Feeling the Love Rain Down

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Shoes

I am a bad blogger when it comes to receiving awards.  I really do love getting them but I am just not very good at it.  It is not the getting of them that I love so much as the fact that a fellow blogger thought of me and my blog when the time came to pass an award along.  It makes me feel good.

I love the give and take of the blogging community.  I have found bloggers to be a kind and supportive group of people, people that I am so very happy to have in my life.  When one of them presents me with an award I get the satisfaction of knowing that not only do I love writing this blog but that other people out there love reading it.  Serious happiness, people.

Back in April, I was graciously given the Creative Capture Blogging Award from Just Ramblin’ Pier.

This is an award that she created to share with people who she feels captures those special moments in life in a creative photographic way.  I was quite taken by surprise to receive this one because, while I enjoy taking photographs, I use a simple point and shoot and most of the time have no idea what I am doing.  If it is pleasing to my eye and fits with what I am writing about then maybe I will include, but I am rather critical of my photos.  I hope you get a chance to pop over to Just Ramblin’ Pier’s blog.  If you do, expect to see some great photos and read some short, poetic, and usually uplifting pieces.  Oh, and she has some stinkin’ cute dogs!

Last week (or was it two weeks ago?) strawberryindigo was kind enough to pass along the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award.  Her blog covers a wide variety of topics and she has a cat that is destined to be quite famous.  I suggest you check it out.  While she stressed that those she gave the award to did not need to play by any rules, I have not done one of these in a while and think it may be fun to play along.

First I shall share with you seven things you may not know, nor care to know, about me.

  1. My favorite cereal is Cracklin’ Oat Bran.  It may look like dog food but it is the cat’s meow.
  2. I just recently discovered that catching a Nerf football does not hurt.  (I am a wuss when it comes to sports where anything is thrown at me and I am expected to catch or otherwise come into contact with it.)  Shortly there after I learned that I am actually a pretty good football player.  Sweet!
  3. I can not make an airworthy paper airplane to save my life.  It makes me feel rather inadequate to have to tell Cody’s kindergarten classmates this when they ask me for help folding one.
  4. I can find not a single redeeming quality in the petunia plant.  I don’t know why but I really hate petunias.
  5. In an effort to appear younger and hipper than I truly am, I started tweeting a while ago.  It makes me feel older than I am to say this, but I don’t get what all the hype is about.
  6. I am directionally challenged.  I still have to recite Never Eat Slimy Worms to figure out where I am in relation to North East South or West.
  7. My middle name is Marie.

That was way harder than it should have been.

I would like to give a shout out to and pass along this award to some fellow bloggers.  This is harder to do that that silly list you just read as I read a lot of great blogs but if I listed all the blogs I love you would quickly get link overload.  As strawberry indigo did, I would like to say that there are no strings attached.  Feel free to do with this as you wish.

Sugar Snap me

The American Calgarian

The March Owl

Life Takes Over

The Restless Nest

And last but certainly not least while I was in the process of writing this post I received the Beautiful Blogger Award from my bloggy friend over at Waiting for the Karma Truck.  Wow. When it rains it pours and I am liking this kind of rain.  If you pop over to Karma Truck’s blog you will find inspiration and humor, and seriously who can’t use a bit more of both of these?   

I picked a smattering of blogs to pass along this award to, blogs that make me think, laugh, smile, and keep me coming back for more.

Spoiled Fruits of Empire

Moon Sprig

Twisted Domestic Goddess

Just Ramblin’ Pier

A Blog About What?

Bloom: Daily Discoveries in the Perennial Garden of Life

If you have not checked out these blogs before I highly suggest you do so.

Oh, and as a side note, I would like to say that sometimes I am nominated for an award that I have already received (and written a post about.)  Not that it happens a lot, but when it does I tend to thank the person who gave it to me but skip the post writing part of it all.  It is great to get any award and getting them more than once is fantastic but as I said at the beginning, I am a bad blogger when it comes to this whole award thing.  I just wanted to let you know how I roll with all this.  Sometimes I just have to make my own rules.

Thanks for the blogging love my friends, it truly means a lot!

Posted in Blogging/Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 22 Comments

The Tooth Fairy Lives in FairyLand, of Course.

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Shoes

Here is the letter Cody left for the Tooth Fairy on the night of her first visit a little over a week ago.  I wrote while he dictated.

Codys letter to TF

I was proud that he remembered his manners in the writing of the letter.  I was also very pleased that he asked for a container to keep his teeth in.  He obviously was not happy with the small knock off Tupperware container I had given him at one in the morning when he woke me to tell me his tooth had fallen out.  I had not planted any seeds for this request but this was exactly what he was going to get.

Several days earlier I had found and purchased a small silver dish with lid that I thought would be a perfectly magical place for him to store his baby teeth; he is planning on keeping them.  I polished it until it shone.  Husband had already gone to the Post Office and acquired a supply of golden one dollar coins for the present part of great occasion.  We were ready.  Or were we?  Read that letter again.  He wanted to visit FairyLand.  That was easy enough to brush off, only fairies are allowed to visit there.  Everybody knows that, but he wanted a picture of it.  Hum.  How is that going to work?

After giving it a little thought I knew exactly what to do.  Here is the letter the Tooth Fairy left for Cody.  Sorry the photo is not very good, but I think you can read it.

Letter from TF

Notice how I solved the problem of the photograph.  I mean, have you ever seen a fairy use a camera?  Fairies sketch, simple as that.  Well, not this fairy, but I know someone who is just magical enough herself to be able to accurately sketch FairyLand.  We will get to that in a minute.

Here is the front of the letter, the silver dish, and the golden coin.  Please note the fairy dust along the top of the letter.  Yes I know it looks like a fourth grader made it, I am not artistic.  I was happy with it and it turns out Cody was too.

Gifts from the TF

The following morning Cody came running into our bedroom waving the letter around chanting that the Tooth Fairy had come.  After I read the letter to him he ran back to his room and brought out the dish.  He was very happy about the gold coin and indifferent about the dish.  Not much can compete with a golden coin when you are six.

At first he thought that the Tooth Fairy had forgotten to bring a photo of FairyLand but after I read the letter again and explained that she needed time to draw him a sketch he was satisfied.  He has been asking about that sketch ever since.

Here is the sketch.  It is a magical mixture of watercolor, color pencil, and ink measuring eight by nine inches.  This is a scanned copy, the original has dainty bits of shimmering glitter, green and gold, hidden behind and between the distant trees and a small pool of the shimmer in the blue waters of the pond.

Fairyland-For-Cody

The artist behind this piece of childhood memory for Cody is a very long time friend of mine, Christine Kennedy.  I have known her since our kindergarten days, grew up with her in the same small town, and while we have never lived in the same town since we graduated, we have never lost each other.  She is one of those friends that always has your back and knows you sometimes more than you know yourself.  We are very lucky that her and her sweet husband live a mere hour from us and that both of them are such a part of our boys’ lives.

When Cody requested a picture of FairyLand, I knew exactly who could make that happen for him.  Not only did I know I would get something beautiful but I was excited to be able to include her in this brief and wondrous period of Cody’s childhood – the time where there is magic under every rock, fairies are real, and when you ask for a picture of FairyLand you fully expect you will get one.

I highly suggest you check out her site.  While she has been an artist her entire life, she has just recently taken that great leap to start her own company and follow her passion.  If you need a freelance illustrator, some help with a storyboard or project or perhaps just a simple but brilliant sketch of FairyLand for your child, contact Christine.

Cody’s second tooth fell out six days after his first one.  The Tooth Fairy found him and delivered another gold coin and the sketch even though we were spending the night at Grandma’s house.  After the excitement wore off over another gold coin, we examined the drawing.  I pointed out the glitter and explained that for a brief period after a fairy flies away, a small cloud of fairy dust remains behind.  We tilted the sketch under Grandpa’s old reading light, watching the fairy dust on the page shimmer.  He was in awe when I told him it was a one of a kind sketch made just for him.  It was magical to watch Cody share his excitement with his brother, their two blond heads almost touching, noses inches away from a sketch drawn by the Tooth Fairy herself.

Posted in Little Feet | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 30 Comments

Simple Sunday – Brought to you by the Letter “B”

Posted on June 3, 2012 by Shoes

This weekend Husband drove south for a computer conference so the boys, Dexter the dog, and I drove north for a visit to Grandma’s house.

There were Bags:

Bags are packed

There was some Bowling:

Boys Bowling Collage

There was some Beaching:

Boys at the Beach

There were some Blossoms:

Golden Chain Tree Collage

Dexter did some Basking in what little sun there was:

Dexter Basking

We took a Boat ride home:

On the Ferry

Husband drove north and we drove south and arrived back home within a couple minutes of each other.  We have a few hours to regroup and regain some energy and then we are off to a Baseball game, the boys very first one!

Hope you are all having a Beautiful weekend.

Posted in Simple Sunday | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Living With a Cold Blooded Killer

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Shoes

She wears a coat one shade darker than the darkest of nights.  Her eyes, two glowing green orbs, unblinking in their concentration.  Her ears alert to the whispers of whispers.  The faintest rustle of a leaf, the smallest twitch of a twig – she misses nothing.

Delilah in the forest

Her teeth, sharp. Her claws more so.  She has no qualms over whom her next victim will be.  Her body the perfect killing machine.

She wears a coat softer that the softest of clouds.  Her eyes, close half way, brimming with love.  Her ears perk up whenever we walk by.  The laughter of the boys in the next room, tucking them into bed at night, staying, curled up on their chest until they are asleep or the sound of a piece of macaroni and cheese dropping to the floor – she misses nothing.

Delilah with the boys Collage

Birds fear her.  Mice run in terror. Squirrels shiver in her presence.  She brings us gifts of the dead, once sometimes twice in a day.  We have considered dressing her in a silver bell to warn her prey of the black shadow that is her, lurking under a bush or crouching behind a tree, but wonder if it would crush her spirit, the bell of her despair tinkling merrily with her every step.

Delilah with bird present

And then there is Darwin, the general order of things – natural selection and all that. I try to convince myself that she is helping out nature, picking off the slow, distracted, lower- witted creatures.  Then she goes and brings me a brown baby bunny and a tiny yellow finch all in one day. I shake my head at the cruelness of it all.

As I watch her, in her element, I know that I would not last a day in the Garden of Delilah.

Posted in Furry Feet (and fish) | Tagged , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Muffin Top Whisperer, I am Not

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Shoes

Remember last week when I posted about starting a workout program for the first time in my life?  I told you that I had decided to commit to three thirty minute workout sessions a week.  Well, I can not tell a lie (actually I can but I am not very good at it so I think I will stick with the truth) I worked out four times last week for almost an hour each.  Yup, I am a Xbox/Kinect workout master.  Is my muffin top gone?  No, but I think it is starting to fear me.

I will continue with my efforts to thwart my evil muffin top while enjoying beating the heck out of brick walls.  And because I find it entertaining to write about it, I will continue to post some random thoughts that I have while doing battle with Ye Olde Top of Muffin.  I hope you find them entertaining too.

Here are the stats and thoughts from my first week of this nonsense:

  • I have burned 458 calories.
  • I almost killed myself doing the medium level jump rope back to back because Carter loved that it looked like I was jumping on water.
  • My sprained big left toe continues to hurt; I will henceforth refer to it as my Xbox-Toe.
  • During pulsing crunches, I noticed that I really need to get out the vacuum cleaner attachments and vacuum under the couch more often.
  • I am awful at Hip Hop dancing, unless you count a brief period in the 80’s when I could do the worm like nobody’s business.  Actually the worm is more Funk than Hip Hop but I doubt any of you will call me out on it.
  • Cody pointing out that my virtual abs instructor looks stronger than me does not help.

So there you have it.  My muffin top continues to lurk around making snarky comments but I am enjoying working out and only good can come of it.  Well, maybe not the sprained toe.  Or the rug burnt elbow part.  But you get the idea.

Posted in Muffin Top Madness | Tagged , , , , , , | 29 Comments

Simple Sunday – What’s in Your Lingerie Bag?

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Shoes

Lingerie Bag Collage

Since becoming a mom I find myself washing more non-lingerie items in my lingerie bag that actual lingerie.

Posted in Simple Sunday | Tagged , , , , , | 16 Comments

A Little Bit of Magic

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Shoes

Last night while you were tucked in fast asleep, my dear

I polished a silver dish for you to keep, my dear

Your baby teeth, proof of the passage of time, my dear

With each loss of a tooth you are little less mine, I fear

The tooth fairy on gossamer wings she flies, my love

Old she may be but so very wise, my love

To take from you but to give in return, my love

A new rite of passage for which your heart yearns, my dove

~Shoes On The Wrong Feet~

Early this morning at 12:43 Cody woke us up to inform us that his tooth has fallen out.   He was worried that the tooth fairy would take his tooth (he wants to keep them.)  I told him that since it was past midnight, the tooth fairy had already finished her rounds and was back in that magical place called FairyLand.  We have plans to write her a note asking her to leave the tooth and maybe a little surprise when she visits him tonight.  I am guessing she will.

Loose Tooth Collage

Cody it seems only yesterday that you got your first baby tooth.  How can it be that you are done with it so soon?

Tooth Hole

Posted in Little Feet | Tagged , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Of Carter and the Peach (or on days like this I think I deserve a medal just for making it through)

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Shoes

I am still not sure what alerted me that something was wrong.  It must have been a small noise he made or a change in his movements.  I was in the kitchen cutting up a hot dog (of all things) to add to our lunch of mac and cheese.  Carter was sitting at his spot at the table, his back to me, eating canned peaches.  Canned peaches!  I almost lost Carter at lunch today because he choked on a bite sized piece of canned peaches.

I went over to him and saw that he was not able to swallow or spit or cough.  There was saliva oozing out of his mouth and his lips were moving but there was no noise.  I do remember from my first aid training, about four years ago, that if a person appears to be choking but is making airway clearing noises that you should just let them be.  Watch them but let them be.  Carter was not making noises.  I pushed his chair back and tried to gently squeeze in and up on his chest, just below his ribcage but nothing happened.  He could not breath.  I don’t know the sequence of what happened next.  I took him from his chair and pounded his back, I squeezed him.  Hard.  I even stuck my finger down his throat to try to make him throw up (God, should I have done that!?).  At one point I ran to the phone and picked it up but then had the realization that 911 could not help – they were too far away.  His eyes were open but he was like a rag doll in my arms.

It was awful and I am still very shaken by it.  Carter was choking and no one could help him but me.  And I didn’t know what the hell to do.  I pounded his back some more, feeling like I was about to lose it at any moment, seriously lose my shit.  I remember chanting calmly to him to throw up, to spit it out, to cough.  And then he did.  The peach shot out of his mouth and hit the floor.  He took a breath and with a tear forming in the corner of his right eye, he looked at me and asked me why I had been squeezing him so hard.

At this point my entire body sagged and started shaking.  I let out a deep breath and I hugged him and just kept hugging him.  After he squirmed out of my grasp we examined the offending piece of fruit on the floor.  Carter called it a “bad peach” and I have to say that I agree with him.

The offending peach bite

Then the what ifs start going around in my head. What if he had not coughed? What if he did not start breathing? What if I had not been in the room and had not seen that he needed help? It is not uncommon for me to give the boys a snack while I go to the bathroom or go outside to refill the bird feeders, or fold laundry or a million other things. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t just give them food and wander away all the time, but I do sometimes. Cody is six and Carter is four; I have kind of stopped worrying about them choking on things and started worrying more about them being abducted by random pedophiles. I think I stopped cutting their hotdogs horizontally about six months ago. Carter loves grapes and we do have a rule about sitting down when eating them but I haven’t cut grapes up for him in a very long time.

Not ten minutes after the choking incident Carter thought that maybe he wanted to eat some more peaches.  My throat working again, momma.  My first instinct was to say no.  I said yes so as not to give him a life long fear of canned peaches, but you can bet I cut those suckers up so small you almost needed a microscope to see them.

Carter and the Peaches take two

Here is some interesting information I found in an article from the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

  • Choking is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children, especially those aged 3 years or younger.
  • Choking on food causes the death of approximately 1 child every 5 days in the United States. Hot dogs accounted for 17% of food-related asphyxiations among children younger than 10 years of age.
  • Other high-risk foods include hard candy, peanuts/nuts, seeds, whole grapes, raw carrots, apples, popcorn, chunks of peanut butter, marshmallows, chewing gum, and sausages.

I have two questions for you:

How long has it been since you last took a first aid class?

How much of that first aid class do you really remember?

I am off to look up first aid classes offered in our area, perhaps you should do the same…

Oh, and as a side note, I think that when I first realized that Carter was seriously choking, I should have called 911.  If the peach would not have become dislodged, it would have been that much longer before help arrived.  It is better to look like an idiot and have help arrive when you no longer need it than to call for that help when it is too late.

Posted in Little Feet | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 37 Comments

Punching Brick Walls Like a Ninja

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Shoes

I started a new workout program yesterday.  I never had an old one so I guess I should rephrase that – I started working out yesterday.  I am not one for the gym so I had Husband give me some pointers Sunday night on the XBox/Kinect Your Shape fitness disk that has been collecting dust.  I decided to commit to thirty minute sessions three times a week and see how that fits into my life.

Meet my new workout program

I have never felt the need to loose weight.  I am, or should I say was, one of those sickeningly annoying people who could eat whatever I wanted, never workout, and not have a inch to pinch.  I have always had a proportional body shape for my five foot four stature.  The exception being the two eighteen month blocks of time when I was nursing the boys and went from a pleasant and perky B cup to a frighteningly large porn star DD cup.  Even Husband admitted to being frightened by them more than once.  Hell, they were attached to me and I was scared of them most of the time.

I no longer have boobs out to here, although I did keep one of my DD bras as a souvenir of my porn star lookalike breastfeeding days.  No, it seems as though the additional girth that existed in my chest has migrated down to settle itself comfortably around my middle resulting in the dreaded “muffin top” I have heard so much about but have never experienced.  I don’t like it, hence the workout regiment.

Here are the stats and some thoughts from my first day working out:

  • 100 calories burned
  • 25 minutes late getting to Cody’s class to help the teacher with end of the year testing.  I had no time to shower so I slathered on additional deodorant and put on some new shiny lip gloss to detract from my post workout unkempt appearance.
  • 1 rug burnt elbow
  • The discovery that I am really bad at anything remotely dancelike but I really like and totally own the punching and kicking of fake brick walls.  Who knew?
  • 1 sprained left big toe that is expected to make a full recovery.
  • Just any old bra will not cut it when I am suppose to be getting a running tour of the streets of Manhattan.  Mental note, wear sports bra next time.

I figure by this time next week my muffin top will be a thing of the past and life can get back to normal.  I will let you know how that is working out for me.

Posted in Muffin Top Madness | Tagged , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Simple Sunday – Watermelon and Frogs

Posted on May 20, 2012 by Shoes

The gray and rain the Pacific Northwest is known for has returned after a couple nice weeks of warmth and sun.  During the sunny weather we spend a lot of time outside.  We have barbequed almost every night, eating dinner out on our back deck.  The boys have enjoyed eating watermelon, playing in their water table, and running through the sprinkler.

Watermelon Slice

Our resident hose frog has returned, claiming our coiled hose as its home.  This is at least the fourth year we have had a hose frog and since we named the first one Hoser, we call this frog Hoser the Fourth.  I never said we were creative in our naming of things.

Hoser the Fourth

I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend whatever your weather may be.

Posted in Simple Sunday | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments