Blog Hopping….

Well, I’ve given wordpress all I can give and honestly……I’m going back to my original blogspot page. I can’t add etsy badges or flickr badges with my own artwork here and I’m really trying to get some things going. I understand their site and I think it will serve me better. So click here and update your bookmarks (if you have me bookmarked…don’t want to be presumptious).
Of course, most of my posts will be left here like little orphans….oh, drat, I guess I’ll be copying and pasting….

Let’s Face It….

I am not really good at “staying in touch” with people…..The friends that I have are ones who are tough, who don’t mind my infrequent phones calls, my absentmindedness and generally forgive the fact that I can be tough to get on the phone (I am better at email because you can’t hear the screaming and toy firetrucks being driven at 100mph through my house). My sister Claire has an amazing calling circle of over 20 people. She is a master.

So when my friend Ann invited me to a 4th of July party through Facebook, I thought, I’ll just sign up and rsvp…and now I have 40 friends….friends from college who I haven’t talked to in 14 years are popping up…it’s thrilling and a little overwhelming…but definitely cool and it’s taking up a bit more of my time than I had planned but….

But now I have more friends than my sister…..(he he he).

Because I Have So Much Free Time…

I’ve been thinking about “relearning” how to sew again. My mother taught me the basics many years ago, many, many times but I was an impatient teenager with a wandering mind….she ended up finishing a lot of my “projects”. I don’t want to sew wedding dresses (thank you Mom for doing mine), I just want to whip up an A line skirt or tote bag, or pillow covers (since I can’t afford the Hable Construction ones, see earlier post about that!). I have a really old sewing machine like my grandmother had, a little chunk of a Singer, black and anvil like heavy. I think it still works. We’ll see. You’ll see too. Lucky you.

Dewey Decimal Days

Today Jamie told me that he remembered what it was like to be in my belly…..

“It was red and there was this bag with a lot of wires in it.” …from the mind of an almost 5 year old.

He has been bugging me for two days to go to the library. If it wasn’t 30 below, windy and with a chance of extremely fussy- no- nap- two year old, I would have jumped in the car right away. I am completely encouraging the library being the BEST place ever. He recently acquired a rubber shark with healthy teeth (can you tell what he is learning about in preschool?) and wants to know more about them and so he deperately needed a book on sharks. And I am right there with him, loving his enthusiasm…..could he be a little like me?

I’ll share a secret….where do you think the first place I went with my new driver’s license was? Yep, the library…..(the second, my no good boyfriend’s parents’ house, of course….can’t be a complete nerd.) Now, our library here is really old, straight from another time…much like Jamie’s preschool…straight out of a movie with huge 10 foot windows, creaky wood floors, chalkboards (real ones!), super high ceilings….primary colors everywhere. Sometimes I curse living way out here with the nearest Target 15 miles away (gasp). But then you walk into that library and are transported into a time where books were the only entertainment other than music or the radio….a time when the library really was the BEST place ever.

Can I Wear Them, Please?

I was reading on a blog the other day….another artist and mother talking about how she didn’t want to drag out her oil pastels and get started on something as her baby was going to wake up at any moment. Boy, did I use to live that way, it got so bad when my first child was born that I didn’t do anything at all, creatively (Brain,Child is the exception, of course). I simply couldn’t start something, get into it and then get interrupted and not finish. Now, I’ve realized that that is the best way to work….in small increments….to stretch it out….to think about it. I use to overdo my art. Now I don’t have the time to. I painted these shoes in between diapers changes and running to preschool to pick Jamie up.

It picks my spirits up. Like popping chocolates throughout the day.

What came Out of My Mouth…

yesterday:

If you poke at Tucker (our 110 pound lab) with that sword his eyeball might come out.

If you keep playing under the mantle, the frames might fall off and glass will stick out of your head.

If you keep jumping on the couch like that you could launch yourself through the window and into the backyard and smack dab in a pile of Tucker poop. (oops that may actually sound like fun).

Dress Pretty

Rock-a-Bye Baby

As always when I have a little “kid-free” time I spend it doing nothing that I had planned to do….the boys go to grandma’s on Wednesdays (play with their cousins etc.) and I just have my little Anna. So today….I rocked/swayed her to sleep to the lulling lullabies of acoustic Foo Fighters. I couldn’t stop watching their DVD, Skin and Bones….and as I sang one of my favorites “Walking After You“…..she fell right asleep….

I turned 36 the other day and once again I question this OLD thing….I don’t feel a day over 25. I asked my mother about this the other day and she said that there were times when she felt like the grown up police were going to knock on her door at any moment. She never felt “old” and still doesn’t…..
YEt, I wonder….will I still be rocking out to the Foo Fighters when I am 64?
Well, maybe just the acoustic version….(nah).

Bug Blues

Valentine’s day 2008 (although I really don’t like Vday…my bday being on the 16th MUCH more important thank you very much)….we all gave each other the stomach bug.

So, what does one do after a few days of being cooped up with a family stomach bug? Go to our local Hospice thrift store of course…and gather up all the “guys” (as the boys call them) that we can. These days we are all about the “guys”…action figures and such. I’ve found myself pretty skilled at sifting through the vats of these at our Blue Ridge Hospice thrift store. The kids love it, I’m not contributing more plastic to the landfill or plumping up Mattel’s pockets and I am donating to a very worthy cause, the best of both worlds.

Funny enough, I am really a member of the camp of “less toys is better” but I am not an active member. The kids’ grandparents (Bobby’s side) have bought most of the toys that carpet our living room. I did try once to steer their grandma toward games, books, art supplies and such and she did for awhile but who can say no to the latest T-Rex who roars when you press on it’s belly. And the boys do play with a lot of these toys but when it comes down to it….(To quote one of my favorite kids books, Today I Feel Silly,  (yes, a celebrity wrote it but I think she’s the only one with an inkling of talent, Jamie Lee Curtis).

“And although I’ve got THINGS…I’ve got nothing to do.”

Spoiler

So I went to the movies last weekend for the first time in years….the dilemma of what to see….I wanted to See Sweeney Todd as I am a huge Tim Burton fan and it received great reviews but it was only showing in a few scattered theatres no where near our neck of the woods. I also wanted to see Juno but thought that it could be enjoyed in my comfy living room later when it comes out on DVD. When one only goes to the movies once a year you find yourself choosing movies worthy of having a character 10 feet tall.

So I chose to see Atonement having enjoyed the book immensely and thought the cinematography would be great. Well, apparently, I had enjoyed the book but completely MISSED the entire concept of the book and well, the ending. I don’t want ot spoil this for anyone who hasn’t seen or read the book…..but the two lovers never rejoin. In the book, if you’re not careful (on something like page 177) it is explained that the main character (Briony Tallis who grows up to be a writer) only wrote that they were reunited in HER book named Atonement. Oh, confusing. She tries to “write” (bad pun, I know) her wrong by writing that the two doomed lovers eventually get back together in midst of war torn Europe. She being the reason they were separated in the first place.

Bobby looks over at me in the theater and questions my look of shock. “Oh, I say,(reluctantly) I guess I read the book completely wrong. I thought Cecelia and Robbie got together in the end.” I tend to read books really fast. I rarely read every sentence in a book, I skip over paragraphs, I graze (it’s wonder I got A’s in english)….I missed the point entirely. So Bobby replies…”So, in your version of Romeo and Juliet…are the two happily living with a budding family in the countryside far from their feuding families?”

Hmm….I wonder how many other stories I’ve gotten wrong due to my lack of attention.

(On a side note, apparently I am NOT the only one this has happened to. My mother-in-law was the one to show me the ONE sentence in the book that explains that the two never reunite. Most of her book club was equally baffled.)

Hydrate

Love Bug

Since we are nearing Valentine’s day it seems only appropriate to talk about broken hearts. Remember the loves you lost and thought your heart would never get over it

Anyway, none of that prepares you for the “heartbreak” of motherhood. Don’t mean to sound like a downer but I’ve been thinking recently about how much harder you fall once your heart belongs to a toddler. You fall hard in love with these kiddos, fall flat on your face when your four (or 2 year old) year old is crying over god knows what for the upteenth time. I never knew that my little boys could draw out the harshest and rawest emotions in me.

There were nights in college with a bottle of wine and girlfriends sitting around on our “Treehouse” (at JMU all houses are named) kitchen floor pouring our hearts out about this guy, that jerk etc…. it seemed like the house could explode with emotion. But nothing prepares you for the emotional range you’ll encounter as a parent (not even acting school)…

Who knew that your heart would be tugged the most by a cute yet cantankerous little four year old.

Necklace 1

Hug

Google image search is the greatest thing for an artist….however beware what you search for….it can be pretty funny and also (even with a moderate/safe search) alarming what you can pull up…for example I googled “kid sitting on Santa’s lap” when I was working on a cartoon for Brain,Child and the 1980’s movie Silent Night Deadly Night came up. Anyone remember the tag line? “He knows when you’ve been naughty or nice.” It’s a horror flick about a serial killing Santa. Apparently, it caused all kinds of outrage from parents at the time. I would be fuming if it were remade today and my kids saw the commercials. All of my bribing down the tubes when they find out just how terrible and naughty Santa really is himself!

Today, I found that if you search for “mother hugging child” you get just as many happy images as sad. There are so many pictures of mothers hugging kids that have passed away or hugging their kids to keep them safe, hugging them to their bodies as they run from harm. I think I’ll go upstairs and hug my little ones now.

Yep, I’m also procrastinating (Jenny, I promise the drawings are coming soon)…there’s nothing like a google image search to shake a mother silly.

Work In Progress 1

Lifesize Sponge

Is anyone else as confused as I am….Hannah Montana is she the same person as Miley Cyrus….which one is blonde/brunette? All this time I thought that some Spears offspring was behind all this. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles isn’t this confusing…..although I do constantly have to ask which one is the blue one…

We got a new TV today. Bobby and I have never really bought anything “techie”. It’s 50 something inches. It’s like have a movie theatre in my living room. I’ve got to admit, it’s pretty cool. And I can’t help thinking how great SpongeBob is going to look on it.

I’ve been sneaking in art in-between diapers. Brain,Child’s spring issue is almost wrapped up….I’m painting a Tampa Bay jersey with a friend’s nephew’s name on it and I just ordered a huge box full of chipboard (wow, exciting!)…it’s what I use for the postcards. I’m happy to say my creativity has stuck around. Yet it is tainted a little with the lack of uninterrupted sleep.

At Christmas, Jamie asked me what I wanted. I replied that I just wanted for him to love his new little sister (and I meant it). Really, mom,  that’s it? It’s been one month, he LOVES his little sister.  And Colin does too. “Hello baby Anda,” he says. Could this be the bliss that I poo pooed in earlier entries? I’ll take it. We are all enamored with this cute little girl. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you Santa Claus.

Random Words

More “key”/tagged words that pull up this blog:

Barry White, Alcatraz, Napa, CafePress….sounds like the making of a weird short story….

Bouquet

Lobby or Level 1?

Right now I am in the middle of the “nursing” drama. With all 3 kids I have had to climb Mount Everest and back down again to give them the best start. It’s hard. I don’t quit even though my boys think their little sister is a barracuda (yes, she is)…I don’t quit because I am stubborn. My husband thinks I’m crazy (and this is true) and I wonder too…..here’s why I will continue to troop foward in these next few months….yes, it is the best start for my little miss….but what I always think about is this:

What if I get stuck in an elevator and I have nothing to feed my baby?

Voila:breastfeeding.

Yep, that’s what I think about.

From the mouth of Dave

After Christmas, my sister Claire and her boyfriend Dave were up from Norfolk visiting us and the new babe. Jamie brings out Super Hero and friends memory game…a cute 3D memory game where you have to match up figurines of The Thing, Spiderman, Spidergirl (didn’t know she existed) and the like. Their torsos separate from the legs (fun in itself) and are placed under cups, you have to match the two. I have played this with Jamie and have lost miserably every time. It’s not just that I don’t know the characters at all (I defer all superhero questions to Bobby), I just can’t remember ANYTHING!

Dave has been chosen to play (pway as Jamie pronounces it). Dave looks up and asks the ultimate question, “Is this going to make me look stupid?”

Oh yes, Dave. Oh, yes.

Classic.