he looks so peaceful when he's breaking something

tomorrow (today, actually) morning the wonderous penn and i will put our beautiful lives in the hands of northwest airlines and head up to the birthplace. michigan, that is. we will go through ups and downs, both literally and metaphorically, and when we get off the plane in chicago my tiny 80 lb. mother will bowl crowds of tired travelers over in order to touch her only begotten grandchild.

the last time we were in michigan penn rolled over for the first time. it was just my sister and i there for the stupendous moment. i was still caught up in the miracles of baby and my sister was 17 and i think i saw a hint of "my sister's gone crazy" in her eyes and maybe just a tinge of, "you can stop telling every last person that the kid just rolled over today."

kidding. we love you aunt lise.

so, who knows what will happen this time. alls i know is that mom's got great big construction equipment contraption things. big yellow metal things that haul and lift and blow away snow and these are precisely the things that my son is obsessed with. most kids? they go to the zoo. my kid? we take trips to see the cranes. or john deere. and we just love us some catapillar stuff. if you have a baby boy, this will all make sense.

i didn't get everything done that i should have. i'm going to try to get as much as i can from there. it might be hard 'cause right now i'm dreaming of ben folds playing in kalamazoo, an hour away from where i'm staying. . . . .the dream is that tickets will be cheap and i can give away my baby for a night and load up my sister and brother for a night of drooling. and not that baby kind that makes giggles and penn speak: "ewwwww, slobby!"

the last time i was there my mom's internet was so slow i didn't even have the patience to check my e-mail. now they've got high speed. woo-hoo! yay for present day technology.

pms brings out the sarcastic in me. i swear to god, i started my period for the first time ever, back when there were periods to be starting, and every time i see my mother i am carrying five pounds of bloat with me. these are the sorts of traditions that should be broken.

ellaroo

i was hired to take pictures of this (the above.) photos of mothers wearing their babies in ellaroo's adorable baby slings. and i did, and it was fun and the mothers are awesome, seriously, and beautiful and the kids are out of this world cute.

product photography is fun, in that it pays the bills. it's not always fun in that there are specific things that have to be captured in a certain way, in a certain light, in a certain composition. restrictions are, well, constraining when it comes to art. so, product photography isn't art to me. it's work.

recently i went to a couple of websites i've done photos for (simplicitea, renee rouleau, brown lion) and gave myself a remarkable ego boost. check it; it's totally fun to see the end result of your work in print.

in between the "work" i made a little art out of the daughter of the owner of ellaroo.

i love them. love love love them.
i love them because she is so sweet and smart and natural and these quick random shots were taken while the models were getting dressed. i love that some of my favorite pictures ever were taken so simply (old cloth backdrop from the trunk of my car and a great big window) and in such a short amount of time on the fly.

i also love how, in black and white, the photos look like a totally different kid. i'd love to show you all of them, color and black and white, but, umm, that's probably not necassary. i wish i could pinpoint why i really like them so much. maybe it's just how these came out of 250 instrucional series shots. maybe she's a small little goddess. maybe it's her giant blue eyes.
the children were running wild around me and i wished i hadn't paid so much in babysitting money and just brought penn.
then again, if i had brought penn, i wouldn't have got to drool all over this little guy. come. on. this kid's a gap ad waiting to happen.

while i was packing equipment before the shoot benji said to me, "you know the rule of the industry, right? you don't work with animals and you don't work with kids."

"but bennnnjjiii. . . ." i whined. 'cause i love animals and kids. and this shoot totally proved to me i'd love to just shoot kids all day. kids and puppies.

p.m.s. e.t.

taking pictures of my new haircut made me realize how hard it is to take a picture of your own hair. not just angles and mirrors and late night lack of photography inspiration, but you also then have to look past the hair and see the face.
and reazlie that it's just bizzarre. maybe it's the glasses or the zits or the fact that i know that my father will call or make comment to someone that i look tired. this will happen despite how much sleep i've gotten, what time of day it is, whether or not i've washed my face, etc.
i love you dad. but, i have pms and i'm somewhat angry and touchy to the world right now. especially the airline world and the world that doesn't do their own damned dishes or wipe up the fucking spaghetti splatters from their pasta sauce and at 10:00 o'clock says, "oooh, let's watch monsters inc!" instead of saying, "i'll put the baby to bed tonight, honey."
really, that's all i want to hear in the world: "i'll make dinner and put the baby to bed and do dishes tonight, if that's okay with you. take it easy honey, i know you've been busy all day. a massage? would you like a massage too? oh, and your face, it doesn't really look like an alien."

left, left. left ouch left

my foot, it's been hurting for a really long time. but it takes more than a dull throbbing or an occasional excrutiating stab to the foot to make me go to the doctor.

and then, about two weeks ago, i swore something in my foot was broken. "there are 26 bones in the foot!" mary said, "something could be broken." proof? that thing jutting out of my foot that screamed at the lightest touch, much less when penn and i would slide and he would land on it.

i called a podiatrist. my x-ray was "quite unremarkable," according to the doctor, meaning all of the bones looked fine. rather, it is some major tendon that runs the length of my body both holding my head on and keeping my foot together.

i exaggerate.

but it is, i'm told, some important tendon and mine is really unhappy and swollen. the dr. taped it up (seen in photo above) and said it would feel better instantly. lo and behold he was, remarkably, correct.

he also prescribed an anti-inflamatory medicene and pain pill all in one. i've yet to take it because i think it packs a punch and causes "drowsiness," equating to loopiness with me, and babies go hand in hand with heavy machinery.

i took the bandage off today and felt the root of every hair on my leg. and foot. i didn't even know i had a hair on my foot. i do. i have hairs on my feet. and they hurt if they've been glued to a bandage for a week.

wishing i'd left the bandage on now, for the sake of my hairs, and my foot, as it hurts again. blech. and i'm going to have to trek through airports on this sucker. that's right. airports. penn, my bum foot and i will be journeying to michigan to experience real cold. which scares me, because i live in dallas, texas and i'm freezing right now.

fifty new flowers

so the new house came with pretty flowers and since i suck at growing anything that blooms or even pretends to be anything besides green, i was really enjoying them. . .while they lasted. when penn accidently pulled a flower off it left this neat little white tuft and we had fun exploring what the inside of a flower stem looks like. what i really like about these flowers is that they seem to create new blooms overnight.

i also enjoyed collecting the empty snail shells i found in the beds to use as future photography props. (i've a whole bag full of random nature things to shoot and throw away.)

one evening i noticed a large turd resting on top of the flowers. while i pondered what my cats were thinking, pooping on flowers, i went to get it off. closer inspection proved that it was far worse than cat poop. it was a snail. a gigantic turd sized snail. all this time i thought snails were cute. this one was huge and devouring my flowers.

the next morning i went outside with my morning coffee and my morning baby and all of the flowers were gone. the actual flower part anyway, and left in a slimy wake were hundreds of white tufts.

the anger, it did build. i knew you could pour salt on a snail and it would "melt." but that just seems really cruel. and gross. so i went organic and put out saucers of beer. everyone has a different explanation for why this kills snails, but i prefer my mothers: they get drunk, pass out and die.

my snails, apparently, need a keg. i think they're teenage snails. they got drunk, had sex and multiplied because by morning there were very few flowers left.

that night, while outside, i looked out at the sea of shiny snails finishing off my bed. i was particulary angry at this one snail who's slimy snail mouth was so visibly wrapping itself around an entire bud.

pms made me do it. i got the salt. i sprinkled and managed to glimpse an entire second of the disinigration before i was forced to run to the safety of the patio where i could barf under the light, if needbe. putting salt on a snail is like creating your own tiny b horror flick. multi colored bubbling and actual audible hissing and gurgling until your left with a slimy bubbly goo leaking out of what i used to think was a pretty shell.

it was awful. i felt awful. and yet, it was strangely satisfying. so i went to the next one. sprinkle and run. then i fanned out a wash of salt.

hiss. gurgle. melt. gag. karma is now fucked. the flowers will live. strangely satisfied.

the next day penn and i bought "bug getta" which i explained to penn, are like little "moving signs" to the snails. we're telling them they must move or die. i don't know what's worse, the bubbly carcass left by the salt or the nasty green goo left by the bug getta.

next day: i swear to you, fifty new flowers.

third world syndrome

more than the average family we are infected by what i will now deem "the third world syndrome." maybe we're just ungrateful pricks who need to be reminded more often of our comfortable status. maybe some things just need to happen so they might as well happen to the easy going family so's not to hear too much ruckus. maybe karma's mad that i wiped out the gooey snail population in my back yard.

most recently it has been an extremely common occurance for us to live for far too long without water, without air conditioning, without electricity, and on just an aggrivating tip, because it's "that time of month" meaning mother nature will be stopping by any minute to remind me that i've a womb thus granting me the liberty to bitch about how we also lived without the use of our balcony, without privacy, without quiet, without parking lots, security gates and without clean floors.

i share with you a picture of my bath. yes folks. we have no gas, therefore we have no hot water.

why no gas? because we have been the renters of apartments since we left the nest a growing number of years ago and renters of apartments do not have to pay for gas. or trash. or water. and sometimes, not even electricity. after benji took a bath yesterday, and then penn took a bath, it was mommy's turn. and it was going to be a long one because i've been gardening and, ewwww.

alas. that wish did not come to pass and after waiting and waiting i discovered this morning that there are no hot water trees in my backyard and you have to buy gas. there should be a manual on this.

no, seriously.

gas tomorrow, sometime between 8 and 5, unless there is an emergency, in which, it will be after 5.

up next: more on snails, more on dirty feet, more on the third world storm.

today:

1. surprise company. yay!
2. super sweet baby. i dealt with potential "fits" with more tolerance which seemed to ward off future "fits." give a little, get a little.
3. super awesome nap with baby.
4. baby stayed awake and played his ass off until midnight!!! we tried to go to bed at 8. but he was all of amazing and cute and awake and it was either get up and do stuff, or lay there with him for three hours. it was totally worth it.
5. painted in his room
6. painted his step stool
7. got paint in my hair
8. will have to paint more tomorrow
9. finally got benji's book shelf plus cool ass "floating shelves" hung which means he'll get the boxes of dvd's out of the dining room. (benji's little box and clutter deposits are really all that's left of the house being "together.")
10. garage got more organized today
11. car got washed and trunk cleaned out. (papa will breath a sigh of relief at this.)
12. penn recognizes the big orange sign now: "hooommmeee depot!"
13. transplanting monkey grass in front yard.
14. my keyboard is sticky (penn + sprite) so there have been a gazillion annoying typo's the past couple of posts and i've been too lazy to fix them. even though they bug the hell out of me.
15. either basketball is damned good excersise, or my back muscles are just way out of shape.
16. forgot about the sprinkler being on so our yard got watered for an hour and a half!
17. after benji's evening shower, and the baby's bath there seems to be no hot water. none. so dirty mommy gets to stay that way until we can further inspect the water heater. don't get too close.
18. i have a babysitter now so i can call the amazing kinome to cut my hair. but now that i'm past that awful mid-growth part, i'm actually kinda liking it right now.
19. going to the doctor tomorrow. will be the first time i'm actually looking forward to a dr. appointment. i think i broke my foot. at least a bone anyway. dude. taking socks off causes me to emit strange noises. the things you'll do for kids.

but i understand fingerpaints

our family thrives on creation. and i'm constantly on the lookout for things that can show penn the wonders of his creative brain. like fingerpaint.

which he is very into. he seems to get frustrated with it sometimes, but i'm not sure what exactly he's wanting it to do.

they don't make paper big enough for him, i think. at the end of fingerpaint time i hose him and the patio off, which is as much fun as the painting part.

the terrible two's are upon us. one minute penn's delighted and the next he's screaming irrational nonsense. he went all of yesterday without a nap due to the go-go-go in his parents. living in a bonafide neighborhood keeps us busy and gives us all sorts of pleasures that just don't exist in apartment world.

things like talking to your neighbor over the fence about bulky trash pick-up day and how to transplant dwarf monkey grass and when to split hastas and oh, there's your little girl, and then oh, hell, look, we're just going to come over, mmkay?, and then the other neighbor outside enjoying the sunday saying, oh hell, me and my kid are just going to come over too, mmkay?, and then, "anyone want a beer?" things like the group of kids ages 2-5 looking like a sesame street skit, the kids being white, hispanic and whatever you want to call penn. "other?" spinning and ball throwing and joke telling and snacks and my baby loving up to the neighbor mom he just met.

terrible twos: so all day with no nap then spaghetti at 6:30. i elbowed benji. "look at the baby," i whispered. whispered because the baby's eyes closed with a forkfull of spaghetti en route to his mouth. several eyes closing and jerking back of the head to almost face in the bowl scenes backed by our muffled laughter and i decided my funtime was over. the baby was falling asleep at the table.

i scooped penn up, washed the sauce off of him and in two minutes flat he was sound asleep for the night.

today i got a little fed up with being a mom. maybe it's the terrible two's, and maybe it's just pms, but either way, everyone who encountered my baby in my house today had the same struggle with stuffing the thoughts about penn back down. outside my house penn charmed everyone. what's up with that?

at 6p.m. penn lost his mind and i took him for pizza. at 7:00 he was ready to sleep again. 7:30-8:00 he was gone.

so. to compensate for the onset of horrible horrible tantrums, i apparently will gain an extra two hours of my evening.

i'd like to get 5 gallon buckets of fingerpaint, cover the lawn in a nice white butcher paper, hide the cats, and let the baby go. then maybe just throw him into someone's pool. i could live a whole week like that.

most parents never want their children to grow up.

benji and i, we don't understand those parents.

papa

xmas came early on my dad's most recent trip to dallas. his visit was a gift in its truest sense. i changed, maybe two whole diapers while he was here. we stayed up until 4, even 5 in the morning talking and he woke up early with the baby. benji and i made a solo trip to ikea, watched a burlesque show and a japanese punk band. (tsu shi ma mi re totally rawk. penn and i have a daily japanese dance party now. he prefers track one.)

side note: we've also been having daily mommy/baby yoga. penn's more flexible, but i'm more coordinated.

back on track: we got to do all these things without the added cost of a nine dollar an hour babysitter. my dad's name got changed officially to "papa" and i think the both papa and penn had a grand time.

the amazing home finder gave us an herb garden!!!!!! truly, she's amazing. i couldn't decide where to plant them in the ground, so my dad and i planted them all in these two pots. (by the way, susan, this was right after the planting---a little limp---but they're doing wonderful now!)

and here's the funnest part about my dad's dallas visit; the water hose. the two of them got soaked over and over again. penn even took his bath outside under the hose. i think my dad might've rinsed his hair out too since penn wouldn't let him take a shower.

xmas came early. literally as my dad filled our new home with new home things like shovels and rakes and buddahs and lights and great big loud construction toys for penn and tools and tarps and lamps and beds and love. lots and lots of love. penn's still talking about papa this and papa that, papa car and papa bed and when he asks me to turn on the water hose and i say, "not right now penn," i get this look that says, "papa would do it."

you're welcome any time for as long as you can handle us, papa.

new house

clearly blogger does not wish me to share the visual goodness that is my new home, as i've tried for a week now to upload some pictures and for a week now, blogger locks up on me.

a few though, managed to sneak past the cybergods. so, what've i been doing that's kept me so busy i can't blog?

first, we moved. we moved with the help of easy movers. i'd recommend them based on the fact that the one guy came in, surveyed each room gave us papers to sign, took the three cushions off of the couch, and then picked it up over his head and carried it down the three flights of stairs to the moving van. surely, i thought, he's shooting special moving-guy steroids.

maybe not. maybe it was just the gatorade he requested. go gatorde.

ben's current studio previously housed a young girl whose room was yellow on bottom and pink on top. the bright pink and frilly curtins came no where close to portraying the amounts of testosterone pulsing through the benji brain, so we took advantage of all the paint left here and painted his room.

i shouldn't be allowed to paint. i shouldn't be allowed to put holes in walls or screw anything or fix anything. i should only be allowed to clean. proof? i magically covered my ass in paint after discovering that sometime earlier i had magically bleached the front of my pants. who knows. but, i was painting trim, which required sitting, so i couldn't wear the painted ass pants. having no where to put my wet painting tools i asked benji to pull my pants down. i then realize we have officially made our first impression on the neighborhood.

me in my underwear with the larger than life windows open good and wide so everyone can see my butt.

you can see how amused benji is. this is actully his warrior-i-can-conquor-pink-and-yellow-walls pose.

then my daddy helped hang lights by braving the ladder that is three milk crates stacked high. originally, i spent $30 on these, but our arbor is much bigger thn i thought, so there are now $100 worth of lights outside. i tell you that just to ensure i get my money's worth out of them by squeezing ooh's and ahh's from you when you come to visit.

this picture is to illustrte good and bad.

• good=my dad (now officially, from here on out, "papa") and the baby having converstion on the kitchen counter.
• bad=that floral wallpaper in the back.

which we took down. no . . .which benji took down. and did a damned fine job. no actual pictures of the kitchen, but you can see it's newness in the background of penn's lunch. again, with the free paint.
benji had a lovely time buying and returning water hoses until we got the right length. here's benji drilling holes into our house for the hose holder. "it's too high" i said. "it's got to be easy to wind," he said. then, "sometimes your asthetic tastes bothers me." to which i replied, "ditto. and your nose is cute in this picture."

then we borrowed super great neighbors lawn mower. (that's me in the shadow taking the pic from on top of the swing set.

the cats get to go outside thanks to the private fence. they're like new animals. catfish has really shed some weight. we're all like new animals here, i think. it's really all just perfect. i'm on cloud 9, so whatever i said in my previous post that made anyone think i was "down" or needed rescuing, i apologize 'cause it's all good in the hood, yo.

we painted penn's room, made our second trip to ikea and bought benji a chaise for his studio, penn a step stool so he can brush his teeth and wash his hands by himself, new comforter for our room, the old one demoted to penn's room and a neat thing for penn's room causing me to put a lot of holes in the wall. (reminder, carissa and powertools do not mix.)

benji's done a fantastic job doing all the little handy-man stuff and i know despite his bitching, he adores all the home depot trips. what is it with men and buying tools?

life in mi casa is more than cool. come by anytime. this means you.

still here.

still here. still working. still have pictures to show. i know. i want my daddy. if my daddy would come back i wouldn't have to stay up until 4 in the morning to make a buck.

but yeah website gigs.

fatstraws

fat straws has something good going on. it's a privately owned bubble tea shop in plano, tx. the couple who run the shop are absolutley adorable. they've got amazing taste and design and their menu is phenominal.

they hired me to do some photography for their website, menu, posters, etc. so. much. fun.

we had to start sunday night after they closed and shot until 2 a.m. we used the tea shop employees as people models. they're all amazing too!

somebody hire this girl. she's a model and as sweet and smart as she is gorgeous.


my favorite drink of theirs is the avacado something-or-other.

my favorite drink to take a picture of is the above, which i call "purple with flowers" because i forget what it actually is.

i think fatstraws will be hopefully be opening up other locations. i'm begging them to come to dallas, but until then, go support local businesses and get yo'self some bubble tea.

i totally predict they'll be the next starbucks.

weekends mean nothing

i'm a little more than swamped right now with a heavy deadline over my head. working on a massive set which includes the above photograph of tapioca bubbles for a tea shop. more to come and then, yes, pictures of the house.

sleep would be nice

i've been up till 4a.m. or after for over a week now. i haven't watched television in almost two weeks. i've spent little time on the computer, which is actually unfortunate because i have a load of pictures that should have already been delivered, but the move screwed up my ability to meet the deadline. there are a gazillion super-cool pictures on my camera ready to be downloaded and shared.

tonight i accidently fell asleep with penn at 9p.m. at 10:30 benji came and woke me up because he overheard me tell penn that i had to work tonight or i'd be in trouble. i crawled out of the bed, squinty-eyed waved to mary in the kitchen, and rolled onto the couch. i covered up with a blanket i crocheted and was then forced to throw it across the room. seems catish decided to take a squat on it.

goodgrief.

the house still blows my mind. i've been having client meetings here which kicks ass because now i don't have to wait at the starbucks down the street or get lost trying to find some dallas suburb and i don't have to get a babysitter. although at today's meeting, i wish i'd had a babysitter. good thing it's a job shooting baby slings and babies. the client is just an amazing person. . ..and a mommy. lucky me.

that's right. i get paid to take pictures of babies.

in other news: penn found the scissors and said, "hair cut!" he then proceeded to illustrate his knowledge.