32/52

She climbed into her bumbo seat all on her own and was extremely pleased with herself.

Until she realized that she didn't know how to get out!

This is a particularly frazzled sort of a week. 

The sort where I am continually making lists of the things that need to get done and what my schedule should look like, but then I get so overwhelmed that I don't do any of the things and instead look up 90's music videos on YouTube with the hubs.

The sort where I finally remembered that I had a gym membership and decided to go to yoga, only to discover that yoga was canceled because they were refinishing the floors. I hadn't remembered to pack tennis shoes as a back up work out plan, even though this sort of thing has happened before. I would have just left but baby girl was so thrilled to go to kid's club (the pointing and the shrieking and the bouncing!) that I felt bad taking her right back out. So I went on an elliptical machine in my flip flops, feeling like everyone was staring at me the whole time even though I'm sure no one was. Oh the curses of going to the gym by yourself! Going with a work out partner is much better so that you feel secure and confident in your elliptical practices and the considerings of all the people who you think are looking at you in your flip flops but really aren't.

Although I have to say, going on the elliptical in my flip flops instead of my tennis shoes felt very breezy and fresh for my feet, instead of hot and suffocating.

I'm really not a huge fan of tennis shoes.

But somehow it seemed like my work out didn't really count, anyway. Since I was wearing flip flops? It was more like it was just a funny joke of a work out because flip flops are for jokesters.

How many more times should I type flip flops?

flip flops

flip flops

flip flops

Ok that's enough.

And so this is the sort of week it's been! The sort where I forget to buy smoked gouda cheese for the smoked gouda pasta salad that I'm planning to make, so instead I have to use cheddar.

The sort where I keep banging the bony part of my ankle into hard pointy corners of furniture because I'm trying to cross the room to do all of the things on my list too quickly.

And it's only Wednesday! I'll let you know how I'm faring next week.

31/52

We rode our bikes to the beach but I got a flat tire. We played in the water but Paisley kept trying to eat sand by the fistfuls. We rode on the swings but she screamed when it was time to get off.

We could have gotten annoyed but instead we had fun. 

hashtag: smileyface.

A Minneapolis Weekend

This past weekend I got to spend lots of time downtown, which is one of my very favorite places to spend time. On Friday night I headed to the Guthrie Theater to watch their production of Pride and Prejudice with my mom, sister, and grandma while baby girl got to stay home for a date with her daddy. We got to the Guthrie with plenty of time to sit out on their endless bridge and enjoy the river view. The sky was in a delightfully cloudy mood.

AND of course we enjoyed the show. I was more than enthralled because the guy who plays Pete Campbell? On Mad Men? (Vincent Kartheiser is his real name.) Was playing Mr. Darcy so I was just a tad star-struck to see him right there on stage in front of me. Now if you are a Mad Men fan and also a Pride and Prejudice fan as I am, you may be wondering how a Pete Campbell type can ever be believable as a Mr. Darcy, especially when you are accustomed to Mr. Darcy being of the Colin Firth variety. And what a daunting task it must be! To hold up to a Mr. Darcy of the Colin Firth variety! I wondered the same thing and am still wondering, after the fact. Let's just say that it was a much more Pete Campbell-y type of Darcy, which was different but not horrible, when you allow your mind to open up to new possibilities. Plus there was a brilliant kiss at the end between the leads which my Grandma didn't approve of since there is no kissing talked of in the book, but the rest of us agreed that we all WISH there was kissing in the book and so were glad to see it on the stage.

On Sunday the hubs and I had a couple friends over to watch Paisley and headed to a wedding. The reception was at the Nicollet Island Pavilion, which is one of those places that I always wanted to explore, but never remembered that I wanted to explore it when exploring opportunities came up. But now I have! And it was lovely, as was the wedding. I asked one of our friends there to take a pic of the hubs and I since we were all dressed up and somewhat matching, and my request was taken so seriously! We were directed to various spots where the lighting was just right, we were posed, and such lovely photos were taken. He even did some redo's when we discovered that my dress had been wrinkled in some weird spots. I was so thrilled that I hugged him, right there! The hubs and I don't get in too many photos together these days, which is a silly thing.

And we end with a lovely sunset view of my favorite bridge in Minneapolis, the Hennepin Bridge. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

30/52

Exploring our back yard. Baby girl has started taking a few steps on her own here and there. Mostly I feel impatient and want her to walk RIGHT NOW because it will be SO FUN. SO FUN!

But then there is that other little part of myself sitting behind her desk and raising her eyebrows saying, "Really? Do you REALLY want her to start walking?" I've been mostly ignoring that little self because walking will be SO FUN!! But I have no doubt that she will be there to say "I told you so," when I am exhausted from trying to keep a toddler from running out into the street and remembering how easy life was when we had a sweet little baby who crawled so slowly and who was so cute and easy to catch. 

Something new.

For the longest time I've been intimidated by color when it comes to the fine arts. My safe zone is my gray graphite pencils and in my sketchbooks you will find pages and pages of grayscale drawings.

But I've been starting to feel bored. And held back by my grays. I'm tired of shading and shading and shading and trying to get all the dimensions the image requires with a single color.

There's only so much grayscale shading one can do before one starts feeling annoyed.

Also, I'm trying this new thing where I'm not letting myself be held back by the fear of failure? Trying to not be held back by the fear of failure has been good to me this summer. Very good indeed.

So I asked my mom for some pastels for my birthday. I've worked with pastels a bit before but have never had any of my own. Yesterday during baby girl's nap I gave them a try, and people. I have a new boyfriend and his name is called drawing with pastels. Don't tell the hubs.

I didn't want to waste a ton of time pondering what to create (I often have problems wasting time because of my incredible indecisiveness) so I used a foxy sketch from a couple months ago as my inspiration. Here is the original sketch:

Here are some progress shots. I was worried that I wouldn't have enough knowledge of color to know what to put where, but I pushed that aside and just did what I thought might look awesome.And here is the final outcome! I was surprised with how quickly it came together and how pleased I was with the result. I think pastels and I are going to be spending a lot of time together.   

And don't worry your pretty little head about the hubs, he already knows about us.

29/52

Ack! I'm falling behind on these weekly pics. This is last week's photo, which means I still need another one this week. It's just that I've been too busy scrubbing up little drops of milk from the floor to take pictures. Baby girl has decided that she is done nursing and now only drinks milk from her sippy cups. I bought the Playtex ones that are SUPPOSED to be leak proof...but no matter how hard I concentrate to get all the parts put together perfectly, milk still gets everywhere when she throws them. 

Which is often. 

!!

And did you know that dried milk stains are very resilient? They keep reappearing after I think they are gone. Like magic!

!!

Little tricksters.

This is my pile of random thoughts for the week.

The following is a list of unrelated thoughts that ended up together in this post. (See unrelated duck photo above.)

>  >  >  >  >

In the whole of my lifetime I have had the good fortune of never having anyone puke on me (besides myself.)

Until I became a mom.

What do you do the first time someone pukes on you? It's like time was frozen and I had a surreal moment of clarity. This is what my life is like now. I'm a mom and I get puked on sometimes because that's what happens. And there is no one around to clean it up except me.

>  >  >  >  >

Something that I did right this week: cutting up a ripe juicy nectarine and eating it with cookies and cream ice cream.

Something that I did wrong this week: eat pizza rolls for lunch three days in a row just so that they would be gone and out of the house and no longer a temptation.

Something that I did right this week: ate all the pizza rolls so they are no longer around to tempt me.

>  >  >  >  >

Here is a word of advice. If you are alone in the car with no baby in the back seat, riding down the freeway on a cool night, and "Linger" by The Cranberries comes on the radio as you are channel surfing, then you should most certainly roll down your windows and crank the volume and shout/sing along with the words even if you get most of them wrong. It will help you regain your youth.

That is, if you are a nineties child like me.

>  >  >  >  >

You will be shocked to hear this but we turned our heat on last week. Just for one half of a night. Minnesota be crazy like that. JULY.

>  >  >  >  >

I've been taking out my sketchbook every day lately, which is something I haven't done for at least a year and a half, when I used to do the Daily Animal Doodles. It's been nice, but also a bit discouraging as I can see that my drawing skills have gone into hibernation after not being used for so long and it's going to take some time and effort to wake them back up. But I'm trying this new thing where I am gentle with myself instead of beating myself up for not being perfect? A good thing to work on, right? Yes, I knew it. So keep drawing I will.

>  >  >  >  >

Never go to the mall in your work out clothes, even if you only have to run a quick errand. You will feel like a frump, because the mall is a place where people go to look their very cutest.