My metal!

I finally finished my 'jacks and I think they look wicked awesome.

They have a VERY Iron Man thing going on, but I am extremely happy with them. I haven't intentionally painted figures since TallBoy was a baby and I was really nervous about trying again. I am glad I did, but I don't know if I will play very much. Between time, money and a million other interests, WarMachine may be at the bottom of the pile.

But OH, I love painting. I really, really love painting them.

Here's my favorite:

Cards!

I have a fun bunch of cards to show. I hope you like them. My comments are below.

basic but cute



love this one!



very girly



one of my favorites in this bunch



not sure if this works or not



I'm in love with the simplicity of this.



my favorite color!



way cute.



Love everything about this one



sometimes simple is good!



it's pink. Please don't make me say anything more.



I absolutely love how fun this is!



fun!



pretty, elegant, good color.



Playing with an older set, and white on dark here.



My absolute favorite here. I love the color, shape, contrast, simplicity- everything about it.

You know the camera has a cord, right?

I am so oblivious to reality.

I have always used my computer's memory card reader and never thought twice about it. The camera came with a USB cord to allow me to upload photos sans reader. I never even got it out of the box. The camera is 4+ years old. I used my cord for the first time today after Fin laughed at me when I asked to borrow his laptop so I could upload my pictures and email them to myself.

The scrapbook I am working on (obviously not my brother's wedding album):

From Not Quite Pretty

From Not Quite Pretty

From Not Quite Pretty

From Not Quite Pretty

From Not Quite Pretty

From Not Quite Pretty

From Not Quite Pretty

From Not Quite Pretty

It really IS a work in progress. I haven't decided if I am using pictures in it or not at this time. I know I'll be using lyrics from Mary J. Blige's CD "Growing Pains", specifically "Work in Progress", "Work This" and "Grown Woman" for journaling inspiration.

Next up, a slide show of my cards.

I think that needs a new post.

Arg!

TallBoy went to Homecoming last night. With a girl.

It was just as friends, but this is by far the biggest development in his social life in years. He was so excited about it he couldn't sleep Thursday night and paced a lot.

The night started well- we had the girl over for homemade pizza and cookies. He wore a polo (he is strictly a T-shirt kid). He bought her a corsage and paid for her tickets. He held the door for her. I drove them over to the game and they hung out and talked while watching our team lose (horribly) again.

Then another boy shows up and hits on this girl (who TallBoy REALLY LIKES and has been slowly trying to earn a position as boyfriend material with) all night. In front of TallBoy.

I was elected driver to and from Homecoming as The Dude had to work at 5 am today and would need to go to bed early. I am usually in bed by 10 at the latest and stayed up until almost 1am with picking the kids up, driving her home and dealing with TallBoy.

TallBoy did not have a fun night. He's too nice to say anything to either the girl or the guy and spent most of the night moping and being full of angst.

Then TallBoy couldn't sleep and was up at 4am. The Dude and I offered some advice and tried to help him gain some perspective. Because like it or not, TallBoy is in high school and he will encounter this sort of situation again. And he needs some help dealing with it.

While TallBoy was off at Homecoming, I made some cards. Mostly birthday cards, but a couple all occasion as well. I already had a large collection of "thank you"s made so I didn't need any of those. I took pictures of the ones I made and the ones I had to upload and show off. I also took pictures of my Khador figs and a scrapbook I am working on, for a virtual "progress report".

I am still using our backup computer because our regular one is STILL SICK from the dang virus. The backup computer does not have a memory card reader.

Arg!

Cooking - my love/hate relationship

I love cooking- when I am not tired or cranky, when I have no plans, and when my whole family will be able to enjoy my efforts.

I hate cooking- when I am tired, cranky, recently home from work, there are no ingredients in the house, SweetPea, TallBoy or The Dude will not be able to sit down and eat it, or when I have a bajillion things to do.

I am not a great cook, either. I have about 10 real recipes I do well and a lot of "OK" ones. I try to find easy, fun recipes that my World's Pickiest Eater (TM) *aka TallBoy* will enjoy. On a budget. I could tear my hair out just with all of that.

Then there is the dreaded "what do you want for dinner" discussion.

NO one at my house has an opinion on any regular basis- so I get relegated to cooking whatever seems easiest at the time because I am too tired to THINK about cooking. And the wonder is, they eat it. Usually with a smile and "thank yous".

But baking, I always like. I always enjoy trying new breads, cookies, rolls, desserts or what have you. I don't know what my fascination with the oven is, but anything I put in it brings about a general soothing feeling and a sense of peace.

This weekend I made some biscuits and some "everything" cookies- a cookie without flour. SweetPea enjoyed them very much, and so did Fin. TallBoy did NOT like them - they had a large amount of oatmeal, which he hates. They are eaten now and I am planning my next baking brigade.

But not cooking.

Life today

The Dude worked at the store 5 days this week. Because the store is 25 miles away, he stayed in town and didn't come home between jobs, and was gone from 5am to midnight on 4 of those days. The other, he left before I came home from work and I did not see him before I went to bed.

My wonderful teen son reminded me yet again why I do not own weaponry. (Grades and homework are NOT his strong point, regardless of how brilliant he is. ) My darling daughter was sick and I have no time off at work. The laundry was not done. Dishes were not done. Homework battles, sticking to my guns on discipline and other normal harried mom junk became a million times harder because I was doing it alone.

The single-married mom phenomenon is not unique. I know a lot of women whose husbands are in grad school, or who work construction, or who deal with deployments etc. Most of the women I know personally run their homes as their first job.

I work outside the home as well as run my household and I was on an even keel until the Dude decided to take on extra days at the store every other week. Now I am all out of whack and I couldn't even ask him to hold me while I whined about it. I'm learning not to whine and trying to get better at time management.

I just have a million things going on. I'm trying to learn frugal cooking, I have some baking projects on my agenda, I have a scrapbooking project I want to finish, I have 2 games now (invited to a new one recently and no character for a run tonight, eek), I am painting WM minis (Doomreavers and finishing Kommandos), making a Magic deck and sorting cards- plus SweetPea is in basketball & Girl Scouts, I have church events and a teenager with a social life.

I need a V8!

The *enemy* invaded!

No, not really. But it felt like it.

This past weekend was our town's small town "Krazy Daze" event (fall festival sort of thing). I knew that there were going to be all kinds of great activities (face painting, Karoake, dunk tank, cake walk, bike decorating etc) but I did NOT know they were having a car show in my front yard.

I looked out my window Saturday and there were a bajillion people in the empty lot ("my" front yard) across the street from my house. A million and one cool old cars, a tonna kids, and all the police for several miles. They were busily blocking off my little corner of the world with barricades and setting up events for the rest of the day.

I live on the back corner of a rectangular block which makes the main block in our little town. I am on the same block as the bank, grocery store, hair salon, hardware store, dollar store and consignment store for kids' clothes. There are 3 houses on my block- all on my back end. All the rest of the block is businesses. I was quickly getting blocked in (so I couldn't get OUT) so that other people could not park in the lot intended for events.

I ran outside and got my car moved so I could leave (which I had to do later anyway) and checked out the schedule for the events. I fished out some money for my kiddos to run about town with, and let them wander.


Things cleared up around 3-4 and I had my yard back, sort of. It was still hangout central for a herd of teenagers for a while.

Later in the day the town threw a parade. We live on the parade route and we make a habit of watching the parade from our front steps. My kids got tons of candy (even though they are a little old for parade candy) and then took about 5 HUGE handfuls over to a little girl who watched the parade from the other side of the street.

There was a street dance/music later and the TallBoy & Associates went out and had a nice time "hanging out" while being good.

Sunday morning, I took Cash on his EarlyAm(TM) walk and there were a good 20 bags of trash yet to be picked up. I had to be extra vigilant on the leash to make sure he didn't get any candy or gum. I also had to make sure he didn't eat leftover food or um, evidence of the beer tent.

I got a report from the owner of the grocery store (a SUPER nice guy) that the receipts from this past weekend were much better than expected due to nicer weather than the forecast predicted. He said there's a lot of money for some great future events and that the invasion while crazy, was worth it.

Entering Foreign Territory- Teen Dating

Well, color me befuddled.

My darling, adorable, freckled, super-cute "little star" went and got to be "TallBoy" and in the process has developed attractiveness to the girl kind.

GULP.

I'm actually pretty relaxed about it, but it is fairly amusing to me that my sweaty, smelly, not-entirely-social teen boy has suddenly turned into an obsessive neat freak that showers a million times a week and has a girl (and sometimes more than one) calling/texting/hanging out with him in a matter of WEEKS.

Gotta love the senior factor of Fin- but TallBoy did a lot of this himself. He is very confident about himself and does not let anyone else change the way he acts or what he does. He likes games, action movies, painting miniatures, reading way out there fantasy/sci-fi/morbid vampire stuff (um, he's MY kid) and is not really all that shallow. He doesn't kowtow or follow the back at ALL.

All this time he's been a little "different"; he's been lying in wait for someone to discover that he's ok for who HE is. He recently found a couple of girls who have figured out that his being "weird" is actually a GOOD thing, because he is not interested in acting like an idiot to impress his "buddies"- he wants to impress the GIRL.

He has been actively showing off his cooking skills ( I am also teaching him laundry so he will make good husband material) and has introduced quite a few of his friends to a large number of new bands out of our 1500+CD library. He likes poetry and actually has an interest in acting, so he's been getting loads of female attention lately.

And it is crazy. As a mom, I am just incredulous- but thrilled.

One of the girls he's interested in (at least a little, but possibly longer term than not) is the former girlfriend of Fin. I warned TallBoy of the potential for drama- quite loudly. This girl is so cute I'd hit on her if I were male. She's also 17 and drives. I heard a few interesting comments about the age difference; but The Dude is almost 6.5 years older than I am, so I can't really say a lot. I CAN give good advice. I talk to TallBoy a lot about a variety of things and amazingly enough, he listens. Mostly.

The other girl is one much closer to his age, but VERY recently broke up with one of TallBoy's friends' brothers. More drama, anyone? Again, I have very little room to talk as I dated The Dude's roommate before I dated The Dude, and The Dude dated my former best friend.

Ah, the nature of relationships and how they become tangled. I CAN give good advice, though. TallBoy listens- mostly.

TallBoy and the younger girl (no nickname as yet) are going to Homecoming "as friends". TallBoy had not completely thought about this proposition as he did not know or understand that he was paying for WAY more than his ticket. (Her ticket, a flower/corsage, meal... ) I WILL teach this boy manners if it kills me.

He does not know if she is interested in him as a "boyfriend" yet, but she's been at our house 4 nights this week. She's enjoyed herself with him and has asked to come over again.

So far we've set some house rules- but "dating" has not officially begun. I am not sure I am ready- but I can't fail HIM either.

I just have to learn how to hide grey hair.

"You give it a cold"

Independence Day is a silly, over the top adrenaline movie and I still love it to pieces.

Jeff Goldbloom takes down the evil alien empire with a COMPUTER VIRUS, bless his little heart.

My computer was recently infected by a less lethal (but still frustrating as heck) virus and I have been out of commission. I am currently using a backup computer and trying to get back to normal after no computer for a week.

I can live without it, but I have missed my daily fix of TwoPeas and blog wandering. I have also missed my web comics and other internet vices.

So I am sort of back but probably limited...

And my TallBoy has a plethora of females paying attention to him, the SweetPea has been kicking butt and taking names on the basketball court, I have been home less than I have been outside the house this past week and I really want to vent. Soon, I hope.

17 (Again)

I've been passively following the presidential election race/coverage for a while. I was totally relieved when Hillary was NOT chosen as Obama's running mate, but other than that I haven't really paid a ton of attention.

Until recently.

I am a younger-ish person and I remember being 17 VERY well.

At 17, I was engaged to be married.

I was a senior in high school. I wasn't planning my prom, or worrying about who my roomie in college might be. I was planning a wedding, a move 200+ miles away (with no car), finding affordable housing for myself and my soon to be husband (no small feat in a college town). My intended had the "honor" of being older- by 6 years. A teacher made it clear that she felt I was the victim of statutory rape. I know several "well meaning" adults spoke to my father about the situation privately.

I dealt with the question, "are you pregnant?" every single time I told someone of my plans to get married. Several people made very loud (and rude) judgements about my father's parenting abilities. I got lots of funny looks. I had people literally counting the months from my annoucement to my wedding out loud on their fingers in front of me. I got lots of interesting advice and commentary about the likelihood of my intended marriage's length.

And it was hard. I cried a lot. I got mad a lot. I was a stressed out wreck and my dress almost didn't fit because I put on weight from all the headaches. (I eat when I am stressed.) My fiance at the time (now The Dude) listened to me vent a LOT.

I was NOT an embarrasment to my father. I was NOT something he was "sad" about. I was NOT a dissapointment or a "bad thing".

And I was NOT pregnant.

I just can't imagine how hard this time is for Bristol Palin. I'm sure that no one in her family wanted this to come out the way it did. I'm sure that Bristol didn't want or need the additional stress right now, at a time when life is hard enough. I wish that I could send her a hug and offer her some support.

I didn't have a lot of rules when I was at home, but "don't get pregnant" was one of them. I know how easy it could have been. I know how simple just "one time" is (my SweetPea is a result of "one time") and how hard it is to navigate that at a young age.

And now all these implications and accusations that Sarah is somehow deficient- they make me angry. And sad.

I know I will be paying a lot more attention to the presidential election race for a while. I just hope Bristol can take it.