Fully Alive…Ready to Smile

It is 10:41 and I have about six things started and nothing finished.  My head may actually fall off it’s swivel from dashing in many directions at the same time.  Why all the chaos?  Well, it has begun.  It appears my lazy months of summer are officially over!  Over, over, over.

Yes, the inevitable has crept up on me and school is upon us.  It scares me…having to be up at 7:30 every morning.  I know I’ll be okay, but it still makes me balk at the idea that someone else is now controlling my schedule.  Not that it would worry me enough to homeschool.  Uh, uh.  I admire all you moms who do homeschool, but this mommy is looking forward to those precious few hours of time to myself.  Call me selfish, I don’t care.  I think as a mom we earn that time!

(**See this is what I’m talking about, I get up to get a fly swatter to beat the tar out of the little bugger circling my head and I get into the kitchen and “OH, my pills, I forgot to take them with my breakfast speaking of which, why is that counter not wiped yet, I should do that.  Right, I was going to put those dishes in the dishwasher, too” and so on and so on.  No wonder I get nothing accomplished.**)

Secondly, I’m in a flurry because it’s September and September means getting ready to start our next house.  We made the nerve wracking trip to the bank yesterday to see if they would be able to (Oh, be right back…forgot a wet shirt in a lump in my bathroom sink that I was handwashing and it needs to be hung up…) advance us enough money to start building BEFORE we put our house up for sale so that we can get it close enough to completion and avoid another move in with mom and dad.  Not that I don’t appreciate all the generosity on my parents part in letting me and my brood bunk with them for 5 1/2 months the first time and 3 1/2 months the second time, but we’d love to avoid it again.  As I’m sure they would, too.

Happily the bank agreed to advance us enough to start, so as soon as our lot is ready (maybe in a month) we will be digging our basement and starting over.  This means that the next month will be filled with lining up trades, picking selections (oh, goody), organizing and getting this house ready to sell.  To make matters a little more hectic, Jer’s boss, who is also a real estate agent and will be selling our house, said that we should keep our house in showable condition because even though it’s not on the market yet, he’s going to keep it in the back of his head if he comes across someone who wants a December/January possession.  Translation?  I have to keep my house clean.  Always.  He said to expect short notice drop ins.  Yay!  (thick with sarcasm)

AND on top of all that, said boss approached me yesterday to decorate their display home across the street.  This means I get to go shop for appliances, furniture, and accessories on someone else’s dime : )  That makes me inordinately happy.  The catch?  Oh, he won’t be ready for me until next week sometime.  NEXT WEEK?!?  Oh, no problem, that’s plenty of time to come up with a complete plan and shop for everything and put it in there!  Again, heavy with the sarcasm.  These things take time!  Time!  Of which I suddenly seem to have a shortage of to get everything done.

So why exactly am I sitting here writing when I could be organizing, cleaning, shopping, planning, decorating or rocking and humming?  Good question.  Perhaps just to give you all the heads up that I may be missing for a while.  If you are looking for me, that’s where I’ll be.

This morning I decided to be really energetic and go for a jog…I know, what was I on, right?  Well it IS Labor Day.  And I can’t just sit on my butt all day like I did yesterday : )

So I’m out there jogging, pushing myself.  It’s been months, well pretty much since last year that I really jogged for serious.  Last year I was so dedicated, I pushed, I learned, I succeeded.  This year?  Meh, kind of slack.  Everything’s been kind of slack, really.  I can’t say 2008 has been my best and yet there are moments and hours and days that WERE the best.

I hit my wall very early in my run, like 2 songs in (that’s how I measure my distance…actually I measure a lot of things in my life by music) and I was tempted like every other time that I’ve gone for a jog this year to just stop at the same place and walk the rest of the way.  But I didn’t.  I made up my mind to keep going.  I was burning, I was sweating and suddenly I was past the hard part and I was flying again.  Inevitably I knew I would hit another wall in a few minutes, but I enjoyed those few minutes of what seems like the most free feeling in the world and I didn’t think about what was coming.

Eventually I got to the point that I knew my body would collapse if I kept going so I slowed down.  But I DIDN’T stop.  I walked until I felt reprieve and then I started running again.  This time I ran into the newest part of our development and it was just me and the road and the sky and the air.

Finally I came to a stop on our newest lot (yes we are building a new house again soon) and looked out over the water.  I started thinking about my run in relation to my life…especially lately.  I haven’t been running.  Mostly I’ve been walking…s.l.o.w.l.y. or coming to a complete standstill.  Instead of pushing myself, I keep just making excuses and giving up.  It’s pathetic really.  It’s very, very easy to keep up a lack of momentum.  No strain there!

But that’s not what life is about.  It’s about pushing past the cramps and the walls and achy parts.  It’s pushing until you are flying again and you feel like you could go forever.  It’s about enjoying the present moment instead of the fact that there will be hard times.  Let’s face it, there will always be hard times.

It’s taking friends running with you so that you have someone to talk to, someone to push you past your limits.  It’s having people there for you when you finally do run out of steam and collapse to the ground.  The people who cheer you on to finish your race, to reach your potential or just plain drag you across the finish line so you can start a new race.

And you know, even though I was running alone today in the physical, I was thinking about all the people who are on the sidelines cheering me on in my life.  The people who want me to be my best and who are holding my hands when I don’t want to keep running.  The people who are running beside me even when I’m choosing the path less traveled or the steep upward climb rather than the nice level road.  The friends who have been down my particular route before and can help me traverse it rather than leaving me to blindly fumble on my own.  I was thinking about the friends who I’m running beside while they run over their own rocky terrain and knowing that I’m their cheering squad.

None of us can run this alone.  But we HAVE to keep running.  Because if you are sitting still…you’re not going anywhere and nothing changes.

I’m addicted.  So, so addicted.  I can’t stop and I don’t want to.  You can’t make me.  Ha!  Although I’ve actually run out of room on my flair board, so I guess I will be forced to stop.  I really don’t do much on my Facebook, but after seeing this on Amanda’s blog, I got kind of intrigued and the rest is history.

Now I want them in real life : )  I hope you can read them, because this board really gives you a glimpse as to who I am.  Jer was shocked at how much of me was reflected by this.  I LOVE it!

***ETA: After publishing this post I realize you CAN’T read them, so here are some of them:

Sigh…they just make me happy!  There are more, but they don’t really say anything and are just pretty pictures.  Which are your favorite ones?

Okay, okay, okay already.  Here are the pictures from my “27 Dresses” party.  Of the 6 girls that were at the party, 5 of us wore our dresses.  The other gal, didn’t fit into hers.  But in a good way, she was smaller than the last time she wore her dress (and she’s had twins), lucky bum.  I think quite possibly the boning in my dress punctured some internal organ or another.  The smile pasted on my face is actually just shock and me holding my breath so I don’t bust the zipper.  And I’m leaning back in an effort to keep my tummy from protruding out the bottom of the boning!  True dat!

Here I’m raising my hand to actually make room to breathe.  Sure wish I could remember what I was saying cause apparently I was rockin’ the house with my hilarity!

And classic Erin, not paying any attention to the person trying to take our picture while I shoot off my mouth about some inane subject or other.  Brilliant.

From left to right: Candace (girl who has had twins and is now too small for bridesmaid dress a.k.a. “lucky bum”), Becky (wearing a lovely cream satin number from her brother’s wedding), Moi (a.k.a. loudmouth party hostess with the mostess and yes, I do in fact clean my house and do general daily activities in that little number!), Svea (who might not like me saying this but isn’t she stunning in that red dress…pregnant!  Yeeee!!!), Shelley (looking all sexy in her strapless chocolate goodness), Rachel (kudos go out to her because I got her in a dress, neener, neener, neener!  She just had a baby 2 months ago and she DOES NOT WEAR DRESSES!  EVER!!!  I got her to wear her bridesmaid dress from a friends wedding where they all wore a different color of wrap with white tank top.  It totally counts as a bridesmaid dress!  So yay her).

About 30 seconds after these pictures were taken we ran, leaped and bounded to the bedroom where yoga pants, sweatpants and stretchy pants of all manner awaited us.  Because really, who can eat taquitos, spring rolls, popcorn chicken, cream puffs, pumpkin bar and popcorn when your body is stuffed into a dress that isn’t really comfortable to begin with?  But let’s face it people, the dresses could totally be cut off and worn again!  So true.

I’m so happy everyone played along with my little party idea and please, feel free to steal this idea and blog about it so that I can see all YOUR dresses : )

I’m on a streak!  Three for three…three amazing women who have amazing blogs and who are so amazing in person.  I’m going to see how many times I can say ‘amazing’ in this post (have you ever noticed when you say a word many times over and over it starts to sound really funny and then you just keep repeating it and wondering how it ever came to be a word in the first place?  Um, right, where was I?…).

I just had the loveliest evening with an incredible (and yes, amazing) woman.  Nicole was gracious enough to agree to meet me for coffee after only having met me via our blogs.  I’m really enjoying this meeting amazing (there it is again) blogging friends.  I mean, they are so great on their blogs and smart and intelligent and fun, but in person…wow!  And what’s really great is that Nicole lives only 25 minutes from me.  : )  Yay!  And I thought we got along splendidly (phew, found a different adjective…hard to do when you are really excited about something and all your brain repeats is “amazing, amazing…”), which hopefully means many more such fun filled evenings.

In Nicole, I found a person who like me a) can talk a lot (I’m learning this is a good thing), b) can wander off into other subjects completely unrelated to the one that was currently being discussed and meander back to the original topic all without missing a beat (at least she is good enough to state that she will be veering onto a new path, I tend to just tear ahead without warning…I will take lessons from her on that), c) loves to laugh (and she definitely made me laugh).  She is so cute!  Adorable, really.

What more can I say?  I look forward to getting to know her better.

Ping Pong is an OLYMPIC SPORT?!????

Here are some little morsels from my week and upcoming weekend, none which are long enough to have a really interesting post by themselves, but combined…morsely goodness : )  At least to me.

The other day my mom and I are looking at a clothing catalog and she points out a pair of shoes that she thinks are hideous.  I thought they were quite cute!  And I said so.  She thought I was just saying that to be silly.  Then Jer and I are shopping the other day and I said “Oh, I need a new pair of shoes because I only have a few weeks before my deadline to have my 12 new pairs of shoes by the end of summer.”  We walk into my favorite shoe store and I zone in on a gorgeous pair of black leather shoes.  EXACTLY like the ones my mom hated.  Which just for the record, made them even more desirable.  Rebellion reared it’s ugly head and these beauties found a loving home in my closet.  They already feel like part of the family!  And all I can say to my mom is “neener, neener, neener!”  : )  She did grudgingly tell me that they were really cute on me, which made the purchase even better.

*****

Yesterday I hosted a jewellry and accessories party at my house.  The perfect evening…shopping coming to you!  Doesn’t get better than that.  Especially with all the gawgeous stuff that my cousin’s company Pink Fusion carries.  Look at this sweet bag I got.

*****

This is how I found Aidan after her nap the other day.  She wasn’t even quite awake yet, but she’d had the forethought to put on a nice warm hat.  Good thing because it was like 36 degrees Celsius (96.8 degrees Fahrenheit).  She wasn’t fond of the whole picture taking, flash in her face right after waking up.  But if you want to do things like this, it’s inevtible, really.

*****

Can I admit something?  I am a marker snob.  I keep buying my girls new packs of markers because they always want me to color with them and I CANNOT STAND coloring with markers that are drying out or ruined by little girls who press too hard.  So I buy new packs every couple weeks so that I can color happily with nice markers : )  We have a lot of markers!  (Can anyone guess what I spent the afternoon doing?)

*****

Tonight I’m having a few girlfriends from church over for a “27 Dresses” party.  What’s that, you ask?  Or maybe you don’t care, but I’m gonna tell you anyway.  We are going to watch “27 Dresses” and eat food and in honor of the movie I’ve asked them to wear a bridesmaid dress for the party.  We will be taking pictures fo sho!  We’re not yet too old for some goofy fun and I hope we never are!!

 *****

Tomorrow I’m going to a baseball game.  One of my friends asked me to go to a game with her.  Then 2 days later a different friend asked me to go to a game with HER.  What are the chances?  They don’t know each other, but both decided that this was the week to submit me to a long slow form of torture…9 innings long!!  So I told them if they wanted to go see a game then they could both go with me to the same game because like heck I’m going to TWO baseball games.  I don’t even like baseball!  I was telling a friend today about how I wasn’t going to actually watch baseball, I’m just going to the game to be with my friends and have fun.  I was told that I HAVE to watch the game.  WT*?!?  I don’t HAVE to do anything!!  Well apparently I have to watch the game because it’s important to keep your eyes on the ball in the event that it should end up flying into the stands and come hurtling at your head at high speeds (which apparently it does on a fairly regular basis), you can prevent being injured.  I snickered and said something to the effect of “that will be an interesting girls night out with balls flying at our heads” which resulted in a long bout of hilarity and guffawing.  So mature, I know.  Sigh.

*****

I decided on a whim that I wanted to take my girls to the States for a girlie night.  So Monday the three of us (along with my mom and my brother’s girlfriend Steph and her daughter Monika…who all thought that was a splendid idea) are going for a night.  We booked a suite so we can all bunk together and we’ll do some shopping and some swimming in the neat little kiddie play area and just have some good old fashion girl fun.  No boys allowed!  I’m not sure that my 2 little “Daddy’s girls” are quite sold on the idea of Daddy not being there yet, but they’ll get over it : )

*****

And that’s all for me.  Happy weekend! : )

I awoke from my months long emotional/physical stupor to realize that while I was *away* my bum went missing.  I think perhaps it’s been gone too long to put out a missing person report.  Can one report missing parts of one’s anatomy?  Oh, okay. Um, well, I guess I’ll have to figure something else out ’cause frankly, it’s just wrong, all this walking around with no bum.  Technically it’s a miracle I’m walking AT ALL since I think a large role of the gluteus maximus is to propel humans on their feet from point a to point b.  Really, I’m a walking miracle.

See?  Disturbing, isn’t it?

Apparently I had the frame of mind during my mental absence (can you have a “frame” of mind if you are mentally absent?  Things that make you go “hmmm”) to cut my hair, but not find my bum, because shorter hair will get me far in life.  I’m actually truly surprised that I’ve been physically able to sit and do nothing for all these months because sitting can be a real challenge with no hiney.  Extremely difficult.

And now I will be getting off my area “formerly-known-as-bum” and I will hie myself away at once for a jog to relocate missing nether regions in hopes of at least making contact and reestablishing good relations, all this with high hopes of retaining it in a more permanent position of employment.

_{**edited to add: I actually cropped my bum out of that picture…I do have a little more than is depicted.  But not much.  Must defend what there is.}

Well I think technically it’s the day after.  So we can say that lately I’ve been in a funk.  A cloud.  A fog.

Then I got a happy pill.  It’s an all natural happy pill called STR-J (the STR stands for stress).  And Lawd, I love it!  It’s like I woke up yesterday with a renewed sense of…um…something.  Not words, apparently.  But something.  Vigor (did you know when you enter “vigor” into Thesaurus.com it comes up with “oomph”…I didn’t know oomph was actually a word in the dictionary.  Interesting.).  Where was I?  Oh yeah, I’ve regained some energy.  It kicked in sometime yesterday afternoon and I was off on a rampage.

Since 3:00 yesterday afternoon I have washed my bedding, done 4 loads of laundry and folded them AND put it all away (seriously, people, that’s a landmark event right there…that’s as much as I’ve done in a whole week lately!), washed dishes…TWICE (oh, yeah), cleaned my oven (okay well technically my self cleaning oven cleaned itself, but whatevs).  I swept my floor, dusted, washed the insides of all our windows and the outsides of 4 (the rest are like a thousand feet off the ground, so it’s going to take a largeish ladder and a person other than moi to do that since I don’t do anything over 36″ off the ground).  What else…I know there’s more.  I can feel it.  I wiped down about 6 1/2 baseboards before my attention wandered, cleaned out and reorganized my desk (archeology at it’s best), cleaned out the old/unused/too small clothing from the girls’ drawers, organized my books and took out all the ones I’ve read and restacked the ones I haven’t yet read.

(just a few more and I’ll hit the ceiling!  The ones in the large stack are the “to read” books, the ones under them are some of my decorating and design books and then there are the beloved “Twilight” books in their place of honor.  Did I mention the other day I read “New Moon” in 7 hours?  Straight up!  Not lying.)

While cleaning out my desk I found the supplies for a project I’ve been intending to do so I whipped up 2 shadow box art displays for Ella’s room with Barbie clothes (’cause I had some extra time on my hands).  At some point when I get to a scrapbooking store I’ll buy pretty paper to put in the background of them, but for now white paper will do.

If you look closely at this next one you could imagine it being used in a C.S.I. episode…

“If we enlarge the reflection and enhance it we could probably get a clear match for the nailpolish color on the person taking the picture.  If we cross reference it with all the samples we have in the A.N.I.S. Database (*snickers* she said…oh never mind) aka “Automated Nailpolish Identification System” we should get a hit.”

Catherine interjects with “Wait!!  Isn’t that O.P.I’s ‘I’d Like to Thank’”? 

Startled looks from the rest of the team.  “What?!?  I love O.P.I.” (and they always just have that sort of random information at hand cause they are smart like that and that’s why that show is frickin’ awesome)

Not to mention what they could have done with the crumbs that I apparently forgot to wipe up before taking the picture (shaking head in disgust!)  

Anyhoo, I also read blogs intermittantly, possibly had a shower somewhere in there, went through 3 new cook books and made a list of healthy choice recipes (which will be another post) and all the pantry items that I need to buy to make them, and cooked a very nice dinner both days (my family thanks me because I think spring rolls and tacquitos are not really considered “dinner”…what!?  Don’t be hatin’ on me, at least I remembered to feed them…most days).

I think that about sums it up.  And if for some reason anyone thinks I’m bragging about my Martha Stewart like awesomeness in the housecleaning/crafting/organizational arena, can that thought.  By the time I do any of that again, y’all will probably have cleaned your houses like half a dozen times.  I mean, if I have to blog about it…really.  Why do you think we move every 6 months to a year?  Just kidding.  Kind of.

Now I’m tired, but happier.  My house feels liveable again.  My conscience is clear.  I think I pretty much cleared up the rest of August to waste my time doing whatever the heck I want.  Now I think a glass of wine, a bubble bath and “Eclipse” are singing their siren song.

Sigh.

Two hours is just NOT long enough with someone as wonderful as Kimberly.  She’s eloquent, beautiful, gracious, sweet, fun…everything I knew she would be!  When she walked in the door of the restaurant, I jumped up to throw my arms around her (natural reaction to greet someone you’ve never met, isn’t it?) and knew that I was greeting a lifelong friend who has already come to mean the world to me.  She was with her husband, Neil who was a real sport to sit there while we talked and talked and talked.  Trying to fill all 120 minutes with as much as we could.

I’m still a little overwhelmed so I’m not sure what else to say.  It’s such a crazy experience meeting someone for the first time even though you feel like you know them so well already.  I hope she can echo my thoughts in saying that it was perfect and the only thing that could have made it better was to not have had to say goodbye so soon.

The first shot of us was quite funny.  Neil started laughing and said we should take another one.  Deer in headlight eyes and fake smile.

I think the second one turned out nice, although my smile still fell a little while waiting for the camera to flash.

_{And isn’t her hair just lovely?  She just cut it and I think it’s so sweet on her.  Just thought I’d say.}

By the third one I was laughing, and I have to say Kim kept her composure beautifully!

Another lovely memory was created and I had to blink back tears as I walked back to my car.

So why is it not fun?  I haven’t been doing a lot of blogging lately because I’ve been a little emotionally and physically stressed.  I’m in a bit of a fog.  It just doesn’t make for very upbeat blogging!

The stress has been causing some pretty wicked tension in my neck and causing a doozer of a headache which in turn makes me feel more stressed.  It’s affecting my eyes, which causes more tension headaches from the strain.  It makes me restless when I lie down to sleep, so I don’t sleep too much, which causes more headaches from tiredness.  Then on top of all of that I got a nasty case of something akin to vertigo from being on the dock for too long at the lake and it has yet to recede.  I feel like I’m constantly on the dock, swaying and a little dizzy.  It’s causing a pretty unbalanced feeling and making my stomach feel queasy from the combined swaying feeling and headache.  The vertigo happened to me last year for the first time and it took many weeks for it to go away.  Yuck!  I’m not one to complain too much about my physical state because I’ve been much worse off, but enough is enough.

I went to see my naturopath today (who I’ve been seeing since I was diagnosed with Crohn’s 15 years ago and has helped my overcome many physical hurdles in my life) and she had a suggestion for me.  She recommended I go for CranioSacral Massage.  Sounds kind of spooky, doesn’t it?  I’m up for pretty much anything at this point because I’m living in zombie land.  I can hardly drag myself out of bed and that’s just no fun.  I’ve been for deep tissue and therapeutic massage in the last few months and nothing is helping.  So what can it hurt?  And hopefully it will help!  She also gave me some natural pills to help with relaxing (and sleep) and stress relief.  You know, I haven’t had an undisturbed night’s sleep in almost 6 years.  Can you imagine the havoc I could wreak on a good uninterrupted night of sleep?  : )

I’m hoping that this means that things will be looking up for me.  It’s worth a shot.  I feel completely unlike myself and it makes me sad.  So if you have a moment to send up a prayer that things will right themselves soonly, I’d really appreciate it : )

I’m pretty sure that as an aspiring lady of leisure I could get used to large quantities of time at the lake :)  My time was well spent.

Pretty much like this for 7 days…

And that is the one and only picture of me from our holiday : )

YES, that is “Twilight” lying on my lap.  I started and finished that book in one day.  It was quite good.  I’ve never read anything in that sort of genre and I was quite enthralled (I picked up the rest of the books today when I was grocery shopping…YEEEE!!).

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from our week (clicking on them makes them clearer).  I’m really tired since it was a busy day shopping, unpacking, laundry, baking Aidan’s birthday cake (her birthday is tomorrow) and getting suckered into watching a movie at 10:30 p.m.

The sunset is almost always brilliant (if it’s a clear evening).  In the 25 years we’ve been going to this place I think we’ve taken the same shot every year.  And every year it takes my breath away.  I was laughing as I took the picture because it’s like deja vu.

One evening at sunset the girls were playing on the rocks and “swimming” (although they never got in past their knees).

My little Aidan just loves her Papa (my dad) and she convinces him to take her on little adventures all the time.  This particular adventure took place in a little inflatable raft.  I know you can’t see their faces, but I loved the way the water sparkled and caught the sunset.

That’s all for today.  I’m going to bed.  Big day tomorrow with 2 birthday parties…one to host and one to attend.  That will create lots more photo ops, so it may be a while before I’m caught up with them.  Thanks for all the lovely comments while I was away.  It’s always nice to come home to an inbox full of love!

Well, we’re off to the lake to spend a week suntanning, swimming, laughing, eating, fishing and reading.  Been for my massage.  Got my toes painted (’Catherine of Grape’…giggling).  Purchased 65 bags of chips to everyone’s specifications.  More treats than we’ll ever need.  In fact, we don’t need to bring actual food for lunches because likely no one will be hungry : )  I have about 8 books packed, though I’ll probably only get through about 2.  I broke down and bought “Twilight” by Stephanie Meyer.  Peer pressure if you will.  I saw people talking about it and was like “what’s all the hype about?” and bought it.  I’ve spent about $50 on decorating and design magazines which in turn will add up to thousands of dollars worth of brilliant ideas for us to incorporate in a future house : )

All I need is my bathing suit and sunscreen and I’m GOOD TO GO!!!  Too bad that’s not all we are taking.  My poor little Saturn is going to be exploding at the seams and we’ll have to send a bunch of stuff in my parents’ truck.  But I refuse to get a van!  Why?  Who knows.  Just something to be stubborn about.

And I haven’t actually started packing, just piling.  So why am I sitting here blogging when I should be getting ready (should have started 2 days ago)?  I’m the procrastinator of the century.  Why do now what I can do at midnight?  Hee, hee.

Well, happy week bloggy friends.  Don’t forget about me.

P.s.  Here are a couple pictures I took of the “lake” our house backs onto.  I’ve been just LOVING Picnik and playing with every picture I take.  And ya’ll made me feel so good after I shared the last pictures that I’m being brave.  I just thought these turned out nice…

Whilst making supper this evening I was half paying attention to the tv which was in my line of vision as I chopped potatoes.  As all good mother’s do I had Treehouse taking care of the kiddos so that I could cook in peace.  I snapped to attention when I realized that Bob (as in “Bob the Builder”) is quite the Casanova!  I never realized that there was such a blatant romantic subplot between Bob and Wendy!  Ha!  I find it rather sad when the most exciting part of my day is watching 2 cartoon characters flirt : )  So can he do it?  YES.HE.CAN!!!

Scene:

Bob is excited to be entering a line dancing contest with his partner of female persuasion (NOT Wendy).  He’s telling all his friends about it and everyone is very excited.

Cut to the next scene…Wendy is bemoaning her singleness to her dog:

“Some people will be out dancing the night away, and others will be sitting at home alone!”  Insert heavy sigh while her dog gives her a sympathetic wag of his tail.

Over to Bob’s house where he gets THE phone call.  Dancing partner (whose name has momentarily escaped me) must cancel on Bob due to an accident at the gym on a treadmill (snort!).  Bob is deeply disappointed that he can’t be in the contest anymore and is complaining to Wendy (the poor “best friend, but oh so crushing on you, so will you please notice me in a non friend sort of way” character).

“I was really looking forward to this contest and now I have to drop out!” he cries to Wendy.

Wendy, with eyes averted says, “Well you COULD find a new partner.”  Blink, blink.  (Well done, Wendy, not too eager off the starting line…)

Bob slaps his forehead, “But Wendy, where will I EVER find a partner at this late date?” (I started giggling at this point and almost chopped off my finger. I’m so glad our children are being taught at such an early age the intricate delicacies in the art of flirting!  Because goodness knows, they may need that in preschool when they have to find a partner for finger painting or block building!)

Wendy again very coyly says, “Well I could be your partner, Bob.” (Yeah, Bob, you Dolt!  What do you need?  Her to jump up and down waving her hands saying “ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me!”  Seriously.  Sometimes men are so slow!)  

“But you don’t know the dance and the contest is in an hour!” Bob points out.

“I’m a quick learner, I’m sure I could figure it out.” (A woman of many talents…on the job site and off!)

So they practice, he’s impressed, yadda-yadda and they leave to get ready for the event.

He goes to pick her up and when he sees her he gasps, “Wendy!  You look lovely!!”  (more giggling)

And they win the contest.

They didn’t show it, but likely the headiness of winning made him clutch her in his arms and kiss the snot out of her.  Hopefully they didn’t get carried away in the moment and they kept their tools in their tool belts, if you know what I’m sayin’.  Because I’ll be disturbed if the next episode is about their shot-gun wedding…”Bob and Wendy get hitched” and perhaps nine months later an episode called “Wendy becomes a Mommy”!  Because “Can we fix it?” Nuh uh!  No you can’t.  One night of dancing could lead to a lifetime of responsibility!  Didn’t anyone ever tell you the dangers of dancing?

I really should get a life…and maybe go to bed.

I’ve seen this all over blogland and have up until this point not done it.  I decided today would be a good day since I had nothing better to write.  One of these days I WILL come up with something.  Just have to find that spot in my mind with blog worthy data : )

Below is the list of questions and with the answers you do a search with flikr to find a corresponding photo. Then build your mosaic with Big Huge Labs.

I really like the way mine turned out.  It’s fun and colorful.  A little unexpected.  Kind of like me…at least I’d like to think that : )

1. Erin Tennessee Fall Quarry, 2. Best Mexican Food in Arizona, 3. NCI, 4. Crumpled Rainbow, 5. Jude Law, 6. dark chocolate martini, 7. Tuscany paths?, 8. Raspberry - Swirl Cheesecake, 9. To be content…., 10. on friendship, 11. crazy daisies, 12. Happy Birthday Erin

What is your first name? Erin

What is your favourite food? Mexican food

What high school did you attend? NCI

What is your favourite colour? All the colors of the rainbow

Who is your celebrity crush? Jude Law

Favourite drink? chocolate martini

Dream vacation? Tuscany (or any other place in Italy for that matter)

Favourite dessert? Cheesecake

What do you want to be when you grow up? Content

What do you love most in life? friendship

One word to describe you? crazy

Your Flikr name? happy erin

I’ve been back and forth in the last couple of weeks as to whether or not to cut my hair short.  I’ve been keeping the longest parts pulled back in a ponytail to get a feel for myself in short hair.  I liked it.  So I took the big leap and now I look like Victoria Beckham…or not.  My hair does and that’s got to count for something.  Well, it’s not EXACTLY the same, but it’s similar.  That was my inspiration (Thanks Svea for the vote of confidence…way back when I posted pictures of hypothetical haircuts on myself she voted for the Victoria Beckham look).

So here is what she looks like (then let’s all block out how lovely she is and focus on me, m’kay?)…

Alright.  Notice the nice angles of her hair?  The bang (mine is swept to the other side and it kind of separated from sleeping on it last night)…

Side view…

other side…

and a couple that I just thought turned out nice and I’m vain enough to post them, lol.

I’m no photographer by any means.  I’m actually quite nervous about posting pictures that I have INTENTIONALLY taken for their photographic intrigue in my own eyes (rather than ones of the child persuasion or candids).  I don’t like putting my pictures up to be scrutinized (especially not by the likes of people that actually know a thing or two about taking a good picture…and can I just say that I admire ya’ll?), but me and my trusty old point and shoot camera with the not so zoomable zoom have decided to try and see things in a new light.  I’ve been experimenting with what my little camera can do…limited at best, as well as playing with the fabulous Picnik to make my amateurish photos look slightly less amateurish.  I’ve never participated in Love Thursday, but I’ve had this photo sitting and waiting to use (for the week I remember to post it on a Thursday).

That shot was taken from the top of this tower…

…at Allerton Park in Illinois when I was visiting Val.  I was actually taking a picture of the lovely grounds below and as I was looking at the view finder to take the picture I realized that the metal latice around the top of the tower was forming a heart with the trees below.  It’s probably one of the most creative pictures I’ve ever taken : )

I got all excited and thought “What else can I take that would verge on awesomeness?”  So I stood looking down the stairwell and this is another shot from that view…

…which started out just being a dirty old metal stairway, but once I tweeked it using Picnik (LOVE that sight…may have mentioned that before), it turned out a little bit whimsical.  So there.  You have now seen the full extent of my creativity.  All three pictures.  That’s about all I got.

Happy Love Thursday everyone : )

Yesterday I officially became old.  At least that’s the way it felt as I watched my little girl walk down the aisle as a flower girl for my cousin Jenene’s wedding.  It was such a beautiful day and Ella did such a great job!  I was so proud of her.  I think I’m actually going to rent her out as a professional flower girl.  Her and my cousin Elin’s son, Liam (who was the ring bearer), were just absolutely perfect in their roles.  Not that we were at all biased : )  Here’s some (or lots) of the pictures that I took of the day.

Jenene and Ella before the ceremony

Ella had her hair done professionally for the very first time and she was SOOOOO proud of it!  I heard a number of times during the evening “Boy, Steph sure did a good job on my hair!”  The dress was courtesy of my lovely mother who sewed it for her!

Here they are right before the ceremony.  I love the look on Ella’s face.  Kind of coy…

From the minute Liam and Ella got to the reception hall, Ella was demanding to dance with him.  He took his role very seriously and obliged her every whim.  I suppose it helps that he has two sisters who make him dance with them. : )  This is one of my favorite pictures of them.

Same picture with a different effect (I’ve been playing with my pictures in Picnik…LOVE IT!!!)

“COME, Liam, let’s dance!!!”

…and they did!

And when he wouldn’t dance with her, she danced by herself.

While we waited for the photographer to be ready for the kids, I posed them and took my own pictures.  They were FABULOUS subjects.  They cooperated without complaint.

Same shot, different look…

Here’s one of Ella and I.  I asked her to come get her picture taken with me and she sighed very heavily and said, “But I don’t want ANYMORE pictures taken, mommy.  I’ve had so many!”  Hence the frown on her face.

Here’s Elin and I, proud as proud can be of our two little stars!

And this post would not be complete without showing you 3 of the most beautiful women I know and I’m lucky blessed to be related to them.

Beside me is Jen (married to my cousin Chad), Kathy (my dad’s youngest sister), Elin (married to my cousin Clint)

Once we were able to drag Ella off the dance floor we headed home where my cousins Chad and Jen joined us at our house for a rowsing evening of Singstar!  We even had the guys singing.  It was hilarious!

Jer and Chad rocking the house!

We decided to make popcorn for a snack.  We had eaten most of the bowl of popcorn when Chad decided it would be an awesome idea to make caramel popcorn.  So I said, “the ingredients are in the pantry, go nuts!  Jen and I are singing.”  And like something right out of the twilight zone, they decided to do just that!

And it was GOOD!!!

Raise your hands if you know what I’m talking about when I say that there are LOTS of people out there who just don’t understand this whole blogging business.  Really, if someone doesn’t have a blog or read blogs, they think the whole lot of us are just crazy folk.  I don’t know how many times I’ve said something about “one of my blogging friends” to have the person I’m talking to roll their eyes and look at me like I’m a few crayons short of a box.  I actually had one friend’s daughter say to me “well at least I have real friends!”  Ha!  Funny.  I have real friends too, so there (sticking tongue out)!!  If I even mention the word “blog” I see a glazed look pass over faces, sometimes there’s even a snort.  I know what they are thinking…”Don’t you have anything better to do than “talk” to imaginary friends online?  Hmmm…let me think about that…nope!

Now when these eye rolling skeptics find out that I travelled no small distance to meet one of these “friends” in person they question my sanity and ability to reason.  “How did you know she was who she said she was and not some creepy 60 year old man waiting to haul you off in his nondescript van to take advantage of you and leave you without a trace?”  Good question.

Well you know what?  I’m happy to say that this “imaginary” friend of mine turned out to be one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world (real and online).  It will forever be one of the highlights of my life.  AND now I’m very, very excited to say that another of my blogging buddies will soon be an in real life friend.  YEEEEEEEE!!!

My dear friend Kimberly (who really is an absolutely fabulous person, you should go say hi and read her awesomeness) happens to be coming to my part of the world for a wedding in August and WE ARE MEETING!!!!  I’m so excited it’s beyond words!  There are not enough exclamation marks to put behind it to say how excited I am.  I think I’ve told her that like 13 times already : )  Like Val, she’s one of those people that I had an instant connection with and knew that one day I had to meet her.  I just didn’t think it would be this soon.  So I’m super duper pumped (I must be since I said duper, lol).

I tell my skeptics that the people that I have met online through blogging have transformed my life. It’s a community of people who are inspiring, encouraging and so wonderful.  People who have taken me at face value (I really am very real on my blog, just so you all know.  I’ve been told I write exactly like I talk, so you can just put a voice to the words and it’s like I’m talking to you!) and ya’ll love me for who I am.  Just the kind of people I need in my life.  You guys make me laugh and smile on a daily basis.  So thank you!

And given the chance…I’d meet each and every one of you : )

I think I can honestly say I’m bored since I’ve been reduced to blogging about my feet.  Hmmm…

When I was out visiting Val, we bought matching toe rings to commemorate our time.  They are these lovely, sparkly little beauts that make my toes feel mahvelous!  Even my uglyish toes feel cute now.  Kind of an ugly duckling turned to swan princess story in real life : )

Anyhoo, we put on our nifty new rings and had a little photo shoot with our toes.

I love this next one because we had to hug to get the shot and we almost fell over in the process.  It was so cute : )

If you look really closely on the first picture you can see that Val’s ring is quite snug on her toe and she complained a little about it cutting off the circulation in her lovely, polished, skinny toe.  Mine on the other hand, fit wonderfully.  I wasn’t quite sure how this was possible seeing as I have these stumpy fat sausage toes.  Upon further inspection we realized that the elastic in my ring had actually snapped under the intense pressure of having to fit around the stub.  Ha.  I BROKE it.

But it bothered me not because it fits really well now.  In fact, it is the most comfortable toe ring I’ve ever worn!

Until a few days ago.  Now I find it slipping to the edge of my toe and I need to constantly adjust it.  Could it be that my obesish toes have slimmed down?  The rest of me sure hasn’t.  A freak toe weight loss.  The ring can’t have stretched any more than it already had because it was maxed out.

Then a few days ago I’m talking with a friend and he looks at my flip flops and says they look well worn.  The tips of the flip flop curl up around the edge of my toes.  This is because my toes are so short (and fat) that they don’t reach to where most peoples’ toes would and the pressure on that point causes a bit of an elvish effect.  When I told to him that no, these were actually newer flip flops and explained this curling phenomenon he laughed at me and said that maybe the shoes have a toe weight restriction.  Funny guy!

I know there is nothing sexy about my feet (So all you weird people who have somehow stumbled upon my blog because I’m talking about feet, sorry, you are out of luck!) and the older I get the more it bothers me.  Due to health issues my feet always maintain a rather striking resemblance to “Bushman Feet” as Jer so delicately put it.  I’m not sure how many bushmen feet he has taken time to study, but apparently mine rate up there with them.  Hmmph!  I’m happy to say that right now they do look nicer than they have in years.  I’m taking pills to help my body better absorb healthy oils so that my feet don’t crack and bleed, yadda, yadda…

I don’t think they look like bushman feet in these new gems!

Yes, I bought ANOTHER pair of heels!  Only 4 more and I’ll have reached my 12 shoe goal for the end of summer.

There, I managed to relegate an entire post to my feet.  What an accomplishment. : )