So Blue

Yesterday, I woke up blue.

So I tried to stay in bed as long as possible. I have absolutely no reason for a funk. I don't have cycles anymore (although lets not eliminate hormone fluctuation from the possibilities), my life is great / routine, my meds are on target (for those of you taking score).

After hours of putting off the inevitable, I got out of bed but put off changing out of my pj's for several more hours.

I hung around the house with plenty to do but no desire. Not hungry. Not thirsty. Didn't want to clean the house, exercise or take the kids somewhere fun.

After a while i thought, maybe if I put on some makeup, I'll feel better. No.

i could go to the store and buy some fresh fruit and make a really fun drink.

i just didn't want to.

"wouldn't it be fun to dance?" i thought to myself. turned on some music - no, it didn't move me.

"wouldn't it be fun to hang out with a friend?" called beth - twice - no answer.

"maybe my mom will cheer me up." i thought.
"can i call you back? i'm visiting with aunt mollie, we are about to start a scrabble game." click!

"wouldn't it be rewarding and productive to paint the kids room?" hubs suggested i start such a large project with his help.

i called rhiannon on her lunch break. she was in the same mood as me but it was raining in the STL so she had an excuse to be all moody and grumpy. anyway, she advised that i make a virgin frozen drink - because if alcohol was what i needed then i obviously have bigger problems. meh.

i did get to talk to my aunt mollie for a few minutes before my mom hung up on me. aunt mollie thinks i have the swine flu. or am depressed because the month of April is over. she recommended i make a pitcher of alcoholic margheritas - all for myself. or go to the dr.

eventually, out of pity for my children, i played some board games with them.

i made virgin pina coladas - the boys and i shared.

there were cookies (sorry, casey, it was just one of those days)

there were spongebob cartoons

AND coloring


AND bubbles (spongebob is good for a lot of things)


AND temporary tattoos

now, i like to give credit where credit is due and it is due to a certain absorbent and yellow and porous critter who lives in a pineapple under the sea for breaking me out of my funk.

Today was decidedly better. The kids and I went to Seaworld and met up with our friends from the ABC club, Lori, Asher, Sage and Kelton . Today was Gabriel's turn to be in a funk. He held it together just fine until the very end. He had the mother of all meltdowns. It has been a very long time since he just fell apart like that. This was all out screams of terror and laying on the ground brand of tantrum. I'm sure that not only could our friends hear us across the park on our way to the parking lot, they were probably also very happy we were on our way! ARGH! Gabriel, learn your lesson - restrain from having fits of emotional outburst until AFTER new friends get to know you!

Which reminds me that while I was singing the blues yesterday, I was briefly on the phone with my friend, Lisa, when it struck me that its easy being friends with people who are funny and laid back and easy going, the true test of friendship is when you meet their mood swings for the first or tenth or one-hundredth time. When your friends love you when you are hard to love, that's a true friendship. Come to think of it, I am really wealthy in that aspect. I can think of a whole motley crew of folks who love me like that - people who have known me my whole life and people who have known me a few months and a lot of in-between. I'd like to put Spongebob on that list but seeing as how our relationship is a one way street and all, he's better off on the 'favorite tv shows' list.

Does this have you thinking about your friends? Please share!

FFF: Camp Flying F Ranch

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Welcome back to Funky Foto Flashback!
This week we visit summer camp at Camp Flying F Ranch. circa: ??? In retrospect, I doubt that this was REALLY a camp. We pitched our tents in the yard of these people and had "classes" about horses on the floor of their living room. Then we cleaned the stalls, groomed the horses, filed their hooves and cleaned out horse shoes - yuck. We did some riding (this brings back painful memories of being bucked off a horse gone wild).

Anyway, that's me on the left, my BFF Rhiannon on the right and the son of the people who owned the ranch in the middle.

Rhiannon has a flawless memory whereas my memory suffered through my youth. So Rhiannon, here's your turn to comment with some anecdotes or you might consider posting about it on your own blog.

Ok! Now its your turn! What you do is:

-post your vintage pic
-copy andpaste the code for the FFF button into your post
-sign in to Mr. Linky
-simple, yes?

8 is great-I've been tagged!

Ok - since I am a lover of lists I could hardly refuse Laufa's tag. But since I am also a little bit dull, I will add some entertaining pictures for you to look at whilst you scroll to the bottom.

8 things i look forward to in no particular order:

-a tan (i know, it is sooooo unhealthy)
-finding out that primrose and rohan's visa request was accepted and that they are going to live here forever
-gabriel starting kinder (but i also dread it)
-this book i requested at the library - i'm number 26 out of 40 holds on the first 6 copies. i'll be waiting a long time
-next semester bible study
-watching tonight's Dancing With the Stars. its on the DVR but hubs is watching basketball. pshaw.
-the end of the swine flu pandemic
-my next visit to the STL

8 things i did yesterday:

-taught pilates
-ran a secret errand
-ate a salad
-brushed my teeth
-cleaned up about a million messes that my kids made
-cuddled with the boys
-changed clothes 4 times (1. out of pj's, into workout gear - 2. out of workout gear into street clothes - 3.out of street clothes into yoga clothes - 4. out of yoga clothes into pj's)
-sat in traffic - grrrrr.

8 things i wish i could do:

-fluently speak spanish (i only speak enough to get in trouble)
-fluently speak french (i only speak enough to get my husband in trouble)
-play guitar (am working on it)
-teach yoga and pilates everyday instead of just 2 days / week
-travel MORE
-run in the heat without feeling like my face and feet are going to burn off of my body
-give all my bloggy friends a big hug and big bar of chocolate (i know, casey, its not HASAY approved!)
-take my husband's burdens off his shoulders

8 shows i watch:

-dancing with the stars
-the office
-30 rock
-parks and recreation
-SNL (anyone see a trend?)
-house
-clean house
-spongebob squarepants

8 bloggers i tag:

1. Leslie at Captain Crazy
2. KP at The Grove
3. Lori at Rulon, Lori and Family
4. Drama Queen Jenner
5. Peggy at Stir Crazy in the Suburbs
6. Ginny Marie at Lemon Drop Pie
7. My Bella Figlia
-ok, that's 7 - not eight. i left a place for you - if you want to play along!

if you want to play, here's what you do...

Here's how 8 THINGS works:

- Mention the person that tagged you. (check)

- Complete the lists of 8's. (check)

- Tag 8 of your wonderful bloggy friends. (sort of check)

- Go tell them you tagged them! (check)

RTT: about as random as it gets

The Daily Show referenced zombie-ism as a side effect of the Swine Flu. Finally!

I spent twenty minutes looking for my cell phone yesterday. I found it on my person.

Mother's Day is coming up ... don't forget. That's all.

Back to zombies, well, er, not zombies per se. I read I Am Legend. Wanted to ever since I saw the movie and ceased breathing for 101 minutes with my hands over my face and my derriere perched on the very edge of my movie seat , threatening to slide off any second were it not for every muscle in my body creating a tension that rendered me a like statue. Book = awesome. Book = very different (you knew it would be). For starters, its about vampires, not zombies. And then there is the how the plague began, how his family died, the dog, and of course, the end. But I am glad I read it and I am glad I waited so long to read it. Its only 170 pages long - give or take: a morbid beach read, if you will.

You bloggers have me obsessed with zombies.

Day two: Rain in San Antonio. A strange and rare event. Everyone is grateful for the rain in terms of the aquifier and our brown lawns. But I'm pretty bored. I normally would be at the zoo, or Seaworld or on a hike with the kids, or at the very least in the backyard with the kids.

Yesterday I busted out the finger paints.

I added different ps boost actions to each of these - i think i like the first one the best.

I think today we will venture out to the Children's Museum. Or the trusty old standby, the library. But this is the second day of being inside and we are going crazy! I really don't know how you do it, Canada.

UPDATE: Rain stopped! Sun is out! We are headed to the great outdoors!

For more zombie-talk, go here:

Early to Bed and Early to Rise Keeps a Mom Busy, Hurried and Lithe

My friend, Lisa, and I took our kids to this really cool restaurant she found called Willie's Ice House - they have a SAND BOX! It was really nice to be able to engage in a regular conversation while the kids were entertained. I took my usual amount of pictures - about a thousand - and only these three looked ok.



Then there was soccer practice. Below: the little sister of one of Gabriel's teammates. She is adorable and I love taking pictures of her!

Then of course there was the game - at 4 pm, in scorching heat and suffocating humidity. Who does the schedule?

GO Sharks!

the game was a little on the sad side, the other team scored about 5 goals - we only scored once, but even that was in their goal too.

i don't know who this is but it cracks me up that they have such a HUGE dog sitting in their laps.

one of G's teammates

We went on a double date to the Flying Saucer with one of B's coworkers. His girlfriend, Jaime, lives in Austin so I have only met her one other time but she is hands down one of the coolest chicks EVER. This is a shout out to you, Jaime - for the Fun Facts Dart Game, The Cheeky Monkey and OOO OOO AAh AAh! I hope we get to hang out more and I hope that one day you get your light covered tree!

And finally, in this video, Gabiel talks about the first book he ever read by himself. He sat so nice and still sounding out words and asking for my help only a couple of times. But after he read it, he was toast and just wanted to watch TV - this is why he was so distracted in the video.

FFF: Look! It's snow!

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Hi again! Welcome back to yet another installment of Funky Foto Flashback, the blogosphere's fastest growing meme!


circa: ???
Today we visit my sister-in-law in some snow covered region - probably Switzerland. My in-laws lived overseas until hubs and his sister were teens, they also did a lot of travel around the world. Wouldn't you love to raise your kids to see the world? I digress... So, I'm not sure what year or location this was taken but it is such a fantastic photo. She looks so happy and warm despite the snow! Don't you love her scarf with its hoodie?

Ok! Now its your turn! What you do is:

-post your vintage pic
-copy andpaste the code for the FFF button into your post
-sign in to Mr. Linky
-simple, yes?

4 year old graduate and uneducated crawdads

Monday, Gabriel graduated from the ABC Club - our library's brilliant, educational "club" for preK.

here is with the cast of a year long's worth of puppet shows

there was coloring

they colored and cut out the chicka chicka boom boom tree

there was dancing ...

... to an ABC song


there was a parade around the library for the graduates

color or b&w?

Ethan, as usual, spent the whole time running a muck in the library while i tried desperately to be in two places at once.

but he looks cute in black & white

Also that day, Gabriel registered for Kindergarten. It's all happening so fast! What's next? College? I'm starting to feel like I want a third child - just to hold onto the childlike wonderment of the age of PreK.

-------------------------------------------------

Rewind to Sunday -

We had a crawfish boil at our house. I took about a gazillion pictures. Here are thirty of them all neatly bundled into a fashionable slide show courtesy of Slide.com.

RTT: Larry King, blah blah blah

I was watching some late night junk tv last night. Is it just me or did Larry King used to have people of substance on his show - people with real things to talk about? He is on CNN! I don't watch CNN to watch fluff. I watch CNN to regenerate my dead brain cells after watching a segment of Keeping up With the Kardashians or some other brain eating show. So his guests were Ashton Kutcher and P Diddy. They were all talking about Twitter. Did you know that Larry King Twitters? They were going on and on about how this is a great platform for your everyday person and not just celebrities. Then Larry King video conference called Jimmy Fallon to ask him if he thought Obama would start using Twitter. All of this seemed very non-regular-person to me. What about you? What are your thoughts on Twitter? My good bloggy friend, The Stiletto Mom twitters - or is facebook? or is it both? Oh, I don't know! I did Myspace for a while, got tired of the high school drama and then started my blogger page which I think consumes enough of my time to not delve into the other social networks.

I had a great run tonight - didn't wake up early enough to beat the heat. It was cool outside and I was thinking of all the nice things people commented on my guest post at HASAY and listening to Beyonce when it occurred to me, if I stopped drinking beer and eating cupcakes I would be really healthy! Don't worry, I chased that thought away - literally, I was running and visualizing chasing that thought away. I'm not a big fan of deprivation. Just thinking about it sends chills up and down my spine.

Here are some random pictures of my week.

mississippi river in my house - i was actually a little less homesick for the STL

Beth's bday was Wed - we had a surprise party for her
Beth and Natalie
my child always seems to end up like this at parties - he totally takes after my side of the family!

Ok - now click on this here button and enjoy the randomness of others.