I have like, 3-4 big blog posts boiling around in my head, but some are interlinked, and some are not and I’ve been putting them off all week so rather than continue to put them off because they seem “too big” to tackle, I’m just going to do them all super quick and get them out there.

1. James and I have been married for 10 years TODAY. We went to lunch, since we suck and have no sitter for tonight or this weekend. We came to the agreement that we will go for another 10 years. I tried to change the terms of our marriage (I want him to “obey” but he wasn’t going for it) but in the end, we figured we can give it another 10 years.

2. The above conversation was actually like 30 seconds. Just so you know. We’re not actually that callous. We’re just very amusing to ourselves. The rest of lunch, we talked about house remodeling. Because we’re just that romantic and dreamy!

3. I have dislocated my toe. “How!?” you cry! Well, it was nothing dramatic. I wore heels for several days in a row a few weeks ago, and did more than moderate walking around errand running on the last day and my feet hurt. Really bad. Usually I wear heels, my feet hurt, and in a day or so, they’re fine again.

Well, they weren’t fine, and when I hit the 2 weeks with my right foot really kind of killing me, I decided to go see a podiatrist. He suspected a fracture, x-ray-ed, and lucky me, no fracture —- my 2nd toe is just DISLOCATED. He prescribed me a anti-inflammatory cream to use 2x a day, a pad to stick on the ball of my foot to take the pressure off the joints, light wrapping to compress the area and anti-inflammatory pills to take orally. I go back next week. The toe should want to move back into place when the swelling goes down, if not, I may need physical therapy.

So, in a word, my foot hurts, and when it gets later in the day, I start to hobble rather than walk. Don’t worry, I make sure to give James frequent updates on the status of the foot pain. “it HURTS OH GOD IT REALLY HURTS!” Definitely every hour. Usually every 15 minutes. He shows his appreciation of my helpfulness by attempting to smother me with a pillow. Because of the love.

4. I am re-starting up Project Skinny. I actually started it up officially on SUNDAY! I went to a Weight Watcher’s meeting and let me tell you, that starting weight is a little scary. I knew my weight was creeping up this year, but I wanted fries from 5 Guys more than I wanted a skinny ass, so it was easy to stick my head in the sand and ignore the obvious. I don’t want to make excuses, but the stress with the stuff going on with Ethan definitely was a factor. The last straw though, honestly, was the foot/toe thing that really did it.

After my foot was STILL hurting me (this was before I got myself to a doctor) after over a week, it dawned on me that perhaps my foot has suffered a more serious injury FROM WEARING HEELS… that PERHAPS… MAYBE JUST PERHAPS… I WAS TOO GODDAMN FAT. A person should be able to walk around Target and Petsmart and do errands in heels WITHOUT DOING SERIOUS INJURY TO HER FEET. Obviously, the feet aren’t meant to carry around the amount of weight mine have been carrying around! That was it. It was the last straw, and it was time to do something about it. (Please someone bottle this feeling for the future.)

So I really got my resolve together Saturday. I was going to go back to Weight Watcher’s, and I was going to start Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred. I’ve heard about it on Twitter and a few friends have commented on it and it looked good to me (helloooo! only 20 minutes!) so I had bought it. Well, now was the time, baby! I didn’t start it Saturday as I had intended, but I did Sunday and I was doing pretty well on it until I think I aggravated my toe a bit more — Day 4 I pushed myself pretty hard, and it is also the day my foot was killing me and I called the doctor! And now I am putting the Shred on hold.

It kind of sucks because the motivation for me to GET UP EARLY (ie: move heaven and earth) and DO AN EXERCISE VIDEO (ie: shoot myself in the foot) is… well…. DIFFICULT. But I had it! I had the motivation! I did FOUR WHOLE DAYS, PEOPLE! That is huge. And now I have to put it on hold until my foot is better. I can only hope I can muster the motivation back up when that day comes. Sigh.

And I was really actually enjoying tolerating liking how i felt afterwards. I was sore, but a good sore. I was tired, but also more energetic. And with each day I was a bit less sore than the one before and I could push myself a bit more than before.

So anyway, yeah. I am trying not to look at a big goal right now, but am focusing on the wedding we are going to in mid July. It would be nice to get a good solid loss in before then, and I have enough time to do it. I’ll be tracking my progress here.

5. FIRE! Soon, I am going to PLAY WITH FIRE. I have been wanting to take a metal smithing class since the beginning of the year but have purposefully put it off. But now the time is almost upon me. I am taking a beginning soldering class next Sunday, ALL DAY, AND I CAN’T WAIT!

Me. Melting metal. Maximum Awesome.

That is all!

For NOW. CARRY ON!

-amy, who’s foot hurts. Really bad. I’ll call you in 15 minutes with another update.

I have a couple of really distinct memories from my very young girlhood. I lived in Colorado until I was 8, but we moved to washington state before I was nine. I don’t remember much of 2nd grade, but 1st grade is vivid and In Color!

I remember how hot it was in Colorado. When my parents told us we were moving to Washington, and they mentioned it had a lot of trees.. I remember I was glad about that because there would be a lot of shade. You know, shade is a good thing when it’s always hot out.

My very best friend in the world was Tina. she lived in the neighborhood one over from us. My house was in the middle of an acre of alfalfa, which, just for your knowledge, is like, one of the best things for a kid to play in. When it’s been growing all summer and is really long, you can pick it and lay it down in a bed and lay down and no one can see you. You can play in it like a fort. When it’s short, lots of those little prickly weeds with stickers on them (heretofore called, as we always called them, “sticker bushes”) grew everywhere, so as to provide kids who always ran around barefoot with Feet With Skin Like Elephant Leather. We used to run races barefoot, to see who could go over all the sticker bushes the fastest. I won often, and still have Feet With Many Callouses.

Anyway, back to Tina. To get to her house, I had to cross the field of alphalfa, go over a little footbridge over a creek/crick/running trickle of water, go through her neighborhood to her house. We named all these little places, but the only one I can remember now was we called the field we must cross to get to each other’s house, “Rattlesnake Country”.

Tina and I were the very best of friends. We went to kindergarten together to a school far away from our house, and the teacher was old and crotchety. I remember she would point to the inside of our wrists, and tell us that right now, that spot with the blue veins was weak and gooey. And we had to color VERY hard with our crayons to make the inside of our wrists strong and un-gooey. I remember hating her a little bit for that. However, her teacher’s assistant was the loveliest young lady named Ms. Pakorney. And just in time for us to enter first grade, a NEW school was finished being built, and it was just a hop skip and a jump away from Tina’s house, and thus, we could walk to school. And LO AND BEHOLD… Ms. Pakorney was our first grade teacher.

First grade was exciting, especially with Ms. Pakorney who did lovely things like read us Ramona the Pest, and never ever told us our wrists were filled with goo and that we mustn’t leave ANY WHITE SPACE when we colored or the goo would never go away.. Basically, first grade at our new school was heaven.

First grade was also when I remember really “getting” this reading thing. I remember being in the car and looking around and realizing, “Hey, I can totally read all this stuff around me.” I read Charlotte’s Web and was tickled to DEATH that I was so grown up that I could read a CHAPTER BOOK.

I remember that our class split up for reading groups, and I was in the highest group. It was me, and another girl, and a boy. And we got to name our reading group. And even though me and the other girl had all sorts of LOVELY names picked out, names like, the UNICORNS or the RAINBOWS or the RAINBOW UNICORNS… this boy must have been very cute and charming because he convinced us to name our reading group THE STEELERS. (I still root for the steelers whenever they happen to be on and I happen to be in the same room.)

Tina and I were in the same class and we both became good friends with lots of kids in the class, but especially a girl named Christine. I remember thinking that we were JUST LIKE SISTERS because her name was CHRISTINE and my MIDDLE name was CHRISTINA. I adored her long blonde almost-white hair, and thought that maybe if I scrubbed hard enough when I shampooed, MY hair would maybe turn that lovely white-blonde color too. The three of us played together all the time, but of course Tina and I stayed best friends, because we still lived close and walked home together and spent every possible moment on the weekends together.

Until one day, Tina asked her mom if she could have Christine and I over to her house friday and STAY OVERNIGHT! Oh the excitement! Oh the giddiness! OH MY GOD THE ANTICIPATION!

The three of us planned and plotted and giggled and squirmed with delight. Christine had a special note from her parents allowing her to walk home with us to Tina’s house. Friday morning we were keyed up to, I’m sure, a frenzy state of excitement. Until Friday afternoon, when Tina and Christine decided they wanted to have a sleepover BY THEMSELVES. WITHOUT ME. I am fairly certain it was because of the planning. I had wanted X, while both of them wanted Y, and there was a fight, and in the end, they decided they did not want me over. It was the epitome of Girl Drama, which basically is Girls Playing At Being Women kind of drama. It did not blow over, and I remember some vague turning of their backs to me and marching off to plan THEIR sleepover, type of behaviour, and I was simply crushed.

The fight and the decision to not include me, I don’t really remember that well. It was the aftermath that I remember vividly. I remember the sting of that pain. I remember crying my little heart out at home, after school, walking around my house, wandering out into the alfalfa, curling up and letting the tears roll down my face – knowing that right then, AT THAT MOMENT, Tina and Christine were doing all those things that we had planned to do together. I remember feeling so hurt that Tina would choose to side with Christine over me, choose to have Christine over AND NOT ME. I’m sure I wasn’t too pleased with Christine either, but the pangs of Tina’s rejection hurt the most, and also, the pangs of JEALOUSY. I was SO jealous of Christine, with her long blonde hair. Tina had chosen HER instead of ME.

A few days later, Monday rolled around, and the two of them quickly made up with me and I remember that feeling of surprise, that the pain that had hurt me so badly, that the event that had made me feel SO HORRIBLE, could clear up so quickly. They told me about their sleepover adventures and wished that I had been there and that NEXT TIME, would be even MORE fun.

I don’t feel any pain in this memory now, of course, but when I do think about it, I like to pick it apart in my head. It was definitely the first time I felt betrayed by a good friend, and I am sure that Tina was just as enamored with Christine as I was. New, exciting, and of course, let’s not forget that beautiful long blonde hair.

I look at my kids and wonder what they will remember from this time. I know Ethan has already experienced the rocky stab from friends not necessarily choosing his way of doing things, and has already built up some defenses. Jocelyn is still too young for everything to not be huge and dramatic.. If her friend can’t come out and play because she has to eat dinner, it will be the end of the world for Jocelyn..

..but then, I remember it that whole experience being the end of the world for me, so maybe I was “too young” too.

I’ve got another DOOZIE of a memory, that I’m going to save for another time.

-amy

I had this necklace ALMOST finished for a long time, well, it was finished, but not quite the way I wanted. I finally sat down one night this week and added an extension chain so that the length could be variable – now it can be either 17-19 inches, though I guess I should make it a shorter range in case someone wants it as a choker..

Anyway, here it is, and I simply adore it. The focal pendant is a vintage lucite reproduction of a german filigree, and I have a few other colors of, so that will be fun. The chainmaille weave I used is European 4-in-1, with a simple 2-1 used for the connector at the back. It closes with a lobster clasp, and all metal is sterling silver, which means it is 92.5% fine silver, and 7.5% copper, which gives it more strength and hardness than 100% fine silver. The beads are amethyst.

So pretty. It’s listed in my etsy shop, though I will have to make another one for me to keep if it sells!

-amy

I guess I was a little too eager, because the Posies (poppies) on my exit off I66 are back and in full bloom.

I pulled over, sunk my heels into the soft ground, and waded through the dewy wet tall grass to take some pictures.

I can’t tell you how happy they make me.

Someday I may stop posting banners of jewelry I’ve made. But I am still in love with all of it, I mean, when you have a piece of lucite that glows as softly as the ones in that photo do, HOW CAN I RESIST? I SIMPLY CANNOT! 🙂

New banner 🙂

Me: Can i see your new birthday spy tool?
Ethan: Sure.
Me: Oh cool, a compass.
Ethan: I know.
Me: Whats this? Oh, a whistle!
Ethan: Yeah i know.
Me: and tweezers.
Ethan: yeah.
Me: …that come off!
Ethan: I have ALREADY established that.

Let me just repeat that last one.

“Already established that.”

!!!

James and I just looked at each other and repeated it about a zillion times the rest of the day.

Seven going on thirteen!

(Here is the afore-mentioned spy tool:)

So birthday-ness was celebrated. This year we did not do any fancy parties. I took cupcakes in to Ethan’s class at school, and he got to choose where to go out to dinner. He choose Chuck E. Cheese, where as soon as he found a fake ID machine, all tokens were unceremoniously fed into said machine. And then, he got Jocelyn and she did the same thing.

Basically, child poses in front of camera, machine takes child’s picture, machine prints picture on 1 of 4 different ID badges. Boy badges were skateboarder, firefighter, policeman, and some other one. Girl badges were rockstar diva, princess, and 2 other ones. (Oh boy what a good memory Mommy has!)

I am not kidding — Ethan posed for about 20 cards. And every single picture of him on the cards is almost the same, except perhaps that he tried his darnedest to look MORE and MORE menacing in each one.

Jocelyn, on the other hand, tried to look more and more cute and adorable in every shot:

Um, yeah, LET’S LOOK AT THAT ONE AGAIN:

I fear the teenage years ahead of us.

Along with the spy multitool, he also received a spy safe (complete with access code and voice saying “ACCESS DENIED” if you get it wrong), a spy scope (can look around corners), a skateboard, legos, and SPORE for the DS. Can you tell that we have a little secret agent spy man on our hands? In his free time? He likes to construct… not a FORT, like we did in MY DAY.. but a secret hideout.

It was a nice birthday.

Mother’s day was very nice too! Jocelyn brought me the toast that Daddy made. Ethan poured the OJ and brought it up himself, and then cleaned my room and made his bed. Ethan’s card had handmade paper flowers, and after seeing them, Jocelyn promptly went and made some of her own. Too sweet! I took Jocelyn to her ballet class, and then we went to Sweetwater Tavern for a Mother’s Day lunch. Very nice. I told James to please, PLEASE not buy me anything, because I have ordered enough in the sterling silver wire and lucite bead department to last several Mother’s days! I got my lucite beads in time for Mother’s Day, and so worked up a few pairs of earrings.

Here’s one pair:

I looooove them — but I’ve actually had a second vision and will be making some adjustments… will work on them this week!

-amy twiddles her fingers waiting for the sterling silver WIRE to arrive!

Every year I am spectacularly surprised and elated at the arrival of these lovely poppies that spring up on the nutley exit from I-66 east. Every year I am NEVER expecting them until suddenly, there they are, a whole SLEW of gorgeous gently nodding posies. I think they have replaced irises and lilies as my favorite flower ever.

You may have seen them too, because EVERY may, I put them in my banner!

Until this year – I keep looking for them. They should be here. It IS May, RIGHT? I’m not dramatically getting my months mixed up? Ethan’s birthday is this Saturday, and Mother’s day is next, so no, I’m not totally screwy in the head!

Where are my posies?