Monthly Archives: July 2012

July 31, 2012 · 1:54 am

Blech

Right now I feel scattered and sullen.

I feel lost. alone. broken.

I always seem to be at some stage of self repair. Putting myself back together hoping that this time it will stick and then watching myself slowly unravel. It’s an exhausting cycle, and there are times when I lose sight of the point, the why bother of it all.

I’m letting myself acknowledge the feelings and attempting to ferret out the source(s), but most times that’s like trying to find the loose end in a giant, tangled ball of yarn.

I will work through this…I always do, but sometimes all the crud builds up and I have to let a little steam off the ol’ brain-kettle.

Thanks for giving me a place to do that.

And your payment for listening to me kvetch is a photo of our goofy, ever-so-cross-eyed, Princess Puss.

And you’re ever-so-welcome.

11 Comments

Filed under Brain Stew

Tagged as broken, fake it until you make it, kvetch, mess, navel gazing, princess puss, whine

July 28, 2012 · 1:00 am

A Different Kind Of Paper Airplane

All you need is,

Paper (cut into strips)

Plastic straws

and

Tape.

I found some extra-long straws at the dollar store, but regular size ones work too.

I cut the paper into 1″ strips lengthwise with my paper-cutter, for the rear loop. The front loop is long strips cut in half, and the middle one is somewhere between the 2.

Then you just tape the loops. Don’t block the straw hole, or tape it so tight that the straw collapses.

Conrad’s friend, Gavin, was over for the day and was happy to make planes too.

They only take a minute to make. The boys quickly decided bigger’s better.

They went from being little planes to being ships.

Big or small, they glide through the air quite nicely. These would be fun to launch off of something tall so they could have a longer drift time.

2 Comments

Filed under Feeling Fartsy, Rodents aka kids

Tagged as airplanes, crafts, drift, fly, fun, paper, paper airplanes, straw planes, straws

July 26, 2012 · 1:40 am

Wuppies

Couldn’t you just gobble them up?

Tucson Children’s Museum 2012

The children’s museum has a new exhibit. It’s beyond cool!

These tubes have air pushing through them and dampers you can open and close to make the airflow change directions. When you put a scarf or sponge ball in the tube it shoots through the hoses and come flying out of different opening, depending on which dampers you had closed. We could have played with that thing for hours, but we had to share with the other museum goers. We want one for the house. It was a blast!

Everyone was running around, catching balls and putting them back in so it was hard to get photos. The blurs are scarves and sponge balls as they fall from the shoots.

This table shot air out of those movable tubes and the balls would hover in the air stream.

Or as Jeremia likes to remember it, he uses “the force” to keep the ball up.

Ami loved this tube filled with tiny styrofoam balls. There was a knob he was turning to make the balls bounce to different sound waves.

Derek drew me an eggbird in the art corner. I love the bird and the man who drew him!

Jeremia built a tomb at the block table.

My favorite exhibit we played with that day was the giant prism box, because it was so much fun to photograph.

It was a long box full of mirrors with open ends on both sides.

We had a ton of fun! Thanks for the free passes Brooke!

4 Comments

Filed under Adventures, Entertain Me, Everything else, Family, Making Memories, Rodents aka kids

Tagged as air, childrens museum, fun, kids, learning, Museum, science, sponge ball, vacuums

· 12:35 am

Food Hoarder

Have you heard of Bountiful Baskets?

You should go check it out, because it’s a great way to bring fresh fruit and vegetables to your table without breaking the bank.

The gist of it is once a week you can buy into a share of fruits and veggies for a very low price. There are conventional baskets and organic baskets. I usually get one of each. Saturday morning you go to your local pickup site and collect your booty. Bountiful Baskets are now available in 20 states, if you’re lucky, you live in one of them.

The baskets are fun because you never know exactly what you’re going to get. We’ve tried all sorts of stuff that we might not have otherwise. Just last weekend we were surprised with purple carrots and red corn.

Here are a few shots of our take last weekend. Please excuse the bad flash photography.

This is a combo of 1 conventional and 1 organic basket.

Not pictured are a 2 cartons of raspberries, because they were almost immediately devoured.

Dark purple on the outside and normal carroty orange in the middle. They tasted delicious.

Super sweet and juicy red corn! YUM!

To lessen the pressure of eating it all before it goes bad, we cut up all of the squash, carrots, green beans, and broccoli and froze them for later. That way we have a nice variety of yummy goodness ready and waiting in the freezer.

Speaking of freezing…

Not too long ago, one of our local grocery stores had peaches on sale for less than a dollar a pound. I can’t resist a good bargain, so I bought something like 12 pounds of those furry beauties. (I’m still waiting for the whopping 4 whole peaches to ripen on our tree. They are so close, but not quite ready.)

I set the ones I bought on the counter to ripen for a few days. Once they were perfect and just begging to be devoured I sliced them up, put them in single layers on cookie sheets, and froze them. The next day I took them off the cookie sheets and put them in zip lock bags. I can now reach in and grab a handful without them being all stuck together and I will have peaches long after peach season is over. I can add them to smoothies, cereal, ice cream, eat them as is or if I am feeling like an overachiever make peach pie…which I never have and probably never will do, but I can dream.

I loved the way they looked all bright, cheerful and uniform, in all their delicious peachy-ness splendor.

Having a freezer full of healthy options makes me happy.

Do you have any money saving, healthy eating tips? I would love to hear them!

8 Comments

Filed under Get In My Belly, On The Cheap

Tagged as bountiful baskets, delicious, food, freezer food, fresh fruit and vegetables, fruit, fruits and veggies, get in my belly, good food, healthy, peaches, purple carrots, veggies, yummy, zip lock bags

July 22, 2012 · 10:49 pm

Loveliness

The heavens opened up, in just that one spot, and I was lucky enough to see it.

Big fluffy clouds.

Sunshine in the clouds and flowers…sighhhh.

Picacho Peak, I love you so.

Lovely sunset as seen from our backyard.

I smile every time I see that red and white tower near Nogales Highway. I am reminded of Benny and Jeremia exclaiming “look it’s dad’s work” whenever we drove by. Just for the record, we pass it on the way to Der’s work, but it’s not really close to it, so why they thought it’s where he worked is beyond me. I do so appreciate the memory and the warm happy feeling it fills me with though.

5 Comments

Filed under Making Memories, Natural Happenings, With Gratitude

Tagged as clouds, fluffy clouds, gorgeous, heavens, memories, Nature, nogales highway, outdoors, skies, sunset, sunshine

July 20, 2012 · 1:32 am

Lollies and a Challenge

Here they look all sweet and innocent with their giant jawbreaker lollies, but as you can see in the following photo it’s a farce.

They are lolly devouring monsters. Der and I mistakenly thought these would last them the whole summer. Not long after they got these, Jeremia, who didn’t want his picture taken with his lolly, broke out the hammer and made quick work of the monster jawbreakers.

In the photos below you witness Ami and Conrad diligently listening to my “stay out of the water” order.

When I told them to stay out of the water, I didn’t realize I had actually issued a challenge.

Conrad asked me today when this super long weekend was going to be over, because he wants to go back to school. Not long and I am counting the days.

Sophia!

My niece, Cassie, just had a perfect little puddin’ pop of a baby girl, Sophia. I was lucky enough have the privilege of taking photos of her newborn preciousness, but not before Der and I got some cuddles in.

That man, right there, is a puddle of mush…but really how could you not be?!

I think it’s plain to see that Der and I don’t like babies much.

After cuddles it was time to overload on cuteness.

Cassie had bought some props for us to use. Thank you to Cami, Craig, Pat, and Kelly for helping with star management and props.

Welcome to the world little Sophia Christine. You couldn’t be more loved if you tried.

Thank you Cassie for allowing me to be a part of your memory making.

2 Comments

Filed under Family

Tagged as babies, baby girl, cuddles, cuteness overload, newborn, pink, sophia, sweet, taking photos

· 2:13 am

A Week In Instagram

We took the boys to Breakers Waterpark. I never thought I would be that old fuddy-duddy who is perfectly content to sit in the wave pool or lounge chair, while everyone else goes on all of the slides, but I am. I went down one slide and that was plenty for me. Der, who is clearly more adventurous than I, took the boys on all of the slides and had a blast. I was perfectly content to sit and people watch.

Watching a storm build up. I love the monsoon season!

Fun zebra graffiti.

When Kinex get left on my desk…

We painted the front of our house. I love the colors, but I wish the grey were darker. It was supposed to be, but Der and I chickened out at the last moment and bought lighter grey. Now as penance for being scaredy cats, I either get to be filled with regret every time I look at it, or we get to repaint. Der says it looks fine, which is code for “I don’t want to paint anymore.”