Destination: rest and relaxation

Time to go soak up some sun, rest and relax...

Kick up my feet in a beach chair...

Maybe take a break under the shade of an umbrella, think, read, let my mind roam...

 I am heading down to my friend's beach home on the southern coast of California. Leaving the hubby home to hold down the fort. Have bought him food and left him a list of things that have to happen (water the plants, bring in mail, lock the doors when he goes to sleep). I'm sure when I will return it will smell like a man cave, but I am glad to let him have some space to "be" by himself.
We'll miss him.

See you all when I return on Monday. While I'm gone, leave me a comment--tell me what you have goin' on this summer, fun plans (or no plans), books you want to read, dream trips you'd want to take if you won the lotto, camps you're sending your kids to, yadda yadda.

I'm off!
xoxo

staring down May

Uh yeah, this pretty much sums up how I feel when I look at my calendar and see my crazy month of May.

I feel like I am at the bottom of the slide and someone is barreling down behind me about ready to collide with my topside. Like a frantic dream, I am glued to the bottom and cannot get off quickly enough. 

Let's see if I can come up with some other similes that convey how I feel...

It's like I just stuffed myself with appetizers and dinner and a massive portion of a fudge brownie ice cream sundae (that was my April) and then someone held a gun to my head demanding that I eat another fudge brownie sundae. Can't. Take. One. More. Bite.

No no no, not good enough. Let's see...

It's like I am tied to the tracks and I can see the train coming a mile off, the faint toot of its horn warning me of my impending disaster. (Where is my rescue?!)

No, that's a little melodramatic.

It's like I'm Dorothy, running through the pasture with the tornado on her back, looking for some way to find shelter.

Dumb? It's super windy here so naturally that is where my brain went.

Okay, I suck at similes.

Anyway, anybody feel that way about May? Wanna add your own simile?

Why is spring so crazy?? I wrote a list of all my May activities, tasks, responsibilities and just wanted to go run and hide, throw my hands to my face, stick my head in the sand. So much to do, so many places to be! It truly challenges my introverted nature. It kills me that my favorite Real Simple magazine is sitting on my night stand and I cannot get to it. It is a practice in perspective for this die hard introvert to look at each day and take it one at a time and realize that each event, job, is really not that bad. In fact, they are all going to be enjoyable. (Well except for maybe one task, but I will choose not to see it as the black dot on the large piece of white paper.) I need to just close my eyes and take a deep breath and step into this month with the assurance that I will get through it. All will be well.

It...might...actually...be fun? (baby step at positive thinking)

And if your month of May is as crazy as mine then maybe we can hold hands and walk through it together. Sometimes you just need to know that you are not alone.

Hey, have a happy Friday!  

xoxo  

(Smooch, hug, smooch, hug...that's what me and the Bean say.)

********************

p.s. Such a random tangent. I had to laugh at this girl when taking her picture. Just a week ago I was chuckling at her shirt. Remember this? This girl really knows how to wear it like you mean it. 

this is kinda how I feel about the rain right now

Today the weather gradually faded from sunny with a touch of clouds, to dreary gray with a dump of rain. And my energy pretty much followed. I think I am probably sounding like a broken record (skipping cd?) right about now as I say, once again, that this week was just looooooong. To end it with a rain visit is just...bleh.

On the brighter side, the kids came home with glowing report cards. That's always nice.

Bean reminded us all that we always go out for ice cream on report card day, which is funny because I remember doing that with them sometime last year and obviously she took it very seriously. She has latched onto that as our little celebratory tradition and reminds us all of it days before report cards come home. It's like a holiday for her really. Do other kids do that?

Maybe a little ice cream sundae will turn that frown upside down?

At least it's Friday.

Happy Friday y'all.

xoxo

XOXO

 

Has anybody else noticed the evolution of these little sugary, chalky, (and IMHO totally nasty) hearts?

They've gone Britney Spears.

U GO GIRL

ROCK ON

LOL

GET REAL

CALL ME (I'm surprised I didn't see TEXT ME.)

I-M SURE

TOO HOT(okay, that one is more Paris Hilton)

Though I despise the taste of these I was glad to see that the old standbys were still around:

BE MINE

KISS ME

SOUL MATE

XOXO

MY GIRL

SAY YES

YES

And then there was the lone GOT LOVE? that was a sure indicator that the heart makers have definitely entered the 21st century.

My Valentine sweet of choice? Just some plain old chocolate, please.

And a kiss from my own Sweets. :)

Happy Heart Day. 

XOXO

Remind me...

If you happen to run into me tomorrow and you ask me where I'm going, and I say, 

I'm going shopping for a car! 

...then please feel free to rope me to a tree, chain me to a fence, etc. and guard me there until bedtime. 

Please feel free, also, to remind me of how tonight's car shopping experience was really not that painful until everyone started talking numbers and financing, at which point my hubby and I looked at each other and hung our heads in discouragement, grabbed our kid's hands, stuffed them in the car and headed home in silence. Remind me that there were more peaceful, soulful things I could have remained doing before we left for the car dealership, such as:  crouching with my daughter in the beautifully lit "green room" her brother made in the grass forest across the street...or discovering that the grass was loaded with newly birthed lady bugs all traveling up and down the blades in search of aphid....or basking in the beautiful light of the setting winter sun.

Yes, please remind me that I loathe, (no, seriously, hear me say in the most whiney possible voice) looooooaaaaattttthhhhhee buying a car. It is one of the few times I just wish we had more money than we do. Not because I want some fancy car that is worth major bucks, but because I just do not want to give my time away to searching for a car. I want to just walk onto a car lot, pop onto craigslist, see a car that I like (new or used), and buy it without looking at the asking price.

Are you feelin' my pain?

Really, I just want to curl up in Bean's green room, watch the light on her face, and count lady bugs.

quite a collection

A couple of years ago my hubby came back from a trip to his parent's house carrying his dad's matchbook collection that had been stuffed into a very large shoe box. At first I was irked that we would now be the keepers and storers of this random collection as I am not a "keeper" type of person. (I toss frequently.)

But upon opening the box we found ourselves stepping back in time to an era that we only saw in faded photographs and Super 8 film strips. The collection spanned over 50 years and each little book held a story--stories we would never learn of, but could only imagine. 

This picture only holds a few dozen matchbooks. The box contains several hundred. 

So today I finally pulled them out and poured them into some glass containers to serve as book ends on our new book shelf. (One day I'd like to line them all up side by side and frame them in a large piece to hang on my wall.)

When I scan the many names of places my father-in-law has visited over the last 60 years I smile at how accurately they reflect who he is and was:

• obviously a smoker...during a generation when smoking was just the social thing you did and everyone thought it profitable to spend a little money on matchbook advertising.
• a lover of a good porterhouse steak served up in a bustling food joint where the service was excellent and the waitress automatically brought you a strong cup of coffee.
• a frequent visitor to Nevada...to the south side of Lake Tahoe and also to Reno...where the Nugget and Harrahs welcomed folk to cheap rooms, all night gambling, and endless food buffets. (Where you could stuff a roll of quarters into your kid's hands and leave them at the basement arcade--and not even worry once of the possibilities that they might not be there when you got back.)

A little bit of surprise--but maybe not--was the matchbook from Bustles and Beaus Sumptuous Saloon. (Not pictured was the one from the Playboy Club.) Hmmm...

As I comb through the hundreds of places he has been (places that are no longer standing) I think back to an era that is long gone yet somehow still lives on in my father-in-law. (If you knew him, you'd definitely agree with me.) I know if he could, he would eagerly go back to a time where middle class Americans stopped at Pop's Oasis Motel for a good meal, clean bed, and the kids could swim in the shallow pool without an ounce of sun screen on. A time when you remembered the steak you had at the Famous Pioneer Club, or the poker hand you won at the Rainbow Club. A time when you met your friends every weekend at the local food joint, smoked a cigarette together, offered a match to a stranger. A time when family and friends got a long just fine without cell phones and Twitter, Facebook and My Space.

I am glad I did not toss the matchbook collection. The nostalgia I feel when I look at them is enough to make me want to go back in time...for a little while...until I had enough of choking on the cigarette smoke. :) 

Everything needs a little somethin' to grow

This is what I thought as I sat on the threshold of my back door, dodging rain drops, attempting to capture this jack-and-the-bean-stalk-weed drinking the raindrops. I think he was growing inches by the seconds. Weeds can do that. After one day of rain all the little weed seeds burst forth and shoot up so fast you have barely had time to blink. (Darn those weeds.)

I also thought about how frustrated I was trying to capture those raindrops with crystal sharp precision. (When your aperture is wide open in low low light your range of focus is just limited and your lens is not at its sharpest, and I wasn't about to set up a tripod...details.) I thought upon that fact that the last few times I have used my camera I have experienced this frustration of not being able to get close enough because my lens is just not built for that super macro shot.

And then when I realized I have thought this to myself on more than one occasion the seed of desire for a spiffy new macro lens was planted in the soil of my heart.

It is just a tiny seed now because of course I need to find some money to water it and make it grow. And it's a safe bet that my seed will not be growing inches by the second.

Actually, it will be like a fruit seed that takes years to produce a tree that will yield fruit.

I need to pick a less expensive hobby.

Come on people, show some excitement...

...For a clean house (read: Christmas stuff put away, recycling out, and closets reorganized)
...Kids back in school (read: regular bed times)
...A trip to Trader Joes today (read: I went all by myself!)
...A full fridge of good-for-you food (read: absent of holiday goodies that were dragging me down)
...Crisp, cold blue/sunny sky (read: my favorite kind of California weather)
...Did I already say a clean house? (read: I want you all to know that I have a clean house.)

And lastly...that I blew past my husband's fastest time on beating Klondike Solitaire. I cannot wait to tell him when he comes home that I now hold the record with three minutes and eighteen seconds. A good twenty seconds under his old fastest score.

Just a little excited.

Waiting for the party to begin...

Geez, the title of this photo changes every time I view it.
What was the first thing your mind said when it popped up on your screen?

p.s. I am impressed that I caught it--at midnight--inside--with no natural light. My new camera has no flash (must purchase) so I relied on bumping up my ISO to a crazy number. (Which for photo dummies, that pretty much means that I was able to make my camera soak up all the light in the room with out flashing a flashy flash.) It's a little grainy (which happens when you bump up your ISO) but I kinda like it. Rock on!

I need some of this...

We arrived home a few hours ago from our snow trip and I have a mountain of laundry to do and I need to de-Christmasify my house. (Happy New Year to me!)

I need some special energy, a shot of motivation, some Batman Power. When my outer world is chaotic I get a little overwhelmed. But now that I stop and think about it, I think I would rather go plop on the couch with my kids (while they watch a movie) and play some solitaire on my iPod. That sounds a bit more my speed right about now...a good way to finish off day one of 2010.  

Happy New Year friends. Hope you are putting off the "to-do's" on this Friday holiday. We all need to stop and take a deep breath, snap on our seat belt, before we race off into the next decade. 

 

"I sold 35 tubs of cookie dough for my school fundraiser...

...and all I got were these stupid, silly, glasses." (t-shirts are being designed as I write!) Well actually, that is not all she won. She and her brother combined orders (to win more goodies) and received the ultimate in prizes: the "Swirly Mug". An amazing invention that swirls your chocolate syrup into your milk glass to make the perfect, frosty glass of chocolate milk. (You know you're jealous.)

So here she is modeling the wacky eyeglasses for the camera. Her sidekick was a tad more shy about trying them on--plus she wanted to indulge in her extreme chocolate/Recess Pieces cookie. If your friend sold 35 tubs of dough you get to partake in the rewards!

Vintage Christmas

Every Christmas season I am drawn to the vintage-y cards and papers, glitter and tinsel. I am somewhat of a paradox: I love to browse through vintage shops and websites but I rarely bring something home. It doesn't quite match my modern/comfortable/California girl vibe. (If I could live anywhere it would be on the California coast in a modern beach bungalow that looked like something out of the pages of Coastal Living.)
Yet every holiday season I pull out my vintage advent calendar, and vintage ornaments and wish I could be back with my English ancestors celebrating with tinsel and candle-lit trees. I think it's the nostalgic feeling of it all--the throw back to simpler times when getting an orange in your stocking was a treat.
The little children in the fold of this advent calendar bring such a smile to my face...the children playing their instruments, the angel in the window with her flute, the little kitty...all dusted with glitter, celebrating the fact that the Christ Child has come.

I would love to join them...

TGIF

It has been "one of those weeks" around here: crazy schedule, working more hours than usual, coordinating this and that, squeezing in family meals, forgetting a few things along the way. A moment at the start of the week set the rest of my week in motion when my alarm clock (a.k.a. my hubby) forgot to wake me up at 6:30am so I could be to work by my 7:20 call time. I happened to awake at 7:20 completely disoriented and then suddenly horrified to realize that I was supposed to be at work! And I hadn't washed my hair in days. I looked lovely running through the doors at work. Just lovely.

My week was book ended by another moment that made me feel as if I was playing out some mild comedy of errors. Picture me standing in a new pediatric doctor's office (not the examination room--but out in the main office) having just come from the exam room where I had to pin my screaming daughter down to receive the H1N1 vaccination (she's a high risk case so I reluctantly let them give it her--boy was I sorry). My 10 year old is pleading (no joke) to get the flu nasal spray vaccination because he really is terrified of getting the flu (don't get me started on how I feel about the flu "monster" that has been created). As I am signing papers, the nurse, who is about to give Zach the flu spray, turns to me and says, "Do you know that your son has a fever?!"  She waves the thermometer so I can see the red neon numbers reading 1o0.4.  I drop my pen in shock. My son, who has had only a few fevers in his life, is standing there anxiously looking at me, then back at the nurse, then back at me.  I finally say, "You're joking." But not to Zach, or the nurse, but to a God I really believe in and am, at that moment, not happy with. Zach says he feels perfectly fine, but I do finally note that his eyes look a little blood shot. As I escort him out of the building the realization hits him: he might be getting the flu. His voice quivers as he tells me he feels light headed and that he might faint...not from the flu, but from the anxiety over having it. 

I drive home in the rain answering every question known to man about flu specifics. My daughter promptly falls asleep in the back seat and I try to just keep my sanity above the water line.

So here I am, 10:38pm Pacific time--everyone is asleep but me. I still have a mountain of stuff to get done by Monday but I am glad that it is at least Friday. I have pulled up my pictures from this last week and have found some outtakes that I have not yet shared. I have titled them for you...

Gutter Leaves

Picking Fairy "Cot" 

(Ask the fairies--they'll know)

How To Keep Your Man

Smoochie Pooch

Three Happy Mamas

Hooray for TGIF!

I am off to bed...

it's so stinkin' cold, I don't even want to take a picture

It's dipping near freezing temps here in the Silicon Valley and I am having to climb into the back of my closet to find my warmest coat. (Do I even have one?)
I once was in Chicago in the winter time and walked into a Baby Gap and was surprised to see all this adorable, fun winter stuff for kids. Where was this in my California Baby Gap?! My friend, whom I was visiting, laughed at me. Of course, we don't need the below freezing baby bundles in California...
So here we are in our sunny Bay Area, tickled to see a dusting of snow on our low lying hills. I made hot cocoa and popcorn for Bean and her friend and it was all I could do to muster up the desire to pull out my camera and take an indoor shot. Simply put, I really just don't like indoor shots. I have yet to take one I really like. Really. (I hate bumping up my ISO and I really do not like the color of the light.) Whatever.

Speaking of my camera...it is in a winter of its own. I have been suspecting it has been failing me, just a 6th sense I had. I realized that even though it is only three years old, I have easily taken somewhere between 80,000-100,000 shots on it. Uh, that's a lot. Its shutter life is winding down, unless I give it a tune up.
So I bought a new camera. And I am anxiously awaiting its arrival. I cannot tell you just how hard it has been for me to wait...

sugar no more?

Any body else feel like their diet for the last month has consisted of a daily sugar intake equivalent to a mountain sized pile of donuts?

Every since my kids have been able to trick or treat, the days between Halloween and Thanksgiving are one long sugar-fest...sugar-feast.

By the time I get to Thanksgiving I am so d.o.n.e. with junk, I am ready to go on some major cold turkey type of diet where I only eat raw veggies and drink water, with not a gram of sugar or carb in sight. This is how I felt today.

But then I forget that the view towards the December holidays is so very close so I shrug it all off and tell myself that I can wait till December 26th to go on my sugar fast. 

Oh, but then I remember that New Year's is a week after Christmas and that I usually partake in the gorging of sugar and fat laden treats in the hours leading up to midnight on New Year's Eve--enjoying every calorie.

So it doesn't really pay to go cold turkey today.

Oh phooey.  Someone come please do an intervention.

Yeah for a new chair!

Since moving into our new house over a year ago, I have moved very slowly in the decorating department. Mainly because after years of being surrounded by white rental walls, I just am overwhelmed at the directions I can take to make my nest nifty and fun and cool. And well, it takes a bit of cash-o-la too and I am saving up for other things--like a new camera. But after setting a "home budget" a few months ago I have given myself the freedom to finally begin making some purchases. Last month it was this little chair. After seeing it in a friend's house I decided I would get it too. Totally frivolous--like I should have spent my money on a coffee table (of which I totally need) or bath mats or something practical like that--but I decided to just go for it. Today I looked like a maniac lugging this chair across the street to put it in some decent light. My daughter was eager to sit in it being that sitting in a fun chair out in the park is quite novel. 

I will probably be looking at this chair in 20 years, saying: "I don't know what I was thinking--I thought it was so cool back then."  Kinda like my mom did when she finally got rid of her god--awful avocado green living room chairs (the ones I took a gold crayon to when I was little--oops).

Gettin' Crafty

I have always been the crafty kind. I have dabbled in many arts and crafts and love reading crafty blogs--wishing I had the time and money to be doing a "project" every weekend. Several years ago a friend of mine and I started up a little boutique during the holidays. We gathered all our crafty friends and sold our stuff for a couple of days. We transformed my friend's house into a nifty, cool, little store and all our friends would come and shop and buy our things. It wasn't your typical cheesey boutique. It was cool, and fun and grew to be a very large event. The money I made covered all our Christmas presents and then some. Then I moved away and it got to be too hard to keep coordinating it all, so we gave one last farewell boutique and people were sad to say goodbye.

Fast forward a couple of years and here I am getting ready to do it all again with another friend, in a new town. I am making these little magnets, 300 of them to be exact. I am selling them with little silver tins so people can pick their own color combos and put them in their own tins. 

My husband thinks I've gone crazy with all that I am doing. But it is just another outlet for my creative spirit--you gotta feed it!

I love making these little goodies for the same reason I love photography. They are little pieces of art and the gratification is instant. I have realized over the last few years that I am a artsy spirit stuffed inside a product-over-process personality. This explains why I have failed at scrap booking: it never ends. I need an end. I need to see my creative vision realized, like now. It is why I found my photographic spirit soar when digital photography became available. I could instantly see the fruit of my creativity and learn from my mistakes in the same moment. (Can you tell I am a hands-on learner?)

In the next two weeks I will also be sewing my brains out. I am making some baby blankets. Of course I get drawn into coordinating all the cute fabric that I find online, but now I have to sit down and sew it all up. I am dreading it--and now you know why. The process is too long. I need to hire someone to do my dirty work. Oh to be a top designer with all my little workers floating around working my visions into reality. That would be so cool. Someday...

Ducky Mayhem

Let me explain...

It's the first week of November. We are smack in the middle of our school's fall fundraiser: selling 3lb tubs of cookie dough. (Yes, I said 3lb tubs.) Chocolate chip, triple chocolate, snicker doodle, sugar, white chocolate macadamia, rocky road, peanut butter and peanut butter chocolate chip, candied butter crunch, lemon cranberry...am I missing any? As an incentive to sell these monster tubs of dough the kids are able to earn rubber ducky key chains. (Yes, I said, rubber ducky key chains.) On specific mornings they arrive at school early, join the ducky line and receive a ducky, or two, or three, or four as an award for their amazing salesmanship.

Weeks before the fundraiser was to begin we all wondered at the effectiveness of the duckies. Really? Duckies...dressed as a football, leprican, skeleton, flag? Our kids will really be begging to sell cookie dough just to own a prize ducky? But our cookie dough rep, the one that actually came up with the idea (the one we now worship), assured us that it would work, that at other schools the duckies were a hit. We would not be disappointed. Okay...sign us up. Who wants to be left behind the ducky wagon?

So here I am 5 days into selling cookie dough, and I can personally attest that the ducky mayhem is in full force. Full. Force.

 

The "ducky line" this morning? A mile long. Total mad rush. 

Parents who have never stepped onto campus? In the "ducky line", with their kids.

Kids who have never participated in a fundraiser? Selling cases of cookie dough.

Trading duckies? Oh yeah. Deals are going down on the playground.

Feeding the duckies? You have to! At recess time the "feeder moms" come out to feed them pretzels and crackers...their favorite food.

Nap time for duckies? Of course! When they are in the classroom. Asleep in the cubbies.

A special ducky of the day? Uh huh. Announced every morning--a special prize for the lucky owner.

Twenty four different ducks? Twenty four. And new ones every year.

Peer pressure at it's finest? Yep. Who wants to be left standing with out a duck?

 

Money being raised for our public school? Yes and hallelujah!

Best (and stupidest) piece of marketing I have ever seen?  You bet.  And it's working. 

Worth it? Totally.

If it raises money for a sorry California, budget anemic school then I say, bring on the duckies! We have five more days of living on ducky planet and I can live with that. Because who knew that our little public school could be saved by such a silly fun little rubber ducky?

That skeleton ducky? Number one coveted ducky. Only 10 of them exist at our school. If you own one, you guard it with your life.

Channeling Dr. Suess

Yesterday was bubbles, today it's boots. 

Bubbles and boots. 

B B B

So a little something a la Dr. Seuss...

Big B little b

What begins with B?

Big bouncy bubbles

and some boots to bust a boogie.

hmm...

and some boots to bust a boot scootin' boogie?

and some boots to break a....?

and some boots to walk a buggy?

Totally not satisfied with that last line. 

Dr. Suess seriously had the gift. I apparently do not.

Did you know that on a dare he wrote a children's book using only 50 words?

 Green Eggs and Ham. 

I'd say those 50 words pretty much locked him into a cushy retirement.

I, on the other hand, have a long way to go.

Wind issues

Today was a very gusty windy day. The kind that keeps you indoors because it makes you mad with irritation just stepping outside.

I have serious issues with wind. Like "I need therapy" type of issues. 

Maybe it has something to do with:

1. living in a windy college bike town for 4 years. Riding my bike home, into the wind, every day from class. It was a sheer work out. Weary from the battle, I was so ticked-off by the time I got home I had to pick the bugs out of my teeth before I could eat dinner. 
2. the "incident" I had while on a high school choir trip. It is still hard to talk about, but let's just say it had to do with finding a spider in my mouth while trying to pull my wind blown hair, that had been plastered to my lip glossed lips, out of my mouth. 
3. that 1970's Disney Haunted House record--the one with the creep windy storm track...and the ghostly moans and foot steps.
4. watching The Wizard of Oz one too many times. Dorothy's scramble to find shelter during the tornado fills me with anxiety. Can she move any slower?

And those are just my top four...