And yet he's totally fine with his masculinity

I stuck this on the dash of my husband's vehicle one day while we were parking the car to go to the park with our daughter.
Upon seeing it, he immediately swiped it off it's happy little perch and said something like, 'No effin' way!'.
But, then, a transformation.
I can't be sure if the purple and pink glitter mane caught the sun in such a powerful way that he was overcome by the beauty and glow of the tangerine body, but he gently relented to keeping Rosemary's My Little Pony there for longer than about three minutes.
Now I am unable to resist the urge to keep that information to myself.

Things that bring me an unreasonable amount of pleasure

I've always liked old junk.

Not in a greasy, car mechanic kind of way. More of a musty, cedar chest kind of way.

Clothing, jewelry, scarves, shoes, hats, flatware, postcards, dishes, and on and on.

Here's a typical exchange between a man and said junk-admiring woman: "You know what, sweetie, I'd really rather have a $3 rhinestone necklace than this emerald ring." He's a darn lucky man, that one.

I'm just going to come out and say that there's absolutely no money exchange going on here for my review of the wonders of their shop; unless, of course, they want to unload that shoebox of sparkly jewelry behind the counter I eyeballed as I was paying my $7 for three necklaces. Just a thought.

These are some some neat things I saw at my pre-lunch jaunt to the current favorite antique/junk shop. I also had some wonderful photos of stacked pastel dishes and graphic tablecloths, but now cannot seem to find them. I'll just keep you waiting on that and will give you something else to sigh over for another day.

I never get tired of these. Ever.

I love these comics. So fun.

Fellow design aficianados

What do you think of the new site?

Does it make you go cross-eyed? like in a bad way?

Are you glad to have some additional color on the page? but would rather it not be in a fuzzy wallpaper kind of way?

Looking for some feedback here.

I love to hate you

One box of tissue in my truck.

Another on the back of the toilet.

One more on my desk at work.

Picked up another (with cute little blue shells, actually) tonight at the supermarket.

And I use toilet paper whenever convenient.

I have grass allergies, which is so completely cruel as I worship summer and her aromotic river matted hair. She is my goddess and I am merely her pollen slave.

Tonight I thought maybe I should see what the heck is going on in the air around here as my head is a bucket of clear, running snot; so I checked pollen.com and found out that central Indiana is at a 9.6 out of 10 this week. Which means I am doomed to sneezing gluey, sticky snot into my right shoulder for the next several days (not to mention stuffing a twisted-up kleenex into my left nostril to avoid excessive leakage into my pillow tonight. Totally hot).

If I weren't a current member of the 'Freaky Toddler Nursing Club', I'd just go get some dang Benadryl already. Cripe.

Suggestions, anyone?

Five things that are awesome

1. Listening to the new Erykah Badu album on the way to pick up my daughter (and always turning it down as I enter the parking lot as the bass is ridiculous).
2. Iced vanilla chai on a hot July afternoon (however the one I'm currently drinking is stupidly sweet. Damn you, new barista).
3. Rereading this book for my recent book club (good summer read, pretty emotionally draining, though. You've been warned).
4. The embarassed smile on Rosemary's face which is then followed by the squeal of 'MOMMY' when I walk in the door at daycare (this whole situation with her daycare is only newly awesome. It was very much not awesome 4 weeks ago).
5. Lightning bugs.

Thumbs down

You wanna know something that I wouldn't recommend?
Reheating quinoa (KEEN-wa) for a second meal.

Busy bee

Boy.
Have I ever been busy this summer.
I had wanted to post this picture as proof that my child does indeed do things that are totally against my wishes (she's not always the angel that you normally see, her little horn buds are just below skin level). She did this when I brought her in to work with me one day; as such we've since gotten her daycare schedule back in place.

File under: Future Fun Stuff

How fantastic would a fairy party be for a little girl?

I'll have to remember this idea from Cookie magazine.

Right up my alley.

Wonderful

I am so loving this woman right now.
Melody Gardot.
She's 23.
Do not ever ask to borrow it because it is never leaving the cd player.

I have to think that if I had any musical talent to speak of and could do more than play butchered versions of classical tunes on piano from sheet music, I'd very much like to sound exactly like this.

Wanted to buy: heavenly king-sized hotel bed

I'm newly home from our two day mini vacation (can you still smell the chlorine in my hair? Yep, that's right) to sunny Indianapolis, Indiana. We braved the unpredictable weather for the Indianapolis Jazz Fest yesterday; Medeski, Martin and Wood with John Scofield, mainly. The event in general was a colossal disappointment (see forthcoming dialogue for just one tiny example). However, today was spent happily at the Indianapolis Zoo and the butterfly exhibit in the adjoining White River Gardens. To say that traveling with a child under the age of 2 is challenging, is like saying that my red chiffon, thrift shop, senior prom dress that optimistically hangs in the back of my closet next to size 4 sundresses is only a little bit on the snug side.

'Look at the cute sippy cup I got Rosemary! It's got zoo animals on it and a flip top with a straw. You know how she loves that kind of thing.'

'That's kind of neat.'

'Yeah, lots of joy for just six bucks.'

'Six bucks?! That could have almost bought a beer at the Jazz Fest last night.'

'But instead I blew it on a vacation souvenir for our daughter. How awful of me.'

Fessin' up

This little photo was taken just days BEFORE my iPhone broke (had absolutely nothing to do with a 20-month-old girl dropping it 5 feet onto ceramic tile). Anywho, all I can say is that if you've ever owned an Apple product, you will know that their service is amazing; which made almost every bit of the $400 I embarassingly paid them 2 months ago for this product totally worth it.

Looking out for my own best interest

We visited the Children's Museum of Indianapolis yesterday with my friend Jenny and her son (who was born the day after my daughter, weird) and had a fabulous time (thanks so much for driving! with a/c!). That place is just so darned wonderful and I got loads of photos. One spot in particular is their large carousel on the top floor. My initial plan was to take some great shots of the horse's faces to frame and mat for Rosemary's room (easy art, that's what I like); however, when I downloaded them off of my camera, they were just a wee bit, oh, I don't know, creepier than I was expecting. Not really sure what I was thinking as I still cannot identify my own source of intense clown phobia. So I decided that maybe macro images of fiberglass horses above my child's bed probably isn't the way to go as it would undoubtedly resurface in a future therapy session when she's an adolescent and I certainly don't want to be living with that sort of guilt.

The difference between men and women

I showed this picture to my husband and the first thing he said was, "Oh, look. She got paint on the table."

Why we've been together for nearly 14 years

"So I'm guessing you probably want me to go the wedding with you this weekend, huh? I just don't get it. It's 2 1/2 hours away and I won't know ANYone there."

"It's the nice thing to do, and, yeah, I would like you to go with me. You don't get a prize for doing something nice for someone, you know."

"I need to call a guy friend and see what he says. This seems totally unfair."

"While you're on the phone, ask him where you can find a nice pair of pants to wear to the weddding."

You should have seen the other kid

This is what I had going on yesterday.

My daughter slipped on a doormat at our front door and fell face first into a doorstop at our home.

The ones without the rubber ends.

Like the variety without the fun, springy, boingy sound.

The OLD ones that you'd probably find in antique stores today because parents from the 30s were fed up with their kids thinking they were so much fun to play around.

Three stitches.

And that's all I really want to say about it because I was not home for any of it, which was probably a good thing.

Stacy London, I would totally hang out with you

Should I really be feeling this excited about having a weekend to myself? I chose to not attend random folk festival camping event 3 hours away with my husband and a few other mutual friends in favor of staying home for planned pajama pizza party with some moms and their kiddies and to slowly overdose on What Not To Wear on TLC.

Tomorrow? WHO KNOWS. I may fleatique shop with Rosemary all afternoon in search of those great old beady necklaces I like. The cheap ones, because I'm all about quantity with crap jewelry. That and a new thrift shop purse. And tweeze my eyebrows.

Oh, the anticipation.

Uh, so maybe I was wrong

I had planned on posting something yesterday about how excited, and insanely nervous, I was about converting Rosemary's crib into a toddler bed with the two short side rails. I came home from work a little early and decided that maybe it was time for the switch (seeing as she climbed INTO her bed the other day by stepping up onto her kitchen that was strategically placed against the side). I did all of the preparations and exaggerated the fun of the experience.

"Look at the BIG GIRL BED!"

"It is soooo NEAT!"

"Now you can get up whenever you want!" (Oops, probably shouldn't have mentioned that one).

We read books together in her 'new' bed, she did a little jumping on it and we talked about how, now that the side was kind of open, it was going to be different, and way more fun.

Two hours later we heard a significant thud in her room. I thought, hopefully, that my husband had fallen over the dog, again, as he sometimes does; but we found our daughter lying on her back, still wrapped in her Thomas the train blanket screaming, with Elmo next to her on the floor.

After deliberating for about 0.12 seconds (and watching the milk slowly make perfectly formed circles on my shirt from all the crying), the crib rail was back in her room and we fished out the tiny Allen wrench from the Ziploc bag with the other crib accessories.

On the bright side is that no one was hurt (Elmo also received proper medical care, if you were wondering) and that my husband now is trained in the proper installation of a bumper pad with 24 ties at 11:45 at night, should I ever require that service again.

Over coffee Friday morning

"It was so nice going out with you this weekend. Hanging out and having a few drinks together, just the two of us, made it feel like old times again."

"No, if it were like old times again we would have come home smashed and had sex on the kitchen table."

I wonder if Hallmark makes a card for this

I'm still feeling really crummy for not making the drive to see my mom on Mother's Day. She was in town for the two days prior and Rosemary was wiped out from her sleep pattern being unpredictable during the visit (not to mention staying up until about 11 pm during Friday's Gallery Walk festivities).

Man, I must really suck as a daughter and I'm feelin' pretty selfish right about now.