Food! Glorious food! What more could you ask for?

so my friend mary asked me today why i have totally stopped writing for my blog. so, mary, here is a post. as i explained to her, i have once again fallen into the habit of writing a lot, just not publishing. for example, a while back i wrote this and chose not to publish it because i could not imagine it being interesting to anyone else but me. looking back on it though, it is pretty funny. here it is:

"my little baby is no longer a baby. he is a little boy. a little moose boy. i am constantly amazed by the new things that he is learning and ways that he communicates with me. he has an amazing sense of humor, is extremely expressive and dramatic (i wonder where he gets that from!), fiercely independent and loving. he is the best.

anyway, what struck me today was his appetite. when i say that he is a little moose boy, i am not really kidding all that much. he isn't fat, or even close to it. he is in the 40th percentile in weight and 75th in height. what i mean about his moose like tendencies is that he can really pack the food away. i have no idea where it could go. i just can't express that enough. he must be going through a major growth spurt or something. this is what he ate for breakfast today:

1. a cup of watered down apple juice
2. two handfuls of multi grain cheerios
3. 1/2 of a banana
4. 8 strawberries
5. 1/2 of a grapefruit (plain)
   
6. a bowl of plain Irish oatmeal (adult serving size according to the side of the bag)
7. one scrambled egg
8. 1/2 of my 1/2 of the grapefruit (because he said and signed please multiple times)
9. 1/2 a cup of whole milk
10. the other 1/2 of the banana
11. a few more cheerios

and i think that he might have eaten more if sesame street hadn't been on.

i feel like i should express that i did not encourage this behavior. i am not force feeding him. i am not tempting him by putting everything under the sun in front of him. he is not eating out of boredom or anything. i feel confident in that much. he specifically said, "mama, eggs please?" when there was no sign of egg making around. he made exaggerated sound effects while eating his oatmeal "mmmmm, yuummm, mmoorreee?" he gobbled up all of his fruit before i could put the next segment down. he seemed genuinely hungry, did not whine but was relentless in his pursuit of more food. and, he said please and thank you for all of it. he was just really, really hungry. he ate more breakfast than stephen and i combined. 1/2 a serving of irish oatmeal fills me up until a late lunch.

i find myself both concerned and amused. at the very same time. where does he put it? when did he become such a little boy? isn't he supposed to eat like a bird and be really picky at this age? and, am i a bad mother for allowing him to eat so much? all these things, and more, run through my mind simultaneously. luckily, he doesn't eat quite this much all of the time. today was a rare event. i wish that i took a picture of all the food on the table. that would have looked pretty funny. like one of those weight loss reality shows where you are supposed to be really horrified by the mass quantities that just one person can consume, minus the doughnuts etc.! and then the twist is that it's (*gasp*, *shock* and *horror*) the meal of a 15 month old boy! maybe next time. baby moose boot camp."

so mary, there you have it. i told you that i wrote a whole post about my sons breakfast. i was not kidding. this is why i don't publish all that often. how, when and why did my life come to this point that what keeps my thoughts occupied is the amount of food that my son can consume in one sitting? plus, truth be told, the next series of thoughts don't get any more interesting, just gross. bowels and such is next on my minds agenda. i won't go there here. you are welcome.

someone, please, make it stop! haha.

ps- i'll post a picture or two later.

about me

So my dear friend Ramona tagged me in a post challenging me to write down 16 random things about myself. I would normally steer clear of this sort of 'tom foolery' but Ramona is exceptional and her answers were nothing shy of those expectations. Besides, it sounded like a good distraction from the million and two things that I have found myself consumed with as of late. I can not promise that my random facts will deliver in the exceptional category but I'll give it my best shot... So, here it goes:

1. i have an obsession with keeping things 'even'. anyone that knows me well can attest to this because they are usually handed a red hot, or three, with no explanation. just the expectation that they will oblige in eating it for me because it drives me crazy to eat an uneven number of small foods and throwing it away is not an option. they also need to be evenly distributed in my mouth, two on one side, two on the other and so on. it's not so much that i am OCD or anything, at least i can't see it if i am, it just irks me. i am a bit obsessed with this 'even' notion in most areas of my life actually. my husband can attest to that with muffled curses i'm sure. i tend to make lists in my head. for example, "well, you did 'this' so doesn't it make sense that i should be able to get away with 'this' because that is fair, and even?" i admit, it can be a little obnoxious at times. i just hate for things not to be balanced. if i have to juggle 3 things, you should too. i suppose that i'm a bit of a control freak too, eh? i'm really painting a lovely picture of myself here...

2. i dream, A TON. i can rarely recall a time where i have not dreamed in a night. my dreams are vivid and extremely convincing. i suppose that i have really good instincts or something? an over active imagination? i'm not really sure what to call it. whatever it is, it causes a lot of trouble in my life. i have quite often woken up from a night of dreams and just wanted to punch stephen out, for something that he did in the dream. i will often stay mad at him for most of the day. i suppose that part of the reason for the lingering anger is that most of my dreams come true. when i was 5 years old until i was about 7 i had a reoccurring dream about my grandfather falling to his death in an airplane crash. the dream was extremely vivid. i won't go into too much detail except that the majority of the dream was in color until the eventual end scene of the crash which became black and white. when i was 10 years old my grandfather passed away due to a plane crash where he was steered improperly by a drunk air traffic control person into a suburban neighborhood. his accident was printed in a local newspaper and the image was that which i had dreamed in black and white three years prior.

3. on the dream subject, i walk, talk, scream, play, dance- you name it- in my sleep. i do this most when i am stressed out about something. it too can be a bit scary at times. when i lived alone in atlanta i set off my house alarm more than once by going to my balcony door and opening it. that is a scary place to wake up. i have woken up, fully clothed, in the shower. i was facing the shower head, which was not on thankfully, and was pretending to wash my face. as i came to i walked around my home to see if anything was out of place. i went into my living room and found that i had taken all of the pillows off of my couch and chairs and stacked them in the middle of the room largest to smallest. then on another occasion, just a few months ago, stephen says that he woke up to me playing peek a boo with the bed covers. i never woke up for this one but apparently i repeatedly put the covers over stephens face and when i pulled them back, instead of saying peek a boo i oinked like a pig (i will sometimes do this with finnegan because it gets him laughing). i could not stop laughing when i learned of this. it still makes me laugh. man, my husband goes through a lot with me!

4. i love, love, love to dress up. i love making costumes. i love buying vintage clothing. i love getting gussied up for a special event. i love every single bit of it and i'm pretty good at it too if i do say so myself. among my list of favorites: a life size elephant, a horse (for a little girl that i nannied- it took me a month to complete it but i was determined to show her that you don't have to buy a costume for it to be the best costume- she learned), a hot dog (my son for halloween this last year), ketchup & mustard (me & stephen for halloween this last year). there are more but those are my favorites for now. as for vintage clothing and bargain shopping goes, some may not know that i was a buyer for a funky little shop in Atlanta called the Lucky Exchange for a few years. i loved it. i only quit because i moved back to chattanooga. i wish that i could bring that job back here.

by the way, i also ALWAYS think that hot dogs are funny.

5. this list is starting to take a while. i suppose thats another thing about me, i'm impatient. well, sorta. i'm not impatient with kids (for the most part) but adults- now that's another story. i'm also impatient with myself. or maybe another word for it it critical. i am a demon perfectionist and although it can sometimes be a strength of mine it is most certainly my downfall as well. it keeps me paralyzed sometimes. it keeps me paralyzed from pursuing whats really important to me a lot of the time because i hate to do anything below my own standards. how can i get paid to do that professionally?

6. when i was a little girl (about 4) i desperately wanted to be a boy when i grew up. i lived with my parents in a duplex in ambler, PA. downstairs from us lived a family with a little boy, Joel, who was my age and we were best friends. we instantly made plans to get married one day and spent most of our days playing 'house'. 'house' consisted of joel sticking me with his doll so that i could make him dinner, take care of HIS doll and do 'mommy things'. he then proceeded to take the big wheel and ride up and down the driveway all day because he was at 'work' and doing 'daddy things'. this pissed me off to no end. i insisted that someday i would be a boy so that i wouldn't have to do the 'mommy things'. joel quickly said that wasn't possible because i had long hair. i then began the adventure of cutting my own hair so that i could reach my goals. after several attempts, many spankings and lectures my mom struck a deal with me. she said that if i stopped cutting my hair myself she would take me to joel's barber down the street and get a buzz cut, just like his. a while later i got my reward of a big honking piece of double bubble and a seat at the barbers. i have very vivid memories of this. i also have a memory of my grammy (after seeing my new hairdo) saying that i might become a lesbian with a hair cut like that.... my childhood memories are quite vivid.

7. i have a relatively rare depth perception problem that i only recently discovered. it turns out that my eyes work about 10 times harder than the average persons eyes and when i'm tired from a long day of 'seeing' or little sleep my eyes tell me that everything is about 10 inches farther than it is really. my dr. said that i have prob. had this my whole life, it was just brought to my attention after having finn and being sleep deprived. whats funny is that my whole life i have been called clumsy, spastic, accident prone- you name it. and don't get me wrong, i AM all of those things. just a little less so now that i have to wear glasses.

8. i live in an old credit union building. it was also once a mental care facility and sunday school classrooms and offices. it is now our home. we have since converted it to meet our needs of home and work. stephen has an amazing recording studio and i have a great screen printing studio. we also have a giant walk in safe which is my darkroom for screen printing. we have done a lot to make it ours but we still have a long way to go. we love it here though. it couldn't suit us more perfectly.

9. i am a fiercely loyal friend. i am not quick to let someone into my life on that level though. once i do you know it because i am fiercely loyal. sometimes to a fault. i say that it is sometimes to a fault because i have been hurt by people that i perhaps should have moved on from far before i bring myself to make that decision. i catch myself thinking, "oh, but surely they didn't mean to say those nasty things about me? surely there is an explanation, right?" i take my friendships so seriously that i often consider them to be my family. i suppose that the flip side of my loyalty is that i tend to expect a lot from those that are important to me. i need to ease up on that a bit i think. i feel like i have gotten better over time.

10. i am fairly shy. at first at least. once i am somewhat comfortable around you i am really good at covering it up. i am generally more interested in the conversation to let my insecurities get the best of me. i think that i am a strange mutant of my parents demeanor's. i can come across rather stand offish or quiet (like my dad) but once we begin a conversation you usually can't shut me up (like my mother). i talk a lot out of nervousness most of the time. i also have a knack for saying really inappropriate things by accident. it just comes out wrong.

11. despite my shyness (which used to be way more extreme as a kid- in grade school especially) i used to think that one day i would come out of my shell and become a movie star and surprise everyone that i could act, sing and dance. i also used to think that i would grow up to be a ballerina and live in france or italy. then i used to think that i would grow up and have a really perfectly typical family in the suburbs with a perm, a yellow house and a beige honda of some sorts. i wanted to 'blend in' in a way that my family never did. i quickly snapped out of that one thank goodness.

12. i have a collection of old 1950-1970's cookbooks. when i am stressed i day dream of a day where nothing will be expected from me but to have a perfectly shellacked up-do in a starched puffy dress and heels. i would live in a small house a la 1961 in perfect kitsch and watch my 'stories' while sipping on cocktails. the strange lobster jello mold will be setting in the fridge and the meatloaf cooking until they match the colors in my outfit. my husband would come home at 5:00 and i wouldn't have to think about all of the things that i could or should be doing. it would all be mapped out for me and i would think it was perfect (because i wouldn't know any better).

i know, that sounds really crazy. it's not like i really want that. i think that sometimes i long to not have anything great expected of me so that i will be content with my destiny of cooking strange meals in a color coordinated bubble while i shellac my hair to death. again, crazy, i know. it's just a fleeting thought sometimes. i'm just daydreaming. i do that a lot.

13. when i was about 14 or 15 my mom and i sat down in the kitchen and decided to write down a list of predictions about my future. my career, my husband, my children etc. and at what ages i thought these things would happen. everything has come eerily true except that i was married a year and a half later then i had expected. it's really quite creepy and beautiful how right on my thoughts were at that age even. oh, and one other thing, i don't have a little girl yet and i no longer plan to name her sophia but a little boy named finnegan is way better anyway. i don't think that i'll go for the name sophia anymore either. too many people have stolen it.

14. i am a terrible speller. i often mix up the proper way to use then and than or there and their. it's quite embarrassing. in fact, i'm sure that i have goofed several times in this list but i don't have time to check it. i have dedicated enough time to this as is.

15. i found out that i have dyslexia when i was in college. i was a nanny for two little dyslexic girls and i found myself having a hard time with the dyslexia challenges that they would have for homework. that explained a lot.

16. when i'm angry i color coordinate my closets and stephen's- unless i'm mad at him because he loves it when i do this. did i mention that i am a control freak at times?

a dream

the oceans tide swells and sways and i am waterlogged. a brightly colored floatation device is on my back but it is not enough to carry my weight and the straps pull at my shoulders. i am struggling to breath but fighting hard with a few heavy kicks to keep me afloat and to remind me that i have not drowned. not quite yet. my chest is tight and my heart heavy. i hum to keep my mind busy and distracted of the impending doom. a heavy, warm charcoal grey of a storm begins to creep over the sky. i am both terrified and a bit relieved that my journey might be coming to an end. i start to give in but out of the corner of my eye i see a shadow that appears to be a person struggling in the water. i muster up the last of my energy and swim towards him thinking that i can at least offer my floatation device because it would be a shame to have it go to waste. its too pretty and special to drown with me. i keep on swimming and then, to my dismay, find that there is no one there. then i hear someone calling my name. i start to swim towards the yelling but become too afraid to trust that there is actually someone there. i didn't want to be disappointed and exhausted again. then i would surely drown....as i debate my next move i decide that it would be best to try and keep positive, even if it is foolish. i keep on telling myself that we can surely float on okay but i am not convinced. i start to gently weep and my tears propel me towards the other struggling individual- in a tim burton kind of a way...

then i woke up to a brightly colored flotation device crying my name through the monitor.

i need to illustrate this visually i think. it was so very vivid. i also probably need massive amounts of therapy. my dreams are scary. sometimes i wish that i didn't dream at all.

i hope that i was rescued.

Lykke Li + Me

GO VOTE!

CORRECTLY PLEASE...

mourning a great loss

This past weekend Finn and I took a last minute trip to Atlanta in hopes of introducing him to many of our friends who had yet to meet him. Stephen had been there for the better part of the week working and we missed him something awful so away we went. I didn't need much convincing and Finn had begun to sound like a broken record with, "dada, dada, daaddaaaa, dada". I had a running list in my head of all that I had hoped to accomplish, people I wanted to see, things I wanted eat, kids that I needed to meet (!), conversations that needed to be had. Of course, very few of those things were ever crossed off of my list or remembered at the appropriate time. It is a very different experience taking a trip with a baby (almost 1 year old). Anyway, we had a lovely time with our dear friends who welcomed us into their home and family outings. It was just a very different time then I have been used to- in that particular environment at least. I equate Atlanta with my single days- not married with a kid days. Funny how that slipped in there.

To our disappointment, Stephen ended up needing to stay in Atlanta one more night and was not able to caravan with us as originally planned. We stopped by the studio on our way out to say our goodbyes and he seemed notably distracted or upset or something. I just assumed that he was tired and overwhelmed by the work he had left ahead of him in the night. We went on our way and later that evening Stephen delicately shared some devastating news with me that he had learned just prior to our stopping by the studio. He didn't want to share it with me before I had to drive home. Our dear friend that we both used to work with at the High Museum for years, Robi Lyle, had passed away almost a week ago. Apparently he had been in a coma for about a month after passing out one afternoon. It was then that Dr.s discovered a massive brain tumor which resulted in his passing. He was at the hospital with his family when he passed away.

Robi was one of the people on our list that we had intended to get in contact with so that he could meet our son, Finnegan. Over the last eight years we had kept in semi regular contact with him- every few months or less we would either email, call or coordinate hanging out. He was supposed to come 'get away' for a weekend at our home. He was supposed to come to several of our parties- but something always seemed to come up. All of the 'should have, would have, could haves' began to run rampant in my brain. We have been in a state of shock I think. We both keep on googling his name to see if there is any more info on him etc. Stephen discovered a blog that he wrote on his myspace page a short while ago. It makes me both sad and comforted to hear his words. I thought it would be nice to share them...

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Ghost Man on Second Current mood: I want to slit my wrists. It is funny sometimes, how conversation works, I mean. For instance, let's say you've saddled up to some bar--in this case, a favorite spot on Peachtree Street. You are a regular--like that Norm fellow from "Cheers.". In fact, you know the bar keep. He is a decent fellow, to be sure. Nice hair, good smell--a class act all the way. Let's be honest, you covet his girlfriend. Deep in your heart you know you would love her better, if only you had the chance. But anyway, he's an ok guy. It's a slow night and the two of you are talking up the Braves, the weather, the election and so on. However, you didn't come to the bar for chit-chat. You have important things to do. You are at the bar to pencil in the profound thoughts that have been crawling under your skin all day like a rash. You brought your journal, a good pen and some chewing gum--you're there to write in your book. Small talk is not on the agenda. But you are a good sport, you think to yourself, so you play your part--"Yes, it has been hot." or "You are right, Obama is our JFK," and so on. The whole time, in your head, you think you are doing the bartender a favor by talking, keeping your end of it up, so to speak. He's the lucky one, conversation-wise. You are the party supressing the yawn and looking at your watch on the sly--or so you think. But, you soon discover, the first chance he gets, he abandons the conversation under some made up pretense ("I have to go count the ice") and it hits you, you're the rube, the clown, the unaware waste of a few precious moments. He was thinking the same thing you were--"How do I get out of this?" and the whole time you thought you were the Spalding Gray of the pair--not the Potsie Webber. Well, friend, you were wrong. You may not want to wear it, but you, in fact, are the well known drag (and everybody knows it). Just shut up, drink your beer, and write those scintillating stories that will impress all your friends on Live Journal in silence. Be careful about pointing the finger, that is all I am saying. So. this is my first blog entry. While I have your eyes, I think I can make this experience worth your while by suggesting that if there is someone you love in your life--and I am not just talking about romantic love, it could be the love of a friend, the love between mother and child, or two bankers, whatever--if you love someone, give them a call. Do something nice. Love is all we need, sang the Beatles, but it is also all we really have (of value)--and I say this even though I have an ipod. So, take the hand of the person on the bus next to you and tell them how much they mean to you, how much they add to your life. It won't do you any harm. Keeping it to yourself, on the other hand, can be a real bear. It's like you are the coach of the team during the big game and your "I love you(s)" are time-outs. Don't let the clock run out when you have time-outs in your pocket. That's just fucking dumb. Be the kind of person who says "I love you" easily--that's almost as good as cultivating the rep that you always smell good. Above all, keep on thinking free. -Robi Lyle

ROCK STAR, BABY!

Finn is going to be ONE on Nov. 14th! Crazy, crazy, crazy. How did this happen already? Anyway, I have been planning his first birthday party and decided on a 'Rock Star' theme. The boy is so infatuated with music that I truly think this would be his idea of an awesome party. So, in preparation, I had a little photo session for him to use in the invitations... or maybe a card board cut out? Man, that would be freakin' hilarious. I'm on it. For now, here are some of the pictures... enjoy 'em!