My own Stars Hollow

Have I mentioned yet my completely impractical infatuation with the Gilmore Girls?
I got my mom addicted too, which was fairly easy considering its a show all about mothers, and my mom now being a single mother can relate to a lot of it.
But the part I love about it is not so much the characters (although I adore them, especially the zany side-characters like Kirk, Patty, and Babette...yes, I said zany), not the characters, but really Stars Hollow itself.

This is Lorelai's house in the show, which is also rougly the same type of house I've dreamed of having since I was about 5. I've always loved a good wrap-around porch.
The town of Stars Hollow itself was just so quaint and whimsical...so well set up (obviously because it is in fact a set), I just want to find a place just like it and live there myself.

Some may argue that the only reason the town was so ideal was because of the controling, self-appointed town mayor/grocery-store-owner/chairman of the stars hollow historical society/etc. Taylor Doose,
(his character does drive me insane), and I have to admit that without him, this fictional town would be quite devoid of whimsy. He plans and produces all the totally awesome town events that everyone takes part in, and he keeps the town historical, which is annoying...but definitely as he puts it "part of the charm".

What I'm trying to say is, I want my own stars hollow, conneticut. I'll find it someday I suppose. I just wish it was now.

I would write more, but I got distracted mid-post by a cafe-press shop selling gilmore girls merchandise, and now the monkey's awake. Adios!

a little ho-hum and a little hum-drum

I'm missing my sisters today...a lot.
More than usual.
Which really, missing them at all is completely unusual, so missing them in the slightest would in fact be missing them more than usual, but you know what I mean.



For those of you who don't know, Bug and Nessy are in rehabs.
Yeah.
Remember how I said my family makes for good blog fodder?

Quick background:
my dad died in a car accident when I was 15, and none of us really handled it well. Que downward spiral through alcohol, then pot, then pills, then snorting oxycontin, leading to a full-blown heroine addiction.
Not me, obviously, the other two. I stopped at the second step, and then back-tracked to normal. Ahem...it is high school people.
Now don't forget that in reality this is a very long story that covers several years, and you got the very nut-shelled version.

My sisters are beautiful, wonderful people who got very, very lost. But they are doing really well now.
This is actually their second ventures into rehab. The first time they both went to separate 30-day programs which did a little, but mostly did diddly-squat.
Now they're in 15 month programs called Teen Challenge. One here in good old Washington but up north about 2 hours, and the other in Kansas City. Which Kansas City? I'm not telling. But either one is pretty far if you look at a map.

So anyway, when we were kids we were eachother's everything. We played together for hours on end everyday. We drove eachother nuts, but we were also eachothers best friends. And we had a great family. A mom who stayed home and did an amazing job keeping our family together, clean, fed, and happy. And a dad who worked tirelessly, only to come home and play with us until we went to bed. It was a charmed life really, although we didn't know it. The dream of the American middle class.

But when we were all grieving (badly I might add...as in we didn't grieve the way people are supposed to), we grew apart. We were all mean and hurtful, because we were hurting.
And after I moved out and got married, things got worse here. The girls eventually weren't going to school, stopped hanging out with old friends, started sleeping all the time, and had the worst attitudes ever. If they ever told us where they were going or who they would be with, which they usually didn't, there was a 99.9% chance it was a lie. Then Nessy turned 18 and moved out and got really bad, and Bug started running away...things just escalated until we finally found out what was going on.
Oh, and Bug is a diabetic so the fact that she spent inordinate amounts of time in the hospital wouldn't normally be odd for her, but it was always for really weird reasons. And then we found out and realized it had all been because of drugs. Even Nessy spent a lot of time in the hospital.
Looking back we feel blind. But the truth is, they were just really, really good liars. Drugs do that.

Actually, writing all this has helped a lot. I would write more, but monkey is awake and its time to head to Freddy's, so I'll bid you adeu. But before I do that, I just want to say that I love my crazy, insane, beautiful family with all my heart, no matter what happens. And that is saying something.

Family pictures!!

Yeah, so pretty much I have wayyy too much free time on my hands and like to play around with Word and Paint. So sue me! Anyway, it is nearly autumn (or Fall...barney songs come to mind...ahh get it away!), nearly monkeys 1st b-day (hurray!), and past due time for a family photo or two. Lucky me I have a super cool mom-in-law who got me a gift certificate to a really neat local photography studio, lemondrops photography. And (small world) I found out I know the photographer, she's the daughter of my late father's ex-brother-in-law-turned-best-friend. Yup. How much does that rock? About as much as the dress I found for the monkey on Etsy! Feast your eyes upon this beauty

And once I found monkey's dress I just had to go perusing for deals on autumnal wear for husband and I. Yes sir, I said autumnal wear. Should it be hyphonated? I don't know. Is hyphonated mis-spelled? I don't know. Am I getting distracted due to it being past midnight? I don't know, but probably.
What was I saying again? Oh yeah, so here are some things I was looking at (all oldnavy.com) for me to wear to match monkey without looking matchy matchy. After getting husbands opinion I went with the green sweater, which he chose based on the fact that I'll wear it most because I happen to love that spring green color.

And what will husband be wearing? A plain, solid-colored, v-neck brown sweater. Yep yep. We're going to look like one spiffy little fall-flavored family. LOVE it!

Oh! And before I forget, we're also getting monkey's 1 year pic's taken. But not traditional 1 year pics, no no...cake smash 1 year pics.
Yes, you heard me correctly, cake smash pics.
And just what is a cake smash photo session?
Well, first of all there's a grand example on Jenica's lemondrop gallery under "Fun Stuff", but here's the general idea:
You pick a color scheme. You buy your little munchkin a cute little diaper cover in a color from said scheme (and for munchkins of the female variety perhaps a bow as well).
Then, Jenica has a cake decorator she works with who will make a cake featuring said color scheme. Jenica chooses a solid colored background. She then places munchkin in front of cake and proceeds to snap perfectly amazing photographs before and during the destruction of that lovely cake.
The perk? Well aside from awesome pics, munchkin gets a faceful of cake for free, as the cake is included in the session price (an awesomely low $45.00).
Yep, cake smash. Fun for all, and all for fun.

Woot!

Lemondrops Photography: here

EDIT: Lemondrops Photography has been doing extremely well since this post. And, well, prices have adjusted accordingly. The photography style is amazing, but as of January 2013, you are looking at a minimum of $125 for a session, AND a minimum of $250 towards prints and packages. That's minimum. For example, a newborn session is $575, and in order to get a maternity session which costs $275, you must also purchase a newborn session. And those prices don't include the cost of prints. So please keep that in mind if you take a stroll over to her site from here!

Wednesday night lineup...wow!

I can't tell you how much I love wednesdays now!
So, the monkey goes to sleep at 8 every night, and husband doesn't get home until around midnight on average. That leaves several hours for me to get things done, and/or watch tv.
Unfortunately there isn't much for good television usually.
Well, abc has just made me a happy, happy woman on wednesday nights.

Tonight was three premieres for 3 new shows. I saw previews for them all and they didn't look particularly amazing, but I was intrigued. Oh-my-god.
At 9:00 I now watch Modern Family, followed by Cougar Town at 9:30, and my favorite, Eastwick at 10:00.

For the first hour I laughed so hard I almost cried. Modern family was hilarious, seriously. Realistic humor always gets me. God, I love every single character in that show, so comedically yet realistically flawed. I love a good character flaw. The only character sans flaw would be Lily, the Vietnamese baby who is, btw, adorable.

Then Cougar Town (which I only watched because I was waiting for Eastwick and there was nothing else on at 9:30) really surprised me. I wasn't expecting to actually like it, but there I was sitting on the couch with my mother of all people, laughing hysterically as this recently-divorced single mother with a child-of-an-ex-husband got into one adult sized pickle after another. (seriously, kids should be no where in the room for this one, although what should we expect from Courtney Cox after Dirt).

Then there was Eastwick. Wow. It was even better than I was hoping it would be, and I'm really hoping it draws a big audience so we can keep it on the air. The whole show has this magical feeling to it. Its the colors, the music, and the actors themselves. It's nothing like charmed aside from there being 3 women with mystical powers. Not near as dark, and the story line is just completely different. The whole show made me feel so, happy and excited, and empowered.

So here's my list of TV shows I like, just so you have something to compare to:

-Supernatural
-Smallville
-Friends
-That 70's Show
-House
-CSI
-Gossip Girl
-Charmed
-Gilmore Girls
-Scrubs
-Bones
-Will and Grace
-NCIS
-HGTV's Design Star
-Color Splash
-Food Network Challenge: Cakes
-Ace of Cakes
-Cake Boss
-Iron Chef

And yes, I am aware that some of these shows aren't of the highest caliber, but everyone needs a guilty-pleasure show. Surely you wouldn't begrudge me that?
Anyway, what I'm saying is: next wednesday stay in, grab some chips/popcorn/chocolate/what-have-you, switch the channel to abc, and park your tush on the couch from 9:00-11:00. Just check them out.

Painting Pains...

So here's the finished product from the rough drafts I posted before. It needs something. I don't know what. Husband pointed out it has no shadow, and suggested apple leaves. Any ideas?
The stupid thing is driving me nuts.

Today's a super-short post, because well...there's just not much to write about. I have some big news that I'll post later with lots of fun photo-shopped pics. Yippee.

All things Yummy...

So, I've started painting again. I'm doing some rough drafts for a piece I've been wanting to do for our wall. Tell me what you think:

The top one I did first. The shapes and details are pretty horrible because I did the whole thing from sketch to end product in about 30 minutes. The second one I took a little more time on. About an hour to an hour and a half.
Anyway, my issue is, my husband actually prefers something about the first one, but he doesn't know what it is, other than the fact that he thinks the bottom pear is too skinny and it's stem is too long.
I personally prefer the second. Bah.
I'm supposed to do the final one on my rather large canvas this weekend, because of the schedule I set for myself. (is that practicality sneaking in?)
Anyway, feedback would be most appreciated.

This is my pixelated cupcake. I know I know, it looks more like a muffin. The top is supposed to be frosting, but white doesn't show up well on white for some reason (hmm...wonder why?) and I hate putting random colored backgrounds that cause issues on paint. So I guess it can just be a muffin-cake. I'm playing around with a base I made and came up with a couple that I think are cute.
But what are they for you ask? Well, I'm thinking about re-creating them in felt. What do you think? Maybe not even felt. Maybe I'll actually make them like 3D plush stuffies for Monkey.
Any ideas?

And to conclude our yummy blog for today, we made lemon bars, double chocolate fudge bars, and actual cupcakes (not virtual ones...do not be confused!) all of which I will not eat! LOL

Hurray for the return of Home-made!

I just discovered "etsy.com" which is full of home-made goodies I drool over. Especially in the children's section.
I found a bunch of great idea's that I can just do myself (yippee!)

and some things I know I would screw up, so I'm considering just buying them from the site.

But they've also got adorable clothes, and entirely different sections such as candles, furniture, and my favorite: Geekery. Yup. Geekery. Which is pretty much anything funny, and sentimental with that innate geeky quality. Such as hand crocheted Star Wars characters, and miss pack-man wine bottle charms.

Priceless!

It's got me all excited to get some more done in the monkey's room. I hand-painted her name in block-letters and updated an old painting that once hung in my baby room, but that's about it wall-art-wise. My favorite is her armoire, which was originally my mom's old tv cabinet.

We painted it black to match her crib, and buttery-yellow on the inside to match her walls in the old apartment.
(By the way this is a HORRIBLE picture, its from our first apartment, and we couldn't do much with the room. I'll get a new pic up soon)

But speaking of the monkey, yet again she is waking up from nappy-time. I'll tell you how my (yikes!) home-made dessert turns out tomorrow!