Random Monday musings

Here in Wonderland, the high on Saturday hovered somewhere around 35. And yet in the forecast, Friday's forecast will reach 85. How do you like them apples? Thankfully no snow around these parts.

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iTunes. Oh iTunes, how do I love thee....

Saturday I purchased an entire album, a rarity for me, actually. I am a music freak, but this is only my third entire album to purchase from iTunes as I normally go for the popcorn version and pick a song here, a song there.

And what was my choice o' tunes?


Lenka. Lenka, Lenka, Lenka.

To say I luuuuuuuuuuuuurve this CD would be an understatement. In fact, I think it will be perfect for putting the finishing touches on my highly anticipated mix CD "Spring 2009" edition. Believe me, it's one of my best yet.

Oh, but didn't you know? iTunes is like a can of Pringles or a bag of Ruffles. You can't have just one. So, in celebration of the return of my computer (and all 40,000+ of my best pictures, ahem), I just had to buy some more.


Tim Myers. And honestly, he and Lenka are a good pair, very complimentary music. I purchased his EP (5 songs) and two singles, so technically you could say this was my 5th entire album to purchase. Wow, two in one day! It's going to take a bit of self-control on my part to save some of his songs for my "Summer 2009" edition, though. It wouldn't be good if I took all the good songs and used them for Spring and then had nothing left for Summer, now would it? (I know you are all out there shaking your heads at my sheer nerdiness. It's okay. I'm used to it.)

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Saw this on Carrie's blog yesterday. Too funny (and so true!), especially if you've ever read any of the Laura Numeroff books to your kids. My boy loves those books...

"If you give a mom a muffin, She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
She'll pour herself some.
Her three-year-old will spill the coffee.
She'll wipe it up.
Wiping the floor, she'll find dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer, She'll trip over boots and bump into the freezer. Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan for supper.
She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She'll look for her cookbook ("101 Things To Do With a Pound of Hamburger").
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow.
She will look for her checkbook.
The check book is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two-year-old.
She'll smell something funny.
She'll change the two year old's diaper.
While she is changing the diaper, the phone will ring. Her five-year-old will answer and hang up. She'll remember she wants to phone a friend for coffee.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
And chances are... If she has a cup of coffee, Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it."

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It was a little sad to hear about the passing of Paul Harvey this weekend. I remember hearing his voice on the radio throughout my childhood, always anxious to hear "the rest of the story". Paul Harvey is a favorite son around this neck of the woods. I sure hope that he is now enjoying "....a good day!" up in heaven.

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That's all, folks. I must be off to tackle my house today. There are too many piles of stuff floating around my house, too much laundry to let it go another day, too many dog hair tumbleweeds tumbling from room to room, and just too much cleaning that needs to happen. I've got a big job ahead, and I'm gonna tackle it...

A Mermaid's Tale

Here is something fun for you to watch this weekend. I saw a brief snippet of this on Yahoo, but then searched for the full story on YouTube. Pretty amazing stuff.

Love those gals

(image above from the Farm Chicks blog)

Ya'll know how I love me some giveaways. And no, I don't enter every single one of them I see. I am picky and choosy and only go for the finest, of course. ;)

So count me in for a giveaway from those delightful Farm Chicks! I personally am hoping it might include a copy of their highly anticipated new cookbook about to be released, but even if it doesn't, of course, you know I'll be buying a copy.

What are you waiting for? Go check it out!

Just call me Little Miss Genius

Tonight was one of THOSE nights. You know the ones, where things just don't go quite as planned.

I got my computer back this week, remember? Wednesday was my appointment at the "Genius Bar" in the Apple Store. The "genius" was able to pinpoint my problems and show ME (yes, me) how to fix them, or at least finagle it to make it work for me. To sum it up, my pictures had been lost when the external hard drive (purchased specifically to store my high-resolution photos so as not to use up all the memory on my laptop) was ejected incorrectly (very easy to do, something I learned the hard way). Basically this meant I had to go back through my hard drive, find all of the photos, and re-import them back into my iPhoto program. Doing so did not mean a perfect fix, however -- the "genius" explained to me that my iPhoto program would not be able to "understand" as well once the photos were put back in because it "remembered" them in their original form and not their new "warped" forms from having been yanked in and out of the program. But, to save my pictures, there really were no other options. Unfortunately this also meant that it would take quite a few hours to re-import these pictures, especially because in the jostling back and forth from my laptop to my hard drive, many duplicates were made, and they all got somewhat out of order, etc., resulting in 20,000+ photos to import back into iPhoto. Not kidding. 20,000+. Originally I had photos dating back to 2006 on this laptop, and I'm guessing I might have had 1,000 or so, not 20,000+, but when you are worried about losing the digital copies of all photos dating back to even before your only beloved child was in the picture, well, I say embrace the 20,000+ photos if it means my 1,000 or so photos are safely sandwiched in there, right? Eventually it is my desire to go through and sort them and get rid of the duplicates (some individual photos have up to probably 20-50 duplicates each). And nope, my iPhoto program cannot simply read them anymore to tell me which are duplicates to get rid of them in one fell swoop. Niiiiiiice.

So, you can imagine how ecstatic I was late Wednesday night upon completion of the big task, getting all of those photos back into the safety of my iPhoto program. Thursday I was already back at it, uploading them to share with family and friends.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Tonight.

My husband was on his way home, running late. I was starving. But I was on the phone telling him some funny story about something my son had said, all the while our crazy three-year-old was bouncing off the kitchen walls around me. Normally I am not one to let my son bounce off the kitchen walls, but I was craving adult interaction at that point, enjoying a good conversation with my beloved, so of course, I wasn't paying as much attention.

It all happened in a split second. My son's leg, poised up in the air in some sort of Kung Fu Panda move, came crashing down on one of the cords connecting my external hard drive to the outlet in the wall, and, you guessed it, pulled it out of the socket. Which, of course, means it once again was ejected incorrectly from my computer. Which, of course, means that BLOOP! THERE WENT MY 20,000+ PICTURES.

Oh, you can probably already imagine the heart-stopping, pulling-my-hair-out, maybe-just maybe-uttering-a-little-"CRAP!"-in-front-of-little-ears-so-please-please-please-forgive-me-and-my-kid-if-you-happen-to-be-around-him-in-the-near-future-and-he-mimics-what-he-heard-his-Mama-say-in-the-heat-of-the-moment unbelievable shock to take over my body.

But folks, I pulled it together. I went and dug out my handwritten scribbled list of instructions I copied from the "genius" telling me how to possibly fix it the first time, and proceeded to attempt it one more time. And lucky, lucky me -- this time I had double the amount to re-import -- 40-freakin'-thousand-plus pictures.

I must interject at this point and tell you I am not a drinking woman. Once or twice a year I will find myself with a glass of white wine in my hand, which usually takes me the whole evening to sip down halfway. So you might chuckle when you find out the first words out of my mouth when my husband came home were:

"I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED A MARGARITA." (Especially considering I've never ordered a margarita in my life. But dangit if my body wasn't telling me something at that very moment, and that was that I needed one to avoid possible meltdown and to save my hair from a nasty stress-induced-rip-it-all-out-session.)

Now it is 7:15 at least, much later than my stomach is normally accustomed to for dinner (my stomach is smart and knew that food would probably not enter until at least 7:30 or 7:45 if we were just now leaving the house). We climb in the car, speed off to our favorite Mexican food restaurant of choice, only to find the line out the door. My Margarita? It was somewhere in that line out the door.

So, where did our fancy evening out end up? Where did we take my stresses out for a leisurely meal?

Sing with me now...

Five. Five dollar. Five dollar foot-loooo-ooonnnnnnggggg.

Well, I must bid you good-night. Looks like I still have somewhere around 15,000 pictures still to go...

Vintage Photo Friday

Now here is something I can totally get my kicks from -- Vintage Photo Friday! I love vintage photos, and I have several interesting ones in my possession, so this should be fun to do once a week.

First off, I should give you a glimpse into my guest room where several of my vintage family photos reside.


I know, I know. The chair is super cute. I agree. Unfortunately it is not mine, just on loan to me from my wonderful sister-in-law. I'm crossing my fingers that it stays on loan to me for a very very long time because I love it. I was even with her when she bought it, so I feel like it is even more special that way. Anyway, I love my guest room. It's a work in progress, but it is one of the most "Anthropologized" rooms in my house. (I know that isn't a word, but to me it speaks volumes about how I want my rooms to look and feel.) The bedroom set in there actually came via my husband -- while single, he had bought almost a whole household of furniture from an elderly couple in his neighborhood shortly after he built his house and needed to furnish it on a budget. Most of those pieces are long gone now, but I told him the bedroom set will stay for good. It is so cute -- from the 1930s or 1940s (my best guess) -- perfect for this house since it was built sometime in the 1930s. I thought the dresser was an great place to set up my collection of vintage photos, mostly of the women in my family on both sides.

This particular photo is of my grandmother on my dad's side. Yes, grandmother, not great-grandmother. She was born in 1903 (give or take a year or two) in Indian Territory. When I came along she was already in her mid-70s, although that certainly didn't slow her down. She was very active in our lives. My older brother and I went to her house at least once a week, she babysat us quite often for my parents, and she was with us until her mid-90s (I can't remember exactly). My best guess is that this picture was taken sometime in the 1920s. I believe this is her with sisters, although I could be wrong and it could be friends of hers.


My grandmother is the 3rd one from the left. She was quite the firecracker, at least in personality. I never saw her in anything other than dresses, but looking back through her earlier years, I was pleasantly surprised to find a few pictures of her in knickers! I'll have to dig some of those photos out sometime. I love this photo in particular because of the crescent moon. For whatever reason I have a love of vintage moon items and there are a few to be found around my house. In fact, I have a hard time looking at it without the song "Blue Moon" popping into my head.

That was fun! I'll be anxious to do this again next Friday. How about you? Got any vintage photos to share?

All that and a ball o' wax

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

That's the sigh heard 'round the world, a sigh of relief from me now that my MacBook is back in my hot little hands, mostly fixed, filled with no-lost-after-all-pictures-like-I-had-stressed-about. Yay.

Just give me a day or two to gather my thoughts, edit a few pictures, and get myself back in the swing of things, and I'll be back to posting with personal pictures!

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Funny things heard 'round the watercooler in our casa:

Boy: I like Sophie, Mama.
Me: Who's Sophie? Your girlfriend?
Boy: Mm-hm.
Me: What do you like about her?
Boy: I like her pitty eyeballs.

There you have it. There ain't nuthin' more attractive than a set of pretty eyeballs. I dare you to use that line next time you are around your one true love...

Boy: A mean boy hit me on paygown (playground) today, Mama. (Not alarming to me, since my boy is sometimes the one dishing out the naughty behavior.) He hit me and my hand died, Mama. My hand died and got a boo-boo.

Obviously we have not yet grasped the concept of death around here. My boy tells me he or something in his little world died on pretty much a daily basis.

Boy: Mama! Cose you eyegasses! (Close your eyeglasses!)
Me: Alrighty...
Boy: SUH-PIZE!!!!! (yelled out as he pulls out his new highly prized and coveted-the-world-over light up seashell wand, Little Mermaid-style, from a McDonald's Happy Meal where he obviously did not receive the "boy" toy)

Boy: Look at me! Mama, I was a baybay (a baby)! I (was) so happy baybay and so smart. (said while thumbing for the umpteenth time through the photo albums of our trips to Guatemala to get him)

...also said during the same photo-flipping session:
Boy: I so coot, Mama! I so coot! (cute)

And this classic, said while I was in the basement doing laundry, and he was leaving me to go back upstairs:
Boy: Nice a meetcha, Mama! (Nice to meet you, Mama!)

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I ordered this card today with plans to frame it and display it somewhere in my crazy little house:



Love that quote. Don't you? (And I love etsy, too.)

Anthropolification Boyer Cream Cardi GIVEAWAY!!!! GIVEAWAY!!!!

Anthropolification Boyer Cream Cardi GIVEAWAY!!!! GIVEAWAY!!!!

Oh girls, you know it is no secret how I love me some Anthropologie. In fact, I may or may not have been to one very very recently and may or may not have made some purchases. Just sayin'.

Anyway, my love for Miss Grosgrain is a-growin', I tell ya'. If the girls already got the skills to make some crazy amazing little kids clothing items, and then she starts using her superpowers to emulate the very expensive Anthro items of my dreams, well, you can imagine that she might rank pretty highly in my book. I must get these superpowers for myself somehow. Hmmmm...

Anyway, please pick me!

Silver Linings

Really, I am still alive, just in case you were wondering. Alive and reveling in the silver linings.

*Two weeks away at one of those geek squad places + a MacBook with a few issues does NOT = a fixed computer. Boo. The silver lining? My appointment tomorrow with a friendly individual at the Apple store. I'm hoping for good things, people, good things.

*We found out yesterday that someone stole the number off my checkcard and spent $1500 this past week. Fantastic. The silver lining? We were able to prove our innocence to the bank and were only charged a $50 fee. I'll take $50 over $1500 owed to the bank anyday.

*Last week seemed to somehow bring out the naughtiest of the naughtiest from my boy, especially at school. The silver lining? This past weekend he proved himself over and over by being the world's greatest traveling three-year-old yet again (almost 20 hours in the car total and a whole weekend with myself, my mom, and my two aunts without hardly a peep, AND keeping his cool while around another child exhibiting some less-than-stellar behavior) AND by demonstrating some really nice behavior at school so far this week. Thank the Lord that the phrase "this too shall pass" really did finally apply.

So here's hoping I get some answers at the Apple Store tomorrow. I'd REALLY like to be able to finally upload pictures from Christmas on.

Chances are...

(Anyone else grow up with parents who played the record over and over again with Johnny Mathis singing Chances Are? Seriously, now I can't get the song out of my head.)

Anyway, like I was saying, chances are I probably won't win this one either, but it sure doesn't hurt to try...

The Conservatory Overcoat GIVEAWAY!!!!

Returning shortly...

Just dropping in to wish all of you a very Happy V-Day! That's "V" for "Valerie", folks...;)

Also, I promise to be back and better than ever in a few days. My MacBook finally made it to the doctor (one of those geek squad type places), but it is sitting in line waiting it's turn to be fixed. We all know that Macs never have issues, so they only have one Mac fix-it guy out of their whole staff able to work on it. I don't even think it's necessarily a big problem, but my husband and I don't know how to fix it, so off it went. Regardless, I am super excited about finally being able to post personal pictures again once I get it back. I'm hoping Monday or Tuesday they'll call us to come pick it up. Until then I'm stealing my husband's MacBook when I get moments here and there to jump on the Internet.

Hope you all enjoy your day of love. We don't usually do much around here for Valentine's, but instead celebrate the day I first met my son in person -- three years ago yesterday. He was 9&1/2 months old, a whopping 22 pounds, starting to pull up, drooling like a madman, and the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. In the adoption world, most folks celebrate "Gotcha Day" -- the day their child came home, but since that day is so close to his birthday, I prefer celebrating "Meetcha Day" instead, especially since I was never a huge fan of Valentine's anyway.

Back in a flash...

Some Monday thoughts

Anyone else think that Nadya Suleman, mother of 14 children age 7 and under, bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain famous half of a baby-loving family?




You bet your bottom dollar I'll be watching that interview on Dateline tomorrow night.

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My sewing machine finally came back out for a visit!!! Now that it's been serviced for the first time in it's little life, it purrs like a kitten, and is so quiet, in fact, that it keeps on freaking me out. I guess I got awful used to the clanking sounds it made every few seconds.

This weekend I spent time sewing up another little reversible superhero cape, but this time for a girl. I hardly ever get to buy cute little girl things, so I was excited for this one. My son was invited to a birthday party for one of his classmates, so I made her a reversible cape. Surely little girls would love to pretend they are superheroes, too, right? I made it pink on one side with the Superman symbol on it (but in pink and orange instead of red and yellow, so it is for SuperGirl), and purple on the other side with a princess crown, her initial "K", and even a jewel superglued on the crown for a little added bling. I hope she liked it! (I didn't get to see her open it since we had to leave the birthday party early to get home for a night out. We had already scheduled a babysitter for that night before we knew about the party.) But wouldn't you know, it was so cute and I completely forgot to take a picture of it before I wrapped it up? I hate it when that happens.

I also started a quilt top with scraps I had to contribute to my quilting group at church. I say "group", even though it's two older ladies and myself. We're called "Prayers and Squares" (no kidding), and we make little lap quilts to be handed out through a ministry at our church. I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a little boy quilt on hand to give out since most of the quilts so far would be better suited for females of any age, although I suppose I should hope it doesn't get handed out for a while since that would mean a little boy was hurting somehow if he needed it.

I also made my February square for the virtual quilting bee I am in. It was my first time to make a wonky log cabin styled block, and I can totally see how those could become addicting. I also think this quilting bee will be a nice switch-up from the swaps I have done in the past as they are a little less work, only having to make a 12" square at a time.

And of course, I can't show you any pictures yet because my computer isn't going to the "doctor" until tomorrow. Hopefully they will be able to figure out the issues and get my photo problems sorted out ASAP. I'm just dying to post pictures! Soon, I promise...

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I got a fun new shirt in the mail today as well.


It was a prize for a blog contest (which I was actually not the winner of), but the maker had a nice discount for all of us losers (haha) if we still wanted to buy one. It will be perfect for wearing on Valentine's Day (which I am not really a big fan of) and on St. Patrick's Day as well since it is green. And any other day for that matter, since the phrase is pretty appropriate during this recession we've all found ourselves in.

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Hope you all are enjoying a nice Monday! I'm off to play outside in this beautiful spring-like weather we've been enjoying for days now. I will be sad to see it go, as will the poor little birdies who have been singing all day. I think they've been fooled...

Abby on my mind.

Will you join me in praying for Abby today?


As if she hasn't been through enough already, it seems as though the hardest part is just beginning. You can read about it here:

Abby, Feb. 4th, 2009

And if you are a new visitor to my blog and have no idea about Abby's story, you can read about her here:

About Abby

Busier than a cranberry merchant

As my Great-Grandma Clyta used to say, I've been "busier than a cranberry merchant", which I'm assuming at one point in time meant pretty darn busy.

I started out this past weekend watching this hilarious flick:



And the next day visited an animal sanctuary to see one of these (among many other animals):


(The above image is of an actual liger, just like in Napoleon Dynamite, which is a real animal, in case you were wondering. His dad was a lion and his mother a tiger. If the parents were reversed, it would be called a tigon.)

Watched this interesting movie as well:



Then took the boy to see this impressive performance (although, not in Australia as the image might suggest):



And, of course, being a true American, went to a party to watch a little of this:


(Although, truth be told, I didn't watch more than five minutes of the actual game, and instead spent the evening chatting and getting to learn more about lots of new friends.)

And finished up my marathon o' fun this evening with this amazing lady, live in concert:



Really, she was quite amazing and put on a fantastic show. But the craziest part of the evening for me was not the concert, but the fact that out of 18,000 seats in the arena, my son's preschool teacher had tickets in the two seats right next to me. Seriously, what are the odds?!

All in all, a great weekend.