Baby Bookmarking

Two things recently have contributed to an acceleration of my maternal desire to spawn, which has already been kicked up a notch by getting married.

1) My cool urban friends are starting to have babies. Not the old high school classmates who married years before me. Not the college buddies who settled in suburbia. Those friends are all cool in their own way, but recently my friends who are on the same career-oriented, urban-living track as me have started to get preggers. They have cool blogs about their babies and post adorable videos of their tots playing guitar and dancing to Of Montreal and they get to dress them in ironic onesies. It's sort of sweet.

2) One of my clients at work is expanding the marketing of their baby products, so I'm getting a daily dose of smiling baby pics and shinny new stuff baby needs from the store.

The result is a slight up-tick in my desire to have my own little bundle of joy, but perhaps more immediate is the way I've started to bookmark ideas for designing a delightfully decorated room for my eventual mini me.

Like how cute are these Skwirrols decals for redecorating a kid's Ikea dresser set?

Ok, so for now I'm still just really into the peripheral fun things that comes with having a kid. But at least as I watch my awesome friends figure out how to work being moms and dads into their busy lives, and see how they deal with the scary stuff and figure out the tough things and embrace the wonderful moments, I feel a little more prepared to tackle that challenge when the time is right.

Pacifist onesie pic from plutokidstwo on Etsy.

Channeling Frustration Into Baked Goods

Call it cabin fever, or call it misplaced frustration, but I have been baking up a storm. I have all these long-term projects inching forward, but held up by finances or time or energy or whatever. The beauty of baking is you can set out to make something, and a few hours later it's done, it's beautiful and it's delicious.

When you're feeling bad about not accomplishing more, baking cookies is not only satisfying to complete, but very comforting to eat. And eat. And eat.

Thankfully this weekend is sunny and warmer, and I got out of the house on my bike to burn off some calories and keep away from the oven.

Shown above: Lemon Cherry Scones adapted from the Baked cookbook. Macaroons from the Joy Of Cooking, but I took 'em up a notch (bam!) and dipped them in melted chocolate.