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.