in pursuit of hermitude

my wish list.

2010-11-23T09:31:00.000-06:00

oo! i want to win!

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

TodaysMama (link to: http://bit.ly/tmwishlist) and GameStop (link to: http://bit.ly/gamestop10) are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What is your holiday wish for your family? i wish we could all be together, just like old times (except now with kid spouses & kids added), and that God continues to bless us.

2. What is your Christmas morning tradition? santa does not wrap his gifts, so if the kids wake up extra-early, they may play without having to wake up mom & dad...

3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be? most definitely a kindle and a gift card to buy kindle books!

4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money? we spend time together, we bake, we watch holiday movies, we play games together.

5. What games did you play with your family growing up? my siblings and i played a whole lot of monopoly, clue, dirty pool, you blew it (farkle), simon, boggle, etc. we loved games!

6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood? new jammies on Christmas eve, cocoa, leaving cookies for santa...

7. Where would you go for a Christmas-away-from-home trip? i think i would not want to go anywhere else but home - gotta be in my home for Christmas!

8. Check out GameStop (link to: http://bit.ly/gamestop10) and tell us, what are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year? donkey kong returns, b/c andrew just posted he wants it; a wii (and someone to help me set it up) b/c it's not a sit-and-zombie-out game system; and . . . ummm . . . my virtual tutor: reading pre-k/k for arie. yeah.

my baby is not a baby anymore

2010-08-17T18:35:00.000-05:00

thirteen hours, thirty-five minutes. that's all the time i have left until my baby is a kindergartener. ack! how did this happen? how did the past five years fly by so quickly?

i am weirdly ok right now. numb. but i feel hysteria rising from deep within.

that is all.

picnic tables!

2010-08-12T09:27:00.001-05:00

so, i loves me some knock off wood. love! i've built several items, and have many more on my to do list.

most of the kids in our families seem to have been born in the summer months, so . . . kid-sized picnic tables were our gift of choice this year. well, those and magician/superhero capes and tutus.

but i digress. i made picnic tables. lots of them. (with a few modifications to the plans.) and timmy helped me.

i loved building them. ana really makes the plans so easy to follow. more like recipes than building plans. they were so sturdy! i filled my screw holes, sanded well, and put a lot of work into the painting. i cut and assembled the first two at the same time and then primed and painted them - a pain in the hiney!

after those first two, i cut, primed and painted the individual pieces, then assembled and touched up. took as much time - maybe even a little more - but it was way easier than trying to reach and get good coverage on all the undersides, in betweens and tight angles.

i have built nothing in weeks - these 100+ degree temps suck every bit of energy right out of me! i have two more picnic tables to build, then i'm on to timmy's headboard. then? who knows!

Connor Michael O'Brien

2010-07-25T07:48:00.003-05:00

my nephew connor has arrived! it wasn't a walk in the park, but stacy decided to hang in there and reap the benefit of all those uncomfortable months:

my brother john and sister-in-law stacy welcomed him july 24, 2010 at 12:24am. he weighed 7lbs, 2oz, and was 19 inches long. he was, apparently, somewhat annoyed at being removed so abruptly from his warm and cozy napping place.

we weren't there for connor's first appearance, but we did stop by earlier in the evening.

stacy was beautiful and graceful, despite having a room full of visitors . . . some of whom sported blue, green and red hands, arms and face. (little tip for ya: the magic marker that soap and water cannot remove? foamy hospital hand sanitizer will allow just enough of it to "loosen" that the color can then be transferred directly to white clothing, but not so much that any actual skin-coloring shows on the skin.)

so . . . welcome, connor! good work, john and stacy! can't wait to visit you all again!

my plan to solve our illegal immigration problem (but first, some griping)

2010-07-23T11:22:00.007-05:00

the topic of illegal immigration is certainly not what i had in mind when i decided to blog. nope. i just wanted a quicker way to keep a journal. but sheesh! this arizona law and the federal challenge to it - and all the uproar from both sides of the political aisle? i have been thinking so much about it, and i've been so sickened by the rhetoric that i decided i have to record my thoughts on the matter. because i may not remember them in a week, let alone in thirty years. so, here goes.

first, here's the arizona law: arizona senate bill 1070, as ammended by house bill 2162. (at the time of this writing, the law has not yet gone into effect, so the link provides a pdf labeled "unofficial.") i read the text of the bill/law. it's very short, as bills/laws go, and quite easy to understand.

i think i've seen hundreds of reports by the news media (and interviews with obama administration officials and others) that portray the law as racially biased or even as hateful.

i have also seen clips of president obama's speech in iowa, where he gave an example of what the arizona law could lead to - if you're a hispanic person in arizona, taking your children to an icecream parlor, the police might harass you.

but i don't like to believe what i see or hear or read in the media. and i don't like to make a judgment based on one little soundbite. so, i went to the source (the white house posted the entire speech here) to listen to what came before and after the icecream comment so i could gain some context.

the icecream story begins approximately 48:50 minutes into president obama's speech. he says, "you know, you can try to make it really tough on people who look like they, quote, might be illegal immigrants. one of the things that the law says is local officials are allowed to ask somebody who they have a suspicion might be an illegal immigrant for their papers. you can imagine if you are a hispanic american in arizona, your great-grandparents may have been there since before arizona was even a state. but now, suddenly, if you don't have your papers and you took your kid out to get icecream, you're going to be harassed. that's something that could potentially happen."

wow. i have two main objections to mr. obama's example. first, the law (read it; link above) clearly states - in several places - law enforcement officials "may not consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements" of the law. also clearly stated is that a person must have already been stopped, detained or arrested for another matter before being asked to verify identity/legal status. (and guess what? a driver's license will do it! sheesh.)

my second objection is the president's and others' notion that police officers will of course "act stupidly." as the wife of a cop . . . this jumped right out at me from the first time i heard an objection to the law -and i was shocked how long it went on without anyone coming to cops' defense! none of the cops i know is a racist, but maybe the best thing i could say about cops in general is that it does not matter what their private opinions may be - they don't bring them to the job. they enforce laws. they help people. they take a lot of . . . crap . . . the rest of us are not required to suffer, yet they continue to treat every person with respect. but are we supposed to believe this would all change instantly when the arizona law goes into effect? not a chance. cops are owed a huge apology from this administration, if you ask me.

aaanyway . . . my plan, in a nutshell:

no more anchor baby status
secure the borders
develop guest worker program
develop transition alien program
deport all criminal aliens
speed up lawful immigration process
never put our country through this again!

immediately do away with "anchor babies." not the actual babies. :) just let's recognize this amendment was created to allow former slaves to be citizens. it is no longer relevant. abolish the anchor baby status. then, continue the rest of the plan:

first, secure the borders. physically. build a fence. electrify it. add more border patrol guards. dogs, even. add electronic surveillance. do whatever it takes to physically secure the borders. make it a crime (not a "civil crime") to enter the u.s. illegally. maybe a misdemeanor the first time and a felony the second? deport them all, but mostly, prevent the entrance.

secondly, establish a guest worker program for people who are NOT currently here illegally. we had one in the past; it worked. if it needs to be "tweaked," fine.

thirdly, deal with the illegal immigrants already here. establish a 6-month registration period. call those who register "transition aliens," maybe. (those illegal immigrants who don't register within the established time frame? deport them. however we come to know about them - gather them up and deport them immediately. illegal alien felons? deport them immediately; no opportunity to register for transition alien program.) issue transition alien numbers to those who register within the time frame and allow the transition aliens to work in the private sector (no government jobs). pay them no less than minimum wages, and no less than the prevailing wages earned (in whatever position they work) by citizens. no pay discrimination!

create a separate income tax rate for transition aliens (but not for the companies who hire them lawfully). they should pay higher taxes as a penalty for breaking our laws and coming here illegally. not a one-time penalty, but a higher income tax rate, plus a yearly tax per person for whatever amount. for example, a family of two parents (only one who is working) immigrated illegally, then had three children and one grandparent then came to live with them: the working parent's transition alien income tax would be deducted from his/her paycheck just like other income taxes are withheld from lawful resident's paychecks. the yearly tax for the other parent, the children (whether citizens under the former anchor baby statutes or not) and the grandparent could also be deducted from the paycheck, or paid at the time of filing. these yearly taxes would help defray the cost of education for transition alien children.

prohibit transition aliens from participating in any government entitlements: no medicare, no welfare, no medicaid, etc. this sounds harsh, i know, but i think it must be this way. churches and other charities will take care of the needy, as it should be. eligibility should begin when citizenship is earned. transition aliens should be allowed to purchase health insurance in the private sector, of course.

require the transition alien to learn english within a reasonable time frame (one year? two years?). require the transition alien to learn american history, civics, etc. testing is a must. if possible, allow these classes to be sponsored and taught by volunteers.

if a transition alien commits a felony (or multiple misdemeanors), deport him/her. prohibit him/her from applying for re-entry for a reasonable period (say, 10 years) for less-serious offenses or forever for felonies and more serious misdemeanors. his/her family may choose to stay or go.

finally, allow transition aliens to become resident aliens, or even citizens, after a significant period of time following all the rules as transition aliens. the transition alien program must end within a specified amount of time. (there will be no more illegal immigrants eligible to become transition aliens after the 6-month registration period - people entering unlawfully once the border is secured will be immediately deported, but i hope prevented from entering in the first place!)

certainly, we can debate how long it should take someone to work through the transition alien status, but we must first speed up the lawful immigration process. the dramatic reduction in illegal immigration caused by securing our borders should (must!) allow lawful immigration applications to be processed much more quickly. no more 120 year wait lists!

then we can decide the lifespan of the transition alien program. but it is of utmost importance that working through the transition alien status to become a resident alien or citizen take longer than it takes a person to immigrate lawfully. in other words - illegal immigrants (who become transition aliens) "go to the back of the line."

lawful immigrants are vital to our nation's success, so let's get this thing worked out, already!

bookshelf for baby connor

2010-07-22T09:56:00.000-05:00

this is not intended to be a blog about furniture building, but . . .

a new baby nephew, connor michael, will arrive in a couple weeks, so i decided to make a bookcase for him for his baby shower. of course, i perused knock off wood and found this plan.

i forgot to take any pictures, so stacy was kind enough to take one and email it to me.

just a couple problems. since it was sooo hot and i was sooo tired, i decided to avail myself of my lumber store's services and have them cut the wood for me. big mistake. the kid who did the cuts was cute and happy to help (and didn't charge me), but . . . not so accurate. i had to trim a couple pieces and the entire bookshelf is a quarter inch shorter than the plans specified, but so what? it's square, it's sturdy - it's good!

connor's nursery is decorated in greens, blues and browns, in a jungle theme. fortunately, i had this green paint (less yellow than in the picture) left over from my (as yet unfinished) craft room. unfortunately, the humidity was sooo high that week - the paint did not fully dry prior to the baby shower. and it rained that day. the day of the shower. the day i had to haul the bookshelf in my brother's pickup bed (hubs was gone in his truck). so, it needs a few touch ups.

i can't wait to see it all loaded up with bins or baby supplies. when connor arrives and i visit, i 'll be sure to make room among the thousands of photos i'll take of him for one or two of his nursery and this bookshelf.

next on my list of things to build is the headboard for timmy's bed. the base and the cubby hutch. not the side towers, because c'mon! did you notice (from the picture in the last post) how tiny his room is?

hermit carpentry

2010-07-16T14:48:00.001-05:00

hobbies are the methadone to my workaholism. prior to my timmy-induced sabbatical, there was a time my husband "requested" i gain some balance. work - whether in the office, on the road or on my laptop at home - took an average of 85 hours of my week.

now, i never missed one of the kids' ball games or school functions, but i missed plenty of family dinners and regular ol' time at home. even as i type this, waves of guilt and remorse wash over me. the precious, fleeting time i wasted away from my family!

one night, as i drove home from yet another couple days out of town, hubs called and brought to my attention that i hadn't eaten dinner with my family in a month. (guilt tsunami, here.) it hit me like a ton of bricks. i loved my work, but not like i love my family.

so, i tried beaded jewelry, furniture re-upholstery (blech. soon after, we bought new furniture.), knitting, sewing (purses! quilts! couch cozies!), scrapbooking and photography.

enter knock off wood. oh, ana white, how i love thee and thy recipe-style woodworking plans that allow someone who has never picked up a hammer to build beautiful wood furniture. ana's site is called "knock off wood" because she creates plans for pottery barn and land of nod, etc. "knocks offs." actually, her plans are better because we builders can choose much higher quality materials. and save oodles of fweet moolah.

case in point? my first project: timmy's bed. here is ana's inspiration. please pay no attention to the messy cubbies (i'm still deciding whether to do bins or drawers) or the mismatched pillowcase. or, now that i take a good look, the "nursery colors" of his walls, doors and windows. clearly, i need to update.

also, see the flat wall bookholder? it seriously took me maybe a half hour to make. from scraps!

i plan to build a headboard base and hutch next. well, next for this room. you see, i have several plans on my list of to-do's . . . just have to prioritize and organize my schedule.

why do i even HAVE a blog?

2010-07-15T11:23:00.000-05:00

why? why do i have a blog? i mean, it's not like i blog about my incredibly important life. most of the time, i don't even think about my blog. so . . . why?

well, i originally fully intended to blog as a sort of online journal. you know. record the activities of my life, the details of timmy's growing up, etc. but, just like every other journal i have ever attempted to keep, this one died a slow, painful death due to neglect. it's a darn good thing i'm a better mother than a "journaler," i tell ya. (although, facebook . . . yeah, i have done very well texting the funny things timmy says to facebook. so, at least i will have a record of those too easily forgotten utterances.)

betting against myself here, but i am going to start blogging again. it's important! well, not blogging specifically, but journal-keeping. it is. everyone knows that. and it's easier to post pictures here than into a paper journal, so here i go again.

hello, old friend!

2010-03-29T09:43:00.000-05:00

ah, my blog. just like all my journals of the past, i began neglecting you, letting you die a slow and lonely death only to come running back when i need you again. i'm sorry. i am a fickle friend. forgive me?

i am starting (just one week behind everyone else in the group) a new study: becoming the woman God wants me to be, a 90-day guide to living the proverbs 31 life. right off the bat, i'm stuck. at the end of day 1 (day ONE!) is an exercise. four questions to answer and at the end, viola! my own personal vision statement. simple, no?

no. question one - two of my unique personal qualities. i'm on it! empathy and creativity.

question two - one or two ways i enjoy expressing those qualities when interacting with others (e.g., through supporting, inspiring). umm . . . uh . . . wellllll . . . i don't actually do ~~any~~ much interacting with others. take creativity. i like making stuff. i like making stuff with timmy. i go to the occasional crop, but i never actually get anything done - a crop is just an opportunity for me to talk with real live adult women and go peepee all. by. myself.

question three - describe the perfect world-what are people doing, how are they interacting, what does it feel like (e.g., everyone is freely expressing his or her talents in harmonious and loving ways). huh. since i don't do a lot of interacting outside my home, the only thing that example makes me think of is tim actually putting his dishes into the dishwasher and timmy responding sweetly and obediently to my every request of him.

vision statement fail!

june 12-of-12

2009-06-14T17:14:00.000-05:00

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!

2009-05-13T13:18:00.002-05:00

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...

2009-05-04T08:33:00.000-05:00

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

2009-04-28T08:56:00.000-05:00

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

2009-04-20T09:27:00.001-05:00

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

2009-04-13T13:32:00.003-05:00

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

2009-03-16T09:06:00.003-05:00

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!

my four year old child has an alias?

2009-03-10T09:31:00.001-05:00

we ate dinner at pizza hut last night, along with a large gathering of biker folk. tim knew several of the bikers. not from arresting them or anything; just knew them from around, you know?

timmy was getting restless and wiggling around, acting up a bit, so tim pointed to one biker and asked, "do you want me to have that guy over there come and give you a talking to?" i gave him the most evil dirty look, so he changed it up a bit and asked, "would you like me to introduce you to that gentleman over there? mr. presnall?"

well, timmy is no fool. he got very still and answered, "i will tell him my name is shep o'brien."

am i bewildered that my just-turned-four child has already developed an alias, or am i proud of his sweet mad self-preservation skillz?

look out, johnny cash!

2009-02-24T12:20:00.003-06:00

little timothy loves music. always has. other than his sleepie-time music (classical pieces we listen to while getting ready for bed) and his toddler tunes, timmy loves country music. george strait? yup. waylon jennings? absolutely. johnny cash? of course - you kidding me?!

but add waylon to johnny, and throw in some willie nelson and kris kristofferson? oh, boy. we are treated to this particular performance again. and again. and again. and again.

i'm no great cinematographer - the lighting in my bathroom is abysmal, the focus is . . . inconsistent and the fact that timmy's sitting on the potty seat? well, i hope it doesn't offend, but let's face it: this is my real life.

february 2009 twelve of twelve!

2009-02-14T09:39:00.000-06:00

wow! february already! and it's half over. i have got to get my new email address to susan keuter so i'll get the 12-of-12 email reminders again. yep, i'm blaming susan for my memory loss. fortunately, i think i made up for my shortcomings by recreating certain parts of our day.

i wish i'd printed the title in a darker pink rather than red. but, i was rushing.

timmy was begging me to go to his room to listen to highwayman for the 100th, 101st, 102nd and 103rd time today. he likes to manipulate his cd to listen to a favorite song "again. and again. and again. and again..." did you know "many a maiden lost her marbles to my train"? it's true. timmy sang it to me.

January's 12-of-12

2009-01-13T10:23:00.000-06:00

after all my planning and scheming to scraplift other people's 12-of-12 layouts, i ended up using the same ol' format. and i think i'll just stick with it. it's so easy, and getting the day documented is the point, so . . . we had a busy day yesterday! it was really hard for me to narrow the photos down to just twelve.

after putting this thing together this morning, i've learned two things. first, i have learned i am not above begging. i plan to call stan and beg him to get my laptop in sooner. i'll pay more; whatever. the second thing i learned is that i should not have been putting off taking the old desktop in for service. it is s-l-o-w. and i can't work like i'm accustomed, with fifteen different applications all going at the same time. uh, no way. one thing at a time, and so slow i had time to change laundry loads while each picture was opening.

the man in black

2009-01-11T09:36:00.004-06:00

timmy: "mommy, when will i go to heaven?"
mommy: "when you're a very, very old man and you die; then you'll go to heaven."
timmy: "oh."

and yesterday: "mommy, when ethan hits me, it makes me sick, you know. and if he hits me too much, i will just throw him away. i will throw him in the landfill. and then i will tell the digger to come and get him. and the digger will take him home. and he will learn his lesson."

still plugging away

2009-01-10T09:38:00.005-06:00

even though cz's design your life class at bigpicturescrapbooking.com is finished, i am not. i am so not. but i'm still plugging away.

this, for example, is week 8, sketch 2. it was originally a 2-page 8.5x11 spread, but i hated it. so i changed it to one 12x12 page and now i like it. oh, i would do some things differently if only i had planned ahead. the topic was emphasis. using big photos to create emphasis. but i wanted to continue my theme of using my most current photos to do the layouts and i didn't have a Christmas picture great enough to print in 8.5x11 size.

you can see, however, that i did use the design principle of repetition. red buttons (i'm not much of an embellishment user), red in the photos - and if i'd planned ahead, i would have printed the title in red, too. oh, well; live and learn. also unheard of? i included a picture of me! chubby and tired looking - yep, it's me. :)

p.s. a dirty pool board is a (most often) wooden game board handmade by the dad of the family for the kid of the family when s/he grows up and moves away. andrew got his the year before last. dirty pool is similar to wahoo and is a family tradition. we play whenever we can, but it's required on Christmas Eve and pretty much all day Christmas. this year, timmy and i basically got out the marbles, rolled the dice and counted the "steps" the marbles made. no rhyme or reason to our game. maybe next year.

p.p.s. tim's a rebel. he did not wear his Christmas jammies. stinkin' daddy!

December Twelve-of-Twelve

2008-12-15T09:39:00.000-06:00

i'm not doing well this fall/winter with the whole blogging thing, or with the whole twelve-of-twelve thing, either! i anxiously awaited december 12th, only to have my memory erased at 11:59pm on the 11th and not think of it again until yesterday. what's up with that?! so, instead of the usual, present my december 12-of-12:

november's 12-of-12

2008-11-14T10:57:00.002-06:00

several days late in posting my 12-of-12, but when you take into account how long it's been sincei posted at all, it doesn't seem so bad, now does it?

something so funny to me: i printed out my text to review for typos and found none. then, after i'd printed it onto the cardstock (no going back), i re-read the first sentence: "Once again, I did not beat Timmy up." lol!

what i meant to say was that i failed to wake up before timmy. but i suppose the other possible meaning is also true. i did not assault my little guy, either. once again. :)

October's 12-of-12

2008-10-13T20:05:00.001-05:00

october's 12-of-12 was fraught with difficulties. for example, i forgot about it for an hour or two first thing in the morning. then, i forgot again mid-day. then, my camera battery went dead because i forgot to charge it.

ah, well, i improvised, and here's my layout:

quite the artist, aren't i? :)

so much to say . . .

2008-10-12T08:02:00.002-05:00

well, this blog certainly isn't doing its job of recording all my memories. stinkin' blog. when will they come up with one that just pulls the data out of my mind and updates itself daily? that's the blog i want!

today is october 12th, which of course is twelve-of-twelve day! i remembered yesterday. and forgot by this morning. but i recovered quickly when i saw susan's email. so i'm taking pictures of my life today. my boring, house-is-not-tidy life.

also, i plan to work on my week 2 layouts for cz's design your life class. i finally finished week 1 the other day. this first one is a 12x12.

and this 8.5x11 2-page spread (and not a very good scan).

i am so insanely proud of myself! for actually finishing the first assignments, yes, but also for my newly developed ability to put all my worries and obsessiveness aside and just do it! it always takes me forever to come up with any idea and then i obsess about it and about the paper and everything else until it's just torture. not this time, baby! i am going to jump right in every week. the topics of my assignment pages almost don't matter to me. i do not need the "perfect" topic. i'm learning about design. my pages will slowly but surely become more perfect as i go along.

in other news . . . preschool. ugh. timmy is engaged in a battle over who rules timmy. thursday when i went to pick him and ethan up, i passed ms. brenae, our classroom helper, who said timmy politely told ms. abby (another helper), "i will not cooperate with you." (big sigh) as it turns out, he did eventually do what ms. abby wanted him to do. but only after he'd made it clear he was doing it on his terms. (heaving another big sigh)

oh! the weather has been so nice here lately that the boys and i drive with our windows down - especially when we go past the several blocks of street construction on the way to wal mart. they love to see which piece of equipment is working and which workers might be taking a break at that moment. aaaaaaanyway, the other day we were driving along with the windows down. timmy rested his foot up on the door's armrest and said sweetly, "look, mommy, i'm just like you - one of my leg whiskers is blowing in the wind!" God love him.

expanding vocabulary

2008-09-26T17:50:00.000-05:00

timmy's new favorite word?

boudoir.

no kidding. it's true. "boodWAH! boodWAH!"

thank you, cash cab.

timmy's first field trip

2008-09-20T08:55:00.001-05:00

timmy's preschool went to the zoo yesterday. because friday is not a normal preschool day for timmy and ethan, i debated whether to go. my cousin vicki, who works in a kindergarten class, warned me that field trips are very different from family outtings. she said you have to zoom through everything at top speed.

she wasn't kidding! but first, we waited. and waited. at the gate, with the zoo stuff in sight. we waited for one of the teachers, i think. finally, after about 15 minutes (an eternity to a 3yo and a 4yo), ms. brooke gave up and we got to go in. ethan and timmy had busied themselves digging in the dirt, but i called out, "smile, guys!" ethan is always ready to have his picture taken. timmy? not so much.

i could share pictures of the boys looking at elephants, chimpanzees, gorillas, giraffes, otters, meerkats (love 'em!) and many other animals. but i couldn't take many. mostly because my little guy is used to strolling through the zoo in super slow-mo, reading every placard, getting to know each animal, drinking from each water fountain (shudder) and splashing through each and every puddle. but that's not how we do things on a field trip. vicki was right - we flew through each exhibit. causing many a tear and many a tantrum.

about halfway through, during a potty break, timmy had reached his breaking point. he informed me he just needed a little break.

much to the detriment of my back's health and happiness, i carried timmy most of the rest of the way until lunch time. please keep in mind, timmy (and ethan, for that matter, although he is such a compliant child that he rarely complained all morning) is unused to going so long without food and water. i usually give them one or two snacks between breakfast and lunch. nuts, raisins, cheese, yogurt, juice. good stuff. and they are never without their water. until the zoo trip.

ah, but lunch time finally came. they were both starving! the could barely contain their excitement when ms. brooke announced we'd be heading toward the pavillion to eat. at home, we do the occasional burger king or make chili dogs, but mostly we eat a big supper-type meal.

this may be why, when ms. brooke and some helpers started passing out our turkey and cheese sandwiches, carrot sticks and and juice boxes, timmy and ethan looked like this (captions suggested by my brother, ethan's dad):

i am an indian princess

2008-09-14T16:02:00.002-05:00

like my friend moon ko, one of the photos in the yearbook yourself options shows an exact replica of a hairdo i myself sported at one time.

i was not in high school, however. i was in kindergarten. while i do admit i looked pretty stinkin' cute in my little bouf, let me take you below the surface. read on, my faithful friend, for a story rife with mystery, tragedy - and comedy.

on this fateful friday, about a week into the school year, our class was to dress like indians. i'm sure we must have been learning about native american culture, but the lesson has been lost to me. buried deep beneath the horror.

my mother took so long doing my hair that morning, even though i was impatient and excited. she had no reason to hurry. she only had one girl's hair to worry about. and she was not a gentle hair stylist, either. my hair follicles still cringe in abject terror at the memory of their morning torture sessions.

when mom finally finished her masterpiece, i could hardly contain myself as i raced to the bathroom to behold what i was sure would be the most beautiful indian princess ever. long, flowing black tresses interwoven with the feathers we'd been given. maybe a few wildflowers, too.

but when i gazed into those marbled mirror tiles covering one wall of the bathroom, all i saw was a huge light brown bouf with the curl at the bottom resting on my shoulders like a stole of shame, a yellow polka-dot bow perched precariously right above the bangs. i stared, frozen in open-mouthed shock, for several seconds before i could tear myself away.

i stumbled, sobbing, back down the hall to where my mother now worked to dress one of my younger brothers. "i-, i-, i- "

"what? what's wrong?! did you hurt yourself?"

"noooooooooo. (sob, choke). i'm su-su-supposed to b-b-be an indian p-p-prinnn-cessss!" and i dropped my pathetic face into my little hands and wept.

my mother, ever resourceful, picked up one of the feathers, stuck it into the top of my bouf and declared, "there. now you're an indian princess. go get your shoes on."

september's 12-of-12

2008-09-13T08:45:00.001-05:00

i finished my september 12-of-12 layout in record time! (this will change, come january, when i will abandon this super-simple layout and begin shamelessly scraplifting some of the other layouts i've seen there.) once again, by mid-morning, i completely forgot to take pictures. but i did remember gain right at the end of supper time. i also forgot a self-portrait again. oh, well.

we didn't leave the house all day. hurricane ike, along with the tropical depression (can't remember its name) off the west coast of mexico, has wreaked havoc here in kansas.

nothing like texas - i'm not whining or comparing our plight to theirs. i'm just saying it's been really rainy here and that'll continue for another week or so. which means we will not have much time to play outside. which means (again, i'm not trying to compare my teeny problems with those who've had to leave their flooded homes) we will most probably have time-out-o-rama at our house. our little guy needs his outside time. i'm not opposed to a little fun in the mud, but not all day every day! or maybe . . .

what a day already!

2008-09-12T09:37:00.000-05:00

today is the 12th of the month. 12-of-12. i could fill my page with pictures of temper tantrums and time-outs. maybe even if today were 30-of-30, lol. but i'm determined to keep my patience and my good humor. i have taken just one photo of one time-out.

yesterday i finished my pre-work layout for cathy zielske's "design your life" class at big picture scrapbooking. it was torture, i'll be honest. even though we were given exact measurements, colors and basic layout (nine squares).

my scanner isn't twelve inches wide, so i scanned from one edge, then from the other and combined them in photoshop elements. i wonder how other people do that . . .

i'm still worried i will not be successful in this class. i have an abstract picture in my mind of exactly how i want my pages to look and what i want them to "do," but rarely can i translate that idea into reality. (much like how i cannot translate the precise mathematical calculations i make on the golf course into a long straight drive.)

by the end of this class, i expect to know a lot about design. i also expect to have a much higher level of scrapbooking comfort. i want to be able to put a photo and story down on paper in a pleasing manner and in a reasonable time frame and with a minimum amount of emotional discomfort. that's it! so, cz, don't fail me!

girliness lost

2008-09-07T11:42:00.006-05:00

i don't know what it is about me these last few days, but i've been emotional, sentimental, nostalgic. thinking deep thoughts about so many things, past and present. for example, i've been lamenting the fact that i grew up with no sisters. no girlie influence at all.

having four brothers, all the tv i watched was that which appealed to males. shows like "the incredible hulk," "a-team," westerns. i don't even know the names of any shows with a female audience from that time period.

playing with dolls? i had some barbies, but my brothers' g.i. joes usually blew them up. or they buried them in the yard. or hung their severed heads by their hair from the clothesline. i did get a holly hobby bicycle for my birthday one year, but by the end of summer, she'd been disassembled for parts for various violent experimental machines.

polishing nails, playing dress-up, putting on make-up? huh-uh. nope. i didn't even feel like i was "allowed" to dream of prince charming and a fairytale wedding. i would have been laughed at for sure. and no girl-emotions, either. no crying, no female drama.

when added to our frequent moves, this equals a serious retardation of the ability to make girlfriends. not the desire; just the ability.

i made my first girlfriend in seventh grade. she moved away. and so, coincidentally, did we. i missed most of the eighth grade due to illness, but the summer before ninth grade, i really "blossomed," as they say - got boobs and hips and had great hair and learned how to use make-up to my advantage.

i became friends with the sister of one of the boys who liked me. butch and beverly (and bev's boyfriend) and i were inseparable. such intense but innocent good times. then . . . we moved away. (note: bev and i now live about an hour apart and we see each other every year or so, although we email back and forth frequently.)

i can't remember exactly how i met angela, but we became bff's. we had a lot in common, but were different enough to be interesting to each other. our friendship cooled a bit when we both moved twice more before graduation. but we went to the same college and jumped right back into our friendship. then, toward the end of our sophomore year, something happened. a gradual distancing at first and then someone told me she'd said horrible things about me. i never asked her if it was true. but i think about angela often. i wonder what happened back in college. i wonder how her life turned out. if she's happy.

fast forward to today. my cousin vicki and i've been best friends since we've lived in the same town since 1992. i made two very good girlfriends after hiring them, debbie at one company and susan at the next. then i became friends with susan's sister sharon. susan and sharon remain good friends and may be the first women, other than vicki, who i've felt i could confide my truths to.

what's the point of all this? i don't . . . know. i think there may be no point at all. but if there were a point, it would be that tomorrow is my very first ever pedicure appointment. tim gave me a gift certificate two birthdays ago and i'm finally using it, due in part (maybe wholly due) to my recent yearning for the girliness i should have had growing up. and i am so incredibly nervous about it. dumb, but true.

emotional day

2008-09-04T09:19:00.003-05:00

i am exhausted today. tired and cranky. my eyes feel sandy and they're red and puffy. and did i mention i feel fat and homely? ah, it's one of those emotional days. so lovely.

but while i'm all crabby, i'm also feeling appreciative. i got to see the kids (minus michelle) this weekend. good stuff. and i have a great husband. i would appreciate him more, i suspect, if he were more like dr. mcdreamy on grey's, but he's ok, i guess.

just last night, he brought me a chocolate malt. and i didn't even tell him i was feeling "snacky." (note to self: this chocolate malt consumption does not help with the whole chubster thing.) and, come to think of it, he brought me a happyccino yesterday morning when he came home from work, too, because i'd been up several times in the night with timmy, who caught a cold from preschool. yup. good guy.

i am not appreciative of my hair. or that big mole on my cheek! or my planning skills, as we decided last minute to get pictures taken at one of those drop-in places. it would have been nice to have a picture of us in dressy clothes. and maybe i could have done something with my hair and maybe put on some makeup.

i am, however, appreciative of preschool. i am alone right now. and my home is utterly silent, except for the sound of my wind chimes on the front porch and the patio in back. ahhhhhhh . . .

coffee break

2008-08-24T15:04:00.004-05:00

friday was errands day. we went to the library. returned some books, checked out some books. (i am currently in love with llama llama mad at mama. also, i am so excited that we'll be getting scholastic book order forms from preschool each month. i miss them! when looking over our first one, which we received on "meet the teacher" day, i immediately noticed llama llama and his little pouty lip. so, i was glad to see the library had a copy.)

and, as always, timmy is in love with the little plastic coffee service at the table in the children's library. we sat and had a cup o' joe or two before we left and when it was time to go, timmy asked me so sincerely why he doesn't have a coffee pot at home. since wal mart was our next stop, i decided we'd look for one.

i know it exists because the library has one, but i could not find a regular, plain ol' plastic coffee/tea pot and cups! however, we did find one blue one amid the mountains of pink. it was a cinderella tea service. timmy fell instantly in love. so we bought it. and timmy interrupted his important work as a police officer, a firefighter, an ice road trucker and a dishwasher to have many relaxing coffee breaks, complete with plastic chocolate chip cookies and "dog food" (pecans, walnuts & raisins) in his "dog dish" (a plastic gold-panning pan). and he always made some for me, too. quite the gentleman, that boy.

please note the camouflage shorts, rifle, wal mart smiley-face sticker and look of satisfaction.

tim did not instantly fall in love. in fact, he offered to return it to wal mart while timmy napped and find a camping coffee pot and cups instead. he smugly asked timmy's opinion: did he want this cinderella coffee pot . . . or a camping coffee pot and camping mugs just. like. daddy's? timmy chose cinderella. no hesitation. poor tim. but the rifle's gotta count for something, right?

pre-formal education angst

2008-08-19T20:21:00.000-05:00

two days from now is the official "meet the teacher" day at timmy's new preschool. yikes! we've already met his teacher, miss brooke, earlier in the summer, but this official meeting marks the end of his toddlerhood and the beginning of his preschoolhood (is that a word?)

i haven't even gotten over the end of his babyhood yet and now he's starting his formal education. look at him - does he look like he should be leaving his mommy for 3 hours twice a week already?

well, after he helped me make bierocks sunday, i admit i may have been ready for 3 hours of timmylessness. but only so i could clean my kitchen. i swear!

note: my sister-in-law, taryn, is to blame for the end of my baby's toddlerhood. my 4yo nephew, ethan, needs preschool this year so he'll be ready for kindergarten next year. oh, he's smart as a whip and already knows a lot of things, but he has trouble with transitions. and since our school district just went to all-day kindergarten (don't even get me started on that mess!), he really needs the help . . . but, back to the point: stinkin' taryn! since ethan stays with me while his mom and dad are working . . . well, it didn't seem fair to take ethan to preschool and not let timmy go, too. stinkin' taryn.

i've had this undefined dread about preschool for a couple months now. even as i type this, it's not yet defined (although my hope is it will be by post's end). i am not so much worried about him being away from me for the first time (except for 3 days of vbs this summer, during which he did just fine) because he is not a clingy, needy boy. i am sad for me, of course, but that's not it, either. he is polite and respectful and he gets along well with other children, but he's not timid, so i'm not worried he be a bully or be bullied.

no, i think it's . . . i'm worried about whether he will learn there. he's done just fine here at home with me. he knows, by sight and verbally, all the letters of the alphabet and all the sounds each letter makes. he can identify which letter "makes the beginning/middle/ending sound" of most words. we accomplished this through playing with foam bathtub letters and just talking about words and letters throughout the normal course of our day. we learn about animals and airplanes and money and books and history and . . . we just learn. as we go about our regular activities, while we're in the car. that's how kids learn at home, right?

but this preschool . . . it seems a little . . . weird. i wouldn't have chosen it (stinkin' taryn). the parents' manual doesn't mention much about regular school-type topics. they don't do worksheets. they don't practice writing or cutting paper with scissors. instead, there is a lot of information about avoiding gender stereotyping and about "cultural inclusiveness" and self-esteem. is this what school is about now? if not, why is this what preschool is about?

i want timmy to learn to read and write. i want him to learn proper grammar. and math. and history. government. literature. science. critical thinking skills. maybe a foreign language or two. you know. the things i learned in school and the things that will help him succeed in college and adult life. self-esteem, et al? let us handle that at home.

i swear, if i had more than one child at home now, i would seriously consider homeschooling. our neighbors when andrew and tori were little homeschooled their kids and they turned out well-educated, well-mannered and well-adjusted.

but, all this (admittedly, self-created) drama may turn out to be no big deal. because timmy's birthday is in february, he won't be eligible for kindergarten for two more years. next year, when ethan is already in kindergarten and timmy's good and crunchy (i picture the preschool administration wearing birkenstocks and pookah shell necklaces - i sure hope that is just my imagination!), i can send timmy to a more traditional preschool. but at least i feel better now that i've droned on and on about my worries. thank you, bloggy-blog!

designing my life

2008-08-18T19:54:00.000-05:00

i signed up for cathy zielske's design your life class at big picture scrapbooking! i'm nervous and excited. i'm alternately filled with doubt and squealing with anticipation.

when cz first announced the class, i really, really wanted to do it. but then i talked myself out of it. the money. the commitment. my lack of scrap-esteem. and then i just forgot all about it. until my sista-girl moon asked if i was taking the class.

tim's all for the class, especially since i don't have to go anywhere to take it. back when i was still a full-time wage earner and working so much my family rarely caught sight of me, it was tim who requested i get a hobby in the hopes i'd gain some balance. now . . . if i had my old paycheck, i might be as obsessed with my hobby as i once was with my work, lol!

but, speaking of my current obsessions . . . i've got to record this little timmy story before i forget:

over this summer, we've developed a new habit. maybe not a great one, but a fun one. we eat dinner on our bed while watching "ice road truckers" on the history channel. last week, tim bought timmy some "ice road ice cream dots" for dessert. last night tim was working and timmy and i had bierocks. but i digress.

timmy asked me yesterday while we were eating, "are you married to daddy?" i acknowledged it and he said, "i want to marry you, too." i know every little boy wants to marry his mommy at about this age, but it still melted my heart. ah, i love that little guy!

the kind of day (week) i'm having

2008-08-14T10:19:00.002-05:00

i finished my 12-of-12 layout for august. and a couple hours later i removed it from the scanner to put it into the album and i read it. oh, boy. i got the date right! but, my journaling sounds like it was written by an esl student. i flipped two pictures around. i left the end of one sentence off. i misspelled many words.

but you know what? it is, as written, an accurate portrayal of my day. my real life. one day many years from now, my descendents will read this page and know their grandfather and great-uncle drove me crazy on august 12, 2008. and that my house was a mess.

harvest

2008-08-12T07:31:00.004-05:00

yesterday, i used my entire harvest of tomatoes (upside-down tomatoes, remember?). to make blt's. for one meal. my tumbling tom produced five grape-tomato sized tomatoes and three cherry-tomato sized tomatoes. my two early girl plants have produced the five big (well, comparatively - they're bigger than the tumbling toms . . . a little bigger than golf balls, a little smaller than tennis balls) tomatoes, plus the three still green on the vine.

ah, the fruit of my labors:

i don't know why they look so spotty here - they were deLISH! and although it might sound like a big waste of time to nurture three tomato plants all summer in exchange for such a paltry harvest, i'm still happy. my herbs (in the tops of the hanging baskets) really did well! they're so pretty growing, particularly the oregano (which i have decided i do not like to cook with as much as with dried). the tomatoes might have needed a deeper basket. more room for roots might have meant more tomatoes.

i will beg tim to put in (and care for) a "real" garden next year in the back yard, but i think i'll continue to grow herbs in hanging baskets each year. maybe i'll even try to bring them inside somehow for the winter, even though my kitchen garden experiment from last winter failed miserably. (my mom, ever my unconditional cheerleader, says the problem was probably the seeds.)

other highlights of the day yesterday . . . i was able to sit in a lawn chair outside. sitting at all is an accomplishment, but in the slouchy lawn chair? oh, yeah. my little guy was desperate for some outside time!

he and ethan hunted for buried treasure (chuck e. cheese coins) in the gravel pile, went to "the dump" with many loads of "garbage" (leaves and sidewalk chalk) in the dump trucks and discovered a new species (three caterpillars i found eating my italian parsley leaves!). why, oh, why did i not take even ONE photograph of the day's activities? what a shame.

but i'm making up for it today, because today is the 12th of august. 12-of-12, baby! documenting my everyday life. the life i'd better get back to right now, since timmy has NO clean underwear and both boys are starving . . .

sweet nothings

2008-08-10T18:49:00.005-05:00

i like to know the stories of how couples met and fell in love, but i think the stories behind pet names are even more interesting.

tim, my wonderful husband who has had a happyccino waiting for me when i woke up each of the past two mornings, mostly calls me sweetie. (i secretly believe that's a left-over from his wild and woolly teen years, when it may have been somewhat difficult to remember each girl's exact name.) but he also calls me his little flintstone feet girl. (i have very tiny feet, but they're wide and my toes are short.) lovely, no?

he also calls me his jolly green giant because i always think i'm much taller than i am, especially in comparison to him. (i'm almost 5'5" and he's 6'2". but it feels like we're almost the same height.)

when i was still a working woman, i wore my hair short. andrea, my stylist at the time, did whatever the heck she wanted with my hair - i had no say, but neither had i the time to worry about it. once, she cut it SO short and put SO much goop on it that when tim saw it, he began calling me his little chemo girl. mildly offensive, but what could i do?

tim has also been known to tilt the lampshades in the living room and close the miniblinds behind the sheers a little bit (i keep them closed at night and all the way up in the daytime) so that i will fix them when i walk through. again and again. and he thinks it's funny to call me his little ocd girl. nice.

rod and vicki call each other "babe." that's it. no imagination, i say. but at least it's nicer than "old lady," which is what lonnie calls sandra.

tori told me yesterday that her boyfriend todd calls her his little black-footed pachyderm. what the?! alas, there is a reasonable explanation. todd can never remember where he parked his car at the mall or a restaurant, but tori never forgets (it is said elephants never forget). tori has had a life-long aversion to wearing shoes. her friends from school called her "hobbit" because of it. and, as she explained, her feet often are filthy by the end of the day (thus, she is black-footed). he also calls her his baby elephant. now that i know the story, i think both are sweet.

tim and i used to, when we were young and carefree and had time to shop together, make up life stories for strangers in the store. part of the fun was imagining what their pet names for each other were. it's just this moment i realized we don't do that anymore. when i see him tomorrow, i'm going to convince him to take me to lunch (at fiesta, of course) and then i'm going to inquire as to whether he'd like to imagine our neighbor's pet names. i will report back.

where to begin?

2008-08-09T14:53:00.004-05:00

last night was the first time i'd been upright in days. cleaning the stupid bedroom closets and doing the dumb laundry pulled a stinkin' muscle in my back. i've never injured my back before, but let me tell you - i will never again make a nasty (albeit under my breath) comment about someone whose back "went out."

by friday afternoon, though, i was up and showering and dressing for my youngest brother's wedding. the one i missed going to chicago for. (which was the right decision, dang it.) i hardly know the bride, but i like what i do know. and of course i love josh. and all my brothers were groomsmen. a chance to see my brothers (particularly lonnie) in tuxes comes along only once a decade or so. oh! funny story that should live in our family's history forever: when ethan saw karissa (the bride) in her flowing white gown, he whispered in awe to taryn, "mommy . . . is that . . . God?" love that kid.

please note i included for your viewing pleasure not only the wedding party, but also the seats in front of where i was precariously perched, as well as the shoulder, hand and lovely blue hair of a grandmother. i'm here to serve.

i could barely walk and sitting upright was SO hard. even though i'd doped up on my two pills and some extra tylenol in preparation for the event. also, i was shaky. very shaky. causing all my snapshots to be blurry, among other problems. i've never, ever used illegal drugs. or legal drugs illegally. or even legal drugs ill-advisedly. i use drugs of any kind very sparingly and cautiously because you just never know. you know? but i imagine that head-covered-with-wet-towel-and-eyes-straining-to-see-through-vaseline-curtains-while-room-is-spinning feeling must be what it feels like to be high. and why would anyone ever do that to themselves on purpose?? aaaaaaaanyway, back to the point: i was stiff, sore and shaky. and today when i looked at my sd card, i was way disappointed in the low-quality and often strange shots i took.

but not all the strangeness was my own. my brothers were directly responsible for much of it. for example, the ol' "captain morgan" shot was choreographed by lonnie. and who was i to deny him?

and how about this one, entitled "stoics." tom suggested it, and i think it works (even overexposed and somewhat blurry).

a wild hair

2008-08-04T11:47:00.004-05:00

by the end, the hair on my head will most certainly be a little wild (it is humid, as well as 104 degrees today, which results in corkscrews and general frizziness), but what i really mean is that i've got a crazy obsessive idea in my head that i cannot stop myself from acting upon. you know - a wild hair.

you see, my bedroom is a pit. and i can. not. tolerate. it! not one moment longer. i dreamed last night that i got a new bedroom. beautiful hardwoods with a gorgeous wool berber rug and nothing visible save my sparsely-yet-comfortably-clad bed. and then i woke up and tripped over tim's book on the way to the bathroom. i need (need!) a calm, serene, orderly, clean bedroom. my husband? not so much.

my husband . . . oh, it raises my blood pressure just to think about it . . . is a pack-rat. he loves stuff. he loves multiples of his stuff. he loves his stuff and their multiples to remain accessible to him in any area of the house. when he and i met, we were like long-lost soulmates. it took a few years for our few differences to become obvious. and this thing with stuff? it's a big one.

used to be, it was just tim's closet and dresser drawers that were chaotic and scary. i'd bravely venture in twice a year or so to clean and organize them. not because he asked me to, no. huh-uh. he would prefer i stay out of his things. no, the pressure would just build within me until i felt i could no longer survive unless i cleaned, sorted and organized his areas. then, ever so slowly, the madness began taking over our home. our lives. i may be exaggerating. but if i am, it is to such an infinitesimal degree that it may as well be the whole unvarnished truth.

anyway, i gradually got more and more discouraged and finally gave up. and now, my room is horrible.

i should note that tim fully intends to hang up every shirt, to put every tie in the tie holder, to put every pair of boots and shoes away on his shoe shelves in his closet, to put every ball cap away in his ball cap holders, to throw away the (insane amount of) pocket stuff he arrives home with each day. but he never gets around to it. then, he begins to think of the piles as storage devices in their own right. he really, truly cannot understand why i get so upset about it.

but today? today i can conquer anything! i have a wild hair on my side! i've already got two bags of clothes to send to goodwill. i had to stop to feed the kids lunch and put them down for a nap . . . and take a manic-typing break because i was close to passing out from heat exhaustion (have i ever mentioned our house is old and so is our heating and air conditioning unit? and that our really big bedroom has ONE really small vent? yeah. we freeze in our room in winter and boil in summer.) but now i'm cool and still possess my wild hair.

i'm off! please pray for me. and if i do not emerge before nightfall, please send help.

what is this "blog" of which you speak?

2008-08-01T21:46:00.005-05:00

as i go about my day and do the things i do, i frequently think, "oo! i should blog about that!" then, when i finally get a chance to get online (not often, since it's 100+ degrees every day and i do NOT want my hot laptop on my already hot lap outside), i read all the blogs in my ever-growing list. and those posts remind me of some story and i think, "oo! i should blog about that!"

but when i finally navigate over to my page, all those ideas seem so dumb. and boring. boring is a horrible thing to be; boring to oneself is even worse! but i don't want to be fake, either. what if i develop alzheimer's and my journals and blog are the only memories i have? i don't want to "remember" something untrue. (although . . . if i weren't going to know any better, maybe i should start planting exciting tales to entertain my elderly self . . . something to think about, at least.)

so, boring wins. timmy and i and taryn, ethan and new baby michael went to lunch today. timmy ate FIVE broiled flounder filets and most of my rice pilaf (which was much more delicious than his rice pilaf, as it turns out), as well as all the tomatoes and cucumbers from my salad. ethan ate a bunch of clam strips and not a veggie in site. what those two eat is very important to us, because they're both skinny. boring, but true.

also: michael (whom i call "mr yakimoto" now and whom i fully intend, against his mother's wishes, to call "mikey" later on) is so stinkin' cute! he's a crabby little old man in a tiny baby body. he has taryn's eyebrows. on her, they're just regular ol' eyebrows, but on him? SO adorable! especially when he's mad - his eyes squish closed, his forehead wrinkles up and his eyebrows stick straight out. a nephew is not like one's own child - not at all! - but his grouchy little eyebrows still make my heart jump a little in my chest.

here are a couple pics of him at two days old.

one with daddy:

and one with mommy

see those eyebrows?

mah bay-bee is growing up!

2008-07-30T15:17:00.003-05:00

we visited preschool today. (sob)

timmy poopied in his potty seat of his own free will yesterday evening, with no prompting from us. even though we have a "meet the teacher" group scheduled august 21st, we called to ask if we could drop in today as a reward for such wonderful big boy behavior.

we arrived and were escorted to miss brooke's classroom. timmy was inexplicably shy and whispered his greeting. then he noticed the sink. a kitchen-style sink at his height. with a magic faucet (just waive your hand beneath and the water comes on). he asked, "may i please wash my hands?" he found no bar soap, so miss brooke talked him through the pump and the magic faucet and the paper towel dispenser and the waste bin.

miss brooke also introduced him to the class caterpillar. whom timmy poked and almost squished. out of love, though. love; not malice.

then timmy noticed the bin of dinosaurs.

and the bin of tinker toys.

and the bin of cars.

and the reading area, where i read a book about emergency vehicles to him (but skipped four of every five pages, b/c that was one long book!) and miss brooke promised to read "chicka chicka boom boom" (a very fun book) at the "meet the teacher" event.

timmy was well-behaved even though he wanted to see it all and do it all. i was proud of him.

but my baby! (sob) he's growing up! (sob) i'm not ready! (sob)

i suppose it's a good thing he'll have these two mornings a week for two years before kindergarted, eh?

i listen. i learn. i do.

2008-07-27T07:42:00.000-05:00

oh, my. busy, busy, busy.

my basic digital photography class is going well. my brother thomas and my gf sharon are taking it with me and if nothing else, we're having a good time together. we meet for dinner at one of the old town restaurants before class. we email each other links to good articles about exposure, etc.

exposure. man. i like the instructor, brian. he's nice and he knows what he's doing. he doesn't seem to think we're all a bunch of idiots. (although we very well may be. :D) the first night we learned where all our buttons and knobs are and what they do. no kidding. but what's worse than the sound of that is . . . we had some trouble. all of us. even those of us who scoured our manuals intent on remembering every little thing. (i guess i really do need to know what "shutter speed," "iso" and "aperture" mean and how they interact before i can begin to remember how to change one of them.)

our first week's assignment was to take pictures of things in and around our homes, making changes to the above three mystery concepts as we go. however, none of the three of us understood, in practice, how to go about this task until the day before the second class. i came across a bunch of articles online that helped it click for me and promptly emailed t and s. the piece that we all needed was how to find from what settings we should start (and from which we should begin making those incremental changes). i did feel comfortable with each of the three concepts individually. on paper. but i needed to know how they interact. apparently, so did my cohorts.

we are now a couple days post-second class meeting and i am back to discouraged. we took night pictures. my (free with purchase of my camera. should have known.) tripod has a screw loose. literally, because the plastic into which it - well, screws - is cracked. thus, my camera shakes. and slowly droops. resulting in crappy, blurry photographs. and frustrated photographer.

although! there was one bright point in the evening. i was approached by an extremely handsome man on crutches early on. i did not run away because of the crutches, which just now (!) made me think of ted bundy's broken-arm-need-assistance ploy. (pausing to thank God for protecting me, even though i am so obviously a dolt.) he asked if i were taking a photography class (the six of us standing around with our tripods must have clued him in). he said (oh, did i mention his delicious accent? maybe italian?), "look around at all your friends. they are all taking the very same picture. you do something different. lie on the ground or stand atop this fence. (it was a wall.) you see? all the same subject, but yours will be beautiful." ah, good times. good times.

oh, my LORD, this is a boring post! but, as this is my journal, my diary (and as i am my only regular reader), i owe no one a good read, right? i want to document my rise from pathetic less-than-beginner to competent and (dare i hope?) good photographer. from this day foreward (please picture scarlett o'hara with her turnip) i will enjoy my own pictures.

just like the time tim tried to teach me how to golf, i am frustrated. then, i could see in my mind's eye exactly where the ball should go. it consistently refused to cooperate and flew off behind me. (no kidding - some of our friends did not believe i could do that until i showed them.) now, i see in my mind's eye what my photographs should look like. they also consistently refuse to cooperate. i need a rosetta stone to translate what my eye sees into what my camera sees. (maybe this will come with class number three? please?)

the wilds of my back yard

2008-07-16T10:08:00.000-05:00

as usual, we're spending the morning in our back yard. we wake up, we eat breakfast, we get dressed. or not. today he preferred to play with no undies - just an undershirt. since it's my own back yard and my neighbors (both sides and the back yard neighbor) are all non-weirdo women, i say "nakie? ok. why not?" so, we go out. we swing, timmy chases louie, ike chases timmy and louie, rosie lounges on the shelf beneath the barbeque grill. we have a wonderful, peaceful time in our back yard until it's time for lunch and nap. then we do it all again in the afternoon. (see? it's not my fault the dishes from last night are unwashed and the family room is unvacuumed.)

something i most enjoy about being out here? the bird songs, the rustling of the leaves overhead, the squirrel chatter. something i don't enjoy? about a week ago, louie realized his life's dream and caught a squirrel. they sit on the tree branches or roof top scolding the doggies and laughing their furry little butts off as the doggies are jumping and screaming and unable to come near them. i guess the fat little terrorist wasn't paying attention, b/c louie crept up on him and snatched the hairs right off his tail. (squirrels are not nearly as cute with no tail hair - they look like huge mice. i'll never look at another squirrel the same again.) tim came out and made louie let him go, but he may have been injured b/c the next morning as i'm reading in my lounge chair, i saw louie proudly prancing to and fro with a tail-hairless squirrel in his mouth. i'm sure i woke up every day-sleeper in the city as i screamed for tim to come out and take care of it.

aaaaaaaanyway, in the early morning or late afternoon we sometimes see our neighbor's (wild) rabbits crossing from her back yard to our back yard neighbor's back yard. they are not disturbed in the least by louie's and rosie's scream-barking fits. they know there is a fence between them.

one little guy this morning, however? not so lucky. no fence. timmy first noticed louie's strange bark - i was gazing up through the leaves of a maple tree to the teeny bits of blue sky above, so the bark didn't quite enter my consciousness. after running to the patio to investigate, he called me over to see the surprise louie and rosie found.

a toad! a scared and peeing toad. i am sad to say louie and rosie flitted to and fro on the patio, dodging and dancing around the toad like mohammed ali, striking with lightening speed to him (her?) up the toad in their mouths and toss him into the air.

now, i have no desire at any time to pick up a toad. but i couldn't just let louie and rosie play with him until he expired, could i? so, i grabbed timmy's john deere hat to scoop him up without the doggies knowing what i'd done and carried him to the sand box. where he'd be safe. but not unbothered.

see how he's just covered in sand? yeah. timmy poured sand onto him. many times. and it stuck - maybe because of all that pee or dog slobber? he hopped away from the sand box several times (see the blue aquarium-like glow in the second picture? that's the morning sun shining through our kiddie pool.) but i dutifully carried him back. (shudder. i deserve a medal.)

timmy eventually got bored with the toad, but you know, the whole time he was being bothered first by the doggies and then by timmy, he seemed remarkably calm. except for the peeing thing. but i tend to have to go when i'm nervous, too, so who am i to judge.

does this make sense to you?

2008-07-15T14:37:00.001-05:00

i like things the way i like them. is that so wrong?

i wouldn't call myself picky, but maybe particular is a good word to describe me. i like to be as obsessive-compulsive organized as possible.

here's one example: i hang my laundry on the clothes line (oh, i do so love the smell of clothes fresh off the line!) in a particular (see? there's that word) order. each person's clothes are their own group, as are towels, bedding, doggie items (my doggies not only have regular ol' dog bedding that needs washing from time to time, but they also get cold and wear "fweaters" and jammies. but i digress). within each of these groupings, there are sub-groupings. clothes are separated by type, such as tops (sub-sub-grouped by sleeve-length, color and fabric weight), bottoms (jeans, shorts). underwear and bras go on the first line so my backyard neighbors don't see them. not that they're interested, but . . . just in case, you know? towels are grouped by location (bathroom, kitchen) and then by size and style. sheets - well, i'm sure you get it.

but see? i don't do this because i'm picky! i choose to organize my laundry on the four long rows of clothesline i have so i can easily fold them as i take them off, place them in the basket, take the basket from room to room and put the items away. just like that. no sorting through the folded clothes (which encourages wrinkles, people) to find all of, say, timmy's clothing. it's all right together - and it's separated by drawer! and further separated by how it goes in that drawer! timmy's "summer clothes" drawer, por ejemplo, is organized by shirts (stripes in one spot, solids in another, logos or characters in another, etc.) and shorts (knits vs twills vs denim - and all those sorted by color). see?

organization makes me happy. clutter makes me nervous and cranky and just . . . down.

timmy likes to be organized, too, although not nearly to the same degree. he likes to have all his toys put away before going to bed. his toys all have a place. balls have a balls bin. cars, because he has so many, have a medium cars bin and a small cars bin , and his very large cars (cop car, ambulance, fire truck and a huge motorcycle) are parked on the shelf above the cars bins. his musical instruments go in the musical instruments basket on top of the trains bin. for some reason, his soldiers go in the trains bin. (?) tools go in the drawer of his workbench. all the unrelated toys go into a generic toys bin. he has a very small room and being organized keeps it open and spacious-feeling.

so, why doesn't tim see any value in being organized? believe me, i am grateful he emptied the dishwasher for me last night, but why did he put the innards of timmy's cups (straws, valves, etc.) in the knife section of the silverware drawer instead of into the lids of the cups (on the cup shelf!) themselves? why slide the microwave bacon crisper between the cereal containers? and please, for the love of pete, can anyone tell me how it makes any sense at all to forgo the cabinet containing all the measuring items in favor of putting the glass measuring cup down into the pots and pans cabinet? why? (why?)

and while you're pondering, could you please explain why the man cannot close his closet door?

july's 12-of-12

2008-07-13T21:17:00.002-05:00

the twelfth of this month dawned grey and rainy. just like the three days preceding it. yuck. i needs me some sunshine. (maybe that's why i used such a retina-searing color of cardstock?) and timmy needs him some outside time.

but . . . i powered past my feelings of blah-ness and made sure my camera was ready to go. i lived my life. i took my pictures. once again, i forgot to take pictures of meals. however! i did type in the correct date this month. this is progress.

i hope my photos next month will be shockingly improved after my photography class (which was scheduled to start on the 10th but was canceled at the very last minute b/c the instructor's wife was involved in an auto accident - she's fine, and we'll make it up with a class meeting added to the end). i plan to learn the heck out of it.

photo shaZAM

2008-07-11T23:20:00.007-05:00

i stole that title from jessica sprague. she finally posted another photoshop friday! woohoo! it's a quick and dirty tutorial for adding some wow using screen and overlay layers. she calls her technique photo shaZAM. and i tried it.

i've already posted this picture:

it's ok. he's cute, no? i love his hair. i love the look on his face. i love his necklace. but the photograph itself is just ok. i didn't realize this until i read today's photoshop friday post. in fact, i really loved it prior to reading that post and trying the technique myself.

now that i've been properly educated on this topic, i love this one:

i greedily await photoshop friday posts. i also check the pioneer woman’s photography section once or twice or twenty times a day, hoping to learn something. ree also burns the edges of a lot of her photographs. i've never done it until now. i think i may have been a little heavy-handed, but i'm still happy.

all i can say is SQUEEE!

2008-07-10T08:42:00.005-05:00

tonight begins my photography class! i've been reading my manual like crazy to prepare. my gf sharon and my brother tom are coming, too. i have been wanting to take one for years, but now that i have my d40, it's time.

the college in town does not offer any photography classes - can you believe that? every semester, i look in the catalog, but no. the arts and recreation department of the big town/small city near me does, though, so that's what i'm doing.

their catalog does not give a big description, and the receptionist didn't have details (though she was SO friendly and otherwise helpful), so i'm afraid "basic digital photography" might be too basic for me. but if i weren't worried about that, i'd worry about something else, so i say for $50, it's worth it. in the fall, we can all sign up for the advanced digital photography class.

speaking of squee, i have an opportunity to go to chicago in a few weeks. i haven't seen tori since january and haven't seen andrew, michelle & baby arie since september!

there's only one problem. the opportunity arose b/c a friend and her friend are driving and offered to take timmy and me along. we'll split the gas 3 ways. none of us can afford to fly anymore (stinkin' oil prices!), so it's a great alternative. however, the dates are set in stone b/c of the friend's son's navy graduation and i just realized yesterday after finally consulting my planner that it's also the weekend of my youngest brother's wedding.

dang it! i don't know what to do. it's his 3rd marriage (don't ask), but that doesn't mean it isn't important and isn't the one that will finally "take." but i haven't seen my first two babies in so long! and i suspect they won't be able to fly down for the holidays (again i curse those oil prices!). i just don't know what to do. but i'm excited i have the opportunity to consider anyway.

in the meantime, it's just 8 hours until i begin taking better pictures!

forgiveness: not my strong suit

2008-07-09T05:34:00.001-05:00

i am not easily hurt or offended. i'm just not that sensitive, i guess. growing up an only girl with four brothers may have something to do with it - maybe i am less comfortable allowing myself to feel stereotypically "female" emotions. (oh, how we could delve into the depths of my psyche on this issue. maybe some day. then again, maybe not.)

i also do not trust easily. i'm polite. i'm friendly. i have a lot of "friends." i am a good friend to others, but there are only two women in the world who know the real entire me. i have a close relative who was, after ten years, becoming a friend. i haven't shared any deep dark secrets with her, but i am almost another parent to her child.

(deep breath.) ok . . . she criticized my child and my parenting skills. in a semi-public setting. it took no more than a few hours for the story to reach me.

i was devastated. i didn't know how to handle it. i decided almost immediately to forgive her, but what to do about it was beyond me. (my willingness to confront issues early and head-on has diminished since i've left the corporate world behind.) after several hours of hard thinking, i called my mom and cried. she listened and told me the criticisms were not accurate.

my mom is not the type to insert herself into her children's lives. she minds her own business. but in this case, she butted in. she called the relative. i do not know what she said, but whatever it was, it was the right thing to say, judging by the end result.

i would have waited until i wasn't so emotional before calling my relative to talk about the issue. so when caller i.d. showed she was calling that very night, i debated whether to answer. but i did. she was outside on the front porch and asked me to come out and talk to her.

i honestly do not know if i could ever be brave enough to do what she did - she got right to the point, told me she was very wrong, had no excuses and apologized. i did not make any effort to ease her discomfort (totally unlike me). i acknowledged her "wrongness" and let her know how deeply it hurt me. but i also told her i'd forgiven her almost immediately and accepted her apology.

i'd thought that even though i forgave her, our relationship would be forever damaged and doomed to remain politely distant, but as she answered my question of why she would say such things, something happened. the hurt i'd felt melted away and my broken trust mended. just like that. i didn't excuse her behavior - and she didn't ask me to - but over the hour or so we talked, we reestablished the foundation of our relationship.

forgiveness is always necessary, but not always easy for me. i should say it this way: forgiveness is a decision. not a feeling. sometimes the decision is made with gritted teeth and the "feeling" comes later. sometimes so much later that i wallow in my feelings of hurt or anger and realize i have to decide all over again to forgive. eventually the feelings match the decision. it's hard work!

but i know two things about forgiveness. the first is that it's required. if i want God to forgive me, i've got to extend forgiveness to others, even if they don't "deserve" it. the second is that withholding my forgiveness makes me a hostage to my pain and anger and prevents me from feeling peace in my life.

like i said, it's difficult. but this one time, God made it easy for me. for that, and for the repaired relationship with my relative, i'm grateful.

peepee in the pot-TAY!

2008-07-08T22:51:00.005-05:00

peepee in the pot-TAY! (say that like the bunny hop: "bump-ba, bump-ba, bump! BA!")

we've had no peepee problems here for weeks. timmy uses the potty seat with no intervention from me. he went to vacation Bible school last week. no peepee problems. he did not "go" while at vbs. no, he saved it all until he got home, each day calling out, "mommy! can you hear my peepees? it's a lot! it's making bubbles!" (now, that IS a lot of peepees!)

see the picture below? i took this right after vbs, before he had a chance to go peepee. see how proud he is of the handsome necklace he made? proud, yes, but i think i also see a hint of "good lord, woman - my bladder is SO full!"

timmy has never used a public restroom. firm refusal. slight hysteria at the mere suggestion. so i normally load up the potty seat into the cargo area when we go somewhere. but i didn't today when we went to mcdonald's playplace. just forgot. i noticed him dancing a bit, but he said he didn't need to "go." soon, he was dancing and "pinching." i knew he couldn't hold it much longer.

i snatched him up after grabbing a french fry off the floor. (i know that's gross, but stick with me here.) i threw the french fry into the toilet, stood him on the seat (thank goodness he still had his shoes on!) and told him to pee on that silly french fry. eureka! our very first public peepee!

ah, it's times like this that buoy my spirit and encourage me to keep at the poopoo training.

happy independence day!

2008-07-04T12:57:00.001-05:00

bugs me when someone refers to this holiday as "the 4th of july." i mean, it IS the 4th of july, yes, but to call it that rather than "independence day" loses all significance. don't you think? independence! it's important to us Americans.

oh, i feel a big political rant about the erosion of our rights as citizens coming on . . . but that's not what i want to talk about. i hope to celebrate in a way that looks attractive and fun in photographs. if so, i hope to make a nice layout. before this year ends. but that's not what i want to talk about, either.

last night was not a restful night for several reasons, not the least of which was timmy waking up several times. "mommy? come in! i'm cold/hot/thirsty/i can't find chickie." or "mommy? do you hear the fireworks? is it still sleepy time?" or my personal favorite, "mommy? i have a question for you!" (last night's "question" was a recitation of the lyrics of 'heartland' by george strait.)

so, i was tired. and when i did sleep, i had one of my recurring dreams. i have several, but in last night's the brakes on my car weren't working. not hurtling-toward-death-with-no-way-to-stop not working. no, that would have been preferrable, i think. in my dream, my brakes slow me down, but i can never quite come to a complete stop.

and for some reason, i am loathe to tell anyone. i do not understand why, but i am reluctant to (and, in fact, don't) tell anyone. people ask me to drive them here, pick up that there - and i know i should refuse, but i can't. when it's time to stop at a traffic light or when parking, i push the brakes with all my might (remember the strength of my thighs?) but all i can do is slow down.

so far, in all the years i've had this dream, i have not crashed into the car ahead of me at the light or into the building in front of which i am attempting to park. but i know it's only a matter of time. i spend the entire dream worrying about the people in the car in front of me, the people in the car with me, property damage.

and all the time i am certain at any moment i and my faulty brakes will be exposed. exposed for what? in the clear light of day, it seems obvious to me that worn brakes are a common and easy to fix problem one should be completely unashamed to confess, but . . . not in my dream.

what the heck is my psyche trying to tell me? (and do i really want to know?)

i used to be a professional

2008-07-01T10:08:00.001-05:00

and by that, i do not mean a "professional." as in a pro. you know, a "working girl?" no, i mean i used to work all day in the corporate world. and i was a star. no, really. i have confidence issues in many areas, but not regarding my work. i really was an expert in my area of expertise. my advice and counsel were sought by many (which is a fairly good thing for a consultant).

i do not regret, for one solitary moment, being home to raise my baby. i believe every woman who can, should. please note the italics. many women can not afford to stay home with their babies. i feel for those moms who wish they could but must work to pay the bills. being married to a cop, i know a thing or two about money crunch. (why is it that police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and military members do such dangerous work for others' benefit and yet make so little money? does this make sense to you? can you explain it to me?)

other women feel they can not be good moms at home if they are not also active in the working world. these women should do what's necessary to allow them to be the best mothers they can be. their children are better off with a mom who is fully present and engaged at the end of the work day than one who is bitter and distracted all day long at home.

as i said, i believe it is best for children to be raised by a stay-at-home parent whenever possible. it is especially so for my child(ren). because my working self thinks nothing of being away at work from 6am-10pm and then working from home several hours more. because my working self's mind is totally, completely engaged in (obsessed with? i'm not too proud to admit it) the intricacies of the myriad laws and regulations that change seemingly daily; with the research so integral to finding and implementing just the right solution for a particular client; with planning and teaching the university courses that prepare fledgling (or veteran) professionals to pursue or advance in their own careers. oh, my heart is pounding even as i type this. that old addiction is still unbelievably strong. and so i stay away.

my children deserve my best. and i am unable to give my best to them when i give my all to work. unfortunately, i am unable to maintain balance. i have tried. i am sorry to have to confess that andrew and tori did receive less than my best during their early high school years. i thought i had a handle on it, but it slowly took over, this monkey on my back. but i dialed it back in time. they are relatively well-adjusted and healthy adults. and now we have timmy. and i am determined to give him my best. (i have taken the odd project here and there, but only short-term projects and those that allow me to work mostly from home. and still i must remain on guard. i wonder if this is a disability?)

again, i do not regret this decision to be a full-time sahm. i don't. i am fully committed to this, my job as mother. i am my child's first - and i hope best - teacher. he will grow up more independent, more confident, more engaged in learning. and so, on the rare day when i wake up feeling a little depressed about my absense from my former world, i just remind myself of the importance of my current job. i may be dressing in a t-shirt and crocs every day, but i am raising a fully-fuctioning, mentally and physically healthy, thinking and reasoning person here. and i am a star in this job, too.

happyccino is my only friend

2008-06-24T08:58:00.008-05:00

i sometimes suffer insomnia. for weeks, out of the blue, i wake up many times during the night. so annoying! and i'm a little sleepy the next day, but nothing too traumatic.

but those other times. ah, jeez. i have trouble falling asleep until the wee hours of the night. i watch tv for a while, i read for a while. then i give up and lie there in the dark trying to bore myself to sleep.

and hey - if it happened only once in a while, i wouldn't complain. well, ok, maybe just a little. but i wouldn't need my friend, my love, the english toffee cappuccino tim brings me when he comes home from work in the morning following my night of sleeplessness. my happyccino.

i try to stay away from caffeine normally. but, oh, the sweet nectar of wakefulness. when i need you, you're there for me with no questions. steaming away my sluggishness. fortifying my foggy mind with your frothy faithfulness. calming me with creamy caffeination. and surely my trembling appendages are your way of ensuring my body burns off the extra calories you provide? oh, how i love thee.

plus, isn't that cup fabulous? i am inspired by the color combination and the gentle waves and that bold font on the horizontal strip. i'm not kidding. i'm going to translate this cup into a scrapbook page. maybe about happyccino.

my babies! they're adults!

2008-06-19T07:15:00.004-05:00

andrew was my first baby. my chubby bubby. for seventeen years, my chubby chickie tori was the baby of the family. (note: andrew was most certainly chubby. tori? not so much. she was a scrawny thing like timmy. but we still called her chubby chickie.)

i can't believe they're adults. twenty-one and twenty. and that they live regular ol' adult lives in chicago. so far away! i miss my babies. and i can't post any pictures of them. my stinkin' desktop needs to go into the shop and i don't have any on my laptop.

on the bright side . . . i can listen to whatever music i want in the car. what? no i can't! timmy is a little dictator when it comes to his music machine cd. but my house smells a lot less like stinky socks and there are no stray dishes in the family room. i suppose it's true everything's a trade-off.

highway safety, or the incident

2008-06-18T09:39:00.007-05:00

one time? on the way to sears in the mall? we needed to merge into the right-hand lane and our turn was fast approaching on an insanely busy street.

at this point in time, tim hadn't too many years of city driving under his belt yet, having mostly experienced the wide-open, can-see-for-miles highways of western kansas. so stop-and-go traffic wasn't his thing. gas pedal? oh, yeah. but followed immediately with the brake? what nonsense!

so, we're lurching along when we notice our immediate need to be in the other lane. in front of us was a huge city bus. behind us? a tour bus. beside us in our lane of choice? a large dump truck and just the tiniest of open space behind it with another city bus fast approaching.

my mario andretti took milliseconds to decide, shouted, "hang on, family!" hit the brakes to swerve into that minuscule (and getting "minusculer" by the second) spot and instantaneously stomped the gas to shoot onto the frontage road as that same spot closed again with the city bus now bumper to bumper with the dump truck.

it all happened so quickly. at the first swerve, i looked back at the kids (who were, oh . . . 7 and 8 years old?). andrew's eyes were wide with horror and his mouth hung open. tori's balled fists pressed against her eyes. my only thought? 'my children!' but nobody made a sound.

tim moseyed into a parking spot at sear's, turned off the ignition, laughed nervously and inquired, "everybody ok?" andrew and i were still stunned (the hysteria came much later), but tori's small sad voice floated up from the back seat, "i never knew how much i love my family until just now."

this story became known as "the incident." it was the first in a long line of incidents at which we can now laugh.

apparently, observation is not my forte

2008-06-18T08:25:00.010-05:00

my friend cruz emailed me that she'd just discovered the ends of her aluminum foil box had tabs to press in to prevent the roll from jumping out of the box when used. i'd never heard such a thing.

i looked in my drawer and sure enough! my plastic wrap, my foil - every one of them has offered me a very simple way to avoid the less-than-Christlike attitude resulting from my roll jumping right out of the box at the most inopportune time.

sometimes i get a little . . . oh, i don't know . . . judgmental? . . . about people in my life. i think i'm pretty successful at not behaving or speaking in a judgmental way, but having those thoughts is wrong. i'll be well-served by remember what an idiot i can be, and this picture will certainly remind me.

i need more sleep and fewer pounds

2008-06-17T17:23:00.004-05:00

just messing around this afternoon while tim and timmy are running errands. found a website that uses face recognition software on a photo you upload to determine your celebrity look-alikes. being curious (and bored), i snapped a quick self-portrait.

and, of the ten look-alikes, i most resembled . . .

a bunch of fat old asian men.

plus kathy bates.

alcohol + big mouth = jail

2008-06-15T07:45:00.007-05:00

tim came home from work this morning a little scraped up. i sometimes dread hearing the answer to, "how was your day/night, honey?" because i worry. worrying is what i do best.

and i've seen firsthand how danger can come out of nowhere on the job. when andrew and tori were teenagers going out with their friends on the weekends (and before timmy), i'd occasionally ride along with tim for a few hours. i never got out of the car and if the need for an arrest arose, another officer would take me home, generally. but i did see a few scary things.

and once, after a dinner out on tim's night off, we encountered a seemingly drunk driver - or who maybe, we thought, was having a diabetic emergency? - who drove wicked-fast and super-slow and weaved (wove?) violently from lane to lane to lane, even kicking up gravel from the opposite shoulder. tim called for an officer and got out to explain the situation when the stop was made. suddenly, tim reached in and pulled the driver out through his window and onto the ground. before we (andrew and tori and i) could take our next breaths, the driver was cuffed and being held against his car hood. (note to the young and/or stupid: seriously? do not reach toward a weapon "just to let the officer know it's there" as this could result in your demise.) this night, everyone went home safely, but it so easily could have ended tragically.

but this morning? tim's hand suffered a few scrapes and scratches from tackling a guy who ran. after running his mouth non-stop. i believe alcohol was involved, as is so often the case. always patient and slow to be provoked, i've noticed tim's even more reluctant to engage in physical altercations as he ages, but sometimes cannot avoid it. and so i worry. and pray. and thank God he grew up a "fightin' sumbitch" as was common in his neck o' the woods. i take comfort in knowing he can throw a beat-down when necessary to preserve life and limb.

oh, and happy father's day, tim. i love you!

tt's on the telephone

2008-06-14T12:14:00.006-05:00

my boy loves the linen closet. always has. starting when he was just a year and a half old, he's gone to the linen closet's second shelf to sing, throw tantrums, drive (he's an "ice road trucker" this week) or, like today, have long phone conversations to avoid putting on sleepie-time undies and nappie-time clothes.

please witness today's conversation with his sister "tt" [tori]. he's asking (and i quote), "tt, what day was it you came to our home to visit after going to outback steakhouse after we picked you up at the airport, but it wasn't the airport in sugarcago [chicago, where tori lives and we visit] but it was near my home when we drove to the airport and there was a really big sculpture at the airport and we saw an airplane in the sky and we thought you might be driving it? was it dark? i think it was dark." i opened the door and took his picture just as he finished his question/monologue:

he got a little cold, so he asked me to please close the door while he was talking. he told tt our little secret: "i peepeed on some berries on the evergreen tree at mcdonald's today." (please forgive me, mcdonald's. we forgot to bring our potty seat and he simply refuses to enter your disgustingly filthy restroom.)

when i opened the door again, he looked like this:

above, you see him asking me "mommy? could you please cover up my toes with this towel so i can cozy up here and nap?"

and then he spit when i told him it was time for nappie in his bed. those toddler moods can turn on a dime, i tell ya.

june's 12-of-12

2008-06-13T17:37:00.006-05:00

i finished my june 12-of-12 page today. not on june 30th, but today. go me! something i've noticed these past three months i've been doing the 12-of-12 thing? i forget to take pictures around mid-day. i guess i forget often throughout the day. see below? no pictures of meals. oh, we did have meals - at the table, talking about our day. just no proof. until next month, when i will accomplish my goal of remembering to take pictures all day!

i love the shot of timmy peeing on a tree in the back yard. twenty years ago when andrew was potty training, i would never have allowed such a thing. now? who cares? i'm just thrilled he's keeping peepees out of his undies! when we travel - even to the grocery store - we have a potty seat in the cargo area. no peepees on trees in public. that you know of.

next year, i'm copying sara's layout, as seen on susan's 12-of-12 blog. but you know what? the simplicity of slapping it all down on a sheet of cardstock and being done with it is very freeing. i suffer from low scrap-esteem and foiled perfectionism, so i finish very few pages, even though i have journal page after page of ideas and even sketches. i just feel more successful and want to start and complete more pages after this. after doing last month's 12-of-12 page, i completed two more within a couple days.

if i never do another page other than these 12-of-12s, my family will still have an accurate record of our daily lives. and that's really the point, isn't it?

the burning bed

2008-06-12T18:09:00.012-05:00

domestic violence is a serious problem and not something about which to joke. no. having said that, i would like to report that my husband once threw me from a golf cart.

the day dawned peacefully and developed into a real stunner, sunny and mild. perfect for golf. normally, tim golfed alone or with guy friends. on this fateful day, however, i decided to go along, provided we use a cart. i don't play, but i like to be outside, and golf is usually a time of pleasant banter and catching up with each other.

i obliviously sipped my large iced tea with lemon and browsed through a magazine as tim's mood darkened hole after hole. his swing was off, slicing to the left, and his score suffered.

things went from bad to worse at the 5th hole. tim stomped, cursing, to the cart and gunned it. my now empty cup tumbled out, tim aimed a few choice words back toward it and i pleaded, "tim! go back! we can't just leave it on the ground!" no sooner were the words spoken than tim whipped a wicked u-turn accompanied by the most splendid of curses.

it all happened in super-slow-mo except for my thoughts, which raced at the speed of light. my inner voice calmly informed me, 'you are now exiting the golf cart. there is a slight chance you may be mangled and broken under those tires. you must save yourself.' so, of course i used every bit of strength my (at that time) quite nicely toned thigh muscles could muster and launched myself up, out and twisting free of the vehicle.

fortunately, the cart's position at the top of a hill aided me in my escape. i landed, hard, and rolled to the bottom of the hill, magazine still gripped and unwrinkled in my hand. my paralyzation (and possible death) worried me not as i gazed upward in awe of the beautiful contrast between the impossibly blue sky and the glossy leaves of the tree under which i'd come to rest.

tim's laughing (laughing!) face came floating into focus above me. his mouth seemed to be moving and seconds later the sound came to me: "sweetie, are you alright? are you hurt?" indignation and realization of my inability to breathe battled for prominence in my still-tumbling brain. the fog slowly cleared. no, i would not die today! i would live, if only to seek revenge.

tim laughed as he carried me back up the hill to the cart, kissing that spot on the bridge of my nose and apologizing profusely the entire way. he laughed while examining my extremities for injury, finding only a mildly stiff and uncomfortable ankle. he laughed as my dad approached (we'd passed him - played through?- on the last hole). he did not laugh as he explained the incident to my dad.

although tim's swing did not improve throughout the afternoon, i've never seen him - before or since - in such a good mood or so attentive. if memory serves, tim cooked every meal for a week after "the incident."

family talk

2008-06-12T08:53:00.006-05:00

i love hearing children mispronounce words. some of our best "family words" come from our kids' verbal mistakes. we like to get ice cream cones from "bwawm" (brahm's) and shop at "wow-mowt" (wal mart) thanks to tori's inability to pronounce her r's. we like to drink "moke" (milk) and eat "oat-moe" (oatmeal) for breakfast, in large part due to andrew's first speech attempts.

now that i think about it, we often call tori "toe-wee" (we often just shorten it to "toe") and andrew "and-woo" - or more recently, "ee-new" and "an-voo," timmy's two earliest names for him. sadly, since the first two are grown and gone, timmy has no teeny-child nicknames. i guess the other cops do call him "shep." good as it gets.

timmy was born conversing like a forty-year-old. our opportunities to add to our family's private language are now few and far between. there's "eh-ho!" (hello, until he was 18mo). "kempimals" (chemicals), said like so: "mommy, when i grow bigger, may i please help you clean the window with your blue kempimals?"

i know each child is unique, but it does make me a little teeny bit sad that we didn't have much baby talk from timmy. oh, he says puh-lenty of funny things, but it's just not the same as baby talk. so, to cheer myself up, here's a picture of timmy lounging and enjoying watching daddy trim tree branches in the back yard. please note the scrawny legs, the handsome undies and that ultra-manly hibiscus tattoo. he and daddy tried for lightning bolts from the machine, but you take what you get (daddy's is a rose, heehee).

i spit on your plans!

2008-06-09T14:17:00.005-05:00

spitting is gross. disgusting. abhorent. and my boy does it.

so does my husband. as part of a horrible habit called "chewing." yuck. the mere thought turns my stomach.

but timmy. he spits when angry. he spits when he doesn't want to do what he's been asked/told to do. he spits when he's put in the time-out chair. he spits. he spits!

nothing has worked to stop it, although we've been trying for months, since before any actual spittle was projected. back when, try as he might, he could only produce the sound without the spray. i tried googling "how to stop toddler spitting." hah! worthless! "try to understand that your toddler has a limited vocabulary and may be spitting to communicate his frustration." what drivel. no pun intended.

timmy's verbal skills are quite advanced. for example, as he readies himself to spit, he may say something very like, "mommy, i prefer to play outside. i do not want to come in the house. i decide to stay outside! *spit!*" of course, there are days timmy prefers efficiency and simply shouts, "No! *spit!*" so, no. he does not spit as his only way to express himself. he spits as an additional and unacceptable way to express himself.

time-outs do not work. not only does he frequently spit on the way to time-out for some other unrelated offense, but he spits when time-out is over and then when it's over again. marathon time-outs. time-out-o-rama. timmy was like a spitting junkie, unable to resist the filthy urge, even though the cost was pretty stinkin' high, in toddler terms.

vicki suggested vinegar on his tongue each time he spit. nope, he'd like that. dish soap, too. and lemon juice. her final suggestion: hot sauce. i just couldn't do it. even if it were effective, and i could force myself to squirt a drop of chalula on his tongue once, i know i could never consistently do it for the week or so it takes for me to win any battle of the wills.

my mom's idea? throw a small amount of very cold water in his face when he spits. then go about my usual business with no more attention to the matter. well, i was willing to try anything to both stop the spitting and avoid the hot sauce remedy.

saturday. d-day. when the need for time-out presented, i first poured some water (maybe two tablespoons?) from the fridge into a cup and sat it down around the corner from timmy and the offense. as i held his hand and began walking toward the time-out chair, he launched a loogie. i quickly reached around the corner for the cup and tossed the water into his face, stating, "you may not spit." he gasped and stared. i placed him on the time-out chair and walked away.

he later told tori on the phone, "i spit at mommy and she put water on my face." tori, having been apprised of the plan the night before, simply said, "oh, i bet you didn't like that much, did you," and then changed the subject.

the whole weekend? maybe five water-splashes. so far today? one. and just 3 1/2 hours until bedtime.

do i smell succeeeeeeesssssss?

the conversational stylings of the 3-year-old

2008-06-06T09:05:00.006-05:00

i'm mildly upset that i keep forgetting to write some of the funny things timmy says into my journal. and then i forget altogether. yet every time, i think this time i will remember. and i don't.

yesterday was a veritable treasure trove of humorous toddler talk.

1. timmy's "sleepie-time undies" (pull-ups) were moist when i retrieved him from his bed after nappie. he oh-so-patiently-and-tolerantly explained, "that's ok, mommy. sometimes these things happen when we nap." (kids always, always mimic their parents' speech. i like it when he mimics my patient moments much better than when he mimics me heaving a big sigh.)

i launched into my usual "timmy, when you feel peepees coming, what do you do?" which should have been enthusiastically answered with, "i say, 'peepees are coming!' and then i put them in the potty seat!'" but instead i hear, "i say, 'God? please change my undies. aaayyy-men.'"

2. our electricity was out for hours and hours yesterday. inexplicably, before the bad weather hit! we were set to make pizzas for supper, but the dough just kept a-risin' and a-risin' and no electricity with which to heat the oven. we hungered. oh, how we hungered.

timmy pathetically whimpered, "i'm sick. i don't feel well. i have a tummy-egg." not sure i heard right, i asked, "what, my honey? are you starving?" to which he replied, "yes. i am starving so i have a tummy-egg." i love it! so, off to burger king we went.

3. vicki went with us to burger king. burger king is just outside walmart's parking lot. i'd taken timmy and ethan to walmart that morning, where we spotted a container of donut holes. timmy had no idea what they were, of course, but ethan knew! i thought why not. i bought some and we ate them at snacktime.

all this is background to say - as we waited in the burger king drive-thru lane, seeing wal mart reminded timmy of the morning's snack and he told aunt vicki, "we ate donut heads for snackie this morning! i love donut heads!"

the great tomato experiment of '08

2008-06-05T15:22:00.023-05:00

i am generally the cautious, logical type. but that doesn't prevent me getting a wild hair every once in a while. and growing tomatoes upside down? doesn't get much wilder than that. for me, anyway. (note: this is a lie. i am always coming up with one scheme or another. ideas just come to me. sometimes in the shower. frequently in a dream. more on this at a later date. just know for now that i really am a cautious, logical person, but creativity occasionally explodes directly from my brain and right onto tim's to-do list.)

my mom grew a garden every year when i was a kid. tim's mom, too. they enjoyed the whole "working the earth" thing, sure, but their gardens' primary purpose was to feed their families. fresh produce during the summer and monster canning sessions to "put up" peas, tomatoes, green beans, etc. for the winter.

i, however, do not till the earth. i do not toil under the summer sun. i am quite certain i could operate a lawnmower, but i am just as certain that i would not. (this is not to say i never go outside. i spend the majority of my day outside. but only because timmy is an outside kind of guy.)

i did try to grow tomatoes and peppers in decorative barrels last year. actually, no. i didn't try. i grew. but the harvest was paltry due to the scarcity of direct sunlight in our yard. delicious but paltry. and i tried to grow an herb garden in my kitchen this winter and spring. i lavished love and attention and an appropriate daily amount of grow light upon my seeds until they became spindly adolescents who never, ever matured until i eventually lost interest after months of care and passive aggressively forgot to water them so they wilted and then dried up and so they remain to this day, a sad, crispy testament to my gardening skills.

monday during naptime, i read blogs. i came upon oh my stinkin heck's upside down tomatoes post. i was smitten. i vowed that i, too, would grow tomatoes upside down.

the abridged version (as if brevity is my forte) is this: i bought metal hanging planters (learned from others' mistakes and ascertained there was a hole in the center bottom) with coconut fiber liners . i cut a slit in the bottom of each liner large enough to easily pass my tomato plant's root ball through, from under the bottom of the planter to the inside of the liner. then i pulled the coconut fibers around the slit to kind of mesh it all back together around the stem of the tomato plant so no soil would fall through. filled the planter with potting soil and planted herbs in the top of the basket. then i hung them on hooks on my front porch, watered them and took some pictures.

see how the tomato plant is poking through the bottom of the planter? upside down? see how the basket is not hanging in a strictly vertical orientation? it was really, really, windy! so windy that at one point, timmy (who, with ethan, was working alongside me with the plastic herb pots and some driveway gravel, planting a bindweed vine and another weed i'd pulled from the shrubs in front of the porch) screamed out, "oh, no! i have soil in my eyes! call the fire department and the garbage men!"

see the pretty rosemary and those sassy chives? this one's got an "early girl" tomato plant. i used two early girls and one "tumbling tom." up top, we've got the rosemary and chives. another has oregano and chives and the third (the first picture above) has flat leaf parsley, sweet basil and cilantro. yumster!

see my sleepy husband? he works nights. but that didn't stop me from waking him up so he could marvel at my mad gardening skilz. hmm, now that i really look, he doesn't seem as in awe as i thought he'd be. in fact, he seems a bit puzzled, no?

*edited to add: whoowee! i didn't realize i could click on tim's picture above and up would pop the original size photo. i can see my reflection in his eyes! how cool is that?! note to self: next time, photoshop about 30lbs off my reflection.

remembering

2008-06-01T09:15:00.007-05:00

i miss my mother-in-law rosie. she's been gone seven years now. seven years!

in her later years, she mostly stayed home, but she had a steady stream of visitors even then. she was sensitive and caring. always eager to share in someone else's sorrow or celebrate their success.

tim tells stories of her from when he was a kid. she took her four boys and the other neighborhood kids fishing. she let her boys drive on country roads. she taught them to crochet. (rosie was the state fair champion in crochet for 20 years or so. beautiful baby clothes, bedspreads, pillows. she even did a huge rendition of the lord's supper in filet crochet!)

all rosie's grandchildren loved her and she loved them like crazy. she didn't buy them things or take them to exotic places. no, she developed real relationships with each of them. she had a way of listening - really listening - so they opened their hearts and shared their hopes and fears with her. she was the only stability in the lives of a few of them during some hard times. she made a lasting impression on each one.

sometimes i feel cheated that timmy never got to meet her. i know she would have absolutely fallen in love with him. her baby's baby. i can only imagine the special relationship they would have had. tim and i occasionally discuss what it would have been like. we imagine rosie would have spent weeks at a time with us (2 1/2 hours from her home). we imagine timmy learning to crochet and having long conversations about his little world.

we will see her again in heaven, i know. until then, we will tell timmy stories and show him pictures of his grandma rosie. we will remember her for him and for us.

summer is here!

2008-05-25T20:18:00.005-05:00

the waterpark opened yesterday. when the water park opens, it means "summer time!" timmy has been waiting weeks - an eternity for a three year old.

after a delicious ham dinner at mom's, we and tom, taryn & ethan, went to the water park. it is a little teensy slab of concrete with a few water spraying devices, but it's absolutely perfect for little guys like timmy and ethan.

all alone

2008-05-24T10:34:00.003-05:00

such a tough week. exhaustion. 3yo attitude galore. 5mo pleas (shouts, demands) for constant attention. so trying i can't even form complete sentences.

but this morning my husband is off. a rare event. rare. ready for an argument last night, i told him i was sleeping in today. (sleeping in? what is this thing? never happens, unless timmy happens to sleep until 7:00.) like i said, i was ready to thrown down, but tim just agreed.

i woke up once in the night to comfort timmy during the lightening and thunder (i told him if he watches, he'll see the lightening looks like a flashlight and if he listens, he'll hear the thunder sounds like a drum. he wanted to know from what song, so i told him it sounded like george strait to me. that worked! thank you, God!) and not again until 7:30. i felt i should get up, but in the next instant, it was 9:24. nine twenty-four!

i only woke up then because tim came in to get something out of his drawer. they'd been out eating breakfast and flirting with the waitresses at double d's and were now on their way to sportsman's warehouse. (sportsman's warehouse = hours!)

now, it's been over an hour and i feel so lonely and purposeless. i made a banana split dessert (recipe to follow) and now i'm listening to "rebel yell" on my playlist while blogging. no, i'm not folding laundry or mopping the kitchen floor. yes, i should be. maybe i will. yes. i will. dang it. and then i'll enjoy just a teeny-tiny piece of the banana split dessert.

success-ish

2008-05-24T00:06:00.002-05:00

today as i washed dishes, timmy came flying from the family room, through the dining room and kitchen saying, "peepees are coming!" i ran with him to the potty seat, where he pulled down his undies, sat on the potty seat and let loose. he and i were so proud!

twice today he told me and then went without any interaction from me. woo-HOO! however, he did decline to stop chasing louie (minpin) outside long enough to come in to use the potty seat. but small successes. that's what we're celebrating.

the pizza sauce of perfection

2008-05-17T19:53:00.011-05:00

my younger brother lonnie and i experimented in the kitchen when we were kids, from ages maybe 8 to 13 or 14? none of my other brothers ever did get into cooking or baking, as far as i recall, but lonnie and i - we were masters.

we would obsess over one particular item and make it over and over again. sometimes because it was delicious and sometimes because we were trying to perfect it. once it was pizza. we lamented that pizza sauce always tasted like spaghetti sauce. it should be different, we agreed, and we determined to fix it. we made a lot of pizzas over i don't know how long, each time tinkering with the spices and tomato sauce and tomato paste ratios. finally, eureka! the perfect pizza sauce recipe.

that pizza sauce lives on even today in my memory, but in my memory only. we made many delectable and highly-coveted-by-our-other-brothers pizzas with it, but eventually another recipe enticed us. and then another. and we slowly forgot all about our precious pizza sauce. we never did write down the recipe. i remember a couple years later when we got the taste for pizza again, we could not duplicate our earlier success. ever again, in fact.

i now make a pretty mean pizza. the best crust ev-ah, if i do say so myself. (and i do. i really do!) lots of sliced onions, mushrooms, black olives, green and red peppers, zucchini and yellow squash. sometimes italian sausage, since tim prefers a meaty pizza. my sauce is good, but it is just not the same.

maybe i'll call him up and challenge him to recreate our signature sauce. his low-carb diet be danged! family memories are at stake!

12 of 12! 12 of 12!

2008-05-14T21:36:00.016-05:00

i started this blog so i'd have a place to post my 12-of-12 layouts. a little pressure, you know? not that anybody sees this, but they could.

on the 12th of april, i took my pictures. on the 13th of april, i edited and cropped them. on the rest of the days of april and the first ten days of may, i stared at them and moved them around and just could. not. decide what to do with them. i suffer low scrap-esteem. i don't really know anything about using embellishments, so the few layouts i've completed have been very minimalist, which i like, but i do wish i could embellish, too.

on may 11th, at 11pm, i threw caution to the wind, printed out my minimalist journaling, slapped it all on some cardstock, and viola!

i don't like the look of it. i've never scribbled on a layout before (and incidentally, after i scanned this, i "colored" the date on the last line, too). i won't use this style on anything else, but i did decide i'd do exactly this on may's layout. how freeing!

what's most important is that i am documenting my everyday life. when my grandchildren wonder what life was like way back in 2008, they'll be able to look at my layouts and know. there isn't much detail in these particular layouts, but completing them does inspire me to go forth and multiply (my scrapbook pages).

like this one. actually, now that i look at it, i think this might be my "sketch" and not the scan of my actual page, but they look pretty much the same.

blogalicious

2008-05-10T22:28:00.009-05:00

dear blog,

until a few months ago, i didn't know what you were. i'd never read a blog. i know! where have i been, right? well, i've been busy, not that it's any of your business. busy with lucky ducks and crayons and little people. but not with housework. oh, noooooo. not housework. but i digress.

i can't remember how or why, but i stumbled upon the pioneer woman. and i read her entire blog - from the first entry through. what a nerd. no, me; not ree. i spent every naptime for i don't know how long reading that sucker. and then i clicked on a commenter's link. then followed it to another. and another.

now, i do journal. of course i do! not as often or as in-depth as i should. my whole life, i've intended to keep a journal. and i have. usually in january. maybe a couple days in february. then again in january. but when i was pregnant with timmy? oh heck yeah. i recorded every detail of my life. then when he was born, i recorded every detail of his life. if the need to know how long he nursed the early morning of june 3, 2005 ever arises, i'm all over it.

for the past - oh, say . . . 8 months or so, i've slacked off. holding a pen or pencil really, really hurts my hand. it's the weirdest thing! maybe not all that weird, as holding my steering wheel, knitting needles, mop handle or shopping bags also cause my hands pain. but again, i digress.

i got a wild hair after seeing various 12-of-12 blogs last month and whipped one up. ok, i opened a template, but that's just efficiency. an admirable trait, really. why reinvent the wheel? i still haven't finished april's 12-of-12 layout (oh, Lord! is it really almost the 12th again? so soon?!), but this blog has allowed me to vent about my every day . . . vent-worthy . . . stuff.

let's face it; my friends don't want to hear about poopies and peepees every day. oh, who am i kidding? i don't converse with anyone over the age of 3 more than twice a month. today, for example, i chatted (oh yes i did!) with the turnpike toll-taker. i couldn't help myself - she was reading a book with paper pages (as opposed to a board book). she was very kind. she may have taken pity on my frizzy pony tail, boogie-smeared shoulder and happy meal toy-strewn jeep.

but my point, dear blog, is this: thank you. you're there for me, man. really there for me.

we are the champions!

2008-05-09T23:08:00.005-05:00

weeeee are the chaaaaaampions! of the (potty training) woooorrrld! (sing this like queen)

the drugging worked! today, i saw the largest . . . umm, never mind. all you need to know is timmy was successful.

he called everyone he could think of to celebrate. we drove directly to the video store to rent blue's big musical movie. we ate happy meals in the family room while watching said musical extravaganza.

and then he peepeed in his undies. and in the time-out chair. no, he did not go to time-out for anything potty related. what kind of monster do you think i am? no, time-out occurred following regular three-year-old time-out inducing behavior. he earned several time-outs throughout the day and each time he peepeed in the time-out chair. i need to think of a strategy for this one.

an excerpt from his bedtime prayer tonight: "dear God, thank you for this wonderful day. thank you for making all the birdies and their beautiful songs. and thank you for my big big poopie today!"

today i drugged my child (or, the all-potty-all-the-time blog)

2008-05-08T21:55:00.007-05:00

well, maybe not drugged, exactly. let me back up a bit.

the peepee bidness may be on the upswing, thanks to my friend susan's suggestion of nakie-ness. how does this work? well, timmy loves to play outside, but going outside requires undies. we won't have any undies to wear if we keep putting peepees in our undies. wham! connections made in his little-guy brain! (this theory is still in the testing phase.)

you see, timmy can control his bladder function. he has simply chosen to keep his peepees out of the potty seat. i know this because he kept his undies clean and dry (and used the potty seat) all afternoon and evening yesterday at dinner out and then playing at chuck e. cheese's. he was wholly motivated, as i'd clearly let him know if he at any time put his peepees in his undies, rather than in the potty seat, we would immediately return home.

this morning, though. (big sigh) no outrageous fun planned, so no potty seat motivation. until the great nakie-ness of 2008 began. it worked today, and we'll continue tomorrow and beyond, as long as necessary.

but a boy cannot survive without the whole potty package. that is - and please excuse my indelicacy here - poopies are necessary! we haven't had little guy poopies here since friday. six days! i've sneaked (snuck? no, i think sneaked) finely chopped prunes into his oatmeal every morning without result.

timmy's pediatrician is not worried, unlike timmy's mommy and daddy. she suggested miralax at 1/4 adult dosage. so, during dinner tonight, i offered timmy some of daddy's soda. note: small boys do not drink soda. small boys drink water and milk and juice. so you can imagine the enthusiasm with which timmy accepted my gracious (umm . . . guilt-ridden) offer of caffeine-free pepsi secretly laced with poopie powder.

oh, how i fervently hope drugging my child doesn't drive him to therapy in years to come.

pray for me in my hour of need

2008-05-05T08:35:00.005-05:00

will i survive potty training? it remains to be seen. not even nine o'clock in the morning and we've already gone through three - no, wait, four - pairs of undies. help me, Lord! no, i mean it - help me!

maybe it's not the potty training. not the endless laundry loads. maybe it's not even timmy constantly resisting and running from me and having the general bad attitude of a three-year-old engaged in a battle (to the death? oh, God, i hope not) of the wills. maybe it's the bloating, headaches and cramps.

why? o! woe is me! who invented this whole peri-menopause thing, anyway?!

ah, but there's good news on the horizon. i may soon be the proud owner of a new camera. right now, i have a canon digital elph and a jvc/victor gx5 video camera that takes good still shots. i occasionally use my brother's camera - a high-end point-and-shoot. and i've been happy with my little canon for almost six years now.

but. now i'm not. now i have been reading everything about photography i can get my hands on. and i want a digital slr. there are some obstacles. yes, some fairly tough obstacles. one being money. or lack thereof. cops make no fweet coin, you know. but i discussed a plan with tim to save up. i want a nikon d40. it's a "starter" dslr, i know, but it's what i can afford (or, rather, what i can achieve in savings). (i should note that tim automatically suggests credit card usage, but the idea of interest chafes.)

my friend sharon and i will take a photography class together. oh, the pictures i will take. thousands of pictures of small boys in peepee-undies, no doubt.

the japanese have such happy little poopies

2008-05-03T21:40:00.004-05:00

potty training is not easy. i can't even remember how it went with andrew and tori, but i know it couldn't have been this hard. timmy got his undies wet first thing this a.m. but stayed clean and dry all day afterward. actually, he did not urinate again until 8:30 tonight - a couple drips. i'm worried he's going to develop a urinary tract infection or become constipated from holding it all day!

tim bought some individually-wrapped sunsweet pitted prunes to encourage poopies. let's see him hold it after those puppies! i was disappointed to learn they are just as sticky as the regular canister of prunes. might be a problem for timmy, who doesn't like to touch sticky, messy things.

the good news? we watched many entertaining potty videos on youtube. one in particular was quite fun, in a disturbing way. oh, those japanese. gotta love 'em.

storms and diapies

2008-05-02T20:31:00.003-05:00

we had an intense storm last night. we've always made sure we let the kids know we love storms and "we'll sleep good tonight, with this thunder!" so far, it's worked well, but last night? last night the thunder and lightening scared timmy.

timmy cried hysterically - you know, that hiccupy, can't-catch-breath type of crying. he said he wanted to hide under blue soft blankie. tim rocking him was not enough. he needed mommy.

we talked about the storm, the thunder, the lightening. i reminded him he's always safe with mommy and daddy. we also talked about what we do when we're scared in the night. we pray, "dear God, please help me feel better and give me wonderful dreams."

today while we ate lunch we talked about it again. timmy said when he's scared - "can i go up in heaven?" swinging wildly between "oh, how cute!" and the oh-so-irrational-fear-no-you-can't-go-up-to-heaven-you-have-to-stay-HERE-with-me! i just ignored that part and continued the rest of the conversation.

despite all my worries, he awoke perfectly healthy and happy. i was a walking zombie, but he was fine.

i actually started this post last night, but got busy with something else and never came back to it. today - TODAY! - is the day all diapies are gone and timmy wears only undies.

he has been so excited, counting the number of diapies left each time i changed him. however, he was significantly less excited. in fact, the neighbors might have heard the shouts of, "no! i don't WANT undies today!" but what can we do? we're all out of diapies, and as we explained, once we're out of diapies, there are no more. no more! then we'll be so proud of timmy because he will be wearing only undies. undies!

. . . we will see how it goes . . .

tea time

2008-04-27T10:18:00.006-05:00

i went to tea with my sister-in-law, her mother, sister and niece yesterday. didn't want to, but felt obligated. our other sister-in-law stacy and my mom were supposed to go as well. however, mom stepped on a nail that pierced her shoe and foot and was excused due to surgery recovery rules. stacy could not make it either. so.

tea houses are not my thing. i am ashamed to admit i attended far too few tea parties with tori when she was a little girl. some, but not enough, in retrospect. and i'd never gone to a tea house as an adult. coffee shops? oh, i'm there. (or i would be, if my town had one. darn you, starbucks! oh, who am i kidding - mcdonald's playplace is as close to a coffee shop experience as i'll have for the next ten years. and they do sell lattes now...)

but i digress, as usual. back to my intended lamentations.

taryn's family is . . . spirited. they bicker. (a family of four daughters may be the cause? food for thought.) i'm not judging; i'm just not accustomed to it. my original nuclear family didn't bicker. my own family doesn't bicker. (although during andrew's and tori's teenage years? "could you find anything more stupid to argue about?" was oft-uttered by me.) my friends' families do not bicker when i am present. who knows what goes on in private, which is kind of my point - taryn's family does not always constrain their bickering to private times and places. again, i'm not judging; just uncomfortable.

but! yesterday? no arguing. none! lively debate, but respectful. the food? meh. everyone ate faster than i, but this is normal. the price? ugh. but worth it because taryn wanted it. i like to make my family happy, see.

and it gave me a good idea (maybe. i think. maybe.) for mother's day: my sisters-in-law and i will serve a tea to grammy, timmy, ethan and catie. grammy does love her some playtime with the grandbabies, and with this plan, we can avoid her doing any work without her even realizing it. score!

stay tuned, my faithful reader (that would be me) to be regaled with tales of mother's day glory.

oh! almost forgot! this is how we will serve our chai lattes at grammy's mother's day tea party. yes we will. oh, stop with the negativity - it'll be easy!

i love fresh flowers

2008-04-20T20:47:00.002-05:00

i received a flower from timmy for the first time ever. daddy and he shopped (unsuccessfully) for a new motorcycle battery while i cleaned the kitchen. when they returned, timmy brought me a beautiful yellow . . . dandelion. from our yard.

whenever they've been gone, timmy always runs into the house all excited to tell me what they did, to whom they talked (and to whom he gave a wink) and show me the chewing gum daddy gave him.

so, as usual, i met them at the door when timmy rang the bell and he held up his little fist clutching the dandelion and said, "here, mommy. i have a lovely yellow flower for you. you can smell it!" i did. surprisingly, dandelions do smell nice.

they do not, however, last long as a cut (or torn) flower. an hour later, it was completely brown and shriveled. fortunately, there were puh-lenty more in the yard for timmy to pick.

i don't want to wear undies. ever.

2008-04-15T18:15:00.015-05:00

oy vey! when will this kid be potty trained? the experts say, "don't worry. your child will not be walking down the aisle in diapers." yeah. those are some uplifting words of encouragement. i get chills.

today, timmy and i had lunch with susan at our favorite place, taco rio. we're chatting away when timmy gets a funny look on his face & says, "oooooo-uh" and grabs his hiney with both hands. i ask, "do you have some poopies?" he replies, "noooooooooo. i have no poopies. no poopies are coming. susan, why do you have two rings on your hand?" this guy can change the topic like nobody's business. (big sigh)

i love this little person more than i love my next breath. really, i do. having said that, he has been such a hiney-head the past few weeks.

he. challenges. everything.

lips pursed, left eyebrow raised. just standing his ground. asserting his will. reveling in his little baby-guy independence.

i avoid the battle whenever possible, but i cannot back down when directly confronted. sure, it would be easier for us now to just ignore his defiance, but we're not in this parenting thing for the ease. we're trying to raise a responsible, respectful, productive adult.

it worked the first two times. andrew and tori are both great adults. this third child, though. i'm sure it's no different than it was almost twenty years ago (who can remember that long ago?), but some days i think we may be wearing a shiny spot on the ol' time-out chair.

and then there are times like last night. we were rocking at bedtime and i was singing, by timmy's request, amarillo by morning along with his beloved george strait greatest hits cd. the end of one of those endless days. if i recall correctly, we suffered two time-outs between the tub and the jammies. timmy rested his head on my shoulder and his little hand patted my arm and he said, "that's some lovely singing there, mommy. good job." oh, man, i love this kid.

o chickie, chickie! wherefore art thou, chickie?

2008-04-14T08:00:00.003-05:00

it's hard to believe chickie's been gone 10 months now. i received chickie at my baby shower for timmy. in june of last year, timmy and i spent some time in chicago visiting brand-new baby arie (tim had to work, so it was just mommy & timmy). of course timmy took chickie, his very best friend in all the world. chickie and he had not spent one day or night (or half-hour) apart since timmy was old enough to express his preference for him.

on our last full day in chicago, michelle & baby arie and timmy, chickie and i went to the lincoln park zoo. chickie did not make it home. i explained to timmy that night that chickie'd been left at the lincoln park zoo and maybe another boy who didn't have any chickie took him home to love him. timmy was sad. he has never stopped talking about chickie. he frequently tells strangers that chickie is at the zoo in chicago (until last month, he said "sugar-cago").

i began the hunt for chickie and/or a replacement even b/f we left chicago. if i had to estimate, i'd say i've probably spent 70 hours looking so far. about a month after we returned home, i found a plush chick from a wildlife fundraising thing - the "fur" was similar and it was a chick, but it looked nothing like chickie. when it arrived in the mail, i gave it to timmy and told him the mailman brought a new chickie for timmy to love and hug. he was mildly taken aback. he said, "this isn't chickie. this chickie has big huge eyeballs." it took only moments for timmy to love "new chickie" but he is still patiently awaiting the day the mailman will bring "old chickie" home.

during a recent ebay search, i came across a very similar chickie. so similar, in fact, my heart almost stopped. until i realized the chickie on ebay is teeny . . . and hollow (with a plastic egg inside). but it's the same maker (hallmark / heartline) and the little bow is similar, the head and wing and eye shapes are the same. timmy loves his "tiny little baby chickie" but when he called grammy to tell her about it, he said, "and my old chickie will come home from the lincoln log zoo."

it gives me hope that we'll find another original chickie soon, and timmy will be able to tell people old chickie came home from "lincoln log zoo."

my first 12-of-12

2008-04-13T11:18:00.000-05:00

seems like such a simple concept. take twelve pictures of your everyday life on the 12th of each month and then scrap them. cathy zielske's first try was what caught my attention, causing me to check out susan keuter's 12-of-12 blog and sign up for her email reminders.

talked my friend susan into it, and maybe her sister sharon, too. they, of course, had an exciting april 12th. they went to a quilt show or auction (something creative and exciting)

i didn't leave the house all day. timmy was feverish and woke up several times in the night, so like any good . . . uh, tired . . . mom would do for her baby, i snuggled in mommy's bed for a while watching my friends tigger & pooh.

he finally got hungry, though, so i made oatmeal. then, since i was up anyway, i decided to load and start the dishwasher, vacuum the living room and do some laundry. oh, and the laundry remains undone. but i did make some no-bake cookies. that's just as good, right? no, really - wouldn't you rather have no-bake cookies than clean socks? no . . . me neither.

aaaaaaaaaaanyway, my first 12-of-12 day turned out extrmely boring. but at least i put in an attempt. i even chose which twelve pics i'd use and "sketched" a layout in pse. sent it to susan and sharon (& susan keuter), too. with march 12th 2008 on it. yeah. march. when i finally get around to actually scrapping it, though, i'll use the correct month just to make it interesting.