This is Mike. He is the former owner of the loathed sofa, the inadequate desk and the fairly nice dresser that we now own. I like Mike, which is a good thing because I would otherwise be cursing his name everytime I sat down on the sofa or at the desk. As it is, I often mumble unpleasantries about the person who accepted Mike's offer of the sofa & the desk....DH. Mike is one of his oldest friends & I actually met Mike months before I met DH. He'd been our roommate off & on in our early years in Virginia, but was living in his own place (with his own furniture) when he relocated to California.

This is my computer area. We have an L shaped family room. The computer is in the far corner of the short end of the L. The TV is in the corner where the 2 sides meet and our chairs, bookcase & the loathed sofa are in the long end of the L. The long end also has a sliding glass window on one side & a wood stove in the left top corner. If you go straight out the bottom of the L, you enter the kitchen.

There is a gate around the area to keep the toddlers out. Drake calls it "Mommy's office" though DH occasionally sets his laptop up on the dresser. Everything in the area is 'temporary' and 'will do for now'. Including the desk. The desk belonged to the same friend who gave us the sofa & my feelings for the desk are similar to my feelings for the sofa. It is inadequate to the task. The desk is from the late 1940's when people and chairs apparently were much narrower than they are today. No chair with arms, currently in existence, will fit in that tiny opening area. Meaning I can either have a chair that gives me arm support or I can have a chair that gets in close enough for me to type comfortably, but not both. The shelving next to the desk is a walmart special. I like the shelving, but something a little less 'garage storage' and a bit more 'family room' looking would be nice. I have a lot of peripherals - printer, scanner, wacom, wireless router & big surge protecting multi plug, plus the CPU itself. So the shelves are a real necessity. I like to have everything handy. There is a little stack of rigged up shelving between the walmart special shelves and the dresser (also a gift from the owner of the sofa. I like it & as soon as I can figure out how to paint or otherwise resurface it, I will love the dresser.) The rigged shelving is made of a night stand, a serving tray and a couple wire cabinet shelves. It holds all my notes, my bills, the lessons & tutorials I have printed out & all the CDs & DVDs. The dresser holds little used, but needs to stay out of small hands, stuff.

I like having the PC in the family room. I can scrap & keep an eye on the boys, or chat with DH. We like having everyone in the same area, even if they are doing different things. DH says he is going to build me an L shaped desk to fit in that corner & that it will have built in shelves on each side going over the top of the desk. He is going to use the existing desk as a base. It'll be interesting to see how that turns out.

The weekend was ok. We went up to the mountains to some property some friends of ours own along a river. It's a very shallow river where they are, up to my waist at most 90% of the time, so it's great for the kids. It was their DD's 3rd b-day and they were having a weekend long camping party. We went up Saturday morning & came back Sunday night. The males camped out, I stayed in a Holiday Inn about 20 minutes away. DH owed me a night alone from when he went camping a month ago & I'm not much on camping, so it worked out well. The little boys had a blast. Drake's first question was "when can we get in the river?' and spend the rest of the time in the river, complaining that he had to get out, & asking when he could get back in. He also went fishing with DH & caught a fish, though he didn't seem to realize this was a big deal. It was hot, though the water was chilly. It was fun hanging out with our friends but I didn't have much to say & just lounged a lot. The 2 women are yoga instructors (different types of yoga) and talked about classes & things that I had nothing to add to. But it was nice to just be quiet & sit in the woods. They both teach prenatal yoga & one is working on getting a kids' yoga or mommy & baby yoga class together. That got me thinking about a book I got called "Baby Buddahs" which is about teaching meditation to toddlers. I got it because I think Drake could do with learning to relax & focus. He gets so wound up sometimes, gritting his teeth intensely - not with anger, just with energy. So I decided to finish reading it this weekend when I got home & use some of Drake's quiet time to teach him about meditating. The kids all played & shrieked together & had a great time & we talked about how we do this group camping thing every year & wondered about what the kids will remember of it as they get older.

It was a long & tiring ride home Sunday night. I had both boys in the car because I was dumb enough to ask who they wanted ride with (DH & I each drove, they slept in his truck bed & I had to drive to the hotel. Dumb, but DH *hates* pitching a tent.) They were asleep within 15 minutes of leaving the campsite. It's a 2.5 hour drive home. Derek woke up about 25 minutes from home & cried the rest of the ride because he couldn't find his sippy cup & it was dark, on a windy 2 lane road with no place really safe for me to pull over & try & find it. Drake slept through it. Derek then would not settle to sleep at home. It was almost 10pm when Dh & i got in bed & started watching TV. Derek cries for water, cries for company, ends up in our bed by 10:50. He won't settle down & irritates DH so much he gets up & goes to bed in the playroom. I eventually convince Derek to go to his bed about midnight, doesn't last. He's back in bed with me by 12:30 & finally drops off at 1am, sideways across our bed. I wake up around 6am, with Derek curled next me , his head on my feet & his body at an angle hogging as much of a queen size bed as a 30 inch child can. I sent Drake, who came in the room, to get Daddy (who got at least 90 minutes more sleep than me) and went back to sleep. Derek was up about 8am.

I had a good weekend, but I am a bit worn out. Physically I didn't do much but I just feel mentally drained & i don't know why. I was finally able to find Digital Scrapbooking 5 & look forward to reading through it tonight.

Is creating "beautiful art" more important than the process of creating.
For me it is the process. Most of my hobbies are about the process, though I enjoy getting a beautiful result. I would not cross stitch, crochet or quilt otherwise. I love the process of them. The planning, the cutting, the stitching, watching something whole & formed grow out of scattered pieces. I feel the same way about digi scrapping. The process of making all the parts into a whole is what fascinates me. Sure I love it when the results are admired by others. But if I didn't find the process more important, the odds are I wouldn't do it.

We're going up to WV to celebrate a the birthday of a friend's DD. They are having a weekend long camping party at some property they own in the mountains, along a river. Dh & the boys will be camping. I will be not camping. I have a room at a hotel about 20 minutes away. I don't like camping. But the hotel is mostly because DH owes me a night alone & this is a convenient way for me to get it. He went camping with his buddies a month ago & we agreed I get a night in a hotel in exchange.

morning thoughts

When I woke up, or when I got up? These are 2 different times separated by about 2.5 hours. Derek woke me up at shortly after 5am when he came in our room& climbed in our bed. My thought at the time was "Please God let him go back to sleep.", which is what I think every morning that he comes into our room before 6am. And as usual he did not go back to sleep. After about 30 minutes of him tossing around & playing & occasionally snuggling up to me, I told him to go watch TV and he did. So i went back to drowse while DH got up at 6 & got Derek breakfast. I actually got out of bed at 7:30am, when DH leaves for work. My first thought then was "I am going to the gym today & I mean it." I haven't been all week because of Drake's recent separation anxiety. Its been growing on him slowly for a month or more but he's been downright hysterical about it this week. He tells me he is afraid he will miss me. So we have spent the last few days doing other things. But I like going to the gym & try to get there 3 days a week. He's gone through these periods before & periods where he gets upset when we *don't* go to the gym. When we talked about it last night he seemed to be getting upset just to see what my reaction would be, not because he was really upset. So I was determined to go this morning & if he pitched a real fit when we got there I'd deal then.

Never made it to the gym. Never made it 500 yards from my driveway. Flat tire. Turned around & came back to the house, tried to change it, couldn't get the bolts off. I used to be able to do that. I've changed every one of my flat tires & that is about 10, in my life. This is my second flat in 5 weeks. I had to get help changing that one from a guy who was willing to actually *help* as opposed to offering me his cell phone. Dude, if I had someone to call I would have done it before I jacked the car up. ::rolls eyes:: Don't know what has happened to my upper body strength. I even work out specifically on that. So DH is going to get an air tank from the repair place at lunch & coming home to inflate the tire so it can be driven in & they can fix it. I think he thinks I am going to do that..... The boys will be napping when he gets here. By the time they wake up & we get there, it will be 3pm & there is no point at all in arriving there at 3pm because they will never actually get to me & what the heck am I supposed to do with 2 toddlers In a gas station repair waiting room the size of the inside of my car?

How do you handle good byes?

I don't enjoy them but there have been few final good byes in my life. Apart from my mother in law, the people that I have lost to death, went when I was not there to say good bye. Saying good bye to MIL was very hard for me. I cried a lot.

A few people have moved out of my life to a new job or a new place, but even then, it was a physical goodbye, we could still keep in touch & while I was sad they wouldn't be there to hang out with, knowing we can still chat on email made it easier.

I try to remain upbeat about good byes, even the final ones, because while a door is closing for me, it is opening for someone else. And when I am the one moving on to a new job or a new location, the door is opening for me & new beginnings are a good thing.

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An update on the chocolate bars. I left out the ECLIPSE dark chocolate bar, 87% cacao & entirely too bitter for my taste, though DH loves it. I think chopped fine, melted & mixed with milk & a tiny bit of sugar it would make a great cup of hot chocolate. But as an eating chocolate, it is just too bitter.

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I've started typing these entries in my Life Journal program first & then copying them to blogger. I've been doing it the other way around & I get lazy & am now 3 months behind on copying things into Life Journal. It is some really incredible journal software. I've had for 4 years now. I go through periods where I never use it & periods where I record everything in it. It has topics & keywords to highlight parts of your entries so you can search later for things. Iit lets you specialize your entries so you can keep your spiritual journal entries separate from your exercise log or your daily entries It helps you enter you life history, your personal time line, has a daily pulse (energy, happiness, stress plus customizable options, I track my weight), plus a graph so you can track how your pulse categories are doing. It gives you prompts & quotes to write from. Apparently they now have specialized versions of the software as well. If you are into journaling or just want to keep your blogging somewhere you can back up, this is a good way to do it. http://www.lifejournal.com

some pricy chocolate

I love Dagoba Organic dark chocolate bars. They are kinda pricy $3-4 a 2oz bar but they are so good & they are slow eating chocolate. They are not Hershey's that you can just eat without really thinking. The dark chocolate bars *demand* you sit & pay attention to them & 2 small pieces is really all you need at a sitting. They come in an assortment of flavors but I have to go out of my way to find them just in general, & I have not come across all the flavors yet. These are my favorites

New Moon 75% cacao
Roseberry
and Lavender,which is not available individually on their website for some reason. It's a lavender essence with blueberries in it. Sounds weird but tastes good.

I have not encountered the XOCOLATL, which has chilis, the MON CHERI or the LIME flavored ones. The plain DARK is ok, but I prefer a Hershey's Special Dark.

I amnot fond of their milk chocolate flavors. I've tried the LATTE and the CHAI & was disappointed both times. Too sweet & bland & the spicing was too strong. I have not tried the HAZELNUT, BRASILIA or PURE MILK because I have not seen them yet.

So if you are looing for some good, bittersweet chocolate bars, the kind you indulge in when you have 10 minutes to slowly nibble your way uninterrupted through a couple of pieces, try the Dagoba bars. They are worth the price.

I got this link from Bethy's blog. I've never heard of the artist but I like that I would 'inspire an enchanting portrait"

Who Should Paint You: Gustav Klimt

Sensual and gorgeous, you would inspire an enchanting portrait.. With just enough classic appeal to be hung in any museum!

What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?

Pets

We had a few pets when I was growing up. They all arrived in the house when I was between 6-10 and I don't really recall which arrived first or if there was overlap.. We had a couple hamsters. Mine was named Princess. I can't remember what my brother named his. Princess had some babies at one point but they didn't live. We had a fish tank. We had that for a while. Lots of different fish in it at various points. I only remember Mr Cat, the catfish, though. We also had a dog. A minature schnauzer. Her name was Puppet. I was 7 or 8 when we got her. She was supposed to be the family dog, but she was really my mom's dog. That dog worshipped my mom. I remember dressing the dog up in baby doll clothes sometimes. Puppet died when I was in college.

The first pet I ever had as an adult were hamsters again. I had them for a couple of years in college because even 'no pets' apartments would take hamsters (and they were cheaper than fish tanks).

Scent

The smell that reminds me most of childhood is a mix of the perfume Chanel No5 & this perfumed talc powder(but I don't know what the name of it was) . My mom wore it all the time. So did both my grandmothers. When I smell it now I can picture thier bedrooms in the mid-70's, the colors, the furniture, even all the bottles & brushes they had laid out on their dressing tables. They had dressing tables....They sat down at them & did their hair & make up every day. I cannot imagine doing that now. I do everythign standing the bathroom, usually in a rush.

My parents are visiting this weekend & brought me a stack of photos from the 60's & 70's of them & me. Some of the photos smell like this mixture.

Childhood play

When I was little I loved playing with dolls or playing with Weebles or the lego people. I loved creating stories about them & acting those stories out, making them talk & walk around & do things. I would get together with a couple of friends & we would either play with dolls in someone's basement or we'd go outside with the Weebles & lego people and build a fort, house, boats, etc for them out of sand, rocks, dirt, legos & lincoln logs, then have a great adventure with them. I remember I had the Weeble treehouse & the Weeble cowboy set & my friend Alexis had a Weeble pirate island and some one else had a RV type set & we'd set them all up and have Weeble village. These were different Weebles than what they sell now, these were egg shaped, weighted on the bottom and had a piece of paper wrapped around them under a piece of clear plastic. The paper had their face & costume printed on it & if you got the Weebles wet, water would seep in and the pictures would run. I had a tape recorder, one of those 70's era black rectangular things with the huge buttons on one end you see in period cop shows during interregation scenes. We'd use it to record us playing with the Weebles.

favorite words

I wasn't sure which way to go with this - meaningful, fun, by sound...I love a lot of words for different reasons. But here are the 5 I came up with & why.

1. LUNCH - my philosophy of life revolves around lunch. It is the thing I miss most as a SAHM (apart from soft smooth hands). Douglas Adams, in "Life, the Universe & Everything " wrote about a group called The Holy Lunching Friars on Vondoon - The Holy Lunching Friars of Voondon claim that just as lunch is at the centre of a man's temporal day, and man's temporal day can be seen as an analogy for his spiritual life, so Lunch should (a) be seen as the centre of a man's spiritual life, and (b) be held in jolly nice restaurants This is what I believe as well.

2. NAPTIME - because that is when LUNCH is going to occur if I get one at all (but no jolly nice restaurant)

3. DEFENESTRATION - it means to throw someone out of the window & it has always struck me as funny (In both sense of the word) that this word exists. It's existance means that people were being thrown out of windows often enough that they needed a word for it. This is the part that strikes me as bizzar. However, for some reason I don't understand, this word reminds me of Monty Python's Flying Circus, which is why it makes me laugh

4. MOMMY - I never thought anyone would say it to me and I love to hear it. Though perhaps without the annoying whine as in "I want some juice please MMOOOOMMMMMYYYYY." a dozen times in a row because they were too busy whining to hear me when I said "ok" after the first time.

5. MILK - I just like the way it sounds. It sort of just rolls off the tongue

favorite words

I wasn't sure which way to go with this - meaningful, fun, by sound...I love a lot of words for different reasons. But here are the 5 I came up with & why.

1. LUNCH - my philosophy of life revolves around lunch. It is the thing I miss most as a SAHM (apart from soft smooth hands). Douglas Adams, in "Life, the Universe & Everything " wrote about a group called The Holy Lunching Friars on Vondoon - The Holy Lunching Friars of Voondon claim that just as lunch is at the centre of a man's temporal day, and man's temporal day can be seen as an analogy for his spiritual life, so Lunch should (a) be seen as the centre of a man's spiritual life, and (b) be held in jolly nice restaurants This is what I believe as well.

2. NAPTIME - because that is when LUNCH is going to occur if I get one at all (but no jolly nice restaurant)

3. DEFENESTRATION - it means to throw someone out of the window & it has always struck me as funny (In both sense of the word) that this word exists. It's existance means that people were being thrown out of windows often enough that they needed a word for it. This is the part that strikes me as bizzar. However, for some reason I don't understand, this word reminds me of Monty Python's Flying Circus, which is why it makes me laugh

4. MOMMY - I never thought anyone would say it to me and I love to hear it. Though perhaps without the annoying whine as in "I want some juice please MMOOOOMMMMMYYYYY." a dozen times in a row because they were too busy whining to hear me when I said "ok" after the first time.

5. MILK - I just like the way it sounds. It sort of just rolls off the tongue

comfort foods

Homemade cookies or muffins. Meatloaf. Fried egg & bacon sandwiches. When I eat for comfort I reach for high fat food because there is no comfort in broccoli.

I am eating one of my faves right now. Homemade chocolate chip cookies spread with a strawberry cream cheese & yogurt dip. It has yogurt in it therefore it is healthy right? It's a great dip for apple & pear slices, pineapple chunks (fresh) and strawberries. Drake is eating it with apples at the moment. I am hoping that I can start a patternt hat fruit is comfort for him

Drake is covered in poison ivy. The spots started appearly slowly Sunday & we were not sure if they were just bites. Then more Monday, started hydrocortison cream, yesterday he was one big rash. His arms, his face, his neck, his stomach, the backs of his legs, his private parts. He just healed up from it on his butt. The doc gave us some oral steriods to clear it up plus I have to put hydrocortison on it & anti-itch stuff. Poor kid, no wonder he has been so whiny lately.

bad habits

I shout too much at the kids & I take DH for granted. I try to work on these things - keeping my voice calm, imagining I have a studio audience watching my deal with my kids, telling DH thank you often, commenting that I appreciate that he did whatever it was. But then after a few days I am back to shouting in irritation & ignoring DH's efforts.

I live with 3 people who are absolutely incapable of cleaning up after themselves or finding a darn thing by themselves. Granted two of them 3 and 2 years old but when the shoe is right in front of him I should not have to come in from the kitchen, where I am attempting to cut veggies for dinner, pick it up and hand the shoe to the 2 year old who apparently cannot look down. This happens all day and is why I end up shouting & am not really appreciative that DH made cookies (because of the mess left behind him).

But I am working on it. I resolve every morning that I won't raise my voice to my children in any form that I would not wish to hear addressed to myself and that I will thank my husband when he does things (He thanks me all the time) Many days I manage to do this. Some days I've failed by 9am. Most days I have about a 70-80% success rate.

eta - Heather, bunco is a dice game, played with 3 dice at 3 tables of 4 people. You roll for certain numbers every round & you get points for various combinations. And at the end of every round points are added up & people move around to different tables. Everyone pays in $5 and at teh end of 15 rounds points are totalled and the money dividedup among winners in different categories. It's a lot of fun. I play it monthly with some women from my MOPS (mothers of toddlers/preschoolers) group

Menu for the next 2 weeks

in no particular order:

broiled salmon
salmon patties (with leftovers)
deep dish pizza or calzone (toppings dependant on leftovers)
hamburgers on the grill (Saturday)
chicken with rice
spaghetti
london broil
pork loin crock pot
grilled chicken
veggie soup & sandwiches
baked ziti
steak & spinich salad (leftover london broil)

I think we will have the pasta tonight, since it is too late to start the pork. Tomorrow night is bunco at my house, so Brad & the boys will go out to eat. I'll make a sandwich. I'm going to have veggies & dip, guacamole & chips and the Cafe's spinich & artichoke dip with bread, plus cookies, for bunco. My folks will be here Friday & we'll probably get Chinese take out. Saturday we'll do the burgers and one day the weekend after that I am owed a Mother's Day dinner. So technically I should have more plans than actual meals. we'll see.

my weekend

Saturday I spread out the gravel for the pool area while Brad was off on the tractor buying a backhoe attachment from a guy a mile or so away. Drake was in ecstacy when Brad came back with the backhoe on the tractor. We hadn't told him about it so he was really surprised. "My backhoe tractor!!! My backhoe tractor!! You got me my backhoe tractor that i've always wanted!! Fank you Daddy Fank you!!!!" Then it rained before Brad was able to do more than make a couple test digs with Drake on his lap. But it was enough. Later we went to a cookout that was hosted by the preschool Drake will be attending in the fall. Drake is in a shy & fearful phase right now, make worse by the fact that he has always been a bit shy & reluctant to try new things. So he stuck by us most of the time & wouldn't not go on any of the rides, but he did pet the animals & watched the (very LOUD) puppet show. The food was ok.

Sunday I slept in until 9am. That was it for my Mother's Day celebration. We did some work around the yard in the morning, not much though since it rained all day. I had my bi-monthly meeting in the afternoon & then Brad had to go interview someone who apparently could only meet him at 6pm on Mother's Day. ::Rollseyes:: He got home just in time for storytime. I loaded "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdaine on my iPod & went to bed.

These are some of my recent layouts. I've got my layout spreadsheet almost completed. I have the 60 individual layouts I have done this year in it. I need to add the mini albums still., but then I will be caught up & just keep a print out on my desk with space to write the new ones in as I create them. For some reason doing all this is easier for me than just creating a new text layer in PSP. I think my problem with that method is I have to oepn the file, in PSP, to see the info each time & really prefer my information in one central location, all printed out in nice rows & columns on a spreadsheet. I'm wierd like that

Mission Possible at DSP

Mission Possible at DSP