it's official

I think I'm becoming an elf (I've become quite the Will Ferrell fan recently). I haven't been able to handle drinking coffee the past week or so (like my taste buds have changed on me) and have replaced my previously prodigious coffee consumption with hot chocolate. Why can't green tea taste as good as hot cocoa. why? It's a lot lower in calories and has all those wonderful antioxidants. sigh.

new banner for winter

Yeah, February will be here before you know it so I thought I'd stick up a new banner, most likely filler until I shoot something better. Been trying out my new camera (a fuji finepix with 12 megapixels and 5x zoom) I haven't actually printed out pictures yet so I can't tell if the detail is as remarkable as it's supposed to be but here are a few things I've shot with it so far.

Snowy stairs picture I took today, I should have worn boots.

Last night's sunset from the place where I go grocery shopping and to the gym every day.

very cool interactive art display at the carnegie museum of art.

Close up of the ribbon wall. you can take a ribbon if it speaks to you and tie it to your wrist (three times) while making a wish. Then you leave a wish behind and when the ribbon breaks off the wish comes true. Some very deep wishes up there - 'I wish to have the strength to divorce my husband', 'I wish it was benign', 'I wish I could tell my parents I'm gay'. Owen took 'I wish guns didn't exist' Oona took 'I wish there were no more thunderstorms' and I took 'I wish my life came with a soundtrack'. Of course I think of all these witty wishes once we left but what I wrote was I wish I didn't worry so much, like that will ever happen, I think it's hardwired in me. I think part of the reason my grandma won't die is that she's too nervous and doesn't think 'letting go' would be the proper thing to do, almost 94 and she still can't give herself a break. And here's my worry nature on full display, with these ribbons tied to a child's wrist, they quickly become nasty ass bacteria magnets, I constantly find Owen chewing on them, I should take a sample for Microbiology (I looked at a stained sample from my cheek thru a microscope today, the professor was very complimentary about my healthy big nucleus in the squamous epithelium). I gotta work my magic and make that ribbon fall off (thanks to some cutting while he's sleeping) tonight.

Owen's board break, from doing a reverse kick. He got it on his first try.

Owen getting his blue belt

3 below

No school for the kids today so I missed statistics, the professor emailed me letting me know what I missed and said to get notes off of one of the other students, none of whom I know. Sigh... So I gathered up the kids for a trip to Target because we were out of dish soap and I figured I'd get play-doh to entertain them with (our play-doh supplies were all mixed together and dried up). It is so cold here that the inside of my nose frosted over just getting the kids in the car. Of course shopping with my children we wound up with the $12.99 octopus where every arm has a different tool and you can push his sailor hat to make him squeeze out different shapes, with the corresponding aquatic attachment. Cross your fingers for me that next week is free of delays or snow related school closings. Happy weekend everybody.

snowbound

So I'm already messing up on my promise of posting more often. I've started my first week of classes and am about to have a nervous breakdown trying to coordinate my schedule with my children and husband's. I'm taking statistics and microbiology and planned on leaving microbiology a half hour early every time in order to pick up Oona from school (the professor okayed this) but then Oona's school said I could drop her off early so I could go to the earlier micro class and not need to disrupt people (and feel horribly rude) by leaving early. The prof said that was fine that all I needed to do was show up for the earlier class... which is going on now, while I sit at home with my two children due to a 2 hour snow delay. AGHHH! So I get to show up at the later class, when just yesterday I said I was switching to the early class, and leave forty-five minutes early in order to give myself ample time to get to Oona's school in order to pick her up. I hate being in positions where I feel like I'm coming across as supremely flaky or irresponsible. And trying to explain this to the professor I just know I'll flub because this is all so important to me, so I'll get emotional and just not present myself well. Where are the effects of global warming when you need them.

a touch of class

In my miscellaneous folder, which I have schlepped around with me everywhere these past fifteen years, not willing to part with certain items that I couldn't figure out a place to put, are...

1. a fifteen year old aptitude test which indicates I'm stellar at inductive reasoning and spatial relations but only average at vocabulary

2. a package of glow in the dark stickers

3. the letterhead from my great grandfather's camp, Camp Quest, in Maine (I want to turn it into a t-shirt)

4. bad poetry and writing from the past fifteen years (to shred or not to shred)

5. astrodienst print out providing detailed astrological charts on me, toby and the kids (for all that's worth)

6. and this true gem below, that I found between the pages of Martha Stewart Living when I was freelancing there. I just cannot part with it and hopefully you'll understand why. This is one of those stupid advertisements that never ceases to make me laugh (you need to enlarge it in order to read the copy, which is priceless). Enjoy!

christmas past

Conspicuous christmas consumption. To be fair over half these present were from Grandma Cat for the kids, and us. And it all looked, well I wouldn't say modest, but not quite as greedy once boxes were opened and flattened for recycling. Funny side note, I lost my keys looking for Oona's leapster. I ran to the car (right outside our front door) and came back in and the keys vanished. I seriously thought I was losing my mind, or experiencing early onset dementia. I went through two boxes of flattened cardboard (for recycling), two large bags of flattened gift wrap (more recycling), the trash, I turned the entire first floor upside down (and cleaned up for dinner in the process). The keys were found two days later, in the hood of my mom's sweatshirt...in Staten Island. She packed them up and brought them home with her and by chance put on the outfit and noticed the hood was a bit heavy (the sweatshirt had been on a piece of furniture in our entryway and I must have thrown the keys in there accidently).

Two guesses as to who was up at the crack of dawn and who wanted to sleep in.

Owen, the eager beaver, was up and dressed by 5:50. Fortunately we were able to keep him in his room for an hour, although he kept popping into our room every fifteen minutes practically bursting with excitement. Owen is the world's most appreciative kid when it comes to presents. What boy would be so elated to find a hat in his stocking?!

Poor Oona, it took a little while for her to perk up and grasp what was going on. She's like me when it comes to sleep, a bit of a bear who would rather burrow back in the warmth of her bed than wake up. That rat's nest at the back of her head is quickly becoming permanent, since she freaks out any time I try to brush or comb her hair.

Oona finally perked up & put on a bow, it was a lovely Christmas.

happy new year!

Hopefully you weren't partying to the extent that you wound up with powdered sugar donut all over your face like Oona... But I hope that everyone's holiday was as happy and stressfree as possible. Best wishes for 2009 and I will post more regularly than I have the past month - December was a blur, it might have to be my blog vacation month in the future. I'm taking Oona to the dr in an hour, after two rounds of antibiotics she still hasn't kicked the cold she's had since Halloween (I photoshopped out the green snot in this picture) and is now running a fever and has a horrible cough but it's not like it stops her activity level at all.