Ahh… Las Vegas. Some people think they aren’t Vegas People. What they mean is, they wouldn’t enjoy walking around in a casino all day with a Yard o’ Marg, surrounded by idiots and assholes.
Many of these same folks would, however, enjoy copious pool time and cold beer, tons of good talks with their ladyfriendz, a little fine dining, a little dancing, a sexy Cirque du Soleil show, the best roller coaster in the world, long sparkly walks, and the delicious, rejuvenating, escape of it all.
We’ve been in this house for almost 2 years, but the bedroom has not gotten much design attention. I’ve wanted to take one of my photos and have a big canvas made for over the bed, so I was SO STOKED when a nice lady from Easy Canvas Prints contacted me to see if I’d like to give one of their products a try. Why yes, yes I would!
I chose a photo I took in Thailand. I love the colors and sweep of the beach and the feeling I get when I look at it.
Don’t you love it? I’m very pleased with the look and the quality.
Here’s my Paris corner:
I’m happy about the rest of the room, too, though we SERIOULSLY need to address our lame, shlumpy, non-light-blocking shades. Did you know shades cost a million dollars? (hint hint, any uh, shades companies, that may be reading…)
(just kidding)
(not really)
All this would be perfect if SB liked the picture. Apparently he doesn’t. Hmph. He doesn’t like the couple walking in the lower right, whom we’ve taken to calling The Germans. Something about their sensible shoes and 80’s hairstyles. ANYway, *I* love my new canvas and highly recommend these guys. You can get a code for 50% off and free shipping if you like them on Facebook should you want to get your own!
Just don’t listen to your husband. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He didn’t like those lamps at first, either, and CLEARLY he was wrong about those.
Sometimes kids want to do LAME things. Usually, I think their pursuits ennrich us, but oh man, that is not the case with mother fucking Pump It Up.
You know the place. It’s a “children’s indoor inflatable private party franchise.” We got a Groupon a while ago and SB took Clark a bunch, but I’d never been there until Clark’s friend Maia’s birthday party a couple of months ago.
Right away, of course, you’re assaulted by the bad lighting, too-loud music, and the smell of plastic and feet. But hey, it’s fun, right?! Suck it up, you tell yourself.
So, I bounced a bit, enjoying that my boy was having a good time, and followed him everywhere he went. It was all well and good until he disappeared through a hole into a bigass inflatable-tube-maze-slide thing. I’m NOT going in there, I thought, as I walked around the outside looking for a viewing screen of some sort, but there wasn’t one. I started to freak out a bit that I couldn’t see him, and since the music was so loud, I couldn’t hear him if he needed help. I looked around for SB and found him too far away to hear me, engaged in some sort of Nerdery with Jake. Fuck. I had no choice but to dive in.
I wouldn’t say I’m claustrophobic. I like small cozy spaces. Its more of a being trapped thing. It was super squeezy and tight in there, the music was SO LOUD, other kids were rushing past, and you HAVE to go forward. You can’t go backwards against the stream of kids, because it’s too small to pass each other. (Am I making this sound horrifying enough? I can’t tell.) I came across Clark in the second little chamber, happy as a clam, but I really wanted to GET OUT. So I encouraged him to hurry by chasing him, and this was working splendidly, until we came to this super steep wall that you had to climb over. It was almost entirely vertical with saggy, collapsed foot holds. There was a mom and two kids stuck there trying to get over. I wanted to shove them out of the way, as they didn’t seem to find the kiddie toy quite as horrifying as I did, but I restrained myself. I saw another hole and decided there had to be another way out and pulled Clarkie though. But it turned out to be another entrance to get to the wall and the slide and now I was squeezing past against the stream of humanity, but finally we were OUT.
SB was waiting for us. Clark scampered back over to the entrance to do it again. I informed SB perhaps a tad shrill-ly and with a bit of the crazy-eye that he would need to accompany him this time.
So after Clark asked every day to go back (out of nowhere from the back seat, breaking the silence, “I wanna go to Pump It Up, Mama. I wanna jump.”) I finally took him today. We were having a great time. (I mean on the outside) I was proud of myself for running all around and jumping and being silly, even though the lighting was still awful, the music still too loud, and OMG the seam burns! If all of that weren’t bad enough, you get these weird, rubbery, OUCHIE rug burns on some of the slides. Gross.
But then half way through, they had us switch rooms and OHGODNO we were back in the room with the stupid maze. I kept him busy with the other attractions as long as I could, but inevitably he dove right in. And I had to follow him. Again.
This time I took video:
Awful, right? Please back me up here.
As the title implies, I will be patiently awaiting my Mother of the Month award.
So, when we moved into our first house in 2005, we bought some great, brown, leather couches. But did you know about this? Unless a couch costs like thousands, it is most likely not ALL leather. The part you sit on is leather, the arms, and the part you lean against, but then the sides of the cushions and the back are all pleather. Same in your car. Anyway, the pleather parts of our sofa and loveseat have started to peel and SB has taken to referring to them as “our crack den couches”. It’s a big bummer, because they are otherwise super comfortable and quality.
Over the weekend, SB’s mom decided she wanted to get rid of a couch she bought about a year ago. It’s brown and non-offensive so we figured why not? It’s free, it will look better than what we have, and it’ll last for a while until we can buy what we want.
So we borrowed my dad’s truck and made two trips hauling The Biggest Couch in America to our house.
And this isn’t all of it. There’s another sectional piece and two kitchen table sized ottomans, of which we kept one ottoman, not pictured.
Right off, I’m not a fan of the stack of pillows. But it looks nice, right? I can put up with it, I thought.
But then we sat down on it, and you guys? IT’S SO UNCOMFORTABLE. You wouldn’t think so, right? But oh man. It’s a piece of crap. Just not good quality. It’s broken-down and slanty like it’s 10 years old or something. May I remind you that our old couches were super comfortable, sturdy, and well made?
And we’re stuck with it. And I can’t get anyone on freecycle to take the old ones. And of course, there’s this:
I know we’ll get something new at some point, and when we do, it’d be awesome if I could push a button somewhere and get a report delivered in a tuneless computery sing-song, “You have spent FIVE days, SEVENTEEN hours and THRITY-SEVEN minutes of your life straightening these pillows. You have spent THREE days TWENTY-TWO hours and ELEVEN minutes of your life picking lint off these cushions.”
Oh what a lovely time was had by all. We did and saw many exciting things, and many not exciting things were made so, by the delightful small person who joined us. We saw lots of good old friends, long lost cousins, and ate many many delicious treats. Clark watched the World Trade Center diggers out our window and rode more trains than he ever thought possible. We discovered that the Statue of Liberty is not on Staten Island and probably most exotic, it was DELICIOUSLY HOT for our whole trip (she writes while wearing socks and jeans and a sweater.)
click to embiggen, if you wanna
I’m writing this so that I remember it always, but also because if YOU have a super shitty flight, I want you to be able to hearken back to this post and say to yourself with a sigh of relief, at least this isn’t as bad as that flight of Jenny’s.
So. Firstly, let me say that he was GREAT on the flight to NYC. It was a dream, actually. He slept for the first half and was lovely company for the second, completely pleasant and entertained by his books and snacks. Then, for our whole trip in NYC, he was such a fun little companion. He seemed to grow up over the week before our eyes, constantly delighting us with funny observations and surprising us with his portability.
And then.
We had to leave on our lengthy journey RIGHT at nap time, so it was dicey to start with. He was OK in the cab to Penn Station, except of course he pooped. So when we got there, we had approximately 10 minutes for one of us to wrangle all of the luggage, buy tickets, and figure out where we were going, and the other to find a bathroom and change a diaper. I drew the poopy straw, so while I was pleased to learn that the bathroom in Penn Station was the ONLY bathroom I encountered in all of New York City with a changing station, I was dismayed to remember that SB had the diaper stuff in HIS carryon. I managed to find a diaper, at least, in mine, and made do with wet toilet paper. Yuck. But we made it on to the train. The Friday afternoon, packed to the gills train, where we could not sit together and poor SB had to manage the suitcases in the crowd. I pulled out all my best stops to keep Clark entertained and managed to keep him to a mostly manageable level of screeching and wiggling.
Then on to another train, through the waiting and checking in, an epic juice-surrendering security tantrum, to the gate, and then we took turns chasing him around the crowded gate area as he got more and more punchy and SB and I began to lose our composure a little.
As we were finally waiting in line to get on the plane, his eyelids were fluttering a little and I thought YES! He is totally going to fall asleep as soon as we sit down.
But of course, the airplane was exciting, so he didn’t. For the next two hours, he continued to get more and more AND MORE rowdy. Like, jumping up and down on the seat, kicking the one in front of him, yelling and just being a crazycrazy child, like nothing I’ve ever seen him do before. It was like he was manic. Like, happy, yell-y screechy manic. I did NOT know what to do. Even in retrospect, I don’t know what I should have done.
I tried every thing I could. Distraction, food, whatever.
As you can imagine, if our patience and composure were slipping hours before this, we were both on the verge of collapse at this point. Our extreme embarrassment and the obvious frustration of everyone around us was not helping, either. About 2 hours in, the attendants finally brought my pathetic little snack tray and some much needed wine, all I wanted was my sad little salamis and stale crackers in peace, and that was when he actually dialed it up a little more. I turned to SB, and was like, what are we supposed to do? I even said, I feel like we should video tape this or something, because no one is going to believe us. And that’s when he started throwing things. He would shout THROW and bam! Hard cover Thomas book to the face, precious drops of wine spilling into my lap. I removed everything he could throw, and then he started hitting me. Hard.
I lost it a little. I grabbed his leg roughly and made my face and voice scary and said STOP IT.
He laughed. He would not stop. He was out of control.
And that’s when SB said, I can’t have him hitting you, and grabbed him and physically restrained him. And Clark started screaming even more. SB put his hand over Clark’s mouth and was doing everything he could to try to get him to stop.
I accepted this was not going to work either, took him back into my lap and that’s when he BARFED ALL OVER ME.
Right into my face.
I had barf on my cheek and my neck.
All over my shirt. Chunks in my bra.
And now my poor baby was sobbing and having trouble catching his breath.
The three of us walked back 20 rows to the bathroom and all I saw were disgusted faces, so I kept my gaze focused ahead.
When we got inside and shut the door I finally really lost it and started sobbing, too.
After a little while and some deep breaths, we both stopped crying and SB washed the chunks out of my bra. He went back and got Clark’s sweatshirt and my thin, see-through, no-buttons, sweater-cape-thing and we got as dressed as we could. For the rest of the flight and all through the airport after, I was wearing a wet bra and a few flimsy threads and there was nothing else to be done. We got back to our seats, I looked at my watch and realized that we were not even half way through the flight. There were still another 3 hours to go. Mercifully, Clark finally fell asleep.
But wait! There’s more!
Around midnight, when we had about a half an hour to go, (which still seemed like a million years on The Longest Flight Ever), SB misinterpreted something I said, took it as a poke, lashed out in return, and then in our extremely weakened mental states, now we were in a fight. I may or may not have whisper-hissed the following winners:
“I am not wearing a shirt and I have barf in my hair. I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU ARE PICKING ON ME RIGHT NOW.”
“You could take a SHIT in the middle of my CHEST and I would STILL cut you some slack at this point!”
Yeah. It was just so so so awful. I’m sure everyone around us thought we were terrible parents and felt sorry for Clark. I could JUST. DIE.
So. There you have it. My friend Heather is about to travel by herself for 20 hours or something like that with three children, so maybe I should just shut my hole, but at least all three of them are GIRLS.
on the way there, my perfect angel.
So, my WHOLE LIFE, I’ve been hauling around photography gear. Not just on trips, everywhere. But this trip I decided to have a little Experiment. It all started when I realized that although Clarkie gets his own seat on airplanes these days, and thus his own suitcase, it is nearly impossible for two adults to wrangle three suitcases and a wily toddler. Maybe if you’ve got some cush door to door service, ok, but if you’re landing in Newark at midnight and have to take a train to Penn Station and then a cab to your apartment, um, no.
Behold:
Three people packed for 8 days in two medium suitcases. Also, there is a pea pod in there. Yes, I RULE.
Anyway, when I realized that my camera gear was going to take up a significant amount of my packing real estate, I decided to try going all Chase Jarvis and doing the iPhone photo vacation. And dudes, I’m loving it. I have been shooting, editing and posting as I go. I don’t have a huge photo uploading/culling/editing task waiting for me at home. (For example, my PDX photos are still just sitting in my Lightroom.)
My boys are waiting for me so we can go out for our last night in NYC so I gotta jet, but here are some of my favorites so far:
Many many more to come! xoxo
I got another little blogging gig, and in this one I got to go shopping for makeup. Neat! Free makeup is especially cool, because I always feel like it’s one of those lame, invisible things to spend money on, you know? Like, I could spend $20 on this lipstick, or I could get a whole shirt. I feel the same way about bras and underwear. So expensive and no one even sees it!
That said, I have been greatly influenced over the years by my makeup-caring-about mother and sister in law, and now, I’m pretty partial to expensive makeup. I like it to seem fancy, I guess. And I’m a sucker for good packaging. I enjoy the pleasing utilitarian blackness of my MAC, and the pretty pink sparkle of my Mary Kay.
But of course I realize the difference is most likely minimal, so I approached this CoverGirl opportunity ready to be impressed and and indeed, I was. I was able to buy four products with my cizzash and here’s what I got:
Cover Girl professional all-in-one mascara: This is the blue one? It really is one of the best mascaras ever. I can’t seem to find one in existence that does not end up all over my face by the end of the day, but this one does about the best of any I’ve tried. Every now and then I try a fancy brand and get no better results. This may not sound like a glowing review, but it totes is.
CoverGirl brow and eyemakers eyebrow pencil: So, yeah, filling in my brows is NEVER GONNA BE A PROBLEM for me. They are quite thick and luxurious and require significant upkeep to prevent them from taking over my entire face. But my mom uses the stuff, and I think she’s using the wrong color. So I picked this out for her in a shade I thought would be better, gave it to her all, “Hey, look what I got for free! You can have it!” and now she’s using the proper color, and for that I thank you, CoverGirl. I can tell that this is a lot easier to blend than whatever she was using before.
CoverGirl smokyshadow blast eyeshadow crayon-thing: I give this high marks. It’s a fat crayon type-deal with a different color on each side and it went on super quick and easy. I chose a light brown combo, and I think it will work well for those days when using a makeup brush seems too difficult or time consuming. (Yes, those exist.)
CoverGirl outlast all day lipcolor As is usually the case with such things, I REALLY don’t think it actually lasts ALLLLL DAY, but I will allow it does last a long time. It comes with two tubes, and the concept is pretty brilliant. With one you put on the color, and the other is a gloss that you use to freshen it up all day. I like it. I will probably buy it in a lighter color for more daily use. I like brown-ish lipcolors, but the nutmeg is more of a night-on-the-town shade.
So, all in all, I was quite pleased by my CoverGirl haul!
Thank you to Kroger and CoverGirl for sponsoring this review. While CoverGirl provided me with a $30 gift card to purchase CoverGirl products at Kroger stores, the opinions I’ve expressed here are solely my own, represent my honest viewpoint, and not that of CoverGirl, Kroger, or Proctor & Gamble. I am making no claims about the products, just expressing my thoughtful opinion. Clever Girls Collective supports Blog With Integrity.
Hello! I’ve been off work for just a week and I feel like a completely different person. It rules. I suppose it’s always this way, after a difficult experience that you just put your head down and slogged through, you realize, WHOA. That was nuts. Dudes, it is JUST NOT RIGHT to only spend a few hours a day in your house and cram everything you need to get done into that time, and there’s never enough, and there’s constantly a list of things to do that you will never ever complete, and GHAAAAA. I’m so happy to have the time and the inclination to GET SHIT DONE. In fact, my master list of things to do is entitled GETTING SHIT DONE.
And I am! In the past week, I’ve gotten so many piddly little things accomplished that I previously didn’t have time for. Like making the full transition to The Big Boy Bed, which required a screw driver, a bit of rearranging and maybe a half an hour. There are Goodwill piles that have been dropped off, dry cleaning that has been taken in, proper dinners have been made, exercise is happening, and just a general exhale. That was a tough year, you guys.
And there has been this:
And this:
Yes, in true PNW style, one day we are soaking wet at the sprayground and then next clad in wool and turtle necks.
Speaking of the boy, he had another eye surgery. It went well. It was partly more traumatic than last time, and partly less. Less, in that we knew what to expect, and more because he seemed to have a worse reaction to coming out of anesthesia this time. He totally freaked out. Like sobbing, can’t catch your breath freaking out. Which, you know, was NOT FUN. But here we are 2 days later and it’s like it never happened. Let’s hope it all worked this time, because the next step is far more involved, and these surgeries aren’t cheap, as you can imagine.
Anywho, next update will be from New York City! We are SO excited. I think we have finally come to a place where my boy is portable and verbal and pleasant enough that none of it stresses me out, not even that 6 hour flight. He has been talking non stop about the airplane and the subway and taking the ferry to see the statue.
Today is my last day of work for at least three whole months! Talk about a life change.
I am going to have a FANTASTIC time, don’t you worry, but I’ll miss my work habitat just a little. Truth is, I like my job. I had so many years of jobs I hated, where I was abused by The Public and underpaid, that even after four years of working in IT, I still thank my lucky stars every single day. I’m so fortunate to have a job I don’t hate, where I get to feel smart and be surrounded by some of the smartest people in the world, working for That Giant Software Company on this beautiful campus.
I’m not far enough from those dark days, though, to worry that perhaps my luck has run out. My team is having a re-org and it’s possible my job won’t exist in 100 days. Then I’ll have to job search and ohmygod what if I can’t find anything and I have to be a waitress again and AHHHHHAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH…..
Deep breaths. I hope to put all of this out of my mind and live in the moment, and cherish this special time with my boy, and just make the most of each day of this grown up summer vacation.
But MAN will I miss the free beverages.
*In manner of Braveheart. (Um, wow. That was MEL GIBSON. Crazy, amiright? Now he’s such a douche, but back then? Dreamy.)
