Yes I am still around and I will pick back up blogging.  I have a lot going on right now that has really zapped my inspiration.  I have found that I totally get writer’s block any time I am going through something even remotely difficult.  Anyway, since every post is better with a picture…

5 Comments

There’s a celebrity across the street putting up porch railings.  Perhaps a close relative? Cousin?

At least we know who Joaquin stole his new look from.

3 Comments

Tsk tsk.  My poor neglected blog.  You know it has been too long when you have to log into wordpress to access your blog’s dashboard.  It doesn’t “remember” who you are (your saved login info).  And your husband asks, “When are you going to blog again?”  Two days ago.

So, a little criteria for reading this:

  • If you are a dentist, DON’T
  • If you value your teeth, DON’T
  • If you like to remain cavity free, DON’T
  • If you prefer to avoid sugar induced comas, DON’T
  • If you are on a diet, lord knows, DON’T
  • If you’ve read all this and still just don’t care, proceed with caution, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Gather your ingredients: honey, cinnamon, butter (duh, you pretty much got that from the title), and powdered sugar.  Y’all stop looking at Civil War era mixer.  She’s a beauty, isn’t she?

I’ve experimented a bit with the recipe, as the honey taste was a bit strong in the first recipe.  I used a scant half cup of honey, 2.5 teaspoons of cinnamon, 1 cup of sugar and two sticks of butter.  Just dump and mix.  No special instructions.  The butter will have a nice, soft (spreadable!) whipped consistency when you’re done.

That’s all, after that, just enjoy the rush.  Warning: you may receive unreasonable demands and/or threats that you make more immediately, when supplies are approximately half depleted.

2 Comments

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Obviously I’ve been thinking about posting a lot more than I have actually posted these last two weeks. So I owe a thank you for your patience.

In my ponderings, I’ve come to the conclusion that I become more of a control freak every day. I hate that. I want to work on it. But if things side step, I don’t seem to be able to handle it like I used to. My life before Caleb was a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants life. My plans were to make no plans. To go with the flow. But then this tiny person entered my life, and I honeymooned for several months, sleepily gazing at my blue eyed boy, absolutely in awe that I baked that up in my belly, and that he was even mine. It was all so surreal. But becoming a parent carries with it a weight like no other. I suddenly realized, if I don’t look at the bigger picture, if I don’t start making plans, it’s not just me that I could screw up. There’s a child now relying on me to make the right decisions, and plan past that day’s lunch. That’s when it all started. At least I think so.

Want to know one of my most embarrassing secrets? Well I don’t think embarrassing is the right word. Perhaps sad? Other than a solo trip to the grocery store on average less than once a month, I’ve only left Caleb all day one time. That day, I drove 11 hours to a wedding and back home so I wouldn’t have to leave him overnight. He was 13 months old then.  He’s four now.  I’ve never had a babysitter.

Tomorrow, I’ll be gone most of the day for another wedding (more on that next paragraph). It may very well be the second time in his life that I won’t put him to bed. I find myself very surprised at how hard it is for me to relinquish that control. To tell myself that he will be perfectly fine. Even is someone doesn’t do things my way, that doesn’t mean they won’t work a different way. Our routine doesn’t have to be followed to a tee.

I know I’ve been burnt out lately and I could use a brief break and a chance to work on and expand my other passion, my photography. This Saturday affords me both of those things. My sister is getting married. I am more or less the second shooter. Although, when I talked to her yesterday, she said “I trust your judgment.” To be perfectly honest, I’m terrified. I’ve never even done a formal photo shoot, much less a wedding. Luckily, I do not have to do any formal posed shots. I am thankful for that. It is an outdoor wedding, so I don’t have to worry about a lack of lighting. I am thankful for that. The bride to be favors the journalistic approach to capturing the day. I am thankful for that.  I’ve  spent hours every week trying to soak up knowledge from blogs like Jasmine Star’s and Jessica Claire’s.  I am thankful for that.

So I have exactly 30 hours to make a cheat sheet before this wedding! I saved several shots from my favorite photographers and I’m going to print out small copies of them and paste them in a little book under categories for inspiration tomorrow, along with a list of all the shots I feel are must haves, and tips jotted down.

So if you’ve read all this and you’re not convinced I’m a control freak, I leave you with this. I vacuum every day. Yes. I really do. In my defense, 6 days out of 7, I use a cordless stick vacuum.

2 Comments

I use Adobe Lightroom to edit my photos (which I don’t always do), largely because I don’t have Photoshop and I don’t have $1500 to get the Totally Rad Actions and Kubota imaging tools after getting Photoshop. Compromises, compromises.  Not to say Lightroom doesn’t do a fine job, I just would like to more than Lightroom 1 allows (I don’t have experience with Lightroom 2).

I wish this picture had little bare feet, but it was spur of the moment, and of course once he took his socks off, he never sat like this again.  Here is the SOOC – Straight out of the camera – version:

Even with socks on, I think the picture can still be made into a keeper with a little post processing.  I think my favorites are probably #1, #3 or #4, depending  on the feel I was going for.  #7 too though.  Anyway, these are probably my favorite and most used presets for Lightroom.  I just recently started experimenting with presets, which are something like a cheat sheet in my mind.  You can use them quickly and easily to bring a totally different feel to the photo, without all the work.

Left to right starting at the top left:

1. Wet Chrome 2. Metropolis 3. Fake it til you make it BW 4. Green Tint 5. x=mad+max+3200 6. x=summer+holiday 7. PH Naturally BW 8. x=warm+storm 9. x=smooth+as+velvia

Larger version here

5 Comments

I don’t know which part is more embarrassing funnier… The fact that I bought these period.  The fact that these slippers were $3.24.  Or the fact that I bought the XL because they were $3.24 while the medium and large (more common sizes) were still $6.48.

Whatever the case, they make my feet smile.

Somehow they don’t look like boats from this angle on little feet.

2 Comments

…It wasn’t pretty.

There was foul language.  Spelled outloud.  My kid won’t know the words, but he’ll be spelling them.  Or saying one particular word beginning with S and ending with T in German, because somehow that makes it not a bad word.

There were hours of frustration.  Six to be exact. (That’s just the failing icing, not the entire cake.)

In the end, the fondant won.  I threw in the towel.  I was trying to make marshmallow fondant in five colors.  Red, blue, white, gray, and black.  Red and black were the death of me.  I had no gloves to wear, and if you’ve used Wilton Food Coloring Gels before, you can imagine how my hands must look.

I can feel every tendon and muscle connected to my fingers or my right hand.  My fingers and fingernails are rainbow colored.  And when I bent my finger, my knuckle split open (you have to knead it forever).  That was when I gave up on the fondant and decided to stick with buttercream.  I am my own worst critic.  I hate the way the cake looks.  Believe it or not, I feel like I disappointed him.  I know that sounds crazy.  But he had ideas about the cake, and I just knew I could do it.  And then it didn’t work.  So yeah.  That sucked.

Pictures are coming.  I promise.

3 Comments

Would you believe me if I told you, I’m really not that indecisive about clothes.  More like, throw on a sweat shirt, hair in a pony tail, I really just don’t care.  This is my fairytale.  I’m the princess.  And the princess wears enchanted sweatpants and glass sneakers.  Only, down here in the South, we call them tennis shoes.  Beam me up What Not To Wear.

Instead I choose to spend all the time I could be working on my atrocious tinkering with my website’s dress code.  But I think I really like this current scheme.  I got all snazzy with some rounded corners, and then gave up quickly on figuring out how to round the corners of the white background space.  I’m trying to simplify.  Websites get cluttered just like every other corner of our lives.  Even made myself some buttons for all of my three adoring fans who likely have no interest in having a button on their website for my blog.  But it is cute, right?!  I’m have been thinking about some type of weekly events to liven things up around here.  So look forward to….something!  I’m feeling a bit vague tonight, stringing thoughts together out of left field.

I did my grocery shopping at 10:30pm alone.  It was quite strange to be out…after dark or without child, take your pick.  Caleb has been sick this weekend.  First time since last January (as in 2008), so I can’t complain too much.  He had a fever Friday night and a weak stomach for the last 24 hours.  Let’s just say I spent the entire day cleaning the carseat.  Handwashing the cover, wiping off straps without submerging them, had to breakout the dustbuster as there were enough crumbs in that thing to build a sandwich.  Who am I kidding, crumbs rule my life.

2 Comments

How about this…

Yesterday, yesterday, I bought the Wilton Cruiser cake pan off ebay to make this infamous Herbie cake.

Today, not even 24 hours later, I find this newly listed, apparently extremely rare, not to mention highly detailed cake pan (I say rare because I searched high and low for a VW cake pan already).

2 Comments

Friday, February 20, 2009 – Last Friday

9:30-11:30am - Time Warner is scheduled to hook up the cable and internet.

1:26pm – Time Warner arrives.  Or the pothead in the creepy blue van that Time Warner has contracted the job out to arrives.  His laptop has the Southpark Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo for a screen saver, I shit you not.  Emblazoned on his screen are several turds in Santa hats with “Happy Holidays from Time Warner” written amongst them.   Is it February?  But really, the fact that Christmas was two months ago mattered significantly less than the dancing turds on the screen.

1:38pm - My sister inlaw announces that they need to head out (they had come by with the ultrasound pictures).  Caleb leans against his auntie looking up at her and wrinkles his brow.  “You have stuff up your nose.” I hide my face in shame.  “Well what is it?!” she begs the answer.  “Buuuggers!”  He’s mine, he’s all mine, wouldn’t pay the gypsies to take em.

3:52pm – Phone rings, it’s dad.  He’s calling for permission to rain check on helping with the move.  My mom informed him he should help.  But I know that we have plenty of help and he needs to go home (away from his apartment where he lives during the week).  He needs the mental and physical separation from the extreme stresses of his job.  Permission granted.  He asks what I’m doing.  I’m throwing stuff in boxes like it is going out of style.  I know there is a 24 foot truck inbound.  Caleb is…well…keeping himself entertained.  Okay, okay, you got me, I’m taking pictures instead of throwing stuff in boxes like I should be doing.

Here’s one of those sentences you never knew you’d say before you were a parent:  “Caleb you got stickers on the dryer when you were crawling in.  Please get them off.  And get out, I need to put the clothes in there!”  Yes I was still scrambling to do laundry in the ‘eleventh hour.’  I was determined we would move with all clean laundry in case I didn’t recover my washer and dryer for a week.  Scott squashed my determination by putting an immediate halt to the laundry campaign and loading the washer and dryer on the truck first.  And yes, it was nearly a week before that campaign resumed.

5:17pm – Everybody in the car, we’re going to Dominos.  No, wait, that was lunch Saturday.  Hardee’s!  Nope, breakfast Saturday.  McDonald’s, we’re going to McDonald’s.  Mom of the year, right here. *points to self*  One child covered in stickers wearing gigantic bear slippers in carseat, one Bat-a-raffe (giraffe dressed like a bat) in child’s lap.  I am digging through my purse for something when a little voice pipes up from the backseat.  “Mommy?  Where’s Charley’s penis?”  Thinking.  Thinking.  Ummmm. Stall tactics.  I forgot something in the house.  That’s it.  I forgot something.  I look up as Scott is opening the driver’s side door.  “Ask your dad!” I exclaim and slam the door to retrieve something from inside while congratulating myself on passing off that question.  Also, I may or may not have been laughing hysterically.

5:19pm – Back in the car.  “What’d ya say to that one?”  “I told him it was between his legs!  Where else would it be?”  OKAY.

5:26pm - She’s taking pictures in the drive through.  Why did she have to go back in to get her camera?  Why, why, why?  One day, when your son or daughter asks you the location of his/her lovey’s manhood sweetie, you’ll understand.

I’m embarrassing him already, he’s only three.  Hey buddy, I’m not the one wearing stickers and bear slippers with the bat-a-raffe

The people behind us probably think I’m nuts.  Oh well, we’re moving.  Who cares?

Don’t worry, the night got less and less funny as it went on.  Reality set in.  I’m a pack rat.  And a procrastinator.  Not a good combination.  We stayed up late loading 75% of the house into the truck.  The only pieces of furniture left were the beds when we got in them that night.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

8:37am - Hardee’s new country potatoes suck.  What were they thinking replacing hashbrowns with those???  I don’t want hacked up steak fry tidbits at 8:37am!  That’s all.

1:15pm – Caleb hugs and kisses the baby.  My heart explodes into a million pieces. Read more here.

2:52pm – BJ helped us move.  He needs to be on his way home by 3:15pm at the absolute latest, as he is playing the piano for a wedding at 5:00pm.  His car as at our old house.  Crap.  20 minutes away.  Crap, crap, crap.  Realize that we need to hightail it.

3:13pm – BJ tucks and rolls when we get to his car.

8:29pm - Caleb passes out with his little knee in the air (foot flat on the bed) he is so exhausted.

8:39pm - We are too tired to even hook up the computer ( the first time we’ve ever moved without hooking up the computer and TV on the same day).  Grab the laptop and cram the ethernet cable in the side.  Check email to reduce internet withdrawal jitters.  I was in the dark for 31 hours.  Scott made it 39.  So it’s only fair that he get first dibs.  I’m impatient anyhow.  Oh great internet, how I missed thee.

8:53pm - Lights out.  Scott slept on the couch, I slept on a mattress (no boxspring) in the floor in Caleb’s room.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

6:47am - Rise from the dead.  Or actually Caleb did.  Despite the early hour, I actually feel well rested and slept amazingly well on the floor.  Are you bored yet?  I’ll skip ahead.

Monday, February 23, 2009

10:16am - Trying to return to a sense of normalcy.  AKA we have no groceries, so instead of unpacking, we’ve taken a trip to “Law-mart,” as Caleb calls it, for provisions.

11:24am - We decided to pretend it is a vacation and wandered around the store for an hour.  Checking out now.  I’m digging through my wallet when I hear giggling.  Both the kid and the cashier.  From the corner of my eye, I see neon green Buzz Lightyear tighty whiteys waving through the air.  “Put your underwear back in my purse,” I hiss.  More giggling.  Another one of those sentences I never knew I’d say.  Cashier raises eyebrows.  I avoid eye contact.

11:31am - Take shopping cart to cart return while on the phone with Scott.  Walk slowly past and come almost in arm’s reach of a little bird perched on the carts before he flits away.  Tell Scott about it as I’m getting in the car.  Caleb asks, “Did he crap on you?”  Sigh. I’ve taught him well, haven’t I?  “No Caleb, he didn’t poop on me.”

12:59pm - I fell upside down in a box with my feet waving in the air while trying to write this diary and decided it was time to give it up.  Nah, just kidding, I hadja going though didn’t I?  It would have been funny.  I would have laughed.  No honestly, the times are approximate, I actually only made a few notes here and there on a text document.  It actually looks like a strange code that could only be deciphered by a mommy blogger.

PS. I think I found my wit.

2 Comments

Next Page »