if only you were new again.

there was a fleeting moment in our past when this amazing piece of harnessed beauty and brains was the newest of new. the hottest of the hip. it's sleek and slender pod inspired technology was in every magazine and movie. the iconic imac was born and we had one.

newly married in the summer of 2003, our first goal was to make a fun purchase to celebrate our newly betrothed status. walking into a store and picking the funnest mac was just the ticket.
after 2 years we moved to china, and the imac moved to storage. upon our return, we shuffled around and didn't settle down in a place of our own until 5 years had passed since our most delicious purchase. we had 2 kids by this time and hardly remembered our freshly married days until we unearthed a peice of our past.
our imac.

we were quite disheartened, and more than a little irritated to find that our most endearing purchase was so clearly outdated in it's capabilities that it could hardly support even the simplest web pages and it's memory couldn't even comprehend how to facilitate our backup drive.

so now, here it sits. among the wreckage of our laundry/storage space. another casualty to years gone by now downgraded to storage indefinitely.

sometimes i get it out and let the boys pound on the keyboard in funny fonts...they think they have the coolest computer around...and they do. what 2 and 3 year olds have their very own imac? what is wrong with technology that an amazing computer is trashed in a few small years? i have vowed to never spend that much for a computer again....in fact, not even a 5th of what we paid for our delicious bite of loveliness.

for now, i'll just let the kids be cool with their cool cool computer and their elbow key pounding with a few round-house type maneuvers thrown in, and i'll look back and remember our newly married status and our first and favorite purchase when we became who we are :)

pardon me, but you are quite amazing

our party favorite...rowan's rendition of "away in a manger"





(excuse my horrible singing voice and the fact that i was so overcome with his cuteness that i totally forgot what verse we were on....that is, until foster corrected me :)

oldy-moldy-minolta meets new-and-nifty-nikon

while attacking the horrible mess that is our laundry/storage area last night, i came upon a once familiar friend.
her name: minolta 33mm
this particular lady set me back $500 big ones in her prime, oh-around 1998
as a poor college student at the time, the purchase was quite monumental.
i took her everywhere....even to china several times, where i shot more 33mm pictures than one could even hope to have developed.
her picture quality was stunning, and, according to my memory, her shudder speed was lightning fast.


as i unearthed her, i reminisced our times together...the film changes and smiles captured. i was shocked to discover that there was a bit of battery life still lingering, though it has been nearly 6 or 7 years since her last use. i happened upon some unexposed film, and somehow managed to remember how to load it, much to my surprise.
i focused in on an unsuspecting pile of old toys and prepared to be amazed as i once was with her skill set. much to my dismay, it felt difficult, laborious, even. like i was asking a bit too much of her capabilities. my eyes instinctively shot to the back of the camera to check what i had just captured. the black back of the camera stared blankly back at me. there was no playback screen. no way to know if the shot was in focus, or if the lighting was too dark. i didn't even think to check the settings, as i am so accustomed to shooting 10 or 20 pictures to get a feel for mood lighting. there was no way to know anything.

suddenly it hit me...

i have lost something in all of my digital this and that. a sense of patience. carefully selecting each shot, instead of shooting in machine gun approach. a sense of the beauty and anticipation of film. only having a short lived 24 or 36 pictures to a roll. the drive to the photo shop. the wait for the developer to carefully prepare each print. the glory of finally looking through each shot and the disappointment when a favorite was out of focus.

oh the days of old.

i think i'll shoot a roll or two or even give it to foster to play with...after all, what good is it now? i can't go back. there's no way. i just can't handle the unknown. but she is too beautiful and special to discard or sell (not that she is worth anything anyhow). so back to storage she will go.
although she does make me appreciate the splendor that is my d200 even more than i already do. :)

energy everlasting

There are several things I don't understand. Ok, lots and lots of things that are beyond my comprehension ability...but one remains foremost in my daily wonderings. Right nextdoor to "why can't someone discover calorie free cheese curls" is my question of all questions: "how in the world do kids have such an energy abundance??? more than enough energy to race full sprint ahead wearing dinosaur goloshes, carrying 2 hands packed full of bulldozers, a trailing scratchy monkey, a pull along wagon, several tons of pretzel sticks being munched and still manage to maneuver over a stack of large couch cushions, a dangerous assortment of matchbox cars, and an overturned basket of books."
Yes I know. Long, overwritten sentence. But the scariest part is I could keep going. The energy ability is quite mind bogging. All. Day. Long. 12. Hours. Every. Single. Day.

Today, the question was finally solved.
Behold my conversation with foster moments ago:

(while spinning in micro circles and flailing his arms)

Me: "wow, someone has a LOT of energy today!"

Foster: "mom, can you ask me questions for where I get my energy from? Who gave it to me?"

Me: "sure buddy! Where do you get so much energy? I would love to know! Who gave it to you?"

Foster: "from Jesus!"
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kids these days

although we dream daily of their wonderfulness, neither clint, nor i, have an iphone.
we're not that cool.
so it was quite surprising to hear the following unfold.

yesterday afternoon.
while holding the tv remote with both hands and pressing the buttons with intention,

foster: "yeah, i just got an iphone. it's pretty cool. excuse me mom, i'm on a video chat with westley. he's on my phone. he likes to talk to me. see, here's my video chat. i like iphones."


i have an idea where he picked up his savvy techno talk...
they are very much cooler than us,
and very much my favorite people.
they have iphones.
they have beauty beyond expression.
they have a spirit of love that is contagious.
they have the love of 2 little nephews who watch their every move.

little black book

no one had seen it in a few months.
the drawers and cupboards had been searched.
the deskdrawers had been sifted.
years upon years of dates and deaths and purchases and events recorded
now lost.
we all felt a sense of our history in those notes hand written over so many years.
so many dates that no one else knows and would never be known if it wasn't for the little black book.
my granny kept saying she knew where it was.
after all, it's her book.
she took the time after each grandchild was born...
after grandpa bought a new computer...
after her brothers and sisters died one by one...
after grandpa put new tires on the car...
to write it all down.

so during our visit the week before thanksgiving,
we gave it one more try.
one more look-see

after a few moments of drawer-opening and a quick prayer that we might catch a glimpse of it...
in the very back of her china closet drawer...

the very back on the left, under some old bank reciepts, there it was.

small. old. tattered.
the little black book.
as i picked it up, it felt treasured.
i felt special getting to look through it's yellowed pages.
like i was looking into my heritage to see who was there.
i started at the begining.
it was filled with life.
happy things, times, dates.
marriages. births.

new microwaves and new furniture.

but as the pages continue,
the theme shifts.
pain. sickness. death.
the loss of ones so very loved fill the pages.
her friends. her family.

her husband.

almost all have passed.
my granny and her sister and her sister in law are all that are living.
a special group.
the things they have seen and known and lived are beyond what we will know.

i treasure her little black book because it means so much to her that these things are remembered.

it's important to her that the important things are not forgotten.

i treasure her.

(not sure when this picture was taken, but my granny is 2nd from the right.)

we no longer exist

in christmas cards.

i came to a sad realization last week as i perused my millions of backup drives for just the right shots to display on our christmas cards. i could not find a single picture of clint and i together in the last 6 months except for this one....which foster took as i was walking out the door to go to work on a saturday (hence the keys and manditory coffee :) sometime oh-around august.

i gotta say, his photography skills are quite advanced. i could post a birrage of the adorable pics he snaps...mostly of toy cars, rowan eating, and random clutter but they are so perfect as taken from his little boy viewpoint. there are also quite a few of me in very unflattering poses, unaware that i am being photographed and therefore not sucking in my non-flattening abdominal areas :)



but that's it. nothing else. nada. we literally do not exist on film together. i have managed to document every other detail except ourselves. kind of strange, if you think about it.



and then there are these...UPS was kind enough to deliver them today, much to my excitement...
which follow up the point that clint and i don't exist, but also shows that we would greatly inhibit the ultra cuteness that is donning this year's christmas cards.

i'm quite extatic about their amazingness.


thanks to peartree, they are just what i was looking for: inexpensive :)


i must also add that the 2 best pics (the closeups) were taken by my dear friend linds this past fall...they are 2 of my most fav pics of all time.

so there you have it. a really long post. i guess i could have just said: "look, our christmas cards are here!" and ended there. but now i've written all of this nonsense...might as well post it.

wow. i'm beyond wordy.
:)

on the to do list today...

raz pinwheels for our upcoming christmas party this saturday. able to be frozen in advance and baked pre-party time, i'm hoping these sweets taste as cute as they look!

you know you're a bit too geeky when...

you start sporting hot pink fingerless gloves
to endure the sub-lethal-artic-cold of your sewing factory.
i must say, i kinda like them.
geeky and 80's throwback as it may be,
i think they are quite fetching,
and my camera feels cool when i press the shutter with my newly warmed apendages :)

thankful flu

we had all saved our appetites...saved them for our turkey day feast.
my parents had arrived.
the kids were seated.
it was time.
the food was arrayed and the forks were waiting in eager anticipation.
as we plunged our serving spoons into the mounded paprika potatoes, dipped a healthy serving of roasted apples and sweet potatoes, forked a slice of smoking hot turkey and overloaded our portions of my mom's famous mandarin orange/cranberry salad, we heard an all too familiar tone...

the tone that every mom knows a little too well...the lovely notes of sputtering puke.

yes, before our forks could ingest even a single morsel (save a bite of my favorite pumpkin chocolate chip muffins) my sweet foster was overcome with the flu.

a perfect pre-thanksgiving meal appetizer with a side of the strawberry milk i had given him an hour before, we were in full flu mode with towels and upholstery cleaner flying every which way.

but, in true foster fashion, even his 104.1 fever didn't spike his sweet spirit as he kindly answered "no thank you" when i asked him if he needed a drink, and a pleasant, "i'm feeling pretty sick mom" as his pale complexion shuddered under the cool forehead rags.

as of now, it's 1pm the day after turkey day and i am happy to report we are quite thankful. the flu, the fever, the puke has subsided. no other flu-goers have been reported thus far. hopefully we are one and done here at the weldon household.
ah, thanksgiving. always making memories :)

my masterpiece...

I spent an alarming 20-some hours last week creating these...including an entire day with my mom while my sweeter-than-life hubby took a day off to spend with the kids at the zoo so I could have 17 uninterrupted hours. Although I nearly quit at various points during the horrendous pattern that is the amy butler weekender bag...I was pleased with the final product. The sophia (smaller of the two) felt like a breezy walk on the struble trail in comparison. Hopefully my customer will be pleased with her new travel accessories.
I did learn an important truth whilst tackling the apparently untested pattern configurations and ill fitting seam components. I can admit my shortcomings. It seems that dark chocolates and pattern lingo have bested me. I'll stick to less brain boggling projects in the future, but look back with glazed endearment on the week I tackled my first real patterns.

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look-a-likes. 1982 looks shockingly similar to 2009

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my most lovely sister...gracing the pages of allure magazine...truly the most alluring page of all

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i want a baby....

so she can don these little lovelies...

although purchasing a set would mean i would have to choose my favorite design, which proves to be impossible :)

etsuko furuya

quite a mouthful to say, but i can't dream about this fabric enough. there is something so endearing. special. vibrant. about it's simplicity.

after pineing over it for several days (including it's quite expensive price tagging) i have ordered one 1/2 yard. not sure what will be created out of it's marvelocity, but i'm sure anything will look better when donned in this echino migratory bird masterpeice.

scratchy monkey

Kids have a funny way of attaching the whole family to a specific item. In our house, we are ever in love with scratchy monkey. Named for the way foster endearingly scratches his noggin, he is one of three identical monkeys purchased in case our scratchiest monkey happened to become estranged. Scratchy is easily identified from his peers by his disheveled stature. He is clearly the most worn. Chewed. Freyed. Loose. Payable. Loved. My foster snuggles and sleeps and carries and includes scratchy in all facets of our life. The car. The potty. The store. The ever popular baby in my belly scenario. Scratchy rides remote controlled jeeps and in the underseat compartment of fosters hotwheel bike. He high kicks with ease. He can fly faster than buzz lightyear and gives gumby a stretch for his money. He knows how to calm tears and wipe away fearful situations. I've even seen him dive from atop the highest banister a time or two. I don't know how long he will be in our lives but I must attest that I too love our scratchy friend. I've even become akin to his location at all times...a sort of scratchy gps homing device. He's our scratchy. You can't help but love his scratchy little face :)

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photog assistance

hey all you photo experts. i'm in need of your camera know-how.

i've been snapping away as usual, expecting my normal amount of d200 camera amazingness.
today was a balmy 70 degrees, sunny, perfection.
but all of the sudden i'm seeing blue...horrifying, washed out, putrescent blue.
see what i mean?






i know we are a naturally pastey family, but this is a bit too far :)
my settings must be all wrong, but i have no idea what to change.

i've tried on program (P). i've fiddled with apature priority (A). i've messed with the f-stop. i've cranked the iso. all to no avail.

any suggestions??

please help. we can't be a pastey blue family forever!

new look for fall: cow boots work with any ensemble.

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oh how I love finished products...

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i can't seem to...

remember anything.

i have a serious brain spillage issue. things spill out and never return.
i have tried to remind myself 4 times that we need milk. it spills out every time.
i have written myself 8 notes to finish our berkheimer taxes (yeikes!)
i can't ever remember that i have a load of laundry in the washer. so i have to wash it again. (and again).
i have forgotten to make dinner at least 7 nights in a row. sad but true.
i totally forgot to write back to my dear friend denise...in fact i even forgot that she had written me in the first place!
it's not that these things aren't important, it's the sad and quite alarming fact that my brain just can't hold it's girth anymore.
i remember the days of ole when i would multi task the daylight out of problems in need of solutions. i could remember the slightest details and recall strange and wonderous facts.
i would even go so far as to remember to mail birthday cards and congradulatory notes ahead of time.
not so much any more.
what is it about me?
is it my newly aquired 30-something status?
is it my much over exposed brain power and newly faultering eyesight that should clue me in?
i think i am in need of one of those voice-recorders that they advertize for your keychains.
"get milk"
"pick up drycleaning" (well, we don't dryclean anything, but if i did, i'm sure i would need something to remind me to pick it up :)

ok, enough. i'm sure i have something that i should be doing right now...
if only i had written down what it was :)

Hair cut #2. Lesson learned: hair grows. in the future allow delightful haircuts to be snipped by delightful friends

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Haircut #1: a.k.a. Hair cuttery disaster of 2009. Lesson learned: cheap haircuts are cheap

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future flip phone fanatics

fever pitch, er, uh...stitch

i've been burning the midnight oil recently

stitching and prepping and slicing, stitching some more.

i acctually did a bit too much slicing last night and took a nice chunk out of my left pointer with my rotery cutter...serves me right for getting overly ambitious in my cutting stance :)


i am still in a bit of shock over my recent surge in orders...
what i always dreamed would happen, and it is acctually happening!


my sweet and tender emery lin bags have become quite popular, and i just hope and pray that my little emery lin's will travel around and be loved by their new caretakers.


as i look at them, all prepped and ready to go, i can't help but love the work that went into them. so many hours. so many stitches. so much time that i mulled over their fabric combinations and their crafty floral accents.

i almost hate to let them go...
if only i had enough arms to carry them all i might just consider keeping them :)

farmer foster

we had a delightful afternoon at springton manor today.
tagging along with the mcintires, the boys were full of energy and skipped and climbed and tumbled their way through this perfectly picturesque park.

circa 2003, mr. clinto and i were wed at this very site...it brings back such fun memories of that day. i was trying to explain to foster the concept of getting married as we were driving, and i said, "mommy and daddy were married at springton manor farm. that's where we are going today! isn't that exciting?" foster thought for a minuet, and said, "were you married with the animals? can we see the animals? i want to see a goat." i guess i should expect that animals are much more exciting than my wedding story to a 3 year old boy...but seriously, this kid has animals on the brain ALL the time. he is always pretending to carry one, or save one, or put a bird in a nest, or carry a baby penguin, or feed a mommy monkey, or chase a giant hippo. it will be interesting to see how this love of animals plays out in his life....but for right now, all i know is this kid needs a pet :)



more pics

superpower needs

i've always been stumped by the superpower question.
you know on those cheesy email chain surveys with life determining questions like "coke or pepsi". (the answer is, of course, coke :).

last night, as i struggled to fall asleep even though i was totally exhausted (thank you insomnia), it hit me.

i really wish i didn't need to sleep.
that would be my superpower. the girl who doesn't need sleep.
think about it.
what if no one needed to sleep. ever.
24 hours of awake time all the time.
imagine how fulfilling it would be to have so much more time to fulfill your dreams.
chat unsleepily with your husband.
rock your babies as they snooze peacefully.
get your law degree.
peruse a magazine uninterrupted.
wipe the dust bunny base boards.
learn a foreign language.

whoa, wait a minuet, that would mean that babies and toddlers wouldn't sleep either...
oh snap. that's not going to work.
ok, i've got it. brilliant!
it would be like a rite of passage. 12-14 hours of sleep required per day for all those under 18 years.
upon 18th birthday, BAM! no more sleep required.
just in time for college cram sessions, procrastination for your statistics 101 exam, and fun beach weekends with your new college gal pals.

sleep is probably one of the needs that i dislike the most
because i need it so much.
i cherish it. loath the lack of it. feel forced to learn to cope with life in it's absence.

when you think about it, our needs define us.
they embody our human-ness.
what and how and who we choose to let in to heal, protect, and nourish our needs also defines us.
we can't fathom a world without need.
it is so foreign, it doesn't make sense.
the very basis of who we are is based on need.

i need sleep. my superpower would probably just make me even more wasteful of my time and cause me to long for a well rested break from the busyness of life.

amazing how we were created with just what we need.
and yet also created with a need for something more that we can't get on our own.

needs.
ingenious.

me vs. october

we have a spare bedroom which was converted into my sewing room.
i say "converted" loosly because it was really more of a hostile takeover.
anyhoo...
last night, i entered my land of fabric swatches, in-process projects and general serenity to find the temperature to be akin to that of a screened in porch...maybe verging on outdoor tool shed.

my husband's oversized hoodie and my comfy pants were no match for it's frigidity.
i relinquished and brought out the space heater which has a nifty temperature gauge to read the current temperature.
58 degrees.
awesome.
i'm no internal temperature professional, but i think this is below living stanards.
thank you slip-shod 1973 construction and gaping window valences.
i now sew in a winter coat, scarf and mittens.

today's quote

foster:
"mom, i'm not married yet.
i'm gonna get married when i have long hair."


classic.

doughnut day

8:23 am.
we were post-breakfast but at a loss for activities to fill the day ahead.
whining quickly made a turn dangerously close to approaching the meltdown zone.
it's in the approach to meltdown that some of my most fantastic ideas are born.
perhaps it's my knowledge that meldown recovery is a slim and slippery slope and avoiding it by destraction tends to bode better with our day, or perhaps it's my innate procrastination that always comes through at the last minuet...

regardless, my fantasticness was quite spontanious today.

upon finding 2 nearly expired coupons, an unexpected trip to the doughnut shop was sure to retract the looming meltdown.



i gumby armed my keys and wallet and plunged all of our bare feet into our shoes without thinking twice about our night time clothing status.

after all, pj's and shoes with no socks is perfect surprise doughnut attire.

i seldom allow a doughnut indulge, so when i divulged our plan, their excitement was contagious.



en route, i happened to catch a glimpse of my discheveled appearance, so i drove past the walk-in dunkin 1/2 mile from our house and devised it would be better to travel accross town to a spot more akin to keeping my short-shorts and slightly unsightly hoodie from making their pulic deput. i made our trip into a thrilling hunt for a drive-through as we scoured the surrounding buildings for the perfect location.

at last. doughnuts for them. iced coffee a-la-me





it's always the little things that are the most entertaining.
we talked for an entire day about sprinkles and doughnut shops and doughnut making and anything and everything somehow came back to our morning doughnut surprise.

i love days that make memories.
today was a great one.