Who am I?

I was on a lady's blog the other day where she described herself as sister, friend, daughter, wife, etc.

It got me thinking...how would I describe me? I really hate labels. I mean I really hate them. Maybe it is a fear of the commitment they imply, or maybe it is just that labels are so limiting. (see: chip on my shoulder) Maybe I hate them because I am such a "gray area" thinker that I resist pretty much all things that restrict me to a black and white world. ?

The label I hate the most would have to be stay-at-home-mom(SAHM). Admittedly I use it, but I always feel the need to add something to it, lest someone might think I stay at home because I am too stupid or talentless to get a paying job. (see that chip now, dontcha!) This is ironic because I probably have the most supportive husband on the planet when it comes to me being at home with the kids. He would do anything to make it happen because he is a true believer that it makes a positive impact on the kids. It is a choice, not a sentence. And it is not without sacrifice.

It's not that I don't see the value in my job: I do. Back in the day when my SAHM friends were lawyers, accountants, investment bankers and other awesome titled women, this label seemed less of a burden. It was so obvious they were just shifting priorities. Intentionally. But these days, where we live now, it seems the SAHM is a dying breed. Most career-women I know do not stay home. And the women that do stay home are largely career-less, like me. This is an interesting trend. (People always fascinate me.)Perhaps it is the economy or my age...who knows.

So the question remains: how would I choose to to define myself? I guess I don't know the answer...or maybe I am afraid to pin myself down. It seems like it changes so much. (yesterday, for example, I could have earned the title of vomit-cleaner-upper!) I would have to have the words artist, wife, mother in there somewhere, I guess, but that seems so hollow and so incomplete that even now I am thinking of deleting that sentence.

How do you define yourself? Maybe I need some inspiration.

Hilarious!

This is SOOO funny! Any takers??

LOL

Summertime Fun

It's another rainy day. My favorite. Although, I'll admit there is a certain something missing from my quiet rainy day fantasy when there are 4 kids running a muck and screaming at each other. I desperately need time on the sewing machine. I have so many projects going. But alas, grocery shopping with 4(!), another 50 loads of laundry, 2 more meals, dishes, 2 baseball games, 4 baths and a days worth of picking up toys and I will surely be too tired to even sit at the machine...again! Not that I am complaining... .

Yesterday I managed to escape to my bi-monthly breastfeeding taskforce meeting. I am so lucky to have a local taskforce, as I think we may be the only one in Illinois! Hooray for us!! I also worked on the face-lift for my breastfeeding website. I am hoping to get busy with advertising and such so that I can meet more women and get more clients. I was given the opportunity to attend a fair--a great place to meet expecting moms/potential clients. I am considering if now is a good time. Sometimes getting away is worth the chaos it requires to get away...

I am in a rambling mood... such is the summertime for me. Discombobulated. Is that a real word? I use it all the time, which, in the world of linguistics, means YES! it is totally a word, although the spelling is negotiable. lol

If you are reading this, you qualify to apply for entry into the kids' summer blog, which is currently under construction. I always fear they will forget everything over the summer, so I am forcing them to keep up with a few skills by creating a private blog about our life with animals. One of my sons (who shall remain nameless) is planning to use this blog as a virtual wish list. Ha! In any case. It is by and for kids, so you can sign your kids up if you want to. (Emma's contribution will be largely photographic.) We are keeping it private for obvious reasons, so you must email me for entry. jami at fawley dot net...or any of my others...lol

Have a great day!

I hear the starting "gun" (a water gun in our case)...and I am off...

:)

From One Mom to Another

Here's a tip: if you happen to be driving on the interstate and from the backseat you hear "Mommy, what's this red stuff all over me?".

DO NOT LOOK BACK UNTIL YOU HAVE PULLED OVER!
Even if you think she just had an M&M in her hand that melted (yeah, I know they are not supposed to, but "they" forgot to factor in sweaty little hands and licking.)

No limbs missing. Thank God. Just lots of blood and a little swelling. What a day, what a day...

My life is never dull...

Eating Disorders

Here's my day:

My daughter drank another 2 bottles of HOLY WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When I calmly explained (AGAIN!) that it is not drinking water, she said "it's ok mom, there's more.)
I accidentally put sunscreen with self-tanner on her face. (so far, I can't tell)
Found out my new flowers are potentially poisonous...Calling tomorrow to find out for sure.
A wet walk around the school (hose, not rain)
Kids played at park. Michael lost his game.
A seriously scraped knee (like hamburger) on one very tough little princess.
My son tried to brush his teeth with Neosporin.
I tried Benefiber in chocolate milk. Surprisingly delicious!

I am looking for any and all good recipes using raw stuff. But not meat. That's gross!

hoping for some sleep. :)

More Word Games

WORDS....it's always words with me!

So I decided to make labels for my 4th grader's water bottles (they are using them for an activity outdoors tomorrow...end of year stuff...big fun!). I wanted to do something cool and wordy since I am a lover of words. And to be honest, I kinda wanted to WOW them. I thought I would describe each kid using alliteration with their first name. I wanted them all to be DYNAMIC DAN or MARVELOUS MAGGIE, etc. But even for me...it got pretty hard. Some names are just hard to work with. I mean what do you do with a C name? Caring Carrie? blehck!!! I thought about trying to rhyme, but that was a train wreck! And then there is the big question...what if the name has nothing to do with the kid or WORSE...what if it has EVERYTHING to do with that kid and I am inadvertently making fun of them or labelling them for life???? Oh my!

I will stop, because you know I could pepper this entire post with examples! lol

Instead, let's have fun with words. (oh goodie!!!)

So I decided to make my own "labels"---to see how they fit.

Jubilant Jami, Jovial Jami, Joyous Jami, Jolly Jami, and Jazzy Jami are all pretty much the same gal who OD'ed on prozac, right?

Judicious Jami...zzzzzZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!....Oh! what, huh?

and then there is my evil twin (I guess)

Here's the Jaded and Jealous Jami... woo hoo!
Juvenile Jami
Jumpy/Jittery Jami...ok maybe that one is me after too much coffee! lol
the ever popular Jailbird Jami and Jobless Jami

Last but not least will be JUICING JAMI, when I get my Jack LaLanne Power Juicer one of these days! tee hee!

If you are reading this, Jack. I'm your biggest fan! SEND ME A JUICER! :)

And speaking of Juicing Jack Lallane, did you know his wife's name is Elaine. No kidding. :) Talk about your names!

g'night!

What a weekend we had! It was a little busy, but pretty productive. We had lots of rain Friday, which I LOVE, so I am happy. And Superman got a warm day yesterday to mow, so he was happy. :)

As promised, here are the pics of Princess's new dress.

It turned out. OK. I think it is a bit "Minnie Pearl"ish. :) I used elastic at the gathers so it would be comfy and poofy, but I think it is too poofy. It might have looked better if the fabrics weren't at such strong contrast. I think that puts it over the top with the poofy factor.

I absolutely HATE gathering the regular way. I mean I REALLY hate it, but I may have to try that next.

She likes the dress though and was hopping so much I had a hard time getting a good shot of it. (the straps aren't really crooked. That is from the hopping:)


So then, I decided to make her a nightgown with a pattern I have so I could test-drive it before I used something expensive. Boy am I glad I did! Check out this Orphan Annie look-alike! This baby needs some work, but I do LOVE knits! I was hoping I had struck gold with this pattern, but it is back to the machine for me. Once I get it to fit well, I will embellish it a little to hopefully make it look decent, or I will scrap it and start over. :)

This summer I hope to make us some skirts out of a heavy knit, letting the edges fray and roll for a casual summer look. Let's hope they fit better than this nightie did! :)








In other news, I think I am addicted to my scanner. I have been scanning everything I can find. I even went rummaging last weekend for things to scan. (Can you spell A_D_D_I_C_T_I_O_N?) lol

As soon as I figure out how to make them downloadable, I will put some digi scraps up here for all you scrapping moms and grandmas. It is so incredibly fun and there is no mess to clean up!! woo hoo!! (If you know how to put up some files, please leave it in the comments for me)

Speaking of messes, I must tackle to laundry, so adios for now.

PS. Putting pictures into Blogger is the pits! I need to find a better way! Oy!

Too cute

I had to post this quickly. She fell asleep with the leash in hand, so the poor doggie got "stuck" in the room! Too cute.

Dangling Fairies

Here is the fairy "mobile" we made last night. We haven't decided how to hang them in her room yer but I am thinking of a pretty clothesline type string across the window so the pretties will dangle in the window.

Fairies and other delights

I just had to post about this adorable little fairy house Emma and I made.

Isn't it cute! We used toilet paper rolls (we had to steal them from the crickets!) and covered them with lavender paper. The little toadstools and the base are made of paper cut-outs my mom bought for Emma. It also came with a CD of clip art fairies. I am not sure what to do with that...

I heard a commercial today that said if the price of ink keeps you from using your printer, then you really don't have a printer. I guess I don't have a printer. :)

That also reminds me that I heard a rumor that sugar and coffee prices are going to go sky-high. Well, I don't care how much coffee is, I'm not giving it up anytime soon, but maybe the high cost of sugar will mean...I won't have to exercise. (you know...'cause Iwon't be able to eat so much sweets...stay with me, here!)

Hopefully this week I will have some fairy mobiles to share with you...and a new dress for Emma!

If My Mother's Day Were a Picture Book...

Last Wednesday:

a keepsake


a flower


a masterpiece

Sunday Morning:

The chef/ designer


not pictured: breakfast in bed. :)lovely



The clownawwwww.............



woof woof!



a new flower garden



the gardner ;)



"It's raining flowers!"


Also not pictured: lovely day with friends and family, mom, grandma. Yummy food!



a nice card-oops what a bad picture!


night, night.

Mother of the Year

Did you hear I got nominated for Mother of the Year? If you were able to nominate someone who would it be? I am blessed to know SO many great moms I am not sure I could pick just one!

Yesterday was the Mother's Day Tea Party at my daughter's preschool. It was so cute! The kids made us a little plate of appetizers and then we shared "fancy cakes". The kids also performed some songs for us, which was so cute! At the end, the teacher read some of the questionnaires they had given the kids called "How Well Do You Know Your Mommy".

Here are some of the questions and answers given by my daughter.

How old is Mommy? "I think she's 10"
What does Mommy do? "folds laundry"
Who's the boss at your house? "Josh" (her brother!)

too funny!
Well, as you can see I am working on the blog desing. I am learning something new every day! I am hoping to do some backgrounds and buttons next. This is pretty fun! Now I am going to try to figure out the whole video thing. Thanks to my friend Sarah for the inspiration. You rock, Sarah!

So here's the video all about me being Mother of the Year. enjoy!

video link

Stay tuned while I figure out how to get this header in straight...and a few other items. :)

But while I am here, what do ya think? I am so in love with orange right now! I really wanted to try a mono-chromatic theme using orange. I was inspired by some digital scrappers I watch. I will post links if anyone is interested.

More orange to come....

:)

The best I have

I love how wonky this post is. Just like my life! LOL


Here's the best shot I can get of the geode.

And just for good measure here is a shot of the best puppy ever. The kids will be blogging about out doggie adventures as their summer assignment. Yes, I have the heart of a homeschooler! :) Just not the patience for it. LOL


I will post the site when they are up and running. xoxo

What's in His Pocket NOW?

Tonight I am a little frustrated. I was all excited about another installment of the always suspense-filled "what's in Sugar's pocket" game, when, for some reason , my camera is acting up. Ok, I am sure it was user error, but still. Ugh! I got this really cool crystal out of his school uniform short I was washing tonight. It is like one of those rocks that you break open and inside is all these sparkly crystals. (they are called geodes, fyi) Well, he is pretty fascinated by rocks and fossils, so I guess he decided this one was a keeper and stuffed it in his pocket. Unfortunately I can't share it with you because my camera is all goofy.

I have always wanted to be a great photographer. (...add that to the list!) Some say I am OK. I do have an eye for design but I just have never had the time to master the f stops and aperture and shutter speed... . Frankly, I find it all very confusing so I am setting that on my "someday" shelf for now. So I am using this adorable little point and shoot my husband got me. (pink, of course) It is tiny it fits in my pocket...PERFECT for a busy mom who is always trying to juggle kids WHILE still snapping every moment I can. It has been great until about a week or two ago. Suddenly every breath I take makes the focus all blurry. It is weird, like I am having tremors or something. (I am not.) If there are any camera buffs out there who know which button the baby pushed, just leave me a comment! lol

Well, Let me see if I can find a picture of a crystal that is SIMILAR to the one in Sugar's pocket.


Here is a geode like the one he must have cracked open. He did not have the full rock in there, just a hunk of crystal. Something more like this next picture except that these are actually made out of soap. How cute is that! Maybe soap like this would get a boy like Sugar to wash! LOL







Well, this weekend Sugar also caught a turtle, but luckily (?? did I just say that?) he pulled on a pair of his sisters shorts that had no pockets, so there was no where to store stuff. Anyway, after he found the turtle, he and I went for a walk and he wanted to me to help him look around in case there was another one. He said this was a good time to look since it was turtle mating season. Why does that matter? I asked. He told me that the turtles were wandering around all over looking for a mate. So they can lay eggs. Hmmm. I asked if they had like a turtle meeting place where they could all go to meet up and find a husband or wife, but he said not really.

That kids cracks me up! We only found the one turtle, who has since been sent back into the wild to find a husband or wife. But Josh spent another good hour observing the cricket the turtle declined to eat.

That's all for tonight. Have a good one!