hump day nuggets :: celebrate

hump day nuggets :: little bits of the season in photos and words about the last week

I didn't feel like coming here to write tonight.  It's been so stinking hot here today (in the upper 90's) and all I want to do is sip my glass of wine and read a good book.  However, this weekly assignment to myself to download some photos, organize my thoughts on our life over the last seven days and jot down a few words to help me remember it all is just what I need to do to help preserve these memories for me and my family.  So here I am.

nuggets.

:: As we said goodbye to summer last Friday and hello to autumn (hello, autumn!), we have been in a state of organized chaos.  We have been purging for our upcoming multi-family yard sale.  Sweeping the porches, power washing the house and outbuildings and using our slicker boots more and more during wet, dewy morning chores.

:: I discovered that one of our hens has been laying eggs outside of the hen house.  Over the last month or so, she started flying over a small picket fence behind our bedroom window and spent about 20 minutes or so making a full-on ruckus.  She was our new alarm clock and now it all makes sense - she was laying eggs away from all of the other ladies.  Perhaps she's our shy one?  Apparently, the beautiful surroundings of the Mexican sage bush is her happy place.

:: 18 eggs.  I knew we were missing an egg or two a day and I looked high and low for any buried eggs.  Guess I needed to look around the corner.  We tested all 18 eggs and none of them floated, so they were okay to eat - but I'm still not so sure.  She hasn't laid one in the secret location since she was found out.  Too funny.

:: The Tooth Fairy delivered.  Yes, he still believes in the Tooth Fairy.  We picked him up Friday from school and he was beaming.  Guess what, mom?  You'll never guess.  I lost my tooth in computer lab!  He placed it in a plastic, see-through box and taped it shut on all sides.  He was perhaps a little on to the Tooth Fairy, but wanted to believe.  She left him two gold one dollar coins and this sweet Sonoma Vermiculture hat (to replace the one that his mother ruined in the washing machine & dryer!).  What a cool Tooth Fairy.

::  Jenner.  Sunday was a wet and rainy morning.  Nothing at all like the stereotypical last weekend of September that I have grown to know and love out here in Sonoma County.  It was also my Goddaughter's 8th birthday and we were scheduled to go to the beach for the afternoon.  Rain or shine.

We trekked out to Secret Beach (our name for it) with our bags full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk cheese and the sweetest baguette from the Cazadero bakery, chocolate chip cookies, tempera paints, Sharpies & paintbrushes.

The birthday girl (pictured on the far right) requested to visit the driftwood houses on Secret Beach and help paint new art to the evolving artist-in-residence series it was currently exhibiting (just kidding about that). Her father thought perhaps we were teaching the kids the not so fine art of graffiti and potentially vandalizing the structures.  It is all how you look at it, right?  Half-full, my friends, half-full.

 

 

She blew out an imaginary flame on her celebratory cupcake because we forgot the matches.  She made her wish and played along.

Yes, I love taking an action shot.  These kids never tire of posing for me and jumping from rock formations, poolside ledges or on trampolines.  If I had a dollar for every digital shot I have of them jumping...I could be rich.

We had the honor and pleasure of spending the day with the Queen Fairy Godmother, Cheryl.  The birthday girl's mother was out of town and we just knew we had to jump in and help celebrate her little one.  We brought books of poetry along to read to the kids, painted and documented our visit in photographs and spoiled all three of them with this adventure.

She said it was one of the best birthdays she's ever had.

The kids quickly set about finding all of the dirty words and painting over them or modifying them.  It's funny how disgusted they were with all of the not-so-nice words they found.  I kept reminding them that they were just words, but that didn't fly with the oldest.  She was like the profanity police and she was having none of it.
It was an epic day of fun.  Her mama would have been proud.  Her daddy spoiled her, too.

Yes, he's been working hard on his upcoming art show.  We are finalizing the where and the when, but it will definitely be in Valley Ford on 11.11.11.  Mostly watercolors and an alphabetical book on monsters.  Each painting has a story and what started out as a show of paintings of things or objects that friends and family have given him, has now morphed into whatever he wants to paint.  The show will be called - whatever.  Not in that snotty, irreverent way that whatever can mean when a kid says it, but just whatever he painted he will share with us.

I love you kid.  I could not be more proud of the person you are becoming.  Your love of the written word makes my heart swell.  Your new found interest in playing Jenga & Yahtzee until we have to cry Uncle! is sweet.  Your rotating necklace-of-the-day is intriguing, if not mildly confusing.  The  fact that you will only wear short-sleeve shirts and shorts is a battle I am finally willing to give up on.  Your request for Mick Jagger's God Gave Me Everything I Want every morning on our car ride to school is encouraging.  Your rendition of Maroon 5's Moves Like Jagger is hilarious.  The fact that every night I can count on finding a hidden cockroach or snake in my bed makes me smile as I hit the pillow after a long day.  I am so lucky to be your mom.

Happy hump day out there.  

(I'm about to lose my mind with editing this blog post.  I cannot, for the life of me, fix the wonky spacing with the paragraphs and photos.  I'm leaving it as is to save my sanity.  I hope to fix on my next post.  Ugh!  I am so frustrated.  Night all.)