but turns out that I had made more progress on quilting the squares than any of us had thought. Which meant that in no time my mother and aunt had quilted the final few of the squares and we were left to prep the quilt to be bound. Prepping it involved cutting off the excess material from the edges of the quilt and removing all 8,000 of the pins that we had used to keep it together. I bought the material I need for the binding, and now I just have to cut that, sew all of that together into one, long strip, and somehow figure out how to sew the strip on. In truth, the binding is the part of the quilt that I am looking forward to the least. I have this book that tells me how I should bind my quilt, but I had in my head a different way of doing it, something much less complicated, but also much less proper. I am currently debating (with myself) which way to do it, and I'm leaning towards the proper way, but that way involves more measuring, more advanced sewing techniques, and it makes me a little nervous. Which means I may procrastinate on this. Which means I may not get this done before summer like I had thought I could!

* Bibs. I'll be making more bibs soon. One of these days. I've got the material ready to be cut, so now I just have to sit down and cut it and sew it. Who are these bibs for, you may be wondering? Two girls I used to work with at Bain Capital. One is due the first week of April and the other is due the first week in June. I had planned to make them bibs when I first learned that they were pregnant, so I decided to not let something like me not working with them stop me from making them baby gifts. Plus, it gives me more practice. It's like riding a bike - if you haven't done it in a while you won't forget how to do it, necessarily, but you will certainly be rusty.

* Working overnight. I did it. I did my first overnight shift at Lamont, and I survived. I really had very little problem with staying awake while I was actually at work (only started to have the eyes get heavy around 7:20am, coincidentally while I was trying to work on an Excel spreadsheet), but the drive home was tough. I was fine until about Needham, about ten-fifteen minutes from home, but at that point I just started to fall asleep. Like, really fall asleep. Eyes closing, driving the car into the other lane or towards the curb... you know, those kinds of things. So that wasn't good. But the night itself was not bad at all. I got to watch the sunrise from the window in my office, and I was amazed at a) the number of people in the building, and b) how fast the time went by. I was able to sleep for about 5 hours after I finally got home, but definitely went to bed early that night. So even though it took me about a full day to recover, it was doable, and I might even do it again, voluntarily, before the end of the semester. It breaks up the routine, you know?

* Maine. Doug and I went to Maine on Saturday to celebrate our three-year anniversary (our actual anniversary day, the 16th, was pretty uneventful, as weekday anniversaries tend to be, it seems). We drove around some, and then stopped to get out of the car to enjoy the crisp, Maine winter scenery. We stopped at Back Cove in Portland to try to do the Back Cove Trail, but the trail was alternately a sheet of ice and a mud puddle, so we gave up after a short way around. But, I got a photo of Doug with a smile on his face, so that was a plus. (Yes, that was a smile.) After we gave up on Back Cove, we headed over to the Gilsland Farm in Falmouth, of the Main Audubon Society, which was more difficult walking conditions - again, either completely frozen over and a sheet of ice, or snow about a foot and a half deep. We were a little more successful here, but only marginally so, so we gave up after getting another photo of Doug with a smile. This time his smile is a little more recognizable.

After Gilsland Farm, we grabbed some food in downtown Portland and then just sort of meandered about. We found our way to the top of Portland, overlooking the airport, and I captured a nice shot of the Portland sunset. That would have been a great way to end our anniversary day, except that we had the privilege of eating Haggarty's with Chris, Chris and Ruby (and Lu and Stu), and realized, yet again, that there is nothing more satisfying than good company and good conversation. Not even beautiful sunsets.