late february lists

tomorrow my little family is going away for a one-night vacation. we'll chase the kids around outside then chase them around in a pool, and when they're too tired to stand up we'll put them to bed early, break out the booze, and watch tv. i can hardly wait. i haven't watched law & order since last summer.

today i have been packing. it used to be that packing to go away for one measly night would take three minutes, right before i breeze out the door. but things have changed.
so far i have:

• a 5 inch high stack of books for the babes and i. this doesn't include my partner's reading stack, which will doubtless be at least a couple of inches
• a french press, freshly ground coffee, and mugs, since the small town where we're going might not have the quality of coffee that we have come to require
• a bag with fruit, eggs, rice, juice, soymilk, cereal, etc, etc. enough food for several days.
• ten diapers, two baggies with wipes, two pairs of underwear, three pairs of pants, three shirts, two pairs of socks, two swimsuits, two sweaters, long underwear, a sleeper and a pair of pj's. and i haven't packed a single item of clothing for myself, yet.
• the laptop, charger, camera, and extra batteries. should i bring the crappy old camera, just in case?
• a 6 inch stack of cd's for the road. this will doubtless grow before we leave, and we will still bemoan the lack of selection at some point.
• yarn, needles, and accessories, plus the pattern for the bff socks. also, all the additional help i could find for the two new stitches i'll be using, a cabled increase and a cabled decrease. all somewhat legibly written on the back of some junk mail.
• tomorrow before we leave town we'll need to stop for groceries, booze and more books.

~*~

today my valentine's present arrived from my friend claire. lookit!

amazing, face-rubbingly soft organic cotton, my favourite! and hearts, to be all seasonally-appropriate. does it get any better than this? because i don't think it does. the really cool part is that literally a minute after opening the mail and being overwhelmed with glee i felt a little surge... time to use one of these puppies! claire, your valentine's present isn't late. it's exactly on time. thanks, lovely!