FInally, a new layout

I don't know why it's taken me so long to FINISH something; oh, yes, (A) very few Friday night crops in the last month, my 5-hour stretch to get stuff DONE and (B) been hard at work finishing an 8x8 mini-album of favorite photos from Ben's first year (still have to do the journaling on that one before it's ready for its close-up).

Becky Higgins has been a real inspiration of late; this layout is one of her sketches, and the First Year Favorites album was totally her schematic (scroll down to near the end of that entry and you'll get a taste of what Ben's album looks like. Very, very, VERY similar...).

You know, I was just kicking away toys after I put the kids to bed, and I had the funniest recollection. I was remembering a manuscript that came in to the publishing house where I used to work. It was cute, all about a kid who imagined his parents playing with his toys after he went to bed. Not sure why we didn't publish it...oh yeah, a senior editor with serious procrastination issues, and the story probably had a flat ending (the fate of many of the unsolicited manuscripts we received).

Not long after we turned the manuscript down, I saw an episode of Growing Pains (remember when they brought a little kid into the show, long after it had jumped the shark, to try and improve ratings?!) where the young boy goes to bed and imagines the older Seavers...playing with his toys.

Nothing new on the earth, I'm telling ya.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Make a slide show, scrapbook, or ecard

There's FIVE pages to this; it freezes up my computer every time. If you're patient, you should (eventually) get a play arrow to move around the "layouts."

At least the music is pretty.

Oh deer.

Oh deer.
Originally uploaded by CreativeExile

So this is what greeted me this morning as I headed out of town. This is the same sports establishment that has a "live bait" vending machine out at the curb all summer long (refrigerated, of course. I've always wanted to see someone stop, thinking it's a pop machine, then drive off when they realize what it is...of course, the giant LIVE BAIT across the front kind of gives it away).

Every year when I first spot this, I do a double take. The first time I ever saw it, I was about 2 blocks away before it registered in my head. Then I was like..."wait...did I just see...what?!"

So far Tess hasn't noticed them. She did one year and I think I gave a lame excuse like, "oh, they're just stuffed deer for display." Brilliant, I know.

These poor guys were looking a little less deflated when I first passed them this morning. I caught this shot (sorry) on the way home after heading out to Chelsea for MOPS this morning. My least favorite sight is a buck with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Eeeww.

I live in such a klassy town.

PR Countdown!

You know where I'll be at 10p tonight.

Laughter is the best medicine

Wouldn't you know, I got my first-ever ear infection...from my little guy. He had 102-degree fevers last weekend, and completely lost his balance by Sunday. E took him to Urgent Care that afternoon and sure enough, the two ears that the nurse practitioner saw on Friday and thought "looked a little red, maybe from the crying" (because we had to wait in the examining room for 45 minutes, and he had a FEVER?!) were really quite infected.

My left ear has been ringing for about a week and a half (somebody answer that! ba-dump-bump (sorry)), so maybe I had it first. But after three nights of coughing and that long for an earache, I finally got myself (fancy that!) to the doctor's today. Cough syrup, real good ole fashioned CODEINE, whooo!

So, this is what is making me laugh myself better. Nothing like some seriously ugly time-warp clothes to cheer you up. Beats the old Playboys we found in our house, back in 1978, under the cabinet of our bathroom. Vintage porn, that just wouldn't be right to blog about, now, would it? Clothing to get your ass kicked in is much, much funnier.

Bubble Tea

Bubble Tea
Originally uploaded by CreativeExile

Aaaack! My old Minolta Dimage camera takes crap pictures. At least I readily found the cable to connect it to my computer (moving...bah...I have lost an entire box of quilting books, BTW...grr). I had pictures on it from August. It runs out of battery power within 20 minutes of recharging. But, it's tiny, so I always have it with me. For moments like this.

Tess has recently switched loyalty from Nickelodeon to the Disney channel (yay, no more Dora! boo, annoying hyper Doodlebops).

Anyway, we are now big fans of the This is Emily Yeung (formerly hosted by/known as the This Is Daniel Cook) shorts, wherein a very smart and precocious 6 year old host explores something new in each mini-episode (10 minutes? 8?). This week Emily made a mask in one and her own flavor of bubble tea in another.

I told Tess that there was a place in Ann Arbor that serves bubble tea, and man, she was all over that. I have always been curious about it myself, and once I found out the "bubbles" were pearls of tapioca, I was game. I love me some tapioca.

We went to TK WU on Liberty (a longer walk than I remembered from my usual Washington Street parking structure) and had a watermelon green tea with milk.

I wish I'd thought of taking a picture of the lid. Very Japanese (even though we were in a Chinese restaurant...a VERY GOOD Chinese restaurant. Check it out sometime), cute, with a little girl and a bunny.

Tess took a couple of sips but the milk was rice milk (I'm pretty sure) and she's not a big fan; it was very sweet so I'm surprised she didn't care for it. She did finish up the last few sips later on, so maybe she did like it after all. Just not *that much* of one.

Oh, hey, I just got a notice that I won a drawing for entering my layout over here (totally random drawing, so it's not like I did better than all the other ladies there...who were WAY more fantastic than little ole me) Check out the little dude doing the drawing. Adam rocks!

Oh, and I finally got my invitation for Ravelry (actually, that was pretty quick...about a month, compared to some folks waiting 3+ months). Fun, fun, fun. I'm CreativeExile over there if you're looking for me, although I don't have much going in the knitting department right now. Too much drama over family Thanksgiving going on, but, more on that later. Maybe. It's too depressing to talk about right now.

See ya next month...

Looks like I'll be participating again this year...



..as "Creative Exile."
Nothing like a last-minute decision.
I'm getting famous for those! :D

Hey, it's free!