Hide and seek

I spent about six hours on Sunday watching Anna, our friends' two-year-old. I was initially concerned that there is nothing in my house to entertain a child, so they brought lots of toys and games and puzzles for her to play with. In the first half-hour, she had been through it all. We took another approach and the time flew by.

We went on a walk. We went to the playground. She chased Lucy around the house (and Lucy chased her). She ate dinner--and I forgot how long it takes for a kid to do that. She fed Lucy dinner. Can you sense a pattern?

The final 45 minutes of the evening were spent playing hide-and-seek. Anna and I would hide and Chad would come find us. (Usually Lucy found us first, but that's beside the point.)

Once Anna figured out how this worked, she was very in to the game. Every time we'd be found, she would scream, "Hide AGAIN!" On our final mission, I let her hide by herself. She wasn't terribly difficult to locate. Here's what it looked like:

Valentine's Day on a budget

I spent most of my week talking about Valentine's Day (and, appropriately, spent most of the week wearing pink or red, except for Wednesday when the Today Show called and I was wearing all black--oops). Even though I've never been the world's biggest Valentine's Day fan, it was much more fun to talk about than the dismal holiday season.

My favorite segment that came out of this week is below. As you can imagine, this reporter was absolutely hilarious to work with.

Valentine's Day dinner

Instead of going out to dinner for Valentine's Day, we're making dinner at home.

The plans were made earlier this week: Chad is in charge of the appetizer and main course and I have the sides and dessert. We're having scallops to start, sea bass for our main course (yum), and for sides we're having millet (a new favorite that my doctor recommended) and asparagus.

For dessert we're having a hot fudge pudding cake. I've not made this before and I'm excited to try it. The cute little Valentine's Day cookies I made a few weeks ago during our decorating disaster have been eaten, and I have vowed not to make them again. Or at least not for a very long time.

A diet I can get behind

While thumbing through a magazine last night, I read an article that says the average woman is actually gaining weight by not getting enough sleep. It says sleep deprivation "wreaks havoc on hormones that control appetite, cravings and the metabolism of fat." Several studies were cited which indicate that people who are tired eat more and crave more junk food.

My own personal theory is that if you're sleeping more, you're awake less to raid the fridge. It's easy to skip that midnight snack if you've been in bed for two hours. But the "scientists" didn't check that out, so it didn't make it into the story.

Anyway, they tested this theory out on five women of different sizes and ages, asking them not to make any lifestyle changes (eating better, working out more, etc.) but to commit to 7.5 hours of sleep per night. The result? They all lost inches and most of them lost weight. This is a diet I can really get behind.

When the alarm went off this morning at 5:00 after a meager six hours of sleep, it was all I could do not to tell Chad that I was going to skip the gym and just lose weight while I slept. That really would be heaven.

Just in time for Cupid

Thanks to Janice for sending me the picture of this cute little calf, who was born a few weeks ago in Japan. Here is the picture and the caption from Yahoo.


Nineteen-day-old ox 'Heart,' born with a heart-shaped marking on his forehead, relaxes at Yamakun farm in Fujisawa, near Tokyo, Japan, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009. Kazunori Yamazaki, 51-year-old farm owner, said, "Good timing for Valentine's Day."

If I did not have a dog already, I would consider making Heart my new pet.

What's wrong with this picture?

I subscribe to an email listserve of several thousand homes in our neighborhood. It's a valuable resource where people share recommendations on everything from restaurants to dentists to churches, post questions or tips on childcare and home improvements, complain about people who don't pick up after their pets, inform neighbors about "suspicious activities," etc. The listserve has become extremely valuable to me and, in fact, it's where we got our roofer, our auto body shop, and our accountant.

Sometimes, though, the posts just crack me up. Let me preface this by saying that some of the people in our neighborhood live in very nice houses and have quite a bit more money than we do. Still, how out-of-touch is this person?

We are changing our decor and no longer have a place for the 1920s Camelback sofa we bought from Random Harvest a couple years ago and had upholstered with fabric from Mastercraft Interiors - blue and white stripes with a thin gold line accent. The sofa was located in a room that doesn't get much traffic so it is practically like new, probably used (sat on) less than half a dozen times. Photos are attached. We paid $1,980 for the sofa + $878 for the fabric + $395 for the upholstery labor for a total of $3,253 but are willing to sell for much less. Contact if interested.

I honestly did not know that it was possible to spend so much money on an ugly couch. If, in the unlikely event I was going to spend $3,200 on a sofa, I'd be sure it was comfortable, attractive and something I'd use more than "half a dozen" times!

Office Space

Maybe it's because it feels like Spring or I can finally take a breath after the holiday season or I'm bringing my initiative to de-clutter at home into work. Regardless, I got in the mood yesterday to clean my office. Here's a rundown:

Bye-bye to the backlog: I threw away hundreds of old issues of magazines and newspapers that were either so great I "needed" to save them or that I had never gotten around to reading. Good intentions aside, it's not like I've got enough free time these days to pick up a BusinessWeek from November 2008. I threw away so much stuff, they brought me something on wheels that was about the size of the trunk of a car and I filled it all up.

Giveaways: I returned an ethernet cord, a meetings magazine, a newsletter about port traffic, six years' worth of Annual Reports, and four giant white binders to their rightful owners. And put a tin of cinnamon-covered pecans that I received from a company for Christmas in the kitchen for anyone to enjoy.

So-that's-where-it's-been moment: I found two pairs of gloves, a white cardigan, and a jar of peanut butter in the confines of my desk drawers. And there are three pairs of flip-flops under my desk that I know about (haven't cleaned there yet).

Most humiliating find: A pair of dusty shoes abandoned by the person who had this office before me. She's been gone for two years. (Since then, she has moved to Italy, gotten her master's degree in fashion, and come back!) I called her up and was like, "Umm...Megan...pretty sure I found some old boots of yours because they're not my size." She came down and picked them up. Can you tell I don't do this often?

Why I'll always be a pack rat: When I was at my first job out of college--so, yes, nine years ago--I got a radio for Christmas that I could play in my office. About two years ago (right after the Bears lost the Super Bowl, specifically), it stopped working. I tried everything short of taking it to an electrician to get it to work again. But since I felt badly getting rid of it, I put it on the top of a cabinet where it has stayed. Yesterday, I took it out to--sadly--throw it away. I decided to plug it in just one more time...and it worked! How can I ever abandon anything again?!?