there's no cohesive title for this one.

going hunting for pictures on my external hard drive always takes 94 times longer than i think it will because my external hard drive is basically a giant, folder-less black hole into which i toss pictures of everything from synth cat here:

to pictures of east 88th street and york ave:

first, i feel like i need to explain synth cat.  and i honestly can't tell you where this picture came from or why i have it other than the fact that i really like moog synthesizers and maybe i thought this jpeg would make a funny t-shirt.  you're scared now; i get it.

but can i tell you how glad i am that i took these pictures of my little corner of nyc?  especially while it was uncharacteristically sparkling clean?  since those pictures were taken back in '09, our belongings have bred like rabbits to the point where i can't even remember how in the world we weren't living like hoarders in that joint.  in these pictures i am doing a really good job of pretending to be organized.  i need more order in my life.  i should start with the hard drive (bad news for you, kitty).

i hrt texas.

a few months ago my dad asked me if i genuinely liked living here in dallas.  i responded with an emphatic "YES,"  and illustrated below is reason #82 why i think texas is great: the kids and i aren't shut-ins in january.  (i'm still having nightmares about the winter of 2010: new york city, {touchy} newborn, snow, stroller, baby bjorn, mice, snow, ice, snow, temporary insanity.)

and having kathryn and quinn in town also makes for an extra sunny january day.

what this little girl is made of (and this phrase {which is a play on that old rhyme about little girls} ends in a preposition, which really bothers me).

so, people started throwing up around here, including me.  in fact i can't remember the last time i tossed my cookies that many times in a 24-hour period.  so the video-a-day thing?  it died and was buried in a shallow, unmarked grave of vomit-soaked laundry.

but gastroenteritis couldn't stop my saucy little filly from turning two.  indiana's favorite phrase of the year: "no i don't want it!"  ...you've got to say it with major attitude and a pinch of venom.  and i'm pretty sure she has trained her body to vomit on command, effectively taking the "let her cry it out" approach right out of my quiver.  but then there's this side of her that will lovingly try to mother any living creature who/that appears to be even a hair shorter than she is.  and then there's the way she gets so excited to see me after i've been away, even if i've only been gone for five minutes.  and sometimes she can't stop kissing my face and earnestly telling me she loves me.  and she sings and dances with wild abandon because her wee body just has to Free the Joy, People.

sugar and spice and everything nice... i totally get it now.  i am so in love with this little girl.

happy birthday, bits!

breakfast.

have you seen that "photo a day" thing floating around on instagram? each day in january is assigned a "photo" topic; today's topic was breakfast, and as i scrolled through my friends' instagram pics of their deliciously healthy, adult breakfast choices, i realized that i still eat like a six year old. but this "photo a day" project? i sort of love lists like these and regurgitated email forwards that tell you to answer 94 questions about yourself. however,

1. there's some sort of moisture (ugly word) on the inside of my phone's lens, so her pictures aren't up to snuff.
2. and i'm up to my nostrils in intimidating video editing software that i need to learn to use.

1+2 = i'm participating in "photo a day" via "video a day." but since it has taken me approximately 21 frustrating hours to edit 45 seconds of video, crappy ePhone pictures are sounding pretty darn spectacular right now. no promises, self.

just wondering, is anybody else out there terrified of 2012? captain obvious here: i am a bit more jittery than your average joe bag of donuts. but this mayan calendar, end of days garbage? i may or may not be kidding when i say that tomorrow i'm going to costco and buying the biggest bag of rice i can find. but then i know for sure that el diablo is laughing all the way to the bank with my soul in his coin purse because when i worry about such things i'm basically flushing my faith down the toilet. so, again, my theme for 2012: faith, not fear.

 and since there are no good segways from apocalyptic predictions into silly videos about toast... :

 

shame.

and i've arrived.  i am one of those bloggers who only posts stuff about family holidays.  i don't like this feeling.

"please bless that we can grow more slowly..." (unprovoked line from a fox prayer).

i'm not usually one to get stressed out about blogging or not blogging, mostly because i don't have any rhyme or reason to the things i post.  i just blog when it hits me.  like i should mention that my son had some gastrointestinal virus last week, and while he was chewing on skittles, he vomited, but the skittles somehow weathered the heaving, and when it was all over he was still chewing on skittles.  this is the kind of stuff i blog about when i should be posting cute halloween pictures.  i have a sickness.

i digress.  i am ever so slightly stressed about my complete lack of blogging recently.  i feel like i should have documented at least some of the many things we did over the last two months, and maybe i still will.  but for now this photo snapped off at the bain boo bash will have to do (thank you to whomever took this photo and got my children to genuinely smile for 2 seconds) (and just so you're not scratching your head, no, the title of this post has nothing to do with its contents).

the grinch and cindy lou who.  

i have enough remnant olive green faux fur to make a stylish bath mat or vest.  please invite me to your white elephant parties.

tell me i'm not the only one.

the other day i went to home depot.  nothing special.  when i walked back out to the parking lot with my spoils, the driver's seat door on my car was wide open.  panic washed over me until as i went searching through my vehicle (iPod: check, and... um... diapers/wipes/goldfish/broken crayons: check), i realized that i had left the door wide open.  somewhere in between getting the kids out of carseats and buckling them into the stroller i went bat-poop crazy and just wandered off without closing up shop.  just walked away.  who does that (not a question).

i'll tell you who does that.  the same person who lets her toddler do this (and records it for posterity) (ps, i'm asking for a steadicam for christmas):

because he had an early morning meeting in houston...

this is for matt.  our boy goes to preschool. and he was so excited. and he loves it.

away down south.

when i pulled into my sister's driveway on friday evening, the first thing i noticed was the funnel web in the middle of her front yard. this was sort of a problem for me, but i suppressed the need to google until the following afternoon. but of course, of course, the first link that google coughed up was a month-old local news story about how some local yokel may have found an australian funnel web spider, one of the deadliest spiders known to man, in his driveway. normal, harmless, apple-pie eatin' american spiders make funnel webs too, right? someone respond to this immediately.

and last week my sister had to pop a tick off of her daughter. arkansas is the living jungle. i probably should have taken anti-malarial drugs.

love ya, hil! let's go to nordstrom. in dallas.

roadtrip!

this was shot somewhere in between the texas-arkansas border and crazytown. indie barfed shortly afterward, and i am really trying hard not to think about how my hungry dog was sitting right next to her.