A Day for Two Mamas

Happy Mother's Day!  I sure hope you're enjoying a beautiful day celebrating with your mom, calling your mom, remembering your mom or whoever might have filled that special role in your life.  I know I've been blessed by mine.

This is my mom back in the day shortly after I was born.  Such a sweet picture, I think.  Brand new mom.  Now, I'm going to point out something weird that kind of makes me wonder.  Ummm... was I kidnapped?  Because she does not look like a woman who's recently given birth.  Very Twilight Zone if you ask me or maybe America's Most Wanted.  Who looks like that bringing a newborn home?  Seriously.  Did I look like that after having my first child?  Uhhh, no.  

True story:  Upon visiting Rose in the NICU about a week after she was born, I was in an elevator with a lovely older woman and her granddaughter.  The little girl must have pointed at me, because her grandmother explained lovingly, "She's going in to have a baby."  

Sigh.  

Genetics, ya done me wrong on this one.

Now, when I was growing up, my mom's favorite thing to do for Mother's Day was hang out with her kids.  She's a pretty fun person and usually picked something awesome to do.  She's like that... kind of hobbity in that she, like Tolkien's hobbits, like to have everybody have fun and feel loved on her day.

I'm a teensy weensy bit more selfish myself.  I do love hanging out with my kids, especially on Mother's Day.  In fact, I have some crafting with the kids and a lovely, tickle-y dog pile scheduled for sometime after the kids wake up from their nap.

There is nothing like being at the bottom of a squirmy, lovely, tickle-y, four-kid, one mom dog pile for remembering you're totally blessed.  There are lots of ways to feel blessed, but it's easily one of the best.

However, I also will greedily snatch up and enjoy some well-needed grown-up time for regathering whatever tiny scraps of sanity I have left whenever I can, especially since they're rare as hen's teeth -- both the grown-up time and the scraps of sanity.  So since my kids were elsewhere engaged on Saturday, my mom and I got to hang out and do grown-up stuff all day.  It went beautifully.  We didn't even have a real plan, but it just developed into one of the best mother-daughter days ever.

First order of business:  Visit local awesome coffee shop and get french press to share of darkest french roast imaginable.  This was a tiny bit of a mess-up since french press was not nearly as tasty as our usual pour-over choice where the hot water is slowly and deliciously seeping through ground coffee.  But it was still good.  My mom and I got to browse The Wall Street Journal at a leisurely place, which was very relaxing, though we ended up talking most of the time.  See my section?  I don't go for the shallow and silly world news or business reports.  It's all book, food, and art reviews for me.  It's the weekend.  That's how I roll.




This is my mom talking about IPOs.  I'm serious.  Once again, I have to question our related-ness.  What you can't see is me with my huh? okay... face.  She couldn't either I hope.  I was hiding behind my camera phone.  She's got a math-y brain like I think Rose does.

I hope they're very happy together.

We did eventually get around to talking about concepts I more readily grasp, which I was thankful for.

Notice anything weird in this one?  She looks almost the same.  Look at the first picture and then look at this one.  People always ask if we're sisters... actually, twins lately.  At this rate, I'll look older than her in a decade.


Then we browsed the farmer's market, which I intend to do a post on in the next few weeks.  We visited our favorite honey guys, produce guys, and cheese guys (Ooh, I love the cheese guys.  For one thing I love good cheese.  But for another, I'm pretty sure they know I've already tried every cheese, but they always let me try everything again.  And I'm only too happy to.)  Unfortunately, we forgot to visit our flower guy.  Sorry, flower guy.  But we've resolved to grab twice our usual flower bunches next week to make up for it.

Then being famished, we headed over to our local French-inspired cafe-bistro-bakery for lunch.  I'd have taken a picture of eating there, but I was so hungry, my food disappeared rather rapidly, and I don't think you need a picture of my piggy face inhaling a sandwich and a piece of cake.  I'm sure it wasn't pretty.

Really hoping my possible future husband wasn't sitting anywhere nearby.  Pretty sure he's scared away now if he was.  


Oh, well.  Who needs him anyway... 






Pedicures!  I'll let you guess who's who.  Sorry for the weird, grainy picture.  It looks like someone just left some feet lying around.

This was the delicious sangria we made out of some terrible wine.  It's really good now, all lemony and limey and orangey and refreshing.  We sat out on the lanai talking about all the projects we wanted to take on in the near future. 

These are the rosemary gin and tonics we made a little later.  Oh, my goodness.  Soooooo good!  Please try these.  Just muddle a a sprig of rosemary with some gin at the bottom of your glass, fill with ice and tonic water and enjoy.  Lemon wedge optional, but much more complementary than lime I think.

We couldn't possibly pass up the opportunity to visit the craft store.  Can't wait to use these new supplies!  There are actually parts of about five projects here.

You may notice that I'm wildly delusional about the amount of crafting time I have.  Feel free to keep it to yourself.  I'm enjoying the delusion.

Once reunited with my beautiful monsters, I found that they, too, had been busy in a craft-minded kind of way.  I now have two new jewelry boxes and two new frames!  I love the use of color.  And Lily and Ivy actually created art for the frames.  So cool!







Sunday, of course, is church and hanging out with the kiddos.  Best Mother's Day yet and they keep getting better.  I hope yours is going just as well, and that you're feeling very blessed today.

Have a great weekend!

Crafty

My kids come from a good line of crafty and creative people.  My great grandfather was a carpenter.  My great grandmother sewed her own clothes, crocheted, quilted, and painted.  My grandmother knits, cross-stitches, and quilts.  My mother has a degree in fashion design, sews, and crochets.

Thankfully for a person as focus-challenged as me, this gave me the resources and foundation to be able to be crafty and creative later myself.  And though, as a kid, I often lost interest in a hobby shortly after I learned the basics, I still learned the basics.  And my family's encouragement of my creative pursuits allowed me to dabble in drawing, painting, jewelry making, et cetera.  

In college, after starting out as an environmental science major, I gravitated back to the arts only to decide I did not have the talent to take my show on the road, so to speak.  So I took my love for art and history and combined them to result in the bachelor's in art history I have today.  Sometimes I wonder if I should have tried harder, since working with my hands fills me with joy, and am exhilarated merely stepping into a studio or a workshop... or the Home Depot for that matter.  (Is that normal?)  But I have found a new outlet and purpose for my artsy background and have begun to notice bits of creativity on the parts of my kids that I'd like to encourage.  

It's not just the gluing, painting, drawing, play-doh sculpting, beading, lego building stuff I'm talking about when I get their supplies out.  Though the stuff they make, I think, is pretty rad.  Rather it's the things that they do when they have other options.

The twins have it, too, but since Rose and Leif are older, and I see it in them more.  And I'm surely not going to count two-year-old Ivy's pen drawing on my wallet.  Mostly because I really like that wallet and am not completely pleased with the finished product. 

When playing outside, this is the kind of stuff they do.  

Rose has a mathematical, methodical, and legalistic mind.  I don't.  So I like to see the kinds of things she comes up with just having goofing around on her own.  I think she got the idea of plant collages on the driveway from Lief, though.  She likes to hijack good ideas.  That's kinda smart, too, I think.

This is Leif's bed -- the upper bunk.  You may also see a lemur hanging from the tail and a blanket tied under as well.  You can't see the rest, because today, I thought Woody was the most interesting part.  None of it is accidental.  He spends about half and hour or so working on making his bed.  No two days' creations are ever the same.  He actually has the mind of a sculptor I've found.  He arranges things in ways that remind me of artists I admired in school, only with his own three-year-old flare.

Exciting stuff, I think.  Subtle, but exciting.  I'm definitely going to praise this kind of stuff when I see it barring any involvement of destruction of property.  (Ahem... Ivy.)  Because even if this is just the uninhibited natural creativity of preschoolers, I don't want it to fade away.  Ever.  

Sticks and Acorns

I'm going to be doing this Instagram thing for a while.  As a former photography major, (one of my many experimental paths) I really appreciate the casual irreverence and simple fun of just snapping a picture this way without all the technical stuff.  It feels more real somehow, but then also a little more charming.  

It also helps because I don't have a fancy camera at the moment, and I tend to always have my phone on me.  No more running to find the camera and hoping time (or more impossibly, my kids) stood still.  

I was watching the kids in the backyard and they were, of course, "making plants," seeking out lizards and ladybugs to play with, and birds to feed without any actual food.  It's really no wonder the birds don't actually show up.  

My daughter came up to me and sighed heavily -- the only way she really knows how to sigh -- about how she didn't have any food for the birds.  Leif suggested she feed them the small stick she was holding.  I advised that the birds would more likely want to use the stick for a nest rather than lunch.  Birds are picky that way, aren't they?  Rose's face lit up and decided that, yes, she would like to donate the stick to the birds' nest-making endeavors.  So of course, she would have to throw it for them.  I'm not sure how this was supposed to help or where the stick was supposed to end up that it would be more convenient for the birds, but nevertheless, there she is giving it a second try since the first one didn't achieve the desired result, whatever that was.

This brief scene reminded me of being a kid and believing that the world pretty much revolved around whatever was in my wee head at the time -- not so much believing that I was so important, but believing that if I left a small pile of neatly gathered acorns, absolutely some fortunate squirrel would come upon them and be delighted even if it were under an oak tree with thousands more acorns lying all around.  I meant it for good and it would be received because it was significant to me.  

You know what I mean?  

It's okay if you don't.  

Anyway, I think this is how God sees us, as His kids.  Though, some of us tend to believe that God doesn't have time for our small joys or disappointments or the small things that are important to us, He's actually able to care about those things and everything else in the world.  And deeply, too.  That's what makes Him God.  We are significant, our thoughts are significant, our ups and downs are significant, our plans are significant because we are significant to Him. We're his greatest love and greatest joy no matter what, and I think that's breathtaking.

Maybe I'm reaching with that parallel.  

Oh, well.  If you're befuddled, it's your fault for reading this far.  But I love that you did.

That's all.  Have a lovely Monday.

Of Gardens and Guns

Garden & Gun is my new favorite magazine.  Why?

Well, it might be because I do enjoy a good garden.  A beautiful garden is enough to stop me in my tracks and make my heart do a little dance.  Of course, I enjoy many beautifully-crafted things in this way.

It may also be because, though I am not enough of a gun enthusiast to actually subscribe to a guns publication, nor even devote a single thought to munitions in any sense in a given day, I have enjoyed a trip to the shooting range on occasion.  I was actually a pretty decent shot at one time, but it's been a while.

It may even be because, since having moved back to the semi-North for a couple years and then coming back, I have a whole new loving appreciation for the South, and I now consider myself an adopted Southerner.   I never, ever want to leave ever, ever again.

These consequential reasons aside, the absolute reason this is my new favorite magazine is that they had the perfect good sense and good taste to exhibit Wine Guy's and Chef Girl's noteworthy and beautifully handcrafted Old-Fashioned on the cover.  Can a cocktail be art?  Obviously, it can.

Of all the accolades they've received -- and The Gin Joint has received a few -- this is one of the coolest.

They also placed first in the Woodford Reserve Manhattan Experience for South Carolina with their Tobacco Project Manhattan.

But now I'm just bragging.

Happy Friday

 

Here's to the telecommute day.

Here's to getting to drink coffee so strong you could stand a spoon up in it instead of the daily gamble brewed by the inconsistently cantankerous man in the cafeteria at work.  (This is after putting a ton of half-and-half in it.  Yummmm.)

Just kidding, inconsistently cantankerous coffee man.  Please don't spit in my coffee.

Here's to having a bit of time to research the perfect recipe for making deliciously strong iced coffee (FOUND IT!  see: Pioneer Woman - Perfect Iced Coffee) to take to work to save paying money for aforementioned daily gamble made by inconsistently cantankerous coffee man.  (I've tried to take hot coffee to work, but by the time I get to enjoy it, it's disgustingly lukewarm.  Ew.  Coffee either needs be very hot or very cold and very, very strong.  Don't mess with my standards.)

Here's to my sweet, sweet at-home work set-up.  Yes, that is my great-grandmother's antique sewing table.  Yes, that is a TV tray for my awesome ergo keyboard.  Yes, that is evidence of my mad organization skills scattered round my laptop.  Don't be jealous because I'm fancy.

Here's to being able to wash bibs and towels, listen to NPR, eat a terribly messy egg and cheese sandwich bagel, wait for the cable guy, work on my intellectually stimulating blog (don't laugh), and sketch room organization plans whilst waiting for my next assignment. 

I can't help it.  It's a good morning.  Have a wonderful Friday!

Bubbles, Bug, and Gamer Guy

Okay.  I always hope nobody is peeved by my bogart-ing their awesome pics.  But I couldn't help it.  You can see why.  This is a picture of my friend Bubbles and her Little Bug done by Zoey Photography, who, by the way, does the cutest child photography as you can see.  I love how non-staged this looks and how much it just completely shows off Bubbles' beautiful personality, and it's just so dynamic. 

I just can't stop looking at it.  But I'll try.

And it's apropos (there's an idea) because Bubbles is on her way... I mean, driving hundreds of miles... right now!  Yippee!!!  SO EXCITED. 

Give me a minute while I collect myself.

Okay.  I'm done.

I haven't seen them since before Little Bug was born, and I've missed them.  And now I get to look forward to good wine, good company, good food, and just being our good ol' selves for the weekend while I show them around my fair city.  Gamer Guy, her husband, will also be accompanying them, which is awesome because he is awesome, and he's pretty good at keeping us rowdy girls somewhat grounded.

Somewhat.   

Did I say YIPPEE!!!?

I'll let you know how it goes.

'Til then...

Laziness Continued...

Yet another gratuitous sleeping baby shot.  Rose when she was one and being spoiled by her mama whilst clutching her absolute favorite book at the time.  "Honey, you don't feel good?  You can sleep in the big bed."  Sippy cup - check.  Pooh - check.  Pacifier - check check.  Awwwww....

Anway.... back to this post.  So I thought that I might post some original thoughts on my blog, but then I had another thought.  It went something like, "Eh....(sigh)... nah." 

I'm a deep thinker.

So I thought I'd give a shout out to another one of my favorite bloggers.  (See:  The Pioneer Woman)  I love this blog.  I love this woman/family in a not quite stalker-ish sort of way.  But that's what happens when you happen to be awesome and funny and write about it. 

I wouldn't really know...

Anywhoo, she published a post regarding her favorite John Hughes films.  Since I mostly agree, and would have said practically the same thing if I'd thought of it and had energy and brain capacity, here you go: 

Favorite John Hughes Films

You're welcome.  I have to online movie shop now...

Lazy

Paresseux in French
Perezoso in Spanish
Pigro in Italian

Faul in German

ленивый in Russian (ha... say that five times fast)

They all mean lazy, and that's what I've been.

And who am I to break a perfectly great streak of laziness so soon?  So my post today is actually somebody else's.  I love this blog.  It's about one of the cutest, funniest, heartwarming, and frank families I've ever read about in a blog.  Warning... while this blog is maintained by one of the absolute cutest families I've ever read about in a blog, this post is completely gross.  Funny, but gross.  So read at your own risk. 

I was laughing so hard, I had tears.  And this was at work, but, again, they're used to my quirks by now.

Blue Lily Embarrasing Incident

(Nothing to do with my Lily, by the way.)

Cheers. 

And yes, I did just put in a gratuitous cute newborn (Ivy) shot at the top.  Thank you for understanding.

Battery Acid Has No Caffeine And Other Funny Lines

Martha:  Why don't you just poor battery acid down your throat?
Henry:  No caffeine.


On particularly tough mornings should I, for example, sleep in, forget my glasses, have a remarkably defiant 3-year-old son, a 4-year-old daughter with the sour attitude of a teenager, twin almost-2-year-olds who don't understand that having one's sibling briefly touch one's possession does not mean losing that possession for all eternity, when the day looms ahead with everything hanging on from yesterday, yesterweek, yesteryear that hasn't gotten accomplished and the coffee just can't brew fast enough, I mentally turn to Keaton.

Yeah, that's right.  Michael Keaton.

Anyone familiar with Keaton's work might just assume Mr. Mom.  Sure, that would be an easy assumption and an apt comparison, i.e. dealing with an overwhelming life with kids.

But they'd be wrong.

Uh-uh.  I'm talking about the opening scenes of The Paper, one of the best movies ever.  EVER.  And really just the whole thing.  If you haven't seen it, go get it.  No, I don't care if you're at work or making dinner or performing a neurosurgery at the moment.  GO GET IT.  (And by the way, I think it's extremely bad form to be reading this blog whilst performing neurosurgery.  I know it's truly gripping, but for shame.)

Between the hectic, flawed personal/professional lives of the characters played by some seriously talented actors -- the aforementioned Keaton as well as Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, Randy Quaid, Marisa Tomei, and seriously Jason Alexander is pretty great in there, too -- it's a spot-on portrayal of getting the stuff kicked out of you by the things you pour yourself into and really care about.  Plus it's just a really funny film (despite the very harsh language).

And since it seems to be one of those days, I believe that once the kids are in bed, I will be doing my darndest to hunt it down on cable, pour a glass of wine, and commiserate with Henry, Martha, Bernie, Alicia, and McDougal over stumbling and pushing through the tough stuff and remembering to focus on what's really important at the end of the day.

Feel free to join me this time or any other as this day will most certainly be coming around again and again.

And as always, thank you, God, for giving me people in life who are and a life itself that is so amazingly worthwhile.  Amen.

Musings Over Leftover Himalayan Karahi

I'm doing it again... not reading.  I was going great guns with my favorite by-myself past-time.  And now I'm fighting off attack of the fried brain. 

Here is a bit of what is doing the frying, i.e. what is on my mind today -- the bigger stuff:

Better/more convenient childcare:  Great googly moogly.  This is the complete bane of my days.  Do you know how hard it is to find good childcare as a single mom in a city where people pay over a thousand per month per kid???  Do you?  Boy, I hope not.  I don't even make a thousand per month per kid.  Thank the Lord for the child care subsidy.  However, not everyone takes the voucher, let alone while having space for three kids.  Hello, waiting list.

Where to live in six months:  Big family for a city.  Little income.  Want safe neighborhood and awesome metro access.  Pretty please?

Where to live in six years:  No kidding.  I'm a planner.  Big family moves to suburbs.  Little income.  Want safe, pretty neighborhood and awesome schools.  Pretty, pretty please???

I'm all about finding the balance, though.  So I put these on my mind, too.

Rose's mad Spanish skills:  I took four years of high school Spanish.  I actually remember a great deal. 

I have no idea what Rose is saying to me with six months of preschool Spanish, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

Plus it's funny now that she has the ability to be bossy now in both English and Spanish.

Leif's mad English skills:  He's becoming quite loquacious.  It's awesome to find out what he's actually thinking.  What Leif says often sounds like poetic genius.  He speaks in haiku.   

Okay, well not really haiku.  But he has these awesome thoughts.  Do birds eat the sun?  Poetic genius or something else.  But I prefer poetic genius. 

Lily's awesome scolding skills:  I have absolutely no idea what she's saying.  But it's hilarious.  She points at you, furrows her wee eyebrows, and gives you what for.  She uses whatever syllables come to mind. 

I try not to think that she's actually just soaked up 17 months of mommy constantly doing something similar. 

And that it probably sounds about the same.

Ivy's whistling:  My littlest precious one began whistling when she was eight months old.  I kid you not.  So if I whistle, most of the time she will, too.  It's pretty cool.

And she watches television like Mike TV from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. 

Only sometimes. 

(Insert big smile here.)

And I do love living here.  (See:  picture snapped with BlackBerry above.)

Stuff and Nonsense

I am not an especially sunny person.

At least I don't think so.  I would actually describe myself is unequivocally moody.  I tend to react dramatically to whatever influences are happening inside and outside my being, and therefore, I have great bouts of melancholy as well as cheeriness. So some days I am in the mood to really get on here and talk about darker and sadder things.

And sometimes when I get my political ire up, I want to blog about political things or human rights things (which I happen to really feel passionate about... so I still might).

However...

I have made the final decision that as non-intellectual and un-deep (like my new word?) as it may be, Mama Poobah is going to be a lighter place.  A place to blog about things I love and happier things.

And the occasional human rights issue.

Which I also love.

On that note (the things I love note, not the human rights note)... if you are ever shopping for me, please feel free to drop by Etsy.

Really.  Go ahead right now and pick something out.  Actually, pick out two -- one for you and one for me.  Mine can be the cheaper one; I don't mind.

This store is my virtual home away from home. It's so crafty, beautiful, and eclectic.  And kitschy if that's what you like.

Ooh, here's something.  Irish-y scarf.  Because I'm, like, 1/27th Irish (give or take 1/27th).

And this is cool.  I like bees.  And they would feel at home in my downtown apartment.  Okay.  I won't get this, but it's awesome anyway.

Wow.

Pretty.

 Okay.  So practically speaking, I would never actually get one of my girls a tutu unless I could suddenly afford ballet, but seriously... how cute is this...

 

Okay.  I'm done.

For now.

Plus you get to send stuff to people and impress them with where it's coming from.  I sent my sister-in-law this gorgeous scarf handmade in Turkey.  I'm pretty sure it was more fun for me to send than it was for her to receive it.  Though I've gotten something awesome from places like Boise as well.

Anyway, that's my pitch for today.

Etsy, feel free to credit my account.

I wish.