8/9 The Day of New Games-- Are You Going to Play or Not????

Ivy has decided she likes to run around with a blanket on her head. I can’t tell if she’s a monster/ghost or if she is wearing an outfit. The girl does like her clothes/hats/shoes/lip gloss. Help me.

G and Ivy were playing tag. G would tag her and run away. They would run around the table a few times, then G would catch up with her again and tag her again. I don’t think she quite got the point, but she liked the running.

Inspiration Thursday picked MY illustration as one of the showcases for last week! Shrink was the prompt. http://www.inspiremethursday.com/2008/08/08/spotlight-on-shrink/

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8/7 The Day of Very Close and Far Away

Getting in touch with an old college friend on facebook. I hadn’t talked to her in so long, and for once, it was a GOOD friend, not just a casual friend.

A package for the kids from their grandma. Oh they love getting packages.

An important email from a friend who is living in Costa Rica. Even though we are far, we can still be close.

G and Ivy ask to call papa on the phone. Particularly Ivy. She is quite clear about wanting to talk to him.

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8/8 The Day of Bedtimes and Art Supplies

Going to bed early. I didn’t even read. Just turned off the light and passed out.

My art supplies came from Dick Blick. I haven’t had the chance to use them yet, but what fun to open up a box and see all the wonderful colors. Ooooh, all the potential.

G and Ivy had such fun playing with Uncle today. They love him.

G sitting up in bed and “reading” Alice and Wonderland.

Walking through the garden and taking a moment to listen. Sounds through out the neighborhood. Someone singing as they rid by on a bike. The neighbors having dinner. Birds. A child crying because she doesn’t want to go to bed yet.

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8/1 The Day of the PlayGround by the Sea

Went with my mom to a new neighborhood. We were supposed to go on a “Gallery Walk” but instead, found a playground and spent a couple hours there, then went for icecream.

G and Ivy met a little boy and they played with him and his mom. G particularly love the mom, and kept pulling her this way and that. Ivy particularly loved the boy, sitting on the bench next to him and saying, “hi.”

Ivy feeding G cheerios.

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8/2 The Day of Some Writing and Forward Motion

I actually WROTE in my novel during the kid’s nap time. I didn’t avoid it at all. Yay. I am still worried that it is writing around what I should be writing, but I think I have to write it first to know what I need to really be writing.

My slowly changing attitude towards my art, my work, my writing, my career, my business, my life and myself. Step by step, and I will get where I want to go.

Good posting on my blog. I read back and realized there is something developing in the larger scope of things. Not sure what yet, but it seems to be something of a unified vision.

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8/3 The Day of One, Two, Three, Four, Five... Six!

The big double grocery cart shaped like a car.

G’s happiness at getting a Go Diego Go I Can Read book. It’s only a matter of time folks. He may actually be reading before he can speak clearly.

Bedtime. They love to cuddle in bed with mama and read books.

Sponge alphabet. Oooh. Look, a G. An I.

G has 6 bobos (pacifiers) 6. And he likes to count them. 6 is new. It used to be 5 but we found another one in hiding. We have tried to get rid of the bobos, but it’s not time yet. He only uses them at bedtime and agrees to that. I think we’ll get rid of all of them at once, rather than having them disappear at the same time. Maybe we will do a bobo fairy and have her leave some good toy in their place. But after potty training. One traumatic event at a time, please.

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7/26 The Day of Getting Back to the Happy List

Gosh I spent some time over on the lists, and I foolishly marked this goal as accomplished, which it is, although I am not done.

So I had to mark it as doing again. How weird. Man, I think they kicked me off the front page. Oh well. So after putting this goal off for a while because of all the catching up I have to do, I’m just going to start again.

Iced coffee with coffee icecream. Yum

Google reader. So much easier to keep track of my favorite blogs.

Oreos with peanut butter. Why did I never discover this before? Just dip and crunch. Yum.

G’s golden curls. I do not know where they come from. It’s one of those genetic throwbacks, I know, but how strange.

G is also talking much better lately. Still hard to understand, but he seems to have gotten over his resistance to trying the difficult sounds.

Ivy and her chubby belly. She’s like a juicy apple and you just want to eat her up.

Uncle had G up on his lap and was pretending to be a boat and telling him stories about sailing and pirates, and G was just imagining away, looking through the spy glass and sighting bad guys and listening enraptured.

My cat has decided to come out of hiding and has spent some time down stairs while the kids are actually awake. I had G feed her a piece of chicken and give her some non-violent attention. She’s been scared of him since he was about a year old, but he doesn’t pull tails or ears anymore.

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7/16 The Day Before the (da dum dum) Road Trip

SYTYCD. Wee hee. Me loves the dancing kids.

Dancing with the kids. We held eachother’s hands and danced around in a circle.

Realizing that, although I am dreading the roadtrip tomorrow at 4 AM!!! I am still going to the mountains, to a place I have never been. That’s nice and fun.

Frosted mini wheats.

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7/14 The Day of Apple Cheeks and Crosswords

When I was surrounded by my kids… they’re small and there are only two of them, but they were so present that they definitely had me surrounded. Hugs all around. Big grins.

When I put them to nap a half hour early and they actually went to bed and I was able to shower and get my equilibrium back.

Reading a magazine this morning instead of turning on the computer.

Balloons with the kids. Oh, balloons make kids very very happy.

When Ivy went right back down when I went in to put G back in his bed. She didn’t fuss or cry or expect to be let out to run around.

Not happy exactly, but the perfect set of teeth marks left on Ivy’s cheek after g bit her. It wasn’t that bad, but I marveled at the little white marks in her tear streaked cheek. I definitely knew why she was crying, though. And G did not dispute the time out, for sure.

Starting my collage for my project. I’m using old crosswords that S did. I worked on that while I was watching Youtube videos of a girl who does these little art project tutorials.

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7/13 The Day of Ways to Be Creative, One Hundred and More

I’m really digging watching Children of Men. I’ve seen it before, but I didn’t realize how well made it was. And I loves me some post apocalyptic fiction.

Kids. Oh they get older. Ivy always runs to give G his milk, and then comes back to get her own. G comes over to see what’s wrong if Ivy is crying.

And they are still little and they want their mommy. They climb all over me and are cuddle bunnies.

Making my list of 100 ways to be creative, and then having more ideas. There are so many ways to live a creative life, you just have to do it.

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7/12 A Low Key Day

Laying on the couch with the kids, watching Little Bear. Hugs and games and cuddles and tickles.

G is learning to read… or at least he’s getting the concept. He sees words and then starts saying the letters. He doesn’t always get the right letters, but that’s okay. He read out some letters and then said his name, like he was reading his name. He was very proud.

Ivy running around today while Uncle cleaned. I couldn’t get her to leave him alone, but he said it was okay, she was “helping.” She wanted to hang out with him.

G and Uncle making noises with a long carboard tube. Honking and tooting and farting. G pretending to play guitar and singing along to uncle’s tooting.

During naptime, there was a nice rain shower. I went out into the garden with my camera looking for things to photograph. The lotuses in the pond were pretty. I found some key limes. The vines on the trees. And the rain and the waterfall in the pond were so soothing, pitter pattering away.

Then I was brave and stopped browsing the internet in avoidance and stepped up to my novel and wrote 5 pages.

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7/11 The Day of Just Being Brave a Little

Work was a little busy. Not crazy, but a bit. And there was a great band playing. Actually great. I enjoyed it, actually, despite exhaustion. It reminded me of an old job where I used to work, back in my twenties, in Greenwich Village. It was called the Cottonwood Cafe, anyone ever hear of it? No, that’s okay, it was a long time ago in a very specific place.

I finally opened up a bank account down here. I did not put it off for another day. I did not make excuses. I did not say, “oh, I don’t feel well,” or “I don’t have enough time, forget it.” I even had to call someone to help me get it done. And I still did it, because I challenged myself to be brave.

I took part in another challenge and created a painting based on their prompt, “healing.”http://warriorgirl.blogspot.com/2008/07/power-posting-power-painting-power.html
I don’t paint that much any more. I should paint more often.

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7/10 The Day of Bits and Pieces

Got to see the elimination episode of SYTYCD. This is really the only show I am watching right now. And I love to see them dance. My boys did not get eliminated, thank god, although they were on the chopping block.

Giving away the Arte y Pico award I got for my blog to five other bloggers for creativity and adding to the blogging community. I am really liking blogging, now that people actually read me. I like making connections and sharing with people and being inspired by them. I’ve always liked writing and journaling, but this seems like the maturation of my journals.

Starting a new assignment with my art girls. I made the assignment, so I’ve been thinking about it. It’s two parts. Spend the week or so collecting bits and pieces of your life, ephemera, labels, lists, things you find, maybe even things you hear… everything around you that makes up your life. Then create a piece of art using what you found. I like the idea of making art out of your daily life. It kind of reminds me of these lists, my happy pages.

Reconnecting with a high school friend. Well, we weren’t really great friends, but he was always so cool. I was too shy to be really close to people. But he seemed so glad to hear from me, it made me feel good, like I wasn’t just a wallflower reading books by the lockers every morning. Seriously, I read so much in HS.

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7/9 The Day of Pinning Our Creativity Up to the Metaphorical and Literal Refrigerator

SYTYCD, right now. It’s a commercial, that’s the only reason I’m here. I loved the number with Will and his partner. SOOOO brilliant, both chorography and dancing. And Twitch doing the krump was awesome and “dirty” in Mia Michaels’ words. Have to go, Josh is dancing now…okay, he wasn’t that good, but they all have another number to go. Another happy. Double dance numbers on SYTYCD.

Made chicken and rice and greenbeans and it was good. Kids liked. I liked. Uncle liked. The kids had watermelon for dessert.

G laughed at Little Bear and his games. He loves when Little Bear plays chase or hide and seek.

We did some drawing today. Both kids. After we were done, G came and looked at Ivy’s drawing and said, “Oooh. Good. I like.” Then he wasn’t happy until we took Ivy’s painting and put it up on the refrigerator with magnets. I love that they like to draw and have their own artistic sensibilities. And it is a nice drawing, too.

Oh yeah, I got a bloggy award for creative inspiration today. I’ve got to figure out who to pass it on to. That should be fun. Maybe a balance of people I look up to who are far out of my stratosphere and people who are closer to where I am.

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7/8 The Day of Bikes and Flights

Bedtime was not as difficult as I thought it might be with S gone.

G asked for hamburgers by name. His language is developing rapidly after so long not being able to talk. I guess he’s ready.

S got off to the airport without a hitch. His flight went well. There were no hysterics (either here at home or with the airline) and he got back to NY just fine.

Plenty of birthday videos to tide us over until I can recover from birthday and holidays and visits and parties and all of it.

G’s first ride around the block on his new birthday bike, with papa’s guidance.

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7/7/08 The Day of Leftover Cake

Kids were so tired we got to sleep a little late, and it must have been the upcoming birthday that was giving me a little insomnia, because I was able to sleep.

G’s actual Birthday. He was born three years ago today. Weird how life just GOES.

The kids opening the last of the presents.

Leftover cake.

A day with nowhere to be. I needed some down time after the big weekend.

When Ivy stopped her tantrum. It took about an hour. It was caused by nothing. Nothing could make her feel better, not cookies or hugs or singing or cats. Nothing. Until about an hour of crying and screaming and thrashing and rolling around in every corner of the house and me trying to work my way closer to her so that I could calm her, and G came out and gave her some balloons and then started playing Poo Poo Man, and she started being distracted from her woe, and then she stopped saying “nononono,” and let me hug her and tickle her and then she decided she would go up stairs and see the cat sleeping in the changing table and go to bed. And then the tantrum was done. Phew. Where’s the tequila? No tequila?

More leftover cake.

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7/6 The Day of Cake and Balloons and Presents and Rain

Mama was smart and did her writing in the morning before she got out of bed, instead of planning on writing during nap or after all the festivities. A couple pages.

My new Target tshirt. Just a cute little henley with pin tucks and buttons in a nice plum color. Long enough, loose enough, light enough to be comfy and stylish.

G’s joy when he saw the balloons and streamers and wrapped presents at Grandma’s house.

Ivy’s joy when she saw G’s birthday bike. G seemed more interested in opening presents, and the bike was already open. Ivy sat on it for a good half hour while G enjoyed his new pirate ship.

Cake! Cake! Cake! (G’s words, not mine.)

The rain storm after the party that delayed our leaving, but added a new aspect of playing in the rain.

Everyone fell asleep very quickly at the end of the night. Including mama. Phew. Big weekend.

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7/5 The Day Before G's Birthday Party

The kids waking up to papa. G especially was so happy to have him here. Ivy was a little shy.

Getting presents for G’s birthday with S while the kids were napping. We got him a fancy pirate ship and Ivy will get a doll and stroller.

Bath time story time bed time with Papa and mama. It is nice to have the family all together.

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7/4The Day of the Kid's First Fire Works Show

S came back after 6 weeks in NY. It was nice.

G was SOOOO happy to see papa. Ivy was a little shy, but G was bouncing around.

Fireworks on Tampa Bay. They were no Macy’s fireworks, but then, it was also a lot less trouble than going to see NYC fireworks, with the crowds and the commute.

We sat on a blanket on the waterfront, and had cherries and cookies and chips and milk for the kids and port for the grown ups and watchd the boom boom flash flash.

Before the fireworks, we watched the backside of the sunset, and the thunderclouds flashing with lightning. A pair of flamingos flew over the bay and they were the same color as the the clouds.

Great pictures of G and Ivy in the garden.

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7/3 The Day of The Day Before

The keyboard came.

G after work, all perky and full of energy, but went right to bed.

Dinner. Chicken strips with hot sauce and blue cheese dressing and a salad.

Great Ivy Pictures.

Doing a collage for a workshop.

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