Purple is Depressing for the First Day of School?

This year's first day of school was especially poignant for us because it was one of my Grandma's favorite days. She loved either being here to see them all dressed and ready for school or the phone was ringing while I was walking in the door from the bus stop to hear about who was wearing what and which shoes and how their hair was fixed.

My Grandmother passed away this June and it still is a very tender subject for myself, my children and my extended family, being that she was above and beyond just a Grandma...but alas.

Rose and Max decided to wear purple today to commemorate Grandma because purple was her FAVORITE color. Trust me folks, have you ever seen a deep purple painted bedroom with matching deep purple satin comforter? I read once that purple in a bedroom is depressing and I told my Grandma that. She laughed pretty hard and then said, "I have medication for that."

Olivia didn't have anything purple and said that, "Purple looks better on them anyways, I like pink!" Hot pink it is Olive.



Elijah isn't going to school this year or the next and was pretty sad to see his sisters go. I packed him a lunch last night while I packed the girls' and he's keeping it by his side until lunch time. It's propped up against his bat cave where he is playing as we speak.

Happy First Day of School to anyone out there with children that started today! It will be chaos when they come home and start shoving papers in your face and complaining about how their new shoes hurt their feet. Ah. School.

My Golem

I sat in the dark, late into the evening on our grey porch shaped like my favorite Tetris piece. Atop an uncomfortable green plastic chair, my short legs wrapped under my body slightly numb from the strange position, I stared out into the night. In my right hand was my Kindle, but my thoughts were not on the fantastical words of a strange, fat man in a cap on the digital page. I was instead thinking of my Love, slumbering fitfully one wall and two rooms away from me. I was pondering on his disposition and his variable thoughts and found myself wistfully longing that I could read his mind. Not every moment and never over intrusively, but perhaps for just fleeting seconds so I could feel how he feels, see how he sees.

It was while I was contemplating this sought after supernatural gift that I noticed the creature perched on our porch ledge like a long, lean gargoyle. Like a gargoyle in stance but more like a shadow in form, it sat still as a dark puddle on a black top in an empty parking lot. I thought at first it was there to remind me of something, like the rubber bands my father wears on his left wrist and yet I could not place what it was that I should be remembering. Maybe instead it was a forewarning, but like the lack of epiphany about the remembrance, I couldn’t decide whether it was a ominous warning or a auspicious one. Not wanting it to grow any larger there in front of me, feeding it with my interest or my fear, I stood up and turned my back on it, walked with a steady gait to our front door and let myself into to our bright house. For no reason I can decipher, I held the door open and let it creep in behind me. I set my Kindle down on the front desk, turned off all the lights around our first floor, locked the front door and made my way up the stairs to bed.

I know the golem is here with me somewhere and I know I let it into our home, but I don’t know why.

Sleepless, Restless

12:15 AM
I finished watching Mad Men Season One Episode Nine, put the finishing touches on an order and packaged it, turned out all of the lights, locked all of the windows and doors and made my way up to bed.

I went into each of the kids' rooms and checked that each one of them was sleeping comfortably, brushed my teeth and washed my face. Jeremiah had fallen asleep watching TV in a swath of sheets in our gameroom and I hated to wake him so I had the whole bed to myself. After sharing a bed on and off with various small beast like children I finally have a no kid bed.

12:30 AM
I laid down in bed, set the alarm on my phone and carefully placed it under Jeremiah's pillow and turned on the TV. I tossed and turned, flipping restlessly through the channels. Ancient Aliens? No.

Scarface? Again? Really? How many times can one watch Scarface?

Teen Mom? Fuck you.

1:00 AM
I got out of bed, got a glass of water, turned on the lamp and set my laptop up to watch more Mad Men in bed.

2:00 AM
Maxine Jane starts screaming bloody murder from her room. I run in to find her on the floor, wrapped and writhing in layers of sheets.

"Max! What happened? And why do you have so many sheets?"

"I was cold and I went into Rosey's room and then in the closet and got more sheets."

"Max, there's a whole pile of blankeys next to your bed, within your grasp for that reason!"

Why am I arguing with a six year old at 2:00 AM?

"OK Baby, back in bed."

2:30 AM
After folding the many sheets Max had thieved from various rooms around our house, tucking her in with her own blankeys, getting her a drink and kissing and hugging her goodnight many times, I finally am ready to get back in bed. Put away the laptop and realize my Kindle is downstairs. Go get Kindle, see lights flashing in front of the house. The police are across the street and down three houses where there have been many numerous incidents before. Mostly a couple and their drunken friends fighting over indecipherable topics. I become entranced with the hullabaloo, unable to leave my perch at the front window.

3:00 AM
The police disband and I go back to bed. Forgot my Kindle again, decide to try and force myself to sleep with complete dark. End up getting extra pillows from the linen closet and lining them up all around my body. Fall asleep almost immediately, enclosed in a pillow fence, just like as if I had any of my loved ones in bed with me. So much for loving the freedom of a no kids bed.

7:00 AM
Wake up to Maxine perched beside me on the pillow to my left.

"Momma? Why do you have all these pillows in your bed?"

"I don't know Max, why did you have all the sheets in your bed last night?"

The Most Royal Servant

I went to my Grandma's house to visit my Pappy for the first time since the funeral last month. The kids and I were at the park and I just started driving there like we were going to stop for a snack after running around in the sun and playing in the crick. I pulled up in front of the house and a cloudy veil of tears lowered itself in front of my eyes before I even realized the real truth of the matter. My Grandma wasn't there, she wasn't even still walking this very earth.

I weathered through it so I wouldn't make the kids sad and sat on the couch and visited with my Pappy. I didn't do my customary walk into the kitchen to ransack the fridge, I didn't go upstairs and lay in her bed on the giant silky royal purple comforter, I just sat there and talked and shushed the kids and told them to be calm.

Olive wanted a drink ten minutes in and it had been a hot day, so I went into the kitchen and lost it. My chest shook with sobs and my face burned red. I don't know if I am just sad or mad as well at my inability to get over this loss, maybe I never will. Rosey came in after me and hugged me, my darling serious 11 year old daughter comforted me and told me it was OK to cry. I sat down for a moment and looked around the room and cried some more. I had sat in that room and helped my Grandma cook great feasts, small treats, saltines and butter, pickles and american cheese. She had a TV mounted in the top corner of the room and listened to the news, different cooking shows or religious broadcasts, sometimes I would wake up in the morning in her bed and just listen to her below me in the kitchen, praying to herself or cussing out some stupid politician.

I was snapped out of my moment of grief by a yell from the living room:

"MOMMA! WHERE IS MY DRINK!?!?" Olive is whining to the point of tears herself.

"MOMMA! CAN I HAVE A DWINK TOO?!?!?! WHY DOES OLIVIA GET A DWINK AND NOT ME????" Max chimes in lovingly.

"MAGOO! GET THEM CHOCOLATE MILK, IT'S ON THE FRIDGE DOOR!" Pappy is the loudest of them all...

I guess maybe I have a little piece of my Grandma to carry around with me forever at the bidding of my family. The Most Royal Servant.

Rethinking Working at Home and Another Major Giveaway!

Right now I am supposed to working on a RUSH assignment in my makeshift studio/office space Jeremiah set up in our bedroom for me. It's cluttered and fairly disorganized and since I work at home it's probably not the best setting. Rose is lying on my bed next to my work area playing DS with the headphones on, Elijah is attempting to make a ladder off of my bed with sheets from his toddler bed tied together, Olivia is in the bathroom down the hall looking in the mirror and singing to herself and Maxine just entered the room arms laden with various bags of cheese, salami and crackers.

"MOMMA! Can we have a picnic in your room?"

No Maxine Jane, you can not.

I'm really rethinking this whole working at home thing. I thought I would save money on food, clothes and gas (not to mention the fact that I have made a conscious decision not to have a car, also rethinking that) working at home. Also I wouldn't have to find someone else to care for my kids, which saves money as well...plus there are enough kids here to be a small daycare regardless.

So when I decided to finally get a job at age 30 and put to use some of the education I worked so very hard receiving, this became my work space:




If you aren't in the 'know' (ha) and are wondering why a translator/transcriptionist needs a thousand buttons and boxes of yarn, I also have a shop where I make custom stuffed animals, baby gifts, blankets and more: Dork Designs



My only decoration is this strip of photos from the wedding Jeremiah was best man in and I just now noticed there is an amp hidden under my desk! Jeremiah!

Lunch. I love owls, I'm so 2010.

Notice some super cute custom stuffed creatures in the above photos? Kristine from the infamous Wait in the Van is doing a beyond awesome giveaway featuring one such stuffed monster from my shop! Go and enter so you can win your own Dork Designs creature handmade by me and some other super fun summer kids items! Cure for the Summer Blues Giveaway!

Not a Whore Giveaway and a Summer Monster Sale!

Right now Rose is screaming at Maxine to leave her alone, Olive is on the home computer downstairs endlessly using doggelganger.co.nz to find all of our dog counterparts and Elijah is pacing back and forth in front of my desk in my office telling me how hungry he is. Ahhhh the joys of summer.

After I finish my work for the day we will clean the house and take a walk to the store and the library, which will also be excellent and relaxing, I am sure.

In other news Trista is doing a Giveaway for a tee from my shop Dork Designs over at her newly designed site: Tristachio: Just a Family of Nuts

In further even more complicated and involved news I have more stuffies available! A job really complicates stuffed creature making, doesn't it?

I am offering these two monsters to you for a discounted price before I put them up on my website so be sure to tweet this or share this on facebook!
You can buy one for $28 or both for $50! If you would like to custom order a monster with your own colors and input it will be $40. All monsters are made with all natural supplies and vintage buttons. Maxine sleeps with hers every night (photo of her with said monster below)! If you are interested in either one that is currently available or in ordering a custom monster, you can contact me one of many ways. Email me at oliverosetree@yahoo.com, use the custom order form on my actual site or you can comment here with your email and I'll get back to you! I make things so easy for my loved ones, don't I?




Maxine with her birthday monster, it has fangs and a black soul...just like her!

A Brave Hair Cutting Act

I am by no stretch of the imagination a brave person. I am incredibly afraid of spiders, brake the whole time I'm riding down a hill on my bike, I stand on the sidewalk and motion all the drivers to keep going and wait till the road is clear before I cross...the list is practically endless.

I get my hair cut very, very rarely and when I do it's usually the same medium length, just above the shoulders bob that I've been getting since high school. Under the influence of a very pushy friend I decided to do something I considered brave, I chopped off all of my hair and got the first 'hair style' I've ever had in 30 years. This might not seem like a big deal to most of you out there, but to me it was rather huge. I took in a recent-ish photo of Michelle Williams and told the girl to do to me as she saw fit.

This is the result:


To those of you who are my Facebook friends, forgive the over use of this photo, I haven't taken any others yet!

What do you think?