A Day at the Beach

Hope y'all had a Merry Christmas. We sure did.

Happy Christmas

Guys George gave you his heart and you GAVE IT AWAY

Hats off

Oh hai friends! Here's a little tip to keeping slidey hats from falling off while you're out and about - put on an elastic headband underneath. And violà! Now when you bend over to pick up your little Simon, your hat won't fall on him. Not that he ever seems to mind.

Also: please ignore the ugly site reference in the corner of my GIF. I have a baby, which means little time to actually utilize a tutorial on creating my own GIF but plenty of time to plug pictures into a site that'll just generate one for me. And apparently plenty of time for taking the artsy photos of myself to be used in the GIF. Hypocrite, I know, I know.

Baby It's Weird Outside

Sometimes I just want safe things. Safe like Old Navy, Starbucks, or shows on the CW. Safe, normal, acceptable things. My nephew's football games, Green Eggs & Ham, Pottery Barn. Acoustic songs by heartbroken British men.Things that, for whatever reason, I've considered safe and normal ever since I was a kid. Things I felt I had to like in order to be liked and well received.

But sometimes I want dark and weird. Edgar Allan Poe dark and Tom Waits weird. Witch Baby from the Weetzie Bat series, Rei Kawakubo dresses, bad quality lomo photos with the flash on, lipstick that's too dark. And wolves. Gosh dang I love wolves.

After admitting YA as a guilty pleasure in my previous post, I'd like to now admit that I prefer the creepy things to the normal things. Though, uh, those of you who know me well probably already knew that.

What are your guilty pleasures?

O Henry

Seve and I really love the name Henry. We talk about using it for another boy, but the name has risen so quickly in popularity that I'd rather not use it anymore. I don't want my son to have to suffer through being one of 8 kids who turns around every time their name is hollered down a hallway. I know the feeling because my real name isn't Jules, it's one of those hallway multiple-head turners. To the question "what's in a name? Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?" I say no, because my life changed the day I started going by Jules. I was suddenly less forgettable, suddenly thought of as quirky and cool, suddenly taken more seriously in job interviews. This rose smelled sweeter once it changed its name.

On the other hand, we plan to stay away from names that are too unique. Seve is named such because he is his father's seventh son, but everyone just seems to think he's a Steve who consistently forgets his "t."

I just finished a book for my Harlequin Teen Reader Panel about a modern day twist on Greek mythology where the dark and mysterious Hades is now the dark and modern Henry. Is anyone else a closet YA fan?  After a long session with Mr. Franzen I like to balance the weight by wrapping myself in a more frilly read, but lately my YA has just been so much fun I don't care to read anything else. I'm trying to more readily embrace my guilty pleasures by eliminating their guilt and just reveling in their pleasure, and I regret not joining some club or group earlier in my youth that celebrates the "issue" novel and has My So-Called Life marathons. Anyone care to start a club? You-know-what is on Instant Queue.

Tree Farm & My Boys

This camera has been fun but boy am I ready for Santa to surprise me with a little sumpin' sumpin' this year.

We got the most fabulous Christmas tree from this farm. It's nice to have an apartment that will actually fit one. It's full and beautiful and Simon himself picked it out (with the help of Pop and Uncle Ben - third picture). And that ghostly one at the end is Simon's first visit to Santa.

In other news, Seve and I are scouring the country for our next big move. So far we've found opportunities in Memphis, Baltimore, Dallas, and the-middle-of-nowhere Oregon. Where to go, where to go?

I don't have Instagram, I have Vignette for Android

There are so many things I've been excited to blog about: the Christmas tree farm and the beautiful tree we got, Simon's first visit to Santa, the ugly sweater party we had last night, the possible places we could be moving for Seve's new job . . . there's just so much and I'm too overwhelmed to document it all, but you know, in a good way.

Growing up, I was a total Scrooge when it came to Christmas. I hated winter and missed the fall, I hated the combo of red and green, I hated carols, I hated Jingle All The Way . . . I hated what I called "Santa Christmas" and was "that girl" when it came to complaining about the real "reason for the season." I promised myself that no kid of mine was going to grow up with Santa, at all. It was the semester I spent abroad in China that changed my mind. Aside from already missing family, the roommates I had loved all things Christmas and built a fireplace out of construction paper and hung stockings for each of us when the season rolled around. It was so . . . magical, I don't know. There was plenty of "Santa Christmas" in China (Wham's Last Christmas played in every shop we went into), so it wasn't missing its absence that changed my mind about it. I think I just finally came into my own during that time and lost some of my uptight-ness. Anyway, having a family now makes Christmas that much more magical as I can't wait to share it all with Simon. Santa and all.

Thank You Ancestors

Seve and I spent a lovely Thanksgiving with Simon's uncle listening to Indian flute music, cooking a whole chicken in a wok, stomping around a Christmas tree farm, napping in book stores, and eating scones at a local Mom'n'Pop breakfast joint instead of shopping on Black Friday. We apparently missed the Occupy Boise "consumer zombies" limping around the local mall. Bummer.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here's Wednesday Addams

and the Blood I Bleed

When I first heard this Animal Collective cover, I thought it was cute, but wasn't eager to download it. But now that life is a happy mix of just me and "my boys," I love to sing it to Simon as a lullaby. The cover is by Taken by Trees, the solo project of Victoria Bergsman (that girl who sang about not caring about the young folks with Peter Bjorn and John).

I know that for some, Animal Collective is that band with the freaky alien music video, but their latest album had a lot of beautiful lyrics, including this song about putting aside materialism, providing for your loved ones, and realizing what really matters in life and what you really need.

There isn't much that I feel I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
With a little Guy, and by my spouse
I only want a proper house


I don't care for fancy things
Or to take part in the freshest wave
But to provide for mine who ask
I will, with heart, on my father's grave


I don't mean to seem like I care about material things
Like a social status
I just want four walls and adobe slats for my boys

Yesteryear Demons

My mother-in-law recently left town and I miss her very much.

I always forget to take pictures of my outings, like Simon's first trip to the zoo and the so-so vegan restaurant Seve and I went to over the weekend (the smoothies were lukewarm. Like the Bible verse, I wanted to spit). But here's some shots of Simon's first bookstore, the Yesteryear Shoppe in downtown. We've been a few more times since and I'm quite sure he doesn't like it - he always fusses when we go, and instead seems to prefer the bookstore next door, Twice Told Tales. Perhaps there are demons in Yesteryear that only a keen innocent soul can sense? Or maybe it's just smelly.

On a not-related note, I'm finally getting a DSLR. Good friends, what cameras do you use, and are you happy with them? I'm buying used and currently looking at the entry level Nikon D3000 and a 50 mm f/1.8 lens. Thoughts? I want fuzzier backgrounds.

Sleepyhead

Today was exhausting.

How about you?

Reddy Freddy

Seve and I can always tell whose soda is whose because mine's the one with lipstick all over it. I know the blogger's red lipstick of choice is MAC's Ruby Woo, but I prefer red-orange to red-pink so I'm all about MAC's So Chaud. Also, my search for the perfect red nail lacquer has finally come to a delightful end: Nina Ultra Pro's Red Fox.

Also, has anyone seen The Red Shoes? Great film.

It's Never Too Early to Introduce Your Son to Neil Gaiman

Simon and I just finished The Graveyard Book, his very first novel. Of course I also have some picture books lined up for him, Where the Wild Things Are and whatnot, but I was excited for this particular book to be his first read, or "read to by his mother," to be accurate.

Simon's other firsts:

First song: "True Love Will Find You In The End," Daniel Johnston
First movie: Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog (that he seemed to watch, anyway . . . the first movie put on our television after he was born was Overboard)
First store: Target (yeah.)
First restaurant: A&W (root beer YUM . . . maybe this doesn't count until he eats at the restaurant?)
First laugh: playing with Uncle Ben
First time to roll over: Last Thursday while I was trying to get a picture of him in his bear hat that's so large on him it looks more like a viking hat
First smile: At the hospital (Doctors say it's just gas but I say NO)
First illness: Staph infection at 2 weeks old . . . awful

Also, on a reading related note: is it cool to hate reading now? With the kids, I mean? Seve says more than half of the students he works with have declared a hatred for reading. I understand that sometimes when a kid struggles with reading it's easy to just say you hate it, but it seems I'm running into kids who are embarrassed to admit they read and that it's uncool to read at all. My niece is hesitant to admit she reads anything outside of a school assignment. When I was a youngin' it was cool to say that you could spend "hours at Barnes & Noble" whether you enjoyed reading or not, because appearing smart was the way to be. Is it lame to be smart these days? If so, then I hope Simon will be mega lame.

Writing that last paragraph suddenly made me feel very old.

The Six-Stride Living Room

I have yet to blog about our new place. Seve and I were so batty about our old one we were convinced this one would only be subpar, but that's because we were so pretentiously in love with our 100-yr-old building, rock wall, balcony, and sage green paint job with black wood paneling. Our new place is one of those white paint with white wall-to-wall carpet affairs, a kind of place I never wanted to live in.  "Too cookie-cutter," I said. But then I was introduced to the six-stride living room.

Our old place had a two-to-three-stride living room, depending on how long your legs were. It took you less than two seconds to be in the kitchen from the couch because the quarters were so cramped, and if you were ambitious a giant leap would have you in front of the oven from the loveseat in no time. We had no room for a coffee table, and when we added our bookcase the room suddenly resembled a storage unit.

Our new place requires quite the journey to get from one end to the other. We have room for three coffee tables if we really wanted to be impractical and revel in the new amount of space we own. I often walk back and forth making wide circles in our living room and enjoy the rigorous workout it gives me. I never knew how much happiness a pile of empty, clean space could give me. Vacuuming has suddenly become a real chore and the cord isn't long enough to take care of the whole room, I have to move from one outlet to another to completely suck the dust and dead skin cells that have accumulated in our six-stride living room. Which often isn't much because there isn't enough Seve and Jules and Simon to dirty up the place. Making a mess that would completely cover the floor area would require me to dump our entire bookshelf onto the floor. In fact, we've purchased a second bookshelf and  a TV stand to ensure messes are properly made when things tumble over and no part of the six-stride living room is left untouched. We even have an entry table.

We also have a laundry room. A separate entity from the rest of the apartment with its own four walls and entryway just across from the bathroom with a washer and dryer in it. With a washer and dryer in it. That's pure poetry right there, no quarters required.