ok, not really. but it is still a fun story!

This happened at the first “real” job I ever worked, when I lived in Atlanta. I was working as a fledgling HTML coder at a web design firm. I will always be grateful to this first opportunity, because they had some of the best graphic designers ever, as well as excellent programmers and project managers, and it was at this company that I really learned a lot, and got a good basis for my entire career. I think about some of the other shops I worked in and am RELIEVED that my first position was in such a professional shop which gave me a such a great start to grow from.

(Some of the other places I’ve worked, ho boy.)

And of course, now that I’ve told you how stalwart and professional and above-board this company was, I will toss all that and tell you about ALL the shenanigans that were carried on and oh how they were amusing!

Now, I’m going to tell you a secret. You may not have ever heard this before, so brace yourself. It is a bit shocking.

The majority of traffic on the internet is for porn.

That’s right, I know, SHOCKING! You have never ever heard that before, had you? There is actually a very fun little song about this, which you should go hear. I saw it in a video sung by World of Warcraft characters, but if you’re not a WoW person, just ignore the weird video and watch it anyway, because the song is dang funny.

LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN!!

So anyway. My company in Atlanta didn’t really have a ton of porn clients or anything, but they did have one. They had the client before I started working there, but apparently it was kind of a big deal when they were approached by this porn company to get their porn website up and running. My company initially said NO, not interested, but then the porn company threw so much money at them that they wouldn’t be self respecting business to say no! So, they asked this one web designer if he would mind doing the work and acting as the sole person on this project, and he was fine with it so they took the contract.

So it wasn’t too odd to walk past this guy’s desk and see pictures of naked women. Well, one day, he was working on a little shockwave interactive thingee. The girl (animated, not photographed) was dressed in minimal clothing- lingerie, bra, underwear, you know, and the user would click on an article of clothing, and she’d make some sexy sound in her sultry voice and the clothing would be gone, until the user had clicked it all away. Maybe they made the user pay 5 bucks for each click, who knows.

So my friend is doing this little shockwave movie, but the client didn’t send over any sound. The developer is a guy, so it wasn’t like he could make the sexy “OOH!” and “Ahhhs!” So he tells someone his dilemma and eventually all the gals in the entire office are gathered around his desk tittering into a microphone for him. Including yours truly. And who was the best?

That’s right, that’d be me.

So my claim to fame is that there was a little porn clickity movie somewhere that had my voice gasping “Oh baby!” and “Mmmm!”

It’s a cool story, especially at parties. And especially if you start it with a blatent, “I was in PORN!”

But it’s not over yet! The funny part of the story has yet to come!

The VP of sales in this company.. well, he was kind of a pervy horn dog. And knowing about this porn contract, he would always come over to the developer’s desk and check out whatever it was the web designer was working on for this particular client. Sometimes he would even request that the developer send him a copy of his work.

As the developer worked on this shockwave movie, he KNEW that Pervy VP would want a copy. So, while he had all the office ladies gathered around laughing and gasping into the microphone, he had one lady say, “YUMMM-EEEEEEH!” This lady had a very distinctive voice, as she had been smoking for about 20 years. Very husky, very low.. almost man-nish. In fact, I would have to say a lot of the time, she sounded like a (bad) drag queen.

So he made one version of the movie for the client. A normal version. Then, he made a second version for Pervy Sales VP guy. This version changed the ending. The last article of clothing to go is obviously the underwear, leaving the girl naked for all to see. Instead of seeing what you would usually see after sending the underwear bye-bye, he put … shall we say, very generously proportioned male genitalia there, along with this woman’s voice, saying, “YUMMM-EEEEE!” sounding all drag-queenish. It was HILARIOUS, — especially thinking about Pervy VP guy and the look on his face when he would get to the end.

Ahh yes.. those were the good old days.

The days when I was in porn.

Took a picture of the seedlings this morning, in good light! yay! but you’ll have to wait until this evening to see it.

Got an invitation to BlogAds from RockstarMommy – she is the best! Thanks chica.

They gave me a “free ad code” to send to my friends so that they can submit ads to be displayed for free on my site for the first few weeks.

…. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS???

I don’t care if you have nothing to shill. Here is your chance to make a little graphic, or even just write some text, and post it on the sidebar of my site. Do you realize the possibilities? I’m thinking I need to make something that proclaims Greg is a dork, and put it up for all to see. Other possibilities:

• James drinks chocolate milk every night.
• I HATE PEAS! (i don’t, i’m thinking of this one for you)
• Andrew has more shoes that Zappos,
• I refuse to let dishwater touch my skin,
  and, of course,
• Greg is a dork.

Think outside the box people. Devise your personal manifesto. Divulge your secrets in ad-form. Shill away!

Click here to submit your ad:

http://www.blogads.com/bnzsbjofofu/crazymokes/advertise

And email me for the free code. Remember, I still have to approve them. Neener neener!

My readymade magazine just arrived, and the crafty urges I’ve been telling you about have grown about 10-fold. And a few of them, I might actually just do!

This sounds really dorky, but I think I’m going to embark on a little art(y) project of a diorama in the box-out above my fireplace. I’ve been thinking alot about my lack of decorativeness and really, I think a lot of it is NOT actually me being decoratively challenged. It is because I AM FICKLE. And I know this about myself. So I think sub consciously, I don’t do much because I’m not sure I’ll like it in six months. Also, I really don’t know what sort of style is really me. I think I’m contemporary with some traditional tossed in. I know I’m not country, but I do fancy some french country sometimes. And what I REALLY know about me is I like to be a bit original. I don’t need 100% originality, but I think I’d like the whole look of a room to be all me, and not look like it could be someone elses. I’m not sure that makes sense, but I think it really means that someone else might HATE it and therefore, it will be all me and could never be someone else – LOL. Maybe (let’s hope this is the real one) it’s actually that it came out of my head and it couldn’t come out of someone else’s, and therefore it is all me. that sounds nicer 🙂
But really, I’m fickle. I know I’m likely to change my mind many many times. So, here’s my goal = EMBRACE THE FICKLENESS! Maybe just do things temporary 🙂 Thus, a diarama that will no doubt be fun to construct and do, even if it looks weird and like crap – hey, I’m fickle anyway, I can always just take the damn thing down.

Oh, and remember when I told you about my big plans for my brother’s photo of my mother’s piano? I was going to get it framed for myself at christmas. Well, it was going to cost over $500, so I scrapped that idea. I have a new one idea for it though. Pixelate it, blow it up huge, print it out and pin it up in my entry way. Or maybe the guest room. Other ideas is to make my own frame. Not sure yet.

I’m feeling so GOOD today, I hope it lasts. Tomorrow I am going to de-clutter and toss a crapload of shit. This mood however, does not mirror my mouth’s health. Specifically, my tongue. I thought about just putting the picture of this heinous canker sore that is decorating my TONGUE (seriously, on the TONGUE? how RUDE.) but it really is disgusting. I mean, it would just BE.. RIGHT THERE. You’d have no choice in your seeing it, because it’d be right there, to see, unless you’re visually impaired, and if you are, you’re in luck, because it’s gross. The rest of you, can click here if you want to see the grossness.*
I also felt domestic today. BEHOLD! these cookies were actually made with a minimal of kid-fussing over who gets to stir/pour/dip/scrape/mix/etc.

* Don’t you love how I spare you the sight of my cankerous tongue, and yet I have no problem TAKING A PICTURE and POSTING IT ON THE INTERNET in the FIRST PLACE. I truly am whack, yo.**

** (Actually, not so much whack, as, addicted to taking pictures of every itty bitty thing in my life, including my cankerous, painful, throbbing, breathing-heavy, sweaty (– oh, no wait, that’s something else. ahem.) erm, where was I? NASTY OWIE TONGUE! I did show you cookies, so hopefully that makes up for at least part of my dementia.

– amy

I’m in such a great mood. I’m sure it will be wiped out when I have to go to work on Monday. I think the “honeymoon” phase when everything is bright and wonderful and carefree at work (don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been carefree, I’m just talking about my outlook on my job) is over, and the drudgery sets in. I’m exagerrating, it’s not drudgery. I really do like my job. Still! It’s amazing, really. I do however, wish I didn’t have to dress up all the time. That IS drudgery.

But I digress. I didn’t want to talk about work, I wanted to talk about the weekend, and being happy and carefree! I was in such a great mood when I picked up my kids on Friday. I have been reading all these crafty home-makery blogs lately (loobylu and wee wonderfuls in particular, see my side list) and have been really WANTING to be crafty and MAKE something! MAYBE WITH TOOTHPICKS, or my SEWING MACHINE! I have a baby quilt I started before Jocelyn was born that I could finish, or a little blankey I was crocheting that I could also finish, but all this requires time, and I’m kind of short on that, so I was kind of tickled when I ran across these easy paper toys that take no time at all. Just cut them out and glue, and you’re good to go, on most of them. I made this sun box, and this bug box for Ethan, and next I’m going to make this little fuschia box for Jocelyn. Since they only take about 5 minutes, it won’t bother me *too* much when they get ruined, as I’m sure they will. I’m going to make myself a little box too to put paperclips in on my desk.

So anyway, on the way home, I was telling the kids all the fun things we were going to do this weekend. Make paper boxes! Go on bike rides! Make cookies! Maybe dig in the dirt! We got home and I — OH! I forgot to tell you. I got my BIKE! Yay! So, we got home and some neighbor kids were out playing, so while Ethan and Jocelyn joined in, I tried to hook up the bike trailer to my bike so I could take the kiddos for a spin, and I thought I had it all worked out. Loaded them in, but the wheels were flat, so not even making it out of our driveway, we came back with promises of “daddy will fix it” and we’d go out again tomorrow. So, today, James filled the tires, and I took them out around the block, but I obviously hadn’t hooked it up correctly, because it kept hitting the spokes of my back wheel (bad! bad! bad!) and it turned out when I got back, the gripper thingee had rubbed some of the paint off my bike frame (sad! sad! sad!) but oh well, and I have touch up paint and James figured out the correct way (i love that man. He can figure things out, AND reach things on the top shelf!) to hook up the trailer, so we have another outing in our future, this time, I’m going to make James pump up his tires too and come with! And it will be LENGTHY!

The short jaunt we took around the block was a big hit. I stopped to talk to my friend and after about 10 seconds, Ethan voiced his frustration with a sturdy holler of, “LET’S GET GOING!” and as I rounded the next corner, he urged me to go “FASTER FASTER!” This bike thing was a great idea.

So after bike adventures this morning, we hpoped in the car and drive over to a furniture city said friend had told me she’d gotten some furniture at, and damn, they had some nice things at good prices. We bought a coffee table. I’m so excited at the thought of having adult furniture again. We banished our coffee table out of the family room when Ethan was a baby and while it does make the room a lot bigger, it will be nice to have a coffee table to .. you know, put stuff on!

So bike, check. Craftiness, check. Furniture, check. that just leaves the spring which is sprunging all over the place, and bunko. i may not get to bunko today. I’ve been checking my little seeds and growing somewhat saddened each day as nothing is showing yet. Every day I think, “why did I think these seeds would be any good, anyway? SILLY AMY! SEEDS ARE FOR .. GARDENERS!”

And at first look today, I was still sad.

But then I looked CLOSER!!

I’m not completely useless as a garden type person! Yay!

I have more to write, but Ethan is talking my ear off about trains and diesel trains and diesel gas and my “Mmm hmmm”s and “yes dear”s are wearing thin and Jocelyn needs to be gotten up! So more later.

Take a look at this, in the meantime.

– amy listens to Ethan: “Some trains have snow plows. We need new batteries in our train. Mommy, this is a tape measure. Am I 4 yet? Mommy, I’m going to measure your computer.”

I stayed home and worked yesterday because I just felt kind of run down and needed a working in your jammies kind of day. I actually got quite a bit done and was feeling pretty good.

Then at 1am last night, I awoke with an urgent need. Oh yes, the urgent need to vomit. And so crawl to the bathroom I did (i have never been more happy that we have cleaning ladies as when I was sitting in that bathroom alternately clutching the porcelain and spewing out my stomach’s innards, and curled up in a fetal ball on the floor) and puked and shivered and puked some more.

the kind man who sleeps in the same room as me heard my feeble cries and came and brought me tylenol, ginger ale, and more blankies. The tylenol and the ginger ale didn’t last long in me (i drank them way way too quickly) and after a fruitless bath to try to stop the shivering, I climbed back into bed to shiver, now WET, underneath the mountain of blankets. The trash can came in handy, when the rest of the ginger ale was evicted.

So now, here I am at home, hoping the folks at home don’t think I am just playing hooky (I’m sick! I really am!) feeling miserable and scared to eat or drink anything for fear of it coming back up. I’m taking small sips of water and gingerale and seem to be tolerating it OK.

I wonder where this came from, honestly, because I was fine and dandy yesterday. James fetched us Subway for dinner, and I’d hate to think it was food poisoning somehow. I just hope it clear up soon.

So. that’s me. Sick. Wish me luck in my porceain adventures.

-amy pleads, “don’t let the kids get sick, don’t let the kids get sick, don’t let the kids get sick, don’t let the kids get sick!”

1. Sneaking food into movie theatres. I LOVE to do it. Sometimes I’m disappointed when we go to dinner before a movie, because then there’s really no excuse to sneak in some snacks. And what fun is a movie if you can’t sneak in snacks?
2. Not cleaning up dog vomit.
3. Having cleaning ladies come to our house on a regular basis.
   Oh yes. This has occured, people. Our first visit was last Friday.
   Oh, I know I should feel guilty. How much of a yuppie could we be with our living in the suburbs and blatently wasting money on cleaning ladies when we could just scrub our toilets OURSELVES, but the truth is, it just doesn’t happen and when you have cleaning ladies you have to run around and pick up all the clutter and that’s just the kind of motivation I need to keep this place cleaned up. We have the, “people coming over” motivation, and the “relatives coming to visit”, and then there’s the “let’s pick up because we deserve to have a clean house and it will make us feel better” motivation, and guess which one always loses? (We promise to stop talking as if we are royalty.)
4. Eating bananas. Nope, nothing shameful about eating a banana! Totally guilt-free, there! Seeeeeee??? I don’t feel guilty about LOTS of things.
5. Yeah, I’m running out of items.

OK, so there’s many more things I feel guilty about then I do not guilty about. Oh! Writing on this webspace! No guilt there!

That’s all. Short post. THE END!

Betcha think I’ll post kid pics.

NOPE! What, I cant play around? Click to see the (very short) set of me, playing with the camera, which was propped up on the top of the fridge with the timer function on.

I think that “work” would have also been a good word for this, but I HAD to use the laminate flooring as work, so this seemed the next best fit.

I love spring. The obvious reasons, of course. The cold ebbing and the sun warming everything up and the days getting a bit longer, and it not being so hot that you could cook eggs on the sidewalk yet. The little pale green points poking up out of the ground, and the trees showing new buds. Everything is still, but it’s a pregnant stillness, of activity to come. Neighbors starting to sit outside on their decks, the smell of grills getting fired up and the guy down the street with the BEEYOOTIFUL yard beat everyone to the punch and turned on his hose bibs, laid some mulch and watered his lawn.

Anyway. Stillness:

Hi there.

That word challenge thing? The deadline is today.

So … how many have I done?

mm…. 2? maybe 3?

Yeah. I’m going to be late. Oh well, I’ll be out of the running for the tin dog biscuit holders or whatever, but oh well.

I was all into making a post today, in fact, I didn’t clean up post party because I was all settling in to write stuff, but then got distracted with the camera and pictures, and downloading said pictures, and then naptime was OVER and well, maybe tomorrow I’ll post all the pictures and commentary.

It was a lovely day, with lovely warm weather, and oh i feel so lovely! And no, its not the lovely lemondrop martini from williams-sonoma talking, it was ever so loverly! i WANT to tell you all about it but I need to drop dead asleep first. I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’ll just say that a nice time was had by all, including Jocelyn the birthday girl. Funniest moment, Jocelyn seeing her daycare lady in our house. She stood staring, trying to figure out what was going on for a full half minute. I can only imagine it must have been like seeing your 5th grade teacher at the grocery store. Buying tampons or something. Just hard to actually imagine that they are ACTUAL REAL LIVE PEOPLE AND NOT CYBORGS THAT CEASE TO EXIST AFTER YOU LEAVE THEIR PRESENCE.

Sorry. that was a lot of capitals. err, capitols. i’m a wee bit drunk at the moment i highly recommend it. however, i don’t recommend talking to your colleagues via instant messanger while tipsy, because i suspect i am going to be somewhat frantic at looking up my message history after i realize what i’ve done tomorrow morning.

anyway. good niiiiiiiiight never never land!

ps – oh i cna’t wait to tell you all about this weekend, including the party and the gardening ie: the sowing of seeds and the SPRINGTIME that is waiting to be SPRUNG! tomorrow! if it kills me! tomorrow!

it’s late, and i’m tired, and you know what that means? a rambling, mopey depressed amy.

but talking (typing?) it out always helps. get the poison out of the system. yammer and yammer until i purge my brain of it and then i can move on to other things.

like sleep!

….

well, that didn’t work. the typing it out bit, i mean. trying to put words to the mopeyness just didn’t seem to happen. i think it means i’m just tired, and need to go to bed.

tomorrow is my baby’s birthday. She will be 2 years old. I still think putting them both in the freezer at night or maybe tupperware will work – can’t we just keep them babies for a little while longer? It is strange how when I look at baby pictures of Ethan, I can barely remember how it all was w/out overlaying the sweet little man he is now over the top of it.

And yet when I look at Jocelyn and think about how she is growing and soon even more of her personality will emerge, it’s hard to imagine how and what that will be like. And yet a year from now, I’ll look back at the cute things she does now, and see how it all started, how it all was just the little flower buds that I could just barely see the color of what was to come.

it’s late and i’m making weird analogies, you’ll have to forgive me. She has been doing a lot better lately with the tantrums and the screaming of, “MINE!” and “NO!” Often, she will holler once or twice, and then stop herself, and say “PEEEEASE!!” even though we’ll have no idea what exactly she is requesting.

She also has been saying a phrase that we can’t quite make out. She says it ALL the time, and it could be anything. Here are our guesses:

• “assignment!”
• “excitement!”
• “It’s Simon!”
• “eh’s find it!”
  or more likely,
• “Let’s find it!!”

Other things she says often, and with conviction:

• THERE it is!
• I found it!
• MINE!
• NO!
• Turn, pease! (as in, she wants a turn)
• 1, 2, THREE!!! (especially when you start)
• “PEEEEE!”, “GEE!!!” “ZEEE!!” (said at the appropriate pauses in teh alphabet song.
• VROOM VROOM!
• It’s flying!
• Hi! (Enter name of family member here)! Hi!

She also has a fit whenever one wishes to lay her on her back to change her diaper. I’ve found the best way to avoid the hammering kicking legs is to ask her where various body parts are. This also works for kisses. Lately, she doesnt’ want to part with any kisses, or be kissed. “Can I have a kiss?” is always met with running away while shouting, “NO!” So then I say, “Where is my nose?” and she runs over to poke me in the nose with her outstretched finger, and declares, “NOSE! MOMMY’S NOSE!” Then I ask if I can have a kiss on the nose, and she will lean in and her soft lips will squash my nose flat (I have a squishy nose with hardly any cartilidge) with a loud, “MMMMMWAH!!!!” and then she may bear to have me return the “mmmwah” in kind.

One thing we are going to have to remedy soon, even though I swore it would be YEARS before we did this, because Ethan’s was so disastrous, is get her a big girl bed. We moved Ethan out of the crib at about 19-20 months, and he did ok at nighttime, but he just stopped napping during the day pretty much completely. He would just get up and play in his room instead, and sometimes fall asleep in the closet. We transitioned him at that age because Jocelyn was going to be arriving and we didn’t want him to feel as if she was taking over “his” crib, so the idea was to get him a bed, hide the crib for the next 3 months, so that when it was needed, he wouldn’t feel like it was his anymore.

Jocelyn is already older than he was, but I still feel like we could hold off a while longer. She could probably climb out if she wanted to, but she hasn’t ever tried, except sometimes she puts her foot up when she wants to get IN. However, this girl is so enamored of beds. She climbs right in them, pulls up the covers, tilts her head to the side and shuts her eyes – not squishing them shut like you’d think a kid would do, but just closes them shut normally, and then says, “Sleeping mommy!” She loves Ethan’s bed so much, I know when she gets her own bed, she will be in HEAVEN. So, even though I swore we’d wait until she was 2.5 years old, we have been looking at beds with a little more than just the window shopping eye. I would like to get her a nice bed that she can use a long time. Toddler beds never really appealed to me because they are used for such a short time, though a full size bed can be quite overwhelming for a toddler. Ethan’s bed came from Ikea and was expandable, though we put a twin mattress in it right away. We have thought of getting HIM a new bed, and giving his old one to Jocelyn, but we’re not sure what we’re going to do yet. A quick check of craigslist showed a number of toddler beds for $30-40 bucks, so that might be worth it, even if it isn’t used for very long.

Speaking of Ikea, we went there tonight. It was such a fiasco. Our kids go to bed at 7:30 pretty much on the nose. We head upstairs around 7 for baths and stories and jammies, and they’re in bed by 7.30 or pretty close to it. Going to Ikea on a weeknight meant that we got home at about 8:30. Ethan was asleep in the car, and Jocelyn was tickled pink about it, “Ethan SLEEPING mommy! QUIET!!! SHHHHH!”

We picked up a kid sized table and 2 chairs, as well as some new shelves to go in James new office in the basement. Next time, I think just one of us will go, or we’ll wait for the weekend. Ikea has a little children’s area where you check your kid in, they label him with a sticker with his name on it, check his shoes, give us a beeper and tell us we have 40 minutes of freedom before they’ll beep us. Except that we don’t, because we have Jocelyn, who isn’t tall enough or potty trained and therefore doesn’t meet the criteria of Ikea SmaLand. We asked Ethan if he wanted to stay with us while we shopped, or go to the play area, and warned him taht there probably wouldn’t be any other kids in there. He made sure we were talking about teh same place, “It’s where the balls are?” “Yes, the play area with the balls you can jump in,” and to my surprise, said he wanted to play in teh balls.

“The balls are going to be COAL! And then I’ll JUMP IN!”
I don’t think James heard it clearly, but I know what he was talking about right away.
“You’re going to pretend it’s the Polar Express, and you’re jumping into the coal car?”
“YEAH!”

Turns out that shortly after we checked him in, another kid got checked in. When I picked him up, the attendant said that they latched on to each other and were having a grand old time playing together.

At times like these, I think, what fun it must be to be a kid. Then I remember when I was kid. I remember how disappointing some things can be – things that are no big deal to adults, that we shrug off as unimportant, but can be devastating to kids. I’m always conscious of how many times I have to deny something to Ethan.

“Can I come in with you to get Jocelyn?”
“Can we go over the bridge?”
“Can we go by the train station?”
“But we were going to fold laundry with my loader and dumptruck!”
“Are we taking a bath tonight?”
“But I don’t want to try the meatballs..”
“Can we stay home today mommy?”

Sometimes it’s asked or stated cavalierly and I know he knows that the answer is likely to be no. Sometimes he answers my denial with a simple, “Ok.” Sometimes it’s an exhalation of frustration/disappointment, “AWWWWW.” And sometimes the request or statement is nearly on the brink of tears because the amount of control he has over his own life and actions are so limited that I know it must be frustrating as hell.

As mimi said not so long ago, “I swear, we should give every kid under four a medal for keeping their shit together even 60% of the time, because they were BABIES just moments ago and now they have to do all this BIG STUFF.”

It’s so true. Just because they can walk around and talk in complete sentences and have a fairly good grasp of the day to day events, there is so much they’re still trying to gather information on and assimilate into some semblence of understandability (it’s late. shoot me.) and then having their choices controlled and monitored so completely.. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am not about to just let Ethan do or have whatever he wants, and I’m not talking about that sort of “control”. When I told him he had to have one taste of the meatballs the other night, tears actually welled up in his eyes, and not because he was going to have a tantrum, but because he just really had a hard day and was hungry and just plain didn’t want to have any meatballs.. and so sometimes I bend the “you must try it once” rules, and let him have 2 bites of noodles instead of 1 of noodle and 1 of meatball in order to get the bowl of yoghurt.

Oh my god have I rambled. I think you’ll all probably be happy when I go back to not updating for a bajillion years.

And with that, I think I’d better go to bed already. Don’t you?

-amy will try not to lay awake and be mopey.