22 Saturday Jun 2013
Posted in Life, Photo Challenge, Simple Pleasures
These pictures sum up the world through my eyes on any given day. While I was down on the farm picking cherries I spotted a dark patch out in the pasture that just seemed out of place. Well it was and it wasn’t. I think I have a knack for noticing the things no one else does.
07 Friday Jun 2013
Tags
books, Bucket List, children, flat stanley, funny, kids, Life, Life List, parenting, photo essay, reading
Every once in a while you meet someone who knows how to make an entry into the world. More times than not it tends to be an actual person.
I being the well intending mom that I am decided it was time to introduce my daughter to “Flat Stanley“. For those of you not yet acquainted with Flat Stanley, he is a character based on a book by Jeff Brown. Stanley starts out as a normal boy until the day he is flattened by a falling bulletin board. Makes perfect sense right? Well you would think this kid would be distraught by his new flattened state but not Stanley. No he just folds himself up and jumps in the mail headed off to some new adventure, care of a first class postage stamp.
I loved this story as a child. Needless to say he had me at “crushed by a bulletin board”. I was totally that child with a crazy imagination I made up stories daily and this one seemed probable to me. Flash forward to a few weeks ago. I took out my copy of Flat Stanley and read it over the course of two nights to my daughter. That weekend we downloaded a template of Stanley and my daughter colored him in with pain staking care. I told her I was going to take him to work and laminate him so he wouldn’t get ripped when we sent him in the mail.
Well, I actually do have a decent amount of work to do at work. So Stanley sat on my desk for another week or so until I decided it was finally time to laminate the kid and bring him to life. Life. Life simply put is fragile.
I laid our Stanley x2 (we made an extra incase the first got lost) out for lamination and took him over to the jam free laminating machine. Emphasis on the “JAM FREE”. Within less than 30 seconds the machine that promised me this would be a quick project had eaten Stanley. As I stood there in horror watching the laminate disappear into the machine I was only shocked out of my stance by the smell of plastic melting. Well at this point I have not only given up my Mother of the Year award, and potentially traumatized my daughter by killing her dear friend, but now I am worried about burning down the office. Sigh.
I at least had enough sense to unplug the machine. After some careful manipulation (by which I mean damn near wrestling the laminate out) I was able to remove Stanley. I smoothed him out and well…it wasn’t pretty.
This was the product of some serious stretching. It was about and inch wide when i first pulled it out.
How the hell do you kill a boy who was already flattened by a bulletin board? This was a shining moment in parenting. Could I iron him flat again? Maybe she wouldn’t notice, or better yet maybe I could tell her this is what laminating looks like. She’s only four after all. I was all set to do the walk of shame when I got home until a coworker suggested I just run him through the copier and see what happens.
Earth shattering I tell you. Clearly I wasn’t in the right state of mind. Where had my creativity gone? I ran Stan the Resilient Man through the copier and what do you know, it worked. I tried my luck at a second lamination and whoot, whoot the jam free machine kept its promise.
So much for a quick project. Who knew Stanley’s arrival would be such an adventure in its own right. I packed Stanley up and took him home, secretly hoping my daughter wouldn’t notice that he had taken on a slightly different tone from her original drawing. I held my breath and presented her with the Stanley’s and she looks up at me and says “didn’t we mail him already?”, running off before I could answer. Right! Leave it to a 4 year old to remind you that life just isn’t that serious.
07 Friday Jun 2013
Posted in Photo Challenge, Simple Pleasures
Tags
babies, Joy, kids, photography, postaday, weekly photo challenge
Fleeting: Those precious days when playing with the BOX is more important than the toy inside.
23 Tuesday Apr 2013
Posted in Life, Photo Challenge
Foreclosure bears its true colors.
15 Monday Apr 2013
Posted in Photo Challenge
Tags
Subtle reminders to change your perspective.
15 Monday Apr 2013
It appears that I have taken an extended vacation from my blog. Well I have been out enjoying life and crossing a few more items off my list.
Back in January, I had a chance to attend my first TEDx #27 event in Baltimore. All I can say in retrospect is that it was absolutely amazing. I was having a hard time putting my emotions into words during the day but I left feeling like my mind and soul had been fed. Plus I fell in love with Baltimore all over again. For those of you who think all Baltimore has to offer is the Wire… you need to get out more. Mind Blowing Minds in the House. Sorry for the crappy pictures you can only zoom so much with a cell phone.
I also finished #8 knit a pair of socks. I am actually pretty proud of myself for this one. It simply isn’t logical to carry around a fear of knitted items that adorn feet. There was definitely a lesson to be learned in this. Sometimes you have to cast care to the wind and just dive into life. There were definitely hiccups, misunderstandings, and a few choice words along the way but things seemed to make a whole lot more sense as I kept pressing through. I guess life can be that way at times. And yes in case you are wondering I will be wearing these socks straight through August. 90 degree days be damned.
22 Tuesday Jan 2013
Posted in Life, Photo Challenge
Tags
I grew up in NYC and every year at school we were required to watch a video on the dangers of playing on the railroad/ subway tracks. While I never had any interest in “playing” on them I always thought it fascinating that so many people were rushing off on new adventures and into the great beyond.
21 Monday Jan 2013
Posted in Life
Tags
DC, Inauguration, Life, MLK, Obama, photo essay, photography, Travel
I am freshly back from my trip to DC for the 2013 Presidential Inauguration. Even with fewer people the energy in the air was just as amazing as it was 4 years ago. There is little I can say to recap the event and visit to the surrounding monuments so I will have to let the photos speak for themselves. I hope you enjoy them. I certainly did!
23 Sunday Dec 2012
Posted in Life, Simple Pleasures
Tags
Baltimore, craft, daily life, farmers market, Life, photo essay, photography
I adore the farmers market under the JFX. Today is the last day of the season. Until we meet again old friend.
21 Friday Dec 2012
Posted in Photo Challenge, Random Smiles, Simple Pleasures
One of my favorite things about Philly is how you can simply turn the street corner and be surprised by a burst of color.
One Happily Ever After 