yes i love technology, but not as much as you you see, but still i love technology

Holy smokes guys...this is me finally giving into the talking pig head that is my blog. Who knows, maybe you appreciated the break from my corny jokes...but still, it wasn't nice of me to peace out so long. 


But i can't come back with nothing to show for my hiatus. And what better re-entry into your lives than a dancing clone trooper?? (inspired by adams recent discovery of it's ability to gracefully point it's toes):

Speaking of wasting time on my computer...here is the bonus part you are allowed to read only if you promise to do so alternating my imaginary voice with Gollum's voice while looking into a handheld mirror....


I've been torn. I've been thinking a lot about my life with (and without) the internet, and its role in my ADD (functional retardation?). I often feel it tricks me into making a thousand lists of images and articles that i can apply to my life, but then takes all my spare time to actually apply any of them. I am a terrible planner. TERRIBLE. Technology makes becoming a more focused person problematic as every idea can be explored the second it pops into my head. And for a creative person, well...that's like an informal sentence to looney bin. I suppose in the end it does more good inspiring me than it does fogging my mind, for it's truly a wealth of resource. I just need to dunk my head into a cold bucket of water and get ahold of my priorities. Then, and only then, will I be able to make dancing action figures without distraction. Baby steps to recovery. 


I am teamBoo...and i am a pretend project-aholic.

team Boo ♥'s you

dirty little secret

You know all those posts going around where people post the quirky contents of their purse...They'll have a pack of life savers, some cherry lip balm, a cell phone and something super random but still cute like a plastic farm animal, all displayed neatly on a vintage piece of fabric? Well last night i realized my (very small) purse was looking more like a rodent's nest than a place i put my keys and wallet and an occasional spare diaper. This is what mine looked like last night freshly dumped....

I'm like a trash Macgyver! Only...i don't know how to make anything useful out of paper except those four square origami things (that look like beaks) that entertain kids during church. And i don't have my own hit television series, or an awesome fishing vest...or a mullet. Also i don't know how to diffuse bombs. Maybe i'm nothing like Macgyver, just a trash toting slob (opposite of Macgyver?)

What does your purse say about you? Mine says i could probably take back every item i've purchased within the last six months with ease...and I live like a hobo.

team Boo ♥'s you

stuck in the moment.

two unprovoked moments:

(sheamus is his hat over hood "justin Beaver suit")

It seems these days (in our home) that unless a topic of conversation starts with a J and ends with an "ustin Bieber" it doesn't hold up. I have done my best to spare you the posts about the loooong (10 minute) car rides with the ipod on Biebs repeat...or the tiny place in my heart that he has branded his initials with his stupid tiny heart shaped pitch fork. It's not that things haven't been eventful, I just haven't made the time to carve recent memories into stone (the internet counts as "stone" right?...I had a Taiwanese neighbor named Stone a few years ago, and he was legit as the chicken neck bones that floated in the soup his wife often made for us, bless her heart). 

Okay so there may be other reasons for the blogging silence. Getting back to the gym regularly (twice counts?) Reading books that don't have pictures. A clingy teething baby (that still will not put even one ounce of food to his own mouth so that i have to hand feed every morsel into his 5th percentile bones) Not to mention Adam being back in full time school (stealing my laptop on a regular basis)...it reminds me of one of my favorite Jack handy quotes: 

"To me, it's always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, 'Hey, can you give me a hand?' you can say, 'Sorry, got these sacks.'" 

In other words, when people ask me when i'm gonna blog again, i just shrug my shoulders and say "sorry....got these sacks." Thats when it gets really awkward. Trust me, when i say Jack Handy quotes don't translate well in a literal sense. Still, it's more effective than trying to explain to a group of my very dubious and very non 12 year old friends that the Never Say Never movie was "actually really endearing"

So now you see that this period of silence was really a favor to your brains. I will probably lose 10 followers because of this lame post (those cold hearted snakes with their high reading standards and their "better things to do"). And if you are looking for a reason to blame this potential downward spiral of mine (ie. i actually ate a reheated baggie of Sonny's scrambled eggs today...for dinner!) i am quite confident it can be traced back to that sneaky pouty faced angel we all know...and sing along to. Curse you Justin "Beaver"! Somehow i want to see more you and then none of you. forever.

team Boo ♥'s you

better to be haaated than love love loved for what you're not.

"team Boo: the most interesting blog you've read...since the one you just came from." -myself

When i was a freshman in college, I was certain that the only alternative to my homebody lifestyle was one of two things:

a) playing airport hide and seek, cupcake bingo or something equally as dorky at church institute. 


or

b) getting plastered. 


I had a lab partner that all but slipped me a roofie to get me to go to the black and white "ball" for his douche fraternity. After weeks of pleading, finally through my clenched jaw, i agreed (sure it was to be a mistake). It wasn't a mistake...it was a di-saster. First, he told me that all the girls had to wear white. WHITE! the cardinal sin of dress colors as far as i'm concerned. The only thing that my recent 40 pound weight gain looked forward to more was getting family pictures taken or dripping bacon grease on the front of my shirt (or anything else that drew attention to myself). I got the next best thing...a passenger seat full of teriyaki sauce on my big. white. butt. To add insult to injury, every girl there was wearing...you guessed it, black (the night was off to an inevitable start). The 15 minutes before the "party bus" arrived was tolerable (with my date's cheesy v neck sweater tied around my waist, of course). But then the conversations got confusing and, at last, i was abandoned in an insufferable bubble of sobriety. Pretty soon after that, my date ditched me and later got thrown out of the club for underage drinking or something (duh!) I did my best for the next 4 hours to find the least intoxicated person in the dark. i never did. Blah blah blah, drunk screaming, throw up, lots of unreciprocated conversations and me = the biggest sucker of Arizona State University. the end. "NEVER AGAIN!" i cried out (*fists clenched to the sky*). 


And then i set that white dress on fire.

Needless to say, these social nightmares only validated my choice to continue being a hermit (safe from vomit or humiliating disappointment). So, i spent Friday nights watching movies like Secret of Nimh and overdosing on Krispy Kremes (hence the 40 pound weight gain). It's is through divine intervention alone that I ended up marrying Adam, and came out of my nerd coma. Luckily he lived in another city at the time, and therefore couldn't smell my pathetic cartoon watching shame.

What is the point of this story, you ask? (besides a glimpse into the unflattering stage i set for my adult life and a way for my children to solidify my un-coolness with stories of my youth). It is clarification (mostly to myself) that even if i am a misfit in the blog world, I am the "leading lady in my own life!" (i swiped that from The Holiday starring the elegant Kate Winslet). But hermit or not, I have changed a little since college (but nothing worth calling the Rickie Lake Show about...ie."i used to be fat, but now i'm all that!") Though still scrappy, I'm a bit more ambitious, much more self assured and have discovered my creative side (not to mention completely traumatized by Krispy Kremes). And lucky for you, now I blog about it :) So unless you're searching for the lastest DIYs or pretty picture of a teacup in a windowsill(?), i'll be here...posting things that i think are worth remembering/being the best blogger everrrr! ;)

...and probably eating nachos or something.

team Boo ♥'s you

Christmas with a crank (this is where I blow off steam)

(my gingerbread birdhouse...proof that I did something christmas-y in 2010)

December should be two months long! One month to prepare (that doesn't overshadow poor old thanksgiving) and then one month to enjoy. I keep hearing "remember the real meaning of christmas" and then i want to blow myself to the moon cause i just put on a party to help 300 other people to remember what it's real meaning is (ie. Jesus, hope, love, charity...) and was left with like two seconds to tie up every loose AND feel the spirit of christmas. With the details of recreating nostalgia and all our loved ones to consider, I can't help but scoff when i hear "tis the season to be jolly". Is it really? or is it the season to punch you in the neck when you tell me "tis the season"? 


Flashback to when i'm pregnant and people like to say something like "oh honey, you shouldn't be loading that pack of water bottles into your shopping cart!" Only i should, because otherwise it will stay on the shelf. at the store. and my family will be very dehydrated. And dehydration leads to constipation. and chronic constipation leads to sad colons. and sad colons could = colon cancer. and colon cancer kills people!! Okay, so maybe colon cancer has nothing to do with Christmas (or pregnancy for that matter) but it does raise a good point about drinking enough water, no?


It's no wonder mothers (who are usually behind the details of the holidays) are such an entertaining mess. Jesus, if you're listening....I demand an extension.


p.s. Sorry for being such a bummer...I really do love Christmas time. Hooray Jesus! 


Proof that my heart isn't as cold as ice?...When we sang silent night last sunday at church, i couldn't help but well up at the sweetness of millions of people for generations and generations singing such a tender song about the birth of a child (mind you he would go on to be the savior of the world, but still). I thought of what an honor that would be to know that the world loved your sweet baby as much as you did. Would it be sacrilegious to write a sweet song about my Sonny and make everyone i know and everyone they know sing it with me the whole month of February? yes, it would? ok, fine i won't.


p.p.s. Do you ever feel like your blog is your phantom limb? Like when ignored,  it will haunt you?? me too.

team Boo ♥'s you

team picnic

I have been neglecting my computer. I haven't even read Nie in like a week and a half, so you know I'm for real. but i've been taking lots of pictures (do iphone pictures count??) Here are a few i wanted to share before too much time goes by and then it's old news and I feel like i'm breaking the blog rules even though you'd never know ;)

*Fun fact about this picture: I am wearing the same pants that I was wearing in the previous post....Onlyyyy it's been like three years and i'm still trying to pretend like they fit me. I'm pretty certain I haven't bought new jeans in those same three years (besides the maternity ones that were basically ripped from my quivering fists when my sister was nine months pregnant and needed them more that me, who was wearing them 7 months post-pardom :) The jeans i did have all died and became cutoffs/nevernudes (except for "old blues" above) at which point I started to pretend leggings were pants (sorry legs) but then it got too hard to disguise my court ordered ankle bracelet so I alternated between thigh high boots with ripped fishnets, and the more classic metallic hammer pants (for when i needed to be grown up, you know for court and stuff)...wait nevermind, that's Lindsay Lohan...i hate when I get us mixed up. 

Anyway, needless to say, when I found my old blue-ies I was SO relieved...I wore them for the rest of my life. 

oh ya, we had a lovely picnic.

team Boo ♥'s you

lets get physical.

Some of you have wondered how I can stand to run on the treadmill for such far runs. the short answer?...the people watching.

I love the diversity at the gym. There's the middle aged men I'm praying won't get on the machine next to me (as their BO is most likely to burn my eyes). The Chatty Kathys on tandem machines...how do they have SO much to say? Their lives must be very exciting...the scandals! (i'm just jealous they have a friend) Then there are the sweet old folks that work out in jean shorts and fanny packs, so cute you could just put 'em in your pocket. 

But my absolute faves are the "My-ipod-Makes-Me-Invisible" ladies:

-We have the J-Lo-Stair-dancing-Mamacita: complete with side kicks, dips and twists (in her defense, she has the booty to pull it off)

-The Tammy-Faye-Motivational-Listener: tons of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane make up, a giant perma grin and makes an occasional shout out of "YES!" or, on a good day, an "I am capable!"

-And the newest to this club is the lady i recently saw lying on the ab rolling machine. Before she began, i watched in delight as she spread her arms out wide (as if conducting an orchestra) waved them around a bit and then drove it home with a few fist clenches (for added drama)...then casually went on to strengthen her core. I imagined she was listening to Celine Dion...so, the fist pumps made sense.

I'm sure you are expecting me to call them a bunch of nut jobs, and based on my first reactions to their public displays, you'd be right. But actually, i'll tell you why I cherish these ladies so much: I truly adore their lack of inhibition. You may or may not be surprised to know that i am actually pretty retarded on the spot. It makes for really awkward pictures, missed opportunities to make memories with my loved ones or meet new peeps. I have a family photo shoot coming up on friday with Steoffrey and i can already feel my elbows and knee caps fusing together...my face has prematurely started to contort into various drunkface positions (caught between a split decision to make a cute or silly expression)...

exhibit A:

Like those at the gym, i wanna not care who is watching me and the judgements they may or may not be passing. Who cares right? I realize judgements are a way of life. It is one way we gauge how we will behave, the people we want to be, and the environment we want to experience. The tricky part is avoiding getting carried away with this. My goal is to (after i stop giggling) avoid assuming those ladies were crazies, and instead applaud their right to go with what they are feeling. And also avoid judging myself too harshly. The truth is I'm gonna look like an idiot sometimes, but if im gonna do it, i gotta do it all the way...or not at all. Otherwise all i'll be left with is a rigid sense of self (aka: a stick up my butt) and a couple of fugly pictures. 


But...you'll probably still never catch me salsa dancing solo on a stair stepper in the middle of a gym, because seeeriously.

;)
team Boo ♥'s you


p.s. I get so annoyed at blogs that are novels...when did i get so long winded and "thinky"?? If my blog were an outfit right now it would be Michael Scott in an unintentional woman's pants suit. I'm ready to be legwarmers again.

I am actuallly nice (when i'm not hungry)

(this photo has nothing to do with this post by the way, he just has a way cuter mug than mine ;)

All this self horn tooting has my hands all clammy and uncomfortable. Its time to get back to making fun of myself where I belong ;) But since last month was Suck-tober, let's make November a month of food, and love, and magic...and turkey! (Novem-binge?) Yes I know that's food twice, but it's Thanksgiving and my birthday month, and we all know birthdays are just a fancy way of disguising another reason to over-eat.

I love a good tradition. The problem is, I always have a gajillion ideas at once...and then the second someone holds something shiny in front of my face, i basically forget my own name, let alone the things i was trying to implement. I try to be consistent but I'm pretty A.D.D. all the time with some things. Like "one time" when i started a project in the middle of the walkway (my favorite place to start them) and spread my stuff all over then got up to get scissors but got distracted and instead organized the junk drawer that they were in, then went to throw some of it away but the wipes were sitting on top of the garbage so i decided to clean all the smudges off of it, and then felt hot so i went to get a soda with ice and then just sat down and blogged about it instead. 

...but i digress. I digress hard.

SO what is my November tradition? is my project still on the floor? does this post even have a point? Yes! it's about being less scatterbrained than i was last month. And reminding the world why im glad to be in it!! WAIT...no, it was supposed to be about traditions?! Crap! (see what i mean) Soooo, what are yours? (I'm only asking so i can copy you :)

team Boo ♥'s you
vote for me HERE!

good 'n' plenty?

What happened to the days when I used my Visa with a smile? When I made fun of people who gawked at gas prices. Justin Timberlake had just brought sexy back, and i was strutting into IKEA like it wasn't no thang.

Don't say it....re...reee...recession!

Let's face it. We're screwed.  Just when online shopping and i were moving past that annoyingly awkward "acquaintance" phase...sigh. To our sad basement that i had such glorious plans for: i am sorry.  No worries though, getting a pedicure and a bimonthly house cleaner is SO last year (you mean, i have to scrub poop off the what?) And I know better than to even think about stepping foot into target (and their stupid genius marketing). 

Now as I forge ahead into the giving season, since now is as good a time as any, i will resist my urge to splurge, and instead get in touch with my inner sewer/quilter.  My dusty Viking machine and vintage fabric will unite at last! (Flashback: to the atrocious hankerchief shirt i forced my one year old daughter to wear before she could enforce her own good opinion) This ought to be interesting, but homemade gifts are the most thoughtful, right? 

"Dignity for recession proof presents!" (declared in unison)...they are the new ipod. 

In the mean time: let us swallow our pride and be find the joy in what we do have. As long as i have my family and my faith, i am okay with cleaning a few of my own toilets...okay...aaaand eating my food storage ;)

**On a serious note: Please don't misunderstand my sarcasm for complaining. I am truly blessed in so many ways, and realize there are much more serious struggles in this cruel world. I pray for it's relief daily.