Make it brief.

I'm just popping my head in to put up a short post. My husband just returned after a long week on a beach somewhere -- don't feel sorry for him, it was a company meeting, no spouses allowed (I know, what a bum deal for me, right?!) -- so we are going to spend the rest of the evening with him, and introduce our three-year-old to this...



This was always my favorite of all the Muppet movies. My favorite scene is Miss Piggy and Kermie riding their bikes through the park. Man, the Muppets were a huge part of my childhood. Remember the good old days, when the Muppet Show was on every Saturday night? I totally wish they still had quality family shows like that on. My family would get pizza (EVERY Saturday night was pizza night from as long as I can remember until I graduated and moved out of the house), and we would watch the Muppet Show, the Mandrell Sisters, and Solid Gold. And if I was good I got to stay up and watch The Love Boat. Whatever happened to quality TV programming and family shows on Saturday nights?

Around the house

If you were to wander around my house today, you would find...

some handquilting going on. This is my very first attempt ever at handquilting, and yipes, it is not as easy as I thought it would be. Those darn size 10 needles are so incredibly little to work with, and when you have ultra-sweaty hands like myself (I've actually been diagnosed with "hyperhydrosis", aka ultra-sweaty hands) it is just even that bit harder. I am, however, enjoying the relaxing rhythm of the needle going in and out, and I think my stitches are improving as I go. Putting a thimble on one finger helped a lot, so I think I might go to the store tomorrow to get another one for my other hand. I am very grateful to the ladies at the local quilt shop for showing me how to hand quilt when I dropped in a few weeks ago to buy a quilting hoop. They taught me how to do the stitches, how to tie a quilter's knot and how to hide the knot within the quilt, all in a matter of minutes.



In the living room you might find a few squirrely Italian greyhounds, sitting on the red velvet sofa that they really aren't supposed to be lounging on. They do it anyway, taking my commands as mere optional suggestions. Thank goodness that red velvet somehow stands the test of time with so many dogs hopping up and down off of it.



Around the corner you would find the phone nook! Because it is tucked into a little space off the hallway, it is next to near impossible to photograph, so this is the best I could get. I love the phone nook, even if it doesn't get used very much. So far I painted the inside wall that deep marine blue color. I purchased the red velvet drape from Target since the one I wanted at Pottery Barn was almost five times the cost, and then I sewed on a panel of paisley fabric at the bottom and made the holdback from the excess velvet fabric that had been cut off. I bought the chair at a little antiques store, and one of these days it will get a trip to the upholsterer to be restuffed and reupholstered in the same paisley fabric. I would also like to add some cool pictures in there, something vintage, but I have no idea what I will do yet.


If you were brave you could venture into the nursery where you would find this lampshade I recently purchased:



My grandmother had the exact same United States puzzle at her house, and I used to love shaking all the cardboard states out and reassembling it over and over. Now that my son is three, I guess I should probably stop calling it the nursery, but I still like the way it sounds.

And here is my breakfast nook -- I had to take a picture of it since it was so clean! Usually I tend to let things like mail, magazines, and my son's little kitchen toys pile up on the table, so it is rare that it is all picked up like this. The padded benches and corner seat are from Ballard Designs. I saved up my money and ordered it a few years back, and wouldn't you know, a mere few weeks after it arrived they came out with a slipcovered version! That would have been nice, to be able to take off the covers to wash them. At least we seat my son in his booster on one of the chairs for now, so that helps to keep the spills off the benches. Our dogs love the benches, claiming them as their own personal lounging sofas while I work in the kitchen. The "EAT" letters are from Anthropologie a long time ago, as are several of the smaller plates on the wall, two of which you can't see in the picture because they are on the right side of the framed elephant print. My mom and I made the window valance, inspired by an Anthropologie skirt I have with several layers of ruffles at the bottom. I ordered the chandelier online a few years back -- I love it because it has a sweet little bird perched on one of the metal branches (you might not be able to see him in the picture) and the whole thing looks like it is made out of twigs. The tablecloth was a bargain in the sale section at Anthropologie a few years ago, as were the seat cushions. See? I wasn't lying when I said I LOVE all things Anthropologie.



Y'all come back now, ya' hear?

Wild.

I just read this short little news blurb on the Yahoo! home page. It's mind-boggling for me to think that there are actually still tribes of people on this planet that have had no contact with the outside world.



"In this image made available Thursday May 29, 2008, from Survival International, showing 'uncontacted Indians' of the Envira, who have never before had any contact with the outside world, photographed during an overflight in May 2008, as they react to the overflight at their camp in the Terra Indigena Kampa e Isolados do Envira, Acre state, Brazil, close to the border with Peru."

Ya-hoooo-ooh!!!

That is the sweet, sweet sound I heard tonight coming from the bathroom.

Literally, a grand "yahoo", singing out across the tiled floors and down the hallway to my ears. You know those "easy buttons" from Staples? A friend recently gave my son a similar button, except this one is purple, has the "Yahoo!" logo on it, and as you might have already guessed, yodels out the famous "Ya-hoooo-ooh!". As a last ditch effort (seeing as the previously awarded poo prizes were really no incentive at all for our unimpressed little guy), we told him it was a special poo button, only to be pressed triumphantly when the poo had made it's way successfully into the toilet.

Folks, that poo button has sat on the top of the toilet for weeks now, just yearning to yodel good news to our aching ears. Sure, there have been "close calls", when the yodel has sounded because little hands couldn't bear to let it sit there silently, but not until tonight has the poo button been pushed for the right reasons, yodeling out the good news. Yes, tonight, my son finally made it to the potty.

Thank you for all of your support throughout this trying time (well, trying for me that is, as there wasn't a whole lot of trying happening on my son's end of things). Of course, now this leaves me with a different issue altogether -- if I can't post about poo anymore, what in the heck will I have to talk about?

Welcome to the zoo...

I actually have a wooden sign on my mantel that says that phrase in one font, with my last name in capital letters behind it in another font. My friend and I came upon a booth where you could have custom signs made, you know like where it might have your family name in the background and say something like "Established 1999" (or whatever year you were married) in the front. But really, the world was my oyster when it came to trying to pick out what I wanted my sign to say, and if you know me at all, I don't do so well when there are zillions of options. I'm much better with picking A, B or C, but not having to zero in on one choice out of a million. Needless to say I think I was about to drive the salesgirl batty with my inability to pick one of the handfuls of sayings they had already used as examples because, well, I tend to do things totally against the grain, so all of a sudden, I blurted out "Welcome to the zoo". Which ended up not only being perfectly appropriate for our quirky little household, but quite the popular sign once it was done and hanging up in their booth, waiting for me to come and pick it up.

Anyhoo, I'm sure you're all hanging on the edge of your seats, cough cough, wondering why in the heck I launched into that random story, huh? Well, today we went to the zoo with my friend, L, and her son. Here are some fun animal pictures:

The river otters have been a personal favorite of mine since I was a little girl, so I was thrilled that they were out and extremely active today. They were in the water wrestling most of the time, but they also were running and jumping loop-de-loops in and out of the water, which was amazing to watch.



This beautifully colored guy (or girl?) was proudly strutting around...



Jaguar=gorgeous. But this beautiful creature does pose a question in my mind: is the toss pillow on my red velvet sofa leopard print (like I have called it all along) or is a lot of that popular exotic decorating motif actually jaguar? Hmmm.



The producers of "Happy Feet" certainly got it right. When you see these little guys in person, they really do move just like in the movie (minus the tap-dancing, of course).



Glad he was at a safe distance (he might have thought the same of us, armed with my little vicious three-year-old)...



These two were a bit mad at being locked outside while their cave was being cleaned, so they took out their aggression on each other, you know, just like any other old married couple...



(Okay. This post has taken me over two hours to upload, due to Blogger having some issues with my photos apparently. Now, don't worry, I haven't sat here with my eyeballs glued that whole time to the computer, but really. Ugh. I meant to have this posted a little before now. Oh well.)

Exhausted.

Just arrived home from a little one-day roadtrip to hang out again with my sister-in-law and two nephews. We took the boys to a science museum where we chased them around for over two hours from exhibit to exhibit. My son's favorite part of the whole museum? The wall-mounted hand dryer in the water area -- nope, nothing scientific about it, it was just there to dry hands of kids after playing in the water tables. Seriously. That kid. He threw a royal fit when we had to leave the hand dryer.

So I am exhausted after getting up early, driving an hour and a half, chasing three little boys for another couple of hours, and driving an hour and a half back home, with a very awake little guy in the backseat, the same little guy who normally crashes the second I put him in his carseat and sleeps the whole way back. Nope, not today. But he was quiet as a mouse for the entire hour and a half, content to look out the window and enjoy the scenery, which I am terribly proud of. I don't think most three-year-old boys are that good with roadtrips minus some sort of DVD player.

I promise to return tomorrow with a much more exciting post. I've no idea what exciting thing might happen between now and then, but I've certainly got the right kid for giving me material to write about, and I'm sure he'll do something entertaining by then.

Random Tuesday

That's what I am declaring today: Random Tuesday. Obviously I don't have a whole lot going on today that is post-worthy, so I will do my best to just round up a little bit o' randomness for your reading pleasure.

I just finished this book:


Heaven's to Betsy, that is some funny stuff. Haven Kimmel kept me in stitches the whole time I was reading. And really, it does fit in with our "Random Tuesday" theme since the stories are all a bit random, thrown together from her childhood. I highly recommend it both for summer reading material (I like my summer reading material to be light) and for some laugh-out-loud pick-me-ups for all of you mamas out there having the kiddos home all day every day. Don't you just love summer break?!

Then there are these three, always providing some real-life laughs for us here on the homefront:


(I figure most blog readers love seeing cute pet photos, right? That'll keep 'em coming back for more.) From left to right we have Romeo, Minnie Pearl, and Tex. They are Italian greyhounds -- for those of you that have never heard of this breed, they are smaller than whippets and basically look like greyhounds that got shrunk in the dryer. We love them to pieces, which is a darn good thing, especially when it comes to Minnie and Tex's inability to see the house as anything other than their own personal poo-poo palace, and Romeo with his fascination with the garbage. Enough said. Oh, and if I haven't mentioned it before, we do have two other dogs as well, bringing the total of four-legged friends up to five, outnumbering the humans in our household.

Hmm, I'm really fishing here for anything remotely post-worthy, people. How about a little talk about the weather? That's always a safe subject. Well, here in Wonderland, it has been hotter than Hades, with about 1000% humidity. So not cool. Come on, it is late May, and that is the type of weather one might expect in July or August, but not May. Ugh. And we've gotten lots and lots of rain. I remember a couple of months back the weatherman on TV was reading the Farmer's Almanac which predicted a "warm, dry spring". Man, did those farmers ever get it wrong. It has been storms and tornadoes and rain and tornadoes and storms and tornadoes. Did I mention tornadoes? Maybe I should change this blog from Alice in Wonderland to Dorothy in Oz.

Speaking of Dorothy in Oz, we are getting down to some slim pickens on our Netflix list, so I went out on a limb and got the first disc to this:


We tried to watch this with an open mind. Really, we did. We made it through Part One, but that was it. I guess it was a big Sci-Fi channel miniseries last year, and, although I am not normally a big sci-fi watcher, I thought the whole modern take on Oz could be cool. Especially since it had Zooey Deschanel in it, the girl responsible for my latest favorite CD:


And "Tin Man" could have been cool, if they'd had a bigger budget. But alas, it was too televisioney for me. (And yes, I did go to college and graduate with a degree, and yes, I do know that "televisioney" is not a word. Wanna make somethin' of it?)

Okay, I'll stop torturing you with my randomness. Tune in tomorrow for...well...another post.