This is how Ant works:
All evening he's been a giant pest. Sarcastic and argumentative, pushing my limits and every other available boundary. He argued about anything he could think of. It went like this for the last four hours, from dropping Chris off to the grocery store and through our walk. I was done- completely ready to dangle him out the window- when he came into the living room. "I have a present for you," he said. "It came today."
He got me Mockingjay, the third and final book in the Hunger Games series. I read it because I'd heard so much about it and burned through it. I made him read the first book for one of those errant book reports last year. He ate it up and stole my Entertainment Weekly when the cover story was about the Hunger Games movie. I got the second book for my birthday and Ant ordered the third one right after that.
What a sweetheart. :D
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Oh look, a blog!
"I know how to make a bomb."
Ant was laying on the floor of the Pickle Parlor making boy noises when he suddenly offered that information. I looked at him with sunken eyebrows.
"I DO!" he said. "I learned it at school!"
Don't worry, apparently he's talking about a paper bomb made out of a post-it note, whatever the hell that means.
Chris and I looked at a house today and were so excited about it that we applied for it immediately. I am feeling very nervous, but I always do when we're about to hand over a bunch of money for anything. Eeeeee!
I went out to Topaz on Monday to pick Ant up- he came up to give me a hug and say hello, but when he came into the house he was really snotty. He was talking back, disobeying, and arguing with me over every possible thing. He started kicking his soccer ball around the house and I gave him a look. When he didn't stop I asked, "Really?"
"Yeah, really."
"Can you stop now?"
"No."
Okay, give me the ball. We left soon after and he pouted in the Dodge.
"You know, you take things away that you give to me, but I don't think it's fair for you to take things I've bought... or gotten... by myself."
HA HA HA HA HA H.. oh, I'm sorry. What were you saying? Yeah, that's really cute and all, but it doesn't work like that. And what was that "gotten" comment? It's not like I'm going to give your soccer ball to someone else- it's still YOURS- but you lose it when you act like a ding-dong and don't do what you're asked.
All this is obvious, but he was still surly and pissy and spitty and fuming. I kept interrogating him- yes, you are becoming a surly teenager, but why were you snotty upon walking in the door? We were almost to Carson City when he finally told me what was up. He showed me the hundred dollar bill in his wallet. At first I thought he was trying to distract me and then I realized that it was his answer. "YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE ME SPEND IT ON SOMETHING I DON'T WANT TO LIKE THE BANK!"
Oh, good grief. THIS is what you're flipping your lid over?
"Yeah... I didn't want to tell you about it, but I don't like keeping things from you, Jenny!"
Wowwwwwwwww. I'm gonna need a moment.
So I told him that we could talk about what to do with it, but I would be involved. He told me he wanted the iPod touch or a TracFone. As if. But we'll figure it out. I pointed out to him that while he didn't want me to know about it, he behaved like such a poopy pants that he ended up in trouble and suffering interrogation.
"Trrruuuuee," he said.
In other Ant news, last week he took some sort of math test.
"On what?" I asked.
"EVERYTHING."
"What does that mean?"
"Everything we've ever done! Ever! Our whole lives!"
Wow, I would fail that test. But he didn't. He and another girl got the highest grades in the class. And guess why? (Can you see me dancing over here?) We have been doing math together. When they go over a lesson in school he watches and thinks he understands how it works but can't repeat it later. We go over it again and iron out confusion and silly mistakes. So far our work at home has aligned with what they're doing in school and he has said many times that it's getting easier. YAY!!!! One of the problems he had was remembering his times tables. I got him some flash cards and he has been voluntarily working with those. We keep them in the car and randomly quiz him. We're teaching him the tricks with nines and just practicing, practicing, practicing. And it's paying off.
I told Dad about that and the $100. ($100! It was from Chris's uncle- the one who started giving Ant $100 Toys R Us gift cards when he found out I was making him save half.) Dad was also taken aback at how over the top that was, but he was really impressed with Ant not wanting to keep things from me and the math test.
"Awww," he said. "Jenny, take him to get an ice cream from me. Spoil his dinner!" So I did. He couldn't eat a lot of it so he put it in the freezer, where Chris found it and that was the end of that.
Ant was laying on the floor of the Pickle Parlor making boy noises when he suddenly offered that information. I looked at him with sunken eyebrows.
"I DO!" he said. "I learned it at school!"
Don't worry, apparently he's talking about a paper bomb made out of a post-it note, whatever the hell that means.
Chris and I looked at a house today and were so excited about it that we applied for it immediately. I am feeling very nervous, but I always do when we're about to hand over a bunch of money for anything. Eeeeee!
I went out to Topaz on Monday to pick Ant up- he came up to give me a hug and say hello, but when he came into the house he was really snotty. He was talking back, disobeying, and arguing with me over every possible thing. He started kicking his soccer ball around the house and I gave him a look. When he didn't stop I asked, "Really?"
"Yeah, really."
"Can you stop now?"
"No."
Okay, give me the ball. We left soon after and he pouted in the Dodge.
"You know, you take things away that you give to me, but I don't think it's fair for you to take things I've bought... or gotten... by myself."
HA HA HA HA HA H.. oh, I'm sorry. What were you saying? Yeah, that's really cute and all, but it doesn't work like that. And what was that "gotten" comment? It's not like I'm going to give your soccer ball to someone else- it's still YOURS- but you lose it when you act like a ding-dong and don't do what you're asked.
All this is obvious, but he was still surly and pissy and spitty and fuming. I kept interrogating him- yes, you are becoming a surly teenager, but why were you snotty upon walking in the door? We were almost to Carson City when he finally told me what was up. He showed me the hundred dollar bill in his wallet. At first I thought he was trying to distract me and then I realized that it was his answer. "YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE ME SPEND IT ON SOMETHING I DON'T WANT TO LIKE THE BANK!"
Oh, good grief. THIS is what you're flipping your lid over?
"Yeah... I didn't want to tell you about it, but I don't like keeping things from you, Jenny!"
Wowwwwwwwww. I'm gonna need a moment.
So I told him that we could talk about what to do with it, but I would be involved. He told me he wanted the iPod touch or a TracFone. As if. But we'll figure it out. I pointed out to him that while he didn't want me to know about it, he behaved like such a poopy pants that he ended up in trouble and suffering interrogation.
"Trrruuuuee," he said.
In other Ant news, last week he took some sort of math test.
"On what?" I asked.
"EVERYTHING."
"What does that mean?"
"Everything we've ever done! Ever! Our whole lives!"
Wow, I would fail that test. But he didn't. He and another girl got the highest grades in the class. And guess why? (Can you see me dancing over here?) We have been doing math together. When they go over a lesson in school he watches and thinks he understands how it works but can't repeat it later. We go over it again and iron out confusion and silly mistakes. So far our work at home has aligned with what they're doing in school and he has said many times that it's getting easier. YAY!!!! One of the problems he had was remembering his times tables. I got him some flash cards and he has been voluntarily working with those. We keep them in the car and randomly quiz him. We're teaching him the tricks with nines and just practicing, practicing, practicing. And it's paying off.
I told Dad about that and the $100. ($100! It was from Chris's uncle- the one who started giving Ant $100 Toys R Us gift cards when he found out I was making him save half.) Dad was also taken aback at how over the top that was, but he was really impressed with Ant not wanting to keep things from me and the math test.
"Awww," he said. "Jenny, take him to get an ice cream from me. Spoil his dinner!" So I did. He couldn't eat a lot of it so he put it in the freezer, where Chris found it and that was the end of that.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Poor Planning
It's 10 a.m. and I've had maybe five hours of sleep. The boys are asleep and will probably sleep for several more hours. I need to write so I don't kill either one of them.
You know, the hard part is figuring out how much backstory you need. Probably none, so
Yesterday, Chris took Ant with him to work. He needed to check wiring and fix stuff, move heavy objects, etc. Ant was with him for many hours and it was past dinnertime when he was ready for the show. When I picked Ant up, Chris told me that he'd worked really hard and had been seriously rewarded. Spoiled, even. Oh, wonderful. Rewards in this family tend to be extravagant. Sure enough, Ant told me all about what he got before we turned around to go home.
He said after dinner he got this huge dessert that was also really rich. He said Chris only had one bite so he had to finish the whole thing by himself. "I almost threw up like four times!" he said. Oh, how wonderful! Then he told me Chris had paid him too, almost thirty dollars! This is the point where I was ready to drive into a tree. Unfortunately, we were downtown and there were no trees.
Maybe I'm being a cheapskate. Am I being a cheapskate? Or is $30 a lot? I feel like it's overkill. Whatever, it was done, and I tried to make peace with it. We stopped at the dog park so give the girls some exercise, then we went home. I made Mike's birthday cookies and Ant read the first page out of the U.S. Presidents workbook I bought him at Target.
"I got you something, but you're not going to like it," I said.
He was understandably wary, but upon flipping through it he said, "Oh, this won't be too bad." Aww. See, this is important because I need to see good things right now. He read the first page and told me what he already knew and what he learned. There were two puzzles on the page and we found out that George Washington was a surveyor. I had him look that up and then we looked up pictures of the damage to the Washington Monument. I was worried that I was going overboard as usual, but then he asked me if that wasn't across from the Lincoln thing is. He knew that was where Martin Luther King, Jr. "did that little speech."
"Big speech," I said. "There were tons of people there."
"Yeah," he said. "Like 7,000."
I assured him it was many more than that. "Look it up!" he said. "I'm right if it's anything between 700 to 7,000."
He wanted to look it up! Of course, he only wanted to prove he was right, or close, but he wanted to look it up! We found that it was over 200,000. He thought that was close enough to count and said he was only like 13,000 off. I led him to the whiteboard and we did the math problem.
"Oh."
So after that he went off to bed and I finished up with the cookies, cleaned the kitchen and started picking up around the house. I think it was somewhere around 1 that I heard Ant groaning. He has vocal dreams sometimes so I put the TV on mute to listen. If it was a dream it was pretty awful, so I went to check it out. He was awake and suffering from a terrible stomachache.
I got my symptoms book because even though I was reasonably sure it was the dessert talking back, I didn't want to be wrong and miss something important. I checked his temperature first and in the hallway just outside his room I saw an enormous ant. I trapped it in a cup and went to ask him where it hurt. He showed me his belly and I saw no marks but I went to look up types of ants anyway. Chris came home, we consulted with each other and gave Ant some Pepto.
Chris laid down with Ant for a while and checked his temperature again. This is where I'll admit to horrible stepmother issues. I felt supremely annoyed, not only that this was likely the result of Chris giving him some huge, rich dessert, but I worried that Chris would fall asleep in Ant's room and never come to bed. Yes, Ant was legitimately feeling horrible and he wasn't the one responsible and he's only a kid. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but that's how I felt. If I can host my own pity party, I go to bed by myself many nights and here I'd stayed up, he was home, and I was still going to bed alone. This is ridiculous, I know. But when people tell me that I might as well be his mom, this is where it gets into very gray areas. I responded to him immediately, I did the best I could to accurately diagnose his problem, and tried to make him more comfortable. I remembered a night when I crawled up two flights of stairs in horrible pain. When I got to Mom, she told me it was probably gas and I should go drink some Pepto. I knew that was likely Ant's problem, but I tried to look at symptoms only. It would be awful if he'd been bitten or was suffering from appendicitis and I just gave him Pepto and sent him back to bed. I am missing something instinctive here, and I'm trying to think through the problem. When Chris got home, he laid down with Ant and cuddled him, something that never occurred to me. I'm not sure it would, as his room is smelly. Sounds heartless, right? I went in with the heat sock and watched Chris remove the thermometer from Ant's mouth, read it, wipe it on Ant's pillowcase, and stick it in his own mouth to make sure it was working right. I would not do that.
Now, Chris will share my toothbrush if he can't find his. I would not. I am weird about sharing anyway, and with Chris I have come a long way. He and I share a lot, but it wasn't always that way. I really have to acknowledge this because it makes me feel bad that I can't do this stuff with Ant, but I have never really been able to share with anybody. I want my own pillowcase, not one someone else has slept on. I don't want to share my drink. It is not okay for you to take a bite of my sandwich. It's not that I don't like to share; I just don't want your cooties. With Chris, I have grown to not be bothered by these things. We always share drinks and he'll take bites of my sandwiches and it doesn't bother me, but it used to. When he uses my toothbrush I almost curl my lip but then I don't find myself grossed out so I move on. I don't know how many other people suffer from this problem, but I can't stand using a phone that someone else has been on and the earpiece is all warm. I can't stand using a mouse that's warm from someone else's hand. Maybe I'm related to Howard Hughes, but the point I'm trying to make to myself is that I actually can't stand this stuff with anybody, it just looks especially bad because I can share so much with Chris. Compared to him, I'm a germophobe with anyone else. More importantly, I feel obligated to be that physically close to Ant because I'm in that role. I should be able to get past the smell of his room, I should be able to smell his breath like Chris can. And I can't.
So the Pepto didn't seem to help and Ant threw up. He continued moaning and visiting the bathroom. I don't know how often, but it continued periodically until 5 a.m. Chris did come to bed only to leave again and again, but he did eventually stay. I expressed displeasure a few times last night and he took it pretty well. He told me that Ant hadn't finished his dinner but had ordered dessert and was already eating it before Chris could stop him. I can promise you that we have no strict clean plate policy-- if he says Ant didn't finish his dinner it means he barely touched it.
If I had been there, Ant would not have asked for dessert because he would know I would refer to his dinner. He wouldn't have dared to order it anyway because he would be in trouble and I would just take it away. Chris has a very hard time saying no to anyone, especially his kid. He decided that Ant would pay the price later, and boy did he. Chris often wants to encourage that result, a cause and effect approach, but is Ant really going to get that? I don't know, but it hardly seems like the best strategy. It doesn't help anyone to be up all night. None of us slept, and I'll admit it was not the most kindhearted moment at 3 when I suggested to Chris that Ant needed a tranquilizer dart. That earned me a hard look, but Chris did take the blame and got up to tend to Ant throughout the night until he went to sleep.
All of this is intended to get the anger out so I can get through the day. We're supposed to go spend it at Topaz to celebrate Mike's birthday and I'm so annoyed at the lack of consideration. Or maybe more accurately, the lack of foresight. The lack of assertiveness. There is a reason why Ant behaves so differently with Chris, and a reason why we can't go anywhere together. Today is going to need a lot of patience and tolerance because Elaine can't say no either. Even Mike spoils Ant, or tries to. It's hard to find room to spoil him sometimes. Today I'm going to give Ant a breakfast of toast and water and I'll be standing guard against any sweets or sodas, caffeinated or not. That's if I can even get them up and out the door. It's almost noon now. Elaine called at 10 and thought it might be a stomach bug that's going around. I think not. It's certainly possible, but the combination of a giant dessert and all afternoon in the heat is too likely to ignore. Plus, the upchucking eventually stopped. His body tried to get rid of it immediately, but he fought it down. It just came back later on when he was defenseless.
I am going to have to work hard to be kind today when I really want to throttle them both. Chris, of course, for letting him have that much and Ant for being so damn greedy. And both of them if they argue against going to Topaz. Ant can lay low, but Chris and I can certainly help Mike out with whatever he needs and bring him some goodies and good cheer for his birthday- something he certainly does for all of us. Wish me some strength to deter Elaine's excuses for her son and grandson and some patience and love to deal with the ones I love that I have no patience with.
You know, the hard part is figuring out how much backstory you need. Probably none, so
Yesterday, Chris took Ant with him to work. He needed to check wiring and fix stuff, move heavy objects, etc. Ant was with him for many hours and it was past dinnertime when he was ready for the show. When I picked Ant up, Chris told me that he'd worked really hard and had been seriously rewarded. Spoiled, even. Oh, wonderful. Rewards in this family tend to be extravagant. Sure enough, Ant told me all about what he got before we turned around to go home.
He said after dinner he got this huge dessert that was also really rich. He said Chris only had one bite so he had to finish the whole thing by himself. "I almost threw up like four times!" he said. Oh, how wonderful! Then he told me Chris had paid him too, almost thirty dollars! This is the point where I was ready to drive into a tree. Unfortunately, we were downtown and there were no trees.
Maybe I'm being a cheapskate. Am I being a cheapskate? Or is $30 a lot? I feel like it's overkill. Whatever, it was done, and I tried to make peace with it. We stopped at the dog park so give the girls some exercise, then we went home. I made Mike's birthday cookies and Ant read the first page out of the U.S. Presidents workbook I bought him at Target.
"I got you something, but you're not going to like it," I said.
He was understandably wary, but upon flipping through it he said, "Oh, this won't be too bad." Aww. See, this is important because I need to see good things right now. He read the first page and told me what he already knew and what he learned. There were two puzzles on the page and we found out that George Washington was a surveyor. I had him look that up and then we looked up pictures of the damage to the Washington Monument. I was worried that I was going overboard as usual, but then he asked me if that wasn't across from the Lincoln thing is. He knew that was where Martin Luther King, Jr. "did that little speech."
"Big speech," I said. "There were tons of people there."
"Yeah," he said. "Like 7,000."
I assured him it was many more than that. "Look it up!" he said. "I'm right if it's anything between 700 to 7,000."
He wanted to look it up! Of course, he only wanted to prove he was right, or close, but he wanted to look it up! We found that it was over 200,000. He thought that was close enough to count and said he was only like 13,000 off. I led him to the whiteboard and we did the math problem.
"Oh."
So after that he went off to bed and I finished up with the cookies, cleaned the kitchen and started picking up around the house. I think it was somewhere around 1 that I heard Ant groaning. He has vocal dreams sometimes so I put the TV on mute to listen. If it was a dream it was pretty awful, so I went to check it out. He was awake and suffering from a terrible stomachache.
I got my symptoms book because even though I was reasonably sure it was the dessert talking back, I didn't want to be wrong and miss something important. I checked his temperature first and in the hallway just outside his room I saw an enormous ant. I trapped it in a cup and went to ask him where it hurt. He showed me his belly and I saw no marks but I went to look up types of ants anyway. Chris came home, we consulted with each other and gave Ant some Pepto.
Chris laid down with Ant for a while and checked his temperature again. This is where I'll admit to horrible stepmother issues. I felt supremely annoyed, not only that this was likely the result of Chris giving him some huge, rich dessert, but I worried that Chris would fall asleep in Ant's room and never come to bed. Yes, Ant was legitimately feeling horrible and he wasn't the one responsible and he's only a kid. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but that's how I felt. If I can host my own pity party, I go to bed by myself many nights and here I'd stayed up, he was home, and I was still going to bed alone. This is ridiculous, I know. But when people tell me that I might as well be his mom, this is where it gets into very gray areas. I responded to him immediately, I did the best I could to accurately diagnose his problem, and tried to make him more comfortable. I remembered a night when I crawled up two flights of stairs in horrible pain. When I got to Mom, she told me it was probably gas and I should go drink some Pepto. I knew that was likely Ant's problem, but I tried to look at symptoms only. It would be awful if he'd been bitten or was suffering from appendicitis and I just gave him Pepto and sent him back to bed. I am missing something instinctive here, and I'm trying to think through the problem. When Chris got home, he laid down with Ant and cuddled him, something that never occurred to me. I'm not sure it would, as his room is smelly. Sounds heartless, right? I went in with the heat sock and watched Chris remove the thermometer from Ant's mouth, read it, wipe it on Ant's pillowcase, and stick it in his own mouth to make sure it was working right. I would not do that.
Now, Chris will share my toothbrush if he can't find his. I would not. I am weird about sharing anyway, and with Chris I have come a long way. He and I share a lot, but it wasn't always that way. I really have to acknowledge this because it makes me feel bad that I can't do this stuff with Ant, but I have never really been able to share with anybody. I want my own pillowcase, not one someone else has slept on. I don't want to share my drink. It is not okay for you to take a bite of my sandwich. It's not that I don't like to share; I just don't want your cooties. With Chris, I have grown to not be bothered by these things. We always share drinks and he'll take bites of my sandwiches and it doesn't bother me, but it used to. When he uses my toothbrush I almost curl my lip but then I don't find myself grossed out so I move on. I don't know how many other people suffer from this problem, but I can't stand using a phone that someone else has been on and the earpiece is all warm. I can't stand using a mouse that's warm from someone else's hand. Maybe I'm related to Howard Hughes, but the point I'm trying to make to myself is that I actually can't stand this stuff with anybody, it just looks especially bad because I can share so much with Chris. Compared to him, I'm a germophobe with anyone else. More importantly, I feel obligated to be that physically close to Ant because I'm in that role. I should be able to get past the smell of his room, I should be able to smell his breath like Chris can. And I can't.
So the Pepto didn't seem to help and Ant threw up. He continued moaning and visiting the bathroom. I don't know how often, but it continued periodically until 5 a.m. Chris did come to bed only to leave again and again, but he did eventually stay. I expressed displeasure a few times last night and he took it pretty well. He told me that Ant hadn't finished his dinner but had ordered dessert and was already eating it before Chris could stop him. I can promise you that we have no strict clean plate policy-- if he says Ant didn't finish his dinner it means he barely touched it.
If I had been there, Ant would not have asked for dessert because he would know I would refer to his dinner. He wouldn't have dared to order it anyway because he would be in trouble and I would just take it away. Chris has a very hard time saying no to anyone, especially his kid. He decided that Ant would pay the price later, and boy did he. Chris often wants to encourage that result, a cause and effect approach, but is Ant really going to get that? I don't know, but it hardly seems like the best strategy. It doesn't help anyone to be up all night. None of us slept, and I'll admit it was not the most kindhearted moment at 3 when I suggested to Chris that Ant needed a tranquilizer dart. That earned me a hard look, but Chris did take the blame and got up to tend to Ant throughout the night until he went to sleep.
All of this is intended to get the anger out so I can get through the day. We're supposed to go spend it at Topaz to celebrate Mike's birthday and I'm so annoyed at the lack of consideration. Or maybe more accurately, the lack of foresight. The lack of assertiveness. There is a reason why Ant behaves so differently with Chris, and a reason why we can't go anywhere together. Today is going to need a lot of patience and tolerance because Elaine can't say no either. Even Mike spoils Ant, or tries to. It's hard to find room to spoil him sometimes. Today I'm going to give Ant a breakfast of toast and water and I'll be standing guard against any sweets or sodas, caffeinated or not. That's if I can even get them up and out the door. It's almost noon now. Elaine called at 10 and thought it might be a stomach bug that's going around. I think not. It's certainly possible, but the combination of a giant dessert and all afternoon in the heat is too likely to ignore. Plus, the upchucking eventually stopped. His body tried to get rid of it immediately, but he fought it down. It just came back later on when he was defenseless.
I am going to have to work hard to be kind today when I really want to throttle them both. Chris, of course, for letting him have that much and Ant for being so damn greedy. And both of them if they argue against going to Topaz. Ant can lay low, but Chris and I can certainly help Mike out with whatever he needs and bring him some goodies and good cheer for his birthday- something he certainly does for all of us. Wish me some strength to deter Elaine's excuses for her son and grandson and some patience and love to deal with the ones I love that I have no patience with.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
3 days left until my last semester...
I got an email yesterday from the Book Arts teacher. He said that since I took the beginning class in the spring, I did not need to attend the regular class time. He invited me to meet with him next week to talk about what projects I'd like to work on this semester.
It's a good thing Rachel called tonight because this and other school-related items were making me batty. I was fully prepared to do more complicated versions of the Book Arts projects and instead I'm essentially getting independent study! I could start making weird, beautiful little books right away! This is really interesting news, but I was not completely thrilled by it. For one, I built my schedule around this class. If I had known I wouldn't have to actually be there, I might have chosen other classes than what fit around it. But the registration system would not have let me be in two places at once, so this is probably something I should not fret about. And this random schedule change does let me work. I don't plan on working very hard, but I can be there in the back, typing up a storm and ready to lend a hand if needs be.
I should start sketching out some ideas. I am really excited about the idea of working on my own projects.
Tonight we did laundry and I got a busted dryer. We were there for three hours instead of our normal two. There was no time to walk the dogs so I put them each on the treadmill. Jasmine did fine, but Riley (here's a surprise) spazzed out. I'm going to continue to try, maybe get them on in the mornings so they have some little bit of exercise before we're gone all day. Practice makes Olympic champions!
It's a good thing Rachel called tonight because this and other school-related items were making me batty. I was fully prepared to do more complicated versions of the Book Arts projects and instead I'm essentially getting independent study! I could start making weird, beautiful little books right away! This is really interesting news, but I was not completely thrilled by it. For one, I built my schedule around this class. If I had known I wouldn't have to actually be there, I might have chosen other classes than what fit around it. But the registration system would not have let me be in two places at once, so this is probably something I should not fret about. And this random schedule change does let me work. I don't plan on working very hard, but I can be there in the back, typing up a storm and ready to lend a hand if needs be.
I should start sketching out some ideas. I am really excited about the idea of working on my own projects.
Tonight we did laundry and I got a busted dryer. We were there for three hours instead of our normal two. There was no time to walk the dogs so I put them each on the treadmill. Jasmine did fine, but Riley (here's a surprise) spazzed out. I'm going to continue to try, maybe get them on in the mornings so they have some little bit of exercise before we're gone all day. Practice makes Olympic champions!
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Yet another reason why Steve Martin is awesome.
From Q & A with Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson about The Big Year, a new comedy about competitive bird-watching:
Entertainment Weekly What about you, Steve? How did you prep for the film?
Martin I just went out and shot as many birds as I could so I could look at them close-up.
Black That's really missing the point, I think, Steve.
Entertainment Weekly What about you, Steve? How did you prep for the film?
Martin I just went out and shot as many birds as I could so I could look at them close-up.
Black That's really missing the point, I think, Steve.
Ceramics
You've been waiting for this, I know. I thought I would use a real camera but then I would never get it done, and I am in a productive mood.
Let's start with the crap.
My teacher passed right over these in the critique, ha ha ha. These were originally going to be bookends, attached to slabs of clay and standing upright. I was going to make signs from ASL to say "I'm fine." The green should be resting on its unfinished side and pointing to the chest, and the purple should be standing up with the thumb touching the chest. I started these early on when I was still floundering for ideas and by the next day I had a better idea and abandoned this project. By the last firing, these two were still sitting on my shelf wrapped in plastic and I thought I would just throw them in for no good reason. My friend in the class thought they would make funny paperweights.
This is also not my favorite. I liked it better unglazed. If I had more time I would have made him much bigger with defined spikes.
I do like this. I left most of it unglazed and just used black and a little pink on her ears.
Tracy thinks she looks like a giraffe, which is fine. She's already part goat, part bat, part sheep...
Wow, that was a little dark. Sorry. I sent out my other project, which were little puzzle pieces. I took pictures of them but I can't find them right now.
This is my favorite.
Chris thinks we ought to make tiles and sell them as flooring.
Let's start with the crap.
My teacher passed right over these in the critique, ha ha ha. These were originally going to be bookends, attached to slabs of clay and standing upright. I was going to make signs from ASL to say "I'm fine." The green should be resting on its unfinished side and pointing to the chest, and the purple should be standing up with the thumb touching the chest. I started these early on when I was still floundering for ideas and by the next day I had a better idea and abandoned this project. By the last firing, these two were still sitting on my shelf wrapped in plastic and I thought I would just throw them in for no good reason. My friend in the class thought they would make funny paperweights.
This is also not my favorite. I liked it better unglazed. If I had more time I would have made him much bigger with defined spikes.
I do like this. I left most of it unglazed and just used black and a little pink on her ears.
Tracy thinks she looks like a giraffe, which is fine. She's already part goat, part bat, part sheep...
Wow, that was a little dark. Sorry. I sent out my other project, which were little puzzle pieces. I took pictures of them but I can't find them right now.
This is my favorite.
Chris thinks we ought to make tiles and sell them as flooring.
Who doesn't love a random picture blog?
I just finished this puzzle.
He got one of the school trumpets, thank god, and he seems to be picking it up fine.
Chris, on the other hand...
Dad got me some birthday shoes in San Diego.
They are Dr. Scholl's and have built in massaging gel so now I can honestly say that I'm gellin', but then I would have to stab myself for being so obnoxious.
It wasn't the most difficult puzzle, but it had some neat shapes.
Ant wants me to do this one next.
He told me he was going to pick out my next puzzle and I knew he'd pick that one- he's been eyeing it since I bought six puzzles at Savers on Tuesday. I usually follow DadnPatti's old "No Landscapes" policy, but it was only 80 cents and it does look neat. And I am a masochist.
I tried to get Ant to change his mind and choose the other hidden picture puzzle.
"But I picked it with looooooove," he said.
Great.
"Which one are you going to do?" he asked, grinning.
"The damn Australia one, and you know it!"
"Because I picked it with loooooooove."
While I'm here and because I'll never get to it again, here are some other random pictures.
Here is Ant at the laundromat.
He got one of the school trumpets, thank god, and he seems to be picking it up fine.
Chris, on the other hand...
Dad got me some birthday shoes in San Diego.
They are Dr. Scholl's and have built in massaging gel so now I can honestly say that I'm gellin', but then I would have to stab myself for being so obnoxious.
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