simply the sweet life

Just in case you missed it, here is my feature in Simply the Sweet Life Magazine.  I was in good company. Rhonna and Margie also contributed and their Valentine's were amazeballs.

Check out the magazine. It's really quite extraordinary.

restitution

Have you noticed that this week has turned into a veritable "all about April's problems" fest? 

Bad form I say.

Deepest apologies. 

Can I offer you a consolatory chocolate?

And to further sweeten the deal, here's some link love for you to explore this weekend.

Alison of Diary of a Dairy Queen is a real life farm girl living and blogging in Vermont.  

Did you know you can buy real vintage stuff from Fossil? 

This video is like magic to me.

The Curiosity Shoppe is a wonderful place to visit with various sundries and delights to behold.

I don't know if I can go on living another day without this gorgeousness in my possession. 

And lastly,

I love the way this girl thinks about creating the kind of life you love.

smeared

There has been some incidents this week.  Happenings of the most unpleasant kind.  The kind of things that drive people to drink heavily.

Naturally it involves the children.  Children can be the proprietors of much unpleasantness. This is true.

Most of the displeasing behavior can be attributed to normal childhood menaces. Growing pains, teething and the like. But the most abhorrent episodes involve a little blond haired girl and fecal matter. Smeared.

You got that image thick in your brain? Good. Because these scenes will never, ever leave my memory.

So it's been a little rough. And stinky.

I've shed a tear or two.  I'm generally not a crier. But a human being can only take so much shit in their life. You know what I mean?  There's a limit.

Sugar Daddy took the boy to Costco last weekend and they came home with a five pound jar of Jelly Belly Jelly beans.  I have a few things to say about this, but I will save them for another day.

Needless to say, I've been trying to referee the consumption of said jelly beans all week.  So when I saw The Boy take the back way to the stairs with something clasped in his hands, I called him over for a search and seizure.

"Lemme have em."  I held out my hand.

"I don't have candy mom." he said almost convincingly.

"What cha got there then?"

"Nothin."

"Open up. Let me see." I demanded.

And he did. And in his sticky little boy hand was a rock I had painted a heart onto.

"I was making a Valentine.  For you."

Now my kid is quick on his feet. This could have been a rouse. But his eyes said otherwise.

(Insert a piercing arrow to my heart here.)

I love my children.

I need to say that publicly to all the people in my life to whom I complain.  To those people who listen to me make empty threats of getting a full time job and a nanny.  To Jenny who comes in my darkest hours, and cries with me.

I love my children. I love my life and I really love the fact that Sugar Daddy and I are going away for a couple of days next weekend.

As for Birdie, from now on she will be napping in footed pajamas with the zipper safety pinned at the top.

matters of the heart

I've been thinking.  Which gets me into a wee bit of trouble most of the time, but this time I've been thinking about how a girl like myself might keep out of trouble.

I've been wondering if it is possible to be kind and still get exactly what you want, when you want it, most of the time.

Take for example the Costco pharmacy.  It has been my experience that if you want to get your prescription filled correctly and in a timely manner, you must approach the little window as the Queen of Sheba.  Kindness and consideration haven't gotten me very far with Phil the pharmacy tech.  He seems to respond much better to haughtiness.

And then there are my children.  If asked to do something in a kind voice, they don't seem to hear me at all. It's actually quite astounding how their little ears don't pick up my voice until it is raised a few decibels and made to sound like Cruella Deville.  

I don't want to be that mom.  Or that woman at the pharmacy. But I do want things done well in a timely manner.

Look. I'm not a fighter. (Small disclaimer here that I can be a fighter if backed into a corner.) I'm a lover. I like peace and good will toward men.  I like cupcakes and sparkly things and long walks on the beach.  And I like for people to do their jobs well.

I have my big toe into the business world. Not my whole foot. Just the toe.  The right brained one. I'm starting to have business type interactions with people regarding illustration and other such businessy things.  

And I want people to do things for me and I want it done promptly and correctly and by damn don't screw it up. And I want to say all this in a very kind way. 

It's not personal. It's business. But don't these businessy people have feeling too?  I don't want to use the Cruella voice anymore. I'm pretty sure I look really ugly when I'm talking like that. I need to find a way to express my expectations without sounding spiteful or bad-tempered and still get good results.

So is it possible?  Do they teach these things in business school? Kindness 101?

As for Phil, he will still get Cruella. He seems to like her.

a special kind of stupid

The problem is that I'm never satisfied.  That's the core issue.

I'm not thin enough, charming enough, talented enough, rich enough, perky enough (did I really just admit to wanting to be perky?), reserved enough or smart enough.

What I am today is never enough.  It's one of my many personality flaws that I am willing fess-up to, but I will probably never do anything about.  Because I'm lazy too.

But on with my story.

I get really excited about chemical peels. Because, you know, my skin is never smooth enough.  I love the idea of singeing off the dead, grossness that is holding me captive in ugliesville. Dramatic? Maybe.

So last Friday Shannon came over with her bag of tricks, and while speaking to me in a soothing voice about marketing and other such trivialities, she fried off the top layer of my face.  Then we had some guacamole and chocolate covered strawberries. It was delightful.

But today, well, the delight has fizzled and I'm a little worried that should I use any of the muscles in my face, my skin might crack open and leave huge gaping fissures.  I'm like the girl in the mask.  I can't carry on the way I usually do with all the laughing and yelling and general rowdiness. I'm talking to my children very softly through very tight lips.

The silver lining is that this new quiet way of mothering has scared the hell out of my kids.  I'm fairly sure they think I've finally gone over the proverbial edge I've been screeching about for years.

And here's another thing that needs getting to the bottom of:

I am never cool enough.

My theory goes a little something like this:

I have this incredible knack for making friends with super duper, over-the-top, talented and suave people.  I swear I sniff them out like a pig to a truffle.  Even my friends who are fundamentally just geeks are the coolest kind of indie/anarchist geeks around. Or so it seems.

So the whole time I'm with these people I feel like a groupie.  And I don't want to be a groupie.

With the exception of Sugar Daddy. I'll be his groupie any day of the week and twice on Sundays. (Wow, that sounded a little racy.)

Sometimes I lay in bed and analyze this whole cool factor thing.  And to be honest, I do a little positive self talk "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it people like me.  I too, can be an anarchist if I felt like it."

It's not that I have low self-esteem. As we learned yesterday, that's generally not a problem for bloggers.

So I was thinking maybe I could go see a shrink and talk this over.  There might be some insight there. Then again, I'd probably spend the entire time on the couch marveling at how smart the doctor is worrying that should I start to cry over my inadequacies, my singed face might crack and leave a scar.

And I couldn't have that happen because I'm really excited to see how this whole chemical peel thing turns out.  I think I'll skip the shrink this week and just eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's on my own couch.

I'm quite positive it takes a special kind of stupid to publicly display your personal demons this way, but I also know I needed a Tuesday post.

I can't let my readership drop. A girl can never have enough readers.

the sweetest soap box

I'm going to share a little secret.  For those of you who blog, this won't be news to you. For those of you who don't blog, and wonder why people like me spend so much time and energy blogging it will answer that question.

When you have a blog you have a perpetual soap box.  Blogging is at it's core totally egocentric.  We bloggers work under the delusion that we always have something important to say, and that people are interested in our opinions.

Can you even imagine the gall?  And yet here you are reading my blog. Reading my opinion.  Ha!

You, my friend, are an enabler.

And I love you for it.

Here's a little Valentine craft I made for The Boy's teacher out of a real soap box.  It was moi easy and super cheap cheap cheap.  Just the way I like it.

I used Margie's papers because the girl hooks me up and the cuteness of her design work makes my crafts look good with minimal effort.  That's how I roll.

So.  I used a soap box.  I wrapped the box in paper and decorated it all up fancy.  I cut a slit in one end of the box and threaded ribbon through.  I cut the top of the box off so that when you hold the ribbon and slide off the paper, you can see the little treat inside.

To make the coordinating card, I hand cut hearts and sewed them zig zaggy onto pink card stock.  Then I used white ink to add a little doodleage.

Doodleage.  That's my new word.

This project is so easy you could have little kids do it for their teacher.  I thought of having Thom make it to give his teacher, but the super controlling, anal side of me won out as it is want to do.

Don't worry. It fades a little with each baby that arrives in our home.  By the time Frankie is Thom's age I will probably just let him give his teacher one of his old Hot Wheels or something.

Here's another supa supa cheap-o ideer that came to my brain.

I sewed M&Ms inside of glassine paper shaped in a heart.  Sounds kinda stupid, but it's pretty cute once you get some schmuckada on it.  I did mine on the fly.  I'm sure you could come up with other ridiculously creative ways to decorate these hearts.

You are crafty like that.

And Valentine's should be creative and most of all cheap.  We are just coming down off Christmas spending for crying out in the night.  I'm sure your mother informed you that money doesn't grow on trees. Let's keep that in mind shall we?

shameless self promotion

These canvas are up in the shop for sale.  

Go ahead.

Make my day.

Buy one.

Migration

10 X 10 inches

mixed media collage

Sea Society 

10 X 10 inches

mixed media collage

新年快樂

Welcome to the year of the rabbit!

Did you know today is Chinese New Years?  It is. We keep track of these things around our house. We like all things Chinese. Food, art, babies...

But we won't be getting a Chinese baby after all.  We are pulling our papers out of the defunct system.  We do not like Chinese politics.

And we have all the babies we could ever want or need.  We are full up with babies round here.

I'm hoping our local Chinese restaurant will be open for take-out tonight. I want to have a little family celebration.  I'm craving some fried wontons and spicy noodles.

I made The Sugar Daddy a little New Year's gift.

Can you see what that fortune says?  Here, let me zoom in.

That's what I'm talkin' bout.

He's half way there.  And in case you are wondering, he's not famous.

Yet.

Chocolate covered fortune cookies? I say yes to that.  Let the good times eggroll.

We have a family chop.  We had it made in China Town in San Francisco. If you are ever in the area, have one made.  It is worth the money just to watch them carve the block.

Happy New Year to you and yours!

You are a rabbit if you were born in 1951,1963, 1975, 1987 or 1999.

Cuddly, warm and affectionate are the attributes of the Rabbit. Mysterious and a great party-giver and host, the Rabbit enjoys being the centre of attention once in a while. The Rabbit is occasionally over cautious and can be a bit boring. He is also one of the luckiest signs in the Chinese Astrology chart.

In case you are curious, and I know you are, I am a Tiger. Naturally.

love story

On this, the second day of February, I want to share with you a love story.  This is the right month to do this.

There is no definitive history of Valentine's Day. I tried to get to the bottom of it. By that, I mean, I spent a few minutes online googling it. But I think it is in February because it must have felt like a cold, barren, nothing month to the people who decided on the date.  They knew they couldn't change the weather so they decided to warm it up with love.  That's my theory anyway.

Now. To the love story. It's a true one.

It might make you cry.  Don't fight the tears. It means your heart is healthy.

Click here to listen to the story as told by Alan Lundgard and Emilie Gossiaux.

Don't you just love that Alan?

imaginary friends

I wish I knew this family.

I wish I knew their names and what city they live in and what they like to eat for breakfast.

I don't read the blog. I can't read Japanese. But I look at the photos everyday. And I wish I could know them.  I wish they were our good family friends.

I want to know the ages of their sons. Are they Irish twins like my babies?

I want to know how the mom and dad meet. And what he loves most about her.

Does she kiss her babies over and over like I do?  Is she addicted to the smell of their hair the way I am?

Do the grandparents live far?  Why don't they have pets? Allergies?  What do they like to do on Sunday afternoons? Do they like living in the city? Do they want more children?

I long to know these people who live so very far away, and yet their life seems so similar to mine, they could live down the street.

all photos found here. careful. you will want to know them too.