Saturday, May 31, 2008

Happy Shower Dr. Jenn

My friend's shower is today in Dallas. And I couldn't be there, so I made a video to send her instead.

Friday, May 30, 2008

you've all been waiting for it

Yeah this last week has been burnout week.

Motivation is at an all time low.

Tonight I have dozens of things to do (including pay the bills!), but all I can manage to do is sit on my bed with two snoring dogs and blog about what I'm not doing.

I think I have plenty of reasons:

-As I said before, the conference was anticlimactic.
I designed and designed and designed, and while everything looked great, it hit home that no matter how hard I work to make all the fonts match, people can remain unmotivated and disinterested in community compassion. I don't know that they were unmotivated, but I'm a "feeler" and I felt that way. I'm also terribly cynical.

-Our creative church planning team has been disbanded.
Even though it's supposed to be temporary, I am again a cynical-feeler.
And a little bird told me that the reality is that there is *another* team that is replacing us.
I'm depressed about it.
I felt like I got the "I want to date other people" line.
And I can't help but irrationally blame myself for it. I made a design for the next series that I submitted with a certain amount of artistic reservation. Then it got ripped in the CML, and it was too late to take it back and re-do it.
The strangest twist to it, is that I'm pretty sure I'm still being hired by the church for 15 hours of work, designing I'm assuming. So my conclusion is that other people will be making the larger creative decisions now, and I'll just have to illustrate it(?).
Depressing.

-I failed at potty training Baby C (see post below)

-Rich's leukemia is back and could possibly be lymphoma. :<
(but it's not in the bone marrow! hooray! :) )

-Aurora's gonna put Pudge down!

-And finally, I have a slight cold. And I'm being a gigantic wuss about it, but it doesn't make me want to do anything but stare at the ceiling.

when the eye starts twitching, it's time to throw in the pull-up


Yes, I have given up on potty training Baby C.

While I didn't want to, I desperately wanted to.

The motivational (or demotivational) moment came today when yet another mom (that I met at the beach) told me that she tried potty training her son when he was 2 and it just didn't work. And then she gave up, put him back in diapers and then when he turned 3, she tried again and he had success right away.
I think she and many other moms are right.

Bottom line: she's not ready.

She is the oak-of-fortitude and puts her father to shame.

No reward was great enough, no punishment severe enough.
Nothing, I repeat, absolutely nothing that anyone anywhere ever suggested to make a child use the potty worked for her.

So I will revisit this August 15th, one month before she turns two.

Until then, I can be spared...
...the crack o' dawn requests to sit on the potty after she had pooped in her pull up and shed it onto the carpet.
...scrubbing toddler scat off the carpet
...stressing out all day long!

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

I didn't buy her Barbies!

They are Kelly's and they are small and anatomically plausible little girl dolls with gainful employment.

But I did alter their career paths just a bit.



I mean, teacher, cake-maker, and nurse? What is this? 1955?
Come on little Kellys, we can do more than that!
I left the firefighter mostly unchanged, but why not go for the top of the "ladder" if you will?
Yes, I really told Baby C that the girl with the smart red shoes is the engineer and the girl with the stethescope is a doctor.

A little accidental searching online led me to find out that my degree has it's own Barbie.
Scary.


Yeah, I think the only thing that I have in common with her is the skinny legs and that fabulous sense of fashion...oh, and the two toddlers grabbing at my paintbrush.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Baby Tuesday

Memorial weekend at a barbeque, with my two blonde children and balloons and volleyball. I felt very suburban American.


Baby C and Baby R played and played, and fell down and ate and fell down and ate, until they were filthy, full and tired.


Nerfy football thing. It was someone else's and it bought me about 30 minutes of peace.


Sunblock + head plant in the dirt = mud head.


Drool never takes a holiday.


Fast forward to today.
I finally drove up to Golden Gate park in San Francisco to their super playground.
I've been meaning to do it for, um, two years.
It was really great, and all the moms seemed to look like me.
I was a total golden-gate-mommy-poser.
The only bad thing about the playground was that it was SO big, that it was hard to keep track of two toddlers.
Scratch that, replace "hard" with "maddening."


Angela and Gloria were nice enough to join us for our romp in the city. Baby CB and Baby T blessedly stayed put. Baby R and Baby CB shared the sand/water pit.
And yes, the sweater in the water was a terrible idea.



Flump!


Most wacked out moment of the day took place here at the concrete slides.
I was trying to rustle Baby R into clean, dry clothes and when I looked up, Baby C had vanished. Bolted, if you will.
Angela and Gloria watched Baby R while I combed the giant playground.
And after I had quietly started to totally panic, I found Baby C up at the top of the slides (can you see the hat? that's her) with NOTHING on her butt.
No pants, no pull up.
She had stripped off her clothes and was considering going down the concrete slide.
If she had, that would definitely been a story I would never let her, or her friends or boyfriends, forget.

Shortly after we re-dressed everyone, we strollered over to the Haight for lunch. It isn't the most stroller friendly (not to mention we had three strollers, and mine's a double!) area, so we got our pizza, bought some donuts for Baby R and Baby C and some nice homeless guys (who said they were Vegan, but ate the chocolate eclairs anyway), and strolled back to the park.


And fancy that, they had a carousel! This was our second ride, in which Baby R had warmed up to the idea of the big moving fiberglass horse.


Baby C got the zebra-- so chic! She absolutely positively adores carousels. I was worried she would totally lose it when we had to get off. But she kept her composure and we drove to get frozen yogurt and buy toys.
Yeah, it was like a mini Christmas. I don't know what came over me.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

I'm getting my very own website!

I know it seems that I already have a website, and you're on it.

But, it became clear to me that in order to be a real "freelancer" I needed a place other than Flickr to store my portfolio and share my information about what I do.


And I have just become the new owner of pullittogether.com !


No, don't try to type it in now, the website's not up yet. Who knew there was so much complicated stuff that had to take place before you could put up a site?
Not I, said the fly.

Very soon, I hope to shamelessly plug all of my random and often useless talents for those few that might need my skills.

Friday, May 23, 2008

hai! Toto NI ban!

We loved our first little Toto so much, that we decided to buy another one today.
(That, and our old non-Toto toitey broke)

An even more glorious one.


It's a "dual flush"...because we care about polar bears.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

conference post game show

Yesterday was the big honkin' conference that we've all been sweatin' over since November.
All the hustling and late nights and arguments culminated into... one big hustley late night argument.

The power went out for the first two hours of it, and you can imagine what that did to everyone's attitude.

We had multiple speakers coming in just in the nick of time (stress!). One speaker who did not have a message that pertained to our goal, talked forever, while the other speakers who had really great messages, got cut short (Sherwood, I wish you could have talked all day!). By the end of it, less than half of the attendees were still there.

But! I heard more than a few people tell staff how much they liked it. So, who knows. The jury's still out on the success.

My role was to "graphically facilitate" each speaker's message. Graphic facilitation is a fancy word for "note taking with big fat markers on stage."
The biggest challenge to it is lack of time.
When the guy's done talking, he's done, and I'm done.
No touch ups or re-do's.


Deliberating.


Oh look! Jon's assistant "Mary" is making things happen by magic, and keeping my kids happy too!


Where there is coffee, there is happiness in the AM hours.
No lack of smiles here.


Dan Kimball sneaking through the doors, with 15 minutes to spare.
Yay for Dan, I wish he could have spoken longer too.
He was the first speaker I marker-ed for.
(First speaker that spoke once the power came back on.)


After each session I hung (per Trina's instruction) the giant notes up on that balcony (we used Church on the Hill to hold the conference, instead of Westgate).
There's one missing from the photo, btw.
I imagine they're nestled in a little recycling bin right now.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

These are my peeps



Yes, these guys are my friends (and possibly my new bosses?), and we totally showed this to the whole congregation on Sunday.

Fabulous.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Baby Tuesday

I had totally forgotten today was Tuesday until just now!

And I also just realized that I hadn't taken any photos.

So just now I snuck into their rooms and took photos of them sleeping! :)



Note that the blankies are very near each of their faces!


And these are Kevin's other babies. He's so very proud, he even took their portraits.
(We've waited 3 years for cherries to grow on our tree, and finally the bees did us a favor.)

Monday, May 19, 2008

the rav is in the garage

Thanks for Jeff from Toyota Sunnyvale (who we love, buy your cars from him!) our grocery-getter came in Saturday night and also thanks to Sue's graciousness we drove over in peace without babies to go pick it up.


I took this with my camera phone while we were waiting on the finance guy. Note the tinted windows, bonus!



And then I took this yesterday, again with my phone, after our Haiti meeting at church. (Baby R has only so much tolerance for meetings. He needed a blankie break.) The bangs had looked good at 7am, but by 2pm they got mussed.

I love it. It's great. I programmed phone numbers into the bluetooth talking lady in the dashboard. And as soon as my June allowance comes up, I'll be getting the NOR CAL license plate frame and the onetruth sticker for it. I can't drive without a little flair.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

we got a new car!....kinda...

Tonight, we took two disgruntled babies (well one was okay until the end) in record high heat wave this afternoon to procure ourselves a family-vehicle.
And since I wanted a black 2008 RAV4, we had to put an order in for it.

But when it comes it will look like this!

All except for that european license and the dewy green glen.

And if I get my wish, it will then look like this!


Yes. Thanks to Back to the Future, I must have a black Toyota truck with KC lights and a "cattle bar" on the front.

I'm sure that's where I'm getting my coolness cues, and I don't care. I love it.
And y'know, chances are, Franklin's gonna get lost again, and when he does, I'll need all that wattage to track him down! Also, when I accidentally run into the clothes dryer in the garage, I'll need that cattle bar to protect my bumper.

And it's got a third row and bluetooth and gets 27 MPG.
Yes, it's brand new. Something we thought we'd never do. But it was almost the same price as a used one.

Now we just have to wait for it* to arrive...

(P.S. Trina, buy the Audi!!)

*It's 3.5L V6, 24 valve, 269 hp, 5 speed automatic (finally an automatic! I've waited 10 years to not have to shift!!) 19 mpg city / 27 mpg hwy. No it's not the Dodge Journey because 1) it's the first production year and 2) the good gas milage only applied to the model that didn't offer a third row.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Baby Tuesday

Last night I stayed up until 5AM "finishing" a design assignment. It's just like being in school, except, it's way more fun than a research paper on E.M. Forster. (I think just about anything is more fun than that.)
I'm still not really finished, because there are misspelled names and missing commas, etc etc.
But the Baby Tuesday must go on!





Yeah, I let him eat soup by himself. He didn't want me to feed it to him, so if he was gonna eat it, my best bet was to let him "feed himself." Which means, mostly feeding Mojito.



Nothing cheers him up like a romp without pants.


I think that's Mojito's smile..."Queso!"


And this would be his pout.


Roses make good confetti...


..and a festive photo shoot backdrop.

Friday, May 09, 2008

I may be able to buy American

Dodge, I once lost all hope for you.

When you openly said "we design cars for men," I was irritated.
When you kept making cars with worse and worse gas milage, I thought you clearly didn't want to be my friend.

But you have made a peace offering.

The Dodge Journey



It's clear by the name you're trying to get my attention, it's all flower-in-your-hair, la-la, hug a tree journey. Good thing I'm a tree huggin', flower wearer.

It's got 3 rows.
It's a little over 20K.
It's 5 star safety rated.
It's 19/25 MPG.
And it's not a minivan.

I'm sold.

And seeing that we just had to pay a huge chunk of change to fix the Audi and the Honda keeps actin' squirrely-- I think I see a new car in my crystal ball...

entertainment section

Last night we saw Iron Man.
Just like everyone else says, it was great!
I fell for every hollywood trick.

I just bought Gran Bel Fisher this morning, and it is good.
I think it falls into that non-offensive rock category. Good music to play when people are in your car or your house. Not quite Jack Johnson non-offensive, but more like Toad the Wet Sprocket.

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Just click it.
tap tap tap.
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Paypal is your friend [and my Pal?].

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Baby Adendum


We left Baby R's [crack] blankie at church tonight and he's freaking out in his crib right now!

If Babies 'R' Us was open at 9:20pm, I would go an buy another!

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Baby Tuesday

Long anticipation, for only a few photos.


"um cheese"





"I fell off the picnic table, so I got a cookie to make me feel better."



In baby news:

-Baby R got his hair cut again. It's a more subtle mohawk this time.

-We went to a party last night (see above) and they both did great. Baby R slept in the pack n' play after about an hour and Baby C danced like a go-go girl to the musica latina and stayed sunny until 11:30pm.

-I've been seriously slacking on the potty training. You would too. It's exhausting.

matchmaking again!



My friend Kathryn and I are trying to set up our friends.
Yes, my track record on setting up friends isn't stellar. (sorry Bennett and Trina!)
But that doesn't stop me from trying.

As much as I love to hear about how comically badly Ryan's dates go, I feel personally challenged to find someone that matches him.

I have never met the chick who I'm setting him up with. But she looks good on paper, so I think it's worth a go.
It's a blind date, so they know practically nothing about each other, no photos, etc.
Good thing Ryan doesn't read my blog, or I'd be in trouble.

The date is set, the place, the time, both parties have agreed. Our plan is working perfectly!...(rubbing hands together).

Friday, May 02, 2008

crazies running the asylum?

Tonight our church threw a party for all of the people that help out with the kids at church, like the Sunday school teachers and the nursery workers, etc.

And they needed childcare for all of their kids. So our small group volunteered to help. I have never even really babysat anybody, but I figure I've watched mine plus a little friend before, how hard can it be?

I was sweatin'!
Right away two of them were having a meltdown and a parent was asking me questions I didn't know the answer to.
It could have been a lot worse.
But they were not in their usual rooms
at their usual times
with their usual mary-poppins-nice-ladies in there.

They had me looking confused.

I mean, the pressure was on, these were the pro's kids. I felt like the parents were looking me over-- one of them was British!

But then the pizza came, and my friend Kathryn who teaches special ed. kindergarten came, and there was order! Look! (I camera-phone'd these)

Isn't that the cutest little conference table?


Yep, he stayed with me. I snuck him some cobbler that Kathryn ganked from the party. I felt terrible because the kids that saw me feed him, gave me the sad face, but I knew that he was just an empty spoonful away from total baby tantrum.
Those tantrums...they're contagious in a herd.