Flock of Fucking Seagulls

I wish these photos actually showed how insanely awesome Macaroni's hair really is. So 80's! I just about pee myself every time I look at him. Sort of reminds me of Lisa's lopsided hair in junior high.

New The Office tonight!

Inspired

Shayne's post about uploading photos inspired me to create an account for my parents. They've got a K0dak camera/printer combo and the printer is broken. They've never removed the memory card for the camera, so I brought it home and uploaded all 304 photos last night. I stopped counting, but there has to be at least 50 photos of the floor or my dad's knee or the back of Ruby's head. That last one is understandable, girl is fast.

Here's my favorite so far...

All he wanted for his birthday

The before photos:

And the after photos:

Baby boy's mohawk is so tall it barely stands up. It needs a little work, I think Macy underestimated just how long his hair was.

And probably the cheapest birthday present ever.

Oh, and happy birthday to my niece Katie!

Do something today

Anything, in remembrance of Du'a Khalil, the teenager who was murdered a year ago in the name of honor, while security guards stood by and onlookers recorded the stoning on their cell phones. The whole thing makes me so batshit crazy so I won't even try to explain my own thoughts.

How do you unlearn what you've been taught your entire life? How do you get other people to unlearn it? Obviously there are a lot of other areas where I'd like to see people unlearn stuff; racism, homophobia, those fuckers that terrorize abortion clinics.

But it seems like no matter what group it is, women always get the worst of it. So I'm going to link to this site that has lots of ideas for remembering Du'a and working to end honor killings. Uggh, honor. It's hard to even type that.

I'll also link to this posting that Joss wrote that made me aware of Du'a in the first place. And this book, which I think was primarily inspired by Joss's post, will soon be available. It might even be showing up in your Christmas stocking next year. And of course I'll always link to Equality Now.

I've signed the petitions and am telling you all about it. I suck at writing editorials but might try later today. I hate the helpless feeling, wish there was more I could do. Hugs to all my girls and the enlightened little boys.

Don't drink and link

Makes sure you're not drinking anything before clicking on the link below. I learned the hard way and now more keyboard is all sticky.
** whoa, just had a whole teenage boy/p0rn train of thought...gross.**
It's sticky from the tea that I laughed all over.

You've been warned. Click at your own risk.

This is why they hate Americans

I've been doing lots of emailing back and forth in an effort to save my photos from Washington D.C., both with the company who makes the card and with the GeekSquad. The girl Geek I just got off the phone with gave me the teeniest, tiniest glimmer of hope that there might-maybe be some geektastic magic they can do to save my photos. Quick! Light a candle, say a prayer, burp the alphabet...whatever it is you do, I'll take anything I can get.

Because I really, really want those photos. Photos of the freaking cherry blossoms! Photos of Macaroni all smiles and center of attention. Photos of us with a ginormous Albert Einstein! A photo of me holding the huge grasshopper-on-steroid looking bug that Macaroni was afraid of. Artsy fartsy photos that Macaroni took and then expressed an interest in growing up to be something other than an Olympic medallist.

**Warning: rant beginning now

(Because, let's face it...my baby isn't going to get an Olympic medal. Nobel Prize maybe, Olympic medal? Not so much.

Sorry if you're reading this Mac, put an ice pack between your legs and commit this moment to memory,

I'm sure your therapist is going to want every detail.

But for real, most of those medals are purchased. Not that the athletes aren't freaky talented, because I know they are, but how many families can afford the training and coaching and travelling involved in Olympic level sports? Huh? Even if I stopped vacationing and sold Jboy into slavery we couldn't afford it. What I wouldn't give to build a halfpipe, vert ramp and/or a motocross track in our backyard and send him off to the Olympic trials one day.

It's nice that he still thinks he can make it though...)

Deep breath and rant over**

So in the midst of all this I tried to put a little price tag on what those photos are worth. Which, of course, is impossible to do. How much am I willing to pay for the chance that they can save them? I'm thinking no more than $100. But like a gross, spoiled American pig-child I've decided that if they can't save my photos I'll start tracking the Last Minute Packages and just take him back to D.C. for another long weekend. Maybe Jboy will join us this time.

And here I thought Lisa had lost her mother loving mind with her dolls. I might as well buy an airplane at the rate I'm going.

It also occurred to me that I could take a vacation every month this year. Do weird things like that occur to everyone or is it just me? Like, "I haven't eaten a vegetable in five days...I could make it a week, or hey, even a month." Or, "It's one o'clock in the afternoon on a Saturday and I've only gotten out of bed once to pee...can I stay in bed until Monday morning?" I won't even mention the competition I'm in with the nuns of the world. And now, my latest..."I've been on three vacations in three months this year, can I keep that up for another 9 months?!?!"

Oh my, the carbon offsets I'd have to buy just to ease my guilty conscience. How cool would that be though? There's a sweet little girl I really want to take to WDW and another one who's itching to go back to NYC. I think I could stay for free or nearly free in Fort Collins, Tucson, New Orleans, Edinburgh (Gee even offered!) and woo hoo Wisconsin...maybe Philly and SF too.

Damn, someone bitch slap me through the computer and wake me up already.

Poor man's scanner

So DC was a blast...until our camera broke. More specifically, until our expensive wireless memory card broke. We've got about 700 photos on the card and after talking to a guy at Ritz yesterday, I think we may have lost them all. Still waiting for an email back from the company that makes the card, keeping my fingers crossed.

We squeezed so much into 2 & 1/2 days! From memory...because I can't look at the photos to tell you exactly...we saw/went to/ate at/walked to/got rained on

the super steep escalators @ Rosslyn Metro Station

The Lincoln Memorial

The Washington Monument

The Capitol

Union Station

The Marriott Key Bridge Hotel pool

The National Museum of Natural History

The Hope Diamond

The National Sculpture Garden

The Smithsonian Castle

The National Air & Space Museum

Flight simulator!

The Albert Einstein Planetarium

The IMAX Theater

The Bureau of Engraving & Printing

The National Zoo

Pandas, Komodo Dragons and Anacondas, oh my!

The FDR Memorial

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

The Albert Einstein Memorial

The Reflecting Pool

The World War II Memorial

The Tidal Basin and Cherry Blossoms

The DC War Memorial

The International Spy Museum

We did pick up a disposable camera at the National Zoo, just when the camera started acting wonky. We got some cute shots but of course I forgot to have Ritz upload them to their website (which they do automatically with digital photos) so I had to take Shayne's advice and use the poor man's scanner. Photos of photos, I tried to crop out the Pizza Hut box they're sitting on. Here are the best ones, all out of order.

Macaroni @ the Lincoln Memorial, he's

that little black dot at the top of the steps.

Macaroni taking a photo of me taking a photo of him
@ the Jefferson Memorial

Macaroni @ Freedom Plaza

pretty sure I have a photo of his brother getting rained

on in this exact spot

Macaroni @ Constitution Avenue

Macaroni @ the Washington Monument

Macaroni @ the National Air & Space Museum

waiting in line for the IMAX show

Space Station 3D

Macaroni @ the National Zoo

Macaroni about to eat breakfast @ the Zoo

They had Boca Burgers! And he made the ketchup

smiley face himself. How cute is he?

With the digital camera and a new memory card...

Macaroni in the cab on the way to the airport

Maybe two minutes later

All in all it was a great trip. The weather was great until our last day when we got a steady sprinkle all day long. My feet are still killing me from all the miles we walked but at least it distracts from the knee pain.

On the plane to DC Mac said he just wanted to go to the Air & Space Museum, didn't want to see any "stupid buildings and monuments" but once we got off the Metro at the Mall he was so wide eyed. He said he didn't realize it would all be so big. We did spend a lot of time at Air & Space but by the end of the trip he was asking to walk out of the way to see another monument or statue.

We'll definitely be going back when Macaroni's a little older. We didn't do the Holocaust Museum or the National Archives. I feel like I'm never going to see the Declaration of Independence. I want to stand in front of it and sing the Preamble, School House Rock style.

50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time

Really? I haven't even heard of about half of them, haven't seen a single episode of most of them. But I can't disagree with #21, #14, #2 or even #1 for that matter. Probably not the order I would have put them in but nobody asked me. Three in the top 50 isn't bad. Especially since he's only had three shows. My imaginary soul mate rocks!

And for the record, any Top-whatever-number-TV-show list that does not include My-So-Called-Life is just wrong. A million kinds of wrong.

#21 Joss Whedon's Angel

#14 Joss Whedon's Firefly

#2 Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I lied

I guess I am feeling patriotic after all. Macaroni and I are off to Washington D.C. tomorrow night for a quick weekend visit. Jboy won't be joining us, which is stupid because his E-ticket that expires in May is the whole reason we started looking at doing a trip.

Turns out his ticket is only worth about $125 after the change fee. And airfare to D.C. is up to about $1,200 this weekend. I'll never understand how those last minute packages work. Macaroni and I are both flying Northwest and staying at a rather nice hotel for a lot less than what it would take to fly Jboy out there. Dumb.

It did take a lot of refreshing the computer and just missing out on several packages before I scored this one. Macaroni doesn't even know yet. We tried last night and every time I tried to check out we would get a little error message saying that they just sold out. We started looking at packages to Orlando, LA, Tucson and even Chicago. Macaroni's only question was "do they have a pool?" Poor kid just wants to swim. I'm glad we didn't settle.

I'll finally get to see those cherry blossoms!

etsy.com

So my etsy store is up and running. Well, not so much running as limping, but it's a start. The banner really needs work but techno-art is not my thing.

Let me know what you think.

Hallelujah!

Dear Jboy,
Congratulations on being admitted to the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) at the University of Minnesota!

Full of Egg Salad Sandwich

Spent yesterday at mom's, eating and playing with Ruby. And then eating some more.

We were supposed to have a birthday party for my nephew Jacob but they never showed up. I'm not sure what happened but we had way too much ice cream cake left over. I should never, ever eat that again.

I finally finished Ruby's jacket and she looked adorable in it! Instead of an Easter basket I got her a pink butterfly "packpack" because she'll be starting daycare next month. At the first daycare center Macaroni went to, where my friend Bridget is a director. I'm excited.

Off to finish the two jackets I'm doing for my etsy.com store. Hope nobody else accidentally ate glittery eggs for lunch today. They're giving me a bellyache.

Photos from Easter...

I'm bowling again

Want to sponsor me?

It must be Alzheimer's

Holy crap, I can't believe I forgot to mention how busy Joss is. Auditions have started for Joss and Eliza's new show, Dollhouse, and production is expected to begin April 23rdish. If you recall me gushing about it before you already know that Joss had lunch with Eliza to give her some career advice and they ended up creating an entire TV show.

Well, now Joss has gone for coffee (he had tea!) with Felicia Day (who had a smallish role in Buffy Season 7 and who I walked next to for hours at the writer's strike) and he came up with a musical. For the internet! Starring Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie!), Nathan "Makes Me Drool" Fillion and Felicia. He wrote the show during the strike, specifically for the internet...side stepping studio involvement...and they started filming this week!

I'm so super excited for this, not just because it's Joss, not just because it's Nathan in a musical, not just because Felicia is so funny but because it's a little bit revolutionary. Joss isn't the first writer to use the internet to go directly to the fans, but I'm pretty sure he's one of the first "big names" to do it.

I'm plopping all the links here because I'm lazy. Really lazy.
Dollhouse

Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, and more here and then fun Dr. Horrible's actor related-y stuff: Neil Patrick Harris (and the cast of How I Met Your Mother) with singing!, NPH flashback, Nate looking hot, goofy & yet still hot, being Nathan, Nathan as an evil preacher, Felicia photos, Felicia's webisode-"The-Guild"-that-gave-Joss-the-idea-for-Doctor-Horrible's-Sing-Along-Blog. I really recommend clicking on that last one. No hot photos of of Nathan but so worth it!

Very beige

So it's been five weeks and we're still waiting for the final towel bar and knobs for the cabinets. I really like 99% of the work they've done so I'm trying not to get irritated, but come on already. I want the lock box off my house so I can sit around in my underwear again.

Love the lights, medicine cabinet, toilet, paint

Hate the teeny tiny sink and ginormous faucet

Love, love, love the tile and my shower bar
Hate the midgety tub and the unpainted trim on
the window...that you can't even see in the photo.
Guess it's not a big deal


Love the storage

Love, love, love my built in

Love that they left Macaroni's Superman sticker

Here's what I got done this weekend at Heather's parent's house. Not much, but I guess it's a start. And it's way more than I would have done at home.

Still needs little flowers behind the heart, will
be offered on my store with "free" personalization


Still need to finish the face cards

Wow, typing all those words has really wiped me out. So exhausted that I need another vacation. Macaroni's trying to talk me into Mexico, which might be a lot cheaper than Washington DC.

XOXO

I wasn't feeling patriotic anyway

Airfare to Washington DC just went up more than $200 a ticket. Guess the boys and I won't be running around the capitol looking for treasure. Or smelling those cherry blossoms!

Poo, with a side of Oop!

What time is it?

Wow, daylight savings time has totally kicked my ass. I'm always sleepy but this is ridiculous. And poor Macaroni. His dad is skiing in Colorado so he's not getting his two early bedtimes this week. And it's showing, crabby kid.

I painted until almost midnight last night. Trying to finish Ruby's jacket before she outgrows it...and so that I can take photos of it to upload to my etsy store. I'm going to Heather's parent's house this weekend and will hopefully get a couple of jackets done so that I can "open" my store. And I think I'm going to look into buying a small silk screening set up. My friend-via-friend Carlo has a side business silk screening so I might talk to him. It would be nice to have several design outlines that I could silk screen and then hand paint. Would certainly make things go faster.

On a cool note, one of my photos from Scotland has been selected for possible submission to the latest version of Schmap, which I had never heard of before getting an email from them this morning. I'm sure that I jinxed myself out of the running just by mentioning it but I still think it's pretty cool. It's this photo of the MacKenzie tartan on the loom at the Tartan Weaving Mill on the Royal Mile.

And now I really want to go back to Scotland. Come on lucky numbers.

I wanna pick your brain

Last night Shayne asked me if she could auction off one of my hand painted jackets for KK's music school fundraiser, and of course I said yes. Anything for that little girl. Anything for that big girl for that matter.

So this morning I signed up for an Etsy store. Not linking to my direct store yet as there's nothing in it, but I'm pretty excited to start painting again. I figured I'd start out by painting a couple of jackets with just one image as well as offering custom orders. And I'm going to have to figure out how to put photos of Wes and KK's jackets on the site too.

Lisa, have you done this already? Any recommendations? I've sold stuff on eBay before but never sold or purchased anything off Etsy. I'm going to have to start hitting the second hand shops for jackets. I like the "recycled" aspect, plus the paint just works so much better on a jacket that has been washed a few times. And who knows, if things sell maybe I'll do bags or other stuff too.

I think I'm going to start with a koi fish, maybe a "daddy's girl" banner with swallows and an Iron Giant inspired robot. I heart robots. Any other ideas for designs? My shop name includes the word tattoo...so that's where I'll be coming from.

Edit to add:

I'm not going to make any money on Etsy. Look what I just found! I'll be lucky just to spend what I make.

There's never anything good on the interweb anymore

It's almost midnight. I'm killing time waiting for the last of my photos to upload for ordering. Not that I'm going to stay awake long enough for that to happen, but at least they'll be there tomorrow when I've got some high speed internet to work with.

Hung out at my parent's house today, we had a little "welcome home" party for Macaroni. Who ignored everyone and watched all the cable tv his little eyeballs could absorb. And holy cow is Ruby ever freaking big! First she comes through the door with one of those lickable toddler ponytails sticking straight out of the top of her head, a mouth full of teeth and then she proceeds to be all adorable with her "down" and "Bobby?" and "baby" and "babblebabblebabble" talk. Too cute, I love when she reads books out loud. She's totally reading, just not in English.

And everything and everyone that moves is "Bobby?" Not Bobby. "Bobby?" Except for daddy. She'll point at everyone and say "Bobby?" but if you point at Randy and say "Bobby?" she'll turn her head really slowly and stare at you, like she's waiting for your brain to leak out of your ears. "Duh, that's not Bobby, that's his evil twin. My daddy."

Nothing exciting going on. Counting down the hours until my bathroom is finished...and then will start counting down to the back porch construction. It'll be way easier to go without a kitchen than a bathroom since I don't cook. Although I'm not sure I can afford the whole makeover that I want. We may just be enclosing the porch and putting in a laundry room.

Ooh, and nobody won the lottery. I so have plans for that money, gotta remember to buy a ticket. Off to bed now.

Almost finished. I hope.

Macaroni took this next set...my future photog?

I'm pretty sure I've already bitched about the miniature tub and sink, the window and the paint job so I'll just mention what I love about the bathroom.

The tile.

The paint color.

The cutout shelf thingie in the shower.

The toilet doesn't run and keep me up all night.

The shower bar that I picked out actually fit!

The exhaust fan?

There's no mold or wicked draft from the hole going down to the basement.

It's almost finished.

Macaroni just got home from Mazatlan last night. Did tons of swimming, got a tiny little sunburn and brought me home the coolest skeleton ever. Kid knows his momma.

I think I've mentioned that I had signed up for this customer feedback thing a long time ago and earn frequent flyer miles by responding to emails. Well, booking those flights to San Diego, San Fran, London and home from Amsterdam have really paid off. I got at least double points plus I used their link when I reserved my hotels so I got extra points for that too.

I think I've got enough miles to take the boys somewhere. Well, enough to fly me and Macaroni...but Jboy still has a ticket to use from when he bailed on my brother's wedding last spring. So now we have to go somewhere before mid-May. Have to go somewhere. Sucks to be me, huh?

Any suggestions?