My dear in-laws kept my 6 kiddies for me on Saturday while I made my fortune selling bread at a "boutique" on a residential street corner in front of someone's house. When I returned to fetch them I was greeted by a row of ginger-bread style graham cracker houses each created with different levels of skill and creativity. They were covered with candy (of course) and mini-marshmallows.
I managed to load everyone into the car with their houses on their laps except my 3-year-old boy. When I went in to fetch him Grandpa told me that he'd gone to the toilet down the hall. There he was, little bum hanging into the toilet, balanced on the front edge of the seat. This is his conversation with me;
Adam: "I'm having poops...and it's hurteen' my neck. The poops are hurteen' my neck when I'm pushing them out."
Me: "It hurts your neck when you poop?"
Adam: "Yep. The mishmallows are hurteen' my neck when I poop because I ate too many and now I have a tummy ache."
He is so right about that. When I eat too many "mishmallows" I get a tummy ache, too, but I'm not sure I've had a neck ache from them as well.
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Sunday, December 6, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
How to Stay Married During Financial Hardship | eHow.com
How to Stay Married During Financial Hardship | eHow.com
Check out my eHow article and pass it along.
Check out my eHow article and pass it along.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Hold On
This is my latest achievement. I saw the reference photo for this piece in a local news story. The subjects are the wife and newborn of a fallen soldier. He was killed just days after returning to Iraq after being home for this birth of his baby girl and this is wife as his body is returned to American soil. This is an 11x14 color pencil portrait on a smooth Bristol paper. I titled it "Hold On."
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Antiques
My three oldest daughters and I were looking forward to meeting a family friend at the Tempe Center for the Arts yesterday (Saturday) to be her guests at a pre-show reception. After the reception the girls were going to be treated to their first theatrical performance by the the Child's Play Theatre. We were on time and thirty seconds from the building waiting at a tricky intersection for the light to turn green when I noticed a little white haired old lady peeking over the steering wheel of her late model orange Mustang in the lane to the right of ours.
Since the street that we were both on ended there we were both required to turn right when the light changed. I made a mental note to give the Mustang as wide a berth as possible recognizing that her turn would be sharper than my own. Just as I turned into the new lane I saw the orange of the Mustang get really close before she hit my 2003 Chevy Suburban and shoved us up onto the median. She proceeded to gun it enough to propel her car up over the median until her Mustang was straddling the median where she finally found the brake.
Mavis (as she later introduced herself to be) got out of her car unharmed and asked me what happened. I explained that she ran into me after crossing into my lane. She had no idea that there had been two right-turn lanes and was expecting to just make a wide turn. She called 911 from her cell phone while I called John (my husband) from Brad's (the name of the younge man who had witnessed the accident and kindly stayed around to help).
After wating for about 10 minutes I got my girls out of the Suburban and the whole lot of us walked across the street into the shade of a nearby building to finish waiting for the police to arrive and tell us what to do with our cars. Brad called the police one more time after we had been wating for about 20 minutes. After a total of about 30 minutes two police cars arrived. The second about 5 minutes after the first.
It was about 105 out there in the sun. I was wearing black slacks and was dying. I don't know how the police do it with an entire black uniform. Leah was dying of thirst, she assured me numerous times, and Hannah was complaining that we were missing our food and fun. The police asked me to move my car to a nearby parking lot and there I filled out all of the necessary paperwork. John showed up to take the girls down the street to the arts center to meet our friend who didn't know what had happened to us.
We missed our play but when I finally showed up an hour late the kids were happily eating leftovers from the reception in the lobby and we were given the option of another group of free tickets to another showing of the same play. So all turned out well in the end. At least, it did for me. Poor Mavis Boyle's 66' Mustang was stuck on the median. The policeman offered to back it off for her but the median was too high and grinding the innards with every inch so a tow truck was called. I guessed my attacker's age to be around 75 but I was 11 years off. Mavis Boyle in her 66' Mustang was born in the Spring of 1923 which makes her an 86-year-old woman driving a 43-year-old classic without power steering. It was an accident waiting to happen.
Since the street that we were both on ended there we were both required to turn right when the light changed. I made a mental note to give the Mustang as wide a berth as possible recognizing that her turn would be sharper than my own. Just as I turned into the new lane I saw the orange of the Mustang get really close before she hit my 2003 Chevy Suburban and shoved us up onto the median. She proceeded to gun it enough to propel her car up over the median until her Mustang was straddling the median where she finally found the brake.
Mavis (as she later introduced herself to be) got out of her car unharmed and asked me what happened. I explained that she ran into me after crossing into my lane. She had no idea that there had been two right-turn lanes and was expecting to just make a wide turn. She called 911 from her cell phone while I called John (my husband) from Brad's (the name of the younge man who had witnessed the accident and kindly stayed around to help).
After wating for about 10 minutes I got my girls out of the Suburban and the whole lot of us walked across the street into the shade of a nearby building to finish waiting for the police to arrive and tell us what to do with our cars. Brad called the police one more time after we had been wating for about 20 minutes. After a total of about 30 minutes two police cars arrived. The second about 5 minutes after the first.
It was about 105 out there in the sun. I was wearing black slacks and was dying. I don't know how the police do it with an entire black uniform. Leah was dying of thirst, she assured me numerous times, and Hannah was complaining that we were missing our food and fun. The police asked me to move my car to a nearby parking lot and there I filled out all of the necessary paperwork. John showed up to take the girls down the street to the arts center to meet our friend who didn't know what had happened to us.
We missed our play but when I finally showed up an hour late the kids were happily eating leftovers from the reception in the lobby and we were given the option of another group of free tickets to another showing of the same play. So all turned out well in the end. At least, it did for me. Poor Mavis Boyle's 66' Mustang was stuck on the median. The policeman offered to back it off for her but the median was too high and grinding the innards with every inch so a tow truck was called. I guessed my attacker's age to be around 75 but I was 11 years off. Mavis Boyle in her 66' Mustang was born in the Spring of 1923 which makes her an 86-year-old woman driving a 43-year-old classic without power steering. It was an accident waiting to happen.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
9 on 9/9/09
I just now realized that my daughter is turning 9 on 09/09/09 I find that very interesting. I am posting this in case anyone else finds that noteworthy.
When our first daughter was born on 09/02/99 we were very mildly disappointed that she hadn't been born on 09/09/99. I now feel closure to that hope of so long ago as our second daughter is having her 9th birthday on 09/09/09.
Wow. I feel like I should do something grand to commemorate the occasion like, I don't know, put 9 candles on her cake and choose an ice cream flavor with 9 ingredients. Maybe I'll make sure she has 9 presents and 9 people at her party? Who knows, the possibilities of 9 are endless.
When our first daughter was born on 09/02/99 we were very mildly disappointed that she hadn't been born on 09/09/99. I now feel closure to that hope of so long ago as our second daughter is having her 9th birthday on 09/09/09.
Wow. I feel like I should do something grand to commemorate the occasion like, I don't know, put 9 candles on her cake and choose an ice cream flavor with 9 ingredients. Maybe I'll make sure she has 9 presents and 9 people at her party? Who knows, the possibilities of 9 are endless.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Acrobatic Arachnid
This morning, while driving home from taking my 7 and 8-year-old girls to school, my eyes focused in on a little spider dangling from his thread inches from my face. Lucky for all of us the only turn left to make was into our driveway. With only a few glances away from the spider I managed to pull into our driveway and put the suburban into park without hitting anything. As soon as I did, however, the spider decided to decend. I'm not a bug person. With my seatbelt still secure I attempted to jump out of my seat. He was dropping fast but I was not going anywhere. I finally figured out how to undo my seatbelt and propelled myself up onto the middle console where I stayed until I had calmed down. To be on the safe side I slapped and rubbed my left side briskly until I felt satisfied that the critter was squished.
A Close Encounter of the Nasal Kind
With six children under the age of nine my life gets pretty funny sometimes. Yesterday evening was getting ready for bed as usual when I asked my 2-year-old to see her clean teeth. While looking into her mouth my 5-year-old decided to see what would happen when he banged our heads together. What happened was a horrible crunching sound that only I heard and stars. The blood came pouring out of my nose moments later as I ran up the stairs to the bathroom sink. I was sure it was broken and shook like a leaf while trying to cradle cold tap water against my nose. The good new is that I did eventually fall asleep despite the pain and this morning the only sign of my evenings collision is a sore honker.
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