i love getting into the hot hot shower after days of being sick and staying in the same stinky clothes and scrubbing every last little bit of flu memory from my skin. i finally did that today, somewhere around 2pm when i decided it was time to re-join the land of the living. it felt so good to blow dry my clean hair and put some make up on. spencer's birthday is tomorrow so i ran a few errands to get ready for his birthday breakfast and it felt so good to be out in the fresh air! i even went to book club tonight, which i love - why have i never blogged about book club? next month. my stomach even feels pretty good after being served a super yummy but very rich treat, so life is good. i love being well, and some times it takes being sick to appreciate your health!side note: it's after midnight and so i'm not looking as "fresh" in this photo as i feel. also, the flash is not my friend. i hate using a flash, but i missed my opportunity to take a self portait in day light today, so for now it has to do.
this was the easiest of the five SPT posts for september's theme: because of a blogger - personal growth edition. i guess because i can think of many ways i have achieved personal growth in the past 15 months since i began posting. in the spirit of keeping things short and sweet, i made a list of things i've learned about me and ways i've grown because of blogging...
4. i have good ideas and it's fun to share them.
8. i see how important it is to me to keep in touch with family and friends. near and far. this might be one of my favorite things about blogging. i really wish everyone had a blog! .JPG)
i am a blogger - and i love it! this may be one of my cheesiest posts ever... 
it was fun - mostly because i was at ann's house and we laughed a lot - and it wasn't hard at all, but, i just don't know that it made that big of a difference in the taste, it was pretty much still boring turkey taste. i will brine my turkey again this year, but i'm going to try a different brine recipe to see if it changes anything. so because of a blogger, i brined a turkey and i LOVE pioneer woman! so much, that some girlfriends and i started our own cooking blog - 
chatted about everything, froze somewhere around 5am and counted down the minutes to when the local einstein's bagels opened up so we could get some food! (mental note: next year bring snacks!)
breakfast was so yummy, if you've never had a breakfast bagel from einstein's you definitely should. i was cold enough that it seemed like a good excuse to get a tall steamed milk with vanilla - one of my favorite treats - once it's cooled off slightly, ouch!
later on after 7am came and went and our spot was secure, we still stood around chatting for another twenty minutes, apparently four hours isn't enough time to talk about everything you want to talk about. i love kristy, she makes everything fun with her happy attitude and funny stories, we always have plenty to laugh about! 
i hope we are saving spots every year for a long time. and it was worth it! we had great seats that ended up being in the shade about half the time! so what extreme measures would you go to enjoy the shade?
i'm always looking for the latest and greatest sunscreen, i have a hard time walking past the display at target, an even harder time not choosing a new one to try. this photo is just a small sampling of the many different kinds currently in our swim bag.
as far as i'm concerned the invention of "mist" sunscreen is right up there with TIVO on the awesome invention scale. i mean who wants to have greasy hands for the rest of the day, especially when you have four kids to lather up? yuck. so i have tried them ALL - for real, all of them. my favorite has been the same for years now, BULL FROG no rub spray. it's no doubt the most expensive but it's worth it, since our family started using it we haven't sunburned even once. it's good stuff, i highly recommend it. 
so...we do what every other sleep-deprived mother does in this situation. we head to my bed where he sleeps, tossing and turning and kicking my kidneys, and i get to sleep too...sort of.
spencer has always wanted to play the violin, ever since kindergarten. a classmate of his brought her tiny violin to class and played some notes for everyone and since then he has been hooked. he's convinced that the violin is the instrament for him. so, i told him that if he would take a few years of piano first, just to get down some basic note reading and training then we could switch to the violin at some point.
so, it's official, he's switched. he's had two lessons so far and is constantly squeaking out 'twinkle twinkle little star' but there's a smile on his face while he does it.
we'll see if it ends up being something he does forever a long time, i have a feeling he will. i love spencer's passion, he's very all or nothing kind of kid.
he has wanted to play the violin for a long time, and never gave up on the idea, and now, here he is. 
i have to admit that i was kind of disappointed in it. it was on the right track, funny characters and wonderful animation and an obviously good message, but there was just something missing. i found it rather short and kind of dull and i kept waiting for to do something big that never happened. the kids of course loved it and they're the experts any way right? so there you have it, our big not so egg-stra special spring breakness.
this spt was perfect for ethan and i's schedule today - stay home and clean EVERYTHING! i have so many projects around the house, and the three new inches of snow that i shoveled this morning made staying home even more compelling! one thing you should know about me, and something that i tell all my family and neighbors, is that if you come to my door at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and i'm still in my pajams, it's been a very productive day! when i get dressed and ready, i feel like i need to go run errands, sometimes as an excuse to run away from all that feels overwhelming in my home. if i don't get dressed, i'm not presentable (like this self portait) and by not being dressed and presentable, i sort of force myself to stay home and be productive. so today was a pajama sort of productive, which is good. i got lots of laundry done, many pictures hung and even cleaned my bathroom! 
this is me, happy and unpresentable in my pajams, standing in front of my very clean kitchen sink and counter. i still have tons to do tomorrow but at least i've made some head way on it all. at least i got those pesky bags of clothing out of my hair! as always, thanks lelly for the journalling spring board.
i have adhd which means i forget everything unless it is written down, hence the loaded planner full of little notes like "finish yw project" two weeks before it needs to be done because i know i'll forget between now and then if i don't remind myself now.
i do love to look back on past planners,especially the really ridiculously busy days and think, i did it, we did it, i juggled all of that and it turned out ok. i also think that in the life of a SAHM, i often feel so unstructured that it's difficult to track what i've done all day and the planner provides some sort of evidence that i am needed in this family and that i do get things done. i think that's why i love blogging so much, documenting what i do and why i matter. 
this maybe seems silly or vane, maybe it is, but i'm willing to give it a few of my precious minutes each day because right now, i really feel like it's the only pretty thing i have going for me! that sounds an awful lot like self-pitty which is not really what i'm going for here. don't you go through phases where nothing about you feels great? right now, this is what my hair is doing for me, it makes me feel like, at least i have a feature, on the outside anyway, i know i'm drop dead gorgeous on the inside! he he. my hair helps makes me feel feminine during a time that i feel totally out of control with my weight, which, unfortunately is how i often gauge my self-worth, so dumb i know but it's hard to correct old habits. technically, these photographs are not self portaits, allie helped me take them while i was getting ready for the day. when i was looking through them trying to choose which ones to post, i laughed because they look so much like the memories i have of watching my mother get ready in the mirror! when i looked at these photos close up i was surprised to find that they say to me, i don't really feel very pretty. it's just a phase, it will pass, but for now, hey at least have great hair! i would never have thought of any of this if it weren't for the spt. 
some times i need a picture to see myself clearly, hence the need for SPTs, thanks lelly for the great journaling spring board you provide every week, even when the results are difficult to face.
I printed "DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!" as a note to myself that I could possibly get carried away and forget. I vote where Spencer goes to school and since I was there twice yesterday to pick him up and drop him off for a Dr.'s appt that would've been my perfect opportunity, but no. In picking him up I was of course running a few minutes late so no time there. At the dr.'s office I kept seeing people with there cute read "I voted" stickers and started to feel a little naked to be honest. 
When I dropped Spencer at school after the appt my bladder was so full that I knew I couldn't take the long line just then and peeing in the public school bathroom? I don't think so. On the way home from Taylor's choir concert I told the kids to wait in the car (don't be angry at me, they're older children and it's ok to leave them in the car) and dashed into the voting both just before closing time. I never even thought to take a cool picture like Jill. Next time. There are advantages to voting early, you get to wear a cool sticker all day not to mention crossing the item off of your mental list. By the time I voted there were no stickers left! Last night I had a dream that I was headed into a busy mall with tons of people and there was a lady wearing a voting sticker asking everyone if they had voted today or not while she checked for their sticker. She angrily asked me why I had not voted and I said, "but I did vote, just now!" She glared at me and said, "then where's your voting sticker?!" I had no idea the sticker was that important to me, actually I think it's the deeper message about how important voting is to me, but next year I'll be sure to vote early so I can wear one all day long.