owls and birthdays and cowls, oh my!

wow, i have way more to update besides this, but i'll be brief, as i'm frying an egg as we speak. (have i ever mentioned i'm the master multitasker?!)

we saw this little guy a couple weeks ago, in our driveway, ON OUR FENCE. we pulled in after dark, and i thought for sure he would fly away. but no, he sat and posed for pictures for about 5 or so minutes before deciding there were no rats to be eaten and took off. but we didn't seem to scare him at all. he kept turning his head sideways, then looking straight at us. incredible!

not long after we saw this little guy, gillian turned EIGHT. i really can't believe she's that old. sometimes she will be telling me something and i'll just zone out and look at her and think, "whose kid are you anyway?" it's very surreal. i guess this happens with the first child especially, but it really does just seem like yesterday since we brought this tiny little girl home, weighing 5 lbs. 5 oz. and now look at her. amazing.

i have to tell you one thing about this picture (besides that it's posed because i missed the actual blowing out of the candles...). my sister always gives the best gifts, and she sent gillian this dress, which gillian promptly put on the minute it came in the mail, along with the glittery headband, bracelets, and purse, and she wouldn't take it off for 2 days except to sleep briefly (although that was a bit of a power struggle for a minute there: "mom, it's so comfortable, can i wear it to bed?"). thank you aunt sara!

and remember this yarn? well, maybe i didn't ever share it with you. but i bought it initially for the extra wide cowl i made to take to NYC (which, incidentally, i never wore because it was way too warm). well, last night i remembered i had started a smallish scarf with it, same moss stitch, and i figured, crap! i better scramble or these few cold days we are having will pass and it will be on to hot again and i won't get to wear it.

so here's the finished product, which i turned into another cowl. and no, i'm not showing or telling how i did it because it looks like dooky but my hair hides it so there. ;)

merry christmas and happy holidays, everyone!

xo

tooting someone else's horn

i love this new blog post by my dear, lovely, honest, transparent, brilliant friend elise, and i'm going to get this book and find time to read it, even if i don't really have the time. maybe it's hiding under the mounds of laundry, or under the dirty couch cushions....wherever it's hiding, i'm going to find it. :)

easy redo

maybe it's because i'm trying to make changes in my life, but i thought this would be a good time to redo my blog's look. that gray background was making me depressed every time i looked at it.

my friend pixie sent me the link to aqua poppy designs, and she has free backgrounds like this one to use! all you have to do is copy the html into a widget in your blogger template and voila! it's totally redone!

now, if only redecorating in "real" life were like this...

good ole shakespeare

well, hello there. i guess it's been a while right? i'm really unsure of whether i should even be here right now.

i had planned to write next about our trip to NYC and how amazing it was (it was--click the link and check out rick's post on it, or click here to read all about my spectacular first in-person meeting with my friend elise). or how the kids had a blast visiting my family in virginia (they did!). or how fun-filled thanksgiving was (...).

but there was some family discord, and it has really affected me in ways i didn't expect. i think i didn't expect it because i have worked hard over the last few years to sort of "grow" up in the way i react and respond to things that happen when my family gets together. and i have sensed this on the other end as well. but this time, things said and words exchanged made me feel like i was right back in 1986, struggling with my identity and figuring out who i was apart from my parents.

in short, it really sucked.

so it has led me to seek out a counselor to sort of process things with so i can figure out how to move forward once and for all and stop being so affected by all of this. last night i went for the first time, and i was pleasantly surprised. i have been to see counselors a couple times in my life (for very brief stints), and they have seemed to want to prolong the process by making me start "at the beginning." which i always felt was a total waste of time. i mean, i am trying to move FORWARD, right? not re-process everything that has happened to me in the past?

well, i learned a few things last night, but the thing that really stands out to me is something i already know i struggle with: i need to be true to myself. maybe it's the lit major or english teacher in me, but when the woman was talking about this last night (and she said it in a much less cheesy way), all i could think of was "to thine own self be true."

it's funny, because i've always sort of resented the way people want to sit around discussing this profound meaning in literature. i have no idea why: i have a degree in english. or maybe that's precisely why. maybe i got so sick of people trying to pull meaning out of every little word in college that i have been overreacting to that ever since.

at any rate, i thought it was funny/ironic/odd that i kept saying that to myself last night and then even this morning, thinking that it needs to become my motto.

see, i really define myself by what others think of me. and therein lies my problem: i am my own expert on myself. no one else knows me quite the way i know myself. so when i hear something that is critical, negative, i need to stop and evaluate. is that true? what parts of that do i agree with, and what parts do i need to just let go?

instead, up to this point i tend to internalize EVERYTHING and then just feel overwhelmed or in despair because i feel like suddenly i am a failure and i can't do anything about it.

but it's my choice to believe in myself. to realize the potential, the goodness that is me. and i know to some of you this might sound hokey. i'm not trying to say that i'm a good person and that i'm without flaws. but i honestly do think i focus too much on what's wrong with me instead of trying to see the good things about myself: whether it's my body, my intelligence, my gifts, my personality, my parenting.

and i think i do this because i care what others think of me. by the way, rick is learning/studying a lot about enneagrams, and after reading all the descriptions, i think i'm a 2 (for those of you who know about that sort of thing). that explains a lot. :)

so, for now, i am hopeful. i'm looking forward to learning ways to be a better mother, wife, daughter, without giving up who i truly am.

to thine own self be true.

p.s. now that i've written this i feel better, so be on the lookout for a photo essay of our trip to NYC...

dam you, damper

(you have to check out the site where i am getting these photos: they are jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring.)

so i bet you didn't expect me to be posting today. you know, since i'm leaving on a jetplane later today for NYC.

but i'm sorry, i just have to vent before i go.

i have a serious load of craptasticness (this lovely word is thanks to my sister, sara, who is trying to be like stephen colbert and get the word "craptastic" into everyday lingo) putting a real damper on my NYC spirits. and aren't you lucky: i would like to unload it on you...

rhys (the baby) is sick. i took him to the doctor friday, and he had just a cold, but thank goodness the doctor gave me a scrip for antibiotics because by the time we arrived yesterday afternoon he had an infection of some sort. his cough sounds like he's literally trying to give me his lung. it's one of hardest things for me to deal with as a mom: hearing that cough and not being able to do anything to make it go away right then.

so he's snotting and coughing and oozing all over everything around my parents' house.

yeah, my parents' house. we arrived here yesterday around 4 pm, after driving to savannah the night before (tuesday) and staying in a hotel (5 people and a dog). we called ahead, just to make sure they had the pack n play we had reserved. "oh no, sorry, we gave them all out already." WHAT?! ok, we have a 2 year old who's never slept in anything else. so suddenly we were relegated to sleeping with him on the floor on a rollaway mattress. well, i was relegated, because i'm the mom and everything. i think at one point he was lying on TOP of me.

needless to say i didn't sleep that night...

and another thing: i bought this awesome sweater right before we came here. it was supposed to go with everything, just in case it was warm enough where i didn't need a jacket.

what did i leave at home? that's right: the sweater. i even went to the local target to see if i could find it and buy another one (sad, right?) but they don't have them.

oh, and guess what else? i am expecting 2 (big) invoices, neither of which has arrived, so we are headed away for the weekend with way less money than we thought we would have. not that we were going to spend a ton of money. but we don't use credit cards, so it's nice to have extra "padding" just in case.

ok, so this is all what i was thinking about today in the shower, where i do my best thinking, and at first i just wanted to scream. i felt like a pressure cooker, and my lid was going to blow any second.

my first thought was to pray about it. unfortunately, not about my attitude, but about the situations. you know, like "God, make the baby's cold go away. please let my invoices be paid by tomorrow." that kind of stuff. this is a direct result of the faith i grew up knowing. there is so much that's good about my faith background, but this--not so good. God is not a magic man, waiting in the sky to make things better for me. yet this is always my first thought when i'm in a state of panic.

ok, so then i calmed down and had a talk with myself. seriously, why am i letting these things put a damper on our trip? the first "real" trip we've had away from our kids ever. (2 trips to weddings where rick was officiating don't count, because much of our time was consumed with the weddings). my parents are awesome. my mom is so laid back about rhys being sick, and she told me this morning (even though she herself is sick and hasn't slept in days because of piled-up paperwork) not to worry, that everything would be fine. they have an amazing backyard, in which just this morning my 2 oldest children (who you know to be the ones who fight incessantly) were playing...NICELY...and even sitting together on a bench swing and singing songs together. (whattttt?????) and did i mention i have plenty of cute clothes to take, even without that (awesome) sweater? and how the weather won't be very cold, so this (transplanted) florida girl won't be freezing her bohonkus off after all? (that one is my word, which i am at least trying to circulate around in my own family)

so i am damming up those feelings of overwhelm. yes, i know that's an inappropriate use of that word. but i just felt like using it. or maybe instead of damming them up i'm letting them go.

ok, now i have a trip to get ready for! see you when i get back!

free-fallin'

first of all, i just have to say i think the post about my cowl grabbed the most comments i've ever had on one post: NINE. wow! i feel very loved. thank you everyone who left a note. it makes me feel like a 2nd grader who's waiting on valentines in her decorated paper bag, and then opening each one and savoring every word on each one. they pretty much all say "i heart kristi." so thank you!

so i had my first official day off in a long time yesterday. so long i can't remember, actually. by "day off," i don't really mean taking a break, or playing or having fun. i do that sometimes just because i have to to stay sane (or because aedan won't stop bugging me to build a tank puzzle with him...yeah, don't ask.)

but yesterday, it hit me that i had just finished a book the day before and didn't have anything else lined up to work on.

i dropped the kids off at school, and rhys and i proceeded to go to...wait for it...the GYM, where he actually was compliant enough to play in the NURSERY while i worked out. (today we did the same thing, and i got told when i was leaving "that was a fast workout." thanks a lot, YMCA worker. way to encourage me.)

while i was working out, i was having these thoughts like, "wow, this is what it must feel like to be a rich mom who can have her kids in daycare and just do whatever she wants all day." truly, i can't imagine what that is like. nor do i really want to. but for those 30 minutes, it was thrilling.

then we ran errands, ate scones from s'bucks, and got home in time for rhys to take a stellar nap, during which time i surfed FB and started another knitting project (this time, a scarf, with rust-colored yarn i had originally purchased for the cowl, and doing the same moss stitch--already looks fab and promise to post pics when it's done!). i watched a movie--without the computer in my lap trying to edit chapters while i peeked at the tv now and then (yes, i do this...shhh, don't tell the publishers i work for.)

sometime during all this, i felt a weight lift from my shoulders. but then, later in the day, it was back on, like one of those x-ray gowns you have to wear to protect your ovaries from the radiation. you know the ones?

so per my nightly routine of lying in bed after i should be fast asleep, allowing my heart to race, panicking about all the stressful, frustrating things in my life or my (always) giant to-do list, i started writing this blog.

now, i have to stop and say that, at night, when i'm in bed, these thoughts are WAY better than they are the next day when i finally get around to writing them down. i think of the best descriptions, details, funny thoughts, metaphors. i should buy a cheap laptop and just leave it next to me at night so i will be more inclined to write it all down then and maybe it would all make more sense.

but i digress. (see what i mean? that wouldn't have been in there if i'd written this last night.) i started thinking about why i feel so uncomfortable with being in a good place.

what i mean is, when things are going relatively well in my life, i don't have any jobs to work on (or maybe i do but there's no pressure to do them right away), the kids are loving on me, rick and i are getting along (maybe even looking forward to an upcoming weekend away in NYC? hello!), i initially feel great, and then i start getting this feeling like i'm falling. like maybe i've just dived off a cliff, and i'm reaching out as i fall, trying to grab onto tree limbs, rocks, twigs, weeds, whatever i can reach to stop this feeling of falling. except there's no parachute, no umbrella a la mary poppins.

when i'm stressed, overworked, grouchy, in a not so great place, i feel like i'm grounded.

and this, folks, is not healthy. i know this. i just don't know how to fix it. or maybe it's not that it needs to be fixed but that i just need practice allowing myself to give myself a break. (can i use "myself" twice like that? you get what i mean. i hope.)

someone recently told me i need to develop thicker skin. ok, my response to that is a resounding YES! but i also think i need to do this related to myself. which is a weird thing to think about, but i think it might work for me. cut myself some slack. yes, i think i could go for that.

free-fallin'. maybe i'll just relax, take the downs as they come, and try to start embracing the ups.

wish me luck!

p.s. that top photo is of my suitcase i mentioned a while back, which i don't think i will ever be traveling with, because it's too freaking heavy. so much for vintage style. and notice the boots? i got those at ruche, a fantastic online shopping site where everything reminds me of anthro except WAY affordable. they are so comfortable and i hope to live in them the whole time we are gone. speaking of which, we are leaving next tuesday evening (headed north to Va. then leaving for the Big Apple on thursday), so have fun while i'm away, and i'll be sure to tell you all about it when i return!

love this little boy

and this doggie too, who just had to get in on the action eventually.

november morning

30 degrees outside. watching my breath float out of my mouth, away on the wind. heavy clouds hang overhead, pregnant with snowflakes. now they spill down, down, down, onto my head, onto my (bare) arms, onto my tongue.

in my fantasy world, that's how i'm modeling this cowl i just made for myself. i'm in an anthro ad (of COURSE!), wearing all vintage clothes, snow sprinkling down all around, maybe a barn off to the side.

the real world: hurricane ida approaches, so the air is pregnant here, but with humidity. high today of 82. about the only thing matching what i wrote at the outset is the breeze, which is always lovely when a storm heads nearby.

however, in about a week i will be giving this baby a test run in NYC. yes, that's right! rick has a work meeting there next thursday, and then i will be joining him that evening and we get the WHOLE weekend to play and have fun (sans bebes) in the big city!

we have always dreamed of living there, so i am beside myself with just going to visit. my mom and dad are gracious enough to be willing to keep the kiddos (plus the dog) so we can have a few days away to ourselves.

i even bought a new coat for the occasion. isn't it great?

and i can't believe the prices. plus, i get overwhelmed in the store, so shopping online for this was way easier.

if we are facebook friends or for the (very) few of you who follow me on twitter, you may know that this cowl originally started as a beautiful rust color with (very expensive--at least to me) soo soo soft yarn. however, after working furiously for 3 days, i realized i would need at least 2 more skeins of it, and i had already spent $33 (for 3 at $11 each). and you know where i live, so it seems just ridiculously indulgent to spend $50 or $60 (or more) on a scarf i might get to wear twice, besides our impending trip north.

so i scratched that project for now and went with lion's brand chunky yarn. i don't feel like usually it's soft enough for me, but this thing is SUPER soft.

i should note (to encourage you to leave me some praise, you know) that this is the first project i've ever done that wasn't the straight knit stitch. for those of you just starting out in knitting, it's called the moss stitch. and i think i found my new obsession. because it's super easy, and i LOVE how it turns out, with those little knots. i love the alternative name for it, too: the seed stitch.

i hope your november morning is lovely, wherever you are!

spooktacular!

we had a great time yesterday, despite the blazing heat...

the kids dressed up during the day for a local festival that turned out to be pretty lame. they didn't care. they were wearing their costumes, right?


rhys decided to ditch the cow costume for a firefighter costume that night. it was still so hot that after about 10 houses his hair was so wet it looked like he'd just had a shower. so he shed the costume and announced "tick o teet" as a plainclothes detective instead. :)

isn't aedan's hair awesome? people kept asking him if it was a wig. that's just how much hair this kid has.

i hope your weekend was full of fun and sweets as well! now, how to avoid eating all the chocolate candy in my kids' plastic pumpkins...

flashback

(that's me, drum major, poofy bangs and french braid. oy.)

on NPR i heard that geocities is no more. which strangely brought back some (not-so-great) memories.

in my former life, i was a high school english teacher (and even yearbook adviser). yes, it's true.

at 5'2" and 24 years of age, i lorded over those 9th, 11th, and 12th graders. at least i tried to. mostly they just thought i was grouchy and mean and _________ (fill in the blank with whatever obscenity a teenager in the mid-late 90s would have used).

i LOVED teaching. well, i loved hanging out with the kids. the english lit and grammar were just ways of allowing me to do what i felt called to do at the time--spend time with teenagers, listen, encourage. i loved imagining that i was the "cool" teacher they could share things with, talk to, get advice from.

things sort of went downhill when i taught 9th grade honors english. i don't really know it all started. maybe i was too tough on them. maybe they were just punks. maybe i gave a test or 2 they didn't like. maybe they had always enjoyed resting on their middle school laurels and didn't prepare enough. maybe i should have been more flexible about turning things in late. maybe they should have heard me when i told them that grown-ups don't usually get extended due dates in life.

at any rate, one day i found out that a few boy students had created a website about me. now, this was in 1997, so way before it was normal for kids to just be messing around on the Internet. unfortunately for me, i had graduated from the high school at which i was teaching, so the students had easy access to (awful and embarrassing) pictures of me in my pre-swan stage. ok, maybe i never reached the swan stage, but i had some ultra pre-swan growing pains.

(this is how badly i want to forget how i looked in high school: a while back someone posted pictures of me from 9th grade, and i was so horrified that i ended up de-friending about 200 people and locking down my FB page for a while. talk about needing to get over it...)

the only thing i can remember about the page is that there was some (funny) prose about me heading to florida (for spring break maybe? or christmas to visit family) and being satanic (i'm guessing because at the time rick was a youth minister) and there was a picture of me from high school.

as soon as the boys got wind of the fact that i knew the page was up, they took it down. i'm not sure how many people saw it. my ego was really bruised. i have never been very good at laughing at myself. i wanted the boys punished, which our school administrator wouldn't do because one of the boys' dads was the president of the football parents association (whatever it's called--see i've blocked all school lingo out of my vocabulary) and he didn't want to offend the parent. seriously?!

the other boy came to me and apologized, which made me feel a lot better.

but even now as i type, i feel my palms getting sweaty, my heart racing a bit. it definitely was not the most fun experience. i think maybe it was so traumatizing to me because i had hoped they would think i was awesome, and instead i realized that at least some of the students regarded me as their enemy. or maybe they were just being stupid. maybe now they would feel bad about it.

i know in high school i didn't always behave in ways that i would be proud to admit now.

isn't it strange how hearing one word, geocities, can bring back such a flood of memories?

a blog you need to read

so i told my friend elise that i had dedicated an entire blog to her, but then when i went to find it, i realized i had not ever shared it here. instead i had shared it on facebook. so, because i am guilt driven, but more importantly because i love love love her blog, i'm writing one now.

so go read it. add it to your blog reader or whatever yours is called. i love how raw, honest, and open she is about motherhood, humanity, life.

some clarity?

this week, i read this NYT article about yelling. specifically, yelling at our kids. and why it's so hard to stop. and how guilty it makes us feel.

i've been thinking a lot about this lately. i've seen friends on various blogs, via email exchanges, on facebook talking about and discussing the same things.

yelling at our kids sucks. and it makes us feel terrible. and i hate how much of a rush and release i get from doing it.

just this week, we were at play therapy (of all places) at a local university, and the kids were so wound up afterward that they were running aroundandaroundandaroundandaround and even coming dangerously close to knocking over a coke machine. while this was going on, i was trying to have a brief conversation with aedan's therapist. just you know, the routine stuff, how is he doing, what can i do to help him be a better person. except every 5 seconds i kept saying "please stop doing that. if you do that one more time there will be consequences when we get home. please sit down and talk to each other until i am done. please do not run up and down the halls because students are trying to have class."

sometimes they would stop and look at me and keep right on acting out. sometimes they would just keep running, not even slowing down to listen. i could feel myself getting madder and madder, except you know i was out in public and talking to a therapist-in-training no less, so i couldn't very well shout "JUST STOP IT RIGHT NOW!" (which i think would have been very effective at that point).

when i got home, i wanted to go straight to bed. and i told rick i thought it was because i had spent so much energy holding my tongue (not to mention the horror of having my kids misbehave so badly in front of someone whose job it will be to analyze child-parent relationships) that i was just worn out.

so i know that yelling takes no energy, while NOT yelling can take every ounce of my being, and usually does. and boy, it's sometimes just convenient to take the easy way out. that is, in the comfort of my home, when no one else is watching or listening.

but the thing is, sometimes i go overboard, and i see it on the kids' faces. and plus, i remember that all-familiar phrase (which i now repeat to my kids on occasion) my mom used to say to me: "why do you respond to me only when i yell? i am tired of yelling!" i totally get her frustration now. parenting is just plain hard.

so while i was pondering all of this, and thinking about the article and also about how to make our house a (potentially) more peaceful place, i thought, you know, it's time i did a sticker chart. actually, i can't lie: the therapist helped me come up with this idea. well, i had thought of doing it a while back, but remember i said i sometimes want to take the easy way out? yeah.

so i was thinking we should institute a sticker chart, because believe it or not, our kids seem actually to be motivated by little pieces of sticky paper. and trust me, they are not really motivated by much in the way of discipline. spankings don't scare (not that i EVER spank...), the corner doesn't seem grueling enough, grounding for the afternoon only provides respite from the family and gives them a chance for downtime (obviously not what i was going for), and they don't have favorite toys that they would be lost without (i've tried this...not effective around here). on top of that, they don't really watch any TV during the week, which is when we have the most trouble.

so stickers it is. sometime this weekend i'm going to make a chart and we'll start this on monday. and after 10 stickers, they get to take a trip to the bookstore and get a new (hopefully on sale) book. because around here, books are like crack. (yes, i am so thankful!)

they will be able to earn stickers once, at the end of the day. we'll use that chore board/rule chart i made a while back and then promptly stopped using, and we'll stick to the house rules we made together there. so if they do (relatively) well following those rules and participate in helping around the house, they will get a sticker for that day. we'll sit down each night and evaluate how they did and decide together whether they've earned one.

then i thought, well why is it okay for me to ask them to start making a huge effort to follow all these rules while i run around yelling and freaking out over things i need to keep it together on? so i think i am going to make a sticker chart for myself too. it will help hold me accountable. and the kids will see that i am making an effort too. because, i'm being honest here, it's just going to be really hard for me to stop yelling, just like i think it's going to be hard for gillian to stop hitting her brother or for aedan to stop having emotional breakdowns when he doesn't get his way. so we are all trying together to be a better family.

i'm excited. ask me in a week how it's going... :)

originally posted by monotation

so i've been writing this post in my head for a week now, and i had all these great, witty things i wanted to say, things i wanted to observe about my upcoming trip. and then time got away from me and i have to be at the airport in less than an hour so i'll just have to be brief.

i'm heading to virginia today for my grandma's 90th birthday party, which is tomorrow. and leading up to this event, i've been so excited. i've bought new clothes (fall-ish ones, which i won't be able to wear around here for who knows how much longer), i thrifted a beautiful samsonite hard-shell suitcase at a yard sale at the end of our block last weekend for TWO dollars, i have had visions of me, looking like something out of an anthro catalog, walking down the runway, aforementioned suitcase in hand, looking glam and polished.

at first i had no idea why i was having these fantasies. maybe i'd just been looking at too many anthro catalogs for inspiration (because lord knows i can't actually buy most of what they are selling).

so i thought more about it. did i really need a break that badly? well, if you have been around my 2-year-old lately, then you would probably say yes. but no, that really wasn't it. had i just been working too much and needed a forced break from it? (because i'm not taking the laptop--gasp!) well yes i have been working way too hard lately (just ask my kids, who are incessantly bugging me to "get off the computer and play"), but that wasn't it either.

then i realized what it was: i just needed to be a "grown-up" for a couple of days. because what excites me the most (of course i'm excited to see my family) is going to an airport (by myself), drinking a latte (by myself), putting on headphones and listening to music (by myself without anyone asking me how to make a robot or why the sky is blue), reading a magazine from cover to cover, reading a...wait for it...book even?!, taking a carry-on with only my clothes in it (instead of my clothes plus diapers plus sippy cups plus wipes plus a tacklebox full of toy cars plus elmo board books), and having (uninterrupted) grown-up conversations all weekend long.

that sounds like heaven. and it made me think about the things that mothers sacrifice, whether we like it or not, to be moms. like coolness (because, after all, who can push a cart-plus-race-car-combo at the grocery store and look hip?). or like sanity. or fresh, unstained clothes. not to mention sleep. let's not even talk about that.

but really, solitude. and i'm not a person who needs lots of solitude. but i think this weekend, more than anything, i'm hoping that those quiet moments during travel will refresh my soul and allow me to just be a grown-up.

in exchange for this, of course, (because there is always an exchange) dad will be playing mr. mom and giving up any solitude whatsoever (along with probably most of his sanity) so i can be gone.

so he deserves a triple latte and a night or two off when i get back for sure.

and also...

still hot as hades here. two days ago our heat index was 105. yes, you read that right. ONE OH FIVE.

a/c cranking. praying for reprieve soon. i'm a lucky girl, though--i'm headed to virginia next weekend for my grandma's 90th birthday party, so at least i'll get a taste of fall there. i'm already packing. can't wait!

anti-hate blogger gang

i know i have been scarce here lately, and it's not looking likely that i'll have much spare time to blog anytime soon. so much work, so little time. thankful little person i am, indeed.

but i did want to share something with you really quickly: over on the for me, for you blog, kate has been dealing with some blog haters. of course, if you blog, i'm sure you can relate. if you don't blog, these trolls are probably the reason you shy away from putting yourself out there.

(side note: if you don't already have kate's blog on your reader, you MUST add it. there is eye candy galore, and by that i mean she shares all sorts of awesome fashion links...like ruche, for one, which is like anthro, only about 1/5 of the price, plus she makes these incredible necklaces that are very reasonably priced, PLUS she takes off-the-chart stupendous photographs that she shares at least once a week...)

so notice i added some text on the right-hand side of my blog, along with a logo that one of kate's readers designed. i love it! feel free to put your own disclaimer on your site too!

hope you are having a super weekend!