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About that Day Job

Tue, 5 Feb 2008 12:48:46 -0600

I was up until midnight, but I finally got my set of Macouillard prints up for sale. Oof!

I have been having a little trouble getting anything done recently, as The Wictor has decided to drop his naps. What is it about my children? I know 5 year olds who still want to take their binky and pass out cold in the middle of the afternoon...

My children, however, act like they are doing me a favor if they even adopt a stuffed animal. They think beds are for bouncing and naps are for pussies. I have to admit they do sleep well - after the age of about 3.

This situation is not hugely pleasing to me. I can’t even get my youngest into preschool until September and even then it will be for 2 mornings a week (good luck getting him to nap there, too!) So when the Wictor started yawning at about midday today, I saw my chance and decided to go for a long drive to Target. I figured if he slept I could come home and get something done. If he didn’t sleep, well, I would get to go to Target!

He slept. I turned around and drove back home. I picked him up gently from his seat and turned around to take him indoors. He was out cold. I started to plan all the great things I would do with my time. Then he lifted his head up and yelled “Ha! Fooled you!”

At least that’s what it sounded like to me.

I voted for Obama!

Tue, 5 Feb 2008 10:12:58 -0600

(OK, not really... )

At risk of sounding like a ditz, politics bores me. We listen, we fall for the most persuasive (and/or expensive) marketing campaign, and then, mostly, the major problems in the world just don’t get solved. I agree we should all inform ourselves and make what appears to be the most reasonable decision. We all need to vote. But in the end, despite all the shiny-eyed people waving signs around and chanting, no-one is perfect and no-one has all the solutions.

Which is why I don’t want to get into anything to do with politics today.

One thing I can handle, however, is architecture. Apartmenttherapy has just posted this blind poll of the presidential candidates homes. And it appears I voted for Barack Obama ...

PS To anybody reading this who doesn’t know me - don’t be so quick to judge! I am not actually eligible to vote anyway - and not because I am a felon... Oh, that came out wrong. I am not a felon. But despite this fact, I can’t vote. Except for my favourite house.

Bait and Switch

Mon, 4 Feb 2008 18:53:21 -0600

If you should happen to be driving down a suburban street, and if you should happen to see a bandit sign like this, please stop and read it. And then, if you should feel so inclined, ring the doorbell.

There will likely be a little boy waiting inside with a glue stick wrapped in bubble wrap and tape. He will have been running outside periodically to call "glue stick! glue stick!" but so far his marketing efforts have been in vain.

Oh, and caveat emptor. I know the sign says it's a prize, but he changed his mind shortly afterwards. The glue stick will now cost you $5.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

Mon, 4 Feb 2008 18:43:23 -0600

Our house is soaked in so much bug poison that sometimes I wonder why the children don’t keel over and wave their little legs feebly in the air.

Only joking, in fact, I only go around the skirting boards, and in general that seems to work. When we do, occasionally, have an encounter of the insect kind, it is usually because said insects are so groggy from their dose of poison that they stagger out into the open, do a drunken dance, and then just stand there, waving their feelers pathetically.

Our little friend last week was fairly lively, which is why I suspect he came in through an open door. Our doors have been open a lot lately. After all, this is Texas in February and weather-wise that means anything goes. Unfortunately open doors also mean visits from a different kind of bug - one that doesn’t hang out on skirting boards. We have been host to some pretty enormous flies.

We should really get a screen door but I remember them from my childhood and they always... BANG! Over and over and over as children run in and out. And since we are half crazy already it would be all it took to send us over the edge. So we are resorting to a good old fashioned fly swatter.

The end result is a fascination in this household with bugs.
Baby Sister wakes up in the night and claims she saw bugs in her bed.
I keep catching T-Bot pulling the wings off flies (eeeewwww! I thought it was a myth that they did that!).
And the bug book has come out. Did you know slugs’ breathing holes are on their back? I didn't.

Just heard as I typed this:
“What’s that T-Bot? You want to watch some commercials? OK, you can watch two commercials. Because you did such a good job mashing the flies.”

And the First Casualty is... Housework

Fri, 1 Feb 2008 17:04:06 -0600

I am really excited about some of the finds I have been making over the last few weeks. But now my “Finds” closet is full to bursting and I have to do something about that.

I have been slowly putting some of my more fascinating vintage things up for sale on Etsy. Like a great vintage childrens growth chart. Like the old Japanese Kimekomi doll kit which I could never make up in 100 million years and have it look like it is supposed to. But I know for certain that here are people out there who could do it - because I have run into them and their intricate wares on Etsy. Possibly people with delicate fingers? (I am very jealous of people with delicate fingers, did you guess?)...

I have just put up this great little japanese souvenir ashtray too.

I wanted to keep it but the Daddy said “that’s enough! You don’t have the space to keep it! At least not until we buy some more furniture or something!” Then in the next breath he said “No more furniture! At least not until you make your fortune selling some of your finds!”

So here we are.

I am going to try and get another listing up tonight or tomorrow, a set of 4 pictures I would have rather kept all greedily for myself if I had known where to put them. That will have to be a surprise for later.

In the meantime my children are running around with any old old clothes on because I haven’t taken the time to do the laundry all week. And we’ve had salads and tins for dinner every night, except for the evening I let my fingers do the walking and ordered a pizza. Well, something had to give :-)