March 10

It really is a burden, having such handsome boys. I feel I must constantly hold myself in check lest I run at the mouth, a non-stop diatribe of the attractiveness of my spawn. I just know other mothers, hey, even fathers, look at me with unbridled jealousy, knowing I gave birth to these wonders of nature. I can barely look those other parents in the eye, afraid I might show an overabundant gleam of pride.

Ok, fine, I know every mother and father is aware that THEIR child is the most beautiful, the most perfect. I'm just overwhelmed with it sometimes. Hard to believe they came from me.

Today Owen and I went to the park shortly after Zach went to school, me pushing the stroller while he was pushing a riding toy. We made it safely there, after many redirectings away from the road, we watched a digger dig a hole and place a new palm tree in it, slid down the slide, threw mulch, rode on the swing, said Hi to puppies, threw the ball at random strangers, etc. I just KNEW he'd be able to take a good nap. Unfortunately, he must run on solar powered batteries b/c he was soooo energized that it took over an hour to get him to sleep for what ended up being a very short nap. At least I got some cute pics out of the deal.

I have been playing with the 'Unsharp Mask' tool in photoshop. OMG, I love that thing. I never really messed with it much before and I need to read up on it to see what it does, from an explanatory sense, rather than just play with the sliders till I get what I want.

This boy has such gorgeous eyes. More than just brown, there's a hint of green and more mirror-like reflection than what I'm used to seeing. I just love looking at them.




























And then later I came back to edit this post b/c OMG...it's another full moon! Didn't we just have one of these like a month or so ago? How bizarre.

Misha

So you've seen a couple pics of Harmony, our sweet feline. Here is Misha, our slightly less sweet one. He's a great cat, don't get me wrong, but he doesn't come running when Owen starts screaming to make sure his 'baby' is ok, he doesn't like to lick your scalp and he's much more prone to running off when Owen comes cackling in his direction.

Probably the most 'unsweet' part about him is his 6am "Mrrooooooooorrrrrrrggghhhh!" at our bedroom door for food. For pete's sake, cat, can't you wait 45 more freaking minutes? No, he can't, he just keeps on the growly meow until we get up and refill his bowl.

However, that is still better than what he did to me one night. I was EXHAUSTED (surprising, huh?) and this was a few years ago...I had been down to help my aunt and uncle with some hurricane clean up. Didn't get much sleep there, no power, house boarded up, sweltering, a bad encounter with their Basenji (another story) but needless to say, I was more than a little excited about crawling into our then waterbed, in the air conditioning, for a long night of snoozing.

Back then, we had put a cat door in our bedroom to give the cats 2 rooms of 'safety' from the dog. Then we realized that the cats roaming around on the bed at night didn't really provide a restful atmosphere, so we started jamming pillows into the hole to keep them out. But the smart little cats that they are realized that enough pushing, tugging and wiggling would eventually get the pillow out so some nights one of us would have to get up and re-stuff the pillow, chase out cats, etc. That night happened to be one of those nights.

I was PISSED at having a cat wake me up. I could say the word 10 times and still not convey the anger I felt at that moment. I grabbed the cat and stormed for the door. But oh no! SOMEbody left her overnight bag right next to the bed. I tripped on the bag and went face forward toward the floor. Arms full of cat, I had no way to catch myself. Then something stopped my fall. It was the collision of my left boob with the wooden corner of the waterbed frame.

I'm pretty sure I started screaming curse words, although in reality I don't know how I would have been lucid enough to even from a short 4 letter bit of recognizable English. My whole body weight crashing to be stopped by the point of a wooden corner, padded only by my poor left boob, dead center no less, it makes me cringe even now to remember it. I think I have tears in my eyes at the thought. I was pretty sure I had broken it, mangled up the insides, cracked ribs and maybe even caused a cardiac contusion. Ok, that's stretching it a tad but I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to nurse a baby on that side again. Luckily, the plumbing seems fine.

The next day a piece of cardboard was stapled over the hole. And now we have new doors, with no cat hole. I suppose listening to a little meowrowling is better than breaking my boob.

He's lucky I love him.

March 8

A little bit of garden magic...Dh has tried several times to get a nice jacaranda tree in our yard. He's bought 3, I believe, planting in different places but each time the poor tree has died. There is a small one at Zach's school and there were several seed pods hanging off and on the ground, so we grabbed one. I forgot about it, but a few days later Zach put a small pile of seeds on the counter and said he had removed them from the pod.

Eventually I finally took a few of them and pushed them down into the dirt in a pot that had previously held a plant (Stevia, I believe) that died, as most of my plants seem to do. I have been checking that pot daily for signs of life, but hadn't seen a hint of a sprout. Until last night. We lit a small chimenea fire and while I was oohing and ahhing over how well my basil and thyme are doing, I noticed a little sprout in the jacaranda pot! I know it's a bland photo and it is such a small thing, but OMG if we can get this to grow and thrive, I'll have to simply agree that my aunt's birthday gift of the gemstone pendant increasing my 'conncection to Mother Nature' is indeed the magic keeping my plants alive and well.

March 7

Getting an early start to the day, at least from a blog perspective. We headed out to the beach this morning around 9:30 and it was B-E-A-yootiful. The water was cold, but I had no intentions of getting in. The boys, however, aren't quite as smart as I am and they got soaked.

I will say, Owen had a blast. He was a bit freaked out with the waves coming up and splashing him, so he'd scream, but then head right straight back into it. Hard to keep up with him. I'm sure he doesn't remember the last time we were out so I was expecting him to be a bit more freaked out. He was really screaming when it came time to go.

Pics were challenging, the sun was super bright with lots of glare, but I got some that I like.

Beware the 6th of March!

You may run into this guy. I certainly did, and he managed to make off with one of my Great Aunt Tilly's heirloom dishes. This is the devious, devilish, diabolical Number Two. *Cue Austin Powers music..."WHO. DOES. NUMBER. TWO. WORK. FOR?!?"*

Actually, Number Two is a very talented photographer and I was lucky enough to entice him with my burgeoning belly to get some beautiful pregnancy photos back when I still had Owen in a place where he couldn't cause quite so much trouble. Now I drop by on occasion to make sure he eats a decent meal and he in turn piles on a variety of flattering compliments. He is very good at that. He'd probably be able to make me think I looked good if I'd just crawled out of the sewer after a week long journey without food or water. Then he'd leave and I'd say "WTF? How did I fall for THAT?"

Today he let me TOUCH HIS CAMERA. OMG. I think he was shuddering in his boots because it is, indeed, a beautiful piece of machinery and worth quite a lot of money. I know he's really just afraid that I'll someday prove to be serious competition so he's trying to devise a plan to halt my progress. Mwahahahaha. You just keep trying, Number Two.

March 5

I spent some time today working on one of the 'lessons' for the photo group lesson on my message board, but I did take some time out and get some 'fun' shots of Owen running and playing and giggling in the tunnel. It's so hard to catch him when he's in motion, so this one was a bit overflashed but it's the best of the bunch.













This is one where I was experimenting with the flash outdoors. I think Zach is such a handsome boy, of course that is a mother's prerogative. He either looks serious like this for a photo, or give me a hugely fake 'CHEESE!' smile.

March 4

Simple machines, they make the world go 'round. Here's one of my favorites. "A screw is an inclined plane wrapped around a pole". This one seems to be missing the pole, though. Oooh! Maybe it's a 'fill in the blank' puzzle (well, fill in the pole) and when you find the proper pole, you get a prize!

March 3

Ok, today was a quickie. Owen did the "OMG I'M AWAKE!" routine in the middle of the night again, for at least 2 hours, up early, didn't nap well crappola. I let myself off the hook w/dinner and served fish sticks and frozen/baked fries, along with chili leftovers for dh. But I did make some banana bread since Owen has decided his staple food of choice is no longer acceptable and I have fruit flies circling the counter. And I needed to use up the last of some refrigerated bread dough a la 'Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day' so dh at least had some decent bread to eat with his reheated chili.

As Owen is now in bed and dh is reading to Zach, I braved the cold (ok, ok, the CHILL) and lit a candle in the pergola for this photo. I haven't been able to get a nice daytime shot of it, I love the way the sunlight goes through the colored glass, but this will have to suffice. At least it looks warm.

Happy Birthday Hope!

I thought about you all day yesterday, honest. Once I realized it was the 2nd and not the 1st, that is. And I kept meaning to message you and wish you a happy day, but each time I remembered it I was washing dishes or doing laundry or something that really didn't have a messaging ability. So I'm a day late and I'm sorry. I hope it was a great day and that the year to follow brings you much peace and joy.

Zach's diorama and poster for his research project were due today (March 3) so we spent some time in the evening fine tuning things. That is, getting the last minute pictures printed and glued, and getting some greenery for the diorama. FTR, his animal was the river otter. Do you have any idea how much time I spent trying to find a way to get a blue see-through item to depict water? All I could come up with was blue cellophane, which was only available online, and double the cost once you add shipping. 15 bucks for a diorama? Sheesh, I already bought a freaking pair of shoes for the damned thing! Which Sharon now owns, btw. So I found some irridescent cellophane at Joanne's and figured it would just have to work. It's a little hard to see b/c the light reflects so many colors off the cellophane, but here it is. Poor plants. Even just a few hours from being picked, they are already wilting. But Zach thought it was THE BEST and he worked a lot on it with me, so that's all that really matters.

It's MARCH!!

I have nothing else of importance or wisdom to add to the fact that yet another month has already passed. I did, however, let Sharon do MY face painting today. And I guess this is a cheat in that she took the photo.

Not much else going on today, Kev is working and Zach's fishing with the grandparents. Owen's about to wake up from his nap so I'm gonna scoot.

As you can see, the teeth are an inherited gift.