Sweet

From The Feathered Nest

Subwoofers

From KanyeUniversity

A Bird in the Hand

Cute


From Fred

Something...in the way...to...

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Home sweet forgiveness
Bestow thy gifts to me
that I may once again know life sweetly

Audrey

Via MyFairLady

Did you think you could escape the wilderness?

Socially eschew.






Via MissHepburn

Cuteness

How freaking cute is this laptop bag from Etsy seller Track and Field Designs?

Mr. Chips Manifestation of Love?

kanYe West : Blog : DESIGNER HOLGA CAMERAS

kanYe West : Blog : DESIGNER HOLGA CAMERAS

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Enchanting. Frightening. Amazing.

This is life to me.



Watch around 3:45 mark. So sweet.

Such fun

These people make me want to play with Holgas and Polaroids!


Taza http://taza-and-husband.blogspot.com/


Jenny http://jennyslittlelife.blogspot.com/

(Photo: Jenny of Jenny's Little Life Blog)

Oh. Yeah.

The Passageway

In order to enter The Elizabethan Gardens, you have to enter through the gift shop. What a sight that greets you!
So many lovely treasures. And this was only one wall. We ended up purchasing actual vintage postcards, a lovely music cd which incorporates cello-centric songs with nature sounds (perfect for Alex's nite nite), and butterfly magnets. Also found some fun wall stick-on's of birds and a pear tree that I plan to use in Alex's room.

The Professor

Gave up the "Teese" and got some caramel instead

So I ended up getting "caramel-butterscotch" (light brown) highlights put in over the "soft black" I'd already dyed my hair. My hairstylist is amazing. His name is Patrick and he works at Bent Tree Salon in Clayton if you're in town. He also cut son and partners hair.

Elizabethan Garden - A Memorial for the Lost Colony

The ghostly tulips dancing for the sun.

ShamUhOH

Pic Courtesy of TSG

What a mess. He's going to need a ShamWoW for that.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0408091sham1.html

I'm BACK!

After having been eaten by the midterm monster, I'm back. Yeah, maybe 22 credits wasn't the brightest idea, but I want to get through school as quickly as possible. At my age, I should be finished with my masters and kicking some butt in my field, but I got sidetracked along the way. Life happens. Instead, I'm listening to some 19 year old country boys talking about taking M-14's to any gays they might find when they enter the military. Can you believe the teacher heard that and just smiled! WTFubar Yah, for local country schools. Can't wait to transfer to a 4 year in a semester. NC State couldn't take me until I had one college level math course. Soon...so soon.

Anyhow, Steve and I are nearing completion of our investment property. Got some paint on the walls, stain going down on the hardwoods next week, tile and carpet after that. I have to get some before and after pics up. The transformation is ridiculous. Just getting the paneling off the walls did wonders.

Alex is scared of shadows now! Awww. He says they eat the doors. I asked him what the shadows look like and he said, "like a shadow, Mommy, " with such exasperation. I put a lamp in his room and put a star covered sheet over it to give him protection against the shadow monsters and he smiled so sweetly and went to sleep. In the morning, he looked at my concoction up close and said, "blanket," and laughed, as if to say, "nice try Mommy, you goof." He's ridiculously funny.

I wish I had some pics to share, but I lost my camera battery. After Steve traveled around 35 miles roundtrip to find one for me after my other one broke. I also lost a dinner gift card an awesome person gave me for my b-day the next day. My mind is scattered from school. Or maybe, I just suck. :)

Hugs to you all.

Ooh la la hair

Loving these hair colors and styles:


Reddish brown and flowing.

Warm golden mahogany.

A hint of punk.

I dyed my hair black, but it does not look classic, shiny and wonder evoking like this.


Or exotic and mysterious like this soft black.

Delicious red.
I love this haircut.

Maybe peekaboo highlights.


Or maybe I should just leave my hair alone since its about ready to fall out from all the dye I've used on it.

Alex world art

My favorite artpiece by Alex. The scanner didn't do it justice. It's very vibrant and complex. Lots of different colors and mediums. If you click on it, it'll enlarge.



Artwork given to Alex by his best friend (8 year old girlfriend?) Makaela. I want to get a picture of them together. They're so cute!

Bunny Photo

Pre-haircut! Aww

Valentines Recap

There were other kids at Alex's table, but they were getting their hands washed. The 1's and the 2's combined and had a blast!

Diana, the lead teacher, had the students put the glitter on these oh-so-cute heart flower pots and gave them to the moms and dads to take home.
Yummo! Carrots, apples, cupcakes, pears, sugar cookies, organic chips and cheese puffs (provided by Steve and I), cheese squares and Hi-C to top it off.Here's a card that I made for Alex to give to his classmates. It didn't scan properly, but you get the gist of it! He's holding/hugging icicles in the pic. :)At the end of the day Alex ended up making off with a ton of loot (aka valentine's) from his classmates and friends

FDA Overhaul

(Photo courtesy of Chris Levingston/Getty)

I was really pleased to hear that Pres. Obama is overhauling the FDA and has just picked a new Administrator to head it. The FDA has long been an agency whose transparency in bed with the pharmaceutical agencies, that it is responsible to police, has had deadly results. The FDA's lack of true contriteness and ownership in failing to properly police the pharmeceutical industry shows a willingness towards passitivity as long as the monetary benefit was large enough to outweigh the moral and ethical obligations it was supposed to uphold.

Obama's new pick, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, is a young but long time advocate for health care with two degrees from Harvard. She is also one of the top scientists at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which is a charity supposedly working to reduce nuclear, biological and chemical weapons from spreading or even being used globally. It is left to time to see if she and Obama will truly stand up for the protection of the public's health.

Fibromyalgia?

For the past couple of years, I've had sporadic chest pain, sort of like a pin prick to the heart. Within the past year, this pain radiates across my left chest and down my arm, making it painful to lift my left arm when it occurs. I saw two doctors that told me that my EKG's were fine and I've had two echocardiograms which showed that I had a minor murmur in the mitral valve, but nothing serious. The pain sent me to the emergency room once where an ER doc told me that I most likely had costochondritis, which is inflammation of the cartilage that connects a rib to the breastbone. It is usually harmless, but the pain itself does mimic that which someone feels during a heart attack, which is scary. I told my new doctor about it, but she ordered up an EKG and echocardiogram and as they were OK, as described, I haven't heard anything else from her.

The past couple of nights have been pretty bad, so I decided to do some research on my own. What I found is that my chest pain as well as other symptoms seem to point to fibromyalgia. A person with fibromyalgia will experience costochondritis, fatigue, sinus problems, weight gain/loss, sensitivity to cold or heat, vision problems, generalized tender points (such as pain in knees, back, and back of head) or localized pain (such as chest pain), terrible headaches/migraines, sleep disturbances, depression, morning stiffness, and problems with thinking and memory, sometimes called fibro fog. All of which I experience.

Research shows that it may resolve on its on with the help of a combination of analgesics (motrin), antidepressants, and muscle relaxants. There are also alternative remedies such as acupuncture and chiropractic care. I was actually going to the chiropractor for a while for my migraines and it really did help with most everything. I began losing weight,felt more positive, my mental fog cleared and mental clarity and response time improved, and felt more motivated. I hadn't even expected those changes because I was only there for the migraines.

I'm not sure that I have costochondritis or fibromyalgia, but now that I'm armed with the information, I'm going to ask my doctor to focus her search.

Vote for Emily

Fellow blogger, Emily, of Visions of Sugarplum, is trying to win a cooking contest. She's a genuinely great person and is so deserving. She's rocking the Ozarks.

Her recipe is the Oatmeal-Banana Bread Drop Doughnuts with Peanut Butter Glaze. You can find it here with a link to vote for it. http://quickfire.bravotv.com/quickfire/view.php?id=1 It's really easy to vote too. No long forms to fill out.

You can check out her site here: http://www.visionsofsugarplum.com/

Excuse Our Dust

Current state of our guest bath.




We just replaced our front door. And...we love it! It goes perfectly with our weirdy faux victorian/art deco/arts and crafts/turn of the century/explorer/hemingwayesque/nonsensical decor. Pay no mind to the construction dust still coating the floor under the occasional able. It's simply adding to the atmosphere. ;)


Here are the cabinets/work stations that we made in our construction class.

P.S. Alex and Steve are both feeling much better.

There has been a lot of sickness going around here for the past couple of weeks. First, I got sick with an eye and bronchial infection. Then, Alex's teacher got strep throat and one of his fellow students got pneumonia. Now, Alex has an ear infection and Steve is coming down with something as well. They're going to have to quarantine this town pretty soon.

Strawberry Boy

The other day Steve and I picked up this cute strawberry planter from Home Depot. I thought it would make an awesome science project for our 2 year old sweetie, Alex. We made a mess, but he'd already had a yogurt explosion as you can tell from his shirt. Loads of fun!

Note: 3rd from last pic: dirty sink. 2nd from last pic: miraculously clean! Hmm, how'd that happen ;)