Badness or Why This is No Longer a Photoblog

You were just getting used to having me back here at the 'ol blog, weren't you?

Well, it seems we may have to part ways again in the near future. A little hiatus as it were.

See, last night I photoshopped some really awesome pictures for my blog and went to bed. When I woke up this morning and wrote the post and went to attach the pictures, my screen blinked out.

Blackness.

I restarted the computer and when I went to attach the photos to the blog post again, I found that those photos weren't there anymore. The OTHER photos in the folder were there... just not the ones that I had previously attempted to attach.

And then the screen blinked out again.

Huh.

I restarted the computer and without getting online I just went to that folder and sure enough the photos I spent two hours shopping were gone. It was a folder with every picture I had ever put on my blog, and it seemed MANY of the pictures were now gone... but as I looked at it, I realized that they were listed alphabetically and only the ones named A-G still existed. H-Z were missing!

Would you believe that LAST NIGHT I backed up all my photos onto a now-safely-unplugged backup drive?? LAST NIGHT!! About 14 hours before the cascade of crashiness began! So, all I really lost was the photoshopping of about six photographs. Two hours work.

I can't even get Photoshop to come up right now because each click on the computer takes 10 minutes to follow through.

I did an all-day virus scan and nothing turned up. Tonight I am limping through my files and random ones say they are now empty and that my C Drive is not formatted and would I like to format it!?? YIKES!

Would you believe I took photos of my Hubby's cousin's wedding a couple weekends ago and have been preparing them for the happy couple, and when I went to check on them tonight, they were all gone! (Don't freak, Mima, they are safe on the backup drive! But like I said, I backed them up last night!)

So you aren't going to get a happy blog post today about going to the park with my kids and letting Noah borrow my camera. You aren't going to hear about how my day started... with the fall of the nest and loss of eggs of the mama bird on my front porch. Or the cute thing Noah said the other day, or Ethan's little milestone...

Not in the next couple days at least. Because I will be spending my spare time backing up anything else I can get my hands on before my husband pulls the cloth up over the face of our C drive, (and the J drive for that matter) in the coming days.

He served us well, our little hard drive. He is still limping along for now. But his time is short. We will miss him.

Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

We Still Have Our Health... (knock on wood)

This is how it works:

You move in, you call the utility companies, you stop utilities in the old place, start them up in the new place, fill out the change of address form at the post office, and you are done, right?? RIGHT??

Not this time.

How the Karmic Utility/Appliance Bus Ran Over Us:

Item 1)
Cable/Internet/Phone: They shut us down at the old house 2 weeks before we moved, and we had to fight to get it all turned back on.

Item 2)
Cable/Internet/Phone: They took away our old number and gave us a new one, but we were able to get the old one back after lots of haggling.

Item 3)
Cable/Internet/Phone: They took 3 hours to set it all up in the new house, and then there was still no internet in the, um, OFFICE! So another guy had to come again the next day, for another 3 hours. He was nice… he moved over the cable outlet so that it would go BEHIND the entertainment center just because I said it bugged me. And he tacked down my actual electric power cable to run along the baseboard just because I told him my toddlers like to pull on it. NOT the cable, just the power cable. Nice, eh? Another 3 hours. After he left, we found our TV channels were now all fuzzy, though, sigh…

Let’s talk appliances:

Item 4)
The Dishwasher: Worked fine for the last tenant. For us, it ran through the whole cleaning cycle in less than a minute. Which would be great if the dishes came out clean at the end. A repairman came out.

Item 5)
The Washing Machine: Part of a brand new set, the front-loader of Michael’s dreams. On the first run it began leaking suds out the bottom of the front door.

Item 6)
The Clothes Dryer: After a full night of drying, the clothes were still wet. Had to drag the monster washer out into the hall to get at the back of the dryer. Then, the clothes would dry, but my, oh my, what a nasty smell of natural gas. 24 hours of a motorized vent in the room (smart!) and keeping the door shut until Michael could come drag that baby out into the hall again. After hearing reports of a church exploding back east because of a gas leak, I began alternately closing up the room, and releasing all the pent up gas to the house when the kids were playing outside or sleeping upstairs.

Then, I made the mistake of telling a friend that the fridge is the only thing working. Madame Karma was listening. Or was it Mr. Murphy of Murphy’s Law?

Item 7)
The Fridge: We had just bought a high-end but dented and scratched refrigerator for hundreds off because of the cosmetic damage. It had a 30 day money-back-guarantee from the guy who sold it to us from his 2-car-garage full of dented and scratched appliances. On the 29th day, the motor started getting a little loud, buy, hey, we were moving and nothing was working. At least the fridge was working! On the 31st day the LED readout of the thermostat on the front push-button panel (yeah, I said it was high-end), started blinking. Then the numbers started rising.

It is currently 60 degrees inside my fridge, has been most of the day, and we haven’t even begun to call anyone to repair it.

Sigh…

This weekend, we are hoping to get the office set up, computer and all. Send us your good electrical/cable/wireless energy and prayers.

Nowhere to go but up.

I hope.

Pain In The Neck

As Rosanne Rosannadanna always said, "It just goes to show ya, It's always something. If it's not one thing, its another." If you plan a nice trip to Hawaii, then you get kicked out of your house. If you find a nice, sweet house to live in, then you crank your neck so bad you can't shrug your shoulders!

So, yeah. I woke up the other morning with a pain in my neck. And suddenly, an hour later it twangs and now I can't look left or right without yelping.

I spent the first day swallowing copious amounts of ibuprofen and Tylenol until the doctor was able to get me some harder stuff. The harder stuff helps to some degree, but leaves me feeling so hopped up on goofballs that I almost would rather feel the pain.

And after spending the day healing, I go to bed at night and totally crank it again because my head bends all which-ways while I sleep and I wake up in more pain than before.

I did this a few years ago and felt that I needed to sleep in a chair, sitting up, just so I could heal.

PLEEEEEZE let this not be like that! I have toddlers to pick up and plop into high chairs, I have volcanoes to hike to in my near future, I have moving boxes to carry!

.

(Don't ask what the pretty picture has to do with neck pain... I just took it recently, really like it, and have no pictures of me wincing in pain. So I bring you pretty orchids instead.)

New Hobbies: Spittin' in the Sun!

Luka and Ethan: PPPPLPLPLPLPLPLFFFPLPLPLFFF!!!!

Ethan and Luka: PPLLPLllplpllpllpppffffpplplplpl!!!!!

Luka and Ethan: PPllplpllfff!!!!

Michael: Sounds like you got things pretty well under control?

Karen: Oh yeah, we're great.

Michael: Okay.

Luka: Cheese!!!!

Wordless Wednesday: Peace Amidst the Chaos

Check out other Wordless Wednesday Participants
here and here.

For those just popping in, my blog is about raising my three sons,

two of whom are twins who just started their terrible twos,

and the crazyness that comes with all of that.

It's also about my love for photography, photoshop,
and the sweet life.
I grew up in Findlay, Ohio and now live in San Diego with my family.
If that sounds at all interesting, bookmark me and stop by again sometime!

I know... yer busy WW-hopping right now.

Me too!

The New Wish List

...while tucking Noah into bed last night...

Noah: Mom, can I have a real drum set with drums and a real cymbal and drumsticks, PLEEEEEZE???

Mama: Ummm... well... that sounds really loud. And where would we keep it? There is no more room against any of our walls. We would have to get rid of your bookshelf, or your piano, or your toy box to make room for it. Which one should we get rid of??

Noah: Okay...

(beat)

(beat)

Noah: How about a bucket with a hole in the side, some gunpowder and a fuse?

Would Someone PLEASE Explain My Child To Me Before I Lose My Freakin' Mind????

Okay...

(taking a deep breath)

I have this child, see. He is almost two and doesn't talk much, so he isn't the best communicator on God's green earth. And when its time to take a nap, he climbs the stairs, giving me little kisses through the railing and plops giggling into his crib with more kisses, his lambie and two matchbox cars, no more, no less.

And he sleeps. He sleeps well. Out of my three boys, he is the bestest of sleepers.

But then...

then...

When said nap is done, and he begins to wake, he calls out, "Daddy!!...DADDY!!!"

(yes, he still calls me Daddy!)

So, I go up there to get him.

He just cheerfully calls, I open the door, and he bursts into tears (sometimes without even seeing me, his face in his pillow) and starts shaking his head, "no" like I am Nurse Ratched coming with the giant hypodermic needle.

I try to pick him up and he starts bucking like a bronco, and bawling. If I walk out of the room and leave him in the bed he cries harder and starts calling again. If I just stand beside him in the bed, he cries more quietly and just shakes his head back and forth.

Eventually, I pick him up anyway, because I usually have his twin brother wandering the downstairs all alone which is never wise. At this point he will start thrashing about until I can barely hold him. If I put him on the floor, he begs to be picked up. If I put him back in the crib, he acts like it was the cruelest thing I have ever done. If I try to sit with him in the rocking chair he freaks out completely.

So, I clutch his head close to my chest to prevent sudden bucking and banging of heads on the way through the doorframe and down the narrow hallway. I clutch him tight on the way down the stairs because then he goes REALLY crazy.

Once he realizes he is downstairs and has lost his battle for whatever it was he wanted or didn't want, he just wants to be held, but will be angry and cry and be completely inconsolable for about 45 minutes. Even if I try to hand him things he wants but usually isn't allowed to touch, he will just throw them on the floor.

He doesn't talk, so I ask him questions...

"Do you want to go night night?" He shakes his head "No."

"Do you want your pillow?" "No."

"Do you want a car?" "No."

"Do you want Lambie?" "No."

"Do you want to go back upstairs?" "No."

"Do you want a cookie?" "No."

"Do you want to watch a video?" "No."

"Do you want to make your mother run screaming through the house, tearing out her hair?????" He looks at me quizzically than shakes his head, "No."

And then he bursts into tears for another half hour.

I try to change the scenario. Sometimes I get him right away, sometimes I make him wait for quite awhile, but he keeps calling. I have tried not picking him up for 10 minutes after coming in the door, but he still lays there and bawls. I have tried various methods but it always turns out the same way.

Can someone tell me WHAT MY CHILD WANTS ME TO DO??

Okay... I am off to go chant some mantras or do some whiskey shots or something.

Wordless Wednesday: Bloody Sunday

For more participants in Wordless Wednesday, look here and here.

Stuffing Happens

Simon and Garfunkle would be so proud!

Well, mostly proud. There was no rosemary in my stuffing recipe, only the parsley, sage, and thyme. Although maybe there should have been! What goes better with bread than rosemary??

Maybe next time.

I was assigned to bring the stuffing to this year's family Thanksgiving feast! I pleasure and a worry. Pleasure because I LOVE ME MY STUFFING!!! And I am picky... no fruits, no nuts, just savory goodness! But worry, because stuffing is a big deal in any Thanksgiving feast. I was worried.

I found an awesome recipe with rave reviews on epicurious.com and went with it. Rustic Porcini and Onion Stuffing! Yummy! I plan on baking it after I arrive at Mima's house, but man, it was all I could do not to eat it all raw out of the pot! The only problem may be that there is not going to be enough for anyone to have seconds. Next time I may have to double the recipe. But I may have to save up for it! Did you know that porcinis are 8 dollars an ounce? The recipe called for two ounces. Yikes!

Anyway, half way through chopping herbs, I realized that it actually looked like I knew what the heck I was doing, and had to record the image for posterity.

We are off to Mima's tonight after dinner, hoping the kids will pass out on the way north. The family will gather for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, and then it will be Noah's fifth birthday party on Friday.

On a whim, today, we decided to switch Noah's party from just family (mostly adults) to one where 4 other families with adults and kids are now invited. What. The. Heck. Was. I. Thinking?
Can you say, "Pizza for 27"???

Wish me luck. Or at least wish that I get through the weekend in one piece.

If I do, I will truly have something to be thankful for.

~*^*~ ~*^*~

A very happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, and a very blessed year to come.

****~^~****

We've Been Given a Sign

So guess what popped up on the front lawn of the house we are renting the other morning like some nasty poison mushroom?

Yeah! For Sale Sign!!!

Might this have had something to do with the guy Noah saw sneaking around taking pictures of our house the other day?

Our property manager had given us an inkling that this might happen a few days ago when he asked… well, he asked if we wanted to BUY this house! In THIS market!!

Let’s see, looking at this house on Zillow.com, it seems that the value of this house went down 6,364 dollars in the last 30 days. About 50,000 dollars in the past 11 months! And the market is supposed to go down 4 percent in the next 12 months.

Hmmmm, do we want to buy this house with one living area, connected to the dining room, 3 small bedrooms, one bathtub, three boys who are getting bigger and wilder each day… lets see… ummm…

No!

The answer is No.

Do I want to clean my house thoroughly on a moment’s notice so that potential buyers can traipse through? Do I want to leave before my lease is up next spring? Do I want to try to find a new home in the school district I just spent the last 4 months enrolling Noah in? Do I want to leave the neighborhood where I just met my first friend in a year?

Again, the answer is No.

Noah's First Pet: Which Reminds Me of a Farside Cartoon.

Our neighborhood was having a little Oktoberfest this weekend, and since we had to spend much of the day running errands and getting things done, Michael and I decided to skip 90 percent of it and just go for the fireworks.

They had a lot of kid’s activities where you buy tickets and go play little games for prizes like temporary tattoos and spinning tops. They had the old game where you could toss a ping pong ball into a glass jar to win a goldfish. I steered way clear of that one.

So, Noah decides he wants to throw beanbags through some holes and he wins a prize. As he is looking through a little bowl of prizes, trying to pick out which color of playdough he wants, he notices there is a little closed Tupperware with a goldfish in it sitting right next to the prize bowl.

There is a small boy beside it saying, “Look at this gold fish! Someone just left it here and we don’t know whose it is!” As Noah says, “Whoa…” I look up at the boy’s mother who is running the booth and say “probably some Mom’s idea to leave it, as we all know what happens to carnival fish”. Wink wink nod nod.

Then the little boy picks up the little Tupperware and hands it to Noah and says, “you can have him! He can be your prize!”

And the world slows down as I understand what is being said a moment too late and hear that “Noooooooooo!!!!” coming from my innermost being.

Noah’s face lights up like he found a pony under the Christmas tree and he clutches the little bowl like he's been granted the last Thin Mint in the box this cookie season, and reverently says, “thaaaaank you” looking at the boy like he is an angel from on high sent to give him his heart’s desire.

I look desperately at the mother begging her with facial ticks and furrowed eyebrows to help me out of this one. “Ummm… your son just offered the fish to my son… umm… maybe… ummm…. "

“Oh, he can have it! Go ahead, honey!”

B*tch.

I could hear the voice in her head just laughing at the fact that she no longer has to feel compelled to take this poor doomed soul home for the 7 or 8 days he will stay alive, and then do the funeral flush, all children present and gathered around the sacred toilet.

And like she planned it, all the lights that lit up the basketball court that the booths were set up on were extinguished and we found ourselves in blackest night… clutching the damned Tupperware bowl. It was time for the fireworks show, and we didn't have a seat yet.

So, off we went, goldfish in hand, and found an empty patch of grass. I decided to be frank with the poor kid.

“Honey, fish are really hard to take care of. We don’t have any food, and we don’t have a fish tank, and all that stuff costs a lot of money. Maybe it would be better if we found someone else this fish could go home with that could care for him better.”

And the tears welled up. I paused and started again.

“Okay, Honey, you have to know something about carnival fish. People win these fish at carnivals and they take them home and feed them and love them, and VERY often they die in a week or two. They really die. If that happens, will you be able to handle that? Will you be super sad?”

He is sad now. He says, “no…I won't” with a big frown on his face. He is about to cry. “I’ll be okay.”

“You really want this fish?”

Just some adamant nodding. Small smile forming...

“…sigh….”

“thankyoumomthankyouthankyouthankyoumom!”

“Sure, baby.”

We have ourselves a fish.

A fish named Zeus.

So To Speak

Noah is doing the weirdest thing…

(Big shock, eh?)

He has this new best friend, Cooper. Cooper is just the sweetest, most polite boy you have ever met. I LOVE that he has come into our life because Noah has been pretty friendless since we left Ohio, and has been getting too rough with the twins and has developed some behavior issues. I think Cooper is an awesome example for Noah. He is a gentle soul. And I love that Noah is starting to live up to Coop’s example a bit… except for one area.

Cooper has the same speech impediment I had when I was a kid… he replaces his R’s with the W sound. (You can imagine my frustration as a child trying to pronounce my own name, Kawen Wenee’). Cooper gets very frustrated with the sound of his speech and is working on speaking more like his classmates and less like “a baby” as he puts it.

But not Noah!

No… Noah has decided that the way Cooper talks is as cool as Cooper is. So, my linguistically gifted child has decided to start speaking the same way! Yes! So he might say, “Mom, I was wunning on da playgwound today and I twipped and huwt my fingow”.

I remember working on plays (back in my theater life) that had actors speaking with a British Accent, or Irish, or whatever, and we all started talking that way for the fun of it, which is pretty much what Noah is doing, and I found that after some time, it’s very difficult to make yourself stop when you need to! So I worry a bit that Noah will end up continuing on with this speech pattern even after Coop has worked his way out of it!!

So we are trying to nip it in the bud. Pretty much every time we will say something like, “You did WHAT, Honey??”

“I huwt my fingow”

“You hurt your….umm... What?”

“MY FINGOW”

“I’m sorry, sweetie, I don’t understand what you are saying…”

“I SAID I HURT MY FINGER!!!”

“OOOHHH!!! Your FINGER! I’m sorry, I couldn’t understand what you were saying! How is your finger feeling now?”

“It has a wed mawk on it”

“I’m sorry, it has a WHAT???”

And so on like that. We hope to exasperate him so much that eventually he will go back to his usual way of speaking. We work hard not to say that he is speaking “wrong” or that he isn’t doing it “the right way” or that he is “talking like Cooper” so that he doesn’t come back to Cooper with any conversation that will make him feel bad about himself. We just try to sound like we can’t understand what Noah is saying.

When I asked him why he has changed the way he speaks sometimes, he told me…

“I’m just talking with an ACCENT, Mom!!!”

Rude Awakening

Ahhh… being able to sleep in is so nice…

And Noah finished preschool yesterday, and didn’t have to be at his kindergarten orientation until 9am! And Daddy took the day off so he could take care of the babies while Mommy pays attention to all the crazy information we must absorb. (Although he came for a look-around, too!)

So… we were all home, had a couple extra hours to kick around in the morning. A perfect day to sleep in a little.

You know where this is going, don’t you?

So, its 5:55am and something is different. Louder than the fan that is trying to wick away the humidity of the night (yes, we have no AC!). I open my eyes and look out the window. Its an odd color. And… foggy? Before I can wrap my mind around the odd world out there, Michael mumbles something about a storm. Rain.

Didn’t see that coming. “Do we have anything out there that shouldn’t be getting wet?” Michael fumbles some pants on and hoofs it down the stairs. I hear the sliding glass door open and then there is a…

BANG!!!

I sit up and see Noah’s door swinging open. I assumed a door must have just slammed, but instead it was swinging open. Then Noah calls, “Mommy?? Mommy!! Its too loud!!!” I come stumbling into his room and see leaves whipping around like a madhouse just outside the window. I pull his window fan in and slam the window shut. It’s a little bit quieter.

“Do I have to get up now?”

“No, baby, you can sleep another couple hours. Go back to bed”

I fix his blankets and close his door. Michael has come back in and I ask him what the bang was, did he slam a door. He assumes that a door slammed, but only Noah’s could have as the others were all already closed or are sliders. Odd…

And then Luka started calling, “Daddy!... Daddy!!”. And Noah realized he needed to use the potty. And our day had begun.

Daddy said he would handle it, he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep anyway. So I rolled over and dozed for an hour or so without any real sleep. And then I padded down the steps, supported by the smell of coffee.

Another odd site caught my eye and although I like to do nothing but head straight for the coffeepot first thing, I turned and tried to figure out why there were 5 men in blue shirts moving around 2 feet from my front window.

“Mommy, Look what happened!!”

I followed Noah’s pointing finger to a protrusion in the ceiling of plaster and what looks oddly like cardboard. There was a hole in the ceiling. Not a big one, but a hole nonetheless. Only about three inches across. Apparently a large branch had fallen off the tree out front and landed on our roof. The men had hauled the larger pieces off the roof and were gathering smaller branches and leaves, and pieces of the streetlamp that had once lit up our front yard.

I went up to Noah’s room and looked out on the roof that his window looks out upon. I was expecting some gaping pit, but the hole there was about the same size as the one in the living room, and I realized a branch had not busted the roof, it had speared it like a javelin!

I also realized that when I had seen those leaves whipping around in a frenzy outside Noah’s window while pulling the fan inside, was that they had been entirely too CLOSE to Noah’s window, and that they must have been the giant tree branch tapping on the screen with big sloppy maple leaves. Odd, I hadn’t noticed they were about 8 feet closer than they usually are!

So, now, we are thankful again for being renters, and called the property management company. Awesome company, as the guys were out there removing branches only an hour after it had fallen. But it also means that we will be dealing with roofers and perhaps plasterers, and pots to drip water into when it rains for a little while.

And a little less shade that we already had…

See, the tree was duly punished for no longer being virile and forthright and was trimmed and chopped to within an inch of its life, loosing anything that did not look completely trustworthy. It is now a very tall, very skinny maple tree, shaped more like a cedar.

Or a javelin. Heh.

Virus

Help! I’m next!

It’s coming to get me!!!

Get this freaky thing out of my house!

We have had our ridiculously huge share of viruses and bugs going around since moving to San Diego. Probably a combination of Michael bringing home nasty, nasty things from his patients, and also from Noah being in preschool and swapping cooties with all those other little rugrats.

I was never one to get sick very often, and usually I am the one who stays well as things are passed around my family one person at a time. And this time, baby, I am steering CLEAR!!

This one is freaky.

We think Noah got it first. He complained of pain in his neck and knee occasionally, but then he threw up at school and was sent home for more then 24 hours. He had a fever of 102. Not so bad.

Then, as he was getting better, Ethan got a fever and a rash of polka-dots all over his tiny body. He passed it to Luka, who got the freaky rash too.

Looked like a plucked chicken.

Now Michael has it. Does he get a rash? No…. he gets debilitated!! Every muscle in his poor body is being attacked from within. He winces when he limps from the couch to the stairs, yelps while walking up the stairs. I hear sudden cursing from the bathroom, so God only knows what the heck is going on in THERE!

It got so bad over the weekend that he was no longer able to take a lid off of a jelly jar, and every four hours when the medication wore off, he would get a near-migraine. I asked him to stay home from work on Monday but he insisted he would be fine. He had to use two hands to get the car into gear and drove off to work.

When he came home that day, he admitted he should have stayed home in the first place and he asked me to unbutton his dress shirt because he couldn’t manage it. He also finally agreed to go see a doctor on Tuesday just to make sure it wasn’t anything really serious.

I have to admit, this thing was starting to scare me.

Tuesday he was worse, and gimped it out the door for a first appointment with a new doctor. He asked for a specific blood test and the results were off the charts, letting him know that he had a severe inflammation of his muscles. He is went back in Wednesday, and will on Friday to do the test again to be completely sure its not something scary, but both he and the doctor feel that this is how the virus going around our house chose to attack him.

So, in the meantime, he has gone back to work today after asking for a 2/3rds workload for the next couple days, and will get that test done again Friday.

And me?

I am laying low, taking care of everyone but refusing to swap spit with ANYone, and only touching people when I absolutely have to. I want this thing dead and gone before it finds its way into MY body! God knows, it would likely turn my bones to goo and leave me a blob on the floor.

A blob with a migraine and polka-dots.

Curses! Foiled Again!

I keep seeing Stay at Home Mamas pushing their strollers past my front window on their way to the neigborhood park and I get the urge to toss my kids in the stroller and run down there so I have someone to talk to. But usually one is sleeping or its just about time for lunch or I am still in my pajamas.

So I got this idea...

I printed up a flyer that said, "ATTENTION: STAY-AT-HOME MOMS!!" and below that I listed a time and day for all of us to come to the playground at the same time, so that we would be able to meet other moms who stay at home all day. I posted it about five days ago in two sposts at the playground.

Well, today, at the posted time, I pack up the kids and pedal on down there, and from a distance I see that there is not a single mom. Just 3 10-year-old boys hanging out. I played with the babies and waited a good half hour.

Want to know why no one showed up? Because someone had taken down my two signs.

I wondered if this would happen. I mean I do live in an association neighborhood, and the only signs you ever see posted in the area are for council meetings and such. I assumed there was probably a policy about posting signs. This is why I did not place my name or address on the flyers.

But Geez!!! It's not like I was selling anything or advertising! I'm trying to start a neighborhood community group!! Of FRIENDS!

Whoever took it down must have thought it was more important to NOT have two pieces of paper taped to the swingset and the slide than it was for some isolated women to get together and make some friends!!

It even said things like, "Finding it hard to make friends when you stay home all day? Feeling Lonely?" and "Lets get a big weekly group together so we can meet new people!" "Nannies and Daddies welcome!" and still, whoever it was, decided to take the signs down!!

For God's sake, if someone feels like keeping the neighborhood park so freaking clean, they should maybe bring a trashbag and pick up all the cigarette butts, plastic picnic forks, and plastic cup lids that are laying in the sand!

(stepping down from my little soap box now...)

I am trying to come up with a new plan of attack... maybe taping signs down to the floors of the play structures so that people won't see them from a distance... but they will if they are up at the structure preventing their small children from falling off.

If that doesn't work, maybe I will have to make little invite cards and keep them by the front door so I can run them out to passing women pushing strollers!

What's a girl gotta do!!???

What does a Vicious Dolphin Say, Luka??

Well, its been awhile and I am feeling guilty about yet another contest post, so I thought I should write something for y’all.

Life has kind of settled down around here into the usual day-to-day. I should try to get a move on on those projects I have been wanting to do before the next big plan or trip or visit comes along. Things like decorating Noah’s room with all the stuff I already bought and have hidden in my closet so as to surprise him. And painting the living room green.

But its hard to get my groove on when the days are so pleasant and orderly, which they shockingly have been lately. The twins and I are in a zone… Breakfast, playtime, maybe a trip to the playground, nap, lunch, playtime, Daddy and Noah are home, Evening Mayhem.

Yeah, that mayhem part is confusing. You would think that adding a four year old (excuse me four and a HALF!) and another adult into the mix would balance out, but the evenings always turn into belligerence and desperation for some odd reason.

Maybe its because the babies are a bit speech-delayed.

See, when Noah was a baby, I REJOICED when he started talking because I had spent nearly a year with no one to talk to all day long. It was awesome to have even a toddler to converse with. And Noah was an linguistic genious. A great talker. Still is. He spoke so clearly and with such lovely diction.

The twins speak about six or eight words each, and three of them sound like “oh-wah”. None of them sound like the actual word (bah-bah for bottle, die-dee for diaper, dih-dow for get down) and we are the only ones who know what they are saying. They are 19 months old now. At this age, Noah was singing songs and identifying letters of the alphabet off of flashcards. (yes, I know that twins learn language more slowly, yes, I know they were born 6 weeks early so really their age is yadda yadda yadda.) Really, I am not all that worried about them, I just… worry about them.

Ethan is very proud of his new word, FLOWER, though. He says it, “WOW-wer!!!” And says it enthusiastically at every siting of a flower, a tree, a bush, or the moss glued to the side of a wicker basket I have.

But on the other hand Ethan doesn’t even seem to understand the question, “What does a ______ say?” yet. Luka can only answer the question about a dog, and only then occasionally.

Luka seemed to learn a few words and now hardly uses any of them because he has found that shrieking like some cross between an angry dolphin and a donkey in pain (while pointing) seems to get him most anything he wants. Seriously, this noise he makes is going to cause me to lose my mind. I am trying to figure out if I have any way of recording the sound and uploading it just to show you what I must live with all day.

But I digress…

In actuality, I think this lack of language is what is making it so peaceful around here lately. With Noah I went nuts having no one to talk to. Now that I live in a large crazy family, I think I really cherish the silence. And when Daddy and Noah come home, it’s all about the shouting and all that crazy energy amps up the babies a few notches, so they get all manic, too.

From the moment they walk in the door until the last child drifts off to sleep it's like a rip-roarin’ roller coaster ride. Michael and I have taken to indulging, nightly, in a bowl of ice cream after everyone is asleep, because we feel we so deserve it.

Yeah, like THAT is a good idea…

Please Won't You Be... My Neighbor!

I took the twins to the park this morning. I brought the camera and tried to get some good pictures of them.


Met another Mom there of a boy the same age as Ethan and Luka. With my lack of friends here in San Diego, I practically gushed all over her with my "please be my friend" behavior. She seemed pretty cool (she had an "ohm" tattooed on the back of her neck so she must be at least a little funky!), and it’s so nice to have a grown up to talk to during the day, so I was overly-chatty.

She told me her name and suggested that we both try to come before nap time more often and maybe we would see each other. She lives on my street. Yay.

It has been kind of isolated here in San Diego. Most folks I meet already have friends and don't need new ones. And without a job, its hard to meet other people with the same kind of issues and interests that I have.

It seems you lose friends at three times in your life... when you get married you lose your single friends, when you have a baby, you drift away from your childless friends, and when you move, you lose everyone that is left!

When I was pregnant with Noah and had just moved to Ohio, and I had no friends. I practically forced myself on two of the moms in my birthing class at the hospital when I learned they lived in the same suburb I did. "Hey, we should hang out when we all have our babies!!" Miraculously, it worked, and I ended up with one of my best friends ever (Hi, Pam!!).

We traded babysitting to the betterment of our marriages; we shared breastfeeding problems and hormonal changes, and just gave each other company and encouragement in that time of scary-new-motherhood. I thank God for her.

But, now, I have done it again. I have moved to a new place.

I have always loved moving to new places, but I find it harder to make friends now than usual. I barely have time (or is it the energy, these days) to get myself dressed and out of the house. I have gone to some Mommy Groups and met some really cool women but they, of course, are very active, busy and plugged-in and don't see me in all my glorious loneliness.

Don't get me wrong, I am not all miserable, nor am I depressed. I just miss my old friends and the companionship of someone to just hang out with or gab on the phone about nothing important. I miss being someone's go-to when they have something to vent about. I miss that my son doesn't have a best friend anymore.


So, really, I am okay. I am just venting here because I don't have someone to have a mocha with, or curl up on the couch and call and say all this to right now.

50 Things

I started writing this one awhile back after seeing some other bloggers do this. This is my 50th blog post, and to celebrate, I wrote a list of:

50 Things you may not know about me…


1) My favorite colors are fall colors: hunter green, browns, eggplant, rust.

2) I was one of those kids who was a picky eater and today my comfort foods are still bologna and cheese sandwiches, Mac and Cheese, and pepperoni pizza.

3) I tend to get really passionate about things and then burn out on them later.

4) I don’t enjoy cooking. I wish I did.

5) The more I fly in airplanes, the more I am afraid to fly. It’s not the flying really… it’s the falling. And falling. And falling.

6) I LOVE being in a forest.

7) My dream house would be a huge colorful Victorian house in the forest with a stream running through it (the forest, not the house) where my kids could play and explore. And it would be 20 minutes from a major metropolitan city where there is lots of arts and culture, and there is a full blown winter that lasts for 2 weeks.

8) I love my kids. I do. But I am really disappointed I didn’t have a daughter.

9) I think I appreciate how lucky I am more than most people do.

10) I don’t live according to a lot of my beliefs. I can be a hypocrite.

11) I am probably too frugal.

12) I often feel completely overwhelmed with three kids, and yet I sometimes fantasize about having more kids. (Don’t worry, Michael!)

13) I want madly to decorate my home, but don’t want to invest much in a rental. So I live kind of unhappy with my surroundings. I am trying to find ways to fix that.

14) I am addicted to Pepsi.

15) Both my parents grew up in Michigan. My brother and I are both Ohioans.

16) While my hubby and I met, and plan to spend the rest of our lives in California, all three of our kids were born in Ohio too.

17) I think I ended up with the best possible husband for me. Thank God for that.

18) I believe that if you really desire something in your life, and you “ask the universe” specifically for what you want to come to you or happen to you, and then you just trust and believe, you have greatly upped your chances of getting it. I believe that thoughts are things. And thoughts have power.

19) I love to read books. Historical Fiction and Sci Fi mostly. But I rarely have time to read.

20) I would be happier if I had a closer group of friends. My closest friends live far, far away from me.

21) I hated high school. I LOVED college.

22) I attended about 6 different colleges and universities.

23) My parents paid for almost all of my college, and I didn’t use it to train for a specific career. I feel kind of guilty about that, but also I feel happy with most of the choices I have made.

24) I wish I was more artistic. I envy people who can create.

25) I used to work in live theater and I was the most creatively fulfilled there. I worked in stage management which allowed me to use my organizational skills and people skills to (help) make good art.

26) I love to travel. If I were unencumbered, I would spend my time traveling the planet, and living for months at a time in different countries.

27) I love learning about history and other cultures. Customs, rituals and religions fascinate me.

28) I feel like I have almost completely given up listening to music since I had kids. I have NPR playing almost exclusively on the radio all day so I can feel like I am still in touch with the world. I LOVE NPR. I miss music. But I feel like I can’t just soak it in anymore. I am too scattered with getting things done and seeing to the needs of the kids.

29) I need to see “all the grass” before I buy something expensive.

30) I love imported “global” type home furnishings the best. Especially from places like Thailand, Morocco, India, etc.

31) I feel like, professionally, the things I enjoyed doing most, I wasn’t all that talented at. And the things I didn’t enjoy so much, I did really well.

32) I think a sweet sauce on savory food is gross.

33) I am almost totally deaf in my right ear. It’s mostly because I wanted to kiss a college age boy when I was 16. Long story…

34) I don’t much like talking on the phone. I especially dislike having to call strangers and will avoid it for days on end.

35) I love cheese. It’s my favorite food.

36) I still love the music my mom turned me onto when I was 8. Cat Stevens, Harry Belafonte, and Simon and Garfunkle. I would kill to see Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) or Simon and Garfunkle play live. I already saw Harry Belafonte. He rocked.

37) My mom, my brother and I had our picture taken in front of the Edmund Fitzgerald not long before it sunk, inspiring the song by Gordon Lightfood. I lost the slide, when I separated it from the rest of the family slides so I could show it to my brother. That kills me. He would have loved to see that.

38) My parents took us on a vacation every year when I was a kid, even if it meant just a camping trip. It usually meant station wagon trips to different states each time. I think it shaped much of who I am today. I want to do that for my kids, when they are old enough to appreciate it.

39) My favorite movie is Harold and Maude. Go get it. Watch it. I know it looks odd, but don’t judge a movie by its cover. I met quite a few famous people through my past jobs, but meeting Bud Cort, who played Harold, was one of the very few who made me giddy and nervous.

40) My earliest memory is a flying dream where I flew out my bedroom window during a nap. My bedroom faced the street and I knew I couldn’t cross the street by myself, so I flew up over the roof to the backyard, instead.

41) I used to be a Campfire Girl, and LOVED going to camp in the summer. I chose to be a Campfire Girl instead of a Girl Scout, because Campfire had a big sleep-away camp, and the Girl Scouts had a sleep-away barn. The Girl Scouts sold cookies, and Campfire Girls sold candy that was like Heath Bars.

42) I LOVE Heath Bars.

43) My worst grammatical problem is that I am addicted to ellipses…

44) And incomplete sentences.

45) I went to Thailand on my honeymoon. It was just about the most fantastic place I have ever been.

46) I have absolutely NO problem changing dirty diapers. I would do it for an extra year if someone would feed my children for me.

47) My favorite flowers are lilacs and roses.

48) I am jealous because, since giving birth to the twins, I now have more grey hairs than my own mother does. And from the looks of it, I will someday have a full head of WHITE hair, just like my dad.

49) I memorize phone numbers better by looking at the numbers on the keypad and memorizing the pattern there, better than I do just remembering the numbers in my head.

50) I have a hidden stat counter on my blog. I know how often you come visit my page. Heh heh heh…

In My Dreams...

In the middle of the night:

Noah: Mommy! Mommy! Can you fix my blankets? They are all twisted.

Mama: Sure, Babe. Here ya go.

(back to my bed…)

Daddy: I was having the weirdest dream. I came home and there were these giant foam animals up on the roof. When I asked why, it turns out you were secretly running a puppet show on TV and you had just won an Emmy award for it. Someone showed me the footage of you making your acceptance speech up on the stage!

Mama: Wow. I was dreaming I was folding laundry.

Cold Hard Cash

A conversation with Noah as I was tucking him into bed tonight:

Mama: Okay, I love you Honey, I will see you in the morning.

Noah: Mommy, there is cash in the freezer.

Mama: Ummm…. Huh?

Noah: There is money in the refrigerator and in the freezer too.

Mama: There…is?

Noah: Yeah, it’s the round kind and the paper kind. It’s all full up.

Mama: Um, okay. How did it get in there?

Noah: I don’t know but you should go look.

Mama: What should I do with it when I find it?

Noah: Get the mop, and sweep it down onto the floor. Then open the back door and push it all out there. Make a HUGE pile!

Mama: But won’t it blow away out there?

Noah: Yeah, it will. But that way, people in other countries can see what our money looks like.

Mama: Okay, honey. You go to bed now. I gotta go check out the fridge.

Noah: Yeah... You do that.

Mama: Goodnight, Noah.

Noah: MOM! WAIT!! Don’t let it blow away! You should spend it.

Mama: What should I buy with all that money?

Noah: (after some serious thought…) A one thousand... and two year old….

DINOSAUR BUTT!

Mama: Goodnight, Noah.

(As I am going down the stairs…)

Noah: Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I said Dinosaur Butt!!