What I've been up to, I guess

This is a ceramic piece I found at an antique sale. It has some birds on it.

 This is a yard sale shelf that had Noah's Ark on it, but I primed it and repainted it so that it (mostly) matches my shower curtain. Yeah, this is what they mean by "having it all."

I had all my spices on this set of shelves, but they kept getting knocked over in the doing of the laundry, so we got some magnets and dollar store tupperware and repurposed a white board, and voila! 

But then we had these shelves left over. And also primer left over. And also an assortment of adorable toys that held significance/were adorable (as previously noted) and didn't want the children ruining. 

 The Fisher Price chicken on the top shelf was the start of this whole assortment. Also, a knockoff Luffy that I got for a dollar at a chinese restaurant (sorry, Oda sensei!), wind up teeth like you always see, but never in real life, some of our Mold A Ramas and Hedora.

 More Mold A Ramas, Big Mo the Biscuit, a ceramic viking Lily painted for father's day one year, and more wind ups and cars.

I paid $3 for the Fozzie mug at a yard sale. I balked at first, but she justified her price as it was "collectible." I suppose she was right. The onion dome plays music when you pick it up? The thing on top is a manta ray Mold A Rama, and it does not really work, as such.

Mold A Ramas are machines that, for $2, will extrude* you a plastic figurine. Florida is apparently ground zero for this type of thing, though you can find the machines in lots of places. The internet presence for collectors of this stuff is very limited and mostly not updated. But the zoo we got a membership to has several of the machines, and apparently they change out the molds for Halloween and Christmas, so we are super excited about that. And yes, I do nerd out similarly for the elongated penny machines. Maybe we can talk about that later.

*Extrude is probably the wrong word. There is a mold that plastic goes into, air is blown into the mold to get the plastic to form a hollow figure, and then the mold is cooled (somewhat), scraped off the platform and dropped into the basket. When you pick it up, you should hold it upside down for the first few minutes so no molten plastic bits drop onto your hand. Not sure why places children frequent wouldn't be super into these... (Note: the molten plastic bit dripping has never happened to me, but it does seem like a reasonable precaution.)

What you missed

My lord, the time I wasted watching this. So much. Easily covers six of the fourteen months I wasn't blogging.

Other internet based repositories of that time
- www.bookmooch.com
       My internet book swap site of choice. The selection is limited, but it has frequently come through for me.
       Sometimes for things quite obscure. (I'm looking at you, Chretien.) Also a good way to slough off the
       children's books we have outgrown. (Looking at you, Captain Underpants.) At media mail rates, it;s about
       2.50 for an average-sized book. Mooching more than one book from a person subsidizes that rate greatly.
- esquire.com/politics
       Charlie Pierce is brilliant. Like, four times a day, every week day. I will totally have what he is having.
        He even has enough left over to sound highly amused on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.
- http://www.balloon-juice.com/
       If you like your current events with snark, this is high grade black tar stuff.

Non-internet time spendage
- did go back to school. Did ok. Managed to not withdraw from anything.
- Henry turned two.
- Lily is in the second grade.
- I got pleurisy.

More later.

Hello World!

So, I live in Tampa now. I'm a Floridian. Which is odd. Me being way down here and everyone being okay with that. Whatever.

I'm a stay at home Mom, too. There's, like, 12% unemployment in Tampa, so SAHM it is.

Been going to the library and reading a good bit. Read two books on smallpox, one book on yellow fever and currently working my way through the history of garbage. Still to come, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Vonnegut and the Dalai Lama. Also reading a lot of children's literature and have come up with two observations. One, it's not so hard to write a children's book. Two, a lot of people who think that are really really wrong.

But, Tampa is nice. The fall is just beautiful, and the verdance (I'm going with it) in general is amazing. It. Is. So. Green. Everywhere. All. The. Time. It loses impact if I do that repeatedly, huh?

I suppose I should also mention that I have another kid now. Henry was born in February. He's almost 8 months old with blond hair and blue eyes. Yup. I now have two 24-karat Aryan babies. Lily is in the first grade and loving it. She just lost her first front top tooth, very exciting!

The pants is teaching, working on his dissertation, and still finding time to pitch in on the laundry and discuss The Venture Brothers every now and again. Could I love him more?

My role, as I see it, is to make everyone's (meaning Lily and the pants') life go smoother. I get to stay home, run the budget, and read books when not directly mothering, so I think it shakes out to fair. I am a fervent disciple of Mark Bittman's cooking and writing. (hint for christmas!) My plan is to go back to school in the spring, but it's still under discussion at this point.

I have big plans for this blog for the rest of this year! Maybe you won't have to wait until 2011 to hear about it!

More health care

I am for health care reform. What I am not for, are the Operation Rescue attacks currently being employed by certain advocates for reform. They literally stand outside places of business and call the people walking in "murderers." One of these people was the mother of a child who died after being denied a transplant. She was holding a sign accusing the company of murder and someone walking in to their job gave her the finger. Was this person an example of saintlike compassion, and all that is good in thew world? Maybe this jerkface was the same person who denied her daughter the care and is the source of all that is wrong with this industry. But just perhaps, this person is one of many who works a crappy job (with little to no decision making power) that they really need for the insurance (which is most likely crappy). But they are being told horror stories about reform by their management and now those reformers are calling everyone in the building murderers. It might be a bit much to take before coffee. My point is - not everyone who works at an insurance company is a certified death panel member. We are all angry, but perhaps we could more directly focus our anger, and not demonize an entire workforce. Nobody ever solved a problem with pitchforks and torches. Holding up inflammatory posters might feel like action, but it brings us no closer to a solution, and it does no actual person one single damn bit of actual good.

Relocation Edition

This may be my favorite picture of Lily yet. It's waiting for the bus on the first day of Kindergarten. Which she has quite taken to.

We are now living in Alabama.

Baby #2 is due in late february, early march. Things on that front are uneventful, which is just fine.

Jeremy will not be teaching this fall and instead just working on the dissertation and in the spring he will teach online for ASU again and graduate in May.

Votes for baby names can be made here. http://babynames.com/namelist/9719076

Suggestions (other than Sergio), may be left in the comments.

Thanks everybody!

Health Care Choice

http://baselinescenario.com/2009/07/27/health-insurance-innovation/

This is an article I found on huffington post, minutes after completing an email survey about whether I could afford not to have health care. For $300 a month I could get the health equivalent of collision insurance (hosp coverage only) and the two packages at $1100 and $2200 a month offered things like prescription coverage and doctor visit copays. And that would be if I could qualify for insurance. I have a chronic medical condition, and last time I applied for insurance on my own, I was described as "uninsurable." All the discussions about health care mention health care choice being limited by reform. What choices are those exactly?

Co-Blogging With Lily! (diet coke free!)

Lily says "Boo boo." I have stopped drinking soda and now drink mostly water. I tried substituting it with hot tea, but gave that up mostly as the sugar required was deleterious. Lily thinks you should now that she really lies to make pizza. She is less enthusiastic about consuming the results. She likes the name "Helium" for a little brother. Thank you http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/index.html and Rob who showed it to all of us. We are still in NY. Brother Herb has had some awesome-rific successes as of late. These can be viewed at his website: www.herbwilliamsart.com He's awesome. More later.

General Update (no pictures)

Hello. In May, we left Arizona, spent a week in Alabama, and then moved in with Jeremy's family in New York. Jeremy is teaching online and working on his dissertation. I am working at an insurance company call center, and it's better than it sounds. Lily is reading (gasp!) and demanding a sibling. It's a fun time. The autumn foliage was simply unbelievable, and watching it unfold day by day was amazing. I finally got to go to Rhinebeck, and that was a pretty fine time as well. That is all for now. Take care.

Pictures (Finally!!)

In Order From Top:

- Lily and Aunt Tracy!

- Lily and Uncle Bran!
- General Moppet Shot!

- Lily Does Something With Yarn

- Lily Tries Out For Cast Of Newsies! or Lily Visits Crayola Factory!

- Daddy And Lily At The Beach!

- Look, Ma! (And Pa, and Grandma, and Grandpa!)

- Theater is apparently genetic.

Cleaning House

I am going to be posting a series of (mostly pictureless) posts that (for some reason) never got posted over the last 18 months or so. Enjoy!

Lily's Creation - The Rapunzel Zombie

You may have to squint slightly, but check out what Lily has called, "The Rapunzel Zombie"

Also, you can see below how Lily was imitating her mother's entering dates on a big calender. Lily made her own chart, including someone apparently hanging out on one of the dates of her calender.

l

And I helped! - 10/15-07

My 30th Birthday Cake!

No Candy Corn Jokes Allowed!

Lily helped mix, bake, wait for it to cool, attempt to frost, wait to cool some more, finally frost and decorate this cake, which she then declined to eat.

Lily Draws a Yellow Monster, and She Writes Her Name

After writing her name the first time (see 1st pic below), Lily said writing was too hard. I told her about "practice." After a few minutes, she handed me the notebook, which had a second picture (2nd pic below), and said, "I practiced."

Lily Gets Her Hair Curled + New Lily Artwork

News From August - 8/14/07

In case you missed it





We do indeed have two ten week old kittens. We also have a new metaphor, as in "the poor wee thing was as defenseless as an Eisenberg." But they are very sweet and Lily drags the wand with fleece strip cat toy around with chasing kittens in tow and just laughs, which is very nice.

Summer Good Times

Guest blogger again -- we need to post pictures, so here we have:
Lulu's visit











Lily's first painting of a figure - This is Wilt from the cartoon Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends




















The cardboard castle (under construction)















New Kitties - Andre (White) and Big Boi (Stripey)

Hot fun in the summer!

Pictures All Around!

Here we are in all our finery for our attempt at the first annual Mother's Day Family Portrait. We learned how to use the timer on our digital camera and posed it conveniently on that cinderblock column you see to Jeremy's left (right, whatever) in the foreground. The fountain picture was the last we took (not in our backyard, but nearby) as the heat was getting to our photographic subject.

Recently as Jeremy and I were discussing Lily in the front seat, a disgruntled voice from the back piped up, "I'm right here."


Work continues to go well. I am one store in the complex over from Trader Joe's and that store in between us? Michael's. It'd be a lot better if they sold Lamb's Pride, but I can console my self with cotton ease for a little while.

Jeremy is just about to pitch his dissertation to his advisors and, I believe, Gutenberg's people. His lead line about Sidney and the coterie is killer.

The garden is (basically) finished. All the spots I

wanted to fill have been filled, and once I figure out why some plants are thriving and some not I may want more. But at the moment, all I have left to do is buy a small bag of cactus mix and a pot and repot the last two succulents. Yay!!

This week we shall attempt to put together a tricycle. We may be overconfident from the camera timer escapade.

Wha?

Hi. Been a while. I'm better. I have a job now that's pretty cool. I'm in training to manage one of those ebay franchise stores. The guy that's training me is the Phoenix area B movie superstar. I will be replacing him (as if) when he moves on. I spend a lot of the day explaining to people how ebay (and ebay by proxy) works. Other tasks include researching the value of items, informing owners that their grandmother's priceless china (or what have you) is in ebay terms "crap," photographing and posting ads. I am also on occasion called upon to shoo crowds of middle schoolers who have wandered down form the local pizza game. I have learned to be humorless with them, as they do not cotton to my repartee. I have yet to learn shipping (oh boy). In the 2+ weeks I have been there we have processed (among other things) a 1966 Monster calendar (awesome!), depression glass (pretty, did not sell), many recent gadgets electronic in nature, a complete set of Sailor Moon dolls and a human skull (for medical study). It's always different. But I like it and I am learning to do it and I think it could be a good place for me.

In other news, Lily is grand (do I always say that?). She has taken up potty training at daycare and she has definitively moved into the "What's that?" phase (saints preserve us). We have not yet reached the follow up "Why?, but we're bracing for it. She talks a lot. Her favorite subject is birthplace ("I born in Georgia."). She is also conversant on Care Bears, Spider-Man and her favorite youtube video.

Jeremy is out of school for the summer and excited at the prospect of leisure time. Meaning reading things school related but not directly assigned. But it is a much free-er schedule and we are all very glad. He mentions road trips with increasing frequency. This should be an interesting summer.

We have blooms in the garden from plants that we bought and were already blooming and from plants we planted as seeds. We are proud on both counts. Pictures to come.

Easter Eggs, Boston Creme, and Watering Cans

Lily was trying very very hard to be good

Lily knows the hose...

...but we can't bear to tell her some places aren't meant for planting.

my soapbox

Everyone I meet in Arizona, upon finding out that I am from Alabama says the same thing. "you don't sound like you're from Alabama." Which could be read a number of ways.
- you don't sound barefoot and illiterate
- you don't have an enormous southern accent that I think is funny.
- and on along those lines. there may also be positive spins on this, but I haven't discovered them yet.

And thus my soapbox.
- Could it be possible that not everyone in Alabama sounds like Gomer Pyle? And even if they do, they could still be way smarter than you?
- Could it be possible that there are other people in Alabama who sound like me? Thus, I would sound like I was from Alabama.

But it is progress, from being blamed for all the racism in the world. (that's another blogpost)