Archive for September, 2007

Sep 28 2007

Recycle Friday #1

Published by under amy's head,daily,kids

It has come to my attention that I have been writing on this here blog about 2 years. I am not sure exactly when the first post was, because somewhere around 4-5 months in, our server crashed and I lost everything. I retrieved much of it through the miracle of google and it’s cached pages, but I know I started blogging after I went back to work (which was in September) and before Halloween. So I hereby declare today my blogiversary.

When I was up really late the other night, I started looking back through my archives and found some stuff that I had totally forgotten. Some stuff made me go, ‘Awwwww’, and some stuff made me laugh so loud I was afraid I was going to wake people up. Who were upstairs. With their doors shut. Yeah. That loud.

So I’m going to start a new thingee, which I’m calling Recycle Friday, but really, I think that’s kind of a dopey name, so if you can think of a better one, I’m all ears. See, it’s really a trick to not have to write, and yet still have a regular post! I find something I wrote PREVIOUSLY… and link to that! Brilliant, huh! I mean, I have all that content back there, why not just recycle? See, I’m saving my typing fingers from having to type something new, AND SAVING OUR MOTHER EARTH. Whee-ha!

So today’s is a look back is super short. And it made me spit out my diet coke when I read it. Again. Even though I read it a few nights ago at 1am and it made me laugh then too. Now that I’ve built it all up, here you go:

From this year, January 25, 2007: Funny HA HA

Have a loverly weekend!

-amy is a bill. just a bill. and she’s standing here on capital hill.

3 responses so far

Sep 27 2007

youtube: william tell overture for moms

Published by under amy's head,daily,likes & irks

This is pretty good.

Comments Off on youtube: william tell overture for moms

Sep 27 2007

jocelyn update and cute kid stories: Jocelyn and all the SINGING

Published by under amy's head,daily,kids

It’s five minutes til midnight and I’ve decided to post instead of heading up to bed. LUCKY YOU!

So, yesterday I took Jocelyn to the doctor, because she’s had this damn cold for over THREE WEEKS NOW. I usually have to kind of waffle and think this over, but I’ve been paying attention! She was congested when we went on our Labor Day Not Really Camping Trip, which was well over three weeks ago.

Our doctor looked her over showed me how to feel for her glands, and wrote out a prescription for antibiotics. Of course, one doesn’t want to do the antibiotics, but we’ve had a pretty decent spell of well ness in the household, and if you had been here the night before and heard my poor baby coughing and hacking, you would have throttled the doctor until she gave you something, ANYTHING to make your baby feel better too. Ahem.

I’m kidding of course, I did no such thing, and I was TERRIBLY saddened to hear from our pediatrician that she will be dropping our health insurance carrier in march. I was SO SAD. Our doctor is the best. she really is. She once stayed in her office for an hour because I was delayed in getting the kids from school and then getting from the school to her office (damn rock concert traffic) and she still smiled when we came in. The woman is a saint. I told her that maybe we could switch insurance (because now we use james’ and we could switch to mine) and she almost cried at the thought that we’d switch insurance just to stay with her. If it doesn’t happen, we will miss her so much!

Um, what was I talking about? Oh yes. Jocelyn. See, this is the other downside of writing in the wee smas. So she has had 3 doses of antibiotics now, and she’s still hacking pretty good at night. And we’re trying to give her lots of liquids, which means an increase in nighttime accidents, which has only been a recent accomplishment anyway.

So when James checked on her an hour ago, she had wet her bed, so I went up to change her while James pulled off the sheets, and the poor sweetie did fine, until I tried to pull her Disney Princess jammie shirt off of her, when she wailed and cried and said, “Noooo!”

She really likes that set of jammies.

I’ve been trying really hard to remember the cute Jocelyn things, because I think I write more funny Ethan stories than Jocelyn stories and heaven knows Jocelyn does super cute things too!

So here’s one:

She and I were alone in the car, going to do some errand. It was quiet, except for my ipod going on shuffle. A few songs came on, until The Beatles popped up, Yellow Submarine.

All of a sudden she hollers, “YES!”

Just like you would if you were playing your older brother in air hockey at your grandma’s house and he always beats you because he’s older and better and it’s grandma’s so you don’t get a lot of practice time in, and you try and you try and you try and still that bugger gets it past you and then FINALLY you smack that puck super hard and his reflexes just aren’t quite fast enough, and IN IT GOES! It doesn’t matter that you’re still going to lose the game, YOU GOT IT PAST HIM AT LEAST ONCE, EAT ON THAT, SUCKER! (BTW, Happy Birthday Joseph. You old geezer.)

“YES!” Jocelyn said, exactly like that. Surprised, and delighted, I glance back to look at her, and she’s grinning at me. “I wanted this song, Mommy!” I guess she really wanted that song!!

Today after soccer practice, me and Jocelyn got in the car, leaving Ethan and daddy to come home in Daddy’s car after Ethan’s practice was over. We climbed in, buckled in, and drove away, and Jocelyn said to me, “We have it all to ourselves, Mommy!”

When we got home, we settled down for a nice game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. We played for a while, alternating between popping one marble in at a time and going after it, and piling the whole lot of them in and working 2 hippos each to gobble up the veritable smorgasbord of marbles.

We dug out the marbles and plopped them into the middle, preparing to gorge our little hippos on their marble feast, and just as I was about to begin, she said, “NO! We have to sing God Our Father!”

We’re not a religious household, but our kids’ school does sing a little blessing before the noon meal, and this is the song she was talking about.

“Go ahead,” I said, laughing, and she did. (To the tune of ‘Frere Jocke/Brother John)

“God our father, God our father, we thank you! we thank you! For our many blessings, for our many blessings, aahhhhh-men! ahhhhh-men!”

And with that out of the way, she grinned, leaned down, and the pink hippo could start his marble gobbling!

It’s too bad someone finally corrected her old way of singing “Aw man!” in lieu of the “Amen.”

-amy is a procrastinator.

Comments Off on jocelyn update and cute kid stories: Jocelyn and all the SINGING

Sep 25 2007

basement decorating #3

Published by under daily,house

Hi guys.

So, I’m famous! Another Shade of Grey answered my email to her on her website – go check it out!

The colors: I feel so relieved, because it’s what I was thinking myself, but was nervous I’d screw it up. Well, let me clarify. I was thinking “a light brown, but what shade that won’t clash with the floor?” Hi amy. The word you’re looking for is “NEUTRAL.” A-duh! 🙂 Making it a neutral is just the right idea, though while browsing through paint colors, I find my self leaning towards a slight green. I won’t decide until I have the paint cards in hand though, as who knows what computer monitors can do to skew those colors!

Here are some paint choices, all from Lowes American Traditions:

possible paint colors for basement

The bottom 2 are kind of what I was leaning toward before, and now definitely don’t like. Well, “Withered Moss” is all right, but I like the others so much more. I believe the color that is the closest match to the one Jules had, is “Willow Wind.” I think I’d like to take the darker shade in the same family, of “Grassland.” The greener shades appeal to me as well, so I’m sure there’ll be a few test squares going up to see how it looks.

So while I’m at it, here are some pictures of the actual basement itself. I’ve had to fiddle with the exposure/brightness/contrast to try to get the colors right, but it’s still looking a little dark, as well as yellowy. It’s a basement. And it was night when I shot them. What can you do.

Next, I have to update you on the chairs I’m recovering.

On the family front, we spent a horrible night last night due to Jocelyn’s unceasing coughing, the poor darling. She coughed so hard that she spit up/threw up a little bit 🙁 She has been congested since before we went on our little mini vacation before school started, so that’d put us at over THREE WEEKS.. She has never had a fever though, so that’s why I haven’t taken her in, but last night was pretty awful for her. I’m taking her to the doctor this afternoon.

-amy

4 responses so far

Sep 23 2007

doggone it..

Published by under amy's head,daily,house

woe is me.

The sofa I was going to pick up today from a craigslist seller, fell through.

I am so bummed. I LOVE THAT SOFA. It was too good to be true, I guess.

So, it’s not like we’re urgently awaiting a sofa to sit on or anything, the room isn’t even painted yet, so we can wait and see if something else comes along on craigslist.

But a part of me just wants to rush out and buy a sofa RIGHT NOW. I even checked the hours of the Crate and Barrel outlet nearby. I’ve no idea if they usually have furniture. And if so, how damaged it would be.

I scoured the Ikea website (I actually took the kids there today to scope out possible media center solutions) looking for a cheaper alternative. “Eh.” was my reaction. The Kramfors or possibly the Klippan are the only ones that slightly appealed to me, and I don’t like the WIDENESS of everything. that’s why I love the Camden. Narrow and sleek. No chunkiness whatsoever.

I just don’t think I can compromise.

Going to just have to wait a few months, save my pennies, and get the Camden.

It’s hard to be chipper about this, I was really looking forward to having the couch down there and moving it around to see what might work.

I guess on the bright side, if we end up buying it new, we will be able to choose a fabric/color we like the best (although the green worked fine for me.) Maybe chocolate brown?

So.

Yeah.

Totally bummed out. 🙁

My advice – if you convince someone via email to let something go for less than their asking — RUN and go pick it up. Don’t wait 48 hours. Because they’ll probably change their mind/get an offer for their full price/decide they like it a lot after all, and then you’re totally screwed.

le sigh.

Comments Off on doggone it..

Sep 21 2007

basement decorating #2

Published by under amy's head,daily,house

So, I am having a hard time with this basement design stuff. We are getting our sofa on Sunday, and yet I still need to pick a paint color. Not that I’m going to have time to paint in the next few weeks anyway, but all I can think about (especially now that our sofa’s arrival is IMMINENT!) is how all the elements are going to work together? I’m deathly afraid of picking a paint color that isn’t going to WORK, and then James will sniff at me and tell me how fickle I am. I don’t want that! I want to be CONFIDENT! 🙂

Ergh.

So to help my brain try to bring all these components up, I tried to do a little design elements sheet thingee. You always see these type of things on the design shows, right? So with the help of a little photoshop… here we go (sorry it is so long!)

basement design elements

I originally thought the palette would be a nice chocolate brown on the walls, greenish touches in the furniture (the sofa is green, some green pillows on the chairs, maybe a greenish rug..) and then some real pops of bright color – I originally thought turquoise, but for some reason now I’m leaning towards yellow, or even a bright red. Maybe because there is already a good bit of turquoise in the amy butler fabric?

The deep shelves pictured to serve as the TV media stand I like, but not necessarily in white – and I also envision floating shelves on the wall above the TV as well.

Obviously there’s a few elements missing above, we’re not going to do a coffee table, but a large flat ottoman might be just the ticket, we’re going to need a rug, and some side tables, and I’m thinking a table on the backside of the sofa. I feel like these will come together after I get the basics down (like establishing the color palette). I also have to remember that this is a BASEMENT with only ONE tiny window, so maybe a dark brown on the walls is NOT a good idea? Any thoughts on that? As well as being our prime TV viewing area (while I dream about sofas and paint chips, James is currently dreaming about Visio and Samsung) this room will serve other functions as well (toy area, mommy’s craft/sewing/office area). There’s a floorplan of the room on this post, although we’re now picturing the sofa and tv rotated 45degrees clockwise from what is on that picture.

I still have some time, but it is ticking away. I can’t wait to make this space FUNCTIONAL again! Any thoughts and ideas you have, please comment!

I’m also going to send this post along to one of my favorite design blogs, Another Shade of Grey – she has a keen eye for color and design as well as awesome vintage pieces (she has a store with her vintage finds), and has helped many others do little mini make-overs of their space.. maybe she can help kick me off in the right direction for mine!

Some other folks she’s helped:

M’s Bedroom

Annie’s bathroom

And Julietta, who’s black and white kitchen I ADORE.

Check out Another Shade of Grey – you won’t be sorry 🙂

-amy

4 responses so far

Sep 19 2007

cute kid stories – Ethan, and Love

Published by under daily,kids

Ethan loves us. He likes to tell us this in a variety of ways. His favorite, is the measuring of love. There are a variety of measurements.

By bigness,

“I love you bigger than a HOUSE! I love you bigger than the WHOLE WORLD!”

By speed,

“I love you THIS FAST!” (He takes off running.)

Comparatively,

“I love you! I love you even more than the SANDBOX!”
“Even more than legos?”
(he has to think this one over, but only for a teeny second.
“Even more than LEGOS!”

And on a scale of one to ten,

“I love you TEN!”

I love the comparative and scale of one to ten ways, because you can kind of mess with his head a little bit:

“What about Daddy?”
“I love Daddy TEN TOO!”
“How about Pookie Bear?”

See, now he’s torn. Because Pookie Bear is his most beloved object in all the world. (even more than the sandbox. Even more than legos. Even more than *gasp* GARBAGE TRUCKS!)

“I love Pookie Bear a 10 too!”
“How about the sandbox.”

Now he’ll start to get all introspective and thoughtful. It’s terribly amusing.

“I think I like the sandbox an eight. And legos too.”

And as he gets all introspective he’ll lose track of where certain things rate.

“And I love garbage trucks ALL THE WAY TO TWENTY!!”
“But hey, I thought you loved me to ten!?”
“Well, I can love you to A HUNDRED!”

One last way he likes to show his love is to run at you with roughly the speed of a bullet newly escaped from the chamber and plow into you like a linebacker. You see, in his mind, speed is equivalent to his love. So it doesn’t matter how much I tell him to slow down and be gentle with his mommy lest she fall backwards and smack her head on the pavement, he is unable to slow down. Because that would mean he loves me less. And he just couldn’t have that, now could he?

The very cute thing about Ethan is these eloquent profusions of his love, which can come at any time, right in the middle of any conversation.

So it was especially cute when we sat down to Papa John’s pizza on Sunday night.

“I LOVE PAPA JOHN’S PIZZA! I LOVE IT A TEN!!”
“What do you love us?”
“Oh, you’re a 9.”

(James and I had to try to control the cracking up.)

“Only a NINE?”
“Yes! Because PAPA JOHN’S is the BEST PIZZA IN THE WOOOOORRRRLD!”

A minute later,

“You know what makes me grow?”
“What?”
“Pizza.”

Ahh, to be five.

Comments Off on cute kid stories – Ethan, and Love

Sep 17 2007

sadness

Published by under amy's head,daily

I have a lot of news from the weekend, cute things the kids did, tales from the soccer games and lots of crafty activity to report on.

But last night we got some terrible news. A friend of James and I, was expecting a baby girl very soon. She was born and died after just a few hours. I just can’t stop the tears. I’m so, so terribly sorry. My heart goes out to them and their wee little lady. May they have strength to face the days to come.

One response so far

Sep 13 2007

oh my LORD i’m a real live soccer mom

Published by under amy's head,daily,kids

(I wrote this yesterday. I’m too lazy to change any of the tenses. So here you go:)

Not only a soccer mom, but the TEAM MANAGER of our team.

When I registered the kids in soccer late last spring, there was a checkbox for if you’re interested in being a team manager. I hovered over the checkbox, and I swear to GOD I did not check it, but I did think about checking it. In the end, I’m pretty sure I left it unchecked and said to myself, “If they need team managers, they’ll send out an email, and maybe THEN I’ll volunteer.”

So I was shocked & stunned when the weekend before soccer started (we’re on week 2 now), an email came from Jocelyn’s team coach saying hi and mentioned that I’m the team manager.

I emailed him back and said there must have been a mistake.

There wasn’t any, and it certainly wasn’t his fault if there was, so after he reassured me that yes, my name was listed on teh list they gave him, I just went with it.

I mean, all I have to do is organize the snack schedule, right? And plan the end of season party (very low key, bring donuts, head to a pavillion, take up a collection for the coaches, no big deal).. and hand out the picture packets to the parents the week before pictures.

This is easy. I can totally do this, I thought. Sure, I totally wandered around the field last spring searching for the field for Ethan’s first soccer game like an EEDIOT, but that was then. This is now. I can do it. I can be a soccer mom.

Fast forward (or backwards i guess) to the first soccer practice last week.

Unfortunately for us, Ethan’s practice is at a different school then Jocelyn’s. They are both at 6pm, but in different places. So we arranged for James to take Ethan to his, and I would take Jocelyn to hers. I was going to pick them up from school, get them home, fed, changed, and ready to go.

At about 5:37 as I was still en route to home, both kids in the car, and James called me to ask where the hell I was, I replied that he’d better get all their stuff and meet us at the school where Ethan’s practice was being held (closer to me than Jocelyn’s.) He did, and we did, and it wasn’t until 5:55 that I pulled out of the parking lot and headed to the school where Jocelyn’s practice was being held. We arrived at about 6:02 and I hurriedly changed her out of her school clothes and into her soccer gear (including cleats!) and then headed off to find her field.

Now this field is nothing like the game day field. That field is huge, and has like.. oh, 117 fields on it. The school practice fields only had 5ish fields, and it was the same field that Ethan had practiced on in the spring, so I was pretty confident that we’d find her field easily.

Which did not happen. I had a vivid flashback of Ethan’s first game in the spring, as I walked up to the various groups and asked, “which field is this? What team are you? Who’s your coach’s name?” and drew a blank for each one. Time was ticking along and I was still in my nice work clothes, trotting around a school field feeling like an idiot. Someone finally filled me in that our field was on the OTHER SIDE OF THE SCHOOL… a fact that our coach had actually emailed the entire team and I ignored, thinking, “oh i know that field, i’ll know where to go.”

So finally, we trot off across the field, backt hrough the parking lot across another field to the backside of teh school where finally we arrived at our team’s practice. at 6:15.

Some soccer mom/team manager I am, eh? 🙂

Ahh well. Today I’m leaving in plenty of time, and I’ve dutifully printed out schedules with each week’s game time, what side our kids’ jersey’s are supposed to be on (blue or gold), who’s in charge of the snack, and what field we’ll be playing on.

It only takes away some of the stupid.

I always feel odd being a “soccer mom,” (and I obviously like to make fun of myself as such,) but the truth is, when you’re at soccer practice or a game and you’re watching your kid run around trying to kick the ball, you forget all about the surburban soccer mom stereotypes that caused you to want to dye your hair pink in the first place just to FEEL A LITTLE DIFFERENT OH MY GOD WTFBBQ… (ahem) and you just watch your kid having fun…

and you start to have fun to 🙂

– amy (you’ll still never see me with a soccer mom bumper sticker)

2 responses so far

Sep 12 2007

luray caverns

Published by under daily,likes & irks,photos

luray caverns

luray caverns

luray caverns

luray caverns

2 responses so far

Next »