Link Likes 5.26.12

Tags

community, link likes, radical, unplug

We’re going to a superhero birthday bash in three hours, so I’m about to make some magic happen with a hot glue gun, felt and prayer. While I take care of that, you should read these. Enjoy!

What’s eating Gilbert Grape? His xbox. That’s what. @ CNN

Burn out is never worth it @ mothering

I need people and so do you! @ Simple Mom

“The human soul was not made for fame” @ Chatting at the Sky

Radical in your own backyard @ the Suh family

A leetle a dis and a leetle a dat…

Tags

clown, granola, hippie, ocd, random, scaredy cat

My brain is fried. Seriously. I’m high on life; strung out on sweet chillins, laundry detergent and copious amounts of chili powder, as of late. I’ve learned a lesson or two in the last couple of weeks and even had an epiphany (post to come!), but for now I’ll jot down a few more of my “little known facts” (it seems as though some people were surprised by my last list). And now, for your reading pleasure/confusion/concern…

1. I like to read people’s “little known facts”. 

 

2. When I’m out in public, I use my left hand/elbow for everything from opening doors to pumping gas to rescuing babies. 

 

3. I get a little more granola every few days. As I type this, there is homemade deodorant chilling in my fridge and a bag of zinc oxide powder, beeswax and vitamin E oil sitting on my counter waiting to be turned into sunscreen. If it works, I’ll pass along the recipe and a legal disclaimer.

 

4. I can count on two hands the number of nights that I haven’t dreamed. I keep a journal of the ones that stand out. There are some doozies in that thing.

 

5. At any given moment, there are usually between four and ten different thoughts running through my brain. Most of the time they have nothing to do with one another. (just the other day my brain helped me create a business plan, a children’s toy invention, a list of urban homesteading/woodworking books to look for at the library, and then brought to memory a Michelle Tanner quote from Full House past–no rhyme or reason).

 

6. If you are ever injured, I’ll be the first to respond and, depending on the level of cellular damage, the first to pass out. Lord, please don’t ever let my kids bleed in front of me. Amen. 

 

7. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at archery.

 

8. I’m actually a pretty decent shot.

 

9. Making people laugh is my all-time favorite hobby.

 

10. I was the senior class secretary in high school. I was unopposed. (my classmates thought about running, but my note-taking is a force to be reckoned with…ya)

 

11. I have a nasty little habit of biting off more than I can chew…figuratively and literally. I once swallowed an orange slice still in its peel. #neardeathexperience #sevenyearoldgenius

 

12. My fits of laughter are often horribly mis-timed. I’ve deduced that, while laughter is my natural response to happiness, it is also my natural response to quiet lasting more than 15 seconds. God help us all if I ever have to ask a crowd to join me in a moment of silence. 

 

13. My palms get tingly and sweaty every. time. I see someone high in the air. Those glass platforms = death traps. It doesn’t even have to be in real life. An actor dangling over a green-screened Grand Canyon will get me every time. (this just happened as I pictured what I was writing).

 

14. I want to be a doula. Having done it twice now, I can say that birthing babies is the most intense physical experience a woman can have. Everyone should have support. 

 

15. I have two tattoos. I was 18, stupid and my minimum wage paycheck was burning a whole in the pocket of my stretch denim jeans when I got the first one. Ugh. Whoever has the pleasure of doing my required-by-law autopsy one day will have a nice laugh. I got the second one, a wedding band designed by my husband, last year at my friend’s dining table in exchange for a plate of sesame chicken. Done.  

 

16. I once walked through a supermarket dressed like this: (and no, I wasn’t being “ironic”…this was the ’90s, before irony was cool)

 

17. I have dreams of running and urban farm and retreat center for people who need a hand or a break.

 

18. I went through a “no shoes” phase in college (to show what a free spirit I was, of course). First night I hung out with my future husband, I stepped on a roofing tack. The OCD-cellular-level-damage-imagining girl quickly showed her face. The next day, the wannabe-hippie girl had to call her Mom and ask when her last tetanus shot was. Four months later she was married.

 

19. When they took my braces off in 9th grade, I was convinced for a week that I had big ol’ horse teeth. Not seeing your teeth in their entirety for two years will mess with your head. 

 

20. I scare easily (see here). You’ve been warned. 

 

Have an amazing Wednesday, my friends.

Quote of the Week #7 and #8

Tags

quote of the week

This week’s Quote is a two-fer.

“Hold still, Mamma Patient. I need to listen to your heartbeat,” said “Doctor Teagan”, child physician extraordinaire. Her tool of choice: an individual flosser (more specifically, a neon orange pelican, with it’s floss-holding beak open wide in anticipation of the dried apricots waiting to be plucked from between a toddler’s small teeth). Oh, and not only can you hear my heartbeat through an orange pelican, but, as it turns out, my heart is behind my navel.

Part Deux: 

[A Father-to-Daughter statement as overheard from the bedroom] “Kylie’s too little to play with knives*. Give her about a year and you can both play”. Gabriel, my love, what is going on in our kitchen right now?

I’m picturing our two-and-a-half-year-old and eight-month-old with those crazy knives that can cut through cans (even though we don’t have any; we’re still using the same eight piece set that we bought five years ago at Big Lots for $8.99 plus tax–I used to hate them, but my klutzy fingers have really come to appreciate dull, rock-bottom-priced cutlery).

But Daddy is there, giving boundary to samurai-sword-wielding warriors lying in wait behind those cherubim faces. Praise God for Daddy, who keeps his girls safe and his wife’s crazy imagination in check.

Our girls will probably grow up to be doctors or artists or ninjas. Or will form an exploration team and search the globe for neon pelicans. Daddy and I will be proud.  

*These knives were plastic butter knives being used to cut play dough. Calm down.  

What’s New This Week 5.7.12

Tags

books, funny, hippie things, music, parenting, What's New This Week

Is it Monday? If you haven’t picked up on this yet, time is flying in our house. It’s sort of ridiculous. I keep trying to figure out how to catch up with it, but I’m finding that reining it in is considerably easier on the ol’ ticker and patellas (go ahead, Google that last one…I did).

We started a new experiment in time-taming last night with our first ever Lights Out Night. Instead of turning on lamps, computers and televisions, we turned off everything but the AC and the washing machine (lest the cloth diapers “brew” in their pail any longer) and lit a few platefuls of tea lights.

Who knows how long this will last (or how many of our neighbors think we’re hosting a seance), but right now we’re shooting for two nights a week. The first try was a winner! Yay for free headspace and lower energy bills!

Listening:

• Agnes Obel (I just jumped a little when I pulled up her page. Side note about me: I’m jumpy. If you ever try to scare me, I take absolutely no responsibility for injuries to your person or valuables caused by my Chuck Norris-like flailing appendages. You’ve been warned.)
• Norah Jones
• Madeleine Peyroux

Reading:

• 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess (by a local Austin author, Jen Hatmaker) –Almost done with this one. I give it two thumbs and big toes way way up!

Learning:

• Talking to a strong-willed toddler 

Making:

• FOOD…enough of it to feed 3.5 people.

Doing:

• Trying to decide between five different shades of yellows, blues, greens and reds to paint our new-to-us Craigslist freebie dining table AND chairs! My eyes are starting to cross and I think I may have created a new color. More details to come.
• Watching THIS over and over and over. I love her. It’s okay; you don’t have to thank me. The joy that I know is now at home in your heart is enough.

Here’s to another great week, folks!

Right Again!

Tags

cure for Wantmelovemetellmeitis, face, facebook, instagram filters, revelations

There’s a post coming, I promise. I just need to have a word with my calendar before we get started. April, I hardly knew you. *single tear* See you next year…unless the Mayans were right. dun dun dun! As for you, Miss May, simma’ down. Let’s take this nice and easy; can’t have you falling apart in this Texas heat. 

Now for the business as hand: My husband is right. Often. He’ll be the first to admit that he isn’t always, but darn it all if he doesn’t have a nice track record. I’ve gotten much better at saying this out loud. A few years ago, I would’ve faked a seizure to avoid it.

It happened again. Gabe came home from work and announced that he was deactivating his facebook. **Cue eye roll** I spend too much time on facebook; there I said it. So when my husband said he was cutting it out, I heard “You have an addiction, but I’m better than that.” My inner cynic said, “He’ll be back. This is such a hipster move, not following the mainstream” (there were a few finger quotation marks thrown in for good measure). In a matter of seconds, I had brought balance back to my mind, ridding it of guilt by pinning my husband as just another indie guy with an agenda and what I was sure would prove to be short-lived will power. There.

Not so fast, You. He followed my silent rebuttal with an explanation that made my cheeks red with shame. While I had been busy painting Gabe as a social media anarchist, he was busy being humble. and right. Craaaapppp.

He told me about a conversation he had with a friend who, along with his wife, had “unplugged” for Lent. This friend, upon emerging from his lifeless cave of media deprivation (aka real life), was enjoying a quiet moment in a comfy chair with his faithful dog by his side. Like anyone with an iwhatever and a free minute, his first thought was “Awesome dog equals awesome instagram pic, equals lots of likes”. But instead he went with, “Awesome dog. Awesome life. Thanks, God”.

Oh sure, just twist the knife. It’s bad enough I spend too much time on facebook, but now we’re bringing God into this?! As hard as I searched for a loophole in this uncomfortable truth, I had to say uncle and start a slow clap to Gabe and Co., right there in the kitchen, in front of God and everyone. Well played, y’all. Well played. 

I’m not getting off facebook/twitter/fillintheblank anytime soon, but oh my gracious…I’ve once more been faced with my chronic Wantmelovemetellmeitis, but also met by the God who cures it. Be on the lookout for cute baby pictures and random objects as seen through the Toaster filter, but for the love of cheese, don’t like them. (okay, you can like them, just slap me with a driving glove–old movie style–if I started getting cocky). Thanks.