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I just read this article and thoroughly enjoyed it:

The No. 1 Habit of Highly Creative People

Summer Delicious.

I. 

LOVE. 

Summer.

I used to think that I didn't really have a favourite season...that they all had their beauty and bonuses. And while I still think the last half is true, I'm pretty sure I've come to the conclusion that Summer rocks my socks like no other season. 

I think what might have pushed it to the top of my list is living in cold COLD cities for the past several years. My summers have gotten much shorter since moving away from Hometown. I think it did the trick for pushing me off the fence when it came to choosing a favourite season.

After all....how could you not love a season that brings you this:

I'm in heaven when summer fruit is plentiful. 

(All the above photos are D-Hubby's, by the by.)

And then, just because they're both SO cute...

Summer is already starting to fade from these parts. 

(...whimper...)

Baby-Rae, Accelerated.

Her favourite place in the house. Which, coincidentally, is watching everything going on outside of the house.

I'm indignant.

My Baby-Rae is growing up way too fast. It's just not fair.
She's walking that delicate line between baby and toddler, marching around here like she owns the place (which, really, she does...but shhhh...she's not supposed to know that...), and acting so...grown up.
Recently, she's been picky about giving kisses. She used to give them on command, but then decided she could afford to be choosey...especially when it came to kisses for me, the Mama.
All-of-the-sudden, she's giving kisses again, voluntarily. But you know when she decides to smother you with them? When she is holding, in her sweet pudgy hands, something that she knows she shouldn't have. Like the kisses are supposed to distract me, or butter me up and make me all soft so I let her play with whatever she shouldn't have.
(And it works way more times than it should, dangit.)

Something else that's cracked me up this week? How I've found the cheese grater in the middle of the living room, Baby-Rae's pajama pants and shoe in the garbage, and her teddy bear in the toilet.

Welcome to Toddler-hood.

Starving Artist.

I'm a closet artist. Slash interior designer.

There's a reason I'm in the closet. I'm not good, I just looooove to do it. So I just experiment with my house and cheap art supplies and feed my inner artiste occasionally. These latest projects have been my favourite, though. I found fabric at IKEA that matched my weird-colour-of-blue curtains exactly. Yee haw! So I made a pillow slipcover out of it, scribbled on it, and ta-daa!

=Art. 

And the other picture I wouldn't share otherwise, because this is a majorly unfinished version of the project, but I'm loving it so far, so had to show! The fabric hasn't even been pulled tight across the one board in this picture, the photo board isn't done with some streaks of colour I'm adding, and my edges on both boards are still unfinished...and the third one (there will be a series of threeee) isn't even done hatching in my brain yet. 

Whatever. You get the idea. 

Show and tell is now done! Over and out.

iPhone, Why-phone.

I wish I had a nickel for every time my hubby has talked about, mentioned, or gazed longingly after the iPhone. I would be a rich girl.

I have fought it tooth and nail. I have made him wear blindfolds to the mall so he can't go into cell phone stores. I have blocked the Apple website from our computer. I have jumped between him and his friends when they pull out their nifty iPhones to protect him from the contagious and hypnotizing you-need-this-too vibes that seem to radiate from the thing.

Well, maybe I haven't gone to those extreme of measures.
Yet.

Why, you might ask, am I so anti-iPhone?
Well, there's a myriad of possibilities. Mostly, I think, it's just because it's a want, not a need. And yes, even though it's okay to have some wants, our budget seems to limit us to the occasional ice cream or cheap metre of fabric want...not the bajillion-dollar (um, maybe an exaggeration) electronic wants. And because I'm not convinced the internet ever needs to be that accessible...unless you're a travelling business-man-type.

Well....we may have had to go over the want-not-need point at least once every two weeks for the past year...but that was okay. D-Hubby just needed someone to say no. Kind of like I need him to tell me the same thing when I mention things I know I don't need...but am having a hard time telling myself no.
The reminder would at least stave off the iPhone hunger for another two weeks.

Until...
D-Hubby's current cell phone broke.
Which was right about the same time that the iPhone4 promotional ads were in full-swing.
Oh.
My.
Goodness.

So with genuinely needing another cell phone, and with the iPhone4 staring him in the face constantly in all its camera-on-the-front-too glory, things were rough for him in the inner iPhone-battle department. Which translated into reasons for the "no" needing to be more and more substantial. And discussed just about daily.


Holy Smokes. Talk about exhausting.


So, finally, the opportunity came for him to possibly get his hands on one. He knew when a certain supplying store was getting their shipment in. And, if he did the wait-around, the possibility of having his own iPhone4 was close enough to taste.
Therefore, the night before this particular shipment day, we had to have a necessarily long discussion about this whole iPhone thing.
Delaying gratification came up. No-moola came up. Need vs. want came up (again). Getting lost in the internet came up. Resisting the lure of just-cause-everyone-else-has-it came up. Everything that made me object to the thing came up. And once I had gotten it all out there, and could say no more, I ultimately left the decision up to him...much to his chagrin. Just tell me yes or no was something I recall him repeating more than once. Baha. I laughed every time, too, because I totally get that. Wouldn't that be so much easier sometimes, in those decisions where you're so torn? But he knew our situation and my feelings about it. Ultimately, I felt this decision had to be his.

This story has a happy ending.

He did wake up early to go play the waiting game at the store.
But ultimately, what he ended up doing, was something that made me so SO proud of him.

He is now the owner of a phone that is not the iPhone. It was not the cheapest phone you could get, but it was cheaper than his original muse-of-a-iPhone, within our budget, and still had the features he needed in a cell phone. (Plus a few extras. But we won't start with that. Ha.)
And we made an agreement that if the phone ever started regularly interfering with his face-time with his family and friends, that out it went. And he gets one and a half weeks to be all oogly and in-love with the thing while he's figuring it out. Then, it goes back to being just a phone, and not his newest child.
(Speaking of which, the real thing arrives in just 11 weeks! Eeee! Baby!)

And so.

D-Hubby was not only able to curb his desire for the iPhone and make a much-wiser decision on behalf of his family, it was a decision that he came to on his own (and then ran it by me, of course. Just the married thing to do...). :)

We're proud of that man, Baby-Rae and I. And grateful for his example.

...Now to ask him about me getting that Cricut again....it has been two weeks, after all...

My Cereal Confession.

I have a confession to make.

Photo Credit

I'm sitting here, eating a bowl of Cap'n Crunch cereal. It was on sale today at the grocery store for cheap. And it's delicious. Peek in my front window and you'll see me munching it down. No big secret, right?

Oh, but wait.
It's my third-ish bowl today. Alone. Just today. And that's just the official count. It doesn't include the little bit that I add at the end to finish up the milk.

And as I'm sitting here staring into that crispy-crunchy, yellow-y, devoid of nutrients, and who-knows-what's-in-this goodness, I think I'm finally starting to understand why people feel the need to make regular, religious confessions.  See, I have this mosquito of guilt hovering nearby that won't leave me alone. And all I want to tell it is that I know I've got a problem, okay? IknowIknowIknow: I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to sugary cereal.
Zippo. Zero. None.

And I'm not kidding. If a box of junk cereal sits around here for longer than a couple days with me around, I would be very surprised. Healthy cereal lasts weeks. It's why I don't ever buy the junky stuff, I literally will eat it ALL. But if, for some reason, I do buy it...then watch out milk, because all you're good for is making cereal taste better.
Maybe it has something to do with the instant sugar rush. Maybe it's because it's just the easiest thing to grab when I'm hungry, no prep needed. But after thoroughly shrinking myself on the subject, I do know that the intensity with which I eat it is not just about it tasting good. It's almost like, because I know how easily it lures me in, that I need to get it gone, and fast.
SOoo....into my tummy, hurryhurryhurry.
Productive, right?
Yeesh.

I feel much better.
And so, because I have a problem--and know it, dangit!--sugary cereal will continue to enter my house very very rarely.
And if you're having it for breakfast at your house, don't invite me over. I mean, unless you want me to help you finish it off with no shame. Well, a little shame, but shame that I've embraced. With embraced shame.

Poor D-Hubby, Baby-Rae, and all my future kids.
Bet they didn't know that they were signing up for a life of healthy breakfast cereal.