Done.

Now time for a big glass of wine.

The great state of consumerism

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I did! So now onward we roll toward the remainder of the holidays in a mad dash to the end of year, right? And may I emphasize the phrase "mad dash"?

OK, I'm going to step up on my soapbox now and express my opinions on something that I think has gotten way out of control: consumerism.

Take the case of a seemingly unsuspecting temp worker at a Walmart in Long Island. I don't know his whole story, but I would assume since he's working as a temp he needs some extra cash and so his job that day was to attempt to manage the crowd that was gathering before they opened their doors at 5 am this morning. Well, he was trampled to death. Trampled to death by people running to get the best deal on a laptop, a toy, a stereo or whatever they are in such a hurry to buy. And again, this guy was trampled to death by a group of shoppers. No, these weren't needy folks in search of food because they were starving, no they were shopping.

Yep, shopping.

This is surely a Black Friday.

And I never shop on this day. Good thing, because I may get trampled to death.

(My sympathies go out to this poor man's family)

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Especially the night before Thanksgiving. It used to be a time when all of my friends that I hadn’t seen in sometimes a whole year would converge from all our respective places upon one bar in my hometown and reunite. We’d drink all night, go home, sleep until noon the next day and then gorge ourselves on turkey until we fell asleep again while watching our favorite football team. Ah, those were the days.

Well, things are quite different now. While I still don’t host Thanksgiving, which is fine with me, I don’t exactly have the opportunity to get drunk tonight, my friends live all over the country, my kids wake up by 7:00 am, and I never get to sit during a holiday for longer than 15 minutes let alone 3 hours for a football game. Life has certainly changed. And I don’t lament the days gone passed; every phase of life has its own opportunities and challenges. I like my life now, it’s just always amazing how much things have changed.

And change is a good thing. I certainly wouldn't still want to be that girl hanging out in the bar at my age. And it’s really hard to even imagine life before I had my kids. Somehow they seem to have been part of me my entire life, although I know that’s not true. So I’m truly thankful for them, thankful that I met my husband so long ago in such an accidental way (I do believe in fate for that very reason), thankful that we all have our health back – I can hear and Dave is starting to get back to normal – and thankful that even though life can be challenging, I am still alive and still in the game.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And then there was poop

After some cajoling, some bribing, some live demos, and a power point presentation, Andrew actually decided today was the day he wanted to poop in the potty. Hence today we begin the long road to a diaper-less free household. I know, long road to come as I've had prior experience. But let's just savor this moment for a little while, k?

P.S. Sorry for the poop post. But just had to share. Oh and Andrew, when you're old enough to read, try to forgive me.

Soup cans and cows heads

An Andy Warhol exhibit that will take place exclusively in Columbus, Ohio (I know, go figure that!) is currently on display at the Wexner Center through February of 2009. I plan to go soon because I love his art. So in the tradition of the great master of pop art and culture, I give you me and Andrew's 15 minutes of fame:

Taken at the Reading Festival!

Space case

If there's one thing I've learned about motherhood, is that I have very little space of my own anymore. Toys and kid paraphernalia seem to be everywhere. An action figure in the couch, a car to trip over in the middle of the night or those real great finds like an old sippy cup under the couch full of curdled milk. (Admit it, even you neat freaks out there have come across something like that in your house). As a mother of two sons I don't anticipate a lot of cleaning in the future either.

So today I couldn't help but notice the condition of my craft table since I couldn't, um, do any crafts on it. But if you look really closely, you'll see someone left me a present:


I spy a hammer, a star, a blue box to hold a buck, nail scissors, a bedazzler and a little toy truck...


And then there's the medieval castle warrior greeting me in the morning from my end table:

(Note the attempt at trying to live simply)

And there are the daily masterpieces of messes. Like today's:


And then at night, with my feet up watching my favorite tv show, I get to view all the toys that surround me:


...with an audience from the other side of the room:


Somedays I feel like the walls are caving in.

Indoor fun: Part deux

During the summertime, when I'm not enjoying a drink with my husband on our deck, my weekends are usually spent either gardening, letting the kids roam free in our big backyard with their toys or taking them on excursions to the pool, the bike trails, the parks or community festivals. Easy entertainment for kids looking to blow off some energy.

With today being our first snowfall here in Ohio (can you believe that!?!?), cold weather season has officially descended. As mentioned in my previous post, to avoid climbing the walls, we’re always on the lookout for fun indoor activities around town. This year we joined COSI, a science center here in Columbus. My son CJ loves science, and since he is only in first grade doesn’t yet get a lot of exposure to it in his curriculum at school. So we went there over the weekend for a couple hours and the kids had great fun. The good thing about the membership is that we can come and go as we please and not feel pressured to have to do the whole place in one day.

CJ got picked out of the audience to go on stage for a static electricity demonstration, and although he was a little reticent at first, by the end he was excited as is evidenced by the series of photographs…

As for Andrew, they currently have a Sesame Street-themed exhibit about the human body that is geared mostly for toddlers and young kids. They had a blast at that, too.

Sometimes I think I should do reviews for events with the amount of things I take the kids to around town. I say that, because I’ll tell someone like my sister in law, who has lived here for about 20 years, about something we’ve done over a weekend, and she’ll say “You did that here in Columbus? I didn’t even know about that…” In the past 5 years that we’ve lived here I’ve developed a pretty long list of destinations to pick from. And I’m super cheap. I’m always on the lookout for either free or next to free. I usually always pack food and water bottles and rarely travel more than 10 miles. The good thing about my kids is that they are still at an age where they like to be with me and like to explore all sorts of places. And they are not over-indulged in modernity that they can’t appreciate the simple things. I love that about them. So even though I get very little cleaning done around my house, I have to think that these things are more important, right? (However, if I don’t clean my bathroom soon, we won’t have to travel father than our upstairs to see another science experiment).

Indoor fun

So now that the weather has officially changed and I'm pretty positive we're over the indian summer we've been having, it becomes yet again the time of year to start thinking about the indoor activities. I'm already missing the days of summer when a backyard full of opportunities was a few feet away and the splashing of a refreshing pool was just a short drive. Alas, holiday season is fast approaching as evidenced by the crowds at the mall already, so while I look forward to the end of year festivities, every year at this time, I sigh that the summer is over. We had really great weather here in Ohio and summer always seems to give you that constant "playing hooky" type of feeling where you can go outside during your lunch hour and catch a few rays, or sneak out of work early to take the kids to the park, or enjoy a ladies night out on a sunset-soaked patio having laughs with your friends. Ahhh, the joys of warm weather. It can't come back soon enough.

So to get out of the four walls around us, today we went to a reading festival at the library which was super fun for Andrew since it was really geared toward babies and toddlers. He struck a pose with the Very Hungry Caterpillar:

And then Winnie the Pooh:
Daddy came along today, too in our first all family-member excursion since his illness. He's starting to feel better which is making us all feel better, too.

So as things start to get more back to normal around the house, I'm re-grouping a little and got a little groove back today. I'm feeling crafty again, and worked on this today:



Revelry Press is the name of the business I'm working on to launch on Etsy. I'm thinking of doing some more variations of it with different words/letters/colors and symbols. I really like shabby -chic with flourishes and distressed type. With this small canvas, I layered 3 colors 0f paint with brushes and paper towels, layered again with some rub-ons, added some sparkles and metal stars and glued grograin ribbon around the edge, and voila. While it's no masterpiece, I'm ecstatic about the newfound creative energy. After a hiatus, it's always the 1st piece that's the hardest.

Yep, still tingling

The excitement for the fact that my guy actually won this time around hasn't really worn off yet. To put in perspective how long it's been since a Democrat has been in the White House, here are some fun facts of how much has happened in my life in 8 years:

• I became a mother twice: in 2001 and 2006.
• I moved 3 times.
• I've held 5 different jobs (including my current one).
• I've been married 100% of the time and it has been 80% of my marriage.
• I got a new car.
• Two old cars died.
• I filed bankruptcy.
  
• Then 5 years later, I bought a house.
• I started a business.
• I started blogging.
  
• I made new friends; in real life and online.
• I voted. Three times.
  

And not mention everything else that's happened nationally.

A lot can happen in the next four years. I can't wait to see how much will happen for the country. I would think whether you are Republican or Democrat, you've got to feel the movement.

0-H-I-O for OBAMA

All I have to say about the election is:
YIPPPPEEEEEE!

More comprehensive thoughts to come later, but today I'm doing the happy dance.

Scream all you want, I can't hear you

That's my motto these last 2 days. I was diagnosed with an ear infection at the urgent care on Saturday and my right ear is so clogged I can hear myself talk inside my head, along with a constant ringing. Armed with amoxicillian and acetominophen, I plan to kick this within the week's time. I assume I picked it up from Andrew, who was diagnosed with an ear infection about 10 days ago. I swear, between all these sicknesses that have been going on in my family this past month, the pharmacy counter at Kroger is getting to know me by my first name. We have never been so sick.



So for the record, in addition to the ringing in my ear, I am officially sick of:

• medication
• co-pays
• sleepness nights
• hospitals
• doctors
• and mucous

CJ asked a really obvious question Saturday as I returned from the urgent care, "If dada is sick, and now you are sick, who is going to take care of us?"

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Oh and even our internet service is sick because we've had spotty internet connections at home this past week, so I'm sneaking this at work during lunch. Shh.

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But life goes on, right? Onto Halloween. The kids had a fun Halloween night. We went out with our friends and their kids. It was great weather which made a huge difference.

The kids got loads of candy. My kids aren't big on sweets, so while they like the action of collecting it, they aren't real big on eating themselves into a sugar high. For sweets it's usually just chocolate that they like, and specifically M&Ms. And only so many people give away M&Ms. They don't like the sweetarts, or starburst or any other fruit flavored candy. Much to my delight, because I LOVE all those fruit flavored stuff. And then I also get to have the other chocolate that they don't eat like snickers bars and stuff. Andrew's not going to miss his candy right?

What is your favorite treat for Halloween?