Ushering in Fall

All I have to do is get out this candle, and it is fall.

There is something about Yankee Candle's Spiced Pumpkin that soothes me. It takes me back, way back, to when J and I first got married. I think that fall was the first time I bought and burned that particular scent. It's yumminess filled our crummy little apartment in Buffalo Grove. It welcomed me home from teaching school and coaching volleyball games. It was in the background enjoying newleywed life and not running up $400 long distance bills.

It also takes me back to when KJ was just turning one. We'd spend the days out in the grass, playing in the few leaves we had in our yard from our dying, decrepit oak tree. Then we'd come inside, I'd light this candle and enjoy some quiet moments while he napped. It also makes me think of the fall when my daughter, Boo, was 6 months and KJ was 3 and we would sit outside and hit wiffle balls and enjoy the crunchy leaves. Or the fall when Boo was 2 1/2 and wandered away from me at the Apple Orchard so that she could go to the bathroom all by herself. Those were the most terrifying 8 minutes of my life, and highlighted the difference between my independent daughter and my son with the apron strings.

There's something that makes me feel a little melancholy, thinking about all of the falls that have come and gone. I've been married for 14 years. My little boy is now almost 11. My baby girl is 8 1/2. I am back to work. The memories we are making are different now: Pumpkin Festival crazy carnival rides, fall baseball, volleyball camp. I love watching their worlds expand, yet miss the simpler times.

Someone once told me that smell is the sense most closely associated with memory. I can't smell this candle and NOT be trasported to fall. I love fall. I love the crisp mornings and the leaves rustling and football on tv. I love the beginning of school, hooded sweatshirts and weenie roasts. I love this scent.

I'm a little bit messy

So, I've mentioned that I love fountain pens. The problem with the fountain pens is that they sometimes dry out. And when they dry out, they need to be rinsed with water. Because the inks are waterbased, this works well, except for the fact that one's hands end up covered in ink. See Exhibit A.
This wasn't too bad. There have been times I have ended up with it on my face. Sometimes the pen gets clogged and one must blow through the pen like a straw to clear it. And then one ends up with ink on one's face.
No lie. This is a typical event in my life.

It's Football Season and I am Happy!

I wish I could explain it. There is something about football season that just makes me happy. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's the lazy Sunday afternoons. Maybe it's the regularity of the schedule (Seriously, baseball, 162 games?)
Whatever it is, I am a happy girl right now. I tolerate college football. Too many teams and quickly changing rosters for my little girl brain. Not to mention the bizarre BCS formulas. But the NFL gets under my skin.
I know these guys get paid too much, and have egos the size of Texas.
I know it's ridiculously expensive to go to a game (unless you know someone willing to share some free tickets.)
I know a lot of these guys are terrible role models for kids.
I just can't help it.
When I was growing up, my mom and dad would sit down every Sunday morning with the paper and the point spread and bet (just for fun.) There was such cameraderie there. Now, we have fantasy football. I even got my mom to set up a team this year. My 10-year-old son had to help her set her roster and show her how it works. It was a cute bonding moment.

I love the Steelers. I know that the off-season has not been kind to the organization. I'd be perfectly content to see them dump #7 on his ear and go with Dennis Dixon. I've been told it would be a poor business decision. So, I hope Dennis Dixon takes the first 4 weeks and rocks and then #7 becomes an afterthought.
Pipe dreams?
Perhaps.
And I digress and need to go to bed.
But, again. It's football season and I am happy.

Look Mom, I'm spitting

At what age do boys start this whole spitting ickiness?

Here's my son, getting ready for baseball practice with a wad of sunflower seeds stored in his cheek. I asked him to pose for me and as I shot this one, I caught the spit flying out of his mouth.

And he was proud. And he wanted me to take more pictures of him spitting. And I did.

But, I must ask again. When do boys start spitting? He certainly didn't learn it from me.

Joy and Pain

Ahhhh, the joys of raising a daughter.
Don't get me wrong here, I love my daughter. She is smart and funny and is a great helper. She loves animals and loves to read and is starting to love volleyball. She is a great student and is perfectly well-behaved at school and for other people.
Our only struggle is that she is unimaginably strong-willed. Our first glimpse of that was when she was about 10 months old and threw up on her cherished "Yellowie" (the blanket) in the car. I changed her clothes and tried to put her back in the carseat without the barf-soaked blanket. 25 minutes later, we were still walking around the parking lot. I could not physically get her into that car seat. And she was under a year old.
Then there was the day we were shoe shopping. She was a little over two and insisted on getting in the car seat by herself. I forgot about that and tried to put her in. Kicking, back arching and screaming ensued. After about 5 minutes, I got her back out and told her in a less-than-kind manner to climb back in herself. She threw her head back, right into the edge of the door and started crying more. That's when I looked across the parking lot and saw a lady watching me, cell phone in hand. I put DD back in the car and then climbed in myself and counted to 10. My sweet little, 4 1/2 year-old son said, "Mommy, you are scaring me." It took another 10 minutes of "Scary Mommy" plus almost all my weight to get her into that car seat.
Fast forward 6 years. She's beautiful and smart and wonderful and every once in a while, that bull headedness comes out. (She's a Taurus. No surpise there.) Today it was over homework, for no good reason other than she didn't want to do it.
My parents tell me my sister was similarly strong willed, and she grew up just fine. In fact, she's quite awesome.
So, I have faith that DD will do the same. There are just those moments when I feel like a failure as a parent. And then she comes over and gives me a hug out of the blue and it's all better.

Prepare to be underwhelmed

I simply cannot pass up any new, fancy, fun, cool-colored pens. One evening, this past winter, I dumped my purse and counted the number of pens and pencils floating around in there. 87. Yes, I was carrying 87 pens and pencils on the off-chance that I just might need to write something down. I wanted to have choices. You just never know what kind of writing mood you are going to be. But, my pen habit is a topic for another time.
I am here to talk about the writing instrument that I could not live without about an hour ago at Wal-Mart. (Cue the drumroll.) The SHARPIE LIQUID PENCIL. No more breaking leads! The "liquid graphite" technology eliminates broken leads! It's smooth like a pen, but erases like a pencil. It becomes permanent in about 24 hours. Seriously. Where has this been all my life? Sometimes I just feel like writing with a mechanical pencil, and well, this looks like the Cadillac of mechanical pencils. Plus, it came with extra erasers. EXTRA ERASERS! (Great! More stuff for me to lose in the depths of my purse.)
So, I pulled it out, wrote with it and was transported back to grade school when office supply companies first came out with ERASABLE PENS. Remember those things? The ink clumped up, smeared and smudged, smelled funny, and didn't write smoothly at all. But they were erasable. How awesome was that?
I am pretty sure that the Sharpie Liquid Pencil is nothing more than the 2010 version of the erasable pen, sans funky smell. It looks cooler, that's for sure. The tip is all narrow, kind of like a mechanical pencil. But it's just not very satisfying. That "liquid graphite" doesn't write very vividly or smoothly. And you don't really need that eraser to erase. Smudging with your pinky will do the trick.
Sigh. I was hoping for it to write like a true Sharpie. Because I love me a good Sharpie. Those Sharpie pens make me happy. I am a little sad that the liquid pencil isn't doing the same.

Photoshop Failure, part deux

So, I have photoshop. I have some free actions. I checked out a book on photoshop. I am taking an online class and have had exactly one tutorial on editing flowers.
That's how I end up with stuff like this.
My favorite action right now is Pioneer Woman's "Old West." I applied it after lightening and sharpening our eyes.
Now we have glowing "I am posessed" eyes.
Straight out of a horror movie, huh? I wish I could remember the name of the movie I am thinking of. It was full of kids, in a school, they all had white-blonde hair and glowing blue eyes. I think we belong in that movie.
Maybe I need more practice.