I’m out of the funk. Too bad. I could have joined George Clinton!

Mailed about $5 worth of stuff today overnight that cost many many times that. But what’s the fun of christmas presents not arriving on christmas? NONE AT ALL! So oh well.

Jocelyn turned up a 103.9 fever yesterday at school. James went and fetched her and took her to the doctor who confirmed my fear, strep. I’m glad we got it diagnosed quickly. I’m home with her today, and no fever, so that is nice. We’ve been wrapping presents, watching movies, baking cookies, watching movies, packing boxes to ship, watching movies, and also, some watching movies. I figure she’s sick! So it’s ok! We’ve gone through Cinderella, Toy Story 2 (hello! JESSIE!! The sequel is the obvious choice here!) and now we’re on Totoro. We haven’t seen Totoro in such a long time and I just ADORE it. Little girls being girls, and wonderful fantastical myth creatures. I 3> Totoro. I have an idea now to make a little black soot sprite softie. It would be super easy, flat with pokies and white, round eyes.

Our house is quite the wreck, and I know that James will come home with disappointment in his eyes that I didn’t manage to tidy ANYTHING up, so I’m going to go have a go at that now.

I WISH OH I WISH I had taken some pictures of the wooden clothespin doll cuteness I sent to my nieces Clara and Avery, but I could not find the camera. Woe is me. I’ll be making more for Jocelyn (and myself) so pictures are still in the crazymokes future.

I am feeling OK, my toes are cold, and I have realized that probably some of the funk? Reason #4, if you will? Was the messy messy house. So I really need to tackle that to fill in the hole, so to speak, rather than fall back in it.

I’m off to sort piles of magazines and mail.. wish me luck.

– amy sings, “let’s go walking you with me!!”

.. and I don’t know why.

#1 I’d like to blame the drugs I’ve been taking (muscle relaxer for a majorly knotted up back, stayed home tuesday because of the inability to move my head). However, the side effects listed include dizziness and nausea, but nothing about being bitchy and wanting to run away from home to a tropical island while crying “WOE IS ME!” The drugs, I think are not the problem, but the fucked up back probably is. Today it feels better.

#2 I’d like to blame the fact that I decided way too late to make some little things for my family members and need to ship them soon in order for them to get there and am too stressed out about it. This is probably it.

#3 But what I AM blaming is my husband, who is just pissing me off for no reason and I want to throw things at him. I keep thinking of all the reasons why this is ALL HIS FAULT and when the list starts with “needs to clip his fingernails more often” and ends with “should be able to read my mind” even I can tell, in my deranged state, that I am messed up. In the head. As in, KOO-KOO!

I know that the reasons are probably parts #1 and #2 and none of part #3 (maybe a smidge of part #3), but that doesn’t help me stop with the #3 and the need to throw things.

I feel like crying and throwing things. Big lumpy things. Cross your fingers for me, and give James your sympathies for having to live with a crazy woman.

… if i like, wrote things on a regular basis? Things that were not just the progress of the mold growing in my shower (a topic i have considered, so consider yourself lucky) but funny and cute and kid filled and craft filled and funny-amy-thoughts filled?

Yeah, I thought that’d be nice too!

Unfortunately, *I’M* the one running this blog so there’ll be none of that HERE, mister! and missy!

I was looking through the archives and it struck me that hey, I did used to be funny! And even kind of prolific! And you know what else? I took pictures of stuff! And of kids! And then I’d post those pictures here! HULLY GEE! I think that the 2006 Amy was more bloggy* than the 2007 Amy, but we’ll see how the 2008 Amy does.

Let’s see if the 2007 Amy can pull some blogginess out of her ass already even though 2008 Amy is just hovering right over there around the corner waiting to take over.

*bloggy: the turning of something mundane into interesting blog reading.

THE MOLD

HA! You thought you were saved, weren’t you? Yeah, me too, but this is about all I’ve got. HOW in the world does that mold get UNDER the caulk? Around the shower door the caulk isn’t actually white caulk (like it is in the corners) but CLEAR, and so as I’m showering, I can look right through this clear caulk and see this dots of black mold. Black mold is much scarier than just the orange normal shower grout mildew, which you can just scrub right off with James’ and old toothbrush. Black under-the-clear-caulk mold can’t be reached. So how in the world did it get there? But what is even scarier is the WHITE caulk in the corners? It’s turning a kind of dull gray. Which makes me thing that the black mold has infiltrated over there too, and not just in dot-form, but in “LET’S GET IN THERE, MOVE MOVE MOVE!” kind of form. The sad thing is when this house was built and they tell you, “write down all the issues you find and we’ll come fix it after 30 days, I WROTE DOWN MANY ISSUES ABOUT OUR SHOWER. I have this belief that someday, I will be an expert tile-layer, and in my efforts to make that dream a reality, I’ve watched many a tile-laying show in the DIY and HG networks. I examined the grout and saw pin holes. I looked at the wall and thought it looked like it was curving (and if the wallboard that the tile is on is curving, doesn’t this mean that proper cement backerboard wasn’t used? They didn’t just lay tile over drywall, did they? And if so, does that mean one day my shower is going to just fall apart?) I saw globs in the caulk, and I thought the shower leaked out onto the floor a little bit and I WROTE ALL THESE THINGS DOWN.

But they brushed me off. They said, there’s no curve, and they said, pinholes are fine, and they said, your shower isn’t leaking.

So now, 3 years later, the builder long gone (ie: no longer available for me to give lists to and for them to scoff at me and not fix things) there are black spots under my clear caulk and my white caulk is going gray. And the wall still looks all curvey to me. OH, and the leak? The molding just outside the shower in my bathroom has mold growing behind it from the leak.

*sniff*

So now I think, ‘I’m going to have to redo that caulking,’ which I can do (not as well as I do in my dreams, though of course) and have done (ditto) but I have this fear. This fear of stripping away the gray caulk and finding grossness beyond my wildest dreams. Grossness that I fear has crept behind the tiles themselves and that once I strip that caulk away I will then have to hire someone to come in and re-tile my entire shower, and they will shake their heads and state in a southern drawl, “these walls are all curvey, they didn’t use the proper backerboard! sorry miss, we’re in for a bit more than we estimated..” And since I wouldn’t want to pay all that money just to put in the same boring 4″ white tiles that the builder used, I would have to pick beautiful new tiles and do the bath surround as well and of course the floors and then we would simply have to paint as well and the sinks could use updating and suddenly I’d be digging into the home equity loan for a new bathroom and we would still be paying it off three years later when the white caulk in my shower corners would start getting suspiciously gray…

Do you see my dilemma here? Obviously, I need to just leave it alone. If I do recaulk, I’ll be instituting a “dry off the shower with your towel before you exit” rule.

Was that bloggy enough you think? I even have some pictures for tomorrow. Hold your breath.

ps – james has a final today. everyone go wish him luck!

I’m getting all fidgety, and when I get all fidgety, I get kind of freaked out and when I get freaked out, it means I need to keep a pad of paper next to me all day long and write down all the shit I need to do (so then it’s there, and i no longer have to be responsible for remembering it all) and it also means i need to just spit out all the random shit in my head so that it’s out there, and no longer floating around inside my brain and it lets me kind of breath out a big sigh and move on with my life.

So here you go! Random shit in my head! Get ready, because it’s going to be FANTASTIC!

RED, RED WINE
We had folks over on Sunday and it was very lovely. We don’t entertain very often. What can I say, we’re shut ins. Plus, we don’t have many friends. It comes with being shut-ins. But our friend got engaged and we needed to celebrate, so I said, “Hey come over, our basement will be done by then!” It is (basically) done, but far from the kitchen, where the life of the party is always at, so while folks wandered down and had a look (at my table with shit all over it, and the toys strewn all over the floor) and said, “Very nice!” they all wandered back up, because you know, that’s where the food was.

And the wine. Let me just say, that I have not been this drunk… well, I’m going to have to go with ever. There was this one time in Atlanta (which was over 10 years ago now) that might have rivaled it, but that was a long time ago so the memory is hazy, and this was just a few days ago, and the memory is fresh, so i’m going with this one! It was great fun Sunday evening, when all the drinking took place, but not so much great fun Monday morning, when the getting up and going to work needed to take place. If not for the fact that our cleaning ladies were coming, I would have stayed home. But I braved the cruel big world, and wandered out of the house (ha – out of my bed!) with a sick, vaguely unsettled feeling in my gut. No headaches, thanks to the large glass of water and tylenol James brought me the night before, but … unsettled. Like a big hair hand was holding on to my esophogus and threatening to throttle me. It wasn’t nice.

The wine was very good though, I will say that.

THE KIDS, THEY LIKE THE CHRISTMAS

So all last week we had our tree, set up in our family room, but sad and naked, bereft of all trimmings. Saturday evening we got out the christmas boxes and tossed everything on the tree. I bought a lot of stuff last year after it all went on sale, so it looked very magazine cover-y, until that is we got up sunday morning and the kids had “finished” the decorating with the stuff we hadn’t used. So there are gobs of silvery and teal beaded bauble-y garlands all between the 3 1/2 foot and 5 foot section of the tree where they could readh (there was a little foot ladder that they employed) all done while james and I were snug in our beds. It’s pretty cute really, and James finally convinced me to keep it instead of redoing it after they go to sleep. “It’s cute!” he says. And then he says, “we’re probably going to have to start getting you your own tree, aren’t we?”

Yes, yes, we are, because the kids REALLY want to put the colored lights on the tree, and WE’RE NOT HAVING THAT. BECAUSE I SAID SO.

Christmas is all about the love!

CUTE LITTLE GIRLS. STOLEN, LITTLE GIRLS

Remember that list of things that I was so proud of NOT BUYING? Well, ahem.. I bought the last one, which was this kit to make Santa Lucia dolls:

I was so excited when it arrived, and that evening sat down to do some painting. Painting little wooden heads with black, red, brown and yellow hair is so therapeutic. I set them down to dry, where Jocelyn spotted them like a hawk and instantly carried them off. She has taken them to the store (in a little purse), she has taken them to quiet time, she has taken them downstairs, she has taken them to school.
So much for my Santa Lucia dolls!

Just kidding, I don’t grudge them, we have doll pins aplenty, and I went out looking for the round heads to paint more, but couldn’t find any. So I ordered some more online, and as soon as they arrive, we’ll have a little wooden clothespin girl factory around here, because THE CUTENESS. IT’S JUST SO CUTE. Ethan, and .. dare I say James? even likes them, they’re so darn cute.

Ahhhh I feel better. I think that’s enough brain gook for one day.

both for thanksgiving (omg tomorrow!) and christmas crafting:

1. finish the thanksgiving grocery shopping (i have most of it, just a few bits left)
2. finish recovering my chairs – I just realized that we are going to NEED them to sit on around the table! They won’t actually be *finished* because they’ll need piping, but I can still make them serviceable by tomorrow.
3. do prep cooking for tomorrow.

Now the fun list! Christmas crafting:

1. Gumdrop wreath

image and tutorial by alicia from posy gets cozy
– Have the wreath form, need to get wire and gumdrops

2. elf clogs

picture and tutorial by Jenny B from All Sorts
– have felt, have floss, need pom-poms – maybe make my own? not sure i have proper colored yarn

3. hot pads
no pattern, no author, i figure i can manage these with little trouble. If I like how they turn out, I may make them as presents for family

4. silhouettes of my family
– need to get pictures of everyone in profile

5. cork board/inspiration board for over my table
– need to get cork, need to decide what i actually want to do.. simple cover cork board with fabric? or maybe something fancier?

6. amy butler’s gumdrop pillows

– we need ottoman’s in front of the sofa in the basement and I was thinking these woudl be a fun alternative.
– need everything to do these, including pattern, fabric, stuffing. it’s kind of low priority.

7. my martha stewart christmas crafts from michaels:

And gosh darn it if the one i REALLY want is never in stock:

so cute!

-amy

… since I’m feeling a little bit guilty for spending recently (nothing major*, but amy ruppel christmas stuff at target, martha stewart stuff at kmart, more martha stewart at michaels, some stuff off of ebay (christmas is coming, get off my back!) and let’s just say that’s not the end of the story and leave it at that, ok? i do have a marriage to sustain here, and you know the key to that is SECRECY AND LIES AND HIDING THE EVIDENCE SO MUM’S THE WORD), I would like to show you some things that I managed to NOT BUY, even though the item(s) BEGGED me, LEAPT into my cart (online or physical) and yet I DID NOT PURCHASE.

First off, this was actually in my target cart, and I DID NOT BUY IT. I got to the checkout, and put it aside. NOW THAT’S WILLPOWER PEOPLE.

FLOR at Target is just so mean. I mean, they KNEW it would be SO HARD TO RESIST. Poopyheads. *pout*

The aforementioned Amy Ruppel print over at ReForm School.

the white 5×5 expedit bookcase from Ikea. I’ve been watching for this sucker on craigslist for the last 4 months and there’s been birch, there’s been black-brown, there’s been 4×4 but NO 5X5 IN WHITE. I admit, I would own this now if James hadn’t have talked me down off the ledge. I can wait. It will show up on craigslist. I CAN WAIT– she says testily.

Now if you have a 5×5 white expedit bookcase and are ready to move it along.. please contact me!

Oh and then there’s the fabric…

I add it to my cart, but then never check out.

even though i want them..

nay.. I NEED THEM..

I MUST HAVE THEM!!

ARGH!

And finally,

LOOK AT THE SWEETNESS!!

I am kind of sort of hamming it up with all the other stuff, but I seriously had to bite my tongue down.. HARD.. to not order these. And I may give in. Alicia from Posie Gets Cozy is selling these sweet “Santa Lucia and Attendants
Clothespin Dollmaking” kits for only $20, and they would a) be awesome fun to make with the kids and b) look great on my mantelpiece (along with my martha stewart snowy village from michaels *cough*) I am aching for it a little bit. I only have a little while longer to waffle about it though, before they’re gone for good – so you go get some now, won’t you?

The sad thing is there is more that I have managed to not buy that I’m not telling you. Some things which sound kind of crazy, like polyfill in bulk. It’s hard, but I managed to not buy it.

I just want credit for my amazing will power for these things! Is that so much to ask??

that is all.

-amy is a huge talent. she’s kind of a big deal**

*a SKRUVSTA chair off of craigslist for $50 isn’t major, right? RIGHT? RIGHT?!!? I need it to put my yvestown cover pattern to use! Which I’ll of course need to buy fabric for! At least the pattern was purchased some time ago.

**isn’t that guy on Project Runway just WEIRD?! I can’t tell whether I love him or hate him!

… posting .. not every day, but quite often. I guess I haven’t really blown that yet.. (have I? I’m not even sure. You have no idea how often I look at my *own* archives, how sad is that?) I had kind of an eye on nablopomo .. like a “if it happens it happens, i’ll try to post a lot” sort of an eye. I knew it wouldn’t really happen on the weekends, but I’d see how I could do. Seriously though, don’t you think there’s a better month than November? There’s SO MUCH SHIT going on in november! They should pick .. you know… february for this. when we’re all winter blah and need more blog posts than normal just to get us through the month! Ahh well.

So Jocelyn’s blankey is a big big hit. I finished it and then laid it on her before I went to bed, and she came into our room the next morning dragging it behind her with a big grin on her face. WHICH NEVER HAPPENS. the grin part. Not the coming to our room part. She does that often. She is OFTEN a sour grumpy puss in the morning, so it was a pleasant change. She likes it a lot. I must say, I do too!

So next week is Thanksgiving. Holy Cow. I mean really, how did this happen? My brother James and his family just moved to Virginia (as in, they arrived 3 days ago) and this is the first time I’ve had family on this side of the mississippi since I first moved out here (here=east side of the US, not specifically VA) (which has been…. oh.. 11 years now! Leapin’ Lizards!) So this is very cool, and they will of course be coming over for Thanksgiving. Not just arrive on the day and eat politely and leave by 5pm.. I’m expecting them and their 4 boys (all between the ages of 4 and 13) to descend with sleeping bags and voracious appetites and running and playing and possibly some bones breaking in there and OOHHH I JUST CAN’T WAIT!

Except that yes, I can, because there’s a zillion things to do before now and next week! OMG 1 week exactly! Scary! We still need to get the basement situated with the final details, the guest room needs some help, and then there’s the general cleaning and tidying and decluttering and do you think they’ll mind if we have candycorn decorations up still? Actually, I know they won’t, but *I* will and hey, that’s what matters so there’s another thing on the list. And that’s not even counting the food planning that needs to happen!

Well I’m off to freak out some more and maybe get some stuff done.

AND WATCH PROJECT RUNWAY YIPPEEEE OMFGWTFBBQ!! so excited over here.

carry on,
-amy

ps – yeah, i’m silly in the head. i havent’ blown it. i just posted 3 days in a row! go me!

Ahem. Hi.

While I am still swimming in a blue sea, my head is firmly above water now, and only dips back down occasionally, which makes the previous post very embarassing to me. Not that it’s not real, or not true, but just in that morning after, “Did I really put underwear on my head and dance around on the table last night? Did anyone see??” sort of way . . . So now I have this “must post something so it’s not right there” blogging urgency, and so here goes.

I have to admit, I am getting all Christmas itchy. And it’s no use to just refuse to acknowledge Christmas until after Thanksgiving, because by then all the good stuff (hello Amy Ruppel window clings at target!!!) is gone and you mourn not getting them the day after halloween because hello! it’s a day after halloween and i refuse to acknowledge Christmas yet! and then you finally acknowledge it already and the amy ruppel stuff is gone and you are bummed.

So yes, that’s a long way to tell you, I got the Amy Ruppel window clings yesterday at target when picking up new shoes for Ethan. They are BEAUTIFUL. I feel a deep need to run back and buy 5 more to never ever open and just look at longingly and then maybe sell on ebay in 50 years. I mean seriously. AMY RUPPEL! I saw them and I had kind of heard an amy ruppel + target murmur on one of the crafty/design blogs i read, but I feel like this was not given the appropriate trumpeting it should have. AMY RUPPEL is doing the illustrations for the Target 2007 season — those little decorations on the website – Amy Ruppel. The in store decorations – Amy Ruppel. The window clings, and I beleive there are some gift bags (which my target didn’t have, and I am going to go HUNT SOME DOWN) – yes yes, that’s right, Amy Ruppel.

Apart from the sweet little holly leaves and ornamentation that is on the target.com website itself (all amy ruppel) i can’t find any actual PRODUCTS, which then i can snag and post here to show you, so let me just show you this mural she did on the wall at the newly opened Rare Device store in San Francisco:

Amy Ruppel wall mural at Rare Device, via design*sponge – she posted more rare device photos here.

Amy Ruppel’s paintings go on sale on her website about once a month, in the range of $90-120, so as far as art goes, this is very reasonable and we should definitely have some in our home. My excuse – I never get to any of it in time to buy some, and even though as far as original art is concerned, it’s very afforadable, it’s more money then I really want to spend.. There are some even more affordable methods though, for example, she is Student of the Month along with Sally Shim over at ReForm School, where you can get this print for $35:

They have got some other really cool stuff over there too, so check it out.

So I digress – Amy Ruppel at Target! I’m going to get a gift bag, and then i’m going to freaking FRAME IT!

OK, so yes, I’m a little excited. Just like I was last year over all the Tord Boontje stuff at Target. If I was delicate, I would SWOON!

Tomorrow we have our last soccer game and then the awarding of the kids there soccer medals. Jocelyn is VERY EXCITED. Last spring when Ethan got his, she wanted one SO BADLY that we went home and I covered a circle of cardboard with tin foil and ran some ribbon through it for her. This year, she can’t wait to get her hands on her own REAL medal.

Monday is a day off for me, but not for James or the kids, so I am going to have to decide how to spend my beautiful day all to myself. Sewing pillowcases? Sewing a quilt for jocelyn (haven’t even started yet)? Seeing a movie? Going and checking out the newly opened Marcel Breuer: Design and Architecture exhibition at the National Building Museum? Sleep in until noon and wear jammies all day?

OH DECISIONS DECISIONS!!

-amy swoons anyway.

feeling kind of down on myself right about now.. i’m trying to think of the usual reasons i might be feeling depressed, and while the sleep hasn’t been great lately, nothing else is presenting itself.

working full time has done something to me i think. i just don’t have the infinite mommy patience that i used to have. it’s gone so quickly now that tasks i used to perform with little effort have become dreaded and disastrous. i can’t blame myself entirely though, it’s a different family dynamic now (5 year old and 3 year old) than it was when i was at home full time (3 yr old and 1 yr old), but the patience thing is still a factor.

i’ve been screaming lately. to be exact, it happened last night, and last sunday. too often. way too often. it starts with a squabble. ethan power-tripping about some toy that jocelyn wants a turn with. jocelyn not bothering with any sort of niceties and demanding it, her voice rising into whining and temper tantrum. ethan locking down into stubbornness and me trying to talk everyone down in a normal tone until i can’t even hear myself think as it all escalates in emotion, volume and tension until i crack and then i screech something insanely momish, (“that’s it, i’ve had enough!”.. “if you guys can’t work it out, NO ONE will get to play with it..”) these items aren’t yelled. they aren’t even hollered. I scream them at the top of my voice.

why? why can’t i hold it together? i am not even home with them where this is a whole day of thing upon thing piled up to this “last straw” sort of moment.. I only have an hour or two with my kids at the end of each weekday and i can’t have an ounce more patience? what is with me? i used to be able to handle way more than this and keep my cool. is it just the lack of day to day patience trying that’s making me lose it or is there something wrong with me? i think it’s the former, but i’m scared it might be the latter.

i made a real dinner once this week, where we all sat down and ate together. One. Time.
i stopped at fast food on the way home for kids’ meals twice this week.
i made just the kids scrambled eggs once, while james picked up burritos for me and him to eat after the kids were in bed.

walking from the car to the store is such a pain in the ass. ethan runs ahead and my mind is filled ith the fact that someone looking out their rear window as they’re backing out of a parking spot (if they even bother looking) will only see the top of his head and so i’m constantly trying to scan for red tail lights while trying to get jocelyn to stop staring at whatever is in her hands and keep up with me, while hollering at ethan to stay next to me. one runs away and the other straggles behind. both holler and yell if i take up their hands to keep them next to me.

ethan has a habit of hiding and trying to scare us. when he hears daddy’s car drive up, he doesn’t run to the door. he hides.

this is not a good thing when you’re in target.

this evening, i had to pull a “OK I’m leaving! Bye!” and walk away way too many times just to get my kids to tear themselves away from the toys/christmas decorations/ spider man shoes. ethan of course, hiding, trying to scare me with a boo, no matter how many times i tell him “no more trying to scare me. especially when we’re in a store.”

I feel like Jocelyn gets the short end of the stick often, just being the younger child and I’ve been trying to give her some special attention. But now I feel like it has backfiring and I’ve been neglecting Ethan.

this mom stuff sucks sometimes. we can do it all, but don’t anybody try to convince me that it’s supposed to be easy.

especially this week.

(or otherwise known as, Not So Veiled Christmas Present Hints)

Urban Outfitters, $32

Etsy seller skinnylaminx Eep teatowel $11/each (I would have to have 2!)

Etsy seller joom‘s Brown Hummingbird Art, for $35.

And I still am wishing for a turquoise (or I’d settle for red) cuckoo clock, but these are starting to look good (maybe I could paint the green one? It’s cheap enough if I screw up I won’t feel too bad..)

Urban Outfitters:

$10 (also comes in pink)

$48

And lastly, with the holidays upon us, I saw these in Target recently, and tossed them in my cart. Target.com is selling 12 piece sets of each, but in the store, they are all separate. I bought 4 large tumblers, 2 small tumblers, and 4 salad plates (the dinner plates were huge). I liked the idea of having some fun winter plates to eat off of for the kids (oh, all right, and me too!)

Target – Snowflake Acrylic tumblers, set of 12 – $23.99

Target – Snowflake Melamine 12 pc set (12 dinner plates, salad plates, and bowls) – $27.99

I can’t wait to check out some of the other christmasy stuff out there. I’ve averted my eyes (hello, when it’s out before halloween!) long enough!

-amy