june 12-of-12

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

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

may 12-of-12!

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

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

this is just to say...

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

first, the original:

This Is Just to Say
— William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

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

all your
formerly
manly undies
and t-shirts

are now a
distinctly
feminine shade
of pink

forgive me
for not
discovering
the red sock

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

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

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

preschool and hippies and beaches and pools

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

my hanging baskets

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

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

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

 

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

april 12-of-12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

march 12-of-12

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

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

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

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

my four year old child has an alias?

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!

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!

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

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

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

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!