Closure

Lately, I have been listening to the audio book versions of the classic DUNE series by Frank Herbert. It seems Mr. Herbert passed away just before writing the last book of the series, leaving the epic story with a cliffhanger.

A few years ago, Herbert’s son Brian found his father's old floppy discs with outlines and notes of how he planned to end the series in one final book. Brian decided to take those notes, and with his writing partner, Kevin J. Anderson, complete the series himself. Before doing so, though, he wrote a trilogy of prequels to the series (two of them actually!). I was really skeptical that they would stand up to his father’s talent (a master of sci-fi) but I was surprised how much I really loved them!

Since the Dune series is so epic in scope, I thought I would go back and listen to the whole thing again before tackling the finale (which became so long, Brian Herbert split it into TWO books). I am two thirds the way through the last book his father wrote, and excited to see how it all ends.

It’s funny; I used to make fun of my brother after he got an iPod and began listening to audio books like an addicted fiend. When you walked up to him and began talking it would take quite awhile before you realized he couldn’t hear a word you are saying.

Now, I have become just like him, realizing that I can get my house work done while doing something entertaining, walking around with wires hanging all about me! I do have to keep a vigilant eye on the baby monitors, though, while listening, since I can’t hear the kids if they wake up and call. But I have been loving how I can plow through books now.

Although the stack of unread paperbacks on my “to be read” shelf are looking somewhat forlorn lately.

I Think I Have a Stalker

Seriously, doesn't this guy have better things to do than reading my Twitter Tweets?

For those of you in the know about Twitter, I relented to peer pressure and have been trying to figure out how the dang thing works. If you want to follow me on Twitter, my screen name is Shamalamamama... all one word.

Excuses and a Whole 'Nuther Distraction

Didja miss me?

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s been forever since I posted, and the last thing people want to read after a dry spell is a bunch of excuses. But I have some good ones, I DO!!

First off, my parents came and visited for 10 days. We did a whirlwind of touristy activities, giving San Diego a run for her money. Luckily, we loaded the big ticket items at the front end of the trip; what with the sporadic rains we had leading up to this weekend’s big storms.

I usually do my blogging at night after everyone goes to bed, but the computer area shares space with the guest-sleeping area here, and while I felt free to read nearby sleeping folk at night, rapping at the keyboard seemed right out. So, posting was kept to a minimum.

And then there is the other thing that has consumed me lately…

…my new mistress! (Can a straight girl have a mistress?)

Actually its more than one thing I have fallen deeply for, so maybe “my new playgroup” is a more accurate metaphor!

I speak of my love for all things digital that have come into my life lately… I have been set up by generous gifts all around… my new Canon Digital Rebel XTi, my super-narrow depth of field lens that makes me feel all squishy inside, and my update to the latest Photoshop combined with the super-awesome Lightroom program which is a database for professional photographers (which I am not) to help them get organized (which I try to be) and manage their “workflow” (a fun new term I learned while trying to learn how to work the damned thing).

Lightroom absolutely rocks my socks off. It imports photos, renames them to however I have set it up, moves them to where I want them to live, does simple and more than simple processing of one or whole sets of pics at the same time, allows you to flag pictures as “picks” or as “rejected” or rate them by numbers of stars, or by color, allows you to imprint metadata (copywrite info, my phone number, etc) on each photo, set up sets of photos, allowing one photo to be in more than one collection at a time without having to make a copy of it, arranges slide shows, AND!! AND!!! I got a plugin which allows me to send a photo to my flickr site with one click!

It basically rocks.

Oh, I said that, didn’t I?

Did I mention, though, that it rocks?

But the problem is that it is a fairly complex program and is not all that intuitive. So with much of my free time, I have been watching video tutorials and reading Lightroom blogs, and trying to find answers to my questions.

And this all went on while I was wandering all over San Diego, taking a million different photos with my new camera and lens, creating a huge backlog of photos which I didn’t want to import until I had a new system in place, folders and hierarchies set up, and such, in which to receive and welcome my new digital creations!!

And so, instead of posting all the glorious fun we have been having, I have been reading technical drivel.

But wait! All is not lost!

The folders are now in place! The perfect naming scheme has been devised! The doors have been thrown wide open and the red ribbon has been cut!!

Whoo-hoo!!! NO MORE WAITING!!

Glorious Blog Posts with New Fantastical Images, HERE I COME!!!

Huh?



What’s that?

Oh Lordy, is it really THAT time of year already!??

OOOH, its Bloggy Giveaway Time, baby!! And you know what that means, don’t ya?

YEAH!

It’s ANOTHER week of not making any new blog posts because I am spending every free moment I have entering the literally HUNDREDS of giveaways held by bloggers around the blogosphere!

So, um, bear with me one more week, and I will be back to my regularly scheduled blogging, with all those fascinating updates about our lives that you guys live for. And I might even have a giveaway of my very own!! So stand by me. I shall return.

I swear.

Pinky swear!

My New Baby

Be warned…

this post is filled with photo-tech hoo-hah

and mumbo-jumbo that might be a snore

to people who don’t get off on cameras and lenses.

If that kind of thing bores the bejeezuz out of you,

move on along!

**************************************************

Have you noticed?

I have been drawn away from my blog by a new love lately. Can one cheat on their blog with a new camera?

My (good, dear, sweet, generous) hubby got me what I really wanted for Christmas this year! A new digital camera! Even though we didn't neeeeeed it! Not just a digital camera, but a digital SLR camera!

A Canon Digital Rebel XTi, baby!

But it’s not really the camera that I wanted, it’s the lens.

I love to browse through photos in flickr and I kept finding these photos that I was SO drawn to! They were pictures of a thousand different subjects, but they all had this super-tight depth of field where everything in front of and behind the subject was out of focus. But what was IN focus was SO crisp, and I wasn’t sure how to describe it but what was out of focus was… so… beautifully... out-of-focusy!

(There's the tech-talk I warned you about earlier!!)

Now I have taken a LOT of out of focus pictures in my life, and NONE of them looked good. That’s when, reading up on the Canon lenses these photos had in common, I learned the word BOKEH!!

Say it with me, now... BOKEH!!

I think it means “blurry, in a good way” in Japanese or something.

Folks started describing the photos I liked as having great bokeh, creamy bokeh, and even as being BOKEH-LICIOUS!!

The magic, I found, came from Canon’s glorious skills with optics, and the fact that some of their lenses stop down to 1.4, 1.2 and even 1.0 (their aperture opens REALLY wide!) This also allows the camera to let in more light in low light situations. I take LOTS of indoor pics and DESPISE indoor flash! So, another plus.

Am I boring you yet?

Long story short, Michael decided the expense was worth my giddy happiness, and since I take 99 percent of the family pictures, I should have what I want (isn’t he awesome??). And, reselling our current digital camera would offset the cost. So YAY! I started my research.

I found the lens I wanted… It stopped down to 1.2 and it was $1400!!

Hmmm… I found the next step down was very reasonably priced. No middle ground between them. This one stopped down to 1.4. Very respectable.

I hunted on flickr for pics taken with the camera/lens combo I lusted after could afford, and sure enough, lots of creamy bokeh to go around.

Sold!

I had read that the kit lens that comes with the Rebel is not so fab, so I opted to get the body only, and ordered the lens separately. The body showed up in time to go under the tree, but the lens finally came a few days ago.

I have been in hog heaven ever since.

I took a bunch of pics in the tiny backyard brick courtyard we have, and took the kids to our nearby park a few times, and shot about 4000 photographs. Not a one of them was above f/1.4! Even when it wasn’t the most appropriate setting! I just wanted Bokeh, bokeh, bokeh! Creamy Bokeh!!

So, forgive me that so many of my pictures for the next few weeks are going to have a super tight depth of field while I play and learn.

All these pictures were taken with the new gear. Also, my Wordless Wednesday pic of Noah and his friend in the previous post.

Oh, and just so my camera doesn’t get jealous of my lens… I have to say that the usability and ease of the digital rebel is really finding a sweet comfy spot in the corner of my little heart and settling in nicely.

A Thing of Beauty...

...is a joy, forever.

I am too giddy to write. I must go photograph...

A is for Awesome

Ooooh, I think I am going to have a new little addiction now that I figured out how to put videos on my blog. See how I have a category called "Mama's Latest Addiction"? Its because I sometimes glom onto something and won't let go until I wring all the fun out of it. So, until the mailman shows up with my new camera lens (peering over the back fence yet again...), I am going to be plying you with videos.

Lucky you.

So, this one is of Luka. He is suddenly learning his alphabet. (Due, mostly in part, to watching the video by They Might Be Giants called "Here Come the ABCs" over and over and over again.)

For those of you who don't get the momentousness of this, you must know that Luka hardly speaks a word. He is the Marcel Marceau (may he rest in peace) of the toddler world. We have been teaching him sign language because he speaks all of six words or so.

He doesn't even say "Mama" yet. He calls me Daddy. In fact, if YOU came over to my house, he would call you Daddy too. He calls his Papa, "Papa" and he calls his Lambie, "Mimi" and he calls Elmo, "Momo".

But everyone else is "Daddy".

So, when he started pointing at letters and naming them, we were flabbergasted to say the least.

Here he is in action:

I just did a spell check on this post. I appreciate that "flabbergasted" is in Blogger's dictionary.

"Glom", however, is not.

Wherein She Explains to Her Mystified Readers How This is Not a Blog About Giveaways And That She Will Return to her Memoirs Post Haste

Really, I will.

Really, really!

The Spoils: Part One

I have become a giveaway addict.

For those of you not in the game, the blog game that is, you may not be aware that there is an abundance of awesome giveaways out there that you just need to sign up for. Usually, you need to do nothing more than comment on a post like you do here on my posts (cough-yeahright-cough). And you don’t even HAVE to have a blog! Just an email address. And I have been staying up late nights, attempting to support my family, keeping them supplied with cute t-shirts and reading material.

But I hesitate to tell you this little-known secret, because you might just enter a giveaway that I am entering and win my beloved, oh-so-coveted prizes!!

On the other hand, I know that small companies actually DO these giveaways so that folks will check out their websites, and even do a little review of the product on their blog if they win. And as I said, I have been a giveaway-entering-fiend.

And, yes my friends, I have been WINNING!!!

So without further ado… I give you my spoils:

You might recall that I recently participated in the Fall Ya’ll Bloggy Giveaways. I entered about 275 giveaways. I won TWO of them! Yeehaw!!

Firstly, from the blog Memarie Lane, I won my choice of an awesome array of funky boy’s shirts from a company called Trendy Tadpole. Its so hard to find good boy’s clothes that don’t have firetrucks and soccer balls on them, and Trendy Tadpole comes through. We picked a black longsleeve shirt with a goofy little skull and crossbones on it for Noah, so that the twins can grow into it eventually. Thanks, Marie!

Secondly, from a blog called Our Family Village, I won a lovely bath set from Flutterby Gifts! I am waiting to receive it but Summer, who held the giveaway, describes the set as “a homemade treat for any tired mama looking to relax a little. There is a bottle of chocolate scented powdered bath milk, perfect for using during long soaks in the bathtub. A bar of solid lotion, also chocolate scented. Rub it on after the bath and feel your skin get softer. And a fabulous bar of Mocha scented soap to wash with.” Mmmm… can you say yummy in the tubby??

So… those were my wins from the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival. But I would be remiss if I did not write a little something about the generosity of the other giveaway sponsors that I have won something from…

First off, I got a big box of goodies from the Hanes company from a giveaway sponsored by a great review blog called Mamaspeaks.com. Go check her out… lots of good info on fun new products for parents. Hanes sent us a couple awesome shirts for Noah, along with some things for the babies, and some sweats for them all to grow into. The t-shirts for Noah are funky and fun with a funky octopus on one and a scorpion design on the other.

Over at Katrina Stonoff’s site, Stone Soup, she writes really helpful reviews of books, and is a ridiculously prolific reader (and is a novelist as well!). With all those finished books on the shelf, she likes to occasionally pass them on. I won a giveaway of any book still on her shelf, and chose the wildly popular book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt. Normally, I don’t go for non-fiction but this one was just so intriguing and I knew that Michael would enjoy it as well. Go check out this part of Katrina’s site to read insightful reviews of some great books. You might just find your next good novel.

Another book I was excited to win was Deceptively Delicious written by Jessica Seinfield (wife of Jerry). This giveaway was offered up by a blog called An Island Review which does lots of useful product reviews and loads of good giveaways, and links to other giveaways. Check it out. According to An Island Review, “the whole premise of this book is to get kids to eat healthily, by “hiding” pureed vegetables and fruits in everyday foods that your kids eat. When you think about it, the concept is quite simple. I just wonder why I never thought about it. She even puts spinach and carrots in her brownies! Now that's just darn right sneaky!” As you may well know, I have son who eats something like seven different things, so I am going to be studying this like a textbook!

Lastly today, I want to tell you about Divvies.com which is a site that sells yummy goodies to people with nasty food allergies. Their sweets are peanut free, tree nut free, egg free & dairy free.

Well, Teensy Green, a website that shares a wealth of information about "green" toys, books, arts and crafts, as well as natural clothing, bath and body products, and how to really have fun with your kids, hosted a Divvies Cupcake Giveaway!

We won a dozen Halloween cupcakes from them which come gently packaged, with frosting and sprinkles on the side. We our very-allergic niece and nephew over for trick or treat night. Every year, they get their pumpkin buckets confiscated before they eat anything, in order to remove the goodies that can cause them problems. So we were thrilled to be able to throw a post-trick-or-treat decorate-your-own-cupcake party back at our house. They were really moist and tasty. Highly recommended.

Anyway, I actually won some other wonderful goodies, but I will save them for another time so I can take pictures that will make you all jealous of my new bling!!

I am off to play with my booty!

Umm… as in, treasure… not…

Oh never mind!!

Fall Y'all Bloggy Giveaway: Springtime in October!

Update: Commenting is now closed. I will announce a winner on Sunday! Good luck, Everyone!!

Hey Ya’ll! Remember earlier this summer when I gave up good parenting for a week and found myself glued to the internet so I could enter about 500 giveaways?

Well, it’s that time of year again, and so as to keep my karma in balance (hoping for more big wins!) I am offering my very first Shama-Lama Mama Giveaway as part of the Fall Ya’ll Bloggy Giveaway hosted by Rocks In My Dryer.

Here is how it works… I show you my nice prize, you leave a comment on this here very post, and then on Sunday, November 4th, I will pick a random number through the number generator on random.org. That commenter gets the prize! Simple as that!

Now I know that you all have lots of giveaways to enter, and will spend all of
30 seconds here at my blog, so let me just say that I am a stay-at-home mom who
has three boys, including a pair of twin toddlers, I am from Ohio, but living
now in San Diego. I love theater and photography. If that sounds at all
interesting… bookmark me and come look around sometime! Yeah… after you enter
those 500 giveaways. I know you have places to be, things to do…

So what is the prize? I know…this is an Autumn-themed giveaway carnival, but here in sunny San Diego, its always time to go to the beach! This giveaway is for this really sweet lined, orange and white canvas tote bag embellished on the front with beads in the design of flip flops in four colors.

And what is inside (besides the zippered pocket and place for your cell phone and sunglasses) you ask? Well, its four pairs of flip flops to match those on the front of the tote bag! The shoes are in size 5-6, but even if that is not your size, you can give the shoes away to friends and keep the fun bag for yourself.

Here is the fine print…

1. Leave me a comment on this posting WITH A VALID EMAIL ADDRESS - I must have a way to contact you if you are a winner.

2. Duplicate entries and entries without a valid email address will be deleted.

3. You do not need to have a blog to enter to win, only an email address.

4. You do have to have a U.S. shipping address, sorry.

5. Yes, Mom, you can enter.

I'll choose a winner on Sunday, November 4th using a random number generator. I'll email the winner and post the winner’s name on my blog. You'll need to respond back to me with a valid shipping address within 48 hours of notification that you've won or I'll pick an alternate winner.



Join in the fun! There are 500 other giveaways listed over here!

You are bound to win SOMEthing!

When In Rome

I must apologize. I have been rather distracted.


Normally, I post to my blog at least every three days so my many readers (waves furiously at Mom!) will be up to date on the latest minutia of my life. Up to date on every little new word the twins learn, Noah’s kindergarten happenings.

Blame Ceasar!

Well, not really Ceasar, he died in last season’s finale episode. Oh, I am sorry, you are not following? See, I have of late been addicted to HBO’s series called ROME! I watched season one while living in the hospital for three weeks while the twins lived in the NICU. It was SUCH a great show, and I have always loved historical fiction… it’s a great way to learn how and why things happened the way they did. Sometimes…

I don’t have HBO, so I was sorry not to be able to watch season two. But I recently was able to borrow a copy of the second season episodes. YAY!! And with ALL my free time, which used to be spent taking photos, photoshopping photos, and writing my blog, I have been watching season two.

And I am sorry to say, that I have seven more episodes to go. But rest assured that it will end someday... HBO has chosen not to renew Rome because it is just so expensive to make (they film IN Italy!!)

So, my new resolution is to attempt to split my free time between Rome and Blogville. Otherwise, I will lose ALL my readers

(Hi Vera!!)
(Hi, Hawker!)
(Hi Pam!)
(Hi, mystery person in Sanibel!!)

Stay tuned…

Now the Pressure's On

Oh man...

I was just going to post a quickie explaining why I have been too busy to post lately, and when I log in to type some lame excuse, the danged thing tells me that this is my One Hundredth Post!!

Huzzzzah!!!
(a small handful of confetti settles to the floor)

Well... that's that. So, I have been this cleaning fiend lately. The good news is that my house is getting cleaner than its status quo, even the parts no one sees. The bad news is that it is because the owners of our house have decided to put it up for sale and the owner, and a realtor are coming by this week to do a price analysis. And having the owner here makes me a little nervous. Not that we are doing anything that should upset her. I just think that the cleaner it is, the more she will see us in a good light... taking good care of her house, the type of folks you want to give back their entire deposit. The kind of folks you feel like doing the right thing for when you are negotiating an early end to the lease.

So, I clean until I drop.

Leaving you all out in the cold.

No Fun Monday this week (unless I finish it by next Monday) and no Wordless Wednesday for tomorrow unless I get my s**t together early tomorrow and pull one out of the vaults. I haven't taken a picture in weeks.

What else... hmmm...

In the spaces between cleaning and trying to be a good mom, I am watching HBO's show, ROME, which is just AWESOME! I got addicted to it just after the twins were born, and I was living in a room in the hospital for three weeks. All I could do in my spare time was pump breast milk and watch TV, so I watched the entire run of Rome, Season One. Now, finally, I am catching up with everything post-"Et tu, Brute". Lovin' it. Highly recommend it.

The carpool thing is working out really well. Noah is making a good friend in Cooper, the other boy in the carpool, and we are hoping some of Coop's sweet good nature will rub off on Noah who is becoming a bit pissy and mean lately. On that note, Michael and I are trying our damnedest to reward the positive behavior and ignore the bad behavior or have some of those "little talks" about what we expect from him. It's a hard row to hoe.

Did I say this was going to be a quickie? Ah well...

Off to bed for me... What are you all up to?

Book Fiend

Well, I was so excited about discovering swaptree.com, that I ran around my house last night looking for books that I no longer needed. I found 3. Entered them in the database, and it seems they are books nobody wants.

Sad... :^(

So, it occurred to me that sometimes there are books available on craigslist or freecycle so I popped over there before bed last night, and there was a posting saying that the library in Poway was giving away THOUSANDS of books!! YES!!

It started at 10am this morning. But did I ever mention to you that I have twin toddlers? And that its not always easy getting out of the house when you want to? I pulled up at the library at 10:20 and there were hordes of people with boxes and boxes of books. Someone LITERALLY had like 15 boxes stacked up outside the room and had hired children to tell people that these books were taken, thank you very much.

Then the horror...

The sign, posted beside the door, and above the line of parked strollers, stated, "NO STROLLERS INSIDE ROOM", said room being where all the freeness was! Inside I could spy any number of women with a child on one hip and a tote bag on the opposite shoulder, browsing happily. Well not exactly browsing. More like speed-browsing! Books were being grabbed and bagged up left and right!

Now, did I mention I have twin toddlers? Ones who are very heavy now and do not like to hang out on your hip when you are in a new place. Ones that, in fact, if they were to stay on your hip, take up BOTH hips and leave no room for a bag of books. Who, in fact know very few words but do know how to scream, GET DOWN! GET DOWN! GET DOWN! while doing that thing babies do where they stop clutching you, turn slippery and slide down your body like a greasy fire pole.

She must have seen my panic and my need for tradeable books.

This kind lady sitting at a cafe table with her family and feeding her own small baby, offered to watch the double stroller so that I could go in.

I thought about all those bad mothers, and how you shouldn't leave your babies with strangers. But then, I also saw that she had four kids of her own, and people with four kids don't often kidnap babies much less twins, and likely didn't even have room in her minivan if she did want to kidnap my babies. I looked back into the book room. In that moment of decision, another hundred books had been scooped up by the rabid masses. I figured, gee, her kids are sitting there so polite and nicely, if she did steal my kids, they would probably turn out better mannered than I could ever make them.

I decided to risk it.

I popped out a couple baby bottles, thanked her profusely and ran in with my empty tote bag. I was kind enough to pop my head out every three or four minutes to see if she needed relieving or had run off to make my kids her own, but they were all fine.

Obviously, most of the best books were gone by now, but I scoured. Not so much for stuff I wanted to read, but for stuff that was popular and tradeable. I came out of there with 35 books, including The Lovely Bones, a book I had planned to put on my WANT list anyway!

I again thanked the woman profusely for not stealing my children, and I came home with my booty, put the kids to bed for their overdue nap, took a fleeting look at the dirty dishes in the kitchen, the toys all over the floor, the fingerprints on the mirror... and sat down to enter all my books into swaptree.com.

Now I am done. It seems the database doesn't recognize many of the older books, but I was able to enter 30 books. And now! Now! Now I have my choice of 516 books, 147 Music CDs, 122 movies, and 9 video games!!

Isn't that awesome!!??

I need to go out and get me some shipping envelopes with the little bubble wrap layer inside.

OOooooooh, this is gonna be fun. Now I just have to find time to read!!

Swap To It, Baby!!

Okay, you have to know first that this is a completely unsolicited recommendation for a VERY COOL website. This might be the best thing that has come down the pike since eBay, baby!

Its called SwapTree.com

It's still in Beta and only very recently opened to the public and its still working out some quirks, but check this out...

You get on there, and you list all the books, the DVDs, music Cd's and video games that you have that you want to trade. Then you make a list of all the things you would like to OWN. Then you sit back and wait, and when someone who has one of the things you want, wants one of the things you have, the site contacts you with the possible trade! You accept (or reject) it, and you pay to ship the one you own, and then you get the one you want in the mail!

Yeah!

Now what else is cool is this: Say you have a book that Joe Schmoe wants, and he has a game that Jane Doe wants, and Jane has a DVD that YOU want! Well! The system can work three way trades out and will contact all three of you. If you all agree, you pass to the left and take from the right, and all is well with the world!

Just like eBay, you leave feedback on how the trade went, and people use that to decide how much they trust you to do a trade.

Everything is one for one, so you don't put anything up for trade that you wouldn't be willing to pay for shipping on, or trade for ANYthing on your want list (it sounds like they frown on trade rejections for no really GOOD reason). If you have the whole Season One of Lost and you have a desire for a slim poetry book on your list, then you should be willing to trade the 4 disc set for the one little book.

They don't accept videos for trade, but want to add audio books in the future. You can swap discs without the original box, if you describe its condition that way, but no bootlegged anything.

Oh, and did I mention its FREE!!??

At this point I am really disappointed that I ditched all my spare books before moving across country, but you can bet I am going to be scouring the garage sale bins for anything popular from here out!!!

Go check it out here.

Sign up.

Be happy!

I'm a Wiener!!

I never win ANYthing.

Okay, that's not quite true. About 10 years ago I won $1800 by saying "Star 98.7" 18 times in ten seconds while Ryan Seacrest counted, back when he was just a drive-time dj. That was awesome.

And I always consider myself a winner when I think of the wonderful husband I ended up with. No, I am not just trying to get points with the hubby, I really feel this way!

But otherwise, I never win anything.

This would be why I neglected my kids for two days straight while I filed through all 506 giveaways in every free moment I had (kids eating peas off their trays? Go look up two more giveaways! Kids playing nicely with blocks? Go look up three more giveaways!). I entered about 225 of them. Seriously.

And I WON!!

First off, I won this cool little pouch to put a couple diapers and a box of wipes in, so I can stick it in my purse! I won the brown one, which was my favorite. The lovely lady who did the giveaway is named Liz, and she has a great blog over there called Monkey Kisses. She has a great post on how to cut your kid's hair, which will help me a lot... I have been cutting Noah's straight hair for years, but am scared to cut Ethan and Luka's curls. She also has a review on her favorite baby gate, which happens to be our favorite one too!

Next, I also won the prize over at Crafty CarolinaGirl. Check this out... it's a little gift set of a packet of African Coffee (mmmm, coffee...), some Choxie chocolate mints (oh, I love me my mints!), and a homemade coffeemug coaster and this adorable little cupcake pincussion that she made herself!! Her blog was fun for me to look at because she actually took pictures of her drawing with all the little papers in a bowl and a photo of MY NAME on the one she drew out! How cool is that? Check out the crafts she makes, (especially this awesome little voodoo scull) and she is building a recipe section and a link to her tutorial on how to make an ipod cozy!! She is crafty!

But wait! There's MORE!!!

Thirdly, and lastly, I also won over at It's Always a Production! Over there, Ann was giving away FOUR prizes and I won her cute litte hexupus massager that looks like a little wooden octopus. Ann is a Christian, home-schooling mom of FIVE kids and is in the process of adopting a little boy and little girl from Ethiopia. She has this cool tradition of handing her blog over to her kids on their birthday so they can write a list of things the world should know about them. As many things as they have years under their belt. Check these out.

Shannon, who hosted this extravaganza bonanza, suggested on her site that if some of us should win more than one prize, that we might consider declining one of your winnings and spread around a little more giveaway love. I thought this was a fine idea, and so I wrote back to Ann, and asked her to draw another name for the cute little guy.

So, its been a really good day! Shannon is planning on doing another one of these give-away carnivals in the fall. I may just have to come up with something to give away myself...

Hmmm.....

And Now Back to My Regularly-Scheduled Mothering

Well, I can go back to being a good mother. Not the negligent mother I have been for the past two days.

See, there was this blog, see, and ya know, they were having a contest. No, see, it was like five HUNDRED contests! And there were no strings attached. Nothing to sign up for. Just free stuff to win! Cool books and crafts and stuff. And you know how cheap I am. I mean FRUGAL. And how I love to win things. Which I almost never do.

OK, let me explain.

Sometimes, to draw readers to their blogs, people hold giveaways and advertise them. Then people come to enter the drawing and stay and read the blog. Maybe even come back another day to check in.

Well, Shannon, at this blog I read called Rocks In My Dryer, had this great idea. She told all the mommy bloggers to get a giveaway ready and to post a link to it on her blog this last Monday. And to hold a drawing Friday. And post their giveaways they did. 506 of them, in fact.

I entered about 225 of them.

If you want to enter any of them, you don't have much time left. Most of them will draw winners on Friday morning. But the list of links can be found HERE.


And now, I am getting back to being a good mother...

What if the Grass is Greener Over at Sherwin-Williams??

I make my husband crazy sometimes.

He says that I have to “see ALL the grass” before making a decision so that I don’t get sad because I find that the grass is greener elsewhere. He knows me so well. And he very patiently waits while I look at ALL the grass, and even steers me towards any grass he thinks I might find interesting.

Confused? See, when I want to buy something, (and mostly when it is something pricey) I get in my mind exactly what I want it to be like and don’t want to stop looking until I have seen all my options. I have been burned one too many times when I see something close to what I have been looking for, but not quite there, and I decide to go and buy it anyway.

It always turns out that I find EXACTLY what I was looking for a couple days later for a better price, and now I am left regretting my first purchase.

Well, now we are planning on painting the living room green. I have been out gathering all the green paint chips at Home Depot, Penney’s, Sears, Wal-Mart, etc. I have been poring over all of them, holding them up to the wall at different times of the day, at different angles, trying to find just the right shade of green. Every time I think I have it figured out, I will be out shopping and wander through another paint aisle and come home with another handful of paint chips, knowing that the golden ticket MUST be among these!

I now have about 50 paint chips, each with about 5 colors on them.

All green.

And I haven’t even BEEN to Sherwin-Williams yet…

Tilt-Shift Photography

Awhile back, while wandering through random photos on flickr.com, I came across a really cool photo process called tilt-shift. It was discovered a LONG time back when camera lenses were mounted on a bellows, and if the bellows was tilted a bit, large chunks of the photo would go out of focus and an interesting effect would happen: the rest of the photograph would appear to resemble a model, a little miniature version of the real thing.

I can’t explain it as well as I can just show you some examples. There are a group of these tilt-shift photos here and here. This one is awesome! And here is a before and after.

To get this effect nowadays (since most people do not have movable bellows cameras) people have gone so far as to mount their regular lens on a flexible rubber mount between the lens and the camera. I even saw one person had made a mock-up with a toilet plunger.

Well, leave it to Photoshoppers to find a way to copy almost any process. It seems there are some tutorials out there in how to take a normal photo and do this effect. But these tutorials explain using the pricey new Photoshop CS, which I do not have, thank you very much.

So, knowing not a LOT changes in new versions of Photoshop, I followed along the tutorial and tweaked the process a bit. The result is not likely as good as it would have been with CS filters, but it’s really not bad!

You need to use a photo that is taken from above for the effect to work best, and also with things that would translate well to toy or model versions of the originals like buildings and cars. I didn’t have many pics that would work well, but found this one I took of the Maid of the Mist in Niagara Falls. If I am out and about with my camera, I plan on taking some shots that will be more appropriate to the process.

Pretty cool, no? Let me know if you want to know how I did it.

I can hook ya up!

I am having secret morning liaisons!

I have a secret to share. I have been occasionally going on dates on some Monday mornings. They involve a walk on the beach first, and usually a nice meal in a good restaurant. Then home…

I do have to bring the twins along, but these mornings have still been very romantic!

Of course it doesn’t progress much beyond that because what follows is less about romance and more about cleaning house and babies throwing peas and carrots on the floor.

You see… my husband has to work on the occasional Sunday. And so, they allow him to take the following Monday off work. These dates have been with my husband, and the secret…? It is being kept from my four year old son who would be mortified if he knew we were going out as a family without him!

We treat it as a normal day. Give Noah breakfast and get him dressed, and then Daddy drives him to school (sometimes a little later than usual), but instead of continuing to work, he scurries home where I am packing diaper bags and strollers, snacks and bottles into the back of the van. And then we are off!

We have taken romantic walks along the beach, went hiking at Torrey Pines, and best of all, we have had lovely long lunches (sometimes even with sleeping babies!) at restaurants that don’t even HAVE a children’s menu! We have dined on sushi, feasted on all you can eat Indian/Pakistani buffets, eaten our hearts out!

Now don’t get me wrong, I love including Noah on our family outings… but its really hard to just have a conversation with Michael about anything without having to change the subject to jokes about poo-poo and explanations of why its not wise to throw sand at strangers. In fact we often spend 3 hours out and about with the family and find we haven’t even had a conversation with each other the whole time.

See, we are in that sweet spot, when Noah is off to school, and the babies haven’t quite learned to talk yet. So, while they do take a lot of maintenance, they don’t interrupt or require a children’s menu just yet.

So until that time… I am going to really enjoy these romantic Monday rendezvous!!

Hello, My name is Karen, and I am an addict…

Yes, I am an addict.

I have a problem.

The first step in curing addiction is admitting you have a problem, and I do, but the second step is wanting to do something about it. I guess I haven’t hit rock-bottom yet.

I am a craigslist addict. Not just a craigslist addict, but the craigslist FREE PAGES addict! I check what is being given away in San Diego every morning before even checking my email, or what is going on in world news. And often, I find if I really, really want something, it will show up on craigslist eventually!

Yes, some of the things are shabby, and none of the things are new, but my frugal self LOVES to get good stuff for free!

In the past few days, I have received a bunch of plants, some lovely plant stands, an electric Jeep kids-car for Noah, (which admittedly is shabby, but does HE care??? NO!) and my baby… this awesome potting bench! Now I can putter and feel like a real gardener, while I turn this black thumb green!

I have also gotten our entertainment center, a futon, our queen bed pillowtop mattress, our office storage cabinet, a television, a really cool bookshelf, toy storage bins, ceramic planting pots...

Yes, I have a problem. No, I am not ready to do anything about it! More! I want MORE!

I want a beaten but still nice wicker patio set so that I don’t have to worry about the rain and sun breaking it down, or throwing it away when we move. I want more plants to “green up” my courtyard. And I want a groovy rug and a purple lava lamp to finish up the funkification of my son’s bedroom, which I plan on surprising him with: a splendiforously purple bedroom for under 100 dollars!
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I gotta go… its time to reload my craigslist page to see what got added in the last ten minutes…

Wooot!!!