clickmom

babe's overnight

The shore by wildmom's house, with bonus ice chunks.

Sunset that happened so fast I almost missed it.

Crappy iphone photo of wildmom's inspiring fire building skills.

I am totally in love with the rocking 70's pebble like floor tiles in the bathroom. I could have sat there on the can admiring it for hours, if it were not for my babes nearby to lure me out with tempting tales of neighborhood gossip and that story about the woman who sat on her boyfriend's trailer toilet for two years. Toilet sitting is not how I want to get my 15 minutes. ...

Sunrise view looking much like the sunset view. Still awesome. And coffee in bed! With no kids!! And no dog!!

weekly winners- or my week in photos

Weekly winners inspired by sarcasticmom.

A mom should really warn her kid not to eat the seasonings when trying new foods.

Once I brought bulbs from costco and forgot to plant them for a whole year. I planted them anyway and a couple survived. I had two first flowers, but when the devil saw me looking at them she promptly chewed one off and ran away with it.

Speaking of the devil, I have been trying to walk her more often.

I know what a speculum is. I have intimate knowledge of the speculum and I never would have guessed (actually I did guess right because I am an awesome guesser) that freerice.com thought it was a mirror.

For some reason, all week long, all these blogger people were taking pictures of them selves waking up in the morning. I am just glad to get a shot that does not expose "the girls". Yay for the boob/cleavage covering blanket.

Me, my chins, and grandma did not go back to the OFH on Friday. I didn't punch her like I wanted to either.

Evan came home from school with a fat busted lip after being kicked in the face at recess.

We had a ton of fun picking out my new guitar in the music store.

and I can't stop taking pictures out the window while driving (passenger-ing) in the car.

retreat

My 24 hours of babe retreat were just what the doctor ordered.

Yesterday AM after the gym, a sauna, a mind blowing session with the psychic (don't say it!), a quick and woefully inadequate car de-junking, a stop by the rehab to visit my fave senior, I picked up B and wildmom. I tossed my recipe binder of dishes from magazines that I have prepared or want to prepare to B and she immediately chose the one dish I have been dying to try. I love decisiveness. Good omen! The three of us breezed through Whole Foods, picking up goodies, other ingredients, and sushi for lunch, got back into the car, ate sushi, made our way up to wildmom's place. I have to say that it was just a tiny bit difficult for me to go to someone else's special place when what I long to do is go to my special place. But I could not have been happier to be spending the next 24 hours with the people I love (right after the people who require me to wash their undies) most of all. Naturally we had heated debates over the most timely of political issues (does Posh Spice smile ever?), went in depth into global warming (are some thong underpants actually comfortable?), and shared our views on more personal issues like religion and if it has a place in our school system ( did you see the artificial looking woman who was all Michael Jackson in Whole Foods?). We are nothing if not deep thinkers.

I was so happy that it was still not raining and still light out when we pulled into wildmom's driveway. My internal kid awareness alarm (the one that doesn't let me nap past pick up time at school) went off and I started to miss my kids. I realized they should be getting home from school and after quick call to make sure they had all gotten home safely and that they did indeed indulge in the ice cream sundae making fiesta that the guilty feeling part of me left for them, I was back in the present and ready to explore.

We took a tour of the house and the property, got our stuff out of the car, did a bit of unpacking and set up camp in front of wildmom's fireplace. From where we sat (melted in the good tension releasing way) in front of wildmom's fireplace. It was a tough decision where to look because on the one hand there was the amazing wildmom created fire and on the other hand there was the awesome inspirational view from the two windows flanking the fireplace. Wildmom, who happens to be the most awesome fire builder ever, gave B and me lessons in building a beautiful, effective, and long lasting fireplace fire. We watched from our positions on the couch and from the recliner. It got warmer and cozier and we had appetizers and wine and more stimulating conversation and it couldn't have been dreamier.

Then we got up to prepare dinner. B and I chopped measured and mixed while wildmom got the table Martha Stewart cozy. We were done in no time and it was such a treat to have 1. competent 2. help in the kitchen. I have got to teach my kids how to cook.

Kitten and glory showed up and the five of us sat down to a tasty delicious dinner and more discussion. After dinner we moved to back to the fire, wildmom and glory carried in a couch from the adjoining room (cause all the babes are strong capable women) and we all snuggled up again. I hope you are recognizing that I had just done more much needed relaxing in one afternoon/evening at wildmom's than I have done total since last summer. There was some discussion of some kind of poker like game, but cards is not one of my strengths so I kind of gave my blank look expression and we never did play cards.

Now when we returned to the fire I made the critical mistake of taking one the super comfy recliners and before I knew it I felt my eyes struggling to stay in the front of my head. I noticed b looking pretty worn too, wondered which one of us would make it awake the longest and promptly nodded off. In my defense, it was after 11 which is technically over an hour after my usual goal bedtime and also I wake up before dawn every day, and I had a very full day. Also, I am a morning person, or at least I used to be a morning person, lately it seems I am neither a morning or a night person and am happy to sleep through either, but in the least, I am not now nor have I ever been a night person. But I just might have been one of losers you see on certain websites whose "friends" have stuck cigarettes in all of their orifices while they were passed out and then took photos and posted then on the web. Except my babes are better than that and no one smokes anyway.

They woke me up to go to bed, had a good chuckle over my recently awakened voice and we all went to bed.

I got to sleep with wildmom, which was the best because 1. she wears one of those sexy hot sleep apnea masks (and why I find that so attractive I do not know but I do) and also because 2. the view from the gigantic window at the foot of her bed=there is indeed a god. So when I woke up and I opened my eyes I got to see the inspirational view. And then as if lying there on a big super comfy bed with the acme supreme view right at my feet chatting with wildmom wasn't enough, b hops into bed too and I get to be in the middle! Then wildmom sneaks away and returns with 3 steaming hot mugs of fresh brewed morning clarity and the three of us sipped and chatted and looked at the trees blowing in the breeze for a while. Aaaahhh. Before long kitten and glory sneak in too and wildmom disappears to make us a big lumberjack breakfast. And we eat again. And we chat and chat and chat and no one needs us to referee a fight, and there is no dog barking in the back yard, and phones don't ring and laundry machines don't buzz and it was just great.

Then I had to shower and leave because all three of my kids were scheduled for their yearly check ups this afternoon. B, who might be looking for sainthood, volunteered to leave early with me and we only got lost once on the way home. And now, at the end of the busy long day even three hours in the pediatrician's office can't undo the goodness of a babes mini get away. I am still feeling quite zen.

think about this while I am out galavanting with my girl friends

Yes, I am hanging out with Wildmom and my babes, and while I adore you people, (really really I do!) I'm gonna focus on my babes. But I'll fill you in when the hangover wears off. Maybe Tuesday.

Just kidding! See you tomorrow.

zeke

I got my new guitar today. I played House of The Rising sun on it while in the music store, because it's the only song I have totally memorized so far and it sounded excellent on my new guitar. My new guitar is a hollow body electric. It's the size of an electric, so my neck and shoulder don't go numb when I play it and I love that part especially.

I might name my new guitar zeke after my very first photography teacher. It is not that zeke played the guitar, or rather if zeke did play I never knew about it, but I had a total student crush on zeke and spent many hours in his closet of an office pouring over my contact sheets with him, just hoping that maybe he would kiss me, which he never did, but he did inspire me creatively and make me believe in my ability and fuel my passion. But mostly after a year of studying with zeke, I believed and was confident that I had a gift, so when the tenured professor who didn't particularly care for me or my work came back from his sabbatical and zeke left our school, I was able to carry on and do my best until the very last portfolio review when the tenured professor told me that he had been underestimating my photos/work/vision the past two years and then he apologized. The apology was on a cassette tape and I might still have it somewhere. I wonder where zeke is today? If only I could remember his last name I'd google him. So what do you think about zeke for a guitar name?

8 broken eggs

I dropped an almost full carton of eggs this morning. The carton did a back dive half twist straight position and landed squarely on its less than cushiony lid. Since 8 out of the 11 eggs were cracked on their tops, this made crack detection easier, but I can't help but wonder if I wouldn't have been less unlucky if the carton had landed on its edge and maybe only smashed the two or four on the end. Whatever. Anyway, you probably know what I say when something like this happens to me, especially when it happens before 8 in the morning. Yup, BAD OMEN. And worse than a regular day bed omen, it was a special day bad omen because today is the day that Natasha was going to park her broom at the rehab in order to "evaluate" grandma to see if she could go home. This is why I was rushing to get out of the house early and participated in the early AM egg drop in the first place. So, I get to the rehab around 8:15 because I want to beat Natasha there and she told me that she would be there around 8:30 after the memorial for her sister, the wicked witch of the east. And when I get to the rehab grandma is in bed. And grandma does not want to wake up. And grandma won't hardly even look at me. And when Natasha finally shows up 20 minutes late (apparently the flying monkeys gave her a hard time) grandma is as uncooperative as can be and won't hardly even sit up, let alone get out of bed and walk, and when Natasha finally faces me to tell me the bad news I tell her not to bother because if I were her I wouldn't take grandma back either and I wasn't even going to try to explain how far grandma walked yesterday because I would look like a desperate liar. Natasha said she would come back in a week. I was like "Yeah yeah, send my regards to the munchkins" and that was it.

Then I stopped on the way out to chat with one of the friendly nurses and the night nurse, who I haven't met yet, was there and we were trying to laugh off what had just gone on with grandma and they were telling me all these stories about grandma's secret life at the rehab (I guess she has made some friends!) and the night nurse tells me that grandma likes to get out of bed in the middle of the night and walk around the hallways. And that grandma gets difficult when they try to steer her back to bed, so they just walk with her while grandma sticks her nose into a few rooms and then grandma happily goes back to bed. And then night nurse tells me how much better grandma is walking since her procedure. And this is interesting to me since grandma was not allowed to walk before her procedure and I ask the night nurse what she means, and she explains how much steadier grandma is on her feet since she got the stitches out and the filter put in. Sooooooo, let's go over some of the worse non-care grandma has received thus far. 1. They, of the rehab they, were not aware for grandma's entire first week that her wound was supposed to be bandaged and treated with anti bacterial ointment twice a day for the entire first week instead her exposed surgery site was in the open and I got to see it every day when I visited and grandma pulled off her booty to rub the amputation spot because it hurt. 2. No one acknowledged that grandma was able to feed herself and they made her eat with the completely demented patients for 9 days instead of in the dining room, and the newest addition to the list 3. they let her walk on her amputated toe foot for the two weeks after the surgery when grandma was still under a zero pressure no weight bearing order from the doctor.

Needless to say, that when and if the time comes and grandma needs a nursing home to live in, it will not be this place. I am just hoping they don't kill her in the next week before I can get her back to the OFH.

5 glimpses into today

I was talking to a utopian friend and mentioned to her that my kids have been taking a saturday pilates class for kids. "Hmmmpfff" she reacted "Ahh, how's that going?" with just a hint of sarcasm. "Well" I said "Josh skips in every week thrilled to be there, Evan just wants to be stronger than everyone else, and Matt can not believe we expect him to spend an hour in the same small room as both his brothers." "Yup!" she declared "You just described your kids perfectly."

Tonight Evan said "I have this same dream all the time. I keep having it again and again." "That's normal." I tell him "What are you dreaming about?" "Well, there are these black dots on the floor and I can jump into them and they take me to other places." "Uh, Evan..." I say/giggle "I know where that -giggle- dream comes from." "Where?" Evan wants to know. All three kids look at me. "Blues Clues! You are having Blues Clues dreams!" Matt can not hold in the laughter "Bwah ha ha ha!!!" but Evan, in an attempt to save his reputation, manages to yell over our mutual giggle fit "NO! I am killing people! There are weapons! There are battles! It's not Blues Clues!"

I'm in the car today and a song comes on the radio and I don't think I know it but my mouth starts singing the words and then it is just kind of barely vaguely familiar but somehow like magic I know all the words and the tune and am singing in perfect harmony with the music. I get to a red light and look at the radio to see that the song I am singing is no other than the (less than) world renowned Almost Over You by Sheena Easton. If this is a clue to the crap that might remain in my head for my golden years I should be a real pip at OFH karaoke one day.

I realized I can play Matt's electric guitar without my arm and neck going numb on me. So I thought maybe I would buy one for myself, since he has been patient with me slipping away with his guitar to practice so far, but why push it, right? I called up a big music store to see what kind of guitar they recommended for an acoustic player who was being forced to go electric for the smaller size due to a long (very impressive) list of injuries. The guy in the phone was being very flirty with me and I recognized that sales technique from my days as a phone survey taker. And I found myself flirting right back. When he asked me what kind of songs I like to play I could not remember that I have been mastering House of the Rising Sun or Hey Jude, oh noooo.... instead I mumbled something about songs I liked as a kid and Puff The Magic Dragon. Then he recommended a brand called Daisy Chicks that comes in pink and other neon colors. great.

I was on my iphone headphones that you can't see through my hair in Whole Foods today and I stood in front of the sprouts section and said to lil sis through the phone “Why am I suddenly craving sprouts all the time?” and the very nice (read HOT/SEXY) older gentleman next to me said “I don’t know, but they ARE supposed to be good for you”

word of the day

Word of the day: SCIATICA

Thought of the day: whine whine whine

Goal for the day: back to bed

oh yay, I can go to bed now

PS Good news, looks like grandma is getting out of the rehab at the end of the week. Only catch is that Natasha has to visit her at the rehab and "evaluate" her. I said I forbade Natasha from seeing her with out me there. I said she would have to call me and make an appointment. The I am going to call the owner of the OFH and tell her they sent grandma off in an ambulance for the fourth time in a year for NO reason at all - despite my Do Not Hospitalize order too. Don't they have someone there who is qualified to make that decision? I am realizing what a relief it has been to not have to think about Natasha or the new director. Who I might call Omarosa. Does Omarosa make twitchy mouth expressions when she is trying to bleed people for every last penny? bleh.

send asphalt

Is it me or does everyone now think that every blogger out there with a Bogher Ad Network ad looks like Jennifer Weiner? (At least I think it was Jennifer, honestly, if her first name would have made me snicker in second grade like her last name did I would have remembered it better). For a while I thought all the bloggers were Asian women with lots of black bangles on their raised arms. If you guys think the same thing then I am wondering how effective those blogger ads must be because I can tell you what the chicks looked like but I can't tell you what they wanted me to buy. Also, to the people who make the hyper moving ads, if I can't change the size of my screen to eliminate your annoying moving ad then I will not read the website. That can't be good for business either. I am just saying.

One sure sign that spring has arrived in the garden state has nothing to do with all the green bulb leaves poking up from the ground, or the cardinals and the robins I have spotted flying through on their way back from somewhere, or even the warmer than recent temperatures. Nope, the real sign that spring is finally here are the axle bending pot holes on all of our local roads. Seriously, since this is a yearly occurrence and not some kind of an omen like everything else is, then it must be a signal. And what I suspect is that if you were say, on the moon looking down and admiring the garden state, just the opposite of me being in the garden state looking up admiring the moon, and the sun was at the right angle you could see all the pot holes (craters) and they might spell out something, not S.O.S., but maybe SEND ASPHALT or ROAD CREWS NEEDED HERE with a big arrow pointing right to my neighborhood.

I am a bit disappointed that I never got back to the great outdoors to do some more partially frozen photography this winter. I know it was grandma being in the hospital or rehab since February 17th. This has been a looooong 5 weeks. On Friday when I saw her last she walked the entire length of the rehab. She is actually in better shape than she was when she went into the hospital, because back then she was in so much pain from the bone infection that she couldn't even stand up straight. But keeping in mind that she went to the hospital because she fell and the lying SOB head nurse said she couldn't move one of her legs, then I want grandma to be as fall proof as she can be for her age before going back to the OFH. So I figure another week of therapy won't do her any harm. Tomorrow I am going to chat with the social worker at the rehab about bringing grandma back to the OFH. Also, I'd like to see if they can send a physical therapist to the OFH for a while. I know grandma will hate that, but it can only help in the long run. I can't believe we made it out of this one intact. Well, minus a little toe, but essentially the same grandma and me only a bit more stressed for the experience of it.

Tomorrow will be 4 weeks absolutely dairy free and some freaky things are going on with me. The two most annoying are this incredible swelling of my belly and a pain in my lower back. The pain in my back is like no other lower back pain I have ever felt, so I am wondering if it is my kidneys complaining about the yeast die off that I suspect I am going through. I was in much pain this morning and felt a little better after downing four or so glasses of water. Interesting enough, I pretty much had to run (slowly limp) to the bathroom after each glass of water, which leads me to believe that the water is not taking the long way out and instead running right through me with out doing much kidney cleansing. I'll have to call both the actual MD and my snake oil dispensing voo doo chiro tomorrow. Also, I have been seriously jonesing for and indulging in the sugar lately but tomorrow I am going cold turkey on that too. I am pretty sure I have eaten last trace of anything I can eat in the house (with the exception of the bagged sugar for baking which I have been known on occasion to eat by the spoonful- and YES this is embarrassing to admit) , so it shouldn't be all that hard as long as I can stay determined and focused. My big topic for the therapist this week is going to be the amount of internal whining I do and why I just can't suck it up and get on with my gluten/dairy/sugar/corn/tomato free life. I mean, I know there are worse things than needing to eat carefully.

I'm skipping the weekly winners again this week because once again inspration was hard to come by. I thought I might do something creative at that egg hunt but it was a bad atmosphere, and I barely shot my assignment let alone anything creative or extra. I took some crappy stuff on the iphone, but nothing really worth publishing, so I am skipping.

Now I am off to practice guitar before bed. If I do it for too long my fingers still hurt. And I am saving the content of my practice for it's very own post, but to be truthful with you, even I am starting to embarrass myself with the lightness of my light music taste. I figure it's just another day or two before I partake in liver spots and bifocals.

over easy

Not being a celebrator of easter, I know nothing of easter egg hunts. I have never been to one. Once, on the day after easter, I came across a very pretty hand dyed egg that someone must have hidden for someone else in prospect park. But it was an actual hard boiled egg and not a plastic candy filled egg, so after I embraced it's simple beauty I tossed it in the trash figuring it was already on it's way to spoiling. Also, one day after we had made the move to the burbs, I walked past someone's yard on easter sunday where her three dressed for church little angelic angel children were laughing and giggling and prancing around their own back yard finding their little easter egg treats. And it was all so nice and charming.

Today I showed up at a town library easter egg hunt to photograph for the paper (For the first time in weeks! It felt great!). I brought Josh along with me figuring he might enjoy it. Except we don't have easter baskets, so I gave him an organically grown cotton eco-conscientious bag that I use to tote my groceries in. I walked around trying to grab a few shots before the hunt began. As the moment approached the library lawn was simply pulsating with people. When the organizer gave the shout out to begin parents dropped to their knees, dragging their toddlers behind them, grabbing eggs, hot in the pursuit of more eggs than any one toddler needs, scurrying for eggs, filling their kid's baskets with sometimes maybe 25 or 30 eggs. It was a big blur to me. I had no idea where Josh was. It was all over in about 12 seconds, because damn! the parents of those bewildered kids sure were fast. And in the end, there was poor big 'ol Josh crying his eyes out because he didn't realize it was time to get the eggs until after all the parents snatched up every single one of the eggs. I looked around and every kid there had baskets brimming with parent snagged eggs.

So I took Josh to the coordinator because she told me she had put eggs aside in case their were any late comers. And the very same coordinator who told me she had put eggs aside told Josh she did not have any eggs. But a little girl standing nearby overheard Josh's story and she gave Josh two of her basket of eggs. And Josh being Josh, he was so happy to get those two eggs, that some lady standing nearby who did not have any kids with her, kneeled down and retrieved one of the many (over a dozen) eggs that she had for some reason stuffed into her own now bulging purse. She dropped it into Josh's reusable grocery bag. So in the end Josh ended up with three charity eggs. And he was excited. Leaving the library, hand in hand with my sweet little bad at egg snatching baby, I saw a mom and her two kids running with their colorful baskets towards the lawn where the eggs had been. I couldn't bring myself to warn them.