june 12-of-12

this month i decided to skip the frustration my desktop computer surely has in plan for me and go all digital. it ain't fancy, but it's done. :)

next month, timmy and i will be in chicago visiting the big kids and arie. squee! we will have sooo much fun - and should make for a more interesting 12-of-12, too!

may 12-of-12!

it's getting easier and easier to post just my psd file for my 12-of-12s, but the pictures are taken and the words are written, so i say good enough!

now, if you'll excuse me, i must return to michael, who is resisting his nap and shouting, "bob! baaaaahhhhhb!" i don't know who this bob character is, but i wish he'd just answer already. i could use the help! :)

this is just to say...

i read a (an?) hilarious spoof by teachermommy (go there! read, laugh, comment!) of william carlos williams' poem "this is just to say" on which lead me to two other blogs and their versions . . . and their commenters' versions . . . i woke up my poor tim laughing so hard i shook the bed. so, even though i come to it late, of course i must give it a shot.

first, the original:

This Is Just to Say
— William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

and mine (taken directly from my life experience, by the way):

all your
formerly
manly undies
and t-shirts

are now a
distinctly
feminine shade
of pink

forgive me
for not
discovering
the red sock

then, in a fit of boredom, i challenged the kids to write their own. tori and andrew ignored me, of course, but michelle (my beautiful and, it is now obvious to me, multi-talented daughter-in-law) rose to the challenge and summarized the parenting experience far better than i ever could have. in fact, it's so good, i will make the extra effort to include her capitalization:

My head is throbbing worse with every word you say.
Monkey monkey cars truck milk leche leche pees?
FINALLY, your drowsy smile can cure it all.

she paints, she draws, she does movie monster makeup . . . and even though she says she never liked it, she writes poetry. love that girl! michelle, those three lines are exactly what it's like to have a almost-two year old.

preschool and hippies and beaches and pools

this morning when i took timmy and ethan to preschool, ivan was clinging to his mother and not wanting her to leave. miss brooke was out with her sick baby, so miss trilby was alone with the class and ivan is shy . . . so ivan's mom and i walked out together.

ivan's mom is heidi. we've told each other our names, but we've never really talked. i'm maybe even more shy than ivan. but i've always wanted to introduce myself and talk to her. partly because we have children the same age and she doesn't appear to be 25 years old like some of the other mothers.

so today, walking out together, she made a comment about michael's chubby cheeks or other general cuteness and i replied. from there sprang a conversation about what we'll do for preschool next year (since ours is going to all daycare and no preschool), the all-day kindergarten our school district adopted a couple years ago, the ymca (and our lack of visits) . . . and . . .

she grew up in hawaii, living in tents and vans and on the beach. her parents were hippies. hippies! she said if you're going to grow up poor, hawaii is the place to do it, because everyone is poor. she (like her mother) is an artist. she has written comic books, she sculpts, before having children she worked for a japanese cartoon (noruto? i think she said noruto...). she's been thinking of doing murals. how cool is that? well, i'll tell you - very cool.

she seemed interested in me, too. even though my parents were not hippies (although i have always believed my dad would have liked to have been) and i am not an artist and i think i am basically a very boring person.

we are already making plans for the summer. taking the kids to the splash pad, swimming in her pool, maybe going to the ymca. lord knows one of the first thoughts that popped into my head as we discussed it was that i really, really need a workout partner.

i've always been interested in talking with people who have different backgrounds (or opinions, or religions, etc.) than i do. i look forward to developing this new friendship.

my hanging baskets

last year, i grew upside-down tomatoes in hanging baskets on my front porch. early girls and tumbling toms. they produced very few tomatoes, but those grown were absolutely yumster. i'm doing it again this year. i'm also growing herbs in the tops like last year.

i'm making some changes this year, though. different tomatoes, and in different quantities.

in one basket, i've planted two (count 'em; two!) celebrities upside-down. the celebrity basket has italian parsley and cilantro. in another basket, i've got three sugar snack tomatoes (they're grape-sized) with basil and some chives that came back from last year in the top. in the third basket, two sun brite tomatoes with rosemary up top.

 

i hope this year's tomato harvest far surpasses last year's. if not, i'll try different tomatoes next year. even if i never get a good tomato harvest, the herbs grow so well and are so pretty that i'm sure i'll continue every year.

april 12-of-12

i am not one iota more organized today than i was last month at this time. what is with me? i don't know, but something's gotta give . . .

timmy's preschool is holding a board meeting to decide whether to continue after this school year. it seems they can make $30,000-ish more if they use the preschool space as daycare instead (they have a daycare, as well, but have a classroom or two of preschoolers who don't attend daycare). can't blame them for wanting more money, but . . . they're part of the local college and the teaching students receive some of their classroom training in the preschool. i want them to continue, at least for one more year. after that, timmy will be in kindergarten, so i won't care . . . i'm small and selfish, i know, but i needs to look out for mines own, right?

easter was hard for me this year, as evidenced in my 12-of-12 layout. tim was supposed to be off that weekend. alas, it did not happen. again. he had to do some sort of "extra patrol" way out in some other county, miles and miles away. he did get to see timmy wake up, and came back in the evening. i did not make a ham, or anything else, for that matter. i offered left-over pizza to timmy for lunch, but he'd eaten so much candy he wasn't hungry. and i let him. (today we're back to our normal no-candy-ness.) i think the week of grey, rainy weather probably added to my emotional slump.

also? my desktop is on its last leg - well, last pre-computer-guy leg, anyway, so i am unable to print my pictures on photo paper and stick them on cardstock. instead, a very plain-jane digital version:

in other news, i have decided i am too fat to exist as is. enough is enough! ish. i do not know what i will do about it, but i am ready to do something. i have begun researching nutritional requirements. i figure i'll start there. i have never had my cholesterol checked (i know!), so a call to my doctor is on the horizon. also a call to our insurance company to determine whether a dietician's consultation is covered.

as for exercise? well, for the most part, this will have to be cobbled together from the tiny snippets of time i have available due to michael's nap schedule. as soon as school is out for the summer, i will only have my own boy at home, so off to the ymca we will go. ethan and timmy can go into the ymca "kid zone" or into the pool with me, but almost michael's entire waking time is taken up by eating and preparing for sleep. next school year, ethan will be in kindergarten and michael will be old enough to join timmy in the kid zone.

aaaaanyway, i do not know how i will get rid of my fatness yet. all i know is i have never been on a "diet" and i am not willing to try one now. whatever i do, it has to be something i'm willing to do forever.

(join me now for a prayer: please, dear God, do not let me read this post one month from now without my having done anything to help myself! :D)

march 12-of-12

i'm a little late on this one. and i'm posting an image of my psd file instead of a scan of the actual page b/c i don't have an actual page yet. good ol' timmy borrowed my card reader and can't remember where he might have left it. but i'll replace this with the real one soon, i hope.

it was really a great day, despite being so stinkin' cold we had no outside time. and that is really hard on timmy. it appears michael is growing up to be an outside guy, too.

there's a large part of the day unrepresented by pictures, as usual, b/c i was busy making st. patrick's day t-shirts for the kids. this single-minded craftiness resulted in the abandonment of my camera . . . and maybe my mind. just a little bit. hence, the mcdonald's dinner again.

i hope by april 12th i'll be able to report a lot more organization going on here!