After breakfast, we volunteered to wrap presents at the Holiday Market to raise money for Womanspace.  Owen's  Uncle Timmy came by to spend time with him and took him to listen to music while angiela_la and I wrapped.  Tim came back with Owen asleep on his shoulder.  He was in complete love with him at that point.  The Boy snoozed until the end of our shift then had a bite to eat.



We showered off and went to a friend's housewarming party down in Cottage Grove.  In addition to a handy-dandy Home Depot gift card, we gave them some of the hard cider I made from the Apple Pressing party. We had a small taste test after I told them that I hadn't actually tried this batch yet.  Came out rather good.  Light, dry and a wee bit apple-y.



We came home, had dinner, and goofed off for the rest of the night.















Anyone ever have issues with their kid just floating away by sheer cute-osity?  Me too.







Feet firmly planted on the ground.  (Atticus destroyed that ball minutes after we brought it home.)







Group hug with my favorite boys!







I just finished reading ALL of the American Elf.  I really wanna do a diary comic (comic diary?) now too.  James Kochalka is bitchin'.

I've been "nudged" again, (thanks to karinablack ) so it's time for me do one of my "I know I haven't been writing, but here's what I've been upto" posts.



So I've been unemployed for over a month now.  To be perfectly honest, I'd sort've hoped that the jobs would be beating a path to my door, but it turns out not to be the case.  Rabid conceit?  Probably.  I've done a wee bit of tentative searching here and there, but nothing concrete or appealling has surfaced.  This month I plan on putting those attempts closer to the front of my chores.  I think I'm going to looking to "continuing education" though the employment department.  Maybe I can gain some skills in my "downtime."  I'm enjoying the time off from the rat race, but I'm certainly ready to get back to work.  Someone should hire me.  I'm a great employee.  I'm fairly intelligent, I work well with (most) people and I genuinely enjoy working.  Dagnabbit.



I spend my days and some nights with 0_dub now.  While I feel incredibly fortunate to be with him so much during this time of his life, I do crave the company of adults at times (anyone else running around with or without a kid during the day?).  But just because I'm a messed up contrary person, I haven't been feeling very social these days and when I do, it's for short periods of time.  The time with Owen is well-spent though.  We go swimming at the heated-saltwater pool at the Tamarack Wellness Center, we go to parks when the weather permits and spend time at the library (checking out books and puppets, while socializing), we also went to a "baby gym" called Gymboree, did some xmas shopping and generally keep busy.  In addition to all the fun stuff, I've apparently turned into Mr.Mom.  I'm a laundry-doing, dishwashing, vacuuming, waffle-making, dinner cooking fiend these days.  I put up a wiki, customized it and then promptly broke it (I "lost" the login links after skinning it.)  I started prepping for a revamped classic D&D module, I'm going to GM.



The holidays have been, and will likely continue to be, tough for my family now that it's broken.  Owen lives part time with me and part time with his mom, onewhohugstrees.  She andangiela_la do not get along very well (meaning "not at all") so while Denise chose to spend Thanksgiving with us, I suspect that xmas isn't likely to follow suit since her parents will be visiting.  This means that Owen will be having seperate holidays with his mom and dad.  Just like my brother and I did for most of our lives.  I'm still holding out hope that time will help smooth over some of the rough edges. 

Owen is so helpful with laundry.

Hmmmm ... Since I'm not working, what should The Boy and I do today?

So, I'm officially unemployed now.



I haven't not had a job in about 15 years.  It's unsettling.  I didn't realize the extent to which having a job brings focus and stability to my life.  I likely just took it for granted since I've been working since I was about 16.  I feel sort of adrift.



I have some consulting and contract work lined up in the near future.  I thought I might just take a couple weeks to myself and hang out with The Boy and work on my website (aka learn some stuff), then try to land another regular paying gig. 



I've always wanted to do a webcomic and even taught myself how to ink and color a friend's drawings as mine were lacking.  Anyone have a good idea for one?



I'm trying not to feel panicky and/or depressed.  I'll just keep running and exercising regularly and keep busy.  My elbows have been aching like crazy when I work out though.  I've had to take a handful of days off to give them a break.  I just need to pay attention so I notice when those sneaky tendrils of anxiety start to creep in.  I need some new music to distract me.



I bought my linux work machine from my old workplace (and my laptop, but it's Windows XP).  It's running Debian 4.0 Etch, but needs to have the kernel rebuilt because I did and apt update right after the stable branch changed to Etch and my repositories didn't explicitly say to use Sarge.  Oops.  It took my about 7 hours with a sysadmin to get that straightened out.  An ex-coworker, whose last day was the same as mine, has offered to walk me through the process.  Looking forward to that.  My previous job allowed me to embrace my inner-geek and  learn a bunch of stuff from genuinely smart people.  So I'm grateful and all that.





Sorry for the poor quality, but they're taken with my phone.



This one is a few months old. Taken at a nearby park (Monroe Park for you locals).