|
|
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
| |
9:09 pm - Name my show
|
I'm getting paintings and prints ready for a show at Eljay's in the Rivermarket - and it's time to start letting folks know that it's happening - so I need to think of a name for the show.
I've made a bunch of watery/underwater stuff - jellyfish and barnacles and fish and coral and stuff like that. I'm thinking "Subscapes" would be pretty straightforward. I dunno. I suppose I should post some photos of the stuff if I really want ideas.
Any ideas? - Watery names? :)
current mood:  hopeful
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Saturday, February 28th, 2009
| |
10:21 am
|
I don't want to be stuck inside today. I'd rather be walking, shopping, working in the yard, going to the library, going to the Y, going anywhere. I spent all day inside yesterday too - and I'm thinkin' that was a mistake now.
STIRRRR CRAAAAZZZYYYYY
Which unfortunately makes me SNAAAACKy
blah.
I'll have to get brave and at least drag Tobes out to play in the snow. (but ack! the weather says it feels like 16 degrees out there. blah.)
Our next door neighbor passed on and his son has moved into his house. He's one of those industrious people - he's done all kinds of work to the house and yard already. He was out shoveling his porch and cars off this morning.
It's kind of inspiring. If he can get out on a day like this to do completely pointless work that will just get undone in a few hours anyway - then I can take my boy out for purely entertainment reasons.
Enough whining. Must go do something. (besides bake muffins and eat them all up)
current mood:  crazy
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, February 17th, 2009
| |
1:18 pm
|
|
Cake is playing in KC on May 2nd. Should I go? I'm so cheap - $30 for a ticket seems kinda crazy to me. But I do like Cake, and I've liked them for a long time. But am I outgrowing them? naaaaa....
|
|
(6 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, February 9th, 2009
| |
6:35 pm
|
I've got the sewing bug :)
I've been stealing ideas off of etsy - with the thought that anything that doesn't come out that well, well, maybe I can just sell it on etsy for $10, and move on :) Helps me not get stuck and paralized by indecision. Which is a common problem with me. I'm almost done with a skirt. Very exciting :)
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Thursday, January 29th, 2009
| |
4:55 pm - The joy of being vegetarian
|
|
is being able to watch Chicken Run with your 3 year old and explain: the chickens are trying to escape because they don't want to be eaten. Some people eat chickens, but we eat tofu instead :)
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| |
12:14 pm
|
we are in the process of trying to get Toby into a Montessori pre-school for next year. We've so far toured and put ourselves on wait lists for three different schools - with our fingers crossed for Border Star - because it looked great and it would be FREE!!
We got home from touring Global Montessori this morning - and I come home to a house that's covered in toys - every surface - complete chaos - and just yesterday I sat down with the boys, and together we labeled all the toy bins and drew pictures so they could tell which toys go in which bins. I thinned old toys that they've outgrown, I got it all nice and set up on the shelves. And then last night Toby dumps everything out on the floor so he can use the bins for drums (even though he has a whole friggin' drum kit upstairs) And today our cleaning person is coming, and I don't have the time, energy or patience to put everything back into the properly labled bins, so I just dumped everything back on the shelf the way it was before. Willy nilly - perfect chaos.
At the Montessori schools they have tons of stuff with tiny tiny pieces, all carefully stored on shelves in specific places on trays or in baskets. The rooms are always neat and orderly, the children clean up after themselves. While we were touring today I was trying to put something away that Toby had pulled off a shelf and one of the students immediately showed me exactly where it should go. The Border Star literature says that, "Children are orderly by nature and having the room set this way allows them to grown in a very positive way." Where is my child's orderly nature? I'm afraid he's going to show up the first day at pre-school and they will have to beat him with counting sticks to keep him from wrecking the room.
Maybe some of it will rub off on him. Maybe Montessori will turn him into a neat orderly human being. I'm not holding my breath though - I went to Montessori in pre-school too. My studio is testament to how well that stuck. sigh. At least I only dump everything out on the floor occasionally. :P
current mood:  grumpy
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
| |
12:54 pm - How playing computer games improved my life
|
For a while now I've been wasting time on the internets playing silly word games like word twist and path words and other some such stuff on facebook. I'd gotten fairly good at it, but always felt guilty, because I could be doing something more productive, right?
Well then Jesse and I were bored one night and decided to play Scrabble! We've often avoided Scrabble in the past, because Jesse would always trounce me - but this time I decisively won! And the next time he won, but only by 10 points - so it turns out that through hard work and dedicated practice, I have become Jesse's equal at Scrabble, and now we have fun things to do at night.
Now I need to find some online chess to waste my time...
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Saturday, January 17th, 2009
| |
8:29 pm
|
I've been feeling boring again lately. I wonder how to combat that. I read interesting books. Unless I'm reading trashy romance novels. Right now I'm reading Anna Karenina. That's interesting, right?
I need a redo on my fashion - but I always do. I haven't really gotten anything new in over a year, and not much for over two years. This is primarily because I spend all my time trying to loose weight, I'm hovering about 5 pounds over my weight watchers goal weight and 15 pounds over my real-life goal weight - and I have been for over six months. I've been loosing and gaining the same 4 pounds over and over again. It might be time to recognize that it will take me eight years to loose 15 pounds and go ahead and get some new clothes. But what to get? I'm so out of it with fashion. I hate to admit it, but I think I froze myself somewhere in between high school and college and all I'll ever really feel comfortable in is a variation on jeans, t-shirts, hoodies and converse sneakers. I'm right now wearing a pair of converse that I actually bought in high school. To quote my dad, "If you take care of something, it will last you a lifetime." Said, while wearing a ratty blue sweater with ginormous holes in the elbows. At least I come by it honestly.
Jesse's pushing for a new look. Or at least new clothes. He got me a plaza gift card for christmas for clothes. Ack. I've never actually even considered the possibility of shopping on the plaza. Who would spend that much on clothes? Looks like I will soon enough. Today he convinced me to actually put my blue hoodie with the holes and worn out elastic in the sleeves and the paint stains into the trash can. I put it in the trash can. Then I looked sadly at it. And Toby could tell I was sad, and said, "Mama's hoodie!!!" And pulled it back out again and gave it to me. So now I'm keeping it, but I'm going to chop off the sleeves and put patches on the paint stains and wear it as a hooded summer tank-top. I think this will work :)
Anytime I do buy something new I just buy something generic and plain. Blank solid colored t-shirts. Any jeans that are on sale for less than $15. I don't quite know how to expand and break out of this mundanity. I suppose I could start by goodwilling everything that is overstuffing my drawers that I hate. And that's a lot of stuff. Then, forced by threat of exposure to the elements I might have to actually get new stuff, fun stuff, cute stuff.
or just more generic stuff off the clearance rack. It's hard to resist.
|
|
(18 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, January 14th, 2009
| |
12:46 pm - Stuck at home
|
This is day two of being stuck in the house. My car has the most annoying problem. It'll run just fine, but every now and then, perfectly randomly, I'll take a short trip, run a short errand, and when I get back out to my car it won't start. Engine won't make any noise at all - nothin'. Twice we had it towed to the shop, and when they tried to start it it starts up fine. Recently we've gotten smart and have stopped messing with the tow - we just leave it where it is, and when we come back later it starts up fine.
So it's back at the shop. All day yesterday they were unable to replicate the problem. It's still there today. The result is - I'm going stir crazy. It's cold as hell outside, and I'm stuck here with two small children. I'm so bored.
I dragged my mandolin out of the basement, wiped 4 inches of dust off the case and started picking scales I'm so bored. If my car never behaves I'll be a bluegrass star in no time. :)
current mood:  bored
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
| |
1:43 pm - I'm blinder than I thought
|
i took off my glasses and set them on the desk to take off a sweater because I was too hot.
Then I couldn't find my glasses. I looked all over the desk, I looked on the floor, I looked behind the computer, I stood up to get a different view. I could not find them.
So I gave up and finished what I was working on with out them.
Then in frustration I opened this page to write about how I was missing them, and I glanced over at the desk, and they were RIGHT THERE. They were right in front of me the whole time and I couldn't see them.
But I'm going to assume they took a walk and then came back. Because otherwise it's just silly.
current mood:  weirded-out
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Thursday, January 8th, 2009
| |
1:13 pm
|
for the past couple of nights I wake up at 3:30 AM and I'm coughing. Jesse will flinch away, roll over, grumble, or in some way react every single time I cough. This stresses me out, because I don't want to be bothering him, and the tension it creates makes it so I can't stop coughing. (I sleep with cough drops next to the bed and sometimes I can shut this down with a cough drop, and sometimes I can't. I just know this will be the way I die. I will inhale a cough drop while I'm sleeping and no one will be around to administer a Heimlich maneuver and I will choke to death.)
Jesse realizes that I can't stop coughing because I'm worried about bothering him (which in my mind would mean that the logical solution would be to *Stop Reacting Every Time I Cough!*) but he just eventually gets up and goes and sleeps in the attic, and shortly thereafter I'm able to stop coughing and get back to sleep.
I'm not sick, I don't even have a runny nose. All I have is a sometimes cough that will appear kinda late at night, wake me up once or twice in the middle of the night, leave me raspy first thing in the morning, but all day long I feel perfectly fine.
This happened back in the spring too, and we chalked up it up allergies. But it's the middle of F'ing winter! There's nothing blooming out there! Why???
current mood:  annoyed
|
|
(7 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, January 2nd, 2009
| |
9:06 pm
|
I am so sleepy.
The Maj-R Thrift store was having the best sale ever today - and I lucked into wandering by. Along with a bunch of other stuff I got a bunch of new wool sweaters which I popped into the washing machine upon arriving home - then went upstairs to search the internet on how to wash wool sweaters (because, no matter what their tags tell me to do, I will not pay more to dry clean a garment than I paid for the garment) then I quickly ran back downstairs to pull those sweaters back out of the washing machine, because apparently lots of agitation is bad. I think I saved them in time. They are laying flat to dry now. Much cleaner.
I feel like I need to clearly define my new years resolutions before the new years gets away from me. But all I really want to do these days is think about cooking party food. All I really wanted at the thrift store was some mini muffin pans, tart pans and/or cool serving platters. I found none of those things (though I did get some loaf pans and a cool red mini-colander for Toby's new play kitchen) I have a gift card for pottery barn that I've been toting around for three years probably, and I'm thinking I might finally have found a reason to use it for the aforementioned serving platters. My birthday's coming up and I feel like cooking. There will be a party. Please plan to attend ;)
I'm so sleepy I don't even know what I'm typing anymore. And it's only 9:15. I rock. goodnight.
current mood:  sleepy
|
|
(7 comments | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
| |
9:32 am - Christmas Food
|
I've been feeling the cooking bug ;)
Usually for Christmas I make pretty much the same thing I make for thanksgiving - my fabulous tofu turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, pies, etc.
But, while I love all that stuff, I realized at Thanksgiving that none of it poses a challenge anymore - I've mastered that menu, I could cook it in my sleep. And twice in 2 months is kinda boring.
So this year I'm branching out! I found a recipe for a seitan roast pie thing in a yeasted crust. (it's a traditional canadian christmas recipe) Brussels sprouts and red peppers for color. Roasted potatoes to use my new potted rosemary! french onion soup (yum!) Cheese and olives and fruits.
There's only going to be 4 of us this year - so I'm going to try to keep from being too insane with it, but this leaves dessert. I'm a 1/4th hungarian - so I found this recipe for beigli (which I have no idea how to pronounce :)
Now I just need to figure out how to translate recipes with grams into tablespoons. :P
I'm excited. Going shopping for ingredients today!
current mood:  excited
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Saturday, December 20th, 2008
| |
9:44 pm - Green Pig
|
|
| |
5:24 pm - Toby with Santa
|
We took Toby to see Santa at Crown Center the other week. He was great - very brave as you can see in the photo. And he asked Santa to bring him a green pig.
Now this has been very cute and lots of fun and whenever people ask him if he saw santa I tell them that he asked for a green pig, because it's such a cute story.
But then it occured to me today - "Santa" hasn't got a green pig to give to him. And Christmas is five days away.
so .... if you happen to be out shopping in the greater Kansas City area - and you bump into a green pig - give me a shout to let me know. I need to find one fast! :P
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, December 15th, 2008
| |
7:17 am - Happy Birthday Toby!
|
|
| Sunday, December 14th, 2008
| |
8:48 pm - awww
|
:)
I just put Toby to bed, and after I kissed him goodnight, he said, "mama, it's been a fun day. I liked my Birthday. It had some balloons." :)
It was a good birthday. The party was fun. He got some nice presents. The cake came out great. All the kids got along and shared really well. And there were some balloons.
I guess I know that it gets harder and harder for these things to live up to expectations the older kids get - so it makes me really happy that he was pleased. :)
current mood:  happy
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, December 8th, 2008
| |
2:50 pm
|
my goal for today was silly.
I'm finishing my portfolio next semester. Whatever. :)
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| |
8:46 am
|
Goal for today:
Complete my entire portfolio.
:) I'll get started on it as soon as I'm done procrastinating.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
| |
2:23 pm - I'm clever like that
|
About a year ago, in late fall early winter, I read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and was inspired, but frustrated that it was the winter time and I couldn't rush out and plant a garden and buy yummy produce at the farmer's market and join a CSA. But eventually, after a long wait, spring came around and I did all of those things.
Now I just finished reading Michael Pollen's In Defense of Food, and - guess what - I'm frustrated that it's winter time and I can't rush out and plant a garden, buy yummy produce at the farmer's market or rejoin my CSA. sigh.
I wonder if any of my windows get enough light for a potted herb garden. My parsley outside seems to be hanging in there through freezes and snows - even when all it's marigold pot-mates have long been dead. I could probably just replant it inside, and add some rosemary and basil.
I think I need some new cookbooks.
yum :)
|
|
(5 comments | comment on this)
|
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
stephtoth's journal
