May 31
Reasons Why I Love This Kid
- She's crazy
- She says "ina hittle bit"
- She puts her arm around my neck and says we're friends
- She has no concept of an inside voice
- She's so darn cute
May 28
California International Marathon 2008
If I made a list of things I want to do in my life, running a marathon would be in it. Why? I have no idea. Don't ask. I think it's a month of May ambition. I did this last May too. Except, at that time I didn't have my sights set so high. I just wanted to run in City to the Sea a local half marathon. What's that you say? You didn't know I ran a half marathon last year? Well, that's why I called it a May ambition. I got a whim in May, trained until August and quit once I was running 8 miles. Loser. Since last year obviously went so well, I thought I'd raise the bar, kick it up a notch, and do the whole thing this year. I want to run the City to the Sea in October and then run this California International Marathon 2008 in December. I figure that I only have so long to try and do this. Sometime in the next 5 years we'll be having kids, then I'll be busy with them and then I'll be old and die. There goes opportunity. This logic seems so intelligent right now because I haven't started training yet. By next week I'll have decided that no one should ever run because running is stupid. Want to be stupid and run a marathon with me?
May 27
The valley
Joseph's wedding was beautiful. I ended buying 4 frames, I couldn't narrow it down to three pictures, and I printed all of the shots to see what they would look like. I framed numbers 1, 3, 4, and 7 and put the other prints in there so they could change them if they wanted to. Everyone seemed to love the rope picture, #2, and I did too, but I felt like it didn't go. My favorites were 2, 3, and 7 and those were all a part of something bigger, the saddle but not the whole horse, the eye but not the whole head, and the bit but not the whole bridle. The rope was an entire picture itself, so I felt like the cows fit in better as there wasn't just one cow or even a whole cow in the shot. Plus I liked how linear it was. Thanks for all your help choosing pictures. I didn't bring my camera to the wedding, but we picked cherries the next day so here are some pictures of them. I love cherry season over there. We can pick as much fruit as we can eat. In my case I picked 10 times more than we could ever eat so I spent yesterday canning 20 cups of cherries.
May 24
Breakfast Bars
I made this recipe from thepioneerwoman.com earlier this week, and they were so good that I made them again as soon as they were gone. Here is the recipe in its original form.
Apricot Bars
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups oats
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 3/4 sticks (regular, salted) butter, cut into pieces
1 10-12 ounce jar Apricot Preserves
Mix all ingredients except Apricot Preserves. Press one half of the mixture into a buttered 8″ square (or small rectangular) pan. Spread with a 10-12 ounce jar of apricot preserves. Sprinkle second half of mixture over the top and pat lightly. Bake at 350 for 30 - 40 minutes or until light brown. Let cool completely, then cut into squares.
Now, because I can't leave well enough alone, I felt compelled to modify this recipe to be healthier. I didn't want to add that much butter and sugar. So, for the butter I cut back to 3/4 of a cube, which would be a little less than half a cup. Then I added a cup of flax to make up for the butter I didn't add. There is a scale for adding flax to replace butter and I believe the ratio is 3 to 1, but I ignored that. Then I cut the sugar back to 1/2 a cup and added a tablespoon of honey. The one thing about taking out some of the butter was that the mixture wasn't holding together as well, so I added two eggs. I also used whole wheat flour instead of white. Then I used reduced sugar strawberry jam. They came out really good, Philip even loved them and had no idea how healthy they were.
May 21
My phone
Is temporarily broken. I can get calls, but I can't see who's calling. I can't call anyone because I don't know their phone numbers and I can't get to my contacts. I can't read texts cause my screen is black. Every time my phone makes the little "you have a text" noise I try to write the person back and tell them to call me. I've sent a lot of illegible texts in the last two days. Texting when you can't see the screen is harder than you think. Luckily I have an in at Verizon. My family has the right connections. My phone is getting fixed immediately, top priority. The fact that this is probably the treatment everyone gets will in no way deter me from claiming that I have hook ups. I have hook ups. Family ties.
May 20
My Magic Basset Hound
The other day I was plagued with guilt because since we got gym memberships I no longer take Darla jogging. Darla loves to go jogging. Maybe it's her favorite thing to do. Maybe she longingly gazes at her leash wondering why it's rarely clipped on her anymore.... You can see how I got myself guilted into jogging. Anyway, once we got down on Lincoln and we're running between the farmer's fields, suddenly this Basset Hound appears in the middle of the field. The fields are huge, plain dirt and they're not planted so it really did just appear, out of no where. It stood there and started at us, sad little dog, the whole time we jogged down that road. I jog ridiculously slow. It was a long time. Since I didn't want to jog on Los Berros, we turned around at the end of the field and ran the other way. After I ran past the Basset Hound, I looked back and it had disappeared. Seriously. It was no where in the field and there was no enough time for it to have run away. I figured out that it must have a magic cubby hole hideout in that field. At the time, with my oxygen deprived brain, that seemed like a reasonable explanation. Darla and I ran the other way to the end of the road then headed home, I was completely obsessing over where the hideout must have been when the Basset Hound appeared again, out of no where, on our dirt road. It must have a whole tunnel system down there. I decided to try and lure it home for some photographic evidence. I spent at least twenty minutes walking backwards up our hill trying to coax it to come. We made it all the way to the neighbors house when the guy from up the hill came roaring by in his diesel truck. I've never liked him. All my efforts were wasted as my magic Basset Hound ran back down the hill and into the field. I briefly considered the possibility of trekking through the 20 acre field and finding it's hideout, but I haven't met the new neighbors that live by the field and I didn't want them to think I was crazy, especially right after I had walked very slowly backwards past their house. I came home. That was last week.
Guess who showed up at our fence yesterday....... magic Basset Hound! Here's the proof.
May 19
"No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee." -John Donne, Meditation XVII
May 16
Here are the options
Of these pictures I need to pick three to frame for Josephs wedding. They'll be framed as 8x10s in old barnwood 2" frames. I'm leaning towards numbers 3,4, and 5 What do you guys like?
May 14
My Hair
Is taking it's departure from my head tomorrow morning. So Ang, I hope you have nothing better to do than help me style my hair every morning. Starting Friday. I'd post a picture of the style I'm getting, but that would inevitably bring disappointment as it will not look as cute on me as whatever adorable model has the hair I want.
May 09
The Things They Say
Anyone who has ever heard me talk about Gwyneth, the older of the two girls I watch every week, knows that she has acted like an adult since she could speak. She says the funniest stuff, but she's not trying to be funny. It just comes out that way. She talks and asks questions, but doesn't give you any time to answer more than one line before she's going again. Then she's got this adorable lisp with her r's so the whole conversation is that much funnier. Here is some of her wisdom, as relayed to me yesterday on the way home from Rachel's house.
GW: "So NayNay, this morning, mama was taking me to school and she kept saying to huwwy up because we were late."
Me: "Aren't you always late?"
GW: "No. Mama is. So we went weally fast and got in the car and left and then she asked me if I had my glasses and I said 'No Mom! I don't have them', and she said to me, she just told me 'Gwenef you do to have them.' So...I was like.... thinkin' in my bwain, I do NOT have them."
Me: Wow, In your brain you thought that?
GW: Yes NayNay. I did. And then I told her 'I just don't have it'. And we went back home and it was there. I told her. she found it in the kitchen. Mama had to tell me she was sorry because she didn't believe me, but I knew I didn't have it and I told her that."
We had just picked up soy milk from Costco for Rachel so immediately after that story she started in on the soy milk.
GW: Does soy milk get made from dirt?
Me laughing: No babe, why do you ask
GW not laughing at all: Because. Didn't you know that dirt is called soy-il?
Me: Good observation, but no, it comes from soy beans.
GW: Good, because dirt milk would NOT be good, but I like beans. Can you get dwunk from milk?
Me: Of course not. Do you think you can?
GW: Well, only if you dwink a lot of it. Then you can't dwive. NayNay did you dwink milk today?
Me: Nah, I don't like milk. I think we're safe to drive.
GW: Good because people can't dwink and dwive or they could die. Can you only get dwunk if you dwink lots and lots of milk? Because I dwank a little bit today, but it wasn't a lot.
Me: You can't get drunk off milk, babe.
GW: But only if you don't don't dwink to much. Did you know I was born at Fwench Hostabill?
Me: French Hospital?
Gw: Fwench Hostabill.
Me: French Hospabull???
GW: No! Fwench Hostabill
Me: French what??? French Hostaball?
GW with a huge sigh: NayNay. I said Fwench Hos-TA-BILL.
May 08
Goodbye to My Hair
Lawren said something about me getting my hair cut awhile ago, or maybe I said it, I don't pay attention to details like that. Either way, it was brought up. Now I'm convinced I need to cut my hair off. The problem is that I have a big head. Not metaphorically, it's not that I'm prideful, I just literally have a big head. It's been a problem since I was little. But at that time I was completely bald so it stuck out a little more, a lot more actually. Perhaps my 2+ feet of hair now is my id's way of making up for the the childhood trauma of being a baldy with a big head. I took psychology last quarter so I know all about that kinda stuff. Anyway..... pick a haircut. Or don't pick one and tell me what to do. And the Katie Holmes haircut totally won't work on my large dome, she's just cute so I added it in.
P.S. I'm supposed to be working on a huge research paper on Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" right now. Any ideas on why she killed Homer?
P.P.S. Why is every other website for hairstyles full of 80s glam photos, and where did they even find such a wealth of those?
May 07
She says thanks, Ang. Or she would if she weren't so busy.
May 06
This little girl
This is Ella. I've been working as a nanny for her family since her older sister was 6 months old, so I've watched Ella since she was born. She's almost two and a half and is one of the very few kids that makes me want to have kids. Kind of. Actually, no. That's a lie. Having my own is way to risky. She makes me want her. I don't love most kids, and the few that I really love I just want to have so that I don't have to risk getting a weird one. I'd just like to pick a kid I already know is good. Ella is one of those. She's adorable inside and out. I took these pictures about six months ago while we were playing outside. How cute is this kid?!
May 03
Neurosis
My dog is not a dogs dog. Just like how some people wouldn't classify themselves as a people person, she is a social retard with other dogs. I blame it on us not having kids, yet another consequence of loving our dog a little to much. She has all these little quirks that may not have surfaced had she been treated more like a dog and less like a surrogate child. It's not like we dress her up, or carry her everywhere, although I did do that before she reached almost 60lbs, but she really just wants to associate with humans and not canines. I really can't blame her. I don't actually like dogs that much either. Sure, I love my dog. I adore my dog. Aside from her though, I don't have much interest in dogs at all. Most of them are kind of annoying. She is full of these little oddities for being a dog. She doesn't like being left in the garage with the door to the house closed. She's not allowed in the house, but if we leave the door open she'll go sleep in her bed in the garage. If the door is closed she sits in front of it and does this little prance every time we walk by it. You can hear her nails on the garage floor. Door open and we can walk by all day, she stays passed out in her bed. Then there's this obsession she has with pacifiers. She used to follow Rachel's kids around waiting for them to set their pacifiers down and she'd grab them and run, but here's the weird part, once she was a safe distance away from the kids she'd drop it and spin it around the correct way, lay down and suck on it. She never left a hole or tooth mark in any pacifier. She also loves to eat more than anything else, she adores food, but she refuses to eat greenies or any other kind of teeth cleaning bone. I once bought a kind that I thought she liked because they kept disappearing after I fed them to her, a month later I found them hidden in various places in the garage, shoved under the dryer, under her blanket in her bed, in Philip's tool box and in my shoes. She's an anomaly, a happy quirky little dog, and the thing I've obtained the least understanding about over the last few years is this- despite her awkwardness around other dogs, she adores my moms cat. It's a mutual appreciation society, as you can see.
May 02
Next Question
Are these two pictures to similar? I feel like they are. There are so many options now that I've moved on from the one picture of Joe Jr., I'm using #1 by the way, thanks for the unanimous vote. This is Joseph's other horse, Joe Sr. Like I said, creativity does not abound. Joe Sr. looks a lot like Joe Jr. but he's older and wiser. He even let Philip ride him which is a very blogworthy post for another time. I'll put all the other options of pictures soon, but first I need to know if these are to alike. If so, which do you like better.
May 01
Pick One
Meet Joe Jr. He's not my horse. I wish he was my horse, I would keep him and love him forever, but he's not mine. He's our cousin, Joseph's horse. By "our" cousin, I really mean Phil's cousin, but since I don't know any of my own cousins I've whole heartedly claimed Philip's. I even have a favorite, but I can't tell you who it is. Favorites are bad, I think. So anyway, Joe Jr. is the coolest horse ever and I took a series of pictures of him to frame for Josephs wedding. By the way, yes, Joe Jr. is named after his owner. They're not to creative with names out there, but at least he's not named a bad word in Spanish like several of the other horses on the ranch. The pictures are all similar, but different and I'm going to frame 3 or 4 in similar but different frames for their house. I'd show you the other pictures but I'm not done with them. I got stuck on this one. Seriously, weeks have gone by and I can't stop cropping this picture. I've narrowed it down to these two, but I don't know which one I want to frame. I like the first one better as a thumbnail and the second one better once they're big and side by side. They're going to be 8x10s so... Pick one. Make a decision for me. I can't make decisions. My mind rarely consents to being made up. So you pick one. Which is your favorite?
