Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Green shoots

Daffodils

If you squint, you could convince yourself it's spring. The sun has been shining (some of the time, anyway); bulbs are poking up in the garden; it hasn't been as cold (except on the days when it has).

The onset of possible spring is making me think about plans for the future: short-term ones like knitting projects, and more life-changing ones like moving house and the Baby Question. Only I need to get the Thesis done before I can really think about any of these. I think I maybe need to take some time off work and grind away at it - I have two days a week to do it in, but somehow I never manage to get as much done as I think I am going to.

Not a lot else is happening here at the moment. We went out to lunch with my parents and Granny for Mothers' Day, which was lovely. We'd really celebrated it the week before (since my sister and brother were both away for the actual day) but can you celebrate mothers too thoroughly? Of course not.

A man and his dish

J's big news this week is that he has bought a digital satellite receiver. He speaks German fluently and is fond of watching German free-to-air TV, but has hitherto been doing this through an elderly Sky box without a card, which isn't ideal. This new box is very clever, and among other things will receive signals from two different satellites without getting confused, so he can watch either UK television or German through the same box.

This means, of course, that he will need two dishes, one to point at each satellite. He has one in our back garden at the moment (see above) but I happen to know there's another one squirreled away under the stairs. Maybe our (hypothetical) new house needs a bigger back garden.

The other snag is that the new box needs an update to its software before it will receive German HD channels, and he is a bit anxious about installing this. Fingers crossed. (This all seems like quite a lot of trouble to go to to watch *The Simpsons* dubbed into German...)

I received a request a little while ago for a combined picture of my sock monkey with a guinea pig. Here you go, Loth's Second Born - will this do?

Sock monkey and Cupcake

J has decided that the monkey's name is "Mrs Monkey". I will shortly be making a Mr Monkey to keep her company, so I expect more sock monkey photographs will be forthcoming.

In other news, I only have one week left of yoga. According to the yoga teacher, I am the only person who's been every week. Unfortunately I still can't do the Half Vinyasa. Perhaps I need more practice...

5 comments:

Thimbleanna said...

Oh man...would you please hurry up with that thesis? Since my kids aren't handling the BIG question yet, you definitely should be -- between your mother and I, one of us should be a grandma by now, don't you think? (No pressure or anything, LOL!)

J looks very happy with his new equipment -- as does the pig! I don't know what a half vinyasa is, but it sounds like you might need the dexterity of Mrs. Sock Monkey to achieve it.

Good to see you back posting!

Rachel said...

Yay for you going every week! You're a yoga teacher's dream!!!

Rosemary Riveter said...

Hello fellow thesis warrior! This is so funny, I psyched myself up to go talk to my internship supervisor about cutting back my hours for a couple of weeks to focus on the Thesis...only to find out he was off yesterday to focus on watching the college basketball.

Suddenly I did not feel bad about emailing him to say I'd be in to take care of a little pressing paperwork, but would otherwise be taking off to work on my thesis.

Re: The Baby question. I had to talk myself out of buying a Liberty print baby dress in Target last week. I am officially in trouble.

Loth said...

Sighs of contentment in the Loth household, I tell you. And you can tell J that back in the halcyon days when we had cable, one of my favourite pastimes was watching Star Trek in German. We used to like the news in French, too. Couldn't understand a word but it was so SHINY!

Pam said...

Not to express an opinion or anything but seeing as I'm your mum, I'm sitting thinking - what's more important: making another (very nice) sock monkey or finishing the thesis and then starting to think about...

Mutter, mutter....