Mountain Girl Silver - Hand-Stamped Customized Silver Jewelry - Portland, Oregon

I was on my way up to Freddy’s yesterday with the kids to get some things, and we’re cruising up I-205 and the big traffic report signs .. you know,,, the ones that have the amber alerts and the driving conditions.. the big lit up ones? Well.. it said this..and I quote, ‘DRIVE SOBER AND HAVE A SAFE HOLLOWEEN”  Yah, HOLLOWEEN… spelled wrong. It’s hAlloween.. not hOlloween. But for a second there, I thought… oh crap, I’ve been spelling it wrong all these years!! Have I? No…. because every time I type it on my computer, it doesn’t highlight red indicating it’s misspelled.  Now… I’m no literary genius, far cry actually, but come ON…..  get it right!! I wanted to whip out my iphone and take a picture, but with as hard as it was raining, and with shouting kids and dog in the car, I stayed focused on the road and just said I’d get a pic of it on my way home as I looked in the rearview and saw the same message blinking on the southbound side.  We came home a different route tho’.. maybe I’ll head up that way today and snap one. I dunno,, it just left me entertained that’s all. Way to go, there, highway message inputter dude.  HAlloween is one of my faves. Growing up in the mountains like I did, (I think I blogged about this last year too) we were in a town that was specifically built up for the employees of the Southern California Edison Company. Hydro electric power.  It was candy hay day man…..  then we’d head back to my friend’s house, change our costumes, and head out again.. and again.. and again.  And we didn’t just use little ghetto candy bags… we used pillow cases…  and those babies were chock full by the time we were done. All proud of our stash, but I’ve never had a sweet tooth, still don’t, so the candy part wasn’t what excited me. Just going out, unsupervised, in the dark, with friends, egging peoples houses, toilet papering peoples yards….  yah,,, I was one of those kids. Shocker right??  

So Eric has been gone all week. Up in Seattle at some regional conference thingy, and I’ve been here flying solo with the kids. Anders ended up coming home on Monday with symptoms of H1N1, and I was like, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO don’t do this to me!! Not this week. And, honestly, I’ve never seen my boy so ill in all my life. It started with a headache, then the fever, then puking, then higher fever, then no appetite, then achey body, more fever….   All the poor kid wanted to do was just live in the bathtub all week. That, and hold my hand. I know this sounds awful, but I secretly love it when he’s sick. Because he’s at that age that affection just isn’t something he shows, but when he’s sick, he’s all over me. Wants me to rub his back, wants me to hold his hand, wants me to run my fingers through his hair. When your kids are sick, you feel more like a mom than ever. It is your job to not only take care of them, but it’s also your job to make them feel better. Two totally different things. 

But man.. the week was hard. REALLY hard. Maggie didn’t have school all week due to conferences, so not only was she home, but Anders too. And juggling the two of them, and him being sick, and then trying to stay caught up on stamping, and then Heather’s hubby came down with H1N1, so she was tired,, but I still forced work on her…..  and then the house being a friggen WRECK all week. Missing soccer practice both nights, trying to figure out what to cook, and laundry, and the dog didn’t get but one stinkin’ walk the whole week, so she was a disaster waiting to happen. Loosha is the kind of dog that if you don’t walk/run her every morning, she’s a bull in a china shop all day..  Honestly,, I don’t know if she pooped…. I’m sure she did, but where?? I dunno… on the neighbors lawn I’d imagine. And man,, I hate to be a whiner and a complainer, but when I have a week like I had this week,, I gotta vent…..   And even tho’ Anders was sick, he and Maggie still fought all day long everyday….   I got to the point where I just felt like letting them beat the crap out of each other… knock each other out….  I was tired of yelling, I was tired of reffing the situation.  So my good friend Betsy told me this thing she does with her boys. A star chart if you will.  But not stars.. points.  They both have a good column and a bad column. When they do something good… they get a point,,,, when they do something bad,,, I either take away a good point, or put up a bad point.  Haven’t really determined what the “prize” is for  getting the goods…  But yesterday seemed to be a little better. At one point, Anders said, “Thanks mom, I appreciate you”…… and I was like “WHAT?? WHO ARE YOU??”   Then they started going a little overboard,, and after everything they did that they deemed “good”… they’d ask, “Is that a good point mom?”   and it got to the point where I was like,,, “If you guys have to ASK me if something is a point,,, then I take away a point”…   We’ll see how long this little thing works. Raising kids is just downright complicated and confusing, and to some, a chart sounds stupid,,,,, but you do whatever you can to get them to behave. Bribery… whatever……   withholding food……  ha ha…   

Anders is on the mend tho’.. and headed back to school today. I forced him to do his homework all week…. and yah,, that made me feel like an idiot. How can you figure out how many chocolate chip cookies you can make with 202 chocolate chips and you want to put 8 chocolate chips in each cookie…. and how many cookies can you make.. but the kid is in 3rd grade and 3rd graders are just mastering addition and subtraction… NOT division (which would be the math of choice in this particular problem)… so it was 8 + 8 =16… 16+8= 24… 24+8+ 32… etc.. etc… and each math problem caused tears and broken lead….  at one point I was willing to let him just use the calculator… but then I’d have to teach him how to use that….   Whatever… it’s over… the week is over.. almost. I’ve almost made it out alive. The scary part is that my forehead is feeling hot, and I’ve got mad pressure in my eyelids when I bend down to pick up something….. If I get it, then I’m totally SCREWED.  I’ve got my last soccer game of the season to coach on Saturday, and I want my boys to come out with a win… I CANNOT get sick. As my Grandma Doodie used to say, “Rebuke it in the name of the LORD”… and I intend to Grandma!!!  

Anyways… HAVE A HAPPY HOLLOWEEN …  as per Oregon Dept of Transportation…

So… I’m just in love with my Manx, Rusty…..  he’s awesome. He’s entertaining…. shoot… he entertains the whole neighborhood. I could watch him for hours…

Rusty trying to get into the tank……  part 1

Rusty trying to get into the tank….. part 2

When both my kids were like little babies, and the fatigue of breastfeeding, and changing poopie diapers, and more breastfeeding… and the sleep deprivation was taking strong hold…… and when I looked like shit everyday, and could barely even think straight and wore the same sweat pants everyday for a week, and couldn’t even FIND my hairbrush OR my toothbrush………   and all the post-partum crap… the crying jags, the feeling of hopelessness (like… is this ever going to slow down?) feeling….     IN that moment, when you think to yourself.. “WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF?”  there is nothing that anybody can say to you to make you feel better. About all the advice I got when I would look to somebody with need in my eyes was… “It goes so fast Erika, cherish every little moment!!”  And honest to God.. I wanted to smack them upside the head. These were people who had obviously been in my shoes. I was like, “Really?? It goes fast?” You’re a lying sack of shit is what you are!!!  Of course, about as far into the future I could see was to the next feeding, or the next diaper change. The next day (at most)….   The next hour rather….   Getting excited to go to the drug store, or the grocery store by myself was a highlight in my day. I often told my husband, when he would get home from work, “Uhhh,, I’m going to go to the store.” And he’d say, “Babe.. traffic is SOOOOO bad right now.. you don’t want to go out there, and besides, it’s raining!!” and I was like, “Uhhhhh I’d rather sit in gridlock traffic than be in this house for one more second!!’   He didn’t get it…. I don’t think he still gets it. Just because your kids get older doesn’t mean that you still don’t have that same feeling of being trapped. And maybe I shouldn’t say “trapped”… because that makes me sound like I don’t enjoy being a mother. I do… I LOVE being a mom, but the reality is,,, is that it’s the hardest job on the face of the earth.  You live your life for your kids. You wake up in the morning to feed them, and clothe them, and you have to be their biggest cheerleader, even when you don’t feel like opening your mouth or expending any energy.  Granted,,, the older they get, the more independent they get, and you’re no longer breast-feeding  , but you are still their constant. You are the constant lighthouse in their little oceans. They look to you for guidance, they look to you for security, they look to you like the big jar of glue you are, that holds everything together….. and fixes things.

But to all those people that I thought ill-will towards when they would rattle off the whole schpeel about how fast it goes… well… my apologies…   you were right. 100% right.  I still have a long way to go until they are driving and applying to colleges and begging for money for Friday night……..  but if history repeats itself,, it’s going to go just as fast.  Maggie’s 5th birthday is tomorrow….   I’ll spare you the details of her labor,, but let’s just say it was the most awesome labor day..  I went into labor at 9am while standing in the shower….. and she was born at 10am and I was holding my crotch in the elevator at the hospital shouting, “Get me a bed!!! She’s coming out right now!!!”… She was ready….   she was done…..   she was determined to come out and tackle this world with gusto!!    She cut her own hair the other day……   she’s all independent ….   who needs a professional when you’ve got a set of Fiskars, green, rounded-tip, ghetto, pre-school scissors on your desk in your room??   Those things shouldn’t be sharp enough to cut hair for cryin’ outloud!!!  So… we had to get it fixed…. it was bad…>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So we had to go to Sit Still Salon here in West Linn, and get it fixed. I love that place. My schedule is so sporadic and flying by the seat of my pants is how I roll… but we went right down there that same afternoon and they squeezed her in and fixed it. They also gave her a little pink dye in the back nape part of her hair…..   She’s awesome…   But she’s also into dressing herself lately. Long gone are the days where my opinion even remotely matters. Matching??  What’s matching? As long as it’s got a good flow going .. she wears it. And I’d like to meet the person that can convince her that something doesn’t go well together. She’s sitting next to me on the couch right now buttoning up a dress that has buttons all the way down the front…..   she’s not a kid that buttons improperly…  you know how you can sometimes miss a button and everything is all katty-whompus?  Not Maggs…   she’s agile, she’s witty, her sense of humor is out of this world, she’s patient, she’s kind, she puts up with the wrath of her 8 year old brother, Anders. She’s the kid that brings me the phone when it’s ringing… reminds me that the cat food feeder thingy is on it’s last inch, she notices things at the store that we are almost out of at home, and puts it in the cart. She’s got courage..  she just “gets” it. Just really GETS it. She gets things….   She can recognize when someone’s feelings are hurt, and she consoles them, she knows every scientific name to all the fish in my salt aquarium, and knows which fish are more aggressive and who picks on who, she knows when it’s about to start raining, she loves ranch dip, and was born to eat cheese. She’s soft-spoken. Since we moved to this new neighborhood, she’s made a friend, Emma, who lives two houses away. Little Emma speaks only Russian. Yah, sure, she knows a couple of English words,, but she calls me “mommy”… so there ya have it. Emma gets pretty frustrated about the language barrier, that, and she just turned 4 a couple of weeks ago… so there is a slight age gap.  But Maggie is so patient with her. Emma acts out physically towards Maggie when she’s pissed, i.e. hitting, slapping, kicking, biting….  But Maggie actually understands why Emma is the way she is… and still loves her unconditionally.  

I guess what I’m trying to get at, is that Maggie is a good kid. I don’t know what my world would be like without her in it…  Her crooked little smile, her big blue eyes, her soft touch, her pigeon-toes and her cute little butt!! Her demeanor, her mannerisms, her young innocence, she’s eager to learn,  she’s my girl!! It’s hard for me to not go shopping today and just buy everything I see for her. She shows appreciation, and knows what it means to be recognized…..  And finally, tomorrow is HER day… it’s HER day to celebrate. And I hope she has the happiest of birthdays…..   Here is a video of her when she was about 3 years old…….   one of my faves!!

As a stamper, there really is nothing better than getting a call from a customer wanting something totally far and away from my norm.  Granted,,, I love stamping the necklaces, and I love stamping the bracelets etc…. but when someone calls me or emails and says that they want this on that,,, and that on this,,, and “can you stamp on this vice that…..  the little lightbulb goes off in my head and brings to my face a smile. I would have a 1000 page website if I could, offering a zillion products that I’ve played with over the years. But it just gets to be too much.. ya know?  Pictured here to the right is a charm bracelet I made for some gal who thought it would look cool if I used the La Vintage pendants on a charm chain. I hadn’t even thought of it quite honestly until this gal called. Yah,, it was over $200 bucks for this woman,, but the finished product was so cool..  It sounded like one of those high-end wind chimes you buy at like a backyard bird store. Clinkity clankity…  But, she loved it, and I loved how it turned out.  I just hope that all my customers out there know that they can ALWAYS call me when they want something totally custom…… again….. it breaks me away from the norm, and I love that!!  Yah sure, I hym and haw over it at first, because I can’t ever commit to something I haven’t tried before, but it usually works out and turns out awesome. When people use their imagination………   I heart that!!  Daneen recently made an affirmation circle and hung a 1/2″ disk in the middle of it vice a bead, and it is awesome. I just made 8 of them for some volleyball team in Connecticut with their team name, their number, and BELIEVE stamped around the circle, and then a 1/2″ disk in the middle with my volleyball stamp on it. Such a cool look…. 

Had Heather and her family over for dinner last night. It had been wayyyyy too long. This past summer with moving and unpacking and moving and unpacking and moving and unpacking, it left little time for any social life for us. But they came over and we drank beers and ate a good meal, and hopefully we got them hooked on the new sitcom on ABC called “Modern Family”…  Now… I’m not a huge t.v. person. And I don’t know why… but I just don’t watch much of it except for the good shows. i.e. Survivor, Grays Anatomy, LOST, 60 mins, and now Modern Family.  Seriously,, if you haven’t watched the show, you really must start……   When I’m an advocate of a show…. I let the whole world know…..  it’s a MUST WATCHER!!!  The dynamics of the show are hard to explain, and like my friend, Betsy (after I bugged her for a month) about how she should be watching it, hopped onto hulu.com  and caught up on all the episodes in one evening. Let’s face it, all of us, and our families have skeletons in the closet. We struggle with issues we’re not comfortable with…twisted psychos perhaps….. homosexuality…… teenagers…… vanity……..greed…… cheaters…….  comedians……. addicts….. the list goes on and on..  This show pretty much captures it all. It’s not “funny ha ha” humor… like americas funniest home videos….   it’s like real humor. It’s like real-life humor.  Like, it hits on the things that happen to people on a day to day basis. The lessons we learn as humans, as parents, as kids, as grandparents. Just flat out reality t.v.,,, but not reality t.v.  It’s far more reality than any reality t.v. show. And I will be devastated if it doesn’t capture enough viewers and the ratings go down and gets kicked off ABC. I will be sorely disappointed in the American people if they let it happen……. SO WATCH IT!!  Do it for me… ;c)  

Fall is totally here,,, and with it comes the brisk mornings, the lack of sunshiney hours, and pink skies in the morning……. OH… and homework, and soccer, and colds and influenza…. the list is long.  The other day I had an emotional breakdown, and it wasn’t until I talked to my sister, and she mentioned she was down in the dumps as well, did it hit me that the changing seasons always makes me go crazy. Not that I don’t love Fall…. it’s hands down my favorite season, but it’s the change…   your whole self gets used the heat of the summer days, and then BAMMMM it changes almost overnight, and you’re like “what the hootie hey?”  All an adjustment, all the while, trying my damndest to keep up with the school, soccer, dance and work schedules.  This past weekend was the BACONFEST 2009. Here pictured to the right is of me and the dude walking around dressed up like a slice of bacon. His cohort was walking around with him handing out little packets of bacon salt…..  they were a good team. You would be amazed at how many things are out there that are all bacon….  bacon mayo, bacon vodka, bacon waffles, bacon ornaments, bacon tacos, bacon skateboards, it was a fun time. I made up a lot of disks all about bacon for the festival…..  good times… good good times.  This weekend, Daneen and my little sister, Muggs have an MGS table at the 17th Annual Harvest and Peace festival down in Auberry, California.  Festivals are fun, for the most part…  setting up the table and tearing it down is the worst….  people watching and chatting is the best part…   

I have a dental appt on Tuesday……  Now, to some, a dental appt isn’t a noteworthy subject to be blogging about…… but to me??  Well… considering I’ll be sleepless Monday night knowing that I’m going to go into panic/anxiety mode the next morning is very worth blogging about. I don’t know what my deal is. In fact, I’m a little ashamed at how much of a big fat BABY I am when it comes to going to the dentist. I first start to pace in the waiting room, like a psycho in a nut house, then, the moment I sit in the chair it starts. I start sweating, I start crying, I start biting my nails, I start shaking and trembling, and crying some more….. crying so much that the tears are pooling up inside my ears as they drip down the sides of my cheeks.  So the other day when I was in there for my exam and my xrays and my cleaning, the dentist came in and after he told me that I needed a CROWN AND A FILLING… I just lost it….  Just lost it….   And that was just from him telling me verbally what I needed to have done.  So… I’ve got a prescription of 4 valium and he’s promised to gas the hell out of me….  It won’t matter tho’…..  I’ll still be a trainwreck…..   chugga chugga… wahhhh wahhhhh…   But I’m still perplexed as to where this incessant fear has come from?  I think it was forsure my childhood dentist…. he was a quack,, and I remember he never shot enough novicaine (sic) in my gums when he would drill and so I felt EVERY LAST NERVE……   Then… Oh.. then when I was in bootcamp and after I got my orders to a ship, they told me that no one gets sent to a ship with their wisdom teeth still in, in case they get infected out at sea..  So midway through bootcamp, I had to get all four wisdom teeth pulled out.. and they weren’t even out of the gums yet. So they had to slice my gums, and with a huge ass hook like tool, had to sort of pop them out from under the roots. And no…..  I was fully awake for this little evolution. Not to mention 12 hours after EXTRACTION… I was doing push-ups and running 10 miles.  The dentist gives me the heebie jeebies….. that’s that in a nutshell… and I’m already just dreading it…..  Dripping blood DREAD!!

It’s Saturday today… gotta soccer game to coach later. Must get this day started…. I’ll start with flipping the BACON….