Thinking out loud

Is she really throwing Buckaroo Banzai quotes at our crazy mother?

awwwww

I knew when my babies were really little and frustrating the daylights out of me that I would miss it one day. That fact never helped the frustration, just caused it to be on the bittersweet side.

One particular day of retrieving -- divide, run, hide-- toddlers from different sections of a Barnes and Nobles, I remember sitting a tiny Lizzie down on the stairs and sternly telling her to stay put, then turning to bark a frustrated, "get over here now" to a laughing, running Winnie. I remember it so well because I was startled by a strange smiling woman who just looked at me and with a warm sigh said, "Oh, I miss that age."

I knew my day would come, but at that point in time the tension caused by not wanting to miss an adorable moment and trying not to become an abusive parent were causing a crushing pressure on my chest. It took a lot for me to not snap back, "yeahyeah, save it!"

Of course I knew she was right, and of course I really didn't care.

"One day" happend last Friday and I was the weird smiley lady -- one of many, actually. Friday was the kid's school carnival and one of the games was a duckie game. They had filled a wading pool with ducks for the little kids to pick a duck and win a prize and this one little girl, couldn't have been much more than a year, was having the attitude of duck, schmuck -- I'm goin swimmin!

She had her pants down to her ankles and was fixing to pitch a good one as she struggled against her mother's efforts to pull them up. Then she began reaching with all her might toward that pool -- that poor mom --you know she had at least one more kid running around somewhere, and there she was, sweat beads on her brow and not at all amused while a bunch of us -- been there, done that types stand and watch and comment on how cute that baby is.

She didn't have to say it aloud for all of us to know she said, "Oh yeah, real effin cute."

SOOOOO CUTE!!!!

The fun part

The "broken petal" flowers. Winnie was very specific and drew many a fine example for me to follow. She wanted flowers like the ones in her Ali and Aj cd insert. The scrolls are trying to be the new graphic art that is cropping up the sides of things these days. Melek's blog template is a fine example of inspiration.

"Oh, that's the magenta? It looks red," says Winnie of how these pictures look on my blog.

They look neon on Rich's computer...

Am I the only one who thinks cilanto tastes like soap?

Ivory liquid, to be specific.

Maybe if you had a mom like mine, you would know, and you would stop putting it in things -- so I could enjoy my salad mix, salsa, etc. without the soap element.

Happy feet

Magenta!

But we're not finished yet...

The inspiration for Winnie's room?

It's perfect!

I think the uniforms were meant to humiliate, but I'm an 80's girl, so they work for me.

One of my favorite parts is pulling the tape

As you can see, I had to adjust my pink. Once I started laying down tape, I could see that my vertical lines were going to cause my pink portion to look squatty -- because I am also going to do a horizontal band around the room, which would have taken even more from the pink. The stripes would have looked way too tall for that short of a room.

Oh, and the windows are not even close to level with each other, so I had to configure my horizontal band in a manner that would hide, rather than accentuate that detail -- which is why I had it higher in the first place. Plan B is working just as well and once I get crafty with the window treatment, you will never know...

sidenote update: for those of you who read of my paint finish choice/life meltdown (thank you for your sweet support, it felt great -- you guys rock). After my firm decision to go satin, I went with eggshell. I just couldn't do the shine of satin along with that bright pink on flawed walls -- the flat-er finish is beautiful.

The white is eggshell and the black is satin -- for extra pop and eggshell gets chalky smudges on the darker colors -- so satin wins with lower wall black.

I heart my ryobi laser level

Precision does not come naturally to me. Even with a hand held level, I don't always keep that bubble real still...

"Wow, that's really pink. Whatever you paint with that is going to be really pink." -- home depot customer

Pinker than pepto!

This is the point at which you can see fear on a clients face -- oh, what have I done?

breaking news

I just read about Kay's big night out to Wicked (congratulations kay) and it reminded me that I forgot to tell about another big night coming soon (and I promised kay I would).

Remember I told you about the chef -- who's brother I worked for, and whom Cheffed in our kitchen from time to time -- which practically made us related? And that he did a challenge on Iron Chef?

We have an air date, mark your calendars for June 1st 2008, 9pm (check you local food network listings for time zones).

Fret not about me not having cable because -- here's the best part -- I am going to the premier viewing at his brother's restaurant where -- and this is even better -- they are re-creating the menu from the show!

Iron Chef fans -- is that not the coolest freakin thing? What if the secret ingredient is beets, or something raw and slime like...squid ice cream with cinnamon, mmmmm.

I'm so excited -- I'll be just like a judge!

And I am betting that his assistant will be on hand as he is local.

it has begun

The tide is high

I've posted pictures of this room before, but this time is for documenting before painting over it.

I can't believe I painted this over six years ago -- her little toddler room. Winnie has begun to feel that the room is too babyish (thanks a lot Courtney) and I suppose it is a little borderline -- so, we paint.

Winnie did make me promise to write the border story down -- we are going to type it up and frame it for the new room -- a nod to the old.

Some people have asked me how I'm going to bring myself to paint over my work -- two things. One, there is always a next idea dying to come out and two, I once saw this PBS special on this guy who made these awesome sculptures out of rock and driftwood that he found on the beach -- he made them at low tide and when the tide came in they were gone forever. I thought that was so cool -- he was all about creating beauty for the day he was in. In that light, six years is a really long time to hang with the same walls.

...stay tuned.

People let me tell you 'bout my best friend

...my up, my down, my pride, my joy...

Paradigm shift

Breathing a sigh of relief as the dust from a critical piece of information settles.

I wish I had time to explain myself fully, but I don't so I shall keep on in a cryptic fashion with the hopes that you get the gist of it.

If you've followed my blog for any length of time at all, you may have picked up on the fact that I love my husband very much, but that I have also had one foot out the door for pretty much of our entire marriage.

There were times I'd try to bring that other foot in, but very quickly -- "Aw, hell to the no." For matters of sanity, dignity and getting on with it -- I had to keep my options open.

Some people fear their spouse might cheat. I would actually day dream about it, "I can have his bags packed in 20 minutes. He likes oatmeal for breakfast, don't cook mushrooms while he's in the house, get him to bed early and don't use too much fabric softener when drying his clothes. Okay, good luck then -- kiss, kiss."

I, literally, could write a book about all of this.

We went to marriage counseling once. What I have to say about that is, "when I said "never", I wasn't globalizing -- what I meant was, NEVERRRRR."

I made a brief mention of the correct diagnosis of the problem in a previous post. It has taken months for the information to sink in. I've laughed, I've cried, I've wanted to throw up...and now I'm out the other side and all is well.

Knowledge is indeed power. We are both on the same page -- which is critical, because we wouldn't work if only one of us was in the know.

For the first time, I have both feet firmly in and it feels right and safe. If we fell apart from here, it would be alright, but I really don't think that's going to happen.

I am deeply in love with my husband.

"Happiness pie"

These photos are from January 2006 -- the year we discovered Dancing with the Stars.

Need I say more?

Providence -- can I get an act of Providence over here

For real, because what with all that "omni" business and all, what's a little removing of the bullshit from my life?

Serious. I mean, nobody likes a whiner, but the amount of crap on my psychological plate right now it astonishing.

Part of me would love to list the issues, but my psyche will not allow me to look at any such list -- if I start, I get to the third item and this Tourette like thing happens and I yell, "WHAT?!" -- really loudly.

I am not even kidding.

Now, I'm not looking for anything at the moment because all problems have been identified and are being dealt with and I am a proficient -- "do what's in front of you" -- machine. The reason I am here is because there is currently no immediate action which needs to be taken on any of these issues and this is where trouble happens.

You see, the check list is so huge and it just floats around up there and if my mind is not focused on a task, the whole list tries to dump on me at once. Here, it's like the task is a firewall and when I don't have something pressing to do, there is a trojan horse in the machine that let's so many pop ups through -- if I weren't so freaking amazing and resilient, I would crash and burn.

As amazing as I am, I'm still human -- instead of the crash and burn, I go into tail chasing mode over the small stuff. What that looks like is me taking twenty minutes to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because I have to walk in the pantry for the jelly at least six times, because the first five I forget what the hell I'm in the pantry for and spend of couple minutes trying to figure it out, surrendering to the fact that the information is irretrievable -- leave the pantry, go find socks for a kid, search for my misplaced coffee, remember I need jelly when I see the empty lunch boxes on the table, go back into the pantry -- which is also the laundry room -- "oh, shit I have to get that load in the dryer before it goes sour. I came in here for something -- shit."...

That kind of thought train becomes crippling if I don't do something like sit down and blog about the fact that I am overwhelmed. Making a to do list helps too, but sometimes I have to share, otherwise my mind locks on to the idea that I have a really good blog post in the making, but I really don't -- just a couple of funny lines that I need to work in somewhere outside of my head in order that they quit plaguing me with the notion that they are comedic brilliance.

And aren't those the ones which rarely are? I'll crack myself up all day, finally get it out and it'll be an absolute dud. And frankly, I don't give a rats ass -- the main objective is to get it off the hamster wheel, if you know what I mean (and peace be with you if you do know what I mean).

Lastly, the whole reason for this purge is because I need to go buy paint -- something I do all the time and am usually quite decisive about. In tail chasing mode, I cannot accept that a child's room should be done in a satin finish, do to the wash-ability requirements of a kids bedroom walls -- when (are you still with me?) an eggshell finish would look better and hide more flaws... initially.

So, I need to buy satin, but am stuck in ocd hell over the thought of the look of the eggshell finish and it is such a minor issue -- for the love of blogger -- let it go!!!!!

Okay, I think I'm done. I can go now. Thanks for listening.

Purse contents and the hairs on my chinny chin chin

Mel tagged me for a "what's in your purse?" meme. I was going to take pictures, but it's not happening, so I'll just tell you.

A bunch of paper garbage and candy wrappers from easter m&m's and grocery receipts -- Lip gloss, change, empty envelopes from my grandpa's checks from when I took him to the bank, purple Mardi Gras beads, gold beads, a gift card tin with an $80 J.Jill gift card, my checkbook/wallet which I can't close for the girl scout cookie payment checks stuffed in it that need to get in the bank before the people kill me for not cashing them, keys with credit card wallet thing attached, pens, markers, cell phone, and one dollar bill.

The front pocket has 4 loose Excedrin, tweezers and a razor (for when the tweezers can't quite grip a chin hair).

Okay, and let's talk about that chin hair for a moment -- it's more interesting than what's in the purse anyway (sorry to disapoint -- Monty Hall wouldn't have given me a thing). I couldn't get a gig as the bearded lady, but there are enough to scare small children if I didn't stay on top of it.

What will happen to me come menopause -- I dare not think, rather, I shall begin saving for the laser treatments post haste.

I've always wanted to write an article for a teen magazine about it because, omg, I had the suckers in high school -- they grew right out of my chin scar and I thought I was a wooly mammoth. I was also sure I was the only girl in the entire teen universe to have such a problem...if only the internet had been available then -- I could have found relief among a yahoo chin hair group which would have allowed me to free up my angst to be better focused on where my next beer was coming from and on my secret knowing that Adam Ant and I will one day meet and be the best of friends -- maybe even luuuvahs.

I used to make my sister and close friends promise that if I were ever to wind up in a coma -- they MUST PLUCK MY CHIN -- If I wake up with chin hairs, I will change my name, leave town and you'll never see me again. Never.

The thought of people coming to visit my comatose body and seeing me laying there with chin hairs -- do you see why I had to drink?

Anyway, I always thought it would be nice if I could help just one girl feel like she wasn't alone, or better yet -- "At least I'm not that girl." Help a sister out, ya know?

If you happened upon this via a chin hair google -- so many other girls.

Just look at the depilatory section in any drug store -- do you think that's just for you? Or just for legs? Noooooo, oh so many options. For permanent removal, forget electrolysis and save up for the laser treatments (unless you don't have to save, in that case -- go, make an appointment). If it's just a few hairs, just pluck them out.

How do I feel about the coma/chin hair now?

Sell tickets if it'll help you make an extra buck. But if they bug you, go for it -- and get the stray dark ones on my upper lip too while you're at it, thanks.