discovering

I love watching Lucy figure things out. She starts with an observation, asks a few questions, then either solves the issue or moves on to something else. Tonight, it was putting things (a washcloth, a ball, a toy much too large) into a plastic cup while in the bath. A few weeks ago, she was exploring the effect of the light coming through my green water bottle.

ooh, pretty!

look, this green stuff is spilling off the table…

what's up with that?

hey! now it's on my arm!

does it taste good?

can I shake it off?  wipe it on my shorts? 

look at it cross-eyed?

sorry mom, somehow I got green stuff all over me.

don't worry, baby girl, it isn't permanent…

exhausting (happy) birthday

Three hundred and sixty-six days ago, we served you your eviction notice and then forcibly dragged you out into this big crazy world. You've charmed pretty much everyone you've come into contact with ever since.

Here's some photos from today, one year after your entrance.

You woke up so happy! Mama sang Happy Birthday to you…the first of several renditions you would hear today.

You conked out in the car on the way to the Doctor's office. I know. Who schedules a doctor's appointment ON your birthday?? Sorry.

Sleepy.

You had a great time climbing around in the exam room…

You were a bit perplexed by the bandage on your finger…it didn't take you long to get it off! No tears for the pinprick, though. Brave girl.

How about going grocery shopping on your birthday? Fun, right? Okay…not so much. Again, sorry, baby. Maybe when you have a clue what a birthday is we'll do more fun stuff on it!

Your first cup of milk! More, please.

You were so very tired by the time we got to your cupcake. You want me to do what, Daddy?

Okay, I guess I'll try it. Meh.

And then you swooped that cupcake right into your arms and snuggled it to death.

The end.

snickers and smooches

Somehow I forgot to mention that Lucy has started giving out super sweet and slobbery kisses. She practically gnaws my cheek off. Probably won't manage a picture of that, so I'll just share a turquoise tutu photo with you instead.


She also just the other night gave us her first continuous laughter. She's been giggling just a bit here and there, but it's mostly just a "heh, heh" and a smile in the midst of crying as she tries to make up her mind which emotion is winning out at the moment. But the other night as I was getting her undressed to put her pjs on, she just started laughing and kept going…now I want to do anything and everything to get her giggling again!

Like I said…I'm loving this adventure.

my belly goes to the fair

This is my belly these days. Yes, there's a baby in there. She leaves surprisingly little room for food.


This is what went into my belly at the fair this weekend. A taco (just one, really. The asada was for me, the carnitas was for my husband).


I needed to save room for the funnel cake, after all.

yum. I'd like another one of these right now.


I don't think I've ever been to a county fair before. I wasn't sure what to expect. We saw a lot of goats on tables.


Seriously. There were more. On tables.


And a whole building full of chickens of various colors and sizes. And turkeys that were all the same color and size. I didn't even take any pictures of the turkeys, because they were so amazingly ugly.

We also wandered through two swine barns, where I didn't take any pictures because they were pretty much all sleeping with their butts facing us. Not much of interest for the camera in a sleeping pig's butt.

Same with the cows. They were, however, the cleanest cow butts I've ever seen. Many of them were in the process of getting blown-dry and hair sprayed in preparation for getting auctioned off. I think. I'm still a little hazy about why all the animals are at the fair. They mostly all looked the same to me.


We actually went to see some photography a friend had entered in the fair…he won some awards, and I enjoyed browsing through the displays and thinking about if I want to enter some next year. Procrastinator that I am, I now don't have to think about it for another 11 months or so. Maybe I'll enter this curious guy.

most successful

The day after we found out we've got a baby on the way, my husband and I decided to finish unpacking all the boxes that were piled in the baby's room so we'd have a place to put this kiddo when he/she arrives! Because apparently, these 8-pound bundles of joy come with about 800 pounds of stuff.

Some of the boxes in there were boxes I had retrieved from my mom's attic on my last visit to my childhood home. Amongst the "treasures" contained therein was a plethora of medals & ribbons & trophies & plaques…most of which had not enough information on them to indicate why I had ever received them. So I had my man snap this shot of me wearing ALL of my medals before putting them in the "donate" pile. I posted this shot on facebook with a caption along the lines of "who knew I ever needed this much affirmation when I was a kid?!"


Of all the trophies & plaques that I uncovered that day, however, the two below are my favorites. Click to embiggen and enjoy all of the retro/cheap award details.


Can you just see my five-year-old self dashing 50 yards…and possibly even passing other five-year-olds on the way? Part of me wonders if there were more than two contestants, though! I love the typewritten peel 'n' stick label on the block of wood that was probably cut and painted by hand in a teacher's basement.

The one that really makes me laugh, though, is the one that deems me "Most Successful." There is no specification regarding this success. I have no idea if this was a sports trophy, an academic trophy, a bible club trophy…or what.

At this point, it doesn't matter to me what it was for. I'm keeping it, and I'm going to display it prominently where I can see it.

If you know me, you know that I'm not anywhere near being a type-A, driven, accomplished person with huge goals and checklists and a clean desk and a filing system. I rarely feel "successful"…like I have my act together…like I've accomplished all that I could have today. (Remember when I said I was going to try to post every day this month? I only managed 50% of the days of the shortest month of the year. UN-successful!)

I have come to terms with the fact that I am not a very productive person most of the time…I make lists and then do things that aren't on my list. I wait until the very last minute to do pretty much anything. I'm not a planner, and I have total ADD when it comes to cleaning or organizing or running errands or even just gathering what I need before I walk out my door. I'm very easily distracted from my (loosely defined) goal.

But now I have a reminder that I was, at some point in my life, Most Successful.

At something.

my pet heron

Okay, so he's not really my pet, but I like his sense of humor. And the way he just sorta stalks along, turning to look at me every now and then to see if I'm still there, and standing really really still in hopes that me and that black clicking thing on my eye will just go away and leave him alone.




But I don't.

So off he goes, into the gloomy fog.


the end.

the nibling

Nibling = a gender-neutral term for a niece or a nephew.

Dave's sister and her husband are getting the grandchild thing going for the family! It's out on facebook, so I think it's safe to say so here :) And I'm having fun doing some baby gift sewing. I'll probably do a bunch more once we find out if this is a niece or a nephew, but for now, the nibling is getting some fun burp cloths and bibs.

Hopefully I've given them to her by the time this posts!




Because babies aren't all cute all the time. There's some barf, spit and drool that comes with them. And poop. But hopefully that won't be on the bib.

Uncle Dave wants me to do a "boogers" one next.

closed captioning fun

Intense, emotional scene. Old friends reunited, one recently escaped from slavery, and run to his friend in the desert oasis.

The friend in the desert tells him: "Here, you too will find pee"

I think "peace" was what they were looking for. Not sure pee is even a close second.

And the rest of the movie The Ten Commandments was ruined for me.

Especially after the hair thing. Have you seen this movie? How Moses comes back from the burning bush with his hair all gelled and swept back from his face? And white? Maybe I missed something in Exodus. I know his face shone, but that's not until later anyway. I don't remember his hair turning white.

Anyway. I may start a closed captioning blooper category. I'll have to collect a few more, though. I love closed captioning.

we interrupt the long, drawn-out silence on this blog to announce…

yep. mmm-hmmm. that's my hand.

this is what it used to look like:


notice anything different?

maybe this will help:


and really, he's happy about this…this is his happy face.

good neighbors

it's true, they do.

blissfully unaware

Apparently, postage went up to forty-two cents. In May. but you knew that, didn't you?

I had no idea. I guess since the only thing I'm sending out has a military address on it, the postal people (and our receptionist) have been having compassion on me and adding the penny stamp. I did wonder why the mail guy didn't take my letter from my mailbox out slot the other day! Guess the grace period is over.

And before you tell me that I can buy those forever stamps, I will say that I think they're kinda ugly.

I like pretty stamps.

berries & bees

There is some great berry picking available this week in Rochester! At least there was on Tuesday. I pretty much filled a whole quart of black raspberries at one bush. Filled 4 quarts total, and have been eating berries for the rest of the week. Amazingly delicious.

I came upon one bush that looked to be fantastic picking…lots of beautifully ripe glossy black berries. I started in on it and then found why this bush had been passed over: Mad Guard Bee!!


It's a tiny little home he's got, but he looks to be fiercely protecting it.

I let him…um…be.

oh. yum.

yes, those are fresh black raspberries, grown by the side of my childhood home.

and yes, that is real cream, whipped fresh just before being brought to the table.

and yes, that is a homemade crust, made by the queen of homemade crusts (aka: mom).

I'm not sure dessert gets any better than this.




and yes, the cat's a little weird, but not quite as evil as this picture makes him out to be.

and no, we did not feed pie to the cat.

pretty messy

how many of you know someone who, when her list of things to be done tonight (if she were to write it) would be approximately as long as I-95, decides to, instead of cleaning her apartment (which would be items number 1-47 on her list) chooses instead to take photographs of her mess? And then sits down and blogs about it?

If you have stumbled upon my blog by accident, your answer to the above question is quite likely "zero." This is normal, and shouldn't concern you.

If you read my blog because you know me, the answer to the above question is, as much as this may disturb you, "at least one."

But look at how pretty my mess is!!








okay, maybe that one isn't so pretty. had to be honest about the dust.



























anyone want some magazines?