love is...

knowing that a simple tearful phone call to my mom can result in a plane ticket for the next week for moral and packing support.  Knowing that no matter what, I can always depend on her above almost every other human being on this earth.  Countless times she has hopped in a car or jumped on a plane at a moment’s notice, shipped care packages and spent hours on the phone to support me.  She always, always makes me feel like a special daughter of God, that the decisions I make are incredibly important - and important enough for this amazing and very well-accomplished woman to make me a priority in her life.

Just a few more hours until she’s here, and WonderGirl and I are going crazy we’re so excited.  I can only hope that I can make WG feel as wonderful as my mom makes me feel.  I’m working on it, and I’ll get to learn from the master ALL WEEKEND LONG.  HUZZAH!!!

This was for sale today at the local grocery store, labeled “Easter Bunny”. Do you think it’s creepy enough to send into www.CakeWrecks.com?

HAHAHAHAHAHA.  Thanks, passiveaggressivenotes.com.

And now, a pallate cleanser. Can’t stay too mad when you have baby blues like those staring at you all day.

hello, monday

Sorry about the double posting of the funniest video ever made.  My YouTube account is linked to my Tumblr account.  Did not know this.  Things haven’t been going so peaches and cream over here, but every time I watch my daughter turn into the psychotic front of a punk band (WITH NO COACHING from us - she just started doing it on her own) it makes me laugh.  Heavens to Betsy, I surely do need a laugh.

For reasons that I don’t want to get into (suffice to say they are not financial or legal or any such mumbo jumbo) our search for a home will not be leading me to the cozy cute town only 20 minutes from a Target.  It will be leading us to a different town though than our current one - thank HEAVENS.  The town I live in is like a strip mall, not too much personality and that’s about it.  This other one has character.  It’s still about an hour from civilization (and thereby mostly off limits for a mom wanting to keep her baby awake so he’ll sleep at night) and not many cultural opportunities for me or my kids, so there’s not much comfort there.

Oh, they have a Walmart.  Joy.

I figured out why every neighborhood we drive through makes me feel uneasy - there’s no fences in this state.  So if one person has a perfectly kept backyard and the person next to them inevitably has a boat up on cinder blocks, it all looks pretty shabby.

And try being a mom where you can’t see a property line.  I can’t send my kid outside to play because there’s nothing holding her back from running into a neighbor’s yard or beyond.  We don’t have any fences where we live now and it’s unsettling to me.  I can’t go into my backyard and relax because I have no privacy.  And so I stay indoors, because I can’t take another awkward conversation with the nice people next to us with the yippy dogs.  I’m all for being neighborly, but it would be so nice to be able to sit in the sun without trying to politely avert your eyes while the person next door is trying to have their own personal time in their yard 6 feet away from you.

It’s grand to have problems so small and dumb in comparison to most of the world.  But dang it… 

Yellow submarine!

Just a typical Saturday family night. We have NO idea where she learned how to to do this.

I may be late to the party but.. how did I miss this? Rollerbabies?!?!

[youtube=[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PHnRIn74Ag&hl=en_US&fs=1&]]

No misfortune is so bad that whining about it won’t make it worse.

No misfortune is so bad that whining about it won’t make it worse.
Jeffrey R Holland (via rjwalker)

update

FYI, we just put in an offer on a house, one that I would like to live in which is also in a town that is FAR closer to a Target (which I would also like to live in - the town AND Target, actually).  Of course, after all this searching and looking and finally finding one that fits, the house is a complicated sale (short sale, bah) and there’s a good chance it will fall through.  SO interwebs, since you guys are all so amazing at making good things in my life happen (haven’t had time to comment on the blue dresses, but holy SNAP you guys are amazing!!  I can’t wait to have time to pick one!), could you please use your collective mojo to will this to happen?

Because if I live close to Target, we all know I will be a far better person.  And we all want that, right?

LOVE YOUSE!!!

GPOYW - the new camera is RED!!! edition.  One day late.  I feel really bad I keep breaking the cameras (okay, I don’t know who is to blame for the last one, but it was in my possession..) but then they just keep getting cooler.  Our first was a sweet 5 mega pixel tank, and now a sleek 12 mega pixel with HD movies???  I feel bad, I do.  It’s a complicated emotion.

eye right guud.

Husband gave me a compliment yesterday.  He’s pretty generous with the “You are smokin’ hott” ones, which are really the most important, and the “I know how hard this mom thing is, but you are doing a great job” ones, but when it comes anything aside from those two, they aren’t as common but mean a whole heckuvalot.   

We’d just gone and looked at another house - promising neighborhood, decent price, but weirdest floor plan ever, and pretty poor shape for the price.  Dagnabit.  I feel thwarted in every way.  I can’t seem to get anything right in trying to shape our life here.  I blame Wisconsin, as usual.  On the way home, I felt deflated.  I’ve been doggedly determined to live in the same postage-stamp town as Husband’s work because I want him home 1 minute after he leaves work.  I’m selfish, I need help after being outnumbered all day by WonderGirl and Dude, and I’m also crazy about him, so giving up 9 hours to work annoys the heck out of me.  (Except if you are reading this and you employ him, I love you.  Keep sending the paychecks.  I like new shoes.)

We took stock of what’s keeping our home search to this tiny, cracky town and the consensus was simply my dogged distaste for change.  Ironic, what with the 5 moves in 5 years and all. There’s not much here for me - there’s preschools for WG and library story times everywhere, and that’s mostly all I do all week.  Aside from church (which is the next town over), I don’t have a life here.  So, basically I don’t really dig it here, but I won’t let him look for a place I might like?  Yeah.  He gets to be married to this hot mess, be very jealous.

Later on after I’d moped around the rest of the evening, we were laying in bed recapping our day and he said unexpectedly -  ”You should be a writer.”

Huh?  

“You’re a good writer.  Maybe we’re supposed to live out here so you could develop that talent - write a column for the local paper or something.”

I’m not usually speechless, but.. a compliment about my writing?  The writing that generally annoys the heck out of him because he’s all private and reserved and I’m doing a RAH RAH LOOKIT ME LOOKIT ME!!! dance all over the intrawebs?  (Despite the fact that we’ve all come to accept that I cannot for the life of me type the word “just” properly - jsut, jsut!) That unexpected vote of confidence is going to do me good until at least Memorial Day. 

But back to reality - a writer?  I don’t write, I blog.  There’s a difference, right?  Writers write about interesting things that other people want to read about.  Bloggers.. well, at least MY blogging is to write about the most interesting thing I know - me.  I’m an expert, you see.  And if I don’t have minions like cjane or dooce by now (over 10 years, people - who knew the internet was even that old?), my words must not be all that interesting to the general populace.  I should know, as a minion with about 684 blogs in my RSS list.  Yikes.  Not that I mind - I have readers and true friends who support and mock me every day and I ADORE you.  Heck, I’ll even call you my minions.  But… write something for a paper?  Like a grown up?  I have to think about this.  The thing is, Husband is usually right about stuff (I don’t think he’ll read this far down, so I can admit that here), so I feel an obligation to look into it.  

Do you think the local rag would publish a “ALL ABOUT REVA!!!” column?  Because I’d TOTALLY read that.

(via uberchicforcheap)

Hey there internets.  So, if any of you are bored and would like to help a girl out, maybe you could help me find a dress to wear to my brother’s wedding?  Rules: needs to be mainly light blue.  Needs to have at least short sleeves.  Needs to come at least to my knees.  It’s Easter season so it might be easier to find something, but I’m still hitting dead ends.  I tried the old faithfuls - Shabby Apple (that’s one of their dresses up there, I dig the style), Shade, DownEast Basics, Mika Rose, ModCoth, Ruche, Red Dress Shop, etc.  No luck.  Please?  I’d send you cookies.  Not made by me of course, I love y’all too much to do that to you.

Happy Monday!

(via garfieldminusgarfield)

Cardboard 45rpm Record Sleeve Transforms Into a Record Player

How do you sell 45rpm records in an era of digital music? Package it in a sleeve that can be transformed into a record player. This brilliant marketing idea from GGRP Sound takes only seconds to set up, and the only extra tool you need is a pencil.

WonderGirl: Daddy, are you allergic to penguins? Husband: Um… I don’t think so. WG: Then can we have a pet penguin?

WonderGirl: Daddy, are you allergic to penguins?
Husband: Um… I don’t think so.
WG: Then can we have a pet penguin?
We breed geniuses.

What a lovely day to go to the temple.

On the road to Iowa for the night, then onto Nauvoo, Illinois tomorrow to go to the temple there, then back home tomorrow night. After my week of being thwarted by the weirdness of Wisconsin, I’m glad to be escaping for a few hours.

(cool pic effect thanks to my new app TiltShift Generator)

Study Reveals: Babies Are Stupid

Study Reveals: Babies Are Stupid

hahahahaha!!  Thank you, Onion.  Click to read the hilarity.

All these years I’ve been a musical chameleon - bouncing from my classical roots to jazz, fiddle, and then Celtic and everything else in between. Then yesterday I found the music I was supposed to be making all along. I mean, my nose, my maiden name, and I KILL at some yummy Gypsy and Klezzmer. I am supposed to be in Gogol Bordello. Now, the fiddler just needs to have some kind of accident….

[youtube=[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWYTyfQe-o8&hl=en_US&fs=1&]]

homeless

Okay, not really, but I may be.  I need a house.  We have to move out of the place we’re in because of some silly or stupid real estate dealings (we’re not sure which one it is, but we need to move, regardless) and find a place to live.  Problem is, we can’t find anything decent.  Because this is a creepy old town in the middle of nowhere.  The houses are either over 100 years old and falling apart, decently aged but too small, or new and overpriced.  We seriously can’t find anything that works.  I’m going batty here.  And do I want something nice because we’ll be here for a while or just something temporary and will-do-for-now because we’ll get a miracle that moves us somewhere temperate and without cows in a year or so?  Who knows?

I am kind of okay with the fact that I’ve had to move so often - I’d love it if we continued the trend and had to move again soon - (although I do love Husband employed… le sigh…) but where to live NOW?  I hhhhaaaatttteeee packing as we all know.  How do some people live and die in the same place?  How on earth is that even possible in the 21st century?

Threadless.com is having a $10 sale through the 20th.  I can’t find any reason to not own this shirt.

Say Anything

Sometimes … finding something as simple as this on the net makes me smile. (ooliquidnightoo)

YES!!!

GPOYW - party edition.  You know it was a party because there are streamers.  Yeah, I’m so ^&^%$ awesome, I had streamers.  I had a green shirt on earlier but the Dude peed on it.  So my Lucky Charms Shirt will have to do.

Erin Go Bragh!

Husband took this while I was away with the ladies from church. I’ve now watched it 84 times. Approximately. So freaking cute.

Marie’s Wedding/Wind That Shakes The Barley : Tres de Solei Nothing fancy, but an Irish Reel for St. Patty’s, courtesy of my previous life. PS That distraction I was working on? Yeah, there’s going to be like 30 screaming toddlers here tomorrow. In my house. Yes, I’m a total crackhead.

Marie’s Wedding/Wind That Shakes The Barley : Tres de Solei

Nothing fancy, but an Irish Reel for St. Patty’s, courtesy of my previous life.  

PS That distraction I was working on?  Yeah, there’s going to be like 30 screaming toddlers here tomorrow.  In my house.  Yes, I’m a total crackhead.

the sun is shining.

I mean seriously, like some evil goo from a sci-fi movie, the snow retreated so FAST in just a few days, leaving a muddy desolate-looking mess behind.  The sky was grey for an entire week and the fog was so thick I couldn’t see across the street.  Not helping the gloom that winter brought me where every morning I would contemplate the pros and cons of bringing my hair dryer into the shower with me.

But the sun is out.  OUT.  It’s not refecting off of snow so it flippin’ blinds you - it is just shining and warming me up - also hopefully drying the mud (barf).

I actually feel kind of human.

Of course, now there’s the issue of finding somewhere to live - and Husband is trying to talk me into letting him buy a storefront with an apartment upstairs so he can build a museum devoted to root beer.  UUuuuuuuuggggg.

At least the sun is shining.

just one of those days

le sigh… I give up.  Today just had crummy mojo.  I don’t want to write a long, morose entry.  My face feels crusty from all the crying (Dude and I were competing, he won by a whine).  In no particular order, some things that have made my day less than stellar:

• I just took the Dude to the doctor because he only screams like that when it’s an ear infection.  But nothing, thank heavens, he’s just crabby.  Um, yay?


• Oh, he almost killed himself twice today.  I found him choking on a cotton ball (still shaking over that one) and when I freaked out and cleaned the living room of all the little toys, he scooted himself in his walker to the edge of the staircase.  I have to childproof already?  And you know for the next year and a half at least (if I’m lucky) I’ll get to go through that lovely stage where he’ll alternately adore me and despise me for not letting him run/crawl wherever the heck he wants to.  I am so not up for this.


• I’ve been blogging for over 10 years.  Seriously.  And in that time I have never had a reliable commenting system, and Disqus is pushing me over the edge.  Comments are like freaking Christmas.  You amazing readers kept me alive during the joys of PPD.  And when Megan died, the people who shared their comfort were amazing and so very needed.  And people I love have been having trouble commenting.  I’m missing out on Christmas.  DANG IT.  I am aarrggg, wondering why why why again again again (officially, I think it’s a problem with IE).  I don’t want to have to go to blogger, I dodn’t really dig it, but I just might have to.  And don’t say Wordpress - it makes my brain hurt.  Darn it, I like Tumblr.


• I had this brilliant idea to distract me from how sad I’ll be on St. Patty’s Day, I’d throw a party!  I don’t know many people, but some people from church, maybe the people from my mothers of preschoolers group?  The more the merrier, right!  Then it hits me - WHAT HAVE I DONE??  There’s going to be over 20 kids here under 3 and I have to entertain and feed??  I can’t even entertain or feed my own 2 kids!  I think I’m going to be sick.


• WonderGirl is currently in her room, screaming in agony that there isn’t another episode of Wow Wow Wubzy to watch.  Shrieking, kicking, spastic.  The horror.

Aaaaaaaaand, that’s a wrap.  I hope.

a bit of housekeeping

So I’ve gotten numerous reports that Disqus has been being tempermental and sometimes just plain rude to a few of you, so I added a comment box on the sidebar over there where you can hopefully get through without any trouble in case of Disqus disgust.

Go, say something, lessee if it works!

GPOYW - Is Anybody In There? edition.

Dude wanted to say hi. And then sneeze and giggle.

Dude wanted to say hi. And then sneeze and giggle.

Sometimes I think about those few (very few!) days of courting with the Husband, and wish it felt that way all the time still.  But it’s a ebb and flow, good days and boring ones where this guy I am crazy for has seen me in all my morning-breath-at-6am-was-awake-with-the-baby-all-night glory and is still willing to make out with me.

It’s nice to be bored with someone.

*Although, when my someone gets bored he starts buying vehicles.  Can’t be bored for too long over here.

(iamblessed: lifeonpaper)

(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To : Weezer This got me grooving this morning.

(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To : Weezer

This got me grooving this morning.

yeah…. 16 kinds of awesome.

(librarianpirate:morninggloria)

The Peepoo Bag: A Biodegradable, Single-use Toilet

Anders Wilhelmson, a Swedish architect, professor, and entrepreneur, has developed this thing called the Peepoo bag. It’s a single-use toilet for slums in the developing world where there aren’t permanent facilities. From The New York Times:

Once used, the bag can be knotted and buried, and a layer of urea crystals breaks down the waste into fertilizer, killing off disease-producing pathogens found in feces.

This is a great invention. Not only does this bag give people a more sanitary way of dealing with their waste, it also reduces plastic trash and provides some fertilizer. It may seem a little gross, but in slums the alternatives are often much grosser. Wilhelmson plans to sell these for 2 to 3 cents each. I imagine the challenge will be getting them distributed. (hunsonisgroovy)

Doesn’t this make you just feel good about humanity, that someone would invent something so useful and humane?  We need more inventors like this, bravo!

So you've mentioned LDS and such a few times. I was just wondering if you've seen the show Big Love and what your thoughts were, hate it - like it .. whatever.

I haven’t seen the show, and when I first heard about it, I was trepidatious. We LDS are a little sensitive about negative attitudes towards us. Might have something to do with the time it was actually legal to kill us (“Missouri: Come for the good BBQ, stay for the legal right to murder someone based on their religion!”) Anywho, the polygamy thing is another thing that is oft misunderstood and it’s difficult to get anyone to recognize that it’s not a part of our religion and hasn’t been in over 100 years because there’s always something wrong out there perpetuating false information about it.

Yes, I know there is a disclaimer at the beginning of the show saying that it has nothing to do with the LDS religion, but hiring former members of our church to detail our sacred temple ceremonies and use LDS terminology in regular dialouge blur the line between “We’re not trying to hurt the LDS religion” and “We’ll say we’re sorry if you get offended, but we’ll do whatever we want anyway because we believe ‘sacred’ things are just archaic.” And, aside, we’re not secretive. Anyone can go to the temple, it’s open to everyone, you just have to go through the process like anyone else of being baptized and preparing themselves spiritually for it. Being held to a higher standard? The world doesn’t do that much anymore, or treat things sacred, but we do, so we don’t go plastering those things all over the place. Yeah, I still have to work to obey all of those 10 commandments. Even keeping the Sabbath day holy and using the Lord’s name in vain (that’s #4 and #3 if you’re interested). Case in point, when the whole cartoon of Mohammed in the Danish newspaper got all heated, there were papers all over the world that decided not to print it because they knew the prophet Mohammed was sacred to the Muslims and they didn’t want to offend them… for a multitude of reasons there. The Danish newspaper felt differently, and I think a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t for keeping sacred things sacred would have gone a long way in that situation. (I’m not arguing against free speech here - but some things don’t need to be said if they are going to hurt someone and are not necessary).

I’m not a big fan of polygamy. But that’s not anything I have against the show. Maybe someone digs it for the storylines, that’s their perogative. But executive producer Tom Hanks (arguably, nice looking gent) isn’t a fan of the church, and I can’t help but think it’s disregard for us in that light. Whatever. So no, I don’t watch it and don’t want to. I’m not going to blow up a building about it, but I will do my darndest to show a little more respect to people of other faiths to counteract the lack in the cosmos.

Also, Missouri is a lovely place. I was born there. Husband grew up there. And it hasn’t been legal to murder a Mormon there since 1976! Woohoo, just in time for me to be born! :)

Ask me anything

ONE MILLION!! (punches in the face)

Remember how I said I was doing okay with the whole leaving-my-music-dreams-behind?  Oh, I’m working at it, I am SO working at it, but it’s high-holy gig season for a celtic band and not only am I hearing all about the gigs and how woooonderful they are, now they’re posting videos from performances.  So happy for them, REALLY, but it’s like getting punched repeatedly in the face.  Breathing, moving on, DANG IT. Interwebs friends, please distract me.  Tell me a joke, anything.  And if you post a video of yourself doing a raindance or getting hit on the head (I don’t know why I find those so hilarious), I might have to give you a medal.

Spring is coming. Grass us peeking out from under the snow, and husband took this to work today. Sigh, yes, he got one. We all knew it was just a matter if time until he got one, since whatever Husband wants, Husband gets. Case in point: moi.

I wore short sleeves today. Under a wool coat, but it was the principle of the thing. Dang, can’t wait to stop wearing socks!

It’s never going to get old.

(via cjanerun)

Disruption aside, I want this to be my kid.

(oksothisonetime:loveyourchaos: letsgobananas:cookieeline:dirtyprettything)

Hahahahahaha!  This just made me feel 3 feet smarter.

(cjanerun:pigtailsbowsxsandos:whomcwhat)

Not that I’ve ever considered this…

(applearts:sabino)

I'll take it.

A few days ago, a single lady friend of mine and I were chatting via the Facebooks about the sad state of the single mens - when Husband piped in and started thinking of chaps he knew he could set her up with.  He’s apparently good at this, because since we all take credit in some small way for setting my my brother with his now PERFECTFORHIM fiancee (okay, I’m trying to take a big pile of credit since I’m the one who married Husband) it was actually Husband who was the first to say “Hey, you know who would go really well with your brother?” and voila, the perfect relationship was born.

But this is not my point.  Although the match is 184 kinds of awesome.  So he suggested our friend check out his cousin on the Facebooks and apparently they have hit it off as well.  That is not the point either.

A day later she was chatting with Husband about things and she mentioned the reason she’d messaged me that day was because she’d been feeling fed up with the same ol’ boys who want the nice, safe same ol’ girl - especially the Mormon ones, and she apparently wanted to commiserate and get some perspective from moi, a fellow un-cookie cutter, unstereotypical gal.

Let’s blame it on the hormones, shall we?  Did I just get called something other than boring midwestern housewife??  I cried it made me so happy.  And then Husband told me the crying was lame and x-ed out my briefly-held cool points.  But for a second someone remembered I was NOT as I unfortunately appear today?  Oh yeah, I’ll take it.

GPOYW - I’m contemplating renaming Dude to Grin-ny McGrin-erson edition.

I have no use for a business card at the moment, but when I do again, I’m totally doing this.

(via applearts:SINGLE_AD_PAGE)

WOOOOOOO!!!!!!

(via bitterdepths)

I'd like a medal please.

When we moved to Brasil, I missed America.  I missed Super Target, conveniences… well, mostly Super Target.  But I didn’t cry about it.  I only cried about leaving my band.  Then, I got to move back, rejoin and even start another awesome band.  Sweet.

But life goes on, family expanded, the recession hit and we had to move on.  I’ve put on my big girl pants and I haven’t cried about my lost music in months.  I don’t plan on it now.  But on days when I get a note about upcoming gigs and the bands playing my tunes - I let my soul ache for a brief moment, and move on.  How unlike my drama queen self.

That deserves a medal, I think.  That’s the for the drama queen.

Ok Go : ‘This Too Shall Pass ’ - but with a whole bunch of Rube Golberg machines, not a marching band! How much fun must this have been to make?? (via iamemmathea)

[youtube=[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]]

Some days he drives me completely batty. A Gemini unlike any I’ve ever met, he can be the crankiest man you’d ever meet or the awesomest. And then there’s a day like today when he reminds me just why I love him and why this whole marriage things is a good idea. He took the day off to watch over our wee sick family so I could lay in bed and groan as peacefully as possible. Such a good idea, this helpmeet thing.

(this pic is a few weeks old, but how adorable is it??? Goodness, I gots handsome mens.)

Ooooooh, I want my mommy. The trip was full of cousin awesomeness and relaxation, but upon returning home, WonderGirl threw up for 2 days. I figured it was a combination of food poisoning and car sick, but 2 days later I woke up with the same malady.

I feel awful, but part of me is hoping this might aid me in the attempt to lose my spare tire. Oh, I’m not as bad as K-Fed up there (yet…) but I’m starting to notice the connection my mom swore would be there between eating junk and flab that was not there previous to the big three-oh.

Ug, and speaking of 30, I’m starting to understand why wise Mamabear also says child rearing is for the young. This pain and puke-age reminds me of pregnancy and I am pretty sure I can’t go through another year of nausea and fighting suicidal thoughts. I have never felt so old. That might be the stomach flu talking. But as long as it is, it also says it’s going to kill me. Heeeeellllpppp.