Tia the Explorer

When I walked in the house the other day, Ian had the ladder out so he could shut one of the upper windows. I turned around for one second, and Tia was already working on getting onto the second rung. Scary!

New Boots

This is Tia's first pair of rubber boots. I remember living in my black-and-red-rimmed ones when I was a kid. I don't know why but rubber boots just symbolize childhood, don't they?

And in Our Spare Time

This is my dance group "MOVE" performing at the 2008 NPC Washington State Bodybuilding, Fitness & Figure Championships in Auburn last weekend. It's me, my sister Rose and my friend Colleen.

The Evil Cheez-It

Today a Cheez-It nearly sent me over the edge.

I found it under the third load of laundry on the bedroom floor. After three days of filling in at work full-time, my house looks like a crazed pack of garage-salers blew through, but was disappointed, and left. Ian just took Sweet Pea to daycare, so what normally looks like a whirlwind of cereal, milk splatters, toys and baby clothes on the floor anyway is compounded by three days of domestic neglect...



...piles of laundry, elusive rice grains and other dried pieces of food from last week newly discovered by my bare feet, and dirty dishes dangerously near the edges on any available space.

So I started with the laundry, but when I uncovered that Cheez-It hiding under the delicates pile, I could only stare, as if adding one more thing on my list of shit-I-have-to-pick-off-the-floor was too much to take. That goddamn Cheez-It had become my nemesis. It was saying, "You think you can clean this place? I have friends everywhere!" I had to think. I carried the hated little renegade with an armload of laundry to the washer and thought about throwing it in... but that would only backfire on my clean, innocent clothes. Then it hit me...of course, the perfect ending for a crunchy smartypants martyr like you. You think you're some kind of hero, getting free, doing the army crawl and hiding out under the dirty pile until I step on you and make a complete mess on my Chinese rug? That's what you want, but you're not going to get it. You're going to be made an example of...with a fate worse than death for a cracker.


I put the Evil Cheez-It BACK on the shelf for Sweet Pea to do with it what she will.

Back in the Saddle

I'm filling in at my old job for a co-worker, but not doing a very good job, I'm afraid. The very first thing was that I started talking, but didn't turn on my mic. Nice. I did that twice. I also forgot whips and sponsor reads. Thank goodness I don't do this full-time! I had no problem making grilled cheese sandwiches, though.

Not Afraid

The first time we took Sweet Pea to the beach was in Hawaii, before she could walk. Even then, she crawled right into the water and didn't cry when waves came over her and pushed her back. Now, she can walk right into the water in front of our house, and even though it's a lot colder than Hawaii, she's still not afraid.

The small things in life

In a rare moment of quiet (Sweet Pea was taking a nap and Ian was working in the yard), I actually had time to bake. I remember thinking at the grocery store "I want chocolate chip cookies, but brownies also sound good" and when I saw this premade mix for chocolate chip COOKIE BROWNIES on sale I thought God was sending me a gift (as a stay-at-home mom I've started using coupons, but that's a whole other post). So while Sweet Pea took a TWO HOUR nap (another gift) I baked, finished making dinner, turned on the TV, then sat on the couch and ate three cookie brownies. Sanity saved for one more day. Sorry the picture is blurry, I was trying to hurry while Ian was asking me "Why are you taking a picture of the brownies??"