A picture is worth a thousand words

But a matched set is priceless.  The paper in the top picture says, 'Proof of

Hemorrhoids reading.' The paper on the bottom picture says, "Hemorrhoids revenge" 

Would you like to hear one of my stories? 

Alright, then, here it is.  I am an obsessive reader.  There's a bit of a story as to why that is, too.  But we'll stay on task today and talk about that later.  When I was 10-12 years old, I had noticed that when someone, *cough* Dad, went into the bathroom with reading material and turned on what I thought of as the noisy light, he could be in there for-ev-er, and no one tried to get him out.  In a house with five females and 2 bathrooms, this was a big deal.  To be able to read without having to do my chores or be bothered, I would turn on the noisy light(don't worry, by the time I was 22 I knew what it really was for) sit and read.  For hours, or just a half hour.  When my family figured out what was really going on, they all thought I was actually sitting on the toilet the entire time I was in there, when I was really on the floor or in the bathtub reading.  Out of concern for my well being, my father said, "You can't keep doing that, you'll get hemorrhoids."  Well, I didn't know what that was, and neither did The Quilter; but we did know it was associated with the toilet, and anything that is preceded by "or you'll" is Not. Good.  And thus, The Quilter had a way to get me out of the bathroom, fast.  She would stand outside the bathroom door and, in the exact same tone and volume as Bill Cosby saying 'Hey, Fat Albert!' She would shout,

 

"HEY HEMORRHOIDS!!" 

 

And as long as I wasn't actually using the bathroom, I would come running out, ready to attack.  And that's where the picture comes from.  The Quilter thought I was in there reading, grabbed the camera, threw the door open, and clicked the picture. But I wasn't just reading, I was also actually using the bathroom. Thanks goodness I was wearing my footie jammies with a booty opening! Otherwise it could have been REALLY embarrassing! Also, if you could please disregard my 'fro, that was my mother's doing.  How did I get this picture?  My Mom found it, and knew just what to do with it, so we all got a copy.

 

What about the other picture?  That is from our sister trip.  I told The Quilter I wouldn't blog that picture, but if I'm posting a picture of myself on the toilet, The Quilter is going down with me! In that post, I mention that on our last night of Sister Trip 2011, The Quilter falls down in the hallway & had trouble getting to the room.  Here's what I didn't tell you.  As she dragged herself to the room, and once in the room, she wouldn't stop going on about how she must have an awful bruise on her butt.  Later she's in the bathroom, I assume bent over checking her bruised behind, and I get the idea to take a picture of her, bent over and holding her butt while looking in the mirror.  So, I throw open the door and click the camera.  The picture ended up being of the extremely messy counter top and sink, my aim was off.  But, I sat on floor laughing, b/c The Quilter was not, in fact, checking her bruise.  She was sitting on the toilet, using it.  The Nurse comes over to see why I'm laughing so hard, and she falls to the floor with me.  The whole time The Quilter is going off on us indignantly.  I raise the camera to get a new, better photo, and The Quilter(still muttering indignantly)starts rummaging around the counter top, looking for a towel.  She somehow finds one that's still folded, and as she whips it out to cover herself and foil my photo op, she realises it is a washrag, and barely reaches her knees.  Ah, such a wonderful moment in my life!

As soon as I saw the other photo, I knew exactly what I was going to do.  If ever you come to my house and use the front bathroom, when you leave it, you'll see these two photos; and now you know the story.  And yes, I do realise this is the second story I've told you about me and a toilet.  Ah, well, you can't hide everything!

There's a big box on the front porch

Most of it is for me!  Well, for school.  It really doesn't matter what you're getting, when you see  box like this from the Post Office on your porch, you go regress to 1st grade, "What is it?!  What's inside?  Lemme see?!"  Even though I had studied the things I was ordering very carefully before chosing to order them, it was still like Christmas in Ju...I mean August.  Maybe we'll order curriclum earlier next year so I can say that.

 The one thing that wasn't really for me, was Bry-D's new lens.  It's a zoom lens.  It's ME!

 And Eliz!  While we're painting and flooring the kids' room, they are sleeping in the playroom/sewing room.

 And Lex, er, Spiderman!  He was as far from each of us as he could get, but since he really wanted to test it out, he had to find a better, further away subject.

 Wow.  That car is a little more than a block from our house.  We've got some cool stalker gear now.

Later this summer you'll find out what Bry-D's plans are for this lens.

Lex's cars

There are lots of pictures I've tried to get with my point & click camera, but have never been able to.  I LOVE this new camera, because now I can get shots like these!

You notice the picture frames? He uses them to make roads and garages and obstacles for his cars.

He also has amazing races down the long straight strip.

 I've decided I'd rather have all the cars up here than on the floor. Not that I wouldn't mind if my pretty display of family photos didn't get rearranged every day.

We've talked about this car obsession before.  It only seems to get worse.

Squee!!

I've always wanted to get pictures like this of him playing! And now, with this super wonderful amazing awesome camera, I can!!

My father had calloused hands from working on cars; my husband has calloused hands from playing guitars.

See his Cars bandaid? 

Did I mention that I played Rocksmith for awhile?  Until I decided the ablity to play guitar wasn't worth having short nails like his.

See the indent in his finger?  Geez!

He already has the musican's "Leave me alone I'm playing" face down.

Brickyard Weekend 2011

We had a great family weekend.  The Country Boy & the Nurse came up from Georgia, and everyone spent the night at my parent's house.  This made it easier to just relax and enjoy ourselves, not having to think about leavin, getting home & kids to bed, then up early the next morning to drive back 45 minutes.  Me thinks this is the new Brickyard tradition.  And now, the pictures!

The Country Boy & The Nurse brought their newest addition, Tink.  Whenever the kiddos got to be to much fun for her, she ran to one of the Grandma's-she is one smart lil' cookie!  Not that the ids didn't try to coax her off of Grandma's lap.

 We of course ate outside-easy cleanup!

 Check it out, W-guy is almost smiling!  And Casserole, well, she's always smiling. 

 Silly Daddy!

 Innocent Daddy.  Notice the smug, cat ate the canary smile?

 The Dynamic Duo-Lex & Clyde

 Another Dynamic Duo, Taters & Eliz-see the look on their faces?

 Clyde's reaction to goobers.  For those of you that don't know, it's soaked and roasted peanuts.

 The story behind this picture.  That swing has been on that tree since the night we moved into the house.  That's 20 years.  Gah, have I gotten that old already!?  Let's not dwell.  In all weather; snow, hail, thunderstorms and sun, Eliz nevers fails to ask my dad if he will push her on the swing.  Well, as is usual for her, Eliz was the first one up, and my Dad got up shortly after.  He told me he whispered, "I think we could go outside and swing, if you'd like" and she was at the door, digging through the shoe bin in a shot, "Lemme get my shoes!"  My Mom got this picture of the early morning Grandpa-granddaughter bonding.

  We sent the kids in to wake Country Boy & Nurse up.  I think we told them to go get the dogs.

They loved the courtesy wakeup call.

The Brickyard is one of the times when everybody is there, so my Mom always wants family pictures.  We all dress nice, get out all our cameras and click away.  Instead of posting the pictures that came out well, I'm posting the ones that didn't.  Why?  Because these are more fun!

Whoops, looking at the wrong camera, and I have no idea why Lex has his arm up.

 Awww!  If only the Student didn't have her arm in the way-such a photo hog!

 Typical-Mom's eyes are closed, Dad looks a little confused and Lex is fleeing the scene.

 Now, this may be staged, but it's entirely possible that The Mechanic said something obnoxious to his mom, which made the Wannabe Nurse pout, and Taters wonder what's going on.

 We did grandkid portraits for each family, and I love the shot within a shot for this picture.  Yes, the dogs are considered grandchildren.

 Seconds after this was taken, Zoey licked her Mama's face.

 Kay, so almost everyone is smiling, and I think the majority is looking at the same camera

 Caught W-guy trying not to smile, but Bonnie & Clyde did the divide and conquer thing.  Not sure what Casserole has such a problem with that she's making that face.

 Wait, which camera are we looking at?

 The moments before we try for the big family picture.  Mom directing..."Sit there, no there.  Right there!" 

 Okay, everyone, let's give the impression that we're a nice quiet family.

Hope you had a great weekend too!

The saddest picture I have ever seen

Why is a picture of a fat red dog with a chewed up milk carton so sad?
This reminds me of a scrapbooking class I took on journaling. The teacher explained that journaling about a picture was like an onion-there are layers. And the core is the part that makes you cry the most. Each person in the class had a picture, and we used them to learn how to journal the different layers. I will never forget one woman’s core-what looked like a cute picture of a little girl was really a testament to how wrong a Doctor’s predictions and expectations can be. Not a dry eye in the room.

Here are the layers of this picture.

Layer 1- Sheena in the backyard, 10 years old

Layer 2- Sheena, 10 years old, in the backyard playing with Sadie and Sheena’s favorite toy, an empty milk carton

Layer 3-Sheena in the backyard, a few weeks before she died, possibly the last picture taken of her.

Core-Sheena I miss you. You were all the things a dog is supposed to be to a person. You were the only one who was always ecstatic to see me, always willing to drop anything to be with me. I regret so much about the way you died. I wish that when Mom and Dad told me you had been hit by a car I had said to put you to sleep, and not thought of my own desire to say goodbye. You were such a good girl, you didn’t deserve to die in agony. It’s so selfish and wrong, but I’m still relived that I wasn’t there when you did die, that my last memory of you is your head resting on my lap, your soft ears absorbing my tears as they had done so many times before. But this time was different, because I had never cried about you. When I realized that afternoon that you were holding on for me, or maybe the whole family, I had to tell you it was okay for you to die. That I would never forget you, would always love you, and never stop missing you. Oh, Sheena, I would ask you to forgive me, but I know you, and you already have.

Cheekzilla

How did I forget those cheeks?!

I never thought of Eliz as achubby baby, but looking back, yes, she was a chubby baby.  At least her face was.

A new project

I've been planning to redecorate the house for a longtime.  I mostly want to repaint and add some different accents.  We've needed new floors pretty much since we've moved in, and we've finally come to an agreement on what kind of flooring(snap-in laminate)color(whatever matches the floorboards).  That's happening end of summer, early fall this year.  We desparetly need more lighting in every room of the house, and that's something I would like to take care of now, b/c then, I can start painting.  Tee-hee.  I've been thrifting for the accent pieces for the house for a couple of months, I thought that I had everything I needed.  But when I got everything out and began to consider what I had, it just seemed to be missing something.  I went back to my style boards, and re-assessed what I liked about the things I had chosen.  Then I saw it.

 Pictures. 

 I didn't have any pictures.  I realised that in some of the pages I had torn from magazines, what really caught my eye was the photo in the frame, not the composition of the nightstand/lamp/flowers/frame.  It seemed silly once I had thought about it, since I know the reason I love a few of my friends' decor is because of all the pictures.

  Thus began the great photo search of 2010.  I have very few pictures on display, and the same pictures have been on display for at least 5 years.  So far, it's been very fun, and Eliz has enjoyed hearing who people are and disagreeing with me on some things.
  "Who is this?"
  "Aunt Kenzie" 
  "No it's not."
  "Yes it is, she was a little girl."
   "Hmm, I think you're wrong."
   Well, fine then, don't believe me, but really, it is her.

Here are a few I've found.

Remember your wedding day, when everything had to be in the perfect place?

I have lots of pics of my little sister like this.

Remember when your dog was your child?

He may never speak to me again for this!

Expect more fun stuff as I get through my boxes and boxes, and cds upon cds of pictures. 

Pictures

Looking at the pictures from my last post, I think that the new rule is no crafting in my jammies anymore. Or, at least, no taking pictures of me in my jammies. Well, I finished Eliz's poncho. It only took an hour, so that was nice. Well, it only took an hour the second time I did it. After I cut out both fabrics, I was looking at them thinking, "if this is going to be reversible, the hem is going to take a long time" And I set to work doing the hem! Once I had finished the hem(I even ironed it!) I realised that I had started at the end. So my seam ripper and I went into overtime. I used this pattern-

It's a Vogue pattern from the 90's, and I wasn't planning on making this till closer to fall, but it was necessary due to her unauthorised growth spurt. Eliz picked out her fabric-I had thought about just buying one from BoutiqueMia on Etsy, but Eliz said she wanted a blue one, and I knew it would be way cheaper to make it myself. When I told her to to pick another fabric, her first choice matched perfectly. I was impressed. Good thing I had started this yesterday, b/c she had to wear it-not quite finished(this is before the seam ripper) yesterday to MOPs. She didn't like it when I first put it on her then, but this morning, once it was all done she said, "Oh thank you Mama, it's so-o beautiful!" Here you go.

I have to say, I'm quite proud of myself for remembering to take pictures.

Speaking of MOPs, yesterday was about saving money. It drove home, yet again, my need for planning more and using coupons. I wish we had a big freezer! But to get a freezer, we have to have a shed. Why do we need a shed to get a freezer? So that we can put all the stuff that's taking up space in the garage in the shed, thus making room for the big freezer. It's not stuff that's useless-it's all the gardening things. Which reminds me of this morning, I saw a definite sign of spring.

Muddy rain boots. Spring is in the air, or on our feet, however you want to look at it. And I really enjoyed this video. I sometimes wish I lived in a musical. It would have been fun to be there for this.

Playing with my camera

I'm trying to decide what kind of picture to use for my profile for here, twitter, and etsy. I want the same one for consistancy, and I was thinking of using multicolors of fabric, or maybe the flowers that are just starting to bloom, but I can't decide. I'll just have to take pictures of all of them and pick one. I want to sew, I want sew, I want to sew! So why aren't I? Because I also want to take pictures, want to take pictures, want to take pictures! Not just for profiles, but of Eliz and Lex, the signs of spring, everything. Bry-D gave me a camera for my birthday/Christmas, and I want to play with the settings and things on it. Hmm. I'll sart with pictures for my profile, get dinner going, and iron some fabric so that tomorrow I can sew. Small grioup tonight, so I need to check the house to be sure it's ready for guests. Wowzers, I just realised I haven't put up the groceries! The milk is still on the kitchen counter! Think I'll start with putting up the groceries, then do pictures for my profile, get dinner going, and iron some fabric. See, I can be flexible. I'll post the pictures I take.

When I went out to take some pictures, guess who was unexpectantly peeking out of the ground? My peony!

I have two of them, one bloomed for the first time last year, and was promptly destroyed by a thunderstorm, and the other, well, I just don't think he's ever going to bloom. If he doesn't shape up this year, I'll transplant him next to his brother in the fall. Here he is

I'm worried about the bleeding hearts, they are going to get absolutely schorched if there's even a light frost. They are much further ahead this year than last year this time. I'm not sure worrying about it will do any good, because to quote Gramma Peggy Coupland, Mother Nature will do as she damn well pleases.

First Dandilion of the season!

This lilac is grom Granny's backyard(now Dad and Mom backyard) this will be the first year it's bloomed!!

I'll post pics of fabric and Eliz and Lex later.