elfini

Movin' on up

2009-05-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

Big announcement people! Elfini (the blog) is moving!

That's right, after much soul searching (read: Help Forums), I've finally made the move from Blogger to WordPress.org. Please go to:

www.elfini.dawnblanchfield.com/

or www.dawnblanchfield.com/elfini if that's how you like to roll. They will each get you there.

Bookmark the new site and enjoy! And if you have included this site in your blogroll - thank you! I'm sorry to put you to the trouble of having to change the url, but after all I've just been through, well, suck it up eh?! Updating a link is a walk in the park. While I've been cruisin' around the lower levels of hell! Go to the new site and read all about it!

So, bu-bye Blogger. We've had some good times, but we've grown apart. It's not you, it's me... Let's stay in touch - we'll do lunch!

Shit-kickers. A wedding story...

2009-05-05T19:56:00.001-07:00

Ah yes, the cow-pie wedding. You’re intrigued, I can tell.

Cayle and Holly from Dolphin Divers got married last Saturday. And we were honored to have been invited! But before we could attend this event, logistics needed to be addressed. First up we needed a babysitter. But even more important to me was – what am I going to wear?! The wedding was in Napa at 5:00pm. But the note in the invitation said to arrive at 4:30 for a leisurely walk to the wedding site (cars available for those who do not wish to walk). Ok. I had questions. I gave Chris the job of calling and finding out exactly what the deal was (i.e. what should I wear?). At this point I’m starting to fret a bit. My closet is severely lacking in potential spring wedding wear. I have several skirts, but no tops to go with them. And what about shoes?

Chris finally gets back to me with the specifics: the wedding was not being held in a vineyard as you might assume. It’s in a cow pasture. And the wedding site is on a hill, up a gravel path. And the last pitch of that path is steep! Ok. Now my eye is twitching. I have to scale a small mountain during the hottest part of the day in nice clothes?! Do I need to bedazzle my Keens?! And what about the cows?! It was obvious I was going to have to go shopping.

So, I headed to the mall. Bought several tops to go with my several skirts – I like to have options. I figured I would wear my Keens or pink tennies (depending on which skirt I wore) for the hike and then change into nice sandals for the reception. And then it started to rain. And rain changes everything. Silk skirts? I don’t think so. Open toe sandals? Not so much. Fuck. Back to the mall. Were I found these:

Sharon did not believe I was going to wear these to a wedding. Even a wedding in a cow pasture. But I did! And they were a hit. Not only that, they were a necessity! I’m pretty sure that wasn’t just wet dirt we were truckin’ along in.

Here’s how things ended up- Due to the rain, the ceremony and reception were moved inside the barn. This was a working cattle ranch and the cows were in the next barn over. I waved and then plugged my nose. It poured on the drive there, but stopped when we arrived. Nice. So I ended up wearing the long silk wrap skirt over my jeans - because it was cold. I never took my jacket off so the worries over the top were for naught. And we had a great time! They had draped fabric and twinkle lights over the steer-showing pen and hung lights from the ceiling. There was a wooden dance floor in the middle of the barn surrounded by hay. The tables were around the perimeter in the hay. And it was actually quite lovely. Weddings are just happy ya know? Even if the ‘facilities’ only consisted of his and her port-a-johns.

There were only two things wrong with the evening: #1 – I got to shoot with Holger’s Nikon D200 {swoon} and #2 – we had to leave before they cut the cake!

Sure, we stopped and got shakes on the drive home to satisfy our missed dessert cravings, but how will I assuage the camera lust I now have? Cause oh baby, that camera felt good…

Voter apathy

2009-05-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

Well, the public has spoken. I was going to give you a month to vote – like India’s rolling elections, but I guess 6 votes is all I’m gonna get. So without further ado, an updated photo of the painting*:

That was the work I did on the background, way back on Sat April 18th.
And on the 19th I worked on the jeans and jacket:

It's coming along nicely. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to work on it since that weekend. The 25th was the day Kyle and I attended a photo class at the California Automobile Museum**. Then I promptly got sick for several days. This past Saturday was the cow patty wedding. And yesterday... well, I don't really remember yesterday. But I didn't get a chance to paint. And I won't be painting next weekend either since it seems we're going coastal again. So, I'm feeling kinda twitchy about the whole thing. I hate losing my momentum. Especially when I'm faced with painting the hair. I'm dreading the hair.

* Sorry P. You were out-voted 5-1. Next time do a bit of campaigning for your cause!

** That was a lot of fun! Kyle discovered the joy of using a tripod -my tripod- and got all the good shots! I've put Lightroom on Kyle's computer and now I need to show him how to use it. Photos coming to flickr soon. Well, probably in a couple weeks. You know how it is...

Prodigal Son

2009-04-22T16:41:00.000-07:00

Due to circumstances most unfortunate, our friend Cynthia recently moved to Santa Cruz. Crapitola to be exact. Just down the road from the uber-in-laws*. How convenient. Again, the reasons for her move sucked but the end result is win/win for everyone! She has returned to the town that she loves and I now have a local friend when we go down for weekends. I’ll probably see more of her now than when she lived in Sacramento or Auburn! Coolio. Not only is Cynthia a fab painter, she recently got a Canon Rebel of her own, so camera-buddy!** She’s got Lightroom up and running and I’m looking forward to seeing her photos. (hint hint. hello?)

Speaking of painting and returning to the mother-ship… I got another two days of painting under my belt this past weekend. I’m pleased as punch with how the painting is coming along! So, the question I have for you, gentle reader, is this: do you want to see the progress photos I’m taking after each days work? Or would you rather just wait and see the finished painting? And since you people seem to be so damn reluctant to leave comments, I'm trying something new, fun, and easy - a poll! Vote now and change the world!

poll by twiigs.com

* And let's not forget what today is... Happy BEarthday P! I couldn't imagine a better mum-in-law. I left a present for you on my flickr account. Enjoy!

** Chris – don’t even begin to think this is letting you off the hook, the van is still the ultimate drive-by vehicle!

100 Proof

2009-04-15T15:57:00.001-07:00

I was going through some photos in Lightroom and I realized that I never followed up with how that Mather Golf Course Second Saturday event went... probably because not much came of it. The morning was cold and windy, there wasn't much foot traffic besides the other vendors, and I only sold one print- a framed 5x7 I pulled off my office wall to use as an example piece on the table. Speaking of my table, here's how it turned out:

and here is a shot with my fancy new canvas print rack full of all the prints I made.

Pretty slick eh? Well, I'll be ready if I ever decide to do that again. In the meantime, I've got a lot of prints for sale. Call me!

Moving on...

Did you hear that little birdie* announce that I've started painting again? It's true. 2 weekends ago I finally started a new canvas. It has been around 2 years since I've painted! And I know you are going to jump to the easy assumption that I blame the baby**, but I don't. That was all Chris's fault!** ok ok it wasn't really Chris's fault. The painting muse was on an extented vacation, but now she's back!

Day One - put a wash on the canvas and started sketching in all those damn limbs!

Day Two - blocking in the color.

Kyle thinks it's done. Silly rabbit - not even close! I missed working on it last weekend as we were in Santa Cruz for Easter and birthdays! There was Chris's b-day on the 2nd to celebrate and Erin's on the 13th. Yep, the baby is now 2! I just got the pics off my camera. I'll post those photos "soon". I've got a couple other things to finish up first. Remember, patience is a virtue!

* Twitter baby. Keep up.

** The running joke around here is that I'm just too damn happy to paint. Tortured artist and all that...

Doh!

2009-04-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

I miss all the fun. /frown

This is the awesome! Thanks Andrea.

a Hodge-podge, but no Brady

2009-03-31T20:19:00.000-07:00

Damn woman - have a little patience!

The uber-in-laws called while I was cooking dinner. Over the speaker-phone I promised to post a pic of Kyle's new haircut. 20 minutes ago, while I was still helping Kyle with his homework, I received the following email:

"I rushed home (okay, there was a pizza stop in the ‘rush’ part) to see Kyle’s haircut on your blog!!! I was promised!! Oh, deceiving phone calls on speaker."

Well then. As promised! The new and improved Kyle - BEHOLD!

I had forgotten that he even had eyebrows!

Reading list

And while I have your attention P, how is Lamb coming along? I finished Island of the Sequined Love Nun and it did not disappoint! It wasn't as laugh-out-loud as some of his other books, but the ending had me grinning like a fool. 5 Stars. Classic Moore. Yum!

2 days ago...

Sunday afternoon, I finally scanned the negs from the roll of film I shot with the Supersampler. Today I uploaded 7 of the 12 'keepers' to Flickr. I'll post the rest tomorrow - but gee wiz, if I don't get them up right away, cut me some slack eh?!

GRAPHICs - how NOVEL...

2009-03-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

I am procrastinating. I should be changing into a pair of pants that fit so that I can go to the grocery store. But I made a quick stop by my desk and here we are. And here a couple photos of the kiddies that I did some Photoshop magic to.

Yes, another tutorial. This one was the Stylized Comic Book Effect by Corey Barker of PlanetPhotoshop. Fun for me!

And here is a super simple Halftone Dots and Linear Light Effect:

In other news, I am reading Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore. It's...

Oh.
Now I must find pants and get out the door. Chris just came upstairs and told me to buy drugs. Lots of drugs.

I'm sure he will clarify exactly what he is looking for before I leave. He knows me a little too well...

Intergalactic Translator

2009-03-17T11:20:00.000-07:00

Were you aware that Erin turns 2 next month?! Holy Aging Me Batman. That’s crazy. So I guess that means she is right on the mark of the developmental scale. Cause as I’ve said before – that baby is crazy.

And she is getting big. Some long lean little girl who is all limbs has disappeared my cute chubby moon-faced baby. She probably ate her. I swear Erin eats twice as much as Kyle! She’ll eat her dinner, then mooch off Chris’s, mine and Kyle’s. And now she’s making requests at breakfast! She will ask for eggs. In a bowl. Sometimes after she has already eaten her yogurt, banana, bread and a handful of cheerios. Damn. Its kinda scary how much the girl can eat.

Since she is so advanced, she has already been displaying the typical Terrible Two’s most endearing behavior – the temper tantrum. By now you know about her lung capacity, so you can well imagine how much fun those fits can be. And just who taught her to dislocate her shoulders so that you can not pick her up?! She can also go the other way – pressing her arms tight to her body so you can’t lift her out of the crib. She’s obviously brilliant! I also detect quite a bit of talent in her line-drawings. You might also file them under scribbling.

Erin also has a lot to say. She chatters on almost as much as Kyle. And I’d say about a third of what she says is in English. Baby is bilingual! Although Chris and I can not agree on what the other language is. He says it is Vietnamese, I say Swedish. (By the way, Chris does not know pig-latin! How can you not know pig-latin?! Gah, we are going to have to start spelling soon!) Anyway, on the off chance I can convince you to come over and baby-sit, I’ve put together a handy Erin-to-English translation sheet for you.

Erin-ese     English

Bears        cranberries (will also accept raisins)
Baby         yogurt (because the Yo-baby containers had a pic of 
             a baby on them)
Beer, wine   just what you think! Do not let her have any.
Linner       dinner (or lunch – really any meal)
Moon         spoon
Buttas       boots
Ollies       glasses
Hammer       helmet (bike)
Bella        Isabella (baby-sitter’s granddaughter) or crayons
Minny        Mickey Mouse – or Manny from Handy Manny (damn! Now
             I’ve got that Handy Manny song stuck in my head)
Mama         Grandma (Papa is Grandpa and often uttered in a low
             growl. Do not be afraid.)
Mote         remote control
Pie          pacifier (only to be used in bed)
Cracker      animal crackers (she does not want a Scooby snack)

The rest of what she saying you can understand pretty well. Unless it is in Portuguese.

She also has quite a few short sentences she'll throw down:
"Where’s (insert missing object)?" - comes with arms out, palms up, slight shrug
"I don’t know"
"No want" (or "No want to") - she usually puts her hand over her mouth – funny

And our personal favorite:

"Okay, bye later."

Progress. It's what's for dinner.

2009-03-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

or Progress. The other white meat. I couldn't decide.

I hate having to push the picture of Erin-in-the-hood down the page, but life moves on. And so does this blog. Albeit at a much slower pace. But hey! Tomorrow is that thing. The Second Saturday Event at Mather Golf Course that has been ruining my life for the past month and a half. Besides adding the rest of the price tags to the prints, finding my folding chair in the garage, withdrawing cash from the bank for change (which I better well need!), and packing the rest of my stuff – I am done. I think.

I talked to Sharon yesterday afternoon. Told her that at this point in time, I no longer feel the need to cause her physical pain. Although, Chris might, when he goes to balance the checkbook and sees how much money I have spent on this affair! And then I told her that while I was not necessarily looking forward to Saturday, I wasn’t dreading it either. Yup, that’s as much as I was willing to give her. She who finagled-tricked-hoodwinked me into this gig. And she’s already talking about next month! Um, lets wait and see how tomorrow goes first eh?

Hmm. All this brings me back to thoughts of trying to sell prints on-line. I was toying with the idea at the beginning of the year and doing some research into Etsy.com. Going that route, I would post the items for sale, and do the printing and shipping myself. Another option is Imagekind. For them, I would create a gallery (up to 24 images) and they would handle the rest; printing, shipping even framing. Which seems like a no-brainer. Except it’s not. The big problem is aspect ratios. Good god how I hate the whole concept of aspect ratios. The skinny is that my camera’s sensor creates a picture that has the same aspect ratio of a 4x6 print. Now if you go and make an 8x10 print of that file, you are cropping off A LOT of the picture as I had intended it to be! Because I frame my shots in camera. So, using Imagekind puts my photos at risk of unwanted cropping whenever someone orders an innocent 8x10 print. 99% of my photographs do not work at 8x10inchs. The stuff that would be cropped off needs to be there! Ugh. Now I want to hurt someone again. Maybe a mathematician (or Chris). I knew I was correct in blaming math for all my woes.

Oh. I apologize. I spoke too soon. In going to their website to create the above link, I found out that Imagekind “will never change the aspect ratio of your image (the ratio between height and width) or arbitrarily crop your images.” Well, that changes everything. I’ll probably start there and save Etsy for a later date. Depends on how many prints I end up bringing back home tomorrow afternoon.

And I’m not going to edit the above paragraph about Imagekind and aspect ratios because that rant about aspect ratios has been a long time coming! That is why I had to cut so many damn custom mats for tomorrow’s event. When the hell are the mat-makers that supply Michael’s and Aaron Bros going to get on the 3:2 aspect ratio band-wagon?! Half the world is shooting with cameras that have this size image sensor. Make us mats that fit our pictures! Must I do all the work?!

Damn.

Lidsville - Street Punk Edition

2009-03-04T19:17:00.000-08:00

If you encounter this baby in a dark alley - run the other way. That baby will mess you up! At the very least, she'll steal your hat.*

This hat used to be mine. I bought it in Fort Bragg several years ago. I gave it to Kyle last year to take camping. At some point Erin got her hands on it and won't give it back. That's cool. I'm not gonna try and take it away from her - have you heard her scream?! I've got another hat.

I took these photos on a Saturday morning - this is how the baby kicks it around the casa.

So, I was going to tell you about Sharon and why she should pay for my suffering. Well, somehow she managed to get me to agree to be a vendor at Mather Golf Course's Second Saturday Event on March 14th. omfg. How did that happen? I don't drink, so I wasn't drunk. Why would I agree to such a thing? Selling my photographers? Sure, it sounds so simple. Wrong. It is a major pain in my ass! And it will probably be the death of me. Or a small part of me. Hey, I'm definitely losing sleep over it! I'm not even going to tell you about the traumas I am having over printing these photos. Then there are the logistics of displaying the prints. And at some point I'm going to have to figure out pricing! I am so going to kick Sharon in the shin the next time I see her. Damn it! She was just here on Saturday and not only did I NOT kick her, we fed her abalone, and then I took photos of her (106!) so she would have a new profile pic for freakin' Facebook! Ugh. Now, I'm really mad. I made her look good, and I'm sitting here having heart palipitations while some Canon bigwig is buying another Mercedes on my dime!

Ok, maybe it is time for a little yoga break. While I go stand on my head, you can ponder the cuteness of the Bean. In this shot she looks just like Chris!

* She's also been known to sticky-finger a cell-phone out of a purse without anyone noticing. Next up: Mug shots!

Lidsville

2009-02-19T19:36:00.001-08:00

I have a cold. Or the flu. Possibly a random plague. I blame Julie. She cursed me – a pox upon my house no less! Sure, sure, she promptly lifted the curse, but obviously not fast enough. Because a couple weeks ago Kyle got sick. And Kyle never gets sick! And then while we were in Santa Cruz, Erin started getting sick. She was sick all last week, poor baby. And now I am sick. So yes, I blame Julie. Although I believe she has paid for her sins. She was also sick last week. And then yesterday she called me for tween anecdotes for an article she is writing. Ha! she ended up listening to an almost certainly feverish me babble on about Kyle for 30+ minutes. I have no recollection of what I said to her. More ramblings of a lunatic. She should have been recording that shit. Chopped it up, added some random images and a funky electronic dub, uploaded to YouTube, and become an instant internet phenomenon. Oh well, maybe next time she’ll be ready for me.

Warning. Abrupt change in subject.

I have been collecting images of Erin in all her hats. Girl likes to wear hats! And if Chris wants to point his genetic blaming finger at me for that one, well I’ll take it. Hats are cool. Use to wear them all the time myself. Still have a couple funky hats, but most are of the practical and warm variety now. Hmm, will have to remedy that situation at some point. More funky hats for the people! Anyway, Erin loves to wear random hats around the house. She’s also obsessed with her bike helmet. Shocking. This hat was pilfered off a stuffed dog that Kyle gave her. It always cracks us up when she wears it. She looks like a stoned snow-boarder, or one of the McKenzie Brothers.

"Beauty Clark!"

"Take off, eh!"

And that’s all I’ve got for ya today. You too can blame Julie. Or Sharon. Sharon has not yet paid for all the suffering she’s causing me. I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow. Or as soon as Julie’s pox removal cream starts working. The nice man on the TV said the results were guaranteed or I’d get my money back less shipping and handling. That’s a good deal right?

I love a Tutorial

2009-02-10T21:18:00.000-08:00

More than a parade! Although there was that one time at Ventura College when I saw a line of students walking across campus all carrying globes – now that was a parade.

Anyways, I am following a bunch of web designers on Twitter, and they are always sharing cool links to articles, graphics, tutorials, etc. Apparently the look of Pressed Lettering (embossing) is all the rage is web design for 2009! Yeah, you heard it here first! Unless you already knew about it. But hey, I like to be trendy – ha! Ok, I like a good tutorial. We all can agree on that yes? So, this one looked cool and lord knows I need to be honing my rudimentary Photoshop skills whenever I can. So, I followed along and made this:

Pretty nifty eh? We’ve got the starry space background that it so en vogue right now. Really, if you start to look, you’ll see it everywhere. And then I cut out the Blanchfield Photography letters so that background shows through. If I told you how I did it, I would have to kill you. Or – you would die of boredom as I rambled on about layers, masks, radial gradients… although I think Kyle hung in there pretty well. My little designer-in-training. Either way, don’t worry about the how , "oooh pretty" is the proper response.

And I will save the rant about my name for another day. Lucky you. Chris wasn’t so lucky. He never is.

So. There I was with this... ~~thing~~ image... that I created.* What was I going to do with it? Well, first I resized it to 160x107 pixels. Then I did a bit of html cut and paste and viola! It is now a badge over there on the left that links to my photo website. Cool. Except at that tiny size you can't see the stars or the cut-out effect of the letters, so I had to write this post to show it off and here we are. And it is still to small in Blogger to really appreciate it. I advise you to click the image to view it in all its glory! By the way, have you calibrated you monitor recently?

*Ooh! I'm going to make a monster next so that I can say "I've created a monster!" And I won't be talking about the children. Chris frowns upon that.

Actually right now I'm making spirographs designs in Illustrator. When I'm done with those I'll make a monster.

Happy Birthday Kyle!

2009-02-01T21:30:00.000-08:00

Event Horizon

2009-01-31T17:41:00.000-08:00

The call from the vet was not good news. Bodhi’s kidney levels were through the roof. Apparently she had been sick for some time and was suffering renal failure. It was just a matter of time. So we said our goodbyes, and I took her back to the vet’s yesterday afternoon. What a heart-breaking day.

Kyle’s friend picked him up later in the evening and took him to a band event at the school for a couple hours. Chris went to bed early. I watched a little TV and then grabbed my book – I’m almost hesitant to tell you what I was reading, lest you think I am intentionally trying to re-read my youth. Which I’m not, but an interesting idea all the same.

I was reading Neuromancer. Which I’m pretty sure I read the first time while I was still in Detroit. Which means – hold on, gotta do a little math and that’s always painful – 17+ years ago. Holy crap. That can not be right. I no longer trust my math skills. Anyway, I read this book a long long time ago. And unlike Jailbird and The Watchmen, I remembered none of it. At points I even doubted that I had really read it before. Science Fiction was not (still isn’t) my usual genre. But I did read it, and at several times throughout the book, I really wanted to go back in time and ask the younger, completely not-geeky in the sci-fi way, me it I enjoyed it. Did I even get it then? 20 years later, the concepts of AI and the matrix are not that hard to wrap your head around. But in the late 80s?! Yeah, not so much. I really would like to have been in my poor brain on that first run – man, that must have been one hellofa mind fuck! Or I was completely lost. Yes, I know – I was in my brain that first time, I just don’t remember the experience. Don’t remember any of my thoughts about the book. Nothing. Nada. Kinda strange don’t you think? Maybe it was completely over my head, so I just moved on, retaining nothing.

But I hadn't planned on reading this book. I was in the Science Fiction section at the library looking up books by Neil Gaiman, when I noticed Neuromancer by William Gibson on the shelf below. And I remembered that Chris, who is always reading SciFi, had told me he had never read it! I, of course, gave him some shit about it being a classic and that even I had read it blah blah blah. So I checked it out for him. But he’s reading some work related books right now, so when I finished The Watchmen, I picked up Neuromancer. Simple as that.

Kyle didn’t get home till around 10pm last night. I stayed up to 11:30 finishing the book. When I finally got to bed I was completely exhausted. Emotionally beat-up by the week, and up hours past my normal bed-time, I hoped I would fall right to sleep. No dice. My head hit the pillow and I closed my eyes…

I was in the exam room. Petting Bodhi’s gaunt frame. Waiting for the doctor to come and…

Move along, nothing to see here

2009-01-29T13:39:00.001-08:00

Typically, the day after a migraine-induced post that is barely lucid, I like to follow-up right away with something light, sunny, and well - sane. Push the ramblings of a lunatic down the page some on the off chance that a new reader might stop by. Hey, it could happen! Leave a girl her dreams eh? I have gotten a few comments from complete strangers over the years. Although to be perfectly honest, it kinda freaked me out.

Sadly, today you're not going to be getting that happy post. Our cat, Bodhi, is sick. And the outlook is not good. Chris took her to the vet last night. She has a mass in one ear that has basically paralyzed half of her face. And she has stopped eating and only weighs 7 lbs. We won't get the results from the blood work back until tomorrow, so we don't really know anything conclusive yet. But still, I'm a bit of a mess. We all are. So, yeah. It sucks. She is only 10. We've had her since Kyle was 2 1/2 and she sleeps on his bed every night. So as you can imagine, they are kinda tight. Well, as tight as a boy and an aloof cat can be. And I'm not even going to think about how much thumpin' that crazy cat gets from Chris every morning, or how he carries her around upside down...

And where the hell is the part of my brain that tells me to wear water-proof mascara when I need it?! Stupid brain. Stupid mascara. Stupid mass.

And the ones that mother gives you. Don't do anything at all...

2009-01-28T12:02:00.000-08:00

Hmpf. This blog needs a new post. I finally have a little breathing room this morning while I wait for IT to call back, and what do you know- I feel like crap. I’m border-line contemplating getting a headache. So, fun for you. Buckle up. Odds are this will make no sense at all. Hmm, I wonder if Bob Mould is on Twitter. No. So onward for better or worse. Ya know, somewhere there is a smart-part of my brain that is shouting “take the pill now!” I’ve heard it’s message faintly a couple times this morning. I suspect that part of my brain is being sat on by the ‘you-only-get-6-pills-a-month’ pill-horder part of my brain. The same part that has enough vicodin to choke a cow stashed away in the bathroom, but never sent up the suggestion to take some while I was suffering excruciating pain pre-ER visit last month. Yeah, that part. The evil s.o.b. part of my brain. Oh dear, this is not going well. Must focus.

So, last Friday was a good day. I had planned to write a nice post on Friday afternoon, telling you all about this wonderful chickpea sandwich that had brought me one step closer to world domination. But no. As soon as I got home – woosh! I was swept away by Chris’s Big Weekend Project. His plan is to get rid of our storage unit. To do that we need to make room in the garage for the stuff from storage. Of course this can only happen after a giant purge of crap that we no longer need. So Chris started to go through all the boxes and sort the things we wanted to keep and the crap to toss or items to donate. Now, my possessions were already pretty streamlined. But Chris has been luggin’ around a lot of stuff. Like all his college text books! All of them! To the dump they go! In fact much stuff went to the dump. Two van loads of stuff. And then a van load of stuff went to Goodwill. That's a lot of stuff!

It was a weekend trippin' down memory lane. Chris looking through boxes of old climbing mags – literally – boxes! Photos. I won't even mention the love notes from high-school girl friends. Yikes. I went through all my old artwork. Whoa, the Blurry years watercolor phase is some seriously weird shit. Sadly for you, I didn’t think to pull out the camera and photograph any of it. Now it is all repacked is nice new portfolios and back up on the shelf. But my old canvases are still to come back from storage so we have that to look forward too. I’m sure that some twisted stuff in that stack too. I did find the self portrait I painted while I was going to Wayne State. I don’t think Chris will let me hang it in the house.

So, the point – yeah, like there is a point to any of this! - is that we worked in the garage all weekend. And we got a lot done – beside my canvases, a couples chairs and the shelves, the storage unit is empty! But my thoughts of world domination were lost. And when I got back to work on Monday, I was faced with an email migration that still is not working right. So blah. What’s a girl to do? I babbling on one monitor and staring at this on the other.

All while waiting for someone from the IT dept Helpdesk to call me back. It could happen.

its like a Commandment or something...

2009-01-20T10:42:00.000-08:00

President Obama didn't mention anything about not stealing in his speech right?

Cause I swiped this pic from Sweetney.com and I'm not sorry. Because it's too funny to not share. And I'm a small fish in this bloggy sea - more like a little tiny baby krill - so I don't think she'll notice. I would have asked, but she's a bit busy today with the all the happy happy joy joy dancing she's got going on. So, I'm just gonna spread the Miyagi-love on her behalf...

And my favorite Inauguration Tweet of the day from redwhiteandnews: "What would rock is if Carrie Fisher came out and put medals around Obama & Bidens necks while the Star Wars theme played."

Hell yes!

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

2009-01-16T13:29:00.000-08:00

Wow. I just finished re-reading The Watchmen last night. Damn. On so many levels.

And with that stunning assessment, it is time to catch you up on what I have been reading. After finally finishing The Shock Doctrine last fall, I hunkered down in the fiction section to nurse my wounds and regain my strength.
According to my Goodreads* account, I've read:

I Was Told There’d Be Cake – Blah. Didn’t finish it.

Pagan Babies – Good ol’ Elmore Leonard. Started out kinda slow (coulda been the Elavil) but wrapped up nicely at the end!

How to Be Good – Nick Hornby being not so good.

Jailbird – pulled this old Vonnegut book off my bookshelf. It had been so long since I had last read it that I had forgotten everything, but would remember/recognize it as I went along. So it goes.

American Gods – Oh yeah baby, this was good. There should be more Neil Gaiman – such a great story teller. And you can never go wrong with gods right?I must convince the Sain’tly one to send me the rest of the Lucifer series.

The Glass Castle: A Memoir – Cynthia lent this book to me and I must say, I avoided it for the longest time. But I picked it up between books and was quickly sucked in. Amazing story.

Which brings me back to The Watchmen. Damn. It was fanfuckintastic. The Sain’t gave it to me to read the first time in – let’s see, we determined it was my second stay in San Francisco, so that would have been ‘92? Early ‘93? And like the Vonnegut book, I didn’t remember much of anything about the plot, yet turning each page there was a familiarity, a “oh yeah!” moment. I did remember the comic with-in story, but the end was a complete surprise. How nice. (It seems 15+ years does the trick. There was a postcard for a gallery opening dated 1992 in the Vonnegut book.) And now it’s finished. And I'm feeling rather lost. But hey! The movie will be out soon! And when it comes out on DVD later this year, I’ll finally get to see it. I'm not worried. Those uber-in-laws will take care of me. Bob's TV is large enough to rival any movie theater. And there will probably be cake. Whether I like it or not.

What am I reading now? Dreamweaver CS3 – The Missing Manual. Cause I just can’t stand not lugging a big heavy programming book around with me everyday. It’s an illness I tell ya, an illness.

* ya know, I was just talking to Chris about my FBI file. Everyone has one right? Mine should have a flag on it by now don’t you think?! (I’m now following Karl Rove on Twitter!) Anyways, "they" say they track your library records and searches on Amazon etc. Well Goodreads.com and its ilk make sure they don’t miss a thing! Books bought at a garage sale? Loaned from a friend? Handed to you in an airport with a marigold for a bookmark? Let me just add that to my Goodreads account. It’s the equivalent of polishing the silver tray, donning white gloves, and spoon feeding the info right to the data miners. Damn. I should quit everything and start focusing on the JFK conspiracy full time! And UFOs.

A Dead Kennedys** Ear Worm of Love

2009-01-13T21:21:00.000-08:00

Wow, we were barely unpacked from our last trip to Santa Cruz (hey remember Christmas? yeah that was only like 2 weeks ago!) and we turned around and went back last weekend (check it - the grandparents still have their tree up!). Seemed rather sudden, but the waves were pumpin’ dude. So, we threw our bags in the van, and 3 hours later were back at the beach. It appears that our travel plans will now be based on the swells. Bitchin.

And you know what else is bitchin’? My in-laws. In fact I’m upgrading them. They are henceforth to be referred to as the uber-in-laws. Cause my in-laws are better than your in-laws and that’s all there is to it. There is no need to go into any long drawn out list of how and why they are better, no need to mention mercury glass, or Sigg bottles piled on top of all the love, all I need to tell you is that they read this blog. And they saw my last post and they were ready for me when I came back.

While the boys were surfing, Bob and Paula took Erin and I to the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park so that I could get my big tree fix! That’s right, there is a redwood forest right down the road - 6.25 miles from the comfy bed I sleep in! I knew there were redwoods nearby, but this was right there in Aptos. Behind Fleur, and that little shop were I spend too much money on fancy barrettes for Erin’s hair. Happiness was so close all this time!! So we strolled thought the trees for an hour and all was right with the world! I'm now thinking we're gonna have to put bike racks on the van.

And the next morning, sans fils, Chris and I went back downtown and stumbled upon a street fair. Oh the joy. I picked up a couple books. Snapped some pictures. And then found the treasure of the day. An Argus 75 Twin Lens Reflex camera. Hot damn! I can't wait to try this baby out. Just looking though the ground glass viewfinder makes me happy. Chris said I actually "squealed" when the guy said it was ten bucks. I can believe that.

So yesterday I dropped off the first roll of film from the Supersampler* to be developed! Then I stopped by the camera shop to get a quick lesson in working the new Argus and picked up some more film.

Ya know, I’m gonna have a heck of a time convincing Chris I need to upgrade my digital camera body sometime in the future if I keep buying cheap film cameras.

I can stop any time I want to.

* for the record - that camera was a Christmas present. Oh! and the Holga was a gift/payment for design work done. So technically, the Argus is the first film camera I have purchased. So there.

** because I have far too much time on my hands, I found California Uber Alles on YouTube. Damn, that's some funny shit.

Lookin' good Billy Ray

2009-01-06T21:14:00.000-08:00

So, here we are, 6 days into 2009 and I’ve got to tell you, I’m feeling pretty good.* I don’t want to jinx things, but since I’ve already declared ’09 to be the year of Health and Happiness, I’m going to go all out and be… happily optimistic. Down right cheery. Good things are happening. Yippy! Alright. Enough of that. Everything in moderation people.

This is the first time I’ve ever really been jazzed about a new year. The whole new year/resolution thing was never the big a deal for me. But having survived 2008, and on Chris’s prompting, I actually wrote out a list of goals for 2009. Top of the list were Health and Fitness goals. Easy. Easy to put on the list, not to accomplish. Although more yoga should not be a problem. The rest of the list was pretty much art related. It would be nice to start painting again. But I don’t worry about it. That’s one of those ‘it will happen when it happens’ zen things. In the mean time, I’ve got plenty to do with my cameras. I even have some design work to do. And over the weekend, Chris added another baby gate across the office/tv room so that the Tasmanian Devil we live with can no longer get to our desks! We may now be able to get some actual work done. That in itself is going to improve our lives 1000%. It’s going to be amazing.

Hmm, I’ve nowhere to go with all these positive thoughts and good vibes. This post is 2 days in the making now and it’s flopping around like a fish outta water. Lucky for us, the always loverly JulieT has tagged me with my very first meme. I am to name 6 things that make me happy. Well, that shouldn’t be too difficult right?! If I get hard pressed, I can always use Kyle and Erin for 2 of the 6. Ha! I know! That is really funny. And then I have to tag 6 other poor saps with the meme. Cause meme’s are the internet equivalent of chain-letters but without the “something bad will happen to you if you don’t” part. Cause if you don’t do it, I don’t care. God speed and more power to ya.

So, without further ado, 6 things that make me happy (in no particular order and not counting my family and friends who are a given right?):

Cheap film cameras – Santa brought me a Supersampler to keep my Holga company! I can’t wait to get the first roll developed and see what I’ve got. Experiment art at it finest baby.
Yoga – there must be more yoga. I’ve even been toying with the idea of teaching again. Maybe later in the year.
Getting things in the mail from friends – really is there anything better?!
Trees – being in the Redwoods, a forest, climbing a tree, or the shade of a really big tree on a summer day.
Books – and libraries! How am I ever going to have time to read all those books?
Paint in my fingernails - it’s been a while, but I dig the reminder that I have been doing something that I love. And the stained fingernails last longer than that smear of paint across my forehead.

There. That wasn’t so hard. In fact, that list has made me really happy! Especially thinking about the trees. I really need to get down to Big Sur one of these days. Get my big tree fix. Hmm, maybe the next long Santa Cruz weekend. But not this next weekend. Next weekend is all about the surfing. And the Supersampler!

Oh yeah, I need to pay the happiness forward. My super6 are:

Katie Jean
Mistress Potty Mouth
Nifty Images
Sain’t Christopher
Spa Diva
Slices of Stacy

Enjoy!

* Except when I go to sit down. Or walk down stairs. My thighs do not appreciate that particular range of motion after the lunges I did Sunday afternoon whilst strength training on the Wii Fit. The quads, they are a burnin’. Actually, I suspect many parts of my body are sore, but my brain can only process one set of signals at a time and the pain receptors from my legs have got the system all tied up right now! Bandwidth hogs.

Death Chicken ’08 Tour

2008-12-30T11:37:00.000-08:00

1 ½ days left of 2008 and I’ve got to tell you, I can’t wait for this year to end. You may not have noticed, but it became painfully obvious to me earlier this month, that 2008 has been trying to kill me!

Seriously. This has been the unhealthiest year of my life. It all started with a small filling in March and the initial shot of Novocain that zapped my tongue. Which was followed by the horrible evil horrible horrible pain that eventually led to a root-canal. Fun. At least that stopped the pain. But then I noticed the cough. Remember the cough? It wouldn’t stop. And my old doctor just kept throwing asthma inhalers at me. New doctor gave me the “liquid gold” cough syrup and eventually the cough went away. But not my migraines. They were worse than ever! New doctor didn’t like that. Started experimenting with different drugs. Again – not so fun. A couple changes and the headaches seem to be behaving better. But then my eyeballs started to rebel. One pair of reading glasses later… and ’08 decided to break out the big guns. Kidney Stone from Hell. Damn. That was not cool.

Silly me, I thought I would end the year with a nice holiday wrap-up post and maybe some photos. I even managed to download my memory card into Lightroom last night and start editing. But ’08 isn’t over yet folks and it made one last attempt at taking me down by turning last night’s dinner into “Death Chicken”*. It even made a play on Kyle. Sharon thinks it is more likely the flu that is going around but whatever, I’m not going anywhere near those leftovers.

I got a Xmas card in the mail yesterday from Michelle, an old friend in Detroit. It is probably the best Christmas card I have ever received. It says, and I quote “This year sucked! Hope your’s was better…” I am preparing to write her a long letter.

And starting Thursday, in 2009 – the Year of Health and Happiness, there will be photos, Flickr updates, posts of happiness and joy! Yoga, climbing, and air in my bike tires. Hell, in 2009 I might even master that damn hula hoop!

* Rachel has already called dibs on ‘Death Chicken’ as her band name. She is fast.

A: It’s worse.

2008-12-16T16:37:00.000-08:00

or: How to lose 10 lbs and 1 week of your life!

Now before you go and sign yourself up, make sure you are reading that correctly. Yes, you will lose the 10 pounds within the stated 1 week, but you are also going to lose that week. As in: Work? You won’t be there. Sorry boss. Plans already made? You won’t even have a chance to cancel them. You can apologize later. Family? Well, hopefully there is someone at home who can work the can opener. And they have pictures to remember you by right? You can catch up on everything you missed at the end of the week.

Still sounding good to you? Man, you ain’t right. First off, alarm bells should have been going off at “10 lbs in 1 week”, that is not healthy weight loss. Ok, what about this: you can not schedule this little “time out” from your life. It will strike randomly, probably at the most inopportune time cause that just how life rolls. It will roll on – without you.

Haven’t lost you yet I see. Time to tell you what this is gonna cost you. Because nothing in life is free baby and this little trip is gonna make you pay big time. And that is before the bills even come in the mail. This comes right out of your very being – form of: EXCRUCIATING PAIN!!!

All from a 4x7 mm kidney stone.

Still want what I had? I should think not. Trip to the E.R. 4 ½ days of vicodin/morphine and no food. Hospitalized. Mystery surgery. I recovered on toast, broth, Jello, and ginger ale. I felt like an 80 year old. Erin’s sleep patterns were disrupted. Kyle’s grades dropped. Chris has more gray than ever. My boss now calls me ‘Stoner’.

It is 8 days until Christmas. I’m a week behind on everything. I haven’t done any shopping. We haven’t even gotten the tree up yet. This year I am Santa’s most unprepared elf.

Hey Sain't - If this was 22 years ago I would be stylin’! I would put that Dr. Milt Town to shame.

Gimme A Break

2008-11-26T11:05:00.000-08:00

So, it should come as no surprise that JavaScript has completely cured me of any and all desire to take another computer class for as long as I live. That’s right – I don’t care how cool a program name Ruby on Rails is – I’m not going to take the class! Ever!

I’m done. I’m over it. I can barely muster the strength to finish the class I’m in. But I will. Cause I’m no quitter thank you very much. Although I will still be throwing something at my mother-in-laws head at some point this weekend.

And then next semester – nothing. I’ve decided to not even take Photoshop like I had planned. I am taking the semester off, so I will have absolutely no homework. No assignments. Nada. Nothing to do but whatever the hell I want! Freedom. Sweet glorious sit on my ass eating raisins freedom.

Did you notice that if it hadn’t been for Halloween (and Erin’s sudden football love) I wouldn’t have picked up my camera at all this semester? No flickr action? Nothing but headaches and reading glasses here. Programming is no way to live people.

But let’s just be clear about this programming thing. I could do it. I just choose not to. Cause it sucks! I will stick with making the internet a pretty place. I’ll leave it to others to make it function. I want no part of that action.

So, come Dec 13th I will get my life back. I will take more pictures, and actually have the time to edit them. I might even vectorize a few of them. Cause that was fun! And I like fun! And I will do more yoga. I encourage Chris to add another section to the climbing wall so that there is someplace to go. And I will bury that evil text book I’ve been lugging around for two semesters in a deep dark corner of the garage, and I will live…

Hey, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Equal Time rule

2008-11-21T21:50:00.000-08:00

Because there was a helicopter circling our house when we came home this evening.

This is second Illustrator project we did for my Intro to Digital Art class. I took this photo and turned it into a vector illustration. Pretty damn spiffy eh?!
More tomorrow...

For Grandpa

2008-11-16T19:10:00.000-08:00

Some frosting for the 49er's win this afternoon...

Erin was playing with that football all morning. Even took a nap with it.
Silly girl.

Worth a 1000 words

2008-11-07T19:43:00.000-08:00

I had a blog entry partially composed in my head this morning, but never got a chance to type it out, and now that bird has flown. It's so typical that my big dumb brain (henceforth to be referred to as BDB) only kicks into creative writing gear when I ought to be sleeping or some other equally inconvenient time. And you and I both suffer for it. I remember the jist of the post, but I don’t have the creative juice to recreate it right now which has me feeling a bit… oh, what’s the word… frustrated!

And BEHOLD! Intro to Digital Art Project #2 - My homage to frustration ~

It’s actually a pretty big file. Go ahead and click the photo and really get in there and experience my world, up close and personal. I dare ya. I double dog dare ya! And if you want the complete experience, go back to this entry and play that second video in an endless loop in the background for the soundtrack to my image. And that is my world.

Ok, that’s not my world all the time. But it wasn’t hard to piece together. Kyle has been having a rough couple weeks at school. And we have a couple parent/teacher conferences next week. But he is still a great big brother. And was a huge help with my Illustrator project when I had to design a logo and letterhead. That boy has a lot of design talent. Erin is a crack up, but I could do with out her need to climb on everything. And it has been determined that blame can be aimed squarely at Chris for that trait. I’m still not sure where the opera singing comes from.

On a personal note, the reading glasses really seem to be helping. My eyeballs have not threatened to leave my skull since I started wearing them. And that is a good thing. There have been a couple days where my eyes have felt extra tired and I’ve gone out of my way to rest them (read- nap) but in general they are feeling much better.

Head has been feeling ok too. Shh.

Because the candy is gone

2008-11-01T22:09:00.000-07:00

yet you still crave something sweet. Baby, I can deliver. Zero calories and guilt-free, what more do you want?!

Me? I suddenly have a yearning for some hot chocolate. Go figure.

JavaScript broke my eyeballs - I've got a Dr's note

2008-10-28T11:22:00.000-07:00

Left ya hanging again. Sorry. But I am happy to report I’ve not been in headache pain since that last post. Just busy. You know. With stuff.

Too vague? Fine. The long version:
After that last post I was avoiding the computer because my eyeballs were hurting. They felt like they were going to fall out of my head! And that’s not pleasant. And I was particularly concerned because the new preventative migraine med’s info sheet states: in case of eye pain contact doctor immediately. Great. My eyeballs are going to fall out. Luckily I had an appointment with my doctor the next morning. He was also duly concerned about my eye pain, and sent me straight to the optometrist next door to have my pressure checked and my tires rotated. Now I haven’t been to an eye doctor in like forever, cause up until a couple weeks ago I had perfectly good peepers. Clearly it was either the Topamax or the JavaScript causing the problem and I was ready to give up both! Neither being worth the potential of a stray eyeball rolling across the floor. So I get a complete eye exam. Passed the distance test. Yay! Did not enjoy the pressure test - don’t poof air in my eyes! But I passed, my pressure is good. The result is that I do not have glaucoma (which was the doctor’s concern) but eye fatigue and I need reading glasses. Oh. And then they dilated my pupils and sent me on my way. And my doctor was happy and upped my Topamax dosage.

Stop Making Sense

2008-10-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to day 6 of my headache. I thought I was feeling well enough to finally type out some of the mad thoughts bouncing around in my head. Because whenever there is a lull in the migraine pain, my brain always perks right up thinking it time to get busy! Doesn’t care if its 2 in the morning when the meds and sleep have finally done their job, if the pain is gone, the brain does a few warm up stretches and gets to work! “Let’s think about next semester’s classes, write a few emails, hey – how about a blog post?!” Stupid brain.

But now that I’m here in front of my computer, all I want to know is why I can’t change the “page” in Office to a nice 18% gray instead of white. Cause my eyes are watering and I’m thinking maybe I should just go back to bed.

OK, I went and got my sunglasses. That should give me just enough time to tell you that on Tuesday, day 1 of the HeadacheWeekFromHell-Oct08, during a telephone call with the Sain’t, I told him that I hoped a pony would poop on his shoe. Don’t mess with me when I’m in pain yo.

And then on Friday I sent my family to Santa Cruz without me. And it wasn’t a ‘happy happy joy joy I’m all alone for a weekend’ stay behind. And that pisses me off. But anger hurts my head so I was stuck with being sad all weekend.

The End.

But come back and I’ll tell you how my sick brain can connect Rachel Zoe with William Burroughs!

Trapped - like a rat

2008-10-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

I just put Erin down for her nap. I’m tired and thought about taking a little nap myself but I’ve downed too much coffee already so here I am.

Its day 3 for me, Erin and Playhouse Disney; and it’s starting to take a toll on my nerves. Well, except those Imagination Movers – they’re ok in a peppy primary color kinda way.

Jen, Erin’s baby-sitter, went on vacation Thursday and left me working from home the last 2 days. Not as fun as it sounds. It messes with my morning routine something awful. I should get up, get the kids ready and out the door, listen to NPR on the drive to work and then read blogs while I leisurely sip my coffee at my nice quiet desk. Aaahhh. Peaceful. With Kyle at camp all week, my mornings were already strangely quiet. So for the last couple days, I got up when Erin did, and we spent the mornings hanging out downstairs. Complete with the running around and squealing, banging lids and spoons, the tossing of balls, and leaving trails of cheerios for later(Erin probably had some fun too). When she went down for her morning nap, I would hop on the computer and try and get some work done. Today is just more of the same. Kyle is at his dad’s this weekend (he was home for maybe an hour yesterday), Chris has gone in to the office, so here I am. Feeling a bit stir crazy. And Jen won’t be back until Tuesday. If I was at the store right now, I would be standing in the Hallmark aisle, eyeballing the ‘Missing You’ cards, with an arm full of roses.

One of the problems is that Erin is... how can I put this... a pain in the ass. “Hey! If you’re mobile and you know it – stomp your feet! And throw a fit! Especially if someone tries to put you back into a stroller after you've tasted freedom - sweet glorious bipedal freedom!” Get what I’m saying? I can’t just take her with me places in the stroller anymore. She wants to walk! And if I do take her somewhere, say the park or the library’s kid section, and let her run around and play and then try to put her back in the stroller or even the car seat?! Well, may god have mercy on my soul. It’s not a pretty scene. And that baby is getting big. And strong. And when she is arched into a backbend (and screaming – don’t forget the screaming) it is physically impossible to get her strapped into anything. You need some sort of way to bend her the other way. Maybe a big stick. I won’t take her anywhere now without an engineer with me. I need back-up. Preferably in the form of a big strong daddy type.

So, we are kinda stuck here for now. Oh well, I’ve got that collage to work on. And there’s always laundry to do. Hey! I think I just found a shiv in a pair of Kyle’s dirty shorts. Rough camp.

I'm back!

2008-10-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

I was just talking with Chris on the phone and started ranting about Milton Friedman and free market capitalism! Oh thank god. The Elavil is apparently out of my system! Now this new drug has both my hands numb so that might not be good. But as long as I can scream about Pinochet and the oligarchs in Russia and how well all that worked out, I know I’m back to my sunny self. And it feels good.

Now tingling and/or numbness were listed as possible side-effects of this new medication. Also vision problems. Joy. But the other theory being floated around is that I’m having an anxiety attack; because you know Kyle left for camp this morning. And he’s using my duffle bag. I really love that bag.

Admission for one please

2008-10-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

Alrighty then. What I didn’t acknowledge in the last post was that after I mentioned restoring an old photo, I thought about putting up the before and after shots. Wait – that’s not the bad part. Where it really gets sick is that my next thought was – “Can I write a JavaScript program to change the before image to the after image when the user’s mouse moves over the photo?” And then I seriously considered attempting it. I am not well.

So to distract you from my shocking confession, I give you this:

Cute eh? Well, I wasn't kidding about that feedback!

Paint it black

2008-10-03T12:35:00.000-07:00

Hot-damn. This Palin-pant-fest post by my dearly demented Sain’t has given me the energy to scale the Elavil induced wall of inertia I’ve been trapped behind. … Wow. How’s that for a sentence?! So, quickly, while I still have the energy to type, what shall we talk about? I am in no mood for the election. I just want it over. Ditto for the financial crisis. I’m pretty sure you don’t want to hear about JavaScript. There’s not much else thanks to the dulling effect of this damn medicine. I placed a call to my doctor yesterday to talk to him about it because it is just not working for me. Not even a little bit. And I want off it asap. And then I can be my happy chatty self again. I’ll take the headaches over this crap any day thank you very much. He hasn't called back yet. Can you tell?

In local news, the TBMS 6th grade class goes to Shady Creek Camp next week! That should be fun for Kyle. I will admit that I’m not going to miss having to micro-manage his homework for a whole week! Gads. That sucks.

I tried to get a video of Erin spinning around like I mentioned last week. And I might have caught a rotation or two, but what I really ended up with was a lot of footage of her reaching for the camera and throwing little fits of frustration. This may help me with the second assignment in my ‘Intro to Digital Art’ class. The first section of the class has been Photoshop (Illustrator and InDesign are next) and the first assignment was to restore an old photograph. Easy enough. But now we have to put together a collage. And we need a theme. Of course the theme can’t be something simple like the beach, or dogs, or even Christmas. It needs to be more of an abstract concept or feeling. Like sadness, chaos, or imagination. What the hell. I’m annoyed already and will probably take this someplace dark. And I’m pretty sure that’s not the pills talking. This project is a little too scrapbook-y for me. And I sincerely mean no disrespect to any scrapbookers out there. I’ve seen some pretty cool looking pages. I only mean that scrapbooking is something that I never got into. My brain/creativity just doesn’t put things together that way. And I’ll just stop right there before my drug-addled brain goes too far with that train of thought. Back to my project. I have kids and both of them act out in frustration more than I care to think about.* I already have more than enough photos showing this charming side of their personalities. So, I think that’s it. I will put together an angst-ridden montage of frustrated youth. Hmm, I’ll need some sort of background layer, how would you represent amplifier feedback visually?

* 1 ½ and 11 are not that different. I’m pretty sure if Erin was capable of expressing herself in words; she too would be calling us stupid and wanting to run away - all because we wouldn’t let her touch the oven when it was hot.

Kyle and Erin are both wrong. This is stupid. Man, sometimes I really miss drinking.

Present and accounted for

2008-09-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

Apparently people have noticed the lack of inane chatter coming from my direction. The always lovely Julie T actually called me yesterday morning to check up on me! Too much quiet broken only by vague tweets and cryptic Facebook updates had her worried.

We then proceeded to natter on about the current financial crisis; concluding with the obvious need to exhume Milton Friedman and beat him about his rotting head and shoulders with copies of the $700 billion dollar bail-out package.

Oh yes, I can paint a pretty picture.

But I don’t want to get into that here. It is affecting my little family in a very direct way and the past couple weeks have been stressful to say the least. So between all that and being busy with school and kids, I just haven’t had much to say. I also wonder if my new medication (trying the preventative thing for the migraines) contributes to the quiet. It hasn’t really stopped the headaches yet but it’s only been 10 days. So we’ll just give it some time.

Still struggling with Kyle and his homework. Is it really that hard to put your name on a paper? Really? But he hit a beautiful double out to right field during his game last Wednesday. That was cool. And Erin is a crazy baby. She started spinning in circles yesterday. Thankfully it was her whole person spinning around and not just her head! I wonder about those 2 sometimes. I’ll try and get a new video up over the weekend.

And my Web Programming class has taken a turn to the hard. No more HTML/CSS here is how to make the given content pretty. Oh no, lets move on to some actually programming! With JavaScript we can make things happen! Like causing my brain to actually have to think. Damn, I remember that unpleasant feeling. And what is that smell?!! Of course, been-there-done-that Chris snickers from the side-lines.

My office building is filled with toxic fumes. I came home from class last night and WaMu was gone. I think that covers everything.

Wiped out

2008-09-19T17:45:00.000-07:00

Wow. Didn’t mean to disappear down a black hole on ya. But this has been a strange week and I don’t think I’ve fully recovered yet. And really, I don’t even know what I would be recovering from. Headaches, new medications, stock market woes, JavaScript, being a brunette… wait – that change is good. I think. Hard to tell when no one says anything either way. Kyle is calling me Goth, which is pretty damn funny. Hey, is it too soon to give him the Sandman books? I just added Neil Gaiman as a friend on GoodReads. I’m rubbing bandwidth with the big boys now.

What else. Didn’t see Coleman Barks. Totally ok with that. (I’m not ok with the fact that I can’t find the copy of his CD I made years ago) We went to the circus last Friday. Fun, but exhausting. Erin does not sit still even for lions and tigers and bear oh my. Or the tigers, elephants, and small white horses that we actually saw. I took some pictures –shocking, I know. Look for them around Thanksgiving. Tonight I have to take my Chapter 10 test. JavaScript really gave my brain a workout. Wish me luck. Cause when I do poorly, Chris suffers.

Back-up dancers: Prefer anonymity

2008-09-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

Because code isn’t geeky enough, how about some particle physics?

Today was the first test of the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) built by CERN. I haven’t been paying much attention to it because my brain has been focused elsewhere (Cough laissez-faire). But I have been hearing about this video from different sources for days now. It is a rap about the LHC and the comments are all positive and stating that the science really holds up. So this morning I finally watched it, and it is just a good as everyone says. Well, not the actually rapping and dancing (HA!) but the science – this is the kind of stuff I love. In fact, I can see myself spending a bit of time surfing around CERN’s website this morning. Chris is now feverishly praying that I abandon my PolySci kick and start reading about quantum physics again. Never did I spit venom whilst reading science books. Well, there was that one time with Stephen Hawking…

Large Hadron Rap

Dodge this!

2008-09-05T11:37:00.000-07:00

I had big plans to write a new post for you today. Tell you all about how Kyle ~~is trying to kill me~~ has his first school dance this afternoon 3-5pm (for the 6th graders. The 7th and 8th grader’s dance starts at 7pm) and then his first baseball game at 6pm. And tomorrow he has a double-header! With the second game in Foresthill. Which is, I don’t know, an hour or so away! Nice. And hey, its gonna be 101° on Saturday.

But I can’t tell you these things because I am too damn tired. Sure, I got out of class 1 ½ hours early last night, but I had caffeinated myself to be up and alert until 10. So the sleeping? Not so much. And when I had finally tired myself out surfing the internet late into the night, I made the mistake of logging into Photophlow instead of logging off. Another hour or so later the laptop battery was dying and today – so am I. Dragging hard. So tired that my eyes are little slits. And red. And it is not helping that my mascara seems extra clumpy today and my eyelashes keep sticking together. Which I am taking as a sign from above to close my damn eyes and get some sleep.

I would take a nap during the 3-5 dance window, but let’s be real. I am not a napper. And I have to have dinner ready by 5 so that I can de-spin and feed Kyle in the 17.5 minutes we have between him coming home from the ~~running around the gym like a maniac with his posse~~ dance and taking him to the baseball field. Fun. Go Dodgerzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Utata Speaks '08

2008-09-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

So, did anyone make it through the whole 81 minutes of that Library of Congress webcast? Yeah, me neither. I barely made it through that lady's introduction. Man, she was putting me to sleep. But I'm going to make it up to you right now, with an even better way to spend your valuable time - Utata has published its big annual project!

Yay! Photo essays from my favorite Flickr group. I submitted a personal essay singing the praises of drive-by shooting in Santa Cruz - and then didn't shoot at all while we were there this past weekend. But that is no reason not to go and check out everyone else's entries. (helpful tip of the day - that banner is a link, click it!) I haven't had a chance to read many of the essays yet (still folding laundry thank you very much) but between kid-wranglin' and homework I might have 5-7 minutes free this evening. Wait... Kyle has baseball practice tonight - did I wash his uniform?

Well, I would love to tell you more about our weekend and the CIA, but I’ve got to call and sing Happy Birthday to the lovely Julie T’s answering machine.

Love Dogs

2008-08-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

I just found out that Coleman Barks is coming to Grass Valley next month. I am so there!

If you are unfamiliar, Coleman Barks is a poet and renowned translator of the ecstatic poems of Sufi mystic Jelaluddin Rumi. I saw him with Robert Bly in Ojai years ago and it was an unforgettable evening. Attending one of Barks’ performances is the only way to truly experience Rumi’s poetry. Prior to that evening, I had read some Rumi and it honestly didn’t do that much for me. Hearing Barks recite the poems to music was a whole 'nother world. It was absolutely amazing.

And if you’ve got an extra 81 minutes lying around, I found this webcast from the Library of Congress that you could watch. But, if you do have that much spare time, I recommend that you do something productive with it – like come to my house and fold some laundry! Slacker.

I want to verse you

2008-08-24T18:12:00.000-07:00

You heard that little birdy right - my new photo site is up and running. It took several days of downloads, databases, mySQLs, phps, uploads via FTPs, and several small sacrafices to Al Gore, but I did it. So, without further ado, I give you -

dawnblanchfield.com!

Sure, there are only a few photos there now, but I've got a whole second hard-drive full of images, so I'll try to add one a day for awhile. Of course there will always be flickr for you baby-viewing needs. In fact, after a few more 4th of July beach shots, there is quite the run of family photos to be uploaded. Including before and after shots of Paul's head.

And speaking of haircuts, I did a few more things this weekend. There was the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk on Saturday morning in Old Town Sacramento. That was alot of fun and I met some very cool people. I'll have those shots up on Flickr by next Tuesday. And when I got home I did this!

Kyle on the first day of Middle School:

Kyle after I gave him a haircut:
Yes, I cut Kyle's hair. And I think I did a pretty good job of it. Of course, Kyle thinks it's too short. But after what I went through before the haircut (I don't want to talk about it) he is lucky he has any hair left at all! Hey, I had even forgotten that he had eyebrows.

So, regarding Me vs. my To-Do list, the tally is:
Me: 3.5 tasks completed (I finished my dad's cd, but still haven't mailed it)
To-Do List: 2.3 million things left to do. The bulk of that being laundry of course. And hey, my Fall Semester starts tomorrow so yeah... I'd best get going.

Sweet mother of Barry Gibb!

2008-08-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

The tight pants, falsetto, and floating heads - what more could you ask for from an earworm?!

This gosh-blasted song has been stuck in my head for days now. And no amount of Joy Division or lullabies have been able to temper my tapping toes. I defy you to get to sleep when this song is playing in your head.

And where should we direct our righteous blame for this unbearable condition? At my niece Tonya Bean. She posted this video on Facebook (I’ll save that subject for another time) and I, trying to not be such an old fuddy-duddy and completely clueless to what kids are listening to these days, clicked play.

So, after you’ve listened to the song – and you should listen to it. It’s not bad per se; just stuck in heavy rotation- we’ll form a caravan, drive out to Michigan and beat Tonya about the head and shoulders with her disco ball.

A rare treat

2008-08-18T12:38:00.000-07:00

It’s 12:15 pm and I am sitting on the porch waiting for Kyle to come home from this morning’s orientation. It is absolutely gorgeous outside. The tempurature has dropped from the 108 we hit last weekend, to the mid-80’s. And there is a glorious delta breeze. If summers were always like this I would never be in the house!

I don’t know how long the battery will last on Chris’s laptop and don’t see an electrical outlet near the bench, but I’m going to sit here until ~~my butt goes numb~~ it’s time to pick up Erin. When Kyle gets home, I’ll have him bring me a glass of iced tea.

I had to schedule a doctor’s appointment for Kyle tomorrow afternoon. He got bit by a dog yesterday, so I want the doctor to look at Kyle's leg. The puncture wound is shallow but the skin was broken, and he’s developing a nice bruise. Plus he is probably due for a tetanusSshot anyways. Bummer for him. But Kyle hasn’t had a well-doctor check-up since his 1st grade physical, so he is due. Lucky for us he is a healthy kid (tipping my head back, knocking it on the wood siding of the house). But I am also going to have the doctor talk to Kyle about his diet. The boys eating habits are not good. I keep waiting for his to get hungry enough to eat anything, but it hasn’t happened yet. He can't live on mac-n-cheese and cheerios forever right?! Don't answer that.

Well, Kyle just got home and it is time for him to do my bidding. Suh-weet.

I miss Communism

2008-08-18T00:19:00.000-07:00

Laissez-faire capitalism has ruined my posture.

I am still reading Shock Doctrine and it is unsurprisingly making me crazy. I don’t even know what to do with this information. I shouldn’t read it before bed – Chris would most likely say that I shouldn’t be reading it at all. He’s probably right. My brain starts spinning round and then getting to sleep becomes impossible. I got up and tried to do some yoga, but all I could do was sit there slouching. That’s bad. So, here I am. I really need to go back to reading Chekov.

You gotta keep ‘em separated

Tomorrow morning Kyle has student orientation at his new school. I have been so busy this last week that I haven’t even had a chance to think about the fact that on Tuesday Kyle will be starting Junior High! Oh right, they call it Middle School here. Whatever Kyle. He’ll be in 6th grade and in Lincoln that means Middle School, with the 7th and 8th graders. But we have been assured, repeatedly, that they keep the 6th graders separated from the older kids. And after Kyle came back from his SoCal vacation, where he spent a week camping with a group of older cousins, that isolation is now looking mighty good. Because while ‘Don’t be a fool, wrap your tool’ is good advice, learn it – live it, it’s not something I want to be hearing from my 11 year old!

Hey, speaking of school…

My semester ended last week. I got an A. And I don’t want to sound like a complete braggart, but I got a 99.3% and I’m pretty damn proud of myself. It's getting harder by the day to deny it when Chris calls me a geek. The fall semester starts on the 25th and I’m taking Web Programming II which uses that same 5lb book. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m having a hard time not starting early on the next chapter. I really am sick and twisted. So to keep myself occupied between classes, I’ve been focusing on photography projects. I have finished the cd of photos for my dad, and have finally made a decision on web hosting and will start working on my new photo-blog this week. Finally. I am also trying to meet the deadline for this year’s Utata’s Big Project. I’ve got plenty of photos but the writing part of the Photo-journalism project is gonna be tough. As you can see, I’ve got nothing to say.

Keep your pants on!

2008-08-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

Well. The baby has learned how to take her diaper off.

What more needs to be said?!

Olympic migraines*

2008-08-09T22:33:00.000-07:00

So, we arrive in Santa Cruz last night and my in-laws were watching the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics. Cool. We unloaded the car (ok, Chris unloaded the car) and settled in in front of Bob’s big screen TV. We had missed a lot of it, but what we saw was pretty awesome. But then came the Parade of Nations. And all I have to say is wtf Olympics? Why are all those wonderful athletes forced to dress like color-blind airline employees? Didn't the women look like flight attendants? And what is with all the hats? Is there some kind of un-written Olympic rule that you have to not only wear some god awful suit-like attire in hideous colors, but you must top it with a jaunty hat?! Are fedoras the national chapeau of 90% of the countries on this planet? How did I miss that little tidbit of trivia? And some of those patterns caused me to want to poke my eyes out. I pretty sure Hungary was trying to kill me!

It was getting late, but we stayed up long enough to see the US team, who looked rather subdued with their navy blazers, white slacks, and obligatory caps. At least the women weren’t forced into skirts and ugly pumps. God bless America.

I was informed that the US team’s outfits were designed by Ralph Lauren. So there you go. And suddenly I began to twitch. For I too was once forced to wear Ralph Lauren by an evil overlord. Or the co-owner of the Rattlesnake Club in Detroit, who was from California, and wore ocelot boots to the grand opening. The staff at the new riverfront restaurant had to wear pink button-down Polo shirt, khakis, deck shoes and a very colorful bowtie. I’m wondering if there wasn’t a belt too, one that might have matched the bowtie. Either way, we sure looked dandy. I’m surprised those preppy threads didn’t give me a rash.

The Sain’t, me, and several of our friends were part of the original staff when the restaurant opened 20 years ago. And the only reason I know the actual year is that last month Kim told the Sain’t that she was going to attend the restaurant’s 20 year anniversary celebration. And this is where we again encounter “bad math”. Math that ages me. Math that if done properly states that I was 22 years old when I worked there. Sweet mother of Barry Gibb how did I get this old?!

And to place you squarely in 1988, the music piped into the restaurant was a mix of Roxy Music and Sade. Suh-weet.

*Although I have had headaches the last 2 mornings, I’m happy to report they were not even close to Olympic in size or grandeur. More like a small regional qualifying events at best.

Talk about peer pressure...

2008-08-04T15:52:00.000-07:00

When I started this here little blog, my tag line was "all my friends are doing it" - which still makes me snicker (it seems that Kyle is not the only 11 year old boy in this house!) But hey, I was right. Everyone who is anyone has a blog these days. Including George Orwell! Who's not letting a little thing like death stop him!

And I know this has been reported all over the internet, but I found it on PRI's the World while looking for Bosnian folk music. And you found it here, while looking for… what? Reports of my still tight hamstrings? No? Maybe it’s a picture of the baby that you are after.

Well, you'll have to wait. Blogger is not cooperating. I'll try again later after a round of deep cleansing breathes.

Ok then - yoga does fix everything! That and a new flash.

Hurts so good...

2008-08-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

Hmm, I told you to come back today to get a status on how much pain I would be in two days after my first yoga class in approximately 730 days. And here you are! Nice. Schadenfreude never fails. Let me direct you to the VIP “Laugh at Dawn’s Suffering” section. Pull up a chair and help yourself to a nice cold drink. Chris has been getting rather lonely in there all by himself, but let me tell you – he’s been roflmao big time! Literally. In the spirit of “my best interests”, he made me do more yoga last night! And not being able to stand hearing the pained noises I was making without actually seeing what I was doing (or attempting to do) – he got out of bed to do some stretching of his own. “All the better to view the extent of your discomfort my dear.” He is Big and Mean! (trade-mark pending)

So, yeah, I’m sore. Tight. Wimper with the smallest movements.
There. Happy?! I bet you are.

Me too.

What a nice view…

2008-07-30T11:47:00.000-07:00

So, today is my birthday. With everything that’s been going on this past month, I’ve had a hard time even remembering my birthday this year, which is very atypical behavior for a Leo. In the past I’ve been border-line obnoxious starting July 1st. But this year? Nothing. I think I mentioned it once in one line a couple weeks ago. Strange days indeed.

But here I am. Older than I’ve ever been. Again. And I kinda feel whatever about the whole thing. Is ambivalence a symptom of old age? I over-slept this morning; do you think that’s a sign?

Whoa, now I’m wicked scared.
I just did a search through my archives to link to previous birthday blather and there was not a word about it in 07 either! I had to go back to July 2006 to find this post! Man, I am slipping. I’ll probably break a hip at yoga tonight!*

But what I found interesting is that it was in July of 07 that I posted about reading Overthrow – the beginning of the end of my sanity. And this July I started reading Shock Doctrine, which is the scariest book yet! In a mere year I’ve read enough of this stuff that I’m completely familiar with names, places, and events. Poor Chris. It was on page 58 of Shock Doctrine that I encountered the infamous Dulles boys and I promptly started foaming at the mouth. To which Chris promptly threatened to take the book away from me! I got a stern look when I hissed “United Fruit!” But this book is much more than the horrors of the CIA – it’s the horrors of free-market economics! Good gravy Mabel that’s some messed up shit!

But that isn’t birthday talk now is it. I’ll save that for later. Let the crazy build a bit more…

Birthday talk is my new flash unit – thanks Chris! Mikuni’s for lunch – thanks in advance Boss. (when will that conference call end?) Calls and cards from my peeps. And hopefully a yoga class tonight!

* come back here Friday to hear all about the second-day sore! I haven’t been to a class in almost 2 years and tonight is a vinyasa/flow class. Wish me luck! Fitting into my yoga clothes that is!

A Fool and His Money…

2008-07-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

Wes finally took me back to court this morning to get his child support lowered. If he had a dollar for every time I told him to stop complaining to me about the amount and go back to court, well… he still wouldn’t have enough money to cover what he owes me in arrears. He owes a lot. Because he never pays. And then he calls me to whine about it! Amazing.

So, after having his bank account seized last month, he finally decided to do something about his situation. He went down to the Dept of Child Support Services and made a payment to get his license back and then got a court date. And since he is now lying about how much money he makes, the courts lowered the support payment! Which on one hand I kind of expected, because my situation has certainly changed since we got the divorce (and he had the amount lowered the first time), but on the other hand – he’s lying about his income! Which sucks. And there’s not a whole lot I can do about it because he works under the table. I was under the impression that the courts based support on earning potential (to keep people from quitting their jobs so they don’t have to pay), but I guess not. Because if he bothered to work 40 hours a week, he would make double what he is claiming. Oh well. He does have to go back to court on Aug 25th with his 2007 tax returns to prove his income. But again, if he’s not claiming his income what good will that do. So, we’ll just wait and see if anything changes. In the meantime, it will be nice to start getting some money each month. We’ll see how long that lasts. Maybe we should start a pool.

I See You...

2008-07-21T15:56:00.000-07:00

But I can't talk now. After all the fun of last week, and several days of headaches, I've fallen behind on my to-do list. I need to start the next chapter for class (and writing code is great for distracting your brain from thinking about unpleasant things!), make a photo cd for my dad, call my aunt, go to a counseling appt at the college tomorrow, prepare for a court date next Monday, and pack Kyle's bags cause he is outta here on Wednesday!

So, I need to stay focused. Nose to the grind-stone and all that jazz. In the meantime, you can watch my twitter updates there on the left to monitor my mental health. If things start sounding dire, send mocha frappachinos!
I'm kinda brownied-out, but I still need caffiene.

Get a life.

2008-07-15T16:39:00.000-07:00

Wow, I've been out more evenings in the past week than I have in the past year! Crazy.
In the good way.

Finally.

Last Thursday I met the beautiful Kimerloo for sushi, adding Sharon to the mix at the last minute. (Kim is moving to San Diego next month and I'm none too happy about that, but I'll save my rant about crop circles and conspiracy theories for another time.) Saturday evening was spent at the lovely Rachel's. And last night Sharon arraigned a surprise birthday dinner for Karen at Leatherby's (minds out of the gutter people - it's an ice cream parlor) and I had a blast. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. I'm not even mentioning that Karen moved to Virginia last year. Nope.

Tonight the Sain't was supposed to drive up for dinner and then leave for Tahoe in the morning to visit his cousin. That has been postponed to Thursday. But still, the point is that my day-timer runneth over. Or something like that.

Tomorrow is Chris and my wedding anniversary. 3 years! And the 3rd year is Leather. WooHoo! Go ahead and enjoy the gutter this time, but I’m thinking shoes. Or a purse. But what I’m really getting is a massage on Thursday. And that’s better!

Saturday is Karen’s official birthday BBQ and that should be fun. But my schedule for next week doesn’t look so hot. So far I’ve got a counseling appt at the college on Tuesday. Wednesday afternoon I take Kyle to the airport for his annual 2 week southern California fun-fest (but please don’t forget what a crappy life he has!), and Thursday I finally have the dentist appointment to get the crown work done for my root canal. Oh doesn’t that sound like a good time.

But my birthday* is in 2 weeks!! What should we do?

*I hear the 42nd year is camera equipment. How fortuitous.

Weekend round-up. Wednesday edition.

2008-07-09T11:37:00.000-07:00

We are finally back home after our extended and consequently extra wonderful weekend in Santa Cruz. I spent 5 days in a no-news-is-good-news, clean-fit-for-breathing ocean air, more brownies than I care to think about, bubble of happiness. And then the reality of the Sacramento valley had to go and burst that bubble. Still with the fires? And a heatwave too? Gah.

Oh well, what can you do but close the blinds (there is nothing to see out there and it will help keep the place cool) and close your eyes and think back on the long holiday weekend...

So, what did I do with all that time at the coast? Besides fill a couple memory cards with pictures?
Homework.
Is that wrong?! I got through the next chapter in 2 afternoons while the baby slept and the boys were at the beach. Sure, I could have gone to the beach with them; sat in the sand with the sun beating down on my head. Or I could sit alone in a nice quiet house without any interruptions and Chris’s laptop. If that’s wrong – I don’t want to be right!
And I still managed to see plenty of the beaches while I was there – and in my favorite ways; driving around and stopping for photo ops (or scouting out kelp beds and beach access – depending on who’s telling the story) and walking with Kyle or Erin (and the camera - always the camera).

And let’s not forget the time spent playing the Wii. Oh yeah baby, we have got to get one of those!! I logged 30+ minutes in my Wii Fit piggy bank Monday morning. And I’m feeling it today. Kyle and I have taken the yoga to a nice competitive level. And he’s giving me a run for my money. What the boy lacks in flexibility, he more than makes up for in balance! Which the Wii Fit board has a much easier time of gauging. So not fair. And I bowled a personal best Sunday night – 213! I had 2 turkeys in that game. Nice. And Kyle and I spent at least an hour making Mii's for the whole family. And they look good. Unfortunately I forgot to snap a photo. Sorry. I'll get the family portrait next time.

And there were brownies. Lots of brownies.

Now I have to do the assignment for Chapter 5 and edit all those pictures. (Hey Rachel – I put the 50mm on twice!) And laundry. Always laundry.

Also, I finished shooting the roll of color film in the Holga and need to drop it off for developing. So, the question of the day is: will my desire to see my photos beat out the fact that if I run an extra errand, my throat will close up, my eyes will again burn, and I increase the likelihood of a headache?

Tune in tomorrow to - As the World Burns.

Walk this way

2008-07-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

The grandparents will be seeing this live tomorrow. I couldn't leave for a long holiday weekend without sharing ~~our doom~~ the happiness with you.

Enjoy! And have fun and safe 4th of July.

This ones wet

2008-07-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

Lego re-enactment of Eddie Izzard Death Star Canteen Sketch

I found this video on oobject. Plenty to see there. Cake or Death is also nice.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes... and lungs

2008-06-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

I have been sick with a headache for the last three days. So not much has been going on here in elfini-land. But I have few updates for you. California is on fire and my previously twittered total of 800+ fires needs to be revised to 1000+ fires. I’m having a hard time wrapping my smoke-filled brain around that number. So how about a nice graphic –

View Larger Map

That’s crazy! It’s no wonder that I haven’t been able to breathe all week. Not fun. But today I did not wake up with a headache so I am feeling a bit hopeful. And able to type. So, let’s catch up eh?

I guess Erin is now officially a toddler. Walking is not yet her only or even preferred mode of getting around, but she’s doing it more and more. From here to there and sometimes back again. Complete with stops and 180 degree turns. So, yeah. Baby walking. Someone needs to disappear that corn popper quick!

I’m half-way through my semester. On-line classes are still kinda surreal. I’m undecided on what classes to take next semester (besides Web Programming II). I’m even thinking of making an appointment with a counselor. And I’ve mailed off the requests for all 5 of my Official Transcripts. Good gravy Mabel, what have I gotten myself into.

For some strange reason this made me tear up a bit this morning. But I’m going to blame it on the smoke. Don’t tell anyone.

Now I’ve got to make a call to firm up the details on Kyle’s annual trip to southern California next month. Let’s not forget how much his life sucks!

The last freebie*

2008-06-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

I received an email from Sharon last week stating that she was unhappy with the look of her blog. And could I, the goddess of all things html, help her. Well, if she’s going to put it that way, how could I refuse?

Her page was many shades of bright pink and she wanted something a bit more soothing. I told her to come by Sunday afternoon and we could work on it. She wanted the site to feel calm and peaceful, more in line with her "spa" theme. And I had just the design for her! Since she liked the beach theme I had created for this site but wasn’t using, I offered it to her. Why re-invent the wheel right? And within the hour a new Sharon’s Spa for You was born. And so was elfiniDesigns.

I still plan on doing some work customizing the banner text, but not until my homework is done!

* I will accept payment in brownies. But not with nuts. And for the love of pete people - no frosting!

Why I’m not a doctor.

2008-06-13T13:25:00.000-07:00

I’ve decided that my Cough ™ is construction induced. As soon as they finish the re-model of the bathrooms in my office building, I will be cured! And if things do not work out that way I’m gonna be very displeased.

I’ve also recently diagnosed my migraines as a casualty of the constant battle between the right and left sides of my brain. A cruel and gory battle to determine which hemisphere will reign supreme! The Artist or the Geek. I really am a conundrum.

Now I must admit that I can never remember which side does what, so I’ll have to look it up. Be right back…

Interesting.
This was the first page I open after a Google search:
http://www.web-us.com/BRAIN/LRBrain.html *
And now I know that it was my right hemisphere that was in tears in Chemistry class. Damn moles. I ‘got’ the math; I just wanted to know why I was doing it!

And then I took 2 different “Hemisphere Dominance Tests” and got a different result for each test! Either I am extremely well balanced, or I’m screwed up beyond measure! Actually there were some questions with both answers were right. So the battle rages on…

And I know that both halves of my brain are working together, and that every person has a dominant side, and this is not the reason for my headaches. But I like the imagery of an epic battle in my head. Migraines that are just hormonal, let-down or stress-related aren’t very exciting are they? Semi-predictable and boring and forever pissing me off, but nothing to write home about.

* Hey - the geek in me wants you to know that I could break down this url into all its parts for you thanks to Chapter 2 of the textbook from hell. Or I could draw you a diagram...

Flag Day with the Flag Man

2008-06-12T10:52:00.001-07:00

Flag Day 008, originally uploaded by salemflagday.

Check it out - my dad was the Grand Marshall for the Flag Day Parade in Salem, MI last weekend.

I also found an article about him on the Salem Flag Day blog. It is a reprint of the article I posted a couple months ago but it uses a photo that I took last fall. Plus there are more photos from the parade in this flickr set.

So, enjoy the links - I'm off to call my dad...

It's All Relative

2008-06-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

Found this YouTube video on Sweetney’s Linkblog. So very cool!

The Most Important Image Ever Taken
In 2003, the Hubble Space Telescope took the image of a millennium, an image that shows our place in the universe. Anyone who understands what this image represents, is forever changed by it.

Meanwhile, on our little speck of dust, Kyle’s first baseball season is winding to an end. The Giants finished the season with a 6-14 record and in 4th place in the standings. The first place team is the Cardinals with a 19-1 record including 3 shutouts! Pretty impressive.

This week is the End of Season Tournament with the final game on Saturday. Last night, the Giants won Game #1 against the Ranger (12-4). Wednesday night they play Game #3 against the Cardinals. And you might think that that will be the end for our Giants. And you might be right, but what about this: Last Saturday in the last game of the regular season, the Giants played the Cardinals and lost 8-9. Yes, they lost. But by 1 point!! That must have been a great game! (Chris and I missed it because we were in Santa Cruz. But Kyle got a base-hit and then scored. Against the Cardinals!) So, hope springs eternal and maybe, just maybe the Giants will go all the way!

And hey, Happy Birthday Uncle Bot!!!

Busy. Please call again.

2008-06-04T11:14:00.000-07:00

Remember way back when… when I thought I didn’t need a day-timer? When I scoffed at Chris’s suggestion – thinking I could never be that busy that I wouldn’t remember my one, maybe two, appointments per quarter? When I felt it completely unnecessary to feign being that organized? Well. I apologize. If I could go back in time I would kick my former self in the shin. Such is my reliance on my pretty little book of all that is important and looming! It sits next to me on my desk at work. I carry it upstairs with me at home. I pull it out in doctor’s offices, hair salons and once even at Starbucks.

Hmm, now I am wondering how I can keep Chris from reading this post. The gloating will be unbearable. Like bear… ha!

Anyways, the point is that we’ve been busy. Baseball, school events (Kyle’s are ending for the summer but ours have just begun!), more doctors appointments than I care to think about. And this morning I just wrote in “Santa Cruz” on Friday. Because after consulting everyone’s calendars, we found that this is the only weekend we can get down there to get the grandparents their much needed baby fix before July!

Yay, I’m finally going back to the beach! It seems like it has been ages – possibly February/early March since I was last there. All I know was that the last 2 times I was there, I was sick with all those horrible headaches that eventually lead to my getting a root canal. I just checked ‘the book’ and the drilling was April 8th. Hmm, after the sweet pain relief of the root canal came the cough. The cough that still hasn’t gone away 2 months later. Which brings me to tomorrow’s follow-up appointment (highlighted in the day-timer) with my new doctor. The doctor that gave me breathing tests and sent me off for a chest x-ray. The doctor who said he would not just throw more allergy medicine and inhalers at me but find out what was wrong first. Hey thanks! What a novel idea! The doctor that did give me the magic cough syrup that allows me (and Chris) to sleep at night. So, 8:40am Thursday June 5th doctor appointment to confirm what I don’t have (asthma and fluid on the lungs) and hopefully some idea of what I do have so we can make it go away!!

So this week had baseball practice Monday and I turned in my 2nd assignment, last night I studied and took the test (96!), tonight there is a baseball game, tomorrow night is laundry and pre-packing, Friday is Kyle’s last day of school, swim party and then off to his dad’s for the weekend while Chris, Erin and I head down to Santa Cruz. Whew.

But next week I’ve got nothing!
For now…

What a hack

2008-05-26T19:57:00.001-07:00

Well, I just couldn't stand it any longer. Erin's bangs were down to her chin and she would not leave the barrettes in her hair. She was constantly reaching up to her head to see if there was a barrette or pony-tail holder up there. If there was, she pulled it out. And then put it in her mouth. It was a losing battle. So she spent her days with her hair covering half her face. She was starting to crawl with her head turned to the side so she could see were she was going. I had had enough and got out the scissors. And as you can imagine trying to cut a squirming 13 month old's hair is more than a 2-person job. So, I present to you:

Baby's first bad haircut. A play in 2 acts: Before and After. Enjoy. And don't worry. It will grow out.

Worth the wait

2008-05-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

I finally watched Charlie Wilson’s War last night. And it did not disappoint. And in retrospect, it was probably a good thing that 6 months have passed between my reading the book and seeing the movie. Last night I was completely ok with the casting – in fact I think it was spot on. Phillip Seymour Hoffman? Fanfuckintastic. And I had forgotten just enough detail from the book to not notice any real discrepancies with the movie, if there were many at all. I think it really was well done. The true story is just insane enough that a straight forward telling of it is all you need. And it was funny. Funny and scary and well worth the price of a dvd rental. I recommend it and give it two Stinger Missile Launchers up.

A Tale of the Queen of deNile

2008-05-24T14:02:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time – last week - the 5th graders watched “the video”. You know the one I’m talking about, the health video for boys and girls on “puberty and their changing bodies”. Oh joy. Consequently Chris and Kyle have been talking. Discussions about erections, birth-control, and wet dreams. I meanwhile have been sitting in the corner with my fingers in my ears singing lalalalalala. Erin joins in with her Tibetan monk chanting and then my head implodes. The end.

Books are Good Food

2008-05-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

Erin and I went to the library this afternoon before picking up Kyle from his last band practice. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before how much I adore a good library. I mean come on – free books! What’s not too love?! Grab anything that strikes your fancy. Not enjoying it? Simply return it. No harm, no foul.

And today’s trip with Erin was a perfect example. I had 2 books to return and nothing on my ‘must read next’ list. I had finished the book on the Balkans (very good) but hadn’t spent much time thinking about what I wanted read next. As always there are some themes I plan to explore further (I’m still looking a you Russia!), but I seem to have found my groove with Fiction again. After the joy that was reading A Dirty Job, I picked up an Elmore Leonard novel that I spotted on my last trip to the library. Killshot* – maybe not his greatest, but if you’re a fan (and I am), it’s typical Leonard and a fast and enjoyable read. So, this afternoon, instead of heading straight to World History, I decided to cut through the Fiction section. And when you’re pushing a stroller, it’s like grocery shopping with the munchies. Any book that catches your eye you just throw in the basket. I shopped until it was time to get Kyle. Let’s see, what did I find... I had made a left down the R-Z aisle. Saw The Satanic Verses on my left. Hmm, why not? Tossed it in the basket and kept moving. High up on the right – Kurt Vonnegut. A slim volume I hadn’t read before, God-Bless-You-Dr-Kevorkian. In the cart. Crossing an aisle I’m in the Art section. Familiar territory. Grab a giant book of photographs by Josef Koudelka, which I am very much looking forward to perusing. Then a quick stop in the 700’s to pick up a book on propaganda and we are on our way to the self-check-out. The trip a success - plenty of things to read while I continue searching for the next big-read.

And I’ve got to admire and fear the programs used to by Amazon.com to suggest books that I might like. They have got my number. Between Amazon and my library records, I wonder when the FBI will flag my file.

*Just found out this has been made into a movie. Mickey Rourke is in it which automatically makes it a horror movie. Have you seen his face lately? Scary.

Ch-Ch-Changes

2008-05-17T22:37:00.001-07:00

Are you worried that this blog is going to be all about school and my bitter complaints about the weather? Well, that might seem a valid concern after the last 2 posts, but I doubt there will be that much more to say about my class.

Now the temperature issue - I'm not going to make any promises about that one.

But I've gotta admit, I'm just not groovin' with the new look of this page. It's pretty and all but it doesn't inspire me. It just doesn't feel like 'me'. Which is kinda silly since I designed it -used one of my beach photos and picked the color scheme. But it's too calm and soothing, which is not really my mood when I'm writing. I'm thinking of changing it back to the grassy field banner and green color scheme until I come up with a new idea.

And more things are changing around here. Erin is this close to walking. Besides circumnavigating the coffee table, she will hold your finger and walk across the room. And over the weekend she started walking behind her ride-on contraption. She is also climbing up on everything! Oh the joy.

Things are changing for the better for Kyle's baseball team. They have been winning games. Not every game, but enough games that they've pulled out of last place in the league standings. And win or lose, I gotta tell ya - I love watching their games! Yeah no one is more surprised than I am.

A Kyle change that I'm not enjoying so much is the fact that in less than a month, his elementary school career will be over. (Thanks for that Chris) Next year he will be in Middle School! We went to the Parent Orientation last Thursday. Ugh. I'm sorry, but I think the 6th grade should be in elementary, not Jr. High. But I was not consulted and now Kyle is going to have to get his shit together. His last progress report was less than stellar. Far too many late assignments. Not good.

What else? Chris is also going back to school. (Hey, I figure I'll get the rest of the school stuff out in this post and then that will be it.) He just mailed the tuition check for his first class to get his Masters in Financial Services and CRP. Hmm, compared to that, a little computer code doesn't sound that bad eh?

And saving the best for last - next Wednesday's high is only 79!

Spring Semester 08

2008-05-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

Hey, look at me - I’m a college student. Again. How weird is that? And at a new school. Now that is not so unusual. In fact, there seems to be a pattern. With every move to a new town comes a new school for me to take a class or two at. God forbid I ever actually get my act together and need to submit all my transcripts. That would be a Herculean task. Chris has one. I, on the other hand, could possibly have dozens! I’m like a connoisseur of colleges. And when you request transcripts they like to know what year/s you attended. That’s funny. I can’t even tell you with any certainty what year I moved to California! That information requires a phone call to the Sain’t.

Anyways, today is the start of my semester. I’ve sharpened my Dixon-Ticonderogas, dusted off the Trapper-Keeper and had my Wheaties…

::crickets::

And I’ve got nowhere to go. And no specific time to be there.

Hmpf. On-line classes are a bit anticlimactic. I guess tonight I’ll log into the system, get my assignment, and participate in the discussion group where everyone will have to introduce themselves. Hmm, lack of public speaking is definitely a plus! On the other hand, I talked Cynthia into taking the class with me. It wasn’t hard. But it’s going to be tricky getting the desk next to her in the back row. How are we going to furtively pass notes to each other and spread rumors about Chad and Susie breaking up?!

p/s I weighed the textbook - its 5 lbs!

Too Cool for School

2008-05-09T15:52:00.000-07:00

Not.

In fact I’m going to summer school!
And it’s all Chris’s fault.

He was looking at welding classes at Sierra College one afternoon so I started to peruse the class schedule myself thinking it would be great to take another photography class. I took several photography classes at Ventura College many many years ago and I loved it! Black & White Film – way back when before digital was even a pipe-dream and dinosaurs still roamed the earth. I loved working in the darkroom and experimenting with double exposures, solarizing prints etc. The only reason I stopped taking photography classes was a problem I had with one of the instructors. I won’t bother going into details but I will say that I politely declined to smoke a peace pipe with him at the end of the semester. So, I didn’t take another class with him but took a painting class instead. And now this lovely trip down memory lane has distracted me… where was I? Oh yes, discovering that the Fall Semester photography classes were only one evening a week. That sounded doable. There was even a Saturday morning class. Chris was all for it. So I hopped on-line and applied for admission to Sierra College. But the Fall Semester start until August. I started wondering what classes I could take over the summer. I found a Web Programming I (HTML & CSS) on-line course – hey why not? (Again, Chris said I should do it. He totally supports me going back to school to finish getting my degree. Which is great, but I don’t know how he is going to convince me to finally take that Speech class. Good luck with that buddy.)

So, I signed up. Class starts next Monday. And after buying the text book – which has to weigh at least 20 pounds!! – I’ve now spent 130 dollars to learn the same things I have been teaching myself for the past few months with a library book! Which had an out of pocket cost of $0. No I ask you - is that smart? Maybe I really do need to go back to school.

Well it's about time!

2008-05-03T21:39:00.000-07:00

What a slacker I am - haven't posted since last Saturday night. Tsk tsk. (and again I find myself fighting the urge to post a Bay City Rollers video!) But today was a day of many fine accomplishments. I finally got my hair done. And believe me when I say that it was long overdue. And as you can see, elfini-land has a new ‘do too! I was not finding the errant line of code that was plaguing my original template, so I finally gave up, loaded a new template (Minima) and started customizing. And I’m not finished yet but it’s a start. What do you think? Do you miss the green grassy field? Will a nice Santa Cruz beach suffice? Chris is just thankful that I hadn’t gotten around to uploading the Stalin poster off my camera yet or this site might have been far more red!

And speaking of commie pinkos – I’m back to reading about the Balkans. Now that is some warm and fuzzy bed-time reading. And I passed A Dirty Job on to Chris, who is suffering his own dirty job this evening. He took Kyle to a River Cat’s (Sacramento’s AAA baseball team) game. Kyle’s school choir and band got to sing the National Anthem before the game and Take Me Out to the Ballgame at the top of the 6th. Which I’m sure was fun for Kyle but he had to miss his own baseball game tonight. And they were playing the Rangers – the only team they have managed to beat this season. I went by the ball field at the end of the game and found out the Giants won! Something like 15-5. I wish I had seen that game.

S. A. T U R. D A Y. night!

2008-04-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

I've started ready A Dirty Job: A Novel by Christopher Moore. Let's not expect me to get anything else done for awhile. And I'm laughing so hard that I keep putting the book down and wanting to call someone. But you people aren't answering your phone!

Best quote so far: "Fuzz on the toast of Death".

Party at Elfini's!!

2008-04-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

My parents are going out of town and my brother promised to get me a six-pack of Budweiser with his fake i.d.

or...

Kyle is at his dad's this weekend and Chris took Erin to Santa Cruz. Chris gets to dive, the grandparents get their baby fix, and I get to stay up past 9:00pm!

B-days a go-go

2008-04-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

Wow, April is birthday month. Chris started things off on the 2nd. Erin's was on the 13th. My dad turned 88 on the 19th! 88! On the 19th!! The Sain't had a birthday yesterday on the 21st. And today is Paula's (my mother-in-law) birthday. Happy Birthday P!

Am I forgetting anyone else? Because apparently my day-timer can't be trusted. I had Sain't down on the 19th and my dad on the 21st. And I suspected that I had somehow gotten them mixed-up, but then Sain't called on the 19th complaining that his birthday check from his parents keeps getting smaller every year. I was at a game (were else?!) and told him happy birthday and I would call him later. I left him a message somewhere between the library and the grocery store with more birthday salutations but without any singing - I know how he likes to sock things away for later use. That evening he calls back and admits that his birthday isn’t until the 21st. Bastard. Of course by then it was too late to call my dad on the east-coast. That 3 hour thing is always screwing me up. That and my friends who obviously love and cherish me. Ha.

So, I called my dad on the 21st. In fact I managed to check off everything on yesterday’s to-do list (except start the Christopher Moore book) and I even had time to make this –

- all while being a wife, mother, vital-cog and member-of-society-at-large. Amazing.

Baseball's been bery bery good to me...

2008-04-20T20:45:00.001-07:00

Actually baseball has been kicking my ass. Where did my weekend go?!
Friday night there was a game up in Newcastle. The Giants lost. (Although Kyle smacked one to left field for a base run, and then scored) And then they had another game at 12:30 on Saturday. It was looking good for the Giants in the first half but things fell apart when the A's brought in Cecil to pitch. This kid is the best pitcher in the league. We quickly lost our 8-4 lead and ended up losing 9-17. Ouch. (Kyle got walked this time and then scored) And I'm sure that game wasn't really any longer than their night games, but I was exhausted by the time we got home around 4pm. Then I hit the library, the grocery store, we went out to dinner, took a postprandial walk around the neighborhood and then bam - it was Sunday. And besides finally loading the film in the Holga, I didn't do much this afternoon besides the obligatory laundry. Fun for me.

And tomorrow I get to find out if the IT guys managed to get my computer fixed at work. My Microsoft Outlook stopped working last Wednesday and I spent over 2 hours on the phone with them Friday afternoon. I've got to tell you, my expectations are not high.

Oh! Before the never-ending call to the Help Desk? I was at the doctors seeking help for my rib-cracking-cough-that-just-won't-quit! And I was sent away with a prescription for Advair. Which is a asthma inhaler! ?? I don't know why - but at least it seems to be helping.

Tomorrow's to-do list:

Call my dad and wish him a happy 88th birthday! Apologize for not calling on the 19th. The Sain't does not get another call.
Call Katie and reschedule coffee.
Shoot some more of the roll of film in the Holga!!
Start reading new books; Balkan Ghosts and A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore.
more laundry. It really never ends.

At least there isn't another game until Wednesday.

Typical. A day late and 24 cupcakes short.

2008-04-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

April 13, 2007
One year later...

Can you believe it?! Erin’s 1st birthday was yesterday; although we celebrated on Saturday. This whole leap year thing made it easy to claim both days as appropriate for celebrations. We had the cake and presents on Saturday and the much anticipated flipping of the car-seat ceremony on Sunday the 13th. Ok, it wasn’t much of a ceremony; Erin and I were inside while Chris re-installed the car-seat to its new forward-facing position. Yay. Of course now I can barely operate the straps because everything is backwards! Parenting is fun.

So, the big party? Not so big, it was just the 4 of us and Chris’s folks. But that was ok – more cake for us! And of course I made the cake because that is what I do. I am most mom-like when it comes to birthdays. I will bake for you! You want a cake? Great - what color? Need 31 cupcakes for you class? No problem. And this time, since Cook’s Illustrated just happened to have a recipe for chocolate frosting, I made the frosting for my cake (still from a box) from scratch! (Yes, that particular CI had a cake recipe too but it was yellow and we are chocolate cake people) And may I just say, that frosting? Way too chocolaty!!! I know, many of you can’t comprehend such a thing, but dude, it was rich. And I have a ton left over! And according to Chris throwing away frosting is some sort of cardinal sin! Gads. He was more than ready for me to make a batch of cupcakes to put under all that frosting. Like we really need 2 dozen cupcakes hanging around the house. I think I’ll just throw that tub-o-frosting in the freezer. Someone has to show some restraint around here!

I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that Erin is 1. Too fast! We bought Erin her first doll house and quickly declared the Little People Dad a nerd because of his sweater-vest. She also got one of these ride-on contraptions from Grandma and Grandpa. She is all over pushing those buttons* but not that interested in riding on it. Yet. And they also bought her one of those Corn Poppers! That is not nice!! And of course Kyle is having great fun playing with all her new toys. Goober.

I would like to say that I’ll finish sorting through the gazillion photos this evening, but Kyle has a baseball game**. You just might have to wait until Tuesday night to see more of Erin in all her one year old, toothy, chocolate covered, party dress wearin’ glory. But I can guarantee you that it will be well worth the wait!

* Buttons. Really, that is all that little girl wants to do – push buttons. Eventually she'll find mine! But for now, her favorites are the ones on the tv and dvd players. Great.

** The Giants are 0-5 or is it 6? Either way, they are having a rough go of things so far. But Kyle is doing really well for his first season playing. He needs to gain confidence at the plate and get more aggressive, but he is doing fine when out in the field. He caught a pop fly to right field last week in the first inning. I have vowed never be late for a game again! And when I did get there he was playing 3rd base! The coach has said he was going to be starting him from now on because he's worked really hard and nothing gets by him. Way to go Kyle!

Love Thursday - the Floral Edition

2008-04-10T20:14:00.000-07:00

I came downstairs this afternoon and discovered that someone had left me flowers! And just in time for Shutter Sister's Love Thursday!

And who is my secret admirer? Well, I'm not going to name names, but he is awefully cute and as you can see surprisingly sweet.

Don't tell anyone because I've got a reputation to uphold, but I love him to pieces!

This post brought to you by the letter V and Dupont "Better Living through Chemistry"

The Root of all Evil

2008-04-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

If you have been following my Twitter* updates there on the right, you probably already know that I ended up having a root canal yesterday afternoon. Those endodontists are a sneaking bunch - "Oh my, that tooth is bad and needs a root canal - and since you're already here in my chair why don't you just put on these not-so-stylish sunglasses and lay back..." And an hour or so later, your jaws sore from being wedged open for so long (oh yes - a wedge!), you're writing out a check for some un-godly sum but you don't care -it's so worth it because that pain the big huge please make it stop pain - it's gone! And this morning, even though my jaw is still a bit sore, I feel 1000% better. Which is amazing because this last month has been rough to put it mildly.

Of course now I need to make another appointment with my dentist to get a crown for this reformed bad tooth. But again, feeling good is still a novelty so I don't care. Happy happy joy joy. But I do wonder about my dentist... did he really not know what he was seeing on the x-ray? That slight clouding that was so mysterious to him? He mumbled something about possible resorbtion - rare - only sees 1-2 cases a year - treatable if caught early - I'll refer you to - maybe they'll know... ??? Did he not know I was heading for a root canal? or was he just chicken -didn't want to be the one to give me that bad news?

Either way, they have rebuilt me. And now I am better than before! Like the bionic woman. Hey it would be really cool if I could get pod-casts on my new and improved tooth. Or maybe blue-tooth capabilities! Viva la borg.

*I don't know what it is but I know I like it!

I started seeing Twitter updates on other blogs awhile ago. I even created my own Twitter account but never posted. And then a week or so ago I received an email that someone was following me on Twitter. What? A stalker of my very own?! How exciting! So I started posting and added the link to my sidebar. But when a couple people asked me what Twitter is, I discovered that I can't answer them. I'm just not sure how to describe it. And apparently I'm not the only one because this guy made this handy little video to help explain Twitter to the masses. So click play and then you too will know and love Twitter. You just won't be able to explain it to anyone.

I've got nothin'

2008-04-07T13:40:00.000-07:00

Wow. Monday already. This cold has been kickin’ my ass. As a result not much has been going on.

Let’s see…what can I tell you...

I'm almost finished reading Comrades!: A History of World Communism.
I have put Sain’t Christopher’s banner project on hold while he re-thinks his tag-line.
Haven’t opened that CSS code book all week. I carry it around with me though. Learning by osmosis – it could happen!
Picked up a new scanner on Saturday and am very pleased that it will scan 120 negatives! Now I just need to load the Holga and start taking some pictures.
Have been sitting with Kyle every afternoon making him practice his bass. The boy is this-close to getting kicked out of band. I don’t want to talk about it.
And Erin will be 1 next Sunday. Which means I'll be baking a cake. Come on over.

So now that you are caught up, I think its time for another dose of Emergen-C. And then it’s off to Jen’s to pick up Erin and find out what happened when the bullet meant for Sonny ricocheted off the shelf and hit Michael! Carly is going to be so pissed.

But what if I want to see Jesus?

2008-04-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

Hey - today is Chris's birthday! But enough about him. I would like to state for the record that I like NyQuil. Even better - his generic cousin in the nice easy-to-swallow gel-caps!

I've had a cold since last week and the headaches have been bad lately. I couldn't afford to wake up in the middle of the night with another headache. (I've only got 1 Maxalt left and 2 weeks to go before I can get another refill!) I needed to get a good nights sleep. So I asked the medicine-man (yeah, Chris had the cold first and at the first sign of a scratchy throat Cptn. Pharmacy springs into action) what we've got. And now I ask you - who would bother with sipping night-time TheraFlu when you have NyQuil in a pill?! Nighty-night rabbit.

But getting up this morning was not so easy. I was having dreams with French sub-titles. Awesome! Snooze #1 = normal. Snooze #2 = I shouldn't but ok just this once. # 3 = got up, turned off the alarm, got back into bed. I figured I would get up in time to drive Kyle to school, drop off Erin, and then come back home and shower and go to work. Yes, I was ready to be late.

Somehow I got here 15 minutes early. WTF? Really, how does that make sense?! I don't even think I noticed that I was driving the huge man-van and not my nice mid-sized Highlander. And during our ritual morning phone call, Chris made the observation the NyQuil seems to agree with me*. Can't argue with that! Although the boss-man might disagree as I'm trying to put together his expense reports right now!

*Although on our second call - as I laughed wildly at nothing - he seems to have reversed his position and declared me a danger to myself and the office supplies.

The gift that keeps on giving

2008-03-29T16:29:00.000-07:00

Look at what I got!

A Holga!* A present from the ever lovely Julie T for the work I did on her Bad Home Cooking banner. I am so excited about this! And do you see that little white box to the left of the camera? That is film** baby! Yup, it's a cheap plastic 120 medium format film camera. Oh the fun I will have!

But not today. Cause I'm sick. The baby started it with her running nose. Chris went down suddenly Thursday night. And when I woke this morning I was not my usual sunny self. I've just been a slug all day; reading a book on typography and glancing at the CSS book without the energy to actually pick it up. I'm hoping I will have more pep tomorrow because I want to finish up the work I've started on Sain't Christopher's project. Now that the ethical dilemma has been resolved (he asked, she said yes), I can proceed with a clear conscience. And when it is done and has been declared "Glorious!" maybe the Sain't will send me more film (wink wink nudge nudge).

* Because how was she going to ship a hoagie?!
** I've read that Ilford's film has a minty flavor. Sweet!

An overnight sensation

2008-03-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

Rome might not have been built in a day but what about a toddler?

We went to Santa Cruz this past weekend. We left Friday morning with a cute little 11 month old girl who crawls like a speed demon but could be contained by setting her in the grass. Such a sweet little baby. By the time we put her to bed – all that had changed. She was still sweet but life as we knew it was over.

Friday afternoon Paul came by. After awhile, Chris, Paul, Kyle and I went out front leaving Grandma to watch the baby. And who should come crawling out the front door and down the sidewalk? The baby. (Doing quite a number on the knees of her pajamas I might add) Thinking we can keep an easy eye on her, we set her in the dreaded grass. And Paul (who will soon go home and not have to spend the rest of his day keeping track of the baby) starts to lure Erin across the lawn. Pulling up grass and sprinkling it in front of her – waving leaves in her face – and BAM! Erin’s fear of crawling on grass is conquered. I suppose that’s not too awful. But after she started crawling down the sidewalk towards Portola Drive we went back inside.

Later, after our guard has been let back down because we were inside - where it’s safe - someone asks “Where’s Erin?” Not seeing her anywhere on the floor where she should be, we find her on the stairs. Not in front of the stairs but on. the. stairs. She’s crawled up the first step and we stand there, watching in horror as she continues up the stairs! So not good. We bought a gate Saturday morning.

And because these things like to come in 3's – she finished off the day by perfecting the stand and scoot - fine let’s call a spade a spade – the stand and walk around the furniture routine. Good gravy, if this is what that fresh sea air will do to you next time we'll go to LA!

I’m sure other things happened this weekend but until the PTBWSD* subsides I’ll be damned if I can remember any of it!

*Post Traumatic Baby Walking Stress Disorder

Since we’ve been home we have removed the bumper from her crib (rendering it a bleak prison cell – I have vowed to buy prettier sheets!).
And now we need to re-baby-proof everything that 2-3 feet off the ground. Oh the joy.

How was your weekend?

p.s. – I just wanted to mention that I could have gone with the whole ‘She has risen’ Easter theme but I didn’t. There might be a hint of regret.

Neither horseshoes nor hand-grenades

2008-03-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

I’m so close...

So, I’ve been muckin’ around knee-deep in code all week, determined to get this blog in shape. And last night I found it – the chunk of code that will contain this beast. And as you can see Elfini-land is now 800px wide and will stay that way until I say otherwise! That is how great my powers are.

Unfortunately there is still a slight problem. When I am editing my template and hit ‘preview’, the site looks perfect! It floats in the center of the window as it has been instructed to do. Yet when I open the page on its own, I find it snuggled up tight to the left. Refusing to budge even a little bit. What the hell?! It’s making me a bit claustrophobic and I have not yet been able to figure out what it causing this blatant disobedience. But I will. It might take me another half dozen chapters but I will emerge victorious!

And after that - who knows? Maybe a line delineating the side bar. A colored background? Or maybe some blinky lights pointing to the comments link!
The world is my css oyster!

I’ve got mad skittles!

2008-03-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

Skidlios

Skills

I’ve got mad skills. That’s talent. Man, don’t you have an 11 year old? (Want one?)

After much prompting (read: begging, flattery, although not nearly enough bribery) I put down the bon-bons and made Julie her new blog banner. After many hours of my patented ‘learn as you go’ Photoshop methods and several phone calls, I think we have a winner. Well, she hasn’t taken it down in 2 days so I’m going to claim it a success.

So, go check it out- Bad Home Cooking and tell us what you think.

Now I really have to fix my own blog. After getting my new monitor, I discovered my template is not a fixed width but all free floating. Now I’m all for “willy-nilly” and “go-with-the-flow” but not when it comes to recipes or blog design! So, I am once again reading books on html and css looking for that one line of code that will fix everything. I really don’t want to have to start from scratch.

And Sain’t Christopher – I haven’t forgotten about your banner. In fact I have a couple ideas. But first I need to learn how to use Illustrator. Don’t worry; I’ve got a book for that too.

Dear kwall1000

2008-03-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

Whoa, I just signed an email 'Mom'.
I actually paused - that has got to be the strangest thing I've ever typed. Mom. Three little letters have never felt so surreal.

Schadenfreude

2008-03-05T12:21:00.000-08:00

You should call me. Right now. I just got back from the dentist and half my face is sliding down to my shoulder. No, I’m pretty sure it is, but I’m not going to risk looking in a mirror for confirmation. Anyways, if you were to call me I would talk funny. And the odds are good that I would also bite my tongue. And then you would laugh - cause that’s how my friends roll. I know – I hand picked you for our matching evil streaks.

I had a very small cavity and spent more time getting shot full of Novocain that actually being drilled on. I’m not complaining about that at all. But I did miss my favorite part of getting a filling. Yes, I have a favorite part. Are you surprised? Well you shouldn’t be. It’s all a part of my rosy half-glass-full outlook on life that I somehow managed to get. (Now that surprises even me!)

Anyways. The part I like is actually a sound. And you won’t get this unless you too have lived at some point in a part of the land that has real winters – complete with snow and air you can’t breath. The sound of a filling being packed is the same sound as walking on crisp snow. I love that sound! Can you hear it? Well, today’s filling was so small there was no sound. So here I sit with a head full of Novocain, a suspected fat lip and no upside other than getting to lay back in a comfy chair for a half hour instead of sitting here at my desk.

On second thought - forget it. I’m letting all calls go to voicemail.

Yankee Doodle Daddy

2008-02-24T16:15:00.000-08:00

John S. Reiff

6 years ago my folks moved from my childhood home in Redford to Northville, Michigan. A railroad track runs through their new community and the two halves are connected by a bridge. My dad lives just over the bridge. And apparently he has been decorating!

This sight did not surprise me as we drove up to his house last September. My dad is all about the Flag. I'm pretty sure I knew how to fold a flag before I knew how to tie my shoes.

And it seems that my dad's patriotic display has been getting him all kinds of attention. Last summer, there was an article written about him in the local paper. I don't think we were in the door 5 minutes before he was showing me a copy. I would have put a nice link here for you but apparently the South Lyon Newspaper only has a 14 day archive. So carpel-tunnel be damned - here is the article:

Thursday, July 19, 2007
Veteran's flags fly proud at Crossing by Margaret Fogelsonger

From the time he was a boy, World War II veteran John Reiff has had a love affair with the American Flag. Reiff, who served in the 302nd Combat Engineers Company in the Pacific Theater, recalls walking to school through a small business neighborhood and watching as shopkeepers put out the flag for display. They did this daily. He also recalls that on Flag Day, his neighborhood was a riot of color with American Flags on display at all homes. In his classroom, the Pledge of Allegiance was not just a routine occurrence, but was explained by the teacher as to why they recited this pledge each and every day. From these experiences, Reiff internalized a love for the flag and an enduring appreciation for what our flag represents. He continues that dedication and appreciation to this day.

Fondly referred to as “The Flag Man” by residents of Northville Crossing Manufactured Home Community, where he has lived for five years, Reiff’s respect for the flag, and what it represents, is obvious. Adorning the bridge that connects the two sections of the community are more than 150 American Flags: one for each Michigan soldier that has died in the Middle East conflicts. Reiff explained that each month, the VFW in Redford sends him the names of Michigan soldiers killed in conflict. For each one, an American Flag is displayed. He said the best months are the ones where no names are sent to him.

Reiff began his active work on behalf of Old Glory one Flag Day many years ago. His daughter had a friend visiting who asked him why so many flags were being flown in his neighborhood. He realized that the young lady had no knowledge of Flag Day and what it represents. He decided to change that. He put together a presentation about Flag Day and the American Flag and over a period of time, visited every school in Redford explaining to students how our flag came to be and what Flag Day represents.

Reiff’s friends and neighbors often contribute money to help purchase his flags. Recently, one resident presented him with 5 dozen flags to help in his effort. And his display of flags on the bridge sometimes receives unique acknowledgement. This memorial day, four restored World War II planes that had done a fly over in Milford, flew over his house. Reiff’s wife Virginia watched as they flew over, slowly turned and came back low over the bridge. As they passed, all four tipped their wings in salute to the flags. She said it was one of the most amazing things she had ever seen.

When asked what the flag really means to him, Reiff replied, “It’s just a piece of cloth, but it has represented our Country for over 200 years. The flag remind me of the freedom, opportunity and privilege we all enjoy living in the United States. I believe that each and every one of us should revere the Flag and look at it with the highest respect.” Reiff shows his respect by taking the flags down every 10 days and inspecting them to assure they are still in good condition.
As he said, the flags must never be displayed in a manner that restricts their furl. For this reason, all of his flags fly freely and proudly as a symbol of one man’s dedication and respect for the Red, White and Blue.

While I don't remember the incident with my friend but I do remember him coming to my school and giving a presentation on the flag every year. He was so proud of this article and told me that teachers in the area were reading it in classrooms. A copy was sent to my Aunt Ellen in Sacramento and it started making the rounds in California too!

I went out with him a couple days later as he took the flags down for the winter. A week later my parents left for Florida. I'm sure a copy of the article went with them.

Pain, sweet sweet pain…

2008-02-24T16:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, after dropping Kyle at baseball practice and putting Erin down for her nap, I did something wonderful – a full hour of yoga! This really shouldn’t be news. But the reality is that I haven’t done any yoga-proper since I became pregnant over a year ago. Oh yes, I am ashamed. But it’s not like I never did any yoga – I would stretch many evenings before bed – forward folds, gentle twists, a much modified child’s pose. But yesterday was the whole enchilada . Beginning, middle, end. Standing poses, balancing poses, twists, and a long Shavasana. It was glorious.

Today – I can’t move. And I couldn’t be happier.

love thursday

2008-02-14T20:56:00.000-08:00

It is what it is

2008-02-14T13:56:00.000-08:00

Controlled Burn

Where have I been? In hell baby. Sure, a slight exaggeration – but last week kinda sucked. And it’s taken me this long to recover. You see, I was not built to be a stay-at-home mom. And what’s worse? Being a work-from-home mom.

Hey all you SAHMs – I’M. NOT. WORTHY!

Yes, Wayne’s World was on cable last weekend. Why do you ask?

Jen’s family was sick with the flu last week, so I had Erin with me all week. I would bring her to the office with me every morning for an hour or so and then work from home the rest of the day. Damn, I don’t know how you ladies do it. I suppose if that is your normal gig it would be ok, but it’s not mine. And by the end of the week I was a wreck. And Saturday morning while Kyle was having a small fit due to lack of food, I was hearing that little voice telling me to run away…run away…

So I did. In a round-trip kind of way. I sped down the freeway as fast as I could while listening to Soundgarden at an unhealthy volume. I eventually turned around, switched to the Pixies, and came home feeling much better. Then we ate cake.

She’s a 10!

…month old. It's true, Erin is now 10 months old. Crazy. She’s got 4 teeth on the bottom and the upper teeth are just starting to break though. She’s not walking yet – thank goodness. But I’m sure this is just the calm before the storm. She was pulling herself up to standing last month, but she seems to have given that up for Lent and I haven’t seen her do it in awhile. Other than that one time I looked at the baby monitor and saw her standing in her crib. Then she let go, fell backwards and bumped her head on the other side of the crib*. Yeah, that’ll teach her. If you’re not going to hold on – stay on your butt where it’s safe!

But she crawls like a little speed demon - her little tushie waving side to side. Quite funny. And when she really gets going, she swings her head side to side too! Which often results in her banging her head into something. Apparently it’s hard to see where you’re going what with the head motion blur coupled with your hair hanging in your eyes. Time to invest in more barrettes – it’s what a good parent would do eh?

*Girl's gonna be tall. She will sleep sideways in her crib, her head pressed against the bumper and her feet sticking through the rails on the other side. And yet at her 9 month check-up the Dr said she was only in the 70-75 percentiles for weight and height! How can that be? But her head circumference – in the 80th percentile. Ha! I knew that little pumpkin had a big head! So, when she starts whipping that melon around, watch out!

Next up to bat…

Kyle - who turned 11 on the 1st! And now he’s a man. Well, a mini-man. Ok, he’s still just a boy – skinny as a pencil and with hair like a girl. But he did something that can only be described as "manly" on the eve of his birthday. He removed his own stitches! (Yes, I know – it was only one stitch but ‘stitches’ just sounds better.) I was dreading having to spend another million and a half hours at the urgent care to take out that stitch, so I offered Kyle the $20 I would have spent on the co-pay if he let Chris remove it instead. Well, after first saying no, the allure of cold hard cash won and upstairs they went. And armed with a Swiss Army knife and some alcohol, Kyle performed his first medical procedure! I was impressed to say the least. Now we have a doctor in the family. Yes we do! Shut up!!

Now we just need to keep said doctor from prescribing himself steroids. Cause the boy is playing baseball! He started Little League last weekend and is very excited about it*. And apparently he’s pretty good even though he’s had no formal training. (Isn’t my child wonderful?) Coach says he’s fast and has good foot-work. I knew all that dancing around was a good thing. (I’m looking at you Chris!)

* His favorite thing seems to be his new 'cup'. Boys are weird.

Well it is an election year...

I guess I need to change my tag line. I can’t write in my man Zbigniew on my Presidential election ballot. And not because I can’t spell his name! He was born in Poland. So, until Ah-nold gets the constitution amended I’m S.O.L.

But you can do your patriotic duty and vote for me! Yes, in a fleeting (and probably foolish) moment of hopefulness, I have submitted another photo for inclusion in JPG magazine. See, over there on the right – click the picture and vote "Yeah'. If you vote for my photo and it is published, the sheer number of copies of the magazine that I will buy will single-handedly revitalize our economy. Vote for me! Don’t let the terrorist win.

Too far?

Flour and Water... Doh!

2008-01-31T21:32:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid my favorite dinner was ‘Beans and Dumplings’. Not only did I love eating it, I have fond memories of my mom making it. Sorting thought the beans, rolling out the dough for the dumpling – flour everywhere – cutting the dough into strips and then squares.
Beans and dumplings = happiness in a bowl.

I don’t remember my dad making Beans & Dumplings during my teens. I moved out (an act not directly related to the lack of Beans & Dumplings that I am consciously aware of). And then I took off to California. But whenever I went home to visit I would ask (more like beg and plead) for Dad to make them for me. And he would. But the dumplings were different. He didn’t roll them out into flat noodle-like squares. He would just add drop biscuits on top of the soup (yep, it’s really just white bean and ham soup, who knew?). And don’t get me wrong – it was still yummy in my book. But I really wanted those dumplings. I would ask him to tell me how to make them and he would say that he couldn’t remember. Ugh. Would I never have my childhood favorite again?!

And then - a kitchen miracle. I made Beans and Dumpling. With flat rolled dumplings!!! All because we left Santa Cruz a day early.

P had bought a ham to make for dinner on New Years Day. But when we decided to go home on New Years Eve she sent the ham home with us. Well. That ham sat in the fridge for another week while I would occasionally mutter something about having to cook that ham. Thankfully there was an entry for Holiday Ham in the 2007 edition of Cook’s Illustrated that Chris got for Xmas. And again Cook's Illustrated held my hand through the scary process of essentially re-heating our pre-cooked spiral cut ham. Cook's Illustrated told me to ‘throw away the pack of glaze that comes with your ham’ and provided me with a delicious glaze of maple syrup, orange marmalade, Dijon mustard, pepper etc. It sounds crazy but it worked! The ham was good. But damn there was a lot left over.

What’s a girl to do with all that ham?! I called my dad. "Dad, I have ham. How do I make Beans and Dumplings?" And do you know what he told me? My dumplings? Just flour and water. All those years and he couldn’t remember flour and water?!! Oh-kay then. Let’s not dwell on that. I was on a mission. He quickly ran through the process of making everything while I scribbled notes. I bought a rolling pin. And that Saturday I was as ready as I was going to get. Now you know that I only want to cook something when I have very specific directions and measurements. None of this "fly by the seat of your pants" "add a smidge" "to taste" "what ever I had in the pantry" kind of crap for me! So I was relieved to see that the directions for Bean Soup on the bag of beans pretty much matched the instructions my dad had given me. I just might be ok.

So, you’ll need a bag of Great Northern Beans (the grocery store only had 'Small White Beans'. I tried to be brave). No need to soak them overnight – just sort though them, throwing out any bean that's not up to snuff or that might be a rock, and rinse them thoroughly.

Put the beans in a large pot and cover with water. Water should be around 2-3 inches over the beans. Boil for 5-10 minutes and then turn off for an hour. Easy enough right?

While your beans are sitting there stewing in their own juices, chop up your ham – as much as your want – ugh! Chop up a yellow onion. And get ready to make a mess on your counter-top its dumpling time.

Hey - check out my new mandoline:

Flour the surface you are working on and make a ball of dough with you guessed it: flour and water. Dad said that I wouldn’t need to add any salt because of the ham – but in hindsight I would add a bit of salt to the mix. And no, I don't know how much a 'bit' is! Now roll out the dough dusting the ball, rolling pin and counter with flour as you go. Don’t forget to roll the dough on a nice layer of flour of your dumpling will stick. Roll roll roll (you're adding more flour as you go right?) until about 1/8 inch thick. Pull out your pizza cutter (or a knife) and cut dough into squares. Mine were about 1 1/2 inch squartangles (because of that sticking I mentioned).

When the hour is up – throw everything into the pot! Turn the stove back on and season to taste. Dad recommends garlic, pepper, thyme and maybe even some oregano. Again he was vague. Oh and you might need to add more water. Maybe.

My notes say to cook for another hour. Only when we receive the phone bill will I know how many times I called my dad that afternoon. But, it was all so worth it in the end!

Ta-da! The perfect comfort food:

But I still have some ham left over...

a stitch in time

2008-01-24T21:11:00.000-08:00

We interupt this blog with urgent news from Urgent Care...

That's where Kyle and I ended up this afternoon.
I was at the office happily working on a new post (I was on my break of course) when I got a call from the school nurse. Kyle got hit with a purse on the playground and his lip is cut. She thinks he might need a stitch or two. There is a pretty big chunk of flesh missing. Ok then. Did she say purse? Who has a purse on the playground during recess? Did a teacher wallop my child? I must have misunderstood. Not panicing (hey- it's my story and I'll tell it like I want to), I save my work, leave the clean up for the morning, put the FedEx shipment in the hall and drive to the school. Call Chris on the way so that he can pick up Erin from Jen's. Call Jen who reminds me that Chris will need a carseat for Erin. Alrighty, we need to switch cars at some point. And hey - did you know that they closed the Urgent Care at the hospital? Me neither. So back to the car in the parking lot 2 time zones away and off we go to find the Med7 Clinic. One stitch is not worth the $100 emergency room co-pay. We are both very brave. And 4 hours later we are home with a stitch in Kyle's lip because some girl likes to carry bricks in a purse that is bigger than mine that she then swings around until it lands against my poor baby's face.

Oh I double dog dare you to click on that photo!

All by myself

2008-01-18T09:59:00.000-08:00

Everybody sing! “Don’t wanna be all by myself anymore…”

Oh wait. Yes I do! And I will be! Starting this evening, for roughly 24 hours! Completely and utterly alone. Hmm. I’m missing them already. Well, some of them.

Kyle is at his dad’s this weekend. And after his behavior the last couple weeks, it’s a much needed break for all of us. Chris was trying to plan one of his speed-runs to the coast to dive on Saturday. The only snag was that I have an appointment to get me hair done on Saturday afternoon and all our usual babysitters had previous engagements. Hmpf. I suggest Chris goes on Sunday. Well, that would be ok for him but he wants to go with Victor who can only go Saturday. Ok then. So, we are pondering how to make this work – do I call Kyle’s 12 yr old cousin Sandy to watch Erin? The highly recommended babysitters from the next block who I don’t really know? …hmm…what to do, what to do…

Then Chris casually mentions that he talked to his mom earlier and she was lamenting the fact that she hasn’t seen the baby in weeks and doesn’t know when we’ll be coming back down to Santa Cruz…

Ding! (insert light bulb going on here)

Chris can take Erin with him! He was planning on driving down to Carmel Friday evening, spending the night at Trents’s and then diving all day Saturday before coming home around 6pm. So, now he drives down to Santa Cruz, spends the night at his folks place, leaves the baby with Grandma and goes to Carmel to dive all day Saturday. Rip the baby from Grandma’s arm – I mean pick Erin up- and drive home as planned. Win win win!

A couple phone calls later and everyone is happy and I am declared a genius! Well, it’s about time.

Do you want to know a secret?

2008-01-09T12:23:00.000-08:00

I don't like keeping secrets from you. But "you", my readers, can be counted on one hand and 2 of those fingers are my in-laws. And I bet they are my most devoted lurkers - slinkin' by day after day looking for that grandbaby fix.

Anyways, when you are planning a gift for said in-laws you find yourself having to watch what you say. And censor what you add to your flickr account. Not an easy task. But now that the holidays are over and it is no longer all "hush-hush don't ruin the surprise" I can tell you (if there is actually anyone else out there besides Chris and his parents) that I published a book!

Published. Is that correct? Should I say self-published? Made? Created with down-loaded software and then paid to have copies printed?

Either way, here it is!

And then there...

By Dawn Blanchfield

Book Preview

And then there was Bean... - a Christmas present for the grandparents. Check it out and then buy 2 or 3 copies.

Edited to add: I don't know why the 2 badges are not showing up properly. I'll look into it later. Right now the boss-man is sending me out in the rain to buy oatmeal. I really do love my job.

Because I Can

2008-01-07T21:31:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's another bouncy baby video. Now with more screeching.

Question: Can I get in trouble if the Shaken Baby Syndrome is self-inflicted?

Happy New Year

2008-01-06T15:34:00.000-08:00

Wow. We had weather. Real weather. And I’ve had a headache. For 3 days. That is so not good. By the third evening you mind goes to bad places. Lucky for you I can’t even begin to think about typing during a migraine. I think Chris worries enough what with my frequent requests for an ice pick. If you suffer from migraines too you’ll get that. And my sincere sympathies.

But today I feel better. And not a moment too soon because tonight we have tickets to go see Walking with Dinosaurs at Arco Arena. And yes, the tickets are through Chris’s company so we will be sitting center stage in the private box again. To quote Kyle: “Awesome”.

And the last 3 days weren’t a total waste – Chris got a lot done! He was in baby-proofing mode and finished cleaning up all the wiring in the office and installed those annoying latches on the cabinets under the kitchen sink. That baby is everywhere and into everything!

Oh dear – it’s after 3. I have less than an hour to get everyone ready to go. Fun for me. I just need to remain calm. No tension. No more headache! Wish me luck.

Ho Ho Ho

2007-12-27T17:16:00.000-08:00

I am not a slacker mom. I braved the mall on Christmas Eve and was duly rewarded.

I hope Santa was good to you too! We are stretching out the holiday like a Stretch Armstrong doll of old. Chris opened his presents on Christmas morning. But the rest(Kyle and Erin)waited until Wednesday evening when Kyle came home from his holiday with his Dad. And tomorrow we head down to Santa Cruz for an extended weekend and Christmas with the in-laws.

And look here - another gift for you. There should be more matching outfits in 2008! Enjoy.

Merry Christmas! Do you have a tissue?

2007-12-24T17:17:00.000-08:00

I don't know when it started but there are certain Christmas carols that I can't sing along with without crying. Silver Bells, White Christmas and Little Drummer Boy come to mind. And Little Drummer Boy is the worst - that one has been working me since I was a little kid. I'm not sure what it is, but about half way through my voice starts to crack and the next thing you know the tears are rolling down my cheeks. Kyle of course finds this highly amusing. It's the only time he will actually encourage me to sing. And I am that person who puts on the All Christmas Carols All The Time radio station in the car. Kyle would complain but he knows the alternative is NPR and he would endure an endless loop of the High School Musical CD if he didn't have to listen to the stupid news every day. He really does suffer. And no, we don't have that CD, but I've threatened. And that kid doesn't know how good he's got it. I don't sing loudly in public. But my dad did. All year long.

And when I was a kid, lo so many years ago, we watched the Bing Crosby Christmas Special every year. And I remember seeing this duet with Bing and David Bowie in '77 - loved it then and love it now. Enjoy!

And sing along. At the top of your lungs! Until the kids promise to clean their rooms just to get you to stop! Ho Ho Ho. Good times.

And a Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Dawn - Santa's favorite elf (where do you think the name elfini came from?!)

p.s. Remind me next year to ask Santa for some water-proof mascara in my stocking.

Christmas came early this year

2007-12-19T15:45:00.000-08:00

Last month Chris remodeled of our home office. He got rid of his desk and built a 2 person desk the length of the far wall. My printer and cabinet of drawers divide the space into His and Hers. And with the man on a mission, I got my Christmas presents early!

We have been promising Kyle that we would set up his computer downstairs on the homework desk for ages now. (“His” computer meaning my old Dell from the time before Chris) We also needed to get me a computer of my own as I was hogging Chris’s machine, affectionately called "our" computer, with all my photo work. And not only was I hogging all the computer time, I was bitching about said computer. Loudly. To anyone who would listen. Because Chris’s computer is old and slow and just couldn’t handle my photo editing software or the amount of photos I was storing on the hard drive. The computer would constantly lock up causing much cursing. It would take me forever just to edit a few pictures. There was much unhappiness. And there was talk of a laptop and monitor. But then in one of those manna from heaven moments – we were sent home from Santa Cruz with one of the in-law’s extra computers. (The move of their permanent residence to Santa Cruz where they already had the weekend place produced a lot of ‘we have 2 of these now – take this home.’ Ask me about all my new kitchen gear!) And suddenly we had enough machines for everyone. And without the cost of a laptop to worry about, Chris splurged on my new monitor!
Behold! The Samsung SyncMaster 245BW.

Oh yes, it is the Maserati of monitors and I couldn’t be happier!
And to bring the computer up to speed, Chris ordered a new video card, added a gig of memory and a second extra large hard drive. And my computer goes vroom. I can now get through a batch of photos in no time! Life is good!

I think Chris would put it this way:

New monitor and graphics card… $$$.$$
Chair, floor mat and mouse… $$$.$$
Getting her off my computer… Priceless

Catch up on your reading

2007-12-14T13:12:00.001-08:00

...at the movies.

I finished reading Charlie Wilson’s War a couple months ago. And now it’s going to be a movie. I feel so hip and happening, wow and now.

I first heard about the movie on Thanksgiving Day when Chris saw a preview on TV. He said Tom Hanks was in it. Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson?? At first I just couldn’t see it. But slowing I started to warm to the idea. And then I watched the preview online and yes - Tom Hanks as Charlie. It works. And Julia Roberts as Joanne, the Texas Socialite? Well that works too. I’m still not completely sold on Philip Seymour Hoffman as CIA-man Gust but I’m keeping an open mind.

And this morning on NPR's Fresh Air, they aired a previously recorded interview with the author George Crile (he passed away last year) and another one with Charlie Wilson from ’03. Take a listen – very interesting stuff.

Strange, I just googled Charlie Wilson’s War so I could create some links for you, and I found this quote from The Chicago Sun-Times regarding the Golden Globe nominations:

"Charlie Wilson's War,'' the much-hyped satire starring Oscar winners Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts (opening next Friday), led the pack in comedy/musical categories -- snaring five nominations, including a nod for best actor to Hanks and supporting actress to Roberts."

Comedy/Musical category? Really?! Will we see the mujahedeen form a chorus line and start singing the praises of Allah and the Oerlikon while congress does the Can-Can?

God I hope so.

In Local News~

2007-12-13T13:45:00.000-08:00

When your baby needs a Christmas stocking where do you turn? Local artisan Katie Jean! I saw her Celebration Stockings on her new blog and knew I had to have one for Erin. So, I went over to Katie’s house and pawed through her fabrics, finally made a choice (she's lucky I had a time limit and had to go pick up Kyle), and a few days later, voilà! Erin’s stocking!

A closer view of the fabric:
Too cute!

I met Katie while she was vending at Kyle’s school’s Harvest Festival – where I saw this lap blanket: How could I resist?! I couldn’t. And Erin has been chewing on it - I mean loving it - ever since. And it turns out that Katie lives on the street behind me. Howdy neighbor! And she invited me to the open house she had in October, where I met more neighbors. And I scored an invitation to the neighborhood cookie exchange party. Have cookies will party. So I was suddenly faced with baking cookies. 6 dozen cookies. And it was Cook’s Illustrated’s Holiday Baking issue to the rescue. The weekend before the party we were in Santa Cruz so I enlisted P (mother-in-law most extraordinaire) to help me make some sample batches. So we baked.

We made Sugar Cookies: And Italian Almond Macaroons:
So I felt relatively prepared to tackle this whole baking thing solo the next Saturday. In fact, I felt so confident in my abilities (ok, all my bravado was hinged on my trust in Cook’s Illustrated to get me through it) that I decided to make a variation on the Italian Almond Macaroons. So without a net but with my apron on, I made 3 batches of Fudge Almond Macaroons!

And they were good. And the party was fun. And I now have a container FULL (ok, half full) of 14 different kinds of cookies in the freezer. Come on over. Bring milk.

Elfini lives!!!

2007-12-12T12:19:00.000-08:00

Elfini. It's not just a name - it's an adventure.

Click here because it's damn funny! And turn your speakers on.

Hey - you see the tall one? Second from the left? She's 8 months old today.