June 6, 2009

Today is typically our family day, but Toby had to fill in for one of the other artists today. Saturday is not usually a school day for us either so Summer and I decided to make it a girl day. A girl day to us usually entails doing what we want, spending what we want, and eating what we want without any male interference.

Our first stop was Big Lots. I love Big Lots. I was prepared to spend a little money but nothing struck my fancy. Isn't funny how when you have money to spend you can't find anything to buy, but when you are strapped everything in the store calls your name??

Our next stop was Half Price Books, a popular book store here in Austin. Summer is participating in their Summer reading program so we went redeem her form and pick out a couple books. I also wanted to look for myself while we were there, but I spent most of my time trying to help her figure out what she wanted....which is not an easy task.

After the book store we stopped and ate at Chik-fi-la. Mmmmm....always good. While we were taking our break and eating, Summer pointed out how she had seen so many kids with glasses on. Good observation on her part. I didn't notice until she pointed it out, there were a lot of kids out today with glasses on....

After we ate we headed to the dreaded Walmart. I hardly ever step foot into Walmart since we have moved to Texas. There are too many other shopping options. I needed a new bra though and Walmart was convenient to my location at the time.

Bra's are something that I consider a luxury. I will wear one for years. I hate spending money on something that no one ever sees...besides hubby that is, and he certainly doesn't care what my bra looks like despite what Victoria Secret says. Anyway, as long as it still fits I will wear them out. So when I say I need a bra, I really needed a bra. I actually bought a couple of bras. I'm sure this is to much information for some, but it was part of my day so I included it.

When we got home we chilled out a while and ate a snack. After I was rested a little from our shopping spree, I decided that I would puree all the veggies I bought at the store yesterday. Summer helped. I was dreading it 'cause I knew it would be time consuming and tedious. Just for your information, the reason I am pureeing veggies is so I can sneak them into my very picky daughters meals. I'm not sure if she figured that out yet. She just thought it was fun. We will see how well this trick works out.

Later on in the evening, the kids wanted to get under the sprinkler on this very hot afternoon. It's amazing what will entertain kids. I don't even know why we even buy toys. Look how well a sheet, a sprinkler, and a trampoline can entertain kids....



Just one last tidbit. The other day I was looking for Brandi. She's small and has a bad habit of "hiding" from us. She likes to be left alone to sleep peacefully and usually does not "answer" unless she thinks there is something in it for her.

Here is where I finally located her...sandwiched in between Toby's pillows in our bed. All you could see was her little nose sticking out while she totally ignored our calls. Bad dog.

Considered Ho Hum

Yes, that is what my week has been like...ho hum. I missed my weekly playdate because of Summer's illness. Yes, I call it my playdate as well. Any parent that is with their child 24/7 is definitely worthy of some adult conversation from time to time.

Not that hubby doesn't give adult conversation...well his is more like adult interaction if you know what I mean. Just one more person on my list of "things to do" and people to "satisfy".

So we have just kinda hung out around the house. Thank God I find comfort in my home and entertain myself easily, otherwise my wandering spirit would go insane. After a year and half I still have many things that I have yet to explore in this wonderful city and it's surrounding areas and I am not getting any younger.

There is really not much to post about. Here are just a few pics to occupy you until I have something more entertaining to write about.

A beautiful backyard sunset...



Summer entertaining herself blowing bubbles.



The neighbors pup, Chloe. Chloe spends most of her time in our yard gnawing up anything she can find and trampling through my flower beds. :-/



Toby doing what he loves best..yardwork.



Summer setting Philipe straight about something or another.



Another beautiful backyard sunset. I have never seen such beautiful sunsets as I have here in Texas. Not even the beautiful beach sunsets have them beat.

Sugar Culprits and Other Ingredient Demons

Recently one morning Toby and I were watching the Ellen show before he left for work. One of our favorite authors, Wayne Dyer was a guest on the her show. He was speaking about how he had lost a good bit of weight just by cutting sugar out of his diet. He set himself a limit of 25g of sugar per day.

Being a naturally thinner person, that is up until I hit 40 when I got the "middle age spread", I never paid attention to things like fat, sugar, calories, etc. I could eat whatever I wanted and never gain a pound. Even now, I don't gain weight very easily. You can say it's one of the very few qualities that I was born with that I now appreciate.

So anyway, Toby took Dyer's suggestion of cutting out sugar in his diet. After only a couple of weeks of limiting his sugar intake he has lost 7 lbs. Trying to help him about a bit, I have kept my eye on the sugar in the food that we buy. Some of it is unbelievable. Things you wouldn't think have sugar..e.g. milk, canned tomatoes. Some things have outrageous amounts of sugar in them..e.g. a coke and an ice cream cone.

Not long ago, we learned that partially hydrogenated oil in products was a big NO NO. Almost everything on the shelf includes this particular ingredient. It's so hard to eat healthy these days with all the processed, quick and easy meals out there. Healthy food is also more expensive so when you are on a grocery budget as most of us everyday folk are, it's even harder. It's amazing what greed and laziness has even done to our food supply.

I have been trying to pay closer attention to labels now also for Summer's sake. It's obviously very easy for bad eating habits to creep in. When Summer was younger we could get her to eat anything..or at least try it. It wasn't until that day that she got a taste of the sweet stuff (I'm sure it came from her sugar crazy older brother) that she started turning her nose up at healthy meals and snacks. It's really hard to find something healthy that she likes to eat these days. I don't keep sweets in the house at all because if I did she would want to eat them morning, noon, and night. She is such a finicky eater that I have to supplement her diet with vitamins.

Since we have got back from Alabama in August '08, she has been nothing but sick. A cold here, a virus there. Every month since we have returned we have encountered an illness every couple of weeks. Her abundant illnesses have ruined a few of our holidays and get togethers.

I was reading online for ways to boost a child's immune system. One was to remove the refined sugar from their diet. All this checking labels stuff is just going to make my already complicated grocery store trips even harder but it has to be done.

My goal for the year is to limit the refined sugar in our diet. Even if I have to end up paying more at the grocery store, my intention is to make this change in our eating habits for the better of the family. I have this feeling Summer is going to starve to death during this lifestyle change.

Wish me luck and if anyone has any healthy meal ideas my ears are open wide. :-)

Scorpions. What Next..Rattlesnakes?

When I got the wild hair to move out of Alabama I did my homework and found the perfect spot I wanted to relocate. Before I made my final decision I researched everything about Austin...climate, topography, ethnicity, economy, etc. It was perfect!

I have been living here for a year and a half now. One thing I never even thought about researching was the animal inhabitants. I figured if I could tolerate the huge tree roaches that inhabited Mobile's muggy climate then I could tolerate anything. By the way, I have an intense fear of large cockroaches and feel very blessed that I have not seen even one in my 1 1/2 here. I'm sure they are here...somewhere on the west side of Austin closer to the Hill Country, but not here on the edge of the Blackland Prairie.

Our first year here our yard introduced us to the scorpion. I had never in my whole life seen a real live scorpion, that is outside of a zoo or environmental center. Mind you, these are not the kind of scorpions that are huge, black and scary looking.

"Fortunately, none of the species in Texas are considered deadly. Stings from most of these species are about as painful as a bee or wasp sting, but the severity of the sting is dependent upon the individual scorpion and the person's reaction to the venom."

We have on occasion found these stinging creatures in the house. No big deal, we sort of have the live and let live attitude with creatures that aren't flying aimlessly around or eating holes into our food supply. When we find them we usually just shoo them out into the outside world to go on about their business.

I guess that's what we get for being nice. our attitude has turned around and 'stung" me in the butt. :-) For the past week yours truly has been stung not once, but twice! The first time I was awoken to the feel of some lightweight legs crawling on me. As I brushed it off in my half-awake state, I was stung on my finger.

Thank goodness I was half asleep and probably didn't get to experience the full extent of the sting. I awoke hubby abruptly and informed him that I had been stung. I don't know how I knew it was by a scorpion other than instinct. We searched the bed area and lo and behold there it was on Toby's pillow. We were still nice
and picked him gently up and threw him out the front door.

I figured this was just an isolated incident and promptly forgot about it after a couple of days. A few nights later I was awoken by the same stinging feel on my back. I obviously had rolled over and in self-defense it stung me. Again, I jumped up out of the bed flipping on lights to find the culprit. There he was planted in the middle of my bed as if he owned it. I think at this point, Toby decided to flush him.

Needless to say, I have a slight paranoia to me. Everything that slightly touches me I flinch and jerk waiting for the sting. Yes, I think that I may have to resort to measures that I would prefer not to in a world where everyone should cohabitate together.

I'm not sure how to co-exist peacefully with a creature that insist on crawling into my bed only to leave me with a harsh sting....

Any ideas???

Thought Provoking

Today Summer was playing with the little next door neighbor boy. I might add that she plays more with the little boy (Philipe) than she does with his sister who is her age.

Since birth Summer has always preferred to play with boys more than girls. I haven't figured out if it's because she has always been in contact with more male species than females or if it's that she figured out at a young age that it's easier to boss boys around.

Anyway, today they were in the house playing. Toby was watching a movie while he was drawing...Lost Boys. I have never seen the movie before nor do I care to. As the kids were running back and forth through the living room where Toby was watching the movie, a particular gory, violent part of the movie caught Philipe's attention.

Toby noticed that he was enthralled with the gory, violent movie part. Toby asked him if he was allowed to watch rated R movies. Philipe replied "yes" that he was. He then proceeded to tell Toby that he could watch any movie as long as it did not have "nasty stuff" in it. Toby then asked him what was considered "nasty stuff". Philipe replied, "you know, like kissing and stuff."

Toby brought their discussion up with me later. He found it odd that his mother would let her 7 yo boy watch murder, violence, and gore but found love, kissing, and sex to be taboo. Sadly, the poor kid is being taught that sex, kissing, and love is "nasty stuff." I bet he has never seen his mother naked either.....now we know what is wrong with a large percentage of our male society.

Why would it be o.k to let your already over aggressive 7 year old boy watch violence on T.V. and not love scenes??? What made violence o.k to watch but not sex???

Hmmmmm....not that I let my daughter watch too much of either, but if I were going to let her watch one or the other I think I would be more inclined to let her watch the one that involved kissing and the expression of love.

What do you think???

Talent

Myself not being blessed with any real talent to speak of, I have always been in awe of other people's God given natural abilities. In the past I have seen people waste their talents by doing things they really didn't want to just because it made more money....such a shame.

The first night I met my dear husband I knew he was a "body artist"...tattooist. It never made a rats poo to me. I have never been one to go for a man for how much he is worth financially...which is only evident in my past relationships. I only knew that he was an artist and glad that he was not sporting the stereotypical tattooist image.

Quite honestly I have never really paid that much attention to his artwork in our early years together. I knew it was good, but it was just a part of who he was. Artwork has always gone hand in hand with Toby. If he is not drawing on someone's body, he is drawing on paper.

A few years ago he started selling some of his artwork (flash) online. It takes months for him design and color a sheet of his work. It's tedious and time consuming and takes a lot more patience than I could ever conjure up.

The other day as I walked through the living room I caught a glimpse of a sheet of flash that he was working on. I was amazed at the line he is currently working on. I can't believe someone can do such great linework without tracing. All of his designs are original. I took a couple of pics that I'm sure will do them no justice, but will give you a general idea of some of the stuff he does while he is not at work permanently marking someone's body.

Here are some pieces that he is working on right now. This one is mostly ready to be submitted...



A tattoo chick I am not, even though my husband would love nothing more than using me as a human canvas. I am only sporting two from my younger days that can be hidden pretty well underneath clothing. At least I was smart enough to do that. If I ever did want to brave another tattoo on my old sagging skin, I really like the bird at the top right. If I was a religious person, the cross with wings is pretty cool too.

Here are a couple that he has only started the linework on....




There are a few more that he is currently working on. If you want to check out some of his other work go here.

For any of you that may have an obsession with "decorating your temple" and has plans to be in the Austin, Texas area, you can also check out some of his tattoos at Atomic Tattooing and Body Piercing.

Doing More Reading Than Writing!

I have always been a sucker for a good book...most any kind of book or reading material will do. Since taking up blog writing, book reading has been pushed to the back burner. Except for the occasional magazine, spiritual (weird books ) as my friend use to call them, I haven't picked up a good novel in a while.

Lately, not feeling very inspired to write I had been having a craving for a good book to curl up with. With all the other things on my to do list and having my daughter with me 24/7....who I might add does not share my love of reading, it is pretty hard to browse the book section at my local library or book store.

I like to browse peacefully. I don't like feeling the person with me, no matter who it might be, is tapping their foot waiting on me to make my selection. Which is certainly the way I feel every time Toby or Summer is with me, which is all the time.

My solution for my reading craving came through my fellow bloggers. I went through some of my favorite blog sites and randomly picked a few of their comments that appealed to me. I was totally enthralled with the content of a several of the blogs.

It's so much more personal when you are reading something that you know is real. A real person's life with real life thoughts, ideas, and situations.

I was also a little surprised to find that several were posting blogs about the same sort of things that I have thought about either currently or in the past. I guess we do really attract what we need at any moment and time that we are searching for and expecting it......manifestation.

I think I have had a long enough break and now am eager to get back on my blog wagon. See ya soon!