Fashion Show Debacle, by Me

If you are a friend of mine in the real world or on the interwebs, you have probably heard me complain, whine, fret and or/any combination of the above about what I am going to wear to a wedding that Jeremiah and I will be attending at the end of the month.

Jeremiah is in the wedding and I know a total of 3 people attending. Should be interesting.

Further cementing her place as possibly the Best Internet Best Friend EVER...Becky (otherwise known as Steam me Up Kid, The Great), my B.I.F. sent me some of her dresses to try on.

Sent me in the mail. From L.A. Yes.

I told her I would take video of this 'trying on of the dresses' and the post them. I hate these videos, hate my face and my fat arms. How come I could gain ten pounds back from losing 60 and it goes directly into my ARMS? Weird and unfair!

Here are four short videos of me and the dresses Becky sent me.

Part One:


Part Two:


Part Three:


Part Four:


Try not to make fun of me TOO much after and/or during these videos. And tell me which dress, if any, that you liked!

Siblings

Based on this week's writing prompt from Studio Thirty Plus, 'Risk':



A tall man who was once a very small boy
and a small me, who was never very much more so
hunched over a table in our parents game room
shoulder punches
jabbing fingers in ribs
hair pulling
swearing
frenetic waves of giggles
strangely phrased words bounce off the paneled walls

"What the hell? Knock it off!'
Yells our tired Mom from the kitchen
we tire her still

You put your oh so large hands on my small round shoulders
to shake me not so gently

I fall into the table
knock our carefully laid game pieces to the ground
with a ferocious crash
and an even more ferocious yell from our mother in the kitchen,
"I told you to knock it off!"

We've never finished a game of Risk
Not once in all these years.

For all The Milky Ladies...

Yesterday I posted an article about breastfeeding in public and ended up getting some really great responses at Sprocket Ink and on my facebook page. A small debate took place on facebook...but I'm still very much interested in everyone's opinion on the matter, so if you end up clicking on a Sprocket Ink link and reading the article Breast is Best: Just not in Public? please leave a comment and give me your opinion!

Also, I received a few emails from breastfeeding mothers, mothers to be and breastfeeding 'fans' or 'advocates' that wanted to hear what else I have to say about breastfeeding and also my experiences. As I mentioned in the post before this one, my time is limited by a new day job, which brings my telecommuting jobs number to three. Instead of writing a whole new piece about my experiences and opinions on breast feeding, I'll be linking them below in a little list.

I am open to any questions or comments you might have and would be more than glad to answer your questions privately via email oliverosetree@yahoo.com if you're not comfortable sharing them here or at Sprocket Ink.

OK, I'm a Breastfeeding Nazi

Being A Woman


What am I? A Cow? Here for your Nutrition?


Who's Weaning Who Here?


Breastfeeding Power

LoL Cat Sammiches for My Blog Readers

You may or may not know that I work at home and have recently went back to pretty much a full time working schedule. This has obviously left me unavailable for much creative writing and my friend Adam was concerned for my poor neglected blog.

I weeped tears of pitiful frustration and he patted me on the back and said, 'Erin dear, do not worry. I will assemble a team of awesomeness and write a blog post for you that will update your blog and make it a renewed place of enchantment and wonder.'

That's exactly what he said.

His assembled team of awesomeness included himself and Jen from My Tornado Alley. This is what they wrote for us to enjoy, thanks guys!

Adam: Well, Jen, welcome. We agreed to write a blogpost for
Erin's blog and so here we are. Writing a post. We're writing a post,
la de da, whoop de doo. Not that you seem too into it. And what's up
with that? We're supposed to be writing here and yet are you working?
No. Do you seem interested? No. What's with that?

Jen: I'm writing this blog post just as much as you're writing
this blog post, ADAM, I'm just taking my time and really mulling over
what this blog post should be ABOUT. You know? Like, we can't just
write it about nothing. That would be stupid. I'm TOTALLY interested
in writing it, I'm EXTRA interested, actually, as a matter of fact.
MORE than you, I think. MORE. THAN. YOU.

Adam: You're so interested in writing it you're just using
random capital letters to make yourself sound important. Which is
totally sad, Jen. You need to step up your game. We're writing a blog
post here, this isn't trivial. We have to give it our best and our
most and our everything. We have to capture the Eye of the Tiger, Jen.

Jen: Tough words, big man. So, what are we going to do then?
We're obviously going to include an adorable LOLcat, right? I mean,
obviously. Who doesn't love an LOLcat, amirite? And then what? We
could maybe do one of those memes where we list one million things
that no one cares about? And then stick the LOLcat right in the
middle. It'll be like an LOLcat sandwich!

Adam: A meme LOLcat sammich? Is that all you have? You're
better than that. Paint a picture for the epople, Jen. Paint them a
word picture. Here, I'll show you how! We open the blog post on a
sunny day, the leaves are falling and the drug addicts are slinking
away to hiude behind bushes, only noticable by their sounds and
snorfling. Snorfling is a good word. Why don't we use snorfle more
often, Jen? What's that about? I say we bring back the word snorfle.
Snorfle!

Jen: I like where you're going with this. A blog post about
drug addicts and snorfling. It's good, but it could be BETTER. What
with all the stray LOLcats we're going to bring into this. STRAY
LOLCATS, ADAM. Have you seen Cats? Of course you have. It'll be
like that, only LOLier. So, the drug addicts are hiding behind the
bushes, snorfling (naturally), and the homeless LOLcats stroll up to
the drug addicts, non-challantly. So as to not draw attention to
their switchblades. Because...right?

Adam: And then they can dance fight. This will be epic! DANCE
FIGHTING LOLCATS! It'll be called... Meowside Story. No, it won't that
name is a buncha rubbish. What should we call it, besides "Beautiful"?

Jen: GANGS OF MEW YORK! I win!

Adam: You do win. That's it, I'm out.

Red

He was sick and slumping on the patio on the rickety wooden porch swing he had made for his home when he found out his oldest daughter was pregnant with his first grandchild. My mother later told me everyone was surprised at the surge of warmth that this staunch, upright and generally uptight man had for his grandchildren.

I found myself staring at him as he drifted in and out of a partially medically induced sleep. Not of of pity but out of wonder at what the ravages of disease had done to him. I remembered walking hand in hand with him down the sidewalk of the neighborhood my father had grown up in. He was so very tall and rigid, his voice deep and gravelly. He'd look down at me and even as a child I'd appreciate the general good looks in his face, his shoulders which I had always noticed were broad for his thin frame, his thick lips encompassing the bottom half of his face in what was usually a grimace. He was always dressed impeccably and his closet was packed full with more clothing than I'd ever known any other man owning.

Even now on the bright spring day on the patio together I am an adult but look ragged and ill-dressed across from him in his neat khaki pants, button up shirt and baby blue cardigan sweater, one with the neat alligator on the breast. His loafered feet are crossed on the ground below him and he awakens when his seat swings slightly backwards.

He grins when he sees that I am still sitting across from him. He asks me if I have seen the movie with the lions and it takes me a while to realize which movie he's talking about. I gather the information I have in my brain about the movie he's talking about, Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas battling rogue lions in the African savanna.

We talk about it for a moment and about how much we both liked it and I see that he knows a lot more about animals then I had ever known. I remember the wood carvings of elephants, lions and gazelles he had made when I was a child. He had been a carpenter of sorts, retired at a young age.

He starts to drift in and out of sleep again and looks at me for a moment.

"What's your favorite color then? Erin?" He sounds so much the same but really isn't.

"Red." I whisper because I feel the emotion start to well up in my throat at his strange question.

"Mine too." At this he falls back asleep, head lolling on the shoulders I had so greatly admired.

Hidden Webcam Photos= Not Porno

I didn't realize that the photos taken with the webcam on my laptop saved without actually hitting any 'save' or 'save as' commands. So imagine my surprise when I found a folder filled full of webcam photos. Some of them I had saved in a separate folder and then used, but most of them were new to me.

All of them decent and not pornographic in the least. Sorry.





There was one glaring theme to these webcam photos...I am obviously obsessed with having facial hair:


This facial hair photo was taken to compare myself with my internet twin, Adam P Knave:
And this photo just makes me happy:

Happy Birthday Jeremiah!

This week's posts will all be re-posts about Jeremiah or new posts about Jeremiah, in honor of his 33rd Birthday!

Growing up my momma was the sweetest, nicest momma any kid could possibly hope for. She might have been unhappy and stressed at times, but she made the best of everyday for me and my siblings. One of the things she did that meant the world to us was telling us our birth stories on our birthdays. She would often gather us in her bed ('us' meaning whichever combination of children were there at the time, I have four younger siblings but there are some big age differences between us...I'm sure teenage me wasn't hanging out on momma's bed the morning of my baby sister's third birthday.) and then recount the story of the day we were born. Mine ends with my grandma missing a card game due to my evening arrival. The joke is that I waited till just after 10p.m. in order to keep her there past the game's start time of 9:30.

I follow the same tradition with my own children and Rose can now recount all of their stories excitedly and faithfully.

Jeremiah was born in the evening 32 years ago. His mum told me the story of his birth when I was pregnant with Elijah and I will tell it to you (in my own words) tonight:

Teresa was due any day with her fourth child when she slid out of bed one warm March morning. She had already delivered three large bouncing baby boys.

She felt energized that morning and set to work on the many tasks she had planned to finish before her impending delivery. She dusted, moved furniture around, played outside in the sun with her sons. She washed the car, prepared dinner and put her children to bed.

Soon after they were asleep she felt pains coming swiftly and surely. Her husband Dave had a neighbor watch the older children and they headed to the hospital. The short drive must have felt like ages to her in this stage of labor.

After a quick examination the nurses determined she would not labor for long. Jeremiah was born a short time after their arrival. He was around ten pounds, healthy as a horse (or a foal, if you will) and very calm.

His birth story is short and sweet. The love his parents have for him and his brothers is obvious to me and I'm sure his arrival was one of the happiest days of their lives. I imagine his mum holding him for the first time and being completely in love. I feel the same way every time I am near him.

Happy Birthday Jeremiah. Happy Birth Day Teresa.