Things that seem important enough to record

When I'm trying to lift myself up, I find it useful to do things I think I'm good at. I usually skate (if the weather is good) and I paint and then I clean house and usually by that time I'm feeling pretty cheery.

Twelve Other Things I'm good at:
-Driving
-Cake decorating
-Finding cool and valuable things at the resale shop
-Reading out loud
-Making lists about myself
-Taking snap shots
-Singing pop music in a silly way in the car
-Yelling
-Errands
-Stacking things into a tight space (closet, trunk, grocery bag, Tetris)
-Playing Atari's Break Out
-Remembering colors

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I almost never talk about the kids anymore on the blog.  I'm trying to give them some privacy and not treat them as an extension of myself so much.  They aren't here for me to necessarily blog about, it's not my place to tell their stores... in fact my one child has her own blog and barely writes anything about herself, indicating some stories she just wants to keep to herself.  When they were young - this was a little bit of a baby book for me and them and the public (weird right?!)  but they're getting big and they often ask me NOT to put things on the internet and so.

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I can talk about Thomas though.  I haven't figured out what is appropriate to say yet.  I guess first of all he has several blogs that should you want to know about him, you could read yourself.  How he fits into the family unit still feels pretty private as it's utterly possible my previous husband and maybe his new partner could read the blog... or maybe not... I really don't know.  I try not to talk about how great life is and how happy I am in a way that would make my ex feel bad about it and so there's that. Lastly sometimes it feels like bad luck to talk about how utterly happy you are when you are.  That all said, he mentions my name when blogging and so I feel like it's important to write his here.  Thomas.

My partner Thomas and I went to New Orleans at the beginning of the summer while the kids visited their dad.  It was odd to be able to walk out the door together without going through when we'd be home, where we were going, and how to reach us 'just in case'.  It was odd for me and Thomas to go on a date like regular single people would. It was fun and freeing and after a few days we started talking about the kids and the silly little things they ask for and do in a day.  We missed them. We still did our best to do all the things we wanted to do in a strange city and I think next time the kids go visit their Dad, we'll get out of town again and see another city.

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I am obsessed with Cauliflower. It's so tasty. I could have it fried and baked or in a soup every day forever.

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I felt like I should say one more thing after talking about Thomas to make is seem all very nonchalant and I was overcome by the need to profess my love for Cauliflower.  Now looking backwards (just up there) Cauliflower seems stupid and silly but now I'll leave it. So there.

Pencil Bag to Wallet Bracelet Hack

1 Pencil Bag 

1 Piece of Velcro

1 Needle and thread to sew Velcro on. 

= 1 Zipping, bracelet that holds chapstick and money and locker key.  

The End of a Good Summer

This first week of school is the hottest of all the summer.  We were waiting for this week so that we could go swimming up at the springs.  It was one of the last few things to cross off the list of 50 things to do this summer. So, no swimming in the icy blue water of Pearl Lake and for the 3rd straight year we were not able to hear any live yodeling.  Apparently it's just harder than you think to find a good yodeler in the summer.  We also did not roller skate outside due to the rampant growing of children's feet around here and we also never made it to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison.  Not too shabby for finishing a list.  Some of the highlights of what we DID do:

#25 Pee in the ocean. (Not pictured)

#8 Eat Something New

 


#5 Use the wagon #12 See a parade #6 Get up early



#17 Family painting

  

There were regular things like find a penny and roll down a hill, and there were regular things that will stick out to me forever now.  I put walk the dog on the list.  We hadn't been doing this very often any more because our dog was very old, 119 to be exact. She didn't really feel like walking much any more, she mostly just slept.  I had to lay her to rest over the weekend.  I'm glad we spent time with her. I'm glad she was on the list. There are so many things to say about a beloved dog of 17 years, but I'm not together really enough to say them yet.

This is Wednesday and Ella and Jack in the backyard.



It was a good summer.

July 4th 2013

I said to Jack "You gotta wave your arms and yell "Right HERE!"" and he did.  He waved his arms and yelled "I RIGHT HERE!" and they threw candy and he picked it up and said "I did it!" followed by a happy candy dance.

Then we saw Grandpa ride by on his motorcycle. 

And we picked cherries in Grandpa's back yard.

Later, I went to the butcher shop where I ran into the mayor and saw these two stray dogs hanging out waiting for people to drop a package of fine meat on the ground.

A very nice young lady grabbed them and called the dog catchers and then I wondered if I was stuck in a Tom & Jerry cartoon.  Maybe I am the lady who's feet are featured in all the episodes... Nope, can't be, I still have a splint on my leg.

Later tonight, we'll go downtown and sit on a blanket and watch fireworks. Ella will soak it all in, Jack will cover his ears and hide his face in my lap.  I'm sorta glad that explosions scare him.  He's too much of a daredevil to love fireworks without giving me a heart attack.

Preparations

I open the front window just a few inches.  Bird song and cool morning air hit my bare legs while I sip coffee and unfold the paper. Two days of school left before the kid is running home from third grade. One week left before I do a jig up and down the halls of the orthopedist's office sans clunky cast, I hope. Then, we'll get start ticking things off the Fifty Fun Things To Do Summer 2013 List.  I'm putting roller coasters on the list.

Kit and Kaboodle

I have lots of topics to blog about but all seem to open a can of worms that is so large and fiddly that I'm avoiding talking about anything.  So, I'm going to give you all the fast and furious updates to clear my brain.

1. I'm going back to skate for the Rockford Rage (yes, after all that)  They're WFTDA, they are five minutes from my house, they are very organized and they are a very nice group of women. My knee is fine.  If I worried about breaking things every time I left the house then I'd never leave again.   That is all.

2. The property manager of the house I rent was fired.  The new guy is getting the things done.  This is great, because we like the house.

3. The kids are well.  School starts in a week!

4. The first printing of my book is almost sold out. If you want a copy you'd better order it soon. Only $20.00 CHEAP!  There's only about twenty left. You can get it HERE.

5. We went to all of the following things this summer that kicked butt and provided a crap load of cute photos of my children in various stages of glee; Thomas the Tank Engine at the IL Railway Museum, Willow Creek Folk Festival, Discovery Center, Burpee Museum (dinosuars!), Monkey Joe's (Yes, I said I'd never go there again but I got out-voted), Festa Italiana, The Cabin, Boone County Festival, Pearl Lake, Pierce Lake,  Sinnissippi Bandshell, Bikepath, Cars on Main, Alpine Park and our own backyard (woohoo!)

6. I didn't have to mow my yard all summer because of the drought but it's rained recently and now I'm in the market for a used push reel mower.  Anyone know where I can get one? Cheap?

Summer in Full Swing

We finished signing books this weekend and will be sending them out next week. I've got a meeting with the curator of a gallery here in town and we'll be discussing what I will show in July.  It's exciting to be doing art things in the day.  It's going pretty well here, except for the house stuff.  The property manager says he's trying to get things fixed, yet days go by with more excuses.  I think by next week something will give, I may try a different tact with the fellow to let him know I'm not to be trifled with.

Today we're going to my Grandma's old neighborhood bakery to get Italian baked goods.  That'll be the fun part of the day.  Then I'll continue to put things away and do a few loads of laundry.  There is a great deal of space in the house and that's good because I never realized how many art supplies I actually had until I moved them.  Perhaps I should pair down, as the only materials I regularly use are a single pen and a panel of watercolors. I'd really like to find my box of paints today too, I have a single painting I've moved three times that I'd like to finish.

We had a fire in the backyard last night in the fire pit.  After cleaning up the yard and gathering dead branches we have a giant mound of dry dead fire hazard leaning against the fence.  In trying to burn some of it up I got nervous.  We are in drought conditions and most of what's there is kidnling so it was going fast and hot.  I didn't get through much of it, and I have to get it bundled up today and out to the alley.  Anyone want to help? Come on over! Perhaps later we may burn some more and roast marshmallows.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

There were relatives and friends, water parks, camping, caves, movies, chocolates, malls, skating, shopping, concerts, cabins, dancing, parties, motorcycles, parks, amazing foods and all round great fun. We were on vacation so long, we got home sick. Today we sign up for second grade and unpack clothes, skate gear, mementos and 1005 photos.

First Day of Summer

So far nothing on the list crossed off, but the day was epic anyway.

Summer List 2011

Today is the first day of summer vacation and the ladies in the neighborhood keep asking me what summer camps we've signed up for. Perhaps I'm just a glutton for parenting or perhaps I can think of better ways to spend $250.00 in a week, but the answer is none. That's right, no summer camps, no summer tutoring, no summer programs. Instead we are making a list of 50 things we'll do this summer. Maybe you'd like to help...

So far on the list:

1. Visit Grandparents

2. Watch Astro's game

3. Get in the ocean

4. Slide at the water-park

5. Swim in the neighborhood pool

6. Tour a Cave

7. Bear Hunt

8. Play video games in PJs all day

9. Get new glasses

10. Picnic

11. Learn to ride a bike without training wheels

12. Hear music at a folk festival

13. Climb tree

14. Go to the library

15. Hula hoop

16. Jump rope

17. Make a very short movie

18. Learn a new magic trick

19. Children's museum

20. Eat something new

21. See a movie at the theater

22. Build blanket fort

23. Make a painting

24. Play outside with pals

25. Make a greeting card

26. Finish this list

27. Roller skate

28. Sing Happy Birthday to someone on their birthday

29. Teeter totter

30. Wish on a star

31. See fireworks

32. Sleepover

Additions:

33. Read a book

34. Catch lightning bugs

35. Visit a state park

36. Make popsicles

37. Make and eat S'Mores

Ethan: "Do donkeys chew bubble gum?" Ella: "Sure they do - with their beaks."

Thanks for inviting us Mike!

I'm still breathing

I'm just breathing the air in Illinois again. Over the weekend Dan and I drove nonstop 19 hours back to Illinois (another story for another day.) We will be here for a couple of weeks tying up loose ends and closing bank accounts, stuff like that. Then back to Texas to start school. So far we have almost every day filled with relatives and activities. Poor kiddo has to get her shots for school while we're here. We'll be going to the Riverhawks tonight with some pals. I've got the dog with me and since it's the Dog Days of Summer at the baseball game we can bring her with us. I'll update after and let you know how crazy I am for attempting a baseball game with a five year old and a dog. Hopefully I can get my camera figured out and post pics.

"If you find enough sand dollars you can buy a sand castle" - Ella

We spent a whirlwind three days at Disney Word and two and a half days winding down from Disney at the Sunburst Inn located on the softest, whitest, shell filled beach on the Gulf Coast. It was a week filled with princesses and pirates and fireworks and family and fresh grouper sandwiches and wild dolphins and sting rays and piña coladas and believe it or not on the last day we were home sick.

My Favorite Women

Tonight, I am getting out with some of the ladies in my life and it won't revolve around hip checks, donations, yard signs or any kind or bylaws. It'll revolve around us. As a rule we are going to try not to talk about kids, polictics or roller derby but I suspect it'll sneak in there. It's hard not to talk about the things you spend most of your time doing, but really my favorite conversations are about hypotheticals and philisophicals and even I too like to discuss mascara sometimes (gasp!) Some of these ladies I haven't seen in months and some weeks, some I have never had a chance to talk to on a personal level so it should be a fun filled night.


***

Also know this: Rachel Maddow is getting her own show on MSNBC September 8th 2008 9pm EST. Why that is awesome.

Gen Con Part IV the Costumes

Gen Con 2008 Part III (the not so live or remote portion, I'm home now)

On Friday Ella and I took a break from the craziness of the convention to seek out our own craziness and ventured out to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. I really didn't know what to expect, and was delighted when we drove up to see a dinosaur breaking out of the building. (see pic in last post) We parked in the garage across the street and took the skywalk over (super convenient.) As we walked our excitement mounted and the museum did not disappoint. Once inside we discovered four floors of activity goodness and running space mixed with a healthy dose of primary colors, crazy sounds and we even got to smell a dinosaur (not bad actually, sort of like magnolias.) Turns out to be the largest children's museum in the world, we could've spent all day there.

The dinosaur part of the museum is the bit that the lady at the desk recommended as a must see and it was incredible. We walked into a giant jungle where the sky changed from dawn to dusk in about a half and hour and was filled with skeletons and smells and sounds and interactive screens and surprises around every corner. You could participate in your own dig as well as peep into the palaeontologist's lab, like a hamster cage, it had a glass wall and you could see what there were doing in there making little resin skulls and labeling bone fragments and spreading around cedar chips, there wasn't even a sign that said don't feed or poke the paleontologists so we stopped and talked to him through his little window. Well, actually Ella went running off to do a skeleton puzzle while I talked to him, but he told me about the Dracorex Hogwartsia (literally meaning "Dragon King of Hogwarts".) This dino found in South Dakota looks remarkably like a dragon and even made the cover of National Geographic.

Here Ella tries to hatch some dinosaurs with her butt.

We played on through salt water aquariums, model trains and a full scale engine car, and the underside of a colored glass sculpture before I realised we'd been there an hour and hadn't left the first floor yet.

Over the next three hours we moved through more floors with ease running up and down the spiraling ramp that surrounds the massive glass Chihuly sculpture (the largest permanent installation in the world).

At one point in our exploration when we ventured into "The Power of Children: Making a difference" exhibit. I knew it was for kids a little older when we walked in, but I figured I'd be ok if I perused a bit with Ella in tow. It was good for her to be exposed to a little activism early, but then the next thing I know there was a lady beckoning as the last seating for the play at the secret annex was "right now!" and if we wanted to see the show we should go there immediately and Ella was pulling me by the hand into a room and then she was asking questions about the door in the wall and all the things in the room and next a dozen of us all sat down on little squares of wood facing a small stage with a single wooden desk.

It all happend very fast and then the lights dimmed and a very distinguished, thin man with far away eyes stepped onto the stage and introduced himself as Otto Frank. For the next seven minutes he told us about his daughter Anne and her diary, what had become of them in the annex and after the soldiers took them away and I with my young daughter fidgeting quietly in my lap completely lost any shred of composure I thought I might keep. After the actor stepped out of character and asked for any questions, we ducked out and I found a box of tissue just outside the door and grabbed a handful while I dabbed the mascara from under my eyes and tried to stare at the floor walking fast past the Ruby Bridges and Ryan White exhibits. I couldn't bare to even glance at them and stepping back into the jubilee of children running all over was such a shocking contrast I still had trouble grabbing hold of myself. I was thinking next year I'll visit the Ruby Bridges exhibit that I could hear when we walked past; recorded children's voices yelling insults from the front of the construct school house "We don't want you here! Go back where you came from!", and the year after the Ryan White exhibit. Finally, I was jolted from my own thoughts when until Ella yelled "Wonderwoman!" and took off running.

Oh yes, there was a whole superhero section including the Batmobile from the latest movies and super hero dress up and then there were race cars and doll houses and polar bears and water clocks. I practically had to carry Ella to the food court to make her eat before we ventured onto the (insert dramatic music here) FOURTH FLOOR! The food court was an awesome kid/family friendly cafeteria where Ella ordered macaroni and cheese, smiley shaped french fries and chocolate milk and I had a very fancy chicken salad (with apples and celery in it) and a pasta salad totaling like $12.00. This was the exact moment I fell in love with Indy.

THE FOURTH FLOOR (insert dramatic music here) Oh what joys ye beheld. We found a tree house, a fancy play house, a giant mirror fun house, the biggest game of connect four I've ever seen, a kaleidoscope you can stand in, an arcade, tea with the three bears and a full sized carousel. We nearly overdosed on fun.

By two o'clock I was exhausted and Dan was calling for us to drive back downtown and pick him up. I bribed Ella out of the fourth floor and to the car with promises of swimming at the hotel after picking Dan up which we did until we were wrung out and napped in the room. You'd think the fun would end here and we'd commence with something boring but oh-no this family is serious about fun. After our rest we dressed for dinner and made our way back downtown to a great Japanese place where we gorged on sushi, exotic veggies and assorted meats. Dan found if you want a good rare lamb chops you must find a chef that has the courage to serve raw meat (or fish).

We walked off dinner with a stroll through the convention center to contribute to the card houses which will be destroyed by convention goers flinging change at them on Saturday night (all proceeds to Christel House International.) We built a little three story facility out of donated Magic cards next to the edge.

Not done having fun yet we decided on a leisurely stroll to the giant fountain we glimpsed earlier in the day. We found the "giant fountain" to be the Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Monument Circle. The impressive scuplture/fountain is surrounded with trees and blossoming flowers at the bottom and stairs climb up to a higher deck where we found a door to a little office that was closed where you could pay a dollar to ride the elevator to the observation deck during the day or climb the stairs to the top for free.

As the piece de resistance we took a dusk carriage ride with a driver that looked alot like Jude Law through the vibrant streets and past the canals before heading back to the monument where the city was lit up and women in sparkly cocktail attire met men in smart summer suits for drinks at the sidewalk cafes. We strolled back past restaurants and pubs with bustling lines outside and steam pouring up through the manholes and hotels with door men hailing cabs for more sparkly people and too soon we found our car and drove our sleeping kid back to the hotel in preparation for Saturday... the biggest geekfest day of them all. Stay tuned for Gen Con 2008 the Day of the Costume Contest!

Live From Remote Part III Teaser

I don't have time for a report so I offer this instead to placate the masses until I get myself to a real computer.