public musings of a mama

my family = weirdness

I spent today with my bro, capturing him in his camo gear.

He's really into paintball and BB guns. 

And then he turned the camera on me:

I was definitely NOT feeling the heat and mosquitos.

faerie # 1 has reason to celebrate

(me and my niece Lala)

The oldest faerie is now a teenager.  I was at the hospital the night she was born, patiently awaiting her arrival.  Her dad came out of the delivery room with a certificate and two mini newborn footprints for Z and I to see.  That was 13 years ago.  It feels like a lifetime has passed since then.  Happy Birthday (monday, the 9th) faerie girl.  You're always gonna be the first angel.

spc

I had a very healthy pregnancy, gaining a normal amount of weight and very minimal sickness.  It was the happiest time of my life.  I won't lie... the end was nasty... baby doing acrobatic flips in my belly and all.  That is a very uncomfortable feeling.  But that's about the biggest complaint I have about that experience.  I was very active and I worked everyday up until my maternity leave started (11 days before I gave birth).

One little side effect of the whole experience that hasn't been so lovely: stretch marks.  Oh, God.. I wish I could embrace them already.  They're like tatoos: marks left from a beautiful time and a beautiful memory - except - I didn't get these on purpose.  I've got the kind of skin that they love, lucky me.  So even if I don't love them, they're still here, etched forever in places that I can't hide. 

Funny, they're more exposed in the shadows than the light.

See more nudes here.

list friday makes a comeback.

Enjoying:

~warm apple & cinnamon cream of wheat~ LINK

~blushing cherry blossom shower gel~ LINK

~cool, gloomy weather right before an expected heatwave~

~pink body mist~ LINK

~pedicures & flip flops~

~Heart~ (this song especially)

I've got a knot of anxiety in my stomach.  Today I've got to pay the bills and buy a bathing suit.  You know that feeling, don't you?  You get what I'm talking about?  Yeah.

Have a wonderful weekend internet friends.

spc.

  

See more self portraits here.  June's theme is naked.  My bad.. the theme for June is NUDE.

dripping roses

A girlfriend of mine owns a gallery/studio/boutique and she wants me to do a show of my flower photos.  Wow.  I told her that I don't have the confidence to show my pictures in that kind of setting and I'll tell you why.  I'm not about technique when I'm using a camera.  I do fiddle with the settings and try to manually get a good shot so that I don't have to adjust much more than maybe a little color later on.  I try to capture the hidden beauty and overlooked happenings that surround me.  It freaking' excites me to take 50 pictures of a single rose.  I don't know much about camera/photography technique but I am trying to learn in my spare time.  Photo magazines have been a huge help.  So, if I were to show my pictures, I think I would die if anyone asked me about technique.  What would I say?  That's the only reason why I said no.  And the girl called me on it telling me it was such a bullshit excuse.  This is a fun hobby for me and that's what I need to get across to anyone who asks me about any of my pictures.  I will learn about technique as I go along, but for the time being, you're just gonna have to know that this captured image of mine is nothing more than a really, really fantastic accident.  I'm comfortable with that, so maybe sometime in the future I will take her up on her offer.  It was totally flattering and exiting that she even put the offer out there to me.

Last year when I did the Art Everyday month with Leah, I really got into painting.  It was so therapeutic and calming for me.  Then I started taking pictures for fun - added work outs and exercise for my health - and I can't tell you how much these little changes and hobbies have helped me.  In the past, I've always strived for perfection.  I am so seeing now that nothing is perfect - there is no such thing as perfect.  I won't ever paint a perfect picture, keep a perfect house, have clear beautiful pores... not even close.  The difference is that now, I don't care.  Saturday night, I shared a long talk and a bottle of wine with one of my oldest friends who is realizing the same things as I am.  We can let go of our ideals and sick standards we've imposed on ourselves and enjoy life a lot more being totally present and content in a very messy moment.. or fret and bitch to ourselves that something is not perfect enough, thinking about the next thing we have to do.  How did I ever live like that?  God.... life is so much more less complicated now.  More laid back.  More enjoyable.

A little link sharing, perhaps?  I found the cutest website run by a woman who is really into packing lunches the Japanese bento way.  You have to take a peek.  Everything is so colorful and simply prepared.  This is an awesome way to pack a lunch and use up leftovers - especially now for mama's who will be soon spending long days by the pool, lake, or beach.  There seems to be a little bit of everything in one little lunch box.  The accessories are cute too.

OK, I am off to enjoy the rest of my day. 

it was all good

We had a great time on Monday.  The kids soaked up the coolness of my new blow up pool, played in the sun, and caused all kinds of havoc at my house.  The adults all chilled out - me with my many wine coolers (hey, it was a holiday weekend), my sis & Z with coffee (lightweights).  My dad dropped by just in time to eat along with my step-brother and his girlfriend.

Mom is home from the hospital.  She feels good and is recovering just fine.  I don't know what happened to her while she was there, but she's changed.  She's being very nice and not at all like the way she's known to act.  It's a nice change.

My angel goes back to school tomorrow.  Today she learned how to ride her bike without training wheels.  She is feeling so totally cool right now.

A great, great weekend.  And this is only the beginning.  Summer is looking to be a wonderful season.

things happen

Today was long and left me feeling out of sorts.  My mom had an operation on Friday for a hernia and a hole that burst in her lower intestine.  I still don't know the specifics of what happened to her but I will find out more next week (all I do know right now is that this is internal stuff stemming from a car accident she had last week).  She's ok, recovering after her surgery.  My siblings and I went to visit her at the hospital this afternoon.  We brought her a fresh pair of p.j.'s and her reading glasses.  It's crazy how you can be out of contact with someone and then the freakiest thing brings you back together.  I'm ruled by my heart, so when I got the call, my immediate reaction was to run to her.  She'll be ok, she just needs a lot of rest and relaxation to get better.

Needless to say, I was not in the best of moods today.  I had a big headache and a knot of anxiety in my stomach.  Angie wanted my attention and I had none to give her.  My routines were off and constantly interrupted.  I think it was the preconceived ideas I had before going to visit my mom.  I wasn't sure what to expect because she's been so unpredictable.  Her temperament is up and down from one end of the spectrum to the other.  I'm just glad we went to see her and were able to sit with her for a while.  Nothing was brought up or discussed and it's better that way.

The weekend so far has been lovely.  Angie slept over by her cousin's giving Z and myself a night off.  The next day we had the cousins sleep here so my sister could enjoy a semi-night off (she still had her 2 year old to watch over).  The kids spent a lot of time outside doing fun stuff.  The weather's been so delightfully perfect.  Tomorrow, my dad and his peeps are coming over to eat, something I'm really looking forward to.  I'll wake up early, go out for some groceries, and come back to prepare a mini feast for my family.  I'll fill up the little swimming pool in the morning so that by the time the kids arrive, the water will be warmed up by the sun.  I'll let these anxieties go and enjoy sitting out on the patio with the people I love and I'll say a little prayer for my mom to get better.

well hello again

Hello lovely internet friends.  I've been trying to get over here to update this blog of mine.  Things were a little off with my laptop - the hardware surrounding my screen was broken and the wireless software was giving me nothing but grief.  After getting three estimates to fix the problem, Z decided that our best bet was to get a new laptop.  It's the same make/model, only with a smaller screen and the whole package cost less than repairing the old one.

A big time consuming project for me was backing up pictures and music off the old laptop onto disc.  Friends... holy shizzz does that take forever.  All you budding photographer friends of mine let me tell you what can make your life a lot easier:  resize your pics and back them up to a disc asap.  I had a lot of pictures, and while I kept them organized and filed away in folders, the backup process still took me six hours on two different days.  The giant file sizes ate up a lot of my space too.

This new computer has nothing on it.  It's a virgin.  Oh, I wanted to share something I came across while fixing/adding things to my favorites sidebar.  Through the adobe website I found a cute picture storing space that has great tweaking tools.  I haven't used it yet, I'm still with Flickr so go on and check it out yourself.  It looks cool.  Going from one computer to another is a smooth process if you have that kind of energy to put into it.  I find it to be a big pain in the ass.

It's a holiday weekend and I've got no plans.  Well, not true.. I am hosting a bar-b-que on Monday.  Lot's of grill goodness.  I've been shopping for summer clothes.  My sister thinks I have that distorted body image thinking that a lot of people get after losing weight.  I have a vision of what my body looks like in my head but in reality (or in the mirror) I look nothing like that vision.  The *in my head* version of me is a whole lot bigger than what I really look like.  I shop for clothes and pick items that I *know* will fit but I've got a little thought lingering that says... no it won't.  So I'm not really comfortable yet with the new clothing choices I have to wear (shorts, slim fitting stuff) and it's only because I've never been able to dress like that before.  Well, not true again.. I have been able to but never did because I was so self conscious of my size.  Now, I'm still self conscious because I can't get my brain wrapped around the fact that my body is a lot smaller.  Maybe I do suffer from that distored thinking and I need to wear different things so that my brain can catch up with the changes.  I got a pair of white shorts last night that I'll wear today.  White shorts are the extreme opposite of what I used to wear.... and damn those silly thoughts.  I worked hard to wear my white shorts.

Have a lovely weekend.  Here's a link to a site dedicated to remembering why Memorial Day is observed.  My neighbor across the street just received word that his nephew is coming home from Afghanistan minus his legs.  It's so sad, and the family is just beginning to cope with this reality, but he's alive.  So many young men and women are not.  Visit the site.

A lot of you have commented on the new layout of my blog.  If you blog with TypePad, you can find this template in their custom layout section.  I love the color red and I needed a change.  It's different, but I'm learning to like different.

dark and drizzlicious

Finally got a day to do nothing!  No commitments, no errands, no playdates - and it felt so, so good.  Oh I had a bunch of housework to finish up but I chose to leave it all until tomorrow.  It was a dark and drizzly Sunday, perfect for lazing around the house.

I've got a new obsession - coupons.  I've been clipping them and sorting through the various fliers that come in the mail to see exactly where I can get the most for my money.  Another obsession?  Online job hunting.  Yeah, because Z says it's time for me to get a job.  This will be my last summer as a stay at home mama and I'm feeling bittersweet about it.