Duckponds and Swingsets

Summer time is coming to a close. It's been fun, but I'm so ready for fall! Here's some of the great highlights from this summer:

It's been a great summer, with lots of sweet memories including Penny saying her first words, crawling, lots of long walks at the Mill Pond, feeding the duckies, napping, snuggles, messy baby kisses and hugs.

I'm a lucky mama.

Autumn is coming

While it's still 90+ degrees in MI (and has been for like 4 weeks now, ugh!) my mind still starts dreaming of Autumn when August comes. I know Autumn doesn't officially start until late September, but it's my favorite time of year, BY FAR, so I can't help but think of it whenever possible.

Living in Texas was hard for Hubby and I because we are so used to having four seasons and in Houston, well, there's barely two seasons there, and fall is neither of those. So this year, we're very excited for fall!

Things I love about Autumn:

• the clothes. ohhhhh the clothes! The warm colors, the scarves, the boots, the coats, the hats, the gloves, skirts with tights or long leggings, etc........
• pumpkins. need I say more?
• the food: caramel apples, nutmeg, cinnamon, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin butter, hot chocolate, baked pumpkin seeds, and OMFG apple cider!
  
• The decor: the changing leaves, hay, corn stalks, scarecrows, cornucopias, carved pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns, halloween themed anything
• Check out this cool wreath tutorial too: http://www.ohmyhandmade.com/2010/contributors/tutorial-autumn-yarn-wreath-diy-halloween-wreath/
• Fun stuff to do: haunted houses, hay rides, taking back roads to anywhere just to look at the leaves changing colors, clear nights looking at the stars while curled up in a blanket with your love because it's kinda chilly out, going to the apple orchard to pick apples instead of Meijer!
  
• Halloween: do I need to explain this one? costumes, candy, and Penny's first real time out trick-or-treating!?!?!?!
  
• My daughter's first birthday, October 7, 2011!
• My 27th birthday
• Thanksgiving
• Stimulated senses: blushed cheeks from the chill in the air, the smell of campfires and burning leaves, the crunch of leaves under your boots, being able to run around and jump in piles of leaves, hanging on tight to your kiddos while on hay rides, the first bite of pumpkin pie with whipped cream, the first crunch of a caramel apple inside your mouth, going on evening walks and breathing cool air into your lungs.
  

Autumn is so romantic to me, it's when Hubby and I started dating and consequently fell in love. It's when our beautiful daughter was brought into the world.

I seriously love fall so much.

Tell me friends,

What do you love about fall?

well, it's official

I got the second job! YAY! It's at a 4D Ultrasound Studio here in my hometown and I'm SO excited about it!! Even if it means I'll be working 50+ hours a week between both of my jobs, if it'll get us out of my parents' basement sooner, then I'LL DO IT!

Other than working like crazy, I've also been painting a lot. I'm working on an under-the-sea themed set of 4 paintings for a little girl's bathroom. I like how they're turning out so far, perhaps I'll post pics of them when I'm done.

Unfortunately, that's all I have for an update right now. Not much is going on. I hope I can get better at this, I know I've been slacking big time!

A Family Picnic

This past week the weather here in Michigan has been sunny and warm! Summer has finally really arrived! As part of my 101 Things in 1001 Days, one of my things to do is to take Penny on a picnic. So we did!

We packed up the Focus and headed over to Kensington Metro Park (one of our favorite places on the planet) and found ourselves a cozy little spot to picnic by the water and boat launch.

Even Miss Penelope was happy to be outdoors and getting some fresh air! It was fabulous getting out of the house and enjoying nature a bit.

We brought some veggie sushi, veggie chips and chocolate cake for dessert.

Once we finished the sushi, we realized we forgot to bring forks for the cake! DOH!

It's a good thing I'm an expert chopstick user. I taught Jim how to do it.After lunch, we sat on the blanket under some trees and watched swans swimming in the lake. Penny also showed me how she does the chicken dance. (never mind the giant pole sticking out of the back of her head, silly flagpole in the way of the cute picture!)

All in all, it was a wonderful afternoon together. I can't wait to have more picnics this summer at Kensington!

Do you go on picnics? What are your favorite snacks to bring?

blogging fail

Sorry I've been MIA lately. I've been working A TON and actually interviewed for another job which I REALLY hope I get. I'm a busy lady.

I've gotten a few painting orders as of late too, which has kept me busy too. I wish I had more time to devote to my painting, I feel like between work, family time, sleeping, painting, and getting in some relaxing time, I'm just totally spent. Why can't there be more hours in the day? And why can't I do better on less sleep? Sleeping is silly, but I love it.

Miss Penelope is doing well. She's got two little teeth popping through, one's already all the way through, the other is causing her all kinds of trouble and pain and this Mama Bear doesn't like it! I hate seeing her in pain, she's so little and can't understand why she's hurting and she just gets this look in her eyes that's like, "why is this happening to me, Mama? It hurts so bad!"

We've been giving her a mesh teether thing with frozen juice in it to help soothe her gums, which she seems to looooooove. See exhibit A below:


But for the most part, she's a very happy almost 9 month old (holy crap, 3 more months and she'll be a year old!) and she's getting to the stage where she's figured out how to throw tantrums and scream about anything and everything. But she's also moving around like it's nobody's business. She's thisclose to walking, she keeps standing and holding onto something, then letting go and slowly bending her knees til she's on the floor again. We seriously need to invest in baby gates. Right now we're using those huge blue storage bins and they are an eyesore and a pain in the ass to get over with a sleeping baby in your arms. But overall, things with Penelope are great, she's really funny and has started dancing to music (I'll post a video soon). She waves and smiles and plays games with you (peek-a-boo mostly) and she has really started amusing herself. She's realized she has these things called HANDS and you can move them around and open and close them and grab things and WOW! It's a whole new world!

Look ma! I've got hands!

I've been trying really hard to think of things I can write about in here, but my brain is so mushy most of the time from doing something constantly that it's just like, meh.

Oh! My wonderful grandparents are in town for 10 days visiting from Florida, and yesterday was the first time they met miss Penny. They just adored her and it was so cute to see them with her. Penny has also reached that stage where she doesn't like strangers much, so she cries whenever someone new holds her. Which always baffles me because some people get all offended when babies cry when they hold them, they're like, "aww he/she must not like me at all! waaaaa!" It's like, no, you're a stranger, they're a baby. They don't know you. If some weird person picked you up and made googly eyes at you and weird noises and you couldn't talk yet, you'd probably cry too. Just sayin'.

So today I have a day off of work, I'm trying to decide how much time to dedicate to painting, to family time, and to cleaning. I need to do all three today, as all three are important (one more than others, obviously). So perhaps we'll go to Kensington today and have a picnic (on my 101 things list!) or something. It's a pretty perfect day for it, 78 and sunny! We might also go to the Salvation Army just to peruse around. I have a few crafty ideas I want to get started on, so we'll see if that happens or not...

What are you doing today?

Just Like Barbie

Ok, so I called this post "Just Like Barbie" because like that famed doll, there are many professions I'd love to have in my lifetime. Obviously, all of them aren't feasible, and I hear you, yeah you, saying" Mere, you can do anything you put your mind to!" Well, no. Life doesn't work that way. So since this is my blog, and this is my little mind escape, I'm going to write out my dream jobs here.

1. Teacher
I think of all my dream jobs, this is the one that's most likely to happen. I'm about a year of school and a semester of student teaching away from being a licensed English teacher in Michigan. Part of me really wants to finish it, and I think that someday I will. My friend, Claire, is well on her way to getting a teaching job here in MI, which as most of you well know, that's a hard thing to do here right now. I occasionally helped Claire grade her student's papers this past semester and I loved helping her. I loved getting out a colored pen and correcting sentences and checking answers. I loved correcting spelling mistakes and telling students "Great Job!" with a smiley face. Hearing Claire talk about her lesson plans and the books they're reading was so inspiring to me, and she tried her hardest to get me to go back to school in the fall. (Sorry Claire, not this year!)
But rest assured, someday I will be a teacher, and I'll be one of the many underpaid, under-appreciated, tired, over-worked teachers who are treated like dirt by the government (did you know they don't even teach penmanship anymore? WTF!?! oh, and how about how baseball players get millions of dollars a year while those in charge of EDUCATING OUR CHILDREN get somewhere around the poverty line? yeah, I could go on...) But I'll love helping students read literature and love it. I had some truly inspiring English teachers throughout school, I hope to be that person for even one kid someday.

2. Singer
Ok, so I know this is silly. I'm super shy, not very outgoing, and have terrible stage fright. Not to mention the fact that I can't sing. But boy do I belt it out in my car when I'm by myself! (Seriously, I'm friggin' Adele sometimes) But honestly, I'm terribly jealous of people who have true musical ability. I can't play any instruments or anything either. I listen to singers like Adele, like Lady Gaga (say what you will about her outfits, that chick can SING), like Joy Williams (The Civil Wars) and I'm just so emotionally moved by their voices. I can feel the gut-wrenching love or sorrow in their voices. I wish I could convey that through music. It blows my mind though how some people can get famous (*ahem* Britney Spears, Ke$ha, etc...*ahem*) when they have zero talent and then people who can genuinely sing get brushed aside for one reason or another. It's so weird that people like to listen to garbage rather than music that will send emotion into your soul.

3. Astronaut
I would LOVE to travel to space. Seriously, if Battlestar Galactica was real, I'd want that to be my life. How totally badass would it be to fly through space in a SPACESHIP?!? C'mon, you know that sounds awesome. I do love all things outer space (have you seen my tattoos?), and I do wish that I was better at science in general, and if I was, I might have gone that direction. But you have to be good at math too, and well, I'm not really into numbers, I'm more of a words kind-of-gal. But I wish I was out there discovering new planets and stars. I wish I had the stomach to break our atmosphere and fly into space and see the Earth from the moon. Can you imagine how incredible that would be? OH! And that scene in the movie Sunshine where the crew is watching Mercury pass in front of the sun, oh man, that made me tear up when I saw it in the theater. You can watch that particular scene here or it looks like this mostly, but the video shows the emotion better, so go watch it:
4. Full-Time Painter
This one might be feasible at some point as well, but I'll put it under my dream jobs for now. As many of you know, I have a small painting business called Clever Characters and basically I paint personalized name art for kids rooms. I also do what I call "family art" which is basically the family name along with whatever design the family wants on it. I've been doing it for about 2 years now and really enjoy it. It's fun to look back at my first few paintings and see just how awful I used to be and just how far I've come. Believe me, I've still got A LOT of learning to do, but I'm enjoying the process so much. And it means THE WORLD to me when I paint something for someone and they are so happy with it and thank me and it just gives me fuzzy feelings. I love doing it, so I hope one day, when we've got all our babies born and are settled, that I can focus my time on painting and raising babies. :)

5. Nurse
As much as I hate-loathe-despise hospitals and anything medical-related in general, I do wish that I didn't. I wish I could be in there, saving lives, making people feel better. But in reality, this is one dream job that will NEVER happen because just walking into a hospital raises my blood pressure and makes me sweat. Oh well. But I do want to say that I am very grateful for all the men and women who can handle it so well and love their job. I would love to be a midwife mostly, but since fainting at the birth of my best friend, Mikaela's, baby boy, well, I just don't think it's for me.

So tell me, friends, what are your dream jobs?

Switching Roles - A Father's Day Story

So Penelope is 8 1/2 months old now, and in her short life, she's moved across the country, then to a city across the state we moved back to, and then back across the state again. We've done a lot of moving because, well, life happens.

During those first 4-5 months of her life, I was a stay-at-home mom. My husband had a job that allowed us to do this and we were very grateful for that. I will never forget that time I had with her, never. But now that we moved back home (move #3), my husband and I have switched roles. Due to the amazing economy, he lost his job, so we had to move back in with my folks for awhile. It's been really hard for us.

Going from being completely self-sufficient and living on your own for 8 years to living in your parents' basement is hard to swallow. As lucky as we are, and as grateful as we are for being able to move back home for awhile to get back on our feet, it's still tremendously difficult.

Like I said, Hubby and I have switched roles. I'm working now, for just over minimum wage (thanks Bachelor's Degree!) and Hubby's at home with Penelope. He's going back to school in the fall to complete a computer programming and engineering degree so that he can get a great job and we can finally start our lives successfully. We both feel like we've barely been able to keep our head above water for awhile now, and I know how stressful this is on him, as well as me, obviously.

Ok, so the whole reason I wanted to write this post is because I just want to let my Hubby know how happy it makes me to see him with our daughter. To see him become "Daddy" and really let himself be who he is around Penny. I don't know if he even realizes how good of a father he is. The Jim I see when he's around Penny is the Jim I fell in love with, a much different version, but a confident, silly, handsome, smiling, proud version. And I love it.

The Jim I fell in love with was a rebellious punk rocker who smoked cigarettes and drank Jack Daniels on a regular basis. He knew he was sexy. He oozed confidence, that kind of "I don't give a f*!k" attitude that made me swoon. He knew he mesmerized me, or maybe he didn't. I still don't know for sure. He wore dark skinny jeans and black dirty t-shirts and chucks and had hair like Robert Smith. He wore a studded belt with a pentagram belt buckle. He didn't give a shit about what people thought about him. He was SO hot.


The Jim I'm in love with now is much different, but still just as amazing and sexy to me as he was before. He's confident, but in different ways, and about different things. He dresses a bit differently, he's shaved his head (no more Robert Smith hair), he prefers vegan cuisine and doesn't smoke anymore, and barely drinks. He has goals and dreams for us as a family. He's all grown up.



The Jim I'm in love with now is a great Daddy. He loves Penelope with his whole heart, and you can see it in his eyes when he looks at her. When he walks into the room and she smiles and jumps and gets excited, you can see how much it means to him to be loved back by her. He will do ANYTHING to make her smile, make any noise, mimic anyone, sing silly songs that he makes up on the spot. He's very protective of her, and watches her carefully. It's a side of him that I adore. It melts my heart into a gigantic mommy puddle when they're together.


So I just want to say, Hubby, Father of my child, love of my life, that you are amazing. And I am very proud of the father you've become and how much it means to you to take care of us. Penelope and I love you so much. Thank you for being in our lives.

Happy First Father's Day!