Personally, I'm Tired of Looking at My Week-old Post

If I'm tired of the last post, you probably are as well. I haven't had much to say worth posting lately. Sorry about that. I'm trying to get my magazine off to the printers and for some reason I have been mostly uninspired with this issue and it doesn't help when the words just aren't fitting well with the pictures. Hopefully I'll get the kinks worked out today and at least get a proof to my boss.

Anyway, I wanted to at least knock the potty post down a notch. Hope you all had a nice weekend and I promise more than just this lame post this week.

This is just a BAD idea.

I try to stay out of the political debating game, but this just seems like a bad idea. If in the state of Maryland, the Republican governor and the Democrat mayor of Baltimore (soon to be governor candidate) agree on something, you know it must be a bad idea.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-te.bz.ports21feb21,0,6812337.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

In other news, I'm coming back to work after a 4-day weekend. Gotta love that. Friday I took a precious metal clay jewelry class, which was quite fun. I'll post some pictures of my creations as soon as I can. I'm hoping to use the metal clay to create silver settings for my fused glass.

Saturday was day one of the "going cold-turkey" potty training method of my two-year-old. It did not go as well as I'd hoped. Let me just tell you that potty training sucks on many levels. When training my oldest son, we used pull-ups and it took forever to get him out of the pull-ups, especially at night. For that reason, we're not going to use pull-ups the second time around. Poor little one must have had 6-7 accidents in his new football underwear Saturday. For as bad as the day went, we decided not to try the underwear overnight. Yeah, I know, inconsistency, yadda yadda, whatever. I was tired of changing his clothes and didn't feel like changing sheets all night.

Sunday was day two and only lasted about an hour as we discovered our refrigerator had died. Little One had an accident as I was trying to move the contents of the kitchen refrigerator to the basement refrigerator. We decided given the need to go shop for a replacement refrigerator and not wanting to deal with accidents in Sears or Home Depot to bag the potty training for the day and put him back in a diaper. Yeah, again I know inconsistency. The new refrigerator will deliver on Thursday and in the meantime, I'm getting some exercise going up and down stairs for food.

Day three, Monday. President's Day. Holiday from work. Try the underwear again in the morning. Not even 5 minutes in the underwear and he pees in them. Bag the potty training again. I know. I know! The in-laws will be in town this coming weekend and since we'll probably want to go out and do things while they are visiting, we'll wait two weeks to try again.

Since we bagged the potty training, I packed the Little One up and we went to the mall. We went to the Apple store and I drooled over the 30gb iPod. I want one so bad. I will have to hold off on purchasing for a bit longer since the new refrigerator will be eating our tax refund. It is always something.

This Just In…

Understand that it is seriously not my intention to “toot” my own horn here, but I just got an e-mail and wanted to share part of it with you.

My organization is having a conference this year at Disney in Florida and I have been busy designing our promotional materials for the conference. Disney is understandably very brand conscious and in designing our materials, I have had to follow incredibly detailed guidelines provided by Disney. I have also had to submit my designs to Disney for their approval, which is to say the least daunting to a small time designer such as myself. To me, Disney is a big-time design powerhouse.

Last week one of my big projects was our registration brochure for the conference. Luckily I got very favorable feedback from Disney upon their review and surprisingly from my printer as well. Yesterday before I left the office, I submitted two magazine ads promoting the conference to Disney for their approval, which I just received. This is the excerpt of the e-mail from Disney:

“Both of your ads are absolutely fabulous! You've done an exceptional job creating two very appealing ads that are within our guidelines.”

This has made my day! Thanks for humoring me. I now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

For the Record I do NOT Watch "The O.C.". I Swiped this from PlayfulinDC

Your Celebrity Style Twin is Mischa Barton

Funky, bohemian, and girly.

Who's" Your Celebrity Style Twin?

I'm not good at HTML, so here's the link to PlayfulinDC. Ms. Barton is a good-looking girl so I'll take the results, although I think she needs to eat a steak.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Alrighty Then

Hi kids. Sorry to abandon you all last week. [sorry Cube] I did in fact survive the Super Bowl, although I WISH I could have been in Pittsburgh for the victory parade. Friends have said that it was unbelievable. Things got a little busy and I had to do actual work rather than spend time on the Internet. Imagine that. Anyway, things are a little more under control this week, so I have a minute or two to post.

I got a major project off to the printer and then had to be in an all-day meeting on Friday. Not a fun meeting, but supposedly necessary. Our receptionist resigned this morning. She had almost attained “brain trust” status, so I’m not that sorry to see her go. Yeah, I know, nice attitude. Whatever.

I was able to find time—for the first time in months—to string some necklaces over the weekend. I have included a photo above for your enjoyment. Unfortunately the scan isn’t showing the dragonflies in all their glory. They seem to fade out, so you’ll have to trust me that they are there in full force. I think I’m going to have to start taking digital pictures rather than just laying the necklaces out on my scanner.

My dear little boys had a TON of fun in the snow yesterday. We have a slight hill in our front yard that is just the right size for little ones to enjoy sledding. My hubby helped them pack down a sled run and they had a blast sliding down and running back up to do it again. We got about 8” at the Blue Dog House and it was great packing snow. We made two giant snowmen, which the kids had a good time decorating with sticks. The snowmen ended up looking a little voodoo with all the sticks. I have to tell you that it is times like these that make this parenting thing SO worth it.

We lost power Sunday morning at 8:30 in the morning. The radio said that the power might be off until Monday or Tuesday at which point I started stressing about missing the conclusion of the best show on TV. Fortunately, our power came back in the afternoon and the crisis was averted. I know, I know, it’s just a TV show, but it’s a really good TV show and they left us hanging after the Super Bowl and I needed to see it last night. Holy crap what an ending it was too. The teaser for next week has me craving to watch again. Yes, I know there are still people without power and trust me I totally feel for them. Just so we are clear, I was worried about more than the TV. We had a fridge full of food and two small kids to keep warm.

I’m looking forward to Valentine’s Day tomorrow. I was actually able to get a babysitter and the hubby and I are going out for a nice dinner just the two of us. My Valentine best wishes to you all!

I should have more to say after a week. I had ideas for posts last week, just no time to post them. Hopefully, I’ll have more time this week.

The Picture Says it All !!!!!

Today I wish I was back in the 'Burgh instead of half asleep here at my office. Victory is SWEET!

Photo credit: Peter Diana, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

In Honor of Groundhog Day

I’m not hugely in to poetry, but Reya has put together a Groundhog Day (silent) poetry reading and I thought it would be fun to contribute. The poem that I have chosen is “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe. We studied Poe in my A.P. English class in high school. The boys in my class were assigned “The Raven” and the girls were assigned “Annabel Lee”. We not only studied the poems but also were required to memorize and recite the selections in class. I do not, unfortunately, remember much of what we studied and I certainly could not recite this from memory, but this poem has stuck with me since high school. I share it with you below.

Annabel Lee
By Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love –
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me
Yes! that was the reason
(as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we
Of many far wiser than we
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In the sepulcher there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.