a lucky suprise

One of the perks of blog-hopping is sometimes listening to music you've forgotten about or didn't know about to begin with. It's always a happy little suprise to me when I hear a song I used to love or heard once, fell in love with, but couldn't remember what it was or where I heard it.

And such a little nugget I found today.

Here is the amazing tune "Song To The Siren" by This Mortal Coil.

On the floating, shipless, oceans
I did all my best to smile
til your singing eyes and fingers
drew me loving into your eyes.
And you sang "Sail to me, sail to me,
Let me enfold you."
Here I am, here I am
waiting to hold you.
Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Were you here when I was full sail?
Now my foolish boat is leaning,
broken lovelorn on your rocks.
For you sang "Touch me not, touch me not,
Come back tomorrow."
Oh my heart, oh my heart shies from the sorrow.
I'm as puzzled as a newborn child.
I'm as riddled as the tide.
Should I stand amid the breakers?
Or shall I lie with death my bride?
Here me sing: "Swim to me, swim to me,
Let me enfold you."
Here I am, Here I am, waiting to hold you

This song is sang by the ridiculously talented Elizabeth Fraser, a Scottish singer and one helluva talented woman. She sings in a traditional Scottish style called "Puirt a beul", which basically means she emphasizes the way the music should sound over the actual lyrics themselves. The notes of the song are more important than the words; which at times can be annoying (because when I first heard this song, I couldn't tell if it was English, French, etc.) but it's also incredibly beautiful.

I first heard this song watching "The Lovely Bones", a movie that was more "meh" than "marvelous". But when this song came on at a pivotal part in the movie, it was a truly touching scene - Peter Jackson's colorful, crazy, CGI world somehow managed to match perfectly with this song from the early 80s. It was a very moving moment during the movie, and this song got stuck in my head. Not enough that I could remember it, partly because I couldn't understand it, but thankfully after a little blog-hopping, I've found it once more.

And I'll treasure it forever. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous song.

trail of bread crumbs...

So, you know how it goes. Someone links to something on Twitter. And you "click".

Then they link to another blog, which links to another site, which might finally (after ten or so clicks) take you back to the source of all things wonderful that originally caught your attention.

And in doing so you've wasted/endulged yourself in an hour of blog-traveling. It happens all the time.

And to cut down on some of the breadcrumbs for you, I'm just going to quickly share what I've found recently following the trail of blog links and sources.

It started with this tweet.
     Which led me to her blog post.
               That made me click over to this source.
                                Where I ended up in retro, kitschy, glamorous, gay heaven.

And you know what?

I had fun visiting every single one of those blogs - so much fun, I went about 20 pages in each damn one of them!

Seriously, blog-hopping can be fun. It's like bar-hopping, only without the next morning migraine.

So follow the breadcrumbs, see where they lead. Who knows where you'll end up next!

what Sidney wants...

she usually gets!

And she says she wants a "Dora" themed party for her 3rd birthday, coming up September 5th. So what's a Mom to do?

Well this Momma is giving in to the wishes of her sweetest toddler and throwing a Dora-themed party. My hunt for ideas and inspiration began tonight. I'm trying to with a more Dora-inspired party than just a straight from the shelves Dora party, if you know what I mean.

If you have ANY tips or if there's a direction you can point me in, I'd gladly accept the help!

For her, it's totally worth all the Dora-headache!

SidMo on her first birthday...

very wrong of me...

...but I still find this very damn funny.

sidney and the watermelon

she's serious about her watermelon

daddy's awesome finger-painting detail

nom nom nom

one satisfied girl....

getting back to birch trees, but not so poetically

source

I've spent a lot of time with the kids in my family lately. Kids who are seven. Kids who are eight. Kids who are twelve. And of course my kid, who's almost three.

And it's made me miss all the little parts of childhood I took for granted. The not worrying about life, the feeling of being protected 24/7 even when I was alone. The many questions, without answers. The endless possibilities. The novel idea I could still be anything and do anything at any point and time. The looking forward to major milestones: like my first kiss, my first car, my first job. Every day held endless possibilities. And the days seemed to drag on forever. I thought I'd never see eighteen. Or twenty-one.

And here I am, about to be twenty-two, still very much a child in ways. I've had to grow up quicker than some of my peers, what with becoming a Mom at eighteen and a wife at twenty. These were choices I made, and I don't regret one single second. Would I have done it differently? Perhaps. But I don't regret the things that led me to this moment in my life, this blog post.

Spending all this time with older kids has got me thinking about my kid and the conversations we'll have someday. It's hard to imagine in four years, I'll be talking to my seven year old. In nine years, I'll be talking to my twelve year old. In fifteen years, I'll be talking to my eighteen year old. And when three years have flown by, believe me I know it's all around the corner. It'll come and go quicker than I can say "freeze". The moment will have passed.

The big kids make me miss being a kid. And it makes me miss the kid my kid has yet to become. Sound confusing? You should hear how it sounds in my head. It's a mixed up, jumbled up mess. But I know if I spend too much time dwelling on it, the kids will be grown and I'll have missed it all.

So I treasure the little moments. With all the children in my family at their various ages. They annoy me, yes. They drive me to the brink of madness in seconds, yes. They remind me that I really might want to think twice before I have a dozen kids, yes. But they fill me with love - and they remind me that inside all of us is a kid. A happy go lucky, ceaselessly happy, joyous, bright, hopeful kid.

And that part of us will never grow up.

when you say blogger, what do you really mean?

What does it mean to be a blogger?

Sometimes when I tell people about my blog, it gets awkward. I say "blog" and they look at me like I'm speaking Greek. Or Pig-Latin. Or gibberish. Gibberish is closer to the truth, because what kind of word is "blog" anyway? Not a very good one, for sure.

So what do I mean when I say I'm a blogger who has a blog who enjoys blogging?

I'm saying I write. Sometimes it's creative, sometimes it's fluff. I'm a writer and a blogger. My blog is both a mommyblog and a personal-blog. I develop the stories of my life here. I document my surroundings, the extraordinary parts of my ordinary life. Some days it's all about me or my marriage or my kid. Some days it's about things I pine for, items out there in the world I wish I had the money to buy. There are days when I talk about what food I eat, where I vacation, who my family is, the last time I farted, what I'm doing each weekend - whatever it is, it's all me. Every inch of this blog, even the things that are hardest to relate to, are me.

This is my space, my tiny corner of the world wide web that belongs to me. I am but one of the (probably) millions of bloggers out there, thousands from my state, several in my immediate community. This feels so natural to me. I've been blogging/writing since I first found LiveJournal back in high school. I've been writing in diaries since the 5th grade.

Documenting the twists and turns of my life has always been natural to me. I'm a born record-keeper, the protector of my own memories. My mind fails me more often times than not, but my pages and words never do. They are always there, reminding me of where I've been and who I've been. They are like maps being written backwards. I don't see where I'm going, only where I've been. The space ahead is blank with a million words hot on my heels, waiting to be written. Pages waiting to be filled in and stories yet to be told.

When I tell people I'm a blogger, I should say I'm a writer for myself, for the story of my life. A blog is like an online journal to me, a diary for the world to read. You, too, can see where I've been - and you can venture on the everyday journey of where I'm going if you so choose to do so. My life is an exploration and this blog is the map.

When you say you're a blogger, what do you mean? How do you explain yourself? What feels natural to you?

my SidMo

I miss her when she's gone...even when it's just for a couple nights. Even when I know she's having a ball at the lake with her Gran and Pops. Even when I know she may not be missing me.

I miss her. And I wish she was here right now so I could squeeze her.

the school of drive

So last night I had driving school (yada yada  a ticket back in March - I was only going 84 in a 65, oops!)...

And needless to say there couldn't have been a more perfectly horribly wonderful driving school ever. The mix of the class was great: you had the little old man who had to be at least 75 and was caught doing 80 in a 50, but really he could care less about it all. There were two girls sitting directly behind me, even though I moved once and they followed, who were trying out out-impress the other one with their reckless driving stories. The 17-year-old blonde was, like, totally amazed that the 18-year-old brunette had, like, been in driving school, like, three times before, and like, she was just so crazy! Ohmigod! I wish I were being stereotypical here, but trust me, I'm not. There was the four-months pregnant smoker who was pissed at the world and almost got into an altercation with the ex-marine who obviously was from the North, if you know what I mean, and they both dropped more "F" bombs than Samuel L. Jackson during Pulp Fiction. There was the Nascar-loving, Nascar-driving man sitting beside me who treated driving school like it was church - every five seconds he was "uh-uh" and "yessir" and "you got that right". I fully expected him to stand up in the middle of it all and confess his unholy driving sins to the room. Testify! There were the two 16-year-old boys who'd been caught doing something very illegal but would never admit to much - they mostly kept to their greasy hair, acne face, basketball short wearing selfs. Never before had I been in a room with so much diversity, and I've been places people!

Our teacher was a lovely Southern gentlemen who had the most enrapturing drawl about him I'd ever heard before. He looked like Colonel Sanders on a diet, but he was just peachy y'all. Mint juleps and Savannah, GA and Gone With The Wind sweet tea hay-chewing "yes m'am" kind of Southern! I love it! I mean, I'm a proud Southern gal, but this man was Southern.

The class was four hours long and pretty much as awful as driving school can be - some lame AAA videos and boring lectures and a few interesting exercises. I figured we'd all have to confess our sins, but thank god we didn't because Bonnie the School Bus Driver would've spent three hours talking about the time these kids got together and made a human-shield so that this harlot that rode her bus could escape with her boyfriend and SHE got in trouble, can you believe it?!?! True story.

The best part of the entire night came when Mr. Colonel Sanders look-a-like showed us a video, one I was able to find on YouTube thankfully (although the minions on YT say it's fake, but I don't care - fake is funny). We watched the video and then the little old man I mentioned earlier piped up (after not saying a word all night) and said, "DAMN!" The best part of the entire night, ladies and gentlemen.

 

"DAMN!" is right. I think I love driving school now. I take that back, I love all the people out there like me who wind up in driving school.  

cuddle up

I am not a cuddler. At all. In fact, I'm such an anti-cuddler I usually enjoy having Sidney sleep between Justin and me so that there's zero chance at cuddling. I want him on his side of the bed, under his own blanket, using his own pillow. I don't want his arm on me or his leg flopped over on me (which he *loves* to do) or him spooning me.

No, I want none of that. Call me crazy, it's okay. But I'll wear the "no cuddling" badge proudly, seeing as how I'm probably one of the only girls in the world that despises cuddling....

99% of the time.

There are some nights, however, where the only place I want to be is wrapped up with my husband. I want his body to form to mine and our hands and legs to be twisted in so many ways he becomes me and I become him. For our noses to be touching, our breathing to become rhythmic. There are some nights, once in a blue moon, when I want to be a cuddler. It doesn't happen often, but the nights it does, my husband always obliges (I think he's a serial closet cuddler).

Last night was one of those nights. Sidney was gone for the night, I came home late (after watching Eclipse again), and Justin was already asleep in bed. Maybe it was the silly romantic movie or the idea of actually sleeping alone in our bed together, but I was lovedrunk. I wanted to cuddle. And cuddle we did.

And it was the sweetest.

(source)

Sometimes I feel weird talking about my relationship with Justin with you all. It's easier to talk about parenting and Sidney, but I feel like I'm toeing this precious line with what I share about my marriage. Shouldn't that be backwards? I should feel more wary about what I share about my child, right? Maybe it's because at this point, I know Sidney and I won't ever have a conversation about what I wrote on my blog today. And sometimes Justin sends me text messages or starts a conversation with, "don't put this on your blog, okay?".

But he never said I couldn't talk about the cuddling. And oh, the cuddling.

best part of the World Cup

Yeah, I don't watch soccer. Or football, whatever you want to call it.

I know that Spain won, which is totally awesome and fine by me, because I didn't watch two seconds of any match throughout this entire World Cup process. Soccer/football is not the sport of choice around where I live. We're in the mountains; kind of hard to play soccer on the side of a mountain, you know?

So THE most amazing part of this entire World Cup showdown, in my humble little opinion, was this clip I saw (over on dooce) of Spainard Iker Casillas kissing his reporter-girlfriend Sara Carbonero on live television.



Here's what I've found to be the best rough translation:


Sara: How did it go, how do you feel?

Iker: What do you want me to say? What would you like me to tell you?

Sara: I want you to tell me how you are. How do you feel?

Iker: The truth is, I feel really happy, happy, happy (using three Spanish synonyms for happy!). I'm excited it happened at last. I want to thank the people who have always supported me: my parents, my brother [tears up]

Sara: Don't worry, it's fine. we can talk about the match.

Iker: No, I want to kiss you. [SMOOCHES]. Ok, I'm going.

Isn't that the sweetest, most beautiful thing you've seen in a long, long time? A man who's obviously over the moon, so deliriously happy he barely contain it all in, and all he wants to do is kiss his equally proud and lovely girlfriend.

*swoon*

apparently I enjoy the "crazy"

Because my life isn't totally bonkers enough at the moment, Justin and I bought Sidney two hampsters and a fish last night.

Pause for reaction (and head-exploding).

That means we have three humans and five pets living in a 1980s singlewide. Well, technically the dogs live outside, but you catch my drift, right? We're crazy, that's the only thing I can think to say.

But Sidney loves them and seeing her smile is good enough reason for me. We've named the red beta fish Goldie (Sid's idea) and the hampsters Fuzzy (again, Sid's idea) and Flo (my idea). Our pet-naming skills are obviously all over the place because now we've got Archie, Jace, Goldie, Fuzzy and Flo. None of it makes any sense.

And speaking of Archie and Jace, it's been awhile since I've shared any pictures of our sweet boys, so here's some recent ones from the weekend.

Jace



My handsome, sweet, tender-hearted little guy - he's my big baby and he lets Archie know it. He's jealous and protective and the best guard dog ever. Once when Mom came to pick SidMo up, Jace wouldn't let Mom near her and tried to corral her back up the hill towards our house. He loves having his picture taken and loves being the center of attention 24/7.

Archie



Archie on the other hand, refuses to cooperate. He hates having his picture taken, hates even sitting still for too long. He's always into something, dragging stuff out into the yard, shredding newspapers, etc. Whenever I get up off the swing to walk back into the house, Archie runs off the porch and just looks at me - like he's terrified I might actually reach down and pet him before I go back in the house. He's nuts, to say the least, and that's why he's Justin's dog moreso than mine.

These animals, I love them - all of them equally already. I'm a fierce devotee to having furry critters around the house at all times, so I enjoy it.

Justin on the other hand might just divorce me if I bring home one more thing to live in or at our house.

a lot and a little

A lot of pictures this week and a little bit of words.
Some days are just better, more fluid than others.
Some days are static, represented only in smiling happy faces.
Today we smile.

Have a joyous weekend. I'll be taking pictures all the live-long days (if the weather cooperates - my new rented lens arrived today and I can't wait to try it out!)

beautiful, beautiful girl

B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L

mobile uploads 4

Another mobile uploads post - I think I'll do these more often, seeing as how I always take a lot of pictures with my cameraphone.


my favorite summer ride (albeit my mom's ride)


mini campfires at dobby's house are the best


minnie pearl


it's effing hot in this place, y'all


she likes to eat french fries with caramel, yuck


capitol building, washington dc


washington monument, washington dc


she doesn't look sick.......BUT


girlfriend has a double ear infection!

from DC to VA

It feels so good to be home once again.

Even though my house is a mess right now. Even though the first thing I had to do when I got home was to pick up the 914th newspaper our dogs have shredded in the yard. Even though there's more dirty clothes than clean available right now. Even though I was tired and sweaty and my feet hurt and my back ached. Even though my daughter was whiny and refused to sleep anywhere but right beside me all night last night. Even though my car is still half-packed, half-empty and I've got a million daunting chores awaiting me as soon as I get home. Even though I've got a busy week full of work stuff that needs to be taken care of, and school stuff that needs to get lined up before it starts back in a few months, and I've got to get pictures on CDs and sessions to shot.

EVEN THOUGH my life home is 10,000,000x more busy than any vacation in our nation's capital ever thought about being.......

It feels so good to be home once again.

to the military, both past and present

I can't say thank you enough.

But I'll never stop trying to find the words.



*I'll be in Washington DC all weekend, so no blogging for me. I hope everyone has a safe and memorable Independence Day weekend. Remember those who have faught and those who continue to do so every day so that we may live our lives blanketed in freedom and security.*

lookie lookie

I put up a ton of new photos, mostly of Sarah and Joe, on my flickr account.

Go and have a little lookie if you'd likey.

paranormal fail? maybe

Ok, so y'all know I like the movie Paranormal Activity right? I mean, I've written about it here before.

Well I saw the trailer for Paranormal Activity 2 during the previews before Eclipse the other night, and I have to admit, it got my blood racing a little. I thoroughly enjoyed the first one, and while most horror-movie sequels suck, this one looks decent.

Kids are the scariest thing ever (remind me to tell you about how I think my kid is in tune with the supernatural, no scary or silly stuff, I just really think she's got the *gift*). So any scary movie involving kids has the power to make me cower in fear.

I checked out this trailer again today and something caught my eye. Right around the 0:55 mark you see the "demon" standing in the doorway. You see the reflection of the room in the mirror at the top of the screen. You see the baby standing up in the crib. But when you look at the actual crib in the room, the baby is gone. (Check it out - if you're too scared to watch the trailer, you can still see what I'm talking about in the screen capture below)

Now does this mean the baby is the "demon"? Does it mean the mirror is some portal between the worlds? I really don't know, and honestly, I think it was just bad editing. A goof. Something you'd see on the pages of Photoshop Disasters.

But only time will tell. I just hope this movie is as good as the first one, true to the basic idea of what fear really is and the little things you need to make one scary movie: modest budget, simple idea - solid story.

tweaking

I'm still tweaking with the blog a little, trying to get to a "happy place".

I wish I knew a little bit more about html code - I think I'm going to finally break down and have my site done professionally by someone who knows what they're doing.

'Cause it might as well be in German for me when it comes to formating this blog.

So, stay tuned. Site is officially under construction.