Bombarded!

That is exactly how you'll feel when you look at all of these pictures. I've been blog lazy lately - I can't be bothered blogging. Many of you know that I spent a couple of days subbing at the Methodist (Mormon) preschool and daycare, which helped me to stay busy, and I've also spent a lot of time reading trashy teen fiction. We are in the process of closing on the house, so I've been on the phone a lot. For what it's worth, we've signed all of the paperwork but we're waiting for the bank to let us know they have our funds so we can take possession of the house and do demolition next week. I baked several times for the Ward Christmas Party and other assorted events. I've also done some Christmas shopping (almost done - two gifts left to buy and a few more left to make!) and yesterday I even went to the movies by myself, which was fantastic. All in all, I've been contentedly busy lately and haven't felt to get on the web and update my blog. I'm also working for TCM most of this week, so don't expect much. However, Juston just e-mailed me about 15 photos from his beloved iPhone, and it's my duty to make sure they make it to Grandma's eyes. And just for fun, I've only corrected three of these pictures. Try and guess which ones have been through photoshop.

Ah, a common scene at our house. Bridget attempts to use her feminine wiles to steal away a tasty morsel from young Frankie.

Lunch at Front Page News.

Daddy, I want a pony for Christmas!

Playing in the backyard before raking the leaves.

Leaves!

More leaves!

Stop with the leaves already!

Caged! (I think that's also the title of a film from the 'Women in Prison' genre.)

Another reason why kids think I'm a rock star - I will don a blanket as a cape and run around the house playing 'Super Why!' while babysitting.

Guy Fawkes Party - Gunpowder, plot, treason, and Frankie.

Frankie takes a nosedive into a pile of blankets.

I'm watching you.

I been tagged.

There's this thing going around on people's blogs - it's where you write six little-known things about yourself and then tag six other people to do it themselves. Heather (who is also in the ATL Ward Primary presidency) tagged me. Woooo. Unfortunatly, I have a rather small blogging circle, so I fear there's no one left to tag! But here's my six, in random order:

1) When I was a kid, I was obsessed with cats (and Miss Piggy, but that's another item in itself.) I became something of a junior artist in the second grade with my cat drawings. I had a pet cat named Tiger that I thought was the bee's knees, even though I don't think he really liked me much. (My dog willingly snuggles with me in bed, but I could never force that dang cat to sleep near me!) I really wanted to be a vet, like most other children. At one point, my family owned four cats. I was well on my way to becoming the crazy cat lady, but then I developed an affinity for dogs and don't see myself ever wanting to own a cat again. (I only put this item in because, well, most people think I'm dog obsessed.)

2) I draw. My favorite medium is watercolor pencils, which I use with liberal amounts of spit (I love the colored fingerprint smudges.) When I was on my mission, I kept a journal of drawings, which was my emotional outlet. I mostly draw girls, and animals. I still draw quite a bit these days, and Juston is currently egging me on to try and sell prints on etsy.com, just for fun. Heck, I bought a couple of art prints the other day from someone off of that site, so people do buy them!

3) When I was in high school, I loved calculus. I lobbied for the third trimester of calculus, but only two other people signed up, so the class was dropped from the schedule and I ended up with an additional choir class. Calculus is the math that makes sense of all of that algebra nonsense!

(This is starting to get hard....)

4) I really wanted to write a paper about plastic surgery and the media in grad school. My professor thought otherwise and 'strongly encouraged' me to write about another topic that he thought was 'sexier.' I will do it someday. (What? You haven't seen "Lovely and Amazing?" You really should, if you like that kind of thing - note - not for the more sensitive of those in my reading audience.)

5) This year I've become a recycling fanatic. I get really upset when I see people throwing away stuff that can be recycled and I've been known to dig through my trash when people throw away aluminum cans, magazines, plastic bottles, etc. I also take home glass jars, plastic stuff, etc., when I'm out to eat or in public so that I can recycle them when I get back to my house. I call this my new year's resolution gone crazy overboard!

6) I haven't had long hair in over ten years. I just don't want it. I find shorter hair empowering and, well, way more fun than long hair. I also hold a belief that about 90% of women would look better with short hair, but of course, everyone is entitled to choose their own hairstyle!

7 - BONUS!) (I use a lot of parenthetical statements.)

Since it's the same people posting this stuff that read my blogs, I have no idea who's left. Anyone who hasn't, I tag YOU! Everyone who doesn't have a blog, do it in your hearts. Or send out a mass e-mail if you want to spam your friends.

It's already Christmas?

Blue tinsel tree

Santahhhhhhhhhhh!

Yes, that's our tree this year. Chrys was kind enough to get it for us when we told her we weren't doing a tree with buying the house and whatnot. Normally I'm against such Christmas stuff before December, but with the family in town, we managed to get a jump on things. We also went to Stone Mountain Christmas with Juston's family and decided that we needed to traumatize Frankie early this year by making him sit on a strange man's lap after his bedtime and after eating copious amounts of cotton candy. Poor child.

Mini "Ben 10"

A couple of weeks ago, we went to the premiere of the Ben 10 movie, "Race Against Time." (Ben 10 is a popular show on Cartoon Network.) Juston is an editor for CN.com, and did some of the web stuff for the movie, so we were invited and decided to take the nut along with us for fun. Juston made Frankie's little Ben 10 t-shirt, which was the hit of the party. Needless to say, I spent most of the 80 minute running time chasing a toddler around the movie theater. Frankie's recently gotten really good at walking and had a hard time sitting still!

Frankie's cartoon alter-ego:

Nobody puts baby in a corner.

Except for baby. Baby can put himself in the corner.

(Do you notice a no pants theme running through some of these photographs?)

Why not?

There's a website for everything these days. What's next?

Frankie loves iPhone

Juston has a new love in his life. It is his iPhone. He actually let Frankie play with it one day; here are the photos.

Ooooh touch-screen buttons. Love those buttons.

The Pipettes

Last Friday night, Juston and I saw The Pipettes at Vinyl. It was an awesome show. The Pipettes are a girl group from the UK that sings 50's throwback style music. Watching them, I felt as if I'd missed my calling in life. I should've formed a girl group! If only I were still 19 and British...I had Juston take a few pics and this short video since, well, I'm too short to really get anything good in a group of generally taller people. Enjoy!

Here's a video of them at Criminal Records here in Atlanta last Friday. Had I known this was going on, I would've cancelled my trip to Ikea for shelves! Frankie probably would've been nuts, but I think he would've liked it.

Bad dog!

Well, except that it's not a dog banished to that crate...and that child looks awfully happy to be in it...Frankie's discovered Bridget's bed. He just loves to climb in there and gives the biggest smiles. I promise that I don't lock him up when he gets on my nerves, even though I might want to sometimes!

And just for fun, a photo from a few weeks ago; in true Frankie fashion, a cookie in each hand and no pants! Hooray for excess!

Under Contract

Well, they took our offer of $96k with us paying closing costs. So it looks like we're almost under contract! If anyone would like to rent my house or knows of anyone who's looking for a great 2/2 on the MARTA line in a pretty decent neighborhood (we have lots of fantastic neighbors), let me know! We're going to charge $950 a month, which includes the alarm system (we'll bundle that in) and we're leaving the washer/dryer. Pet friendly - fenced-in backyard! Plus there's a detached one car garage with a storage room/office in the back of it. We'll also consider a month to month lease for those of you with uncertain plans for the next year! Yes, can you tell we're looking for a lease agreement? It changes the kind of loan we can take out if we have a renter in place when we close at the end of the month. Did I mention that our house has an adorable screened-in porch and a roommate floorplan? :)
Also, if anyone has any general contractor recommendations, we're looking for one.
Thanks and wish us luck!

The zoo!

Last week, we went to the zoo with our friend and her kids. Here's a few pics from our day!

Frankie tried to climb the fence to get to the giraffe on the other side.

The nest!

Here I am in the nest, back when I was pregnant....

And here I am with the baby, two years later!

Trick or Treat on Turner Street 2007

Every year, Turner puts on a big Halloween-themed to do for all of the employees and their families and whoever else from the surrounding area can sneak in. I suppose it's easier to celebrate Halloween than to try and be all-inclusive with all of the other holidays that have religious undertones. Anyway, this year we spent a good portion of our time there in the toddler zone, a place roped off and filled with plastic walking toys and big wheels. Here's Frankie in action, only hindered slightly by his costume.

Lost your neck there, little guy.

Frankie in the pumpkin patch. He held onto that little pumpkin with the death grip and wouldn't let go.

Frankie with his TCM pirate mateys Andrew and Brittany. (Notice he's still holding the pumpkin.)

Happy Belated Halloween!

I've been slower at updating my blog lately; I think I was preoccupied last night with not only a fussier than usual child, but with making sure that I got to watch America's Next Top Model. Did anyone else notice that they did their recap show early this 'cycle'? They probably didn't want to compete with all of the various versions of the Halloween film series playing on every other channel. We were invited to two Halloween parties last night, but we decided to stay home and try our hand at giving out candy to the usual groups of teenagers that 'forget' to wear costumes. (That, and putting in an offer on a house is probably enough excitement for one night. We'll keep ya posted.) Only one over-eager child actually walked right through the door into our house while Trick-or-Treating, which isn't too bad. And Bridget was too weighed down by her costume to make a break for it.

Behold the Halloween happenings at our home!

On to something less serious...

Spiders and pirates!

Pugfest 2007. I couldn't get Bridget to hold still long enough to take a good picture. Unfortunately, Frankie was pretty ill yesterday, so we didn't get to stay for long. We went early, and she was just about the only dog in a homemade costume. We figure that most people were keeping their costumes "under wraps" until closer to the costume contest. You've never seen competitive until you've seen how all-out some people go to win this thing!

Pirate Cap'n Frankie.

Cap'n Frankie at playgroup. Argghhh!

The house on Grady Place

We went back to see the house again today. Some investors put in an offer yesterday, so we're having to move fast. The realtor selling the house is having the bank wait to respond to this offer until Monday so that we have a chance to throw something into the pot. Apparently the other offer is from an investor who lowballed it, so if we offer like $90k, we'd have a good chance of going under contract. We're nervous not because of the neighborhood itself, but because it's such a gamble to buy a house not knowing what's going to happen with the market and what's going to happen with home values in this neighborhood. We do love the place, but it's still scary when you get this close to potentially taking out another mortgage. Please let us know what you think ASAP!

House hunting, yet again.

We found absolutely one of THE most amazing homes I've ever seen in my life today. Really, amazing is about the only word to describe it. Built in 1920, it has 12 foot ceilings, 4 original fireplaces (3 with original gorgeous wood mantles,) french doors, huge rooms, a huge deck, a gigantic attic with 12 foot ceilings that could be finished to provide MORE living space (the house is probably 2000 square feet on the main level.) There's just one problem...it's in Historic West End, which doesn't have the best reputation ever, but it is improving. I know, you're thinking about Gutbusters and the West End Mall. Well, keep driving down Abernathy...past the funeral home, the ginormous Baptist church (which is really cool, btw), and past the Wren's Nest, and you'll come to a few streets with some of the coolest historic homes you've ever seen. The area was hit by mortgage fraud really hard, and a lot of the homes have struggled, but people are starting to buy up again. The houses are as nice or nicer than the houses in Inman Park (fancy expensive old homes for those of you not in the area) but they do need some love. The house costs a paltry $109k, and since it's bank owned, we could probably get it for about 100k, which is a steal for a house this great. But still....

What do you think?

Videos!

Frankie likes to give open mouth kisses. We're still working on that puckering thing.

Frankie also likes to play this little game where we exchange squeaks. Maybe he'll be a singer? I love boy soprano :)
...and as a bonus, listen to Bridget joining in on this fun.

Back to the blog.

I took a week off from blogging last week. I just wasn't feeling it. Subsequently, I have a small backlog of stuff. Here goes.

I'm making Bridget's spider costume this Halloween. (PugFest is on Saturday!) We've never purchased a costume for our dog; it just seems sillier to make one, however, it usually ends up costing more money to make one. This year I'm going for a spider because I saw a baby wearing a costume like this online and thought I could easily adapt it to Bridget. In this image, we have the spider legs, or black men's socks from the $1 store stuffed with Buffalo Snow (aka cheapo bagged fake snow.) I've never been so glad to see Christmas stuff out before Halloween - what else was I going to use to stuff those socks?

I still can't seem to get the shirt size quite right. Here's Bridget in one version, demonstrating one of her legs. I might need to put wire into the legs to give them some shape. Hopefully she'll be so miserable in her costume that she won't attack the spider legs.

On to Frankie...one of his favorite new activities is pushing his high chair across the kitchen. In this photo, he's combined two of his favorite things - playing with pots and sitting under his misplaced high chair. Good times.

Last week, when I was at the Salvation Army buying Halloween costume stuff, I came across this dump truck and Frankie had to have it. He was throwing a temper tantrum - I didn't think that he could do that yet! Luckily it was only 49 cents, so it didn't set me back too much. Yesterday he decided that it would be a good idea to take a ride and Juston snapped some photos of him crowded into the bed of the dump truck.

Climbing. Yikes.

Website

A couple of people have wondered why I decided to buy the domain name cookingwithfeminists.com. It comes from a segment on an episode of The Colbert Report about a year ago. Here's a link to the segment on Comedy Central's website. And by the way, I'm really in no hurry to develop a website. That placeholder will probably be there for a long time to come.

Water Conservation

So, if you live in the Southeast, you're painfully aware of the level 4 drought, which means no outside watering at all. So much for those plants...or should we give up on them yet? I've decided to start recycling shower water to keep my pansies alive, and it's working so far! I made 'buckets' out of three old gallon milk jugs, and I use them to collect runoff when I'm waiting for the water to heat up. I also use them to get water when I'm doing things like washing my hair or other things that don't require standing directly under the shower head. (Juston's not too fond of this new showering arrangement.) Georgia governor Sonny Perdue has declared October "take a shorter shower month," and keeping showers under four minutes is the best way to be water concious.

These jugs have been fantastic, because I also use them to scoop up Frankie's used bath water to water plants. I've been using Frankie's bath water for my container plants all summer and now I've expanded its use to planted bushes. At least we can have our grass go dormant this time of year and be reasonably sure that it'll grow back next Spring, rain pending.

A few other things I do to conserve water is to try to wipe my dishes with a sponge instead of rinsing them before putting them in the dishwasher, I've put an empty two-liter bottle, weighted down, inside of my toilet tank to reduce the amount of water used per flush, and, well, we don't flush as often (just when necessary - you know what I mean.) I only do laundry/wash dishes when I have a full load, but I pretty much have always done that. I try to take whatever water is left in sippy cups and water glasses at the end of the day and use it to water container plants. My car lives without a car wash, but that's nothing new; I've always been lazy. What are you doing to conserve water? Please share any good ideas - I'm always looking for new ones!

How do you say delicious?

Like this!

Thanks, Jan, for introducing me to the Cinnabon Copycat. I made them for the first time today, substituting half of the flour for whole wheat flour. They are so tasty! Find the recipe here.

Yes, we love Bridget! We especially love adorning her with stuff!

So I was surfing the web the other day (ummm...don't I do that every day?) and I came across some really cute dog collars on etsy.com. I decided to get one since Bridget is getting, well, a bit snug around the neck. This one is by a woman who calls her collars "Lucky Fiona" and it's a Halloween-inspired color palate. Doesn't Bridget look chic?

Last night I decided to pull out the sewing machine and make a little doggie shirt for Miss Bridg out of an old t-shirt. Unfortunately, I cut the fabric just a leeeetle on the snug side, hence the muscle shirt look she has going on here. Luckily this one was just an experiment as I've never made a dog shirt before. At least I know now that Bridget needs a bit of give since she's a bit on the, um, 'fluffy' side.

How to make a child temporarily happy

Balloons: the answer to "I refuse to take a nap so I'm cranky as all else!"

October Atlanta Pug Meetup

I thought I'd experiment with a slide show, since I had 11 pictures I wanted to post from this morning's annual pug meetup costume contest. We haven't taken Bridget to Pug Meetup in almost a year. She has anxiety problems around large groups of dogs and starts acting skittish, hiding behind people and foaming at the mouth. Today, however, she was perfectly fine and even played with some of the other dogs. Perhaps things are looking up! And you will notice, she is not wearing a costume - we're saving that big reveal for PugFest on October 27th! Let me know what you think of the slide show - if it's as annoying as I think it is, I won't do it again.

You'd think they'd just won the lottery, the way they're carrying on...

...maybe they hit the Daddy jackpot! Also listen at the very beginning, Frankie is making barking noises. I think it's some secret communcation pattern that he's formed with Bridget and they use it to discuss making mischief. And yes, that is my child wearing only a diaper. At the end of the day, I just can't be bothered trying to dress him again if I have to remove his food-crusted t-shirt.

Frankie's exceptionally clean (well, sometimes)

The Swiffer is Frankie's absolute favorite toy, which is a really odd choice for a favorite toy until you realize that Juston's always had an abnormally unhealthy love of vacuum cleaners. This is one reason I had kids - housework and child labor - but he still has to learn to do my taxes before my parenting wishes are fulfilled.

He also cleans up really well!

You know, just in case

This link might come in handy for some of you younger ladies (and gents) when you need that moral support and you just don't think you'll make it much longer.

(Link should work now!)

Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising's Images of Women

If you have 34 minutes to kill, you should watch this - especially if you are a woman. I promise that you will learn something. I love Jean Kilbourne's book; this is like an updated, condensed version. It's almost 10 years outdated and I hope that a fourth film is made, possibly addressing digital advertising along with print advertising. Basically, this film is much like a lecture, with Kilbourne discussing advertisements and how the subtly affect our lives, making women feel as though they can never live up to unrealistic ideals all while objectifying us. Oh believe me, it's pretty infuriating. I'm also amazed at how Special K's advertising campaign has changed in the last 8 years, from being proactive to being a diet plan. Yeesh.

(Here's your fair warning - some of the ads she shows are graphic, but they are ads from fashion magazines...you've probably seen most of them before.)