I can retire from my wanna be profession happy now.

My family rarely has an opinion about my photography. Well, that’s not true, they often say things like “get that camera out of my face!” Or “Mom! why do you have to take pictures of EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE you go?”
However, comments on my actual photos are few and far between.
On Saturday, I took the kids on the Metrolink out to Olvera Street in Los Angeles. The Teenager had to to a report in which we had to go there, take pictures and learn about it’s history. I was thrilled to be able to help him, it was like a belated Christmas gift! A day alone with my kids AND photography? DOUBLE SCORE.
We had a fabulous day together. Except for the times where they were all “OH MY GOSH STOP TALKING PICTURES OF THINGS AND WALK PLEASE.” I’m not complaining though, one thing that I was reminded of is that I have well behaved children who are a pleasure to be around. Even the 4 year old– I was worried things would get dramatic because she’s have to walk for hours, but… nope. Didn’t happen. Oh, how I love those little people.
Yesterday I had to print out some of the photos that I had taken for The Teenager to use in his report. I printed out a couple that I liked for myself. When my son was going through the photos last night, The middle child saw one laying on the table and said “Mom, is that one you took today? I thought it was a magazine cover!” Then, my husband walked over to look at it and he said “Babe! This looks like a post card. I love it.” THEN! The Teenager was all “That’s cool. Can I have it for my room?”
“Of course you can have it, Son.” I replied.
I walked away with the biggest smile on my face, because for the first time that I can remember, the people who I love the most were excited about a photo that I had taken. And it felt so very sweet.
The One They Loved.

It’s That Time Again…

I have been blogging since September 2002. I have never been nominated for a bloggie– but, one time? I almost beat Dooce for “best parenting blog” in some totally insignificant blog award. So, IN YOUR FACE, BLOGGIES. Honestly, I’m not bitter. I know the writing here has never been worthy of any “awards.” That said, every year I take the time to nominate my favorite bloggers. Normally, I don’t make those nominations public, because feelings can get hurt and oh, how I hate hurting peoples feelings. But, this year, I’ve been inspired by Aimee to post my nomination. Mostly, I’m posting these because it’s always been important to me to “share the love”, as they say, when it comes to linkage. Truth be told, I kind of hate it when bloggers are stingy with links, or only link to their “internet friends.” Since I was already working on a “blogs that I have loved this year and you should too” list, I figured, why not post these? Please, click on their blogs and read. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Best Photography weblog
Shutter Sisters
Mother May I
Me Ra Koh
Best Canadian Weblog
Her Bad Mother
Mother Bumper
Redneck Mommy
Most Humorous Weblog
Anne Nahm
Deb on the Rocks
See Wilson Go
Best Writing of a Weblog
Nothing But Bonfires
Not Calm (dot com)
Not a Girl, Not Yet a Wino
Best Group Blog
Alpha Mom
Shutter Sisters
Best Community Blog
BlogHer
Best Kept Secret Weblog
Chicken and Cheese
Apathy Lounge
Lesbian Dad
Best New Weblog
Immoral Matriarch
Baby Bloomr
Lifetime Achievement
Tenth Muse
Miss Zoot
Amalah
Weblog of the Year
Four Four
The Bloggess
Suburban Turmoil
(Edited to add this site for Best Entertainment blog because I just spent the last two hours reading and I hurt from laughing.)
Videogum
(These blogs in no way reflect all of the blogs that I enjoy and (mostly) secretly admire. But these are the ones that I would be thrilled to see on that list, because in my opinion, they most definitely deserve to be there.)

Just when I start to hate the internet, it goes and makes me fall in love with it all over again.

I once had a “friend” who told my parents that I was “boy crazy.” This friend told my parents that I talked about boys non stop and that they should watch me carefully. Naturally, I got in big time trouble. How dare I like boys! I was supposed to ONLY LOVE JESUS. Anyway, thanks to my loud mouth, holier than thou, asshole of a friend, my parents thought that I was crazy about boys and watched me VERY CLOSELY, in case I, you know, started humping boys. The truth is, I can count on one hand the boys that I was “crazy”about in elementary school.
Bobby, David, Orel Hershiser (Yes, *that* Orel Hershiser.), Brad and Marty.
Marty was the secret love of my entire 6th grade life. He was smart, artistic and as my 12 year old self would say soooOoOOo funny! Of course, Marty never liked me back. Which was the case with most boys that I liked throughout my entire school aged life.
If I could find my diary from 6th grade, I am sure this is what it would look like:

Dear Diary,
I got kicked out of class again today. Mr.Teeter made me sit on the benches until art was over. It was Marty’s fault. He made me laugh like he always does. but he never gets in trouble!!!! But it’s ok, I still love Marty because he’s sooooo cute and soooooo funny.
Love,
Me.
Dear Diary,
I got sent to the principals office today. I brought a bandana to hit Marty back with, because he hits me with his every day! But I got in trouble because mine had too many rubberbands on it and the principal said I could hurt someone really bad with it. Marty never gets in trouble for anything, but I always do. But I still love him. He’s such a babe!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Me.

The entire year went by and Marty didn’t try to hold my hand or french kiss me behind any buildings, which was okay because I had no idea how to french kiss. (And sadly, when I had my first kiss as a SOPHOMORE IN HIGH SCHOOL, I still was clueless.) I was secretly devastated that he never liked me back, but you know, I was 12 and there were games of foursquare to be played, so life went on.
I’ve always wondered what happened to Marty, in that “where are they now” kind of way. Did he get married? Have kids? Did he still live in California? Was he a comedian? An artist? I may have even googled his name a time of 6, but nothing ever came up.
A couple of weeks ago, for reasons I can’t remember, I logged onto my classmates account. I hadn’t logged in to that account in over a year, maybe even 2. I looked over the names of people who had signed my guestbook. I saw a man who I did not recognize. His name was Marty, but a different last name then Marty from 6th grade. Curious, I clicked on his name and HOLY SHIT! It was that Marty. The babe of a boy that I had loved for an entire year was right there before my eyes, except, he was a man now. And it was a little strange, but mostly incredibly awesome. I couldn’t resist, so I sent him an email. I figured he probably didn’t remember me, but what the hell, I wanted to say hello.
He did remember me. We did a little bit of catching up. In one of the emails, he mentioned that we went to junior high together. I thought he was wrong because surely, I would remember attending the same junior high as he did! But, junior high was the worst 2 years of my entire teenage life and apparently, I have blocked most of those two years from my memory to protect my delicate little heart from the pain. I searched for my “85” year book and found it. A couple of pages in, I found this:
marty
There was Marty, with my Totally Rad Signature Exclamation Point. (Bonus: me standing in the back of the rally with my blue trapper keeper!)
And it all came flooding back to me. We did attend the same junior high school and my crush continued for most of 7th grade, but apparently, he couldn’t read my mind, or my body language, which I’m sure was to run away every time I saw him because YOU CAN GET PREGNANT FROM JUST STANDING CLOSE TO BOYS! I guess Marty only liked girls who “were allowed to wear clothes that were in fashion.” or “allowed to shave their hairy legs.” or girls who “didn’t have to sit in the car in front of the school before school started and pray with their dads while their dads made them lift their hands and worship The Lord because YOU SHOULDN’T BE ASHAMED TO WORSHIP THE LORD IN FRONT OF YOUR FRIENDS.”
Anyway.
We emailed back and forth a couple of times and did a little catching up. It was exciting and fun– it always is when you reconnect with someone who you adored in your past. It’s nice to know after all of these years that he’s had a good life and that he’s just as artistic, funny, smart as I remember him being 25 years ago
P.S.[Little Voice]He’s still a total babe[/Little Voice]

Thoughts on The Day After the Day After Christmas

For the first time in days, the house is completely silent.
Ah, peace and quiet.
Pighunter left with a friend for the afternoon. G is taking her afternoon nap. The boys are in Mexico, playing with a band for a church event.
Did you know that my boys are kick ass musicians? No? Oh, well then watch this.

I told you.
Also, I know. Enough with the videos already, right?
This Christmas is one of the best I’ve ever had. I can’t really explain why– it just was. There was no drama. It was all love, happiness, good food and Wii bowling.
Oh sweet God in Heaven– WII BOWLING!
I have no idea why I had never played it before. I mean, I have a Wii. I love my Wii. And yet I had never attempted to try Wii bowling. I confess, I thought it would be lame. But on Christmas, at my sister’s house, I discovered that it is NOT AT ALL LAME.
I can’t believe how much fun that stupid game is. I didn’t want to stop playing– mostly because I wanted to beat my Mom’s high score of 203 and couldn’t do it no matter how hard I tried. I became so obsessed that I got into it with my niece. I was all “I play winner!” And she was all “No, I do!” And I was all “NO. *I* do” and she was all “you already played, Auntie!” And I was all “So did you, little girl!” And she was all “But you played like 10 times!” And I was all “Oh yeah? Well you played like, 20 times, you big poopyface!”
Not a shining moment in my life, but dudes, have you played Wii bowling? If you have, then I know you understand why it was necessary for me to stoop to that level with an 8 year old.
So, yeah. Christmas was nice.
What about yours?
Rainy Christmas Night

Happy Happy! Merry Merry!

It’s the night before Christmas and I still have Christmas shopping to do, cards to write and mail, cookies to bake and presents to wrap.
I am good at planning!
Because from this moment on I will not have a free second, I am going to wish you a Merry Christmas a day early. I wanted to record a Christmas song from my family to you, but I don’t always get what I want around here. The children wanted nothing to do with recording anything for the internet, but PigHunter was a good sport and agreed to sing with me. We tried. And thanks to our adorable children, we FAILED.
And yet, here we are. Singing to you and wishing you and your family a beautiful Christmas filled with love, joy and happy memories to last a lifetime.

You’re Welcome.
Bonus: Gabby and “Bolt” singing their favorite Christmas songs.


Happy Holidays

Because Christmas is About Winning!

I try to maintain my civility while out shopping. Especially in the days just before Christmas, when stores are filled with all of God’s Children who are so very full of love, joy, peace and patience. Even if I’m pissed off in the depths of my soul, I will smile and bite my tongue when you roll my foot over with your cart because you’re in a hurry and can’t be bothered to slow down OR say “sorry”. But at some point every year, as hard as I try to nice in the face of the jerks all around me, my Asshole Tolerance Level is pushed to the absolute max and I’ll lose it. That doesn’t mean I go crazy and start cutting people, it just means I’ll stop smiling and quite possibly ask you to BACK YOUR CART UP OFF OF MY TOES, YOU INCONSIDERATE DICK.

Last night at Target, I had HAD IT.

While I was making my way to the checkout with my cart FULL of stuff, a cartless woman was walking towards me. I made the assumption that since she did not have a cart or anything in her hands, she would politely step to the side so that I wouldn’t have to steer my cart (full of stuff) to the side. You know, the way people who are not assholes do. So, I kept walking in the same direction.

But so did she.

And as she got closer, I realized that the woman had no intention on stepping aside so that I could get by. Even though there was plenty of room for her cart-less ass to do so! She was going to stay the course and make me move out of HER way. I know that I could have simply moved my cart and been done with it, but I was taking a stand man.

Because it wasn’t bad enough that she wasn’t going to step to the side so I could get by, she was staring right in my face as she was approaching– she was giving me The Finger with her ugly face!

Finally, we met face to face. I stopped my cart and she stopped walking. We both stopped and stared at each other in some ridiculous game of assholery. Realizing she was going to stand her ground, I said “EX-CUUUSE ME” in the bitchiest tone possible. She snarled her lip at me, sighed loudly…And stepped aside.

It was beautiful.

I Think I Always Will

I opened up the mailbox and peeked inside. I immediately recognized the handwriting on the small white envelope. Normally, I would have tore the envelope open right away and the names written in the shaky handwriting would have brought a smile to my face.
Not today. Today I brought it inside, set it on the counter. I walked past it, glancing it over throughout the day. I couldn’t bring myself to open it.
Until just now.
A single name, written at the bottom of the card.
Grandma.
Just Grandma.
And it hit me all over again like a fist to the gut.
He’s gone.
Forever.
And for the first time in a long time, I cried. And cried. And still cry even now.
I miss him so much.
I miss my Grandpa.