All three of the girls’ classes are going to the beach today. I’m busy packing the truck and getting everything together. It’s a hectic morning for an extremely relaxing day. I look forward to it every year.

I wanted to take my guitar up with me today, but didn’t want to worry about it being damaged or stolen. Nate suggested I buy a cheap guitar for just such occasions, so I spent Thursday and Friday hitting pawn shops, music shops, local eBay listings and Craigslist (the boys were SO patient and amazing) looking for something cheap that still sounds good enough that I’d enjoy playing it. On Friday, I found a bargain that ended up being an eBay listing from my local music shop. I’m really excited. It’s a cedar/mahogany Walden that was dropped in the store so it’s cracked on top (but my luthier can glue it to keep it stable). It was cheap, and it’s fabulous! It’s going to go everywhere with us this summer.

Gotta go. The clock is ticking and I still need to gather beach supplies for 5 kids. I’ll check in tomorrow.

I got 2, 2 hour stretches of sleep last night. Wanna hear about it? Might as well since it’s Monday, which has unintentionally become my official, solitary posting day each week.

So, I couldn’t fall asleep. I finally managed it around 1:15. At least, that was the last time I looked at the clock before falling asleep. And at 1:45, Max woke up to eat. So I fed him and made it back to bed at 2. At 2:23 I woke up from a nightmare where Nate wasn’t home late at night (imagine that. Not quite sure where the line between reality and dream is there…..) and the power was out and the phone wasn’t working and a creepy guy was pushing something sharp into me and I was carrying Max and trying to hold him out of the way so he wouldn’t be hurt.

Nice, huh? And it only took my brain 23 minutes to come up with that one.

So I distracted myself thinking about Bollywood movies and drifted back to sleep. Max woke up again to eat at 4. And at 6. At 7, our alarm went off so we could rouse everyone and go out to breakfast for Veronica’s birthday before taking them to school.

(Oh, happy birthday, Veronica).

I snuck in a 25 minute nap between 10:35 and 11 this morning, aaaaand that’s about it.

Yeah, I don’t feel very good right now.

So, I’ve had this orange Paul Frank monkey purse for years and years, that is finally dead. Which is a shame, because I love it.

I bought a blue Paul Frank monkey purse on eBay awhile back to replace it and I really don’t like it. It’s the wrong shape and it’s even ripping in the same place already, so I’ve been on the lookout for a new style of bag.

I saw a Gretsch canvas messenger bag on the Gretsch website a couple months ago. The description said something about being “heavy duty, thick canvas and cotton webbing strap” or some such nonsense. I say nonsense because when it turned up in my mailbox, it was flimsy, thin canvas and the strap totally sucked. But the bag still had some elements of cool and it wasn’t too expensive, so I decided to see what I could do with it.

My brother and I went to Guitar Center looking for a guitar strap to use as a strap for the bag. I’m really glad he came, because he chose the perfect strap that I never would have looked twice at hanging on the rack. In fact, when he picked it up to suggest it, I wrinkled my nose, and then he laid it against the bag and it was, well, perfect.

Today, I’m trying to sew a liner for it, to help with the flimsy feel. Though to be honest, I’ve kind of gotten used to the thin-ness of it and it doesn’t bug me so much. But, I’d already bought a couple fabrics to line it with so I thought I might as well give it a go. Besides, the sewing stuff is out today.

Why?

Because Veronica’s class does projects for book reports. They have a bunch of different types of books they have to read throughout the year, and to fulfull her Biography requirement, Veronica read a book about Betsy Ross. For her project, she wanted to sew a flag. Fortunately, this is a 4 day weekend for the girls so we had time to devote most of Friday to the sewing of a flag.

It looks totally fantastic. She really did sew it herself on the serger. I just helped her stay straight and I measured and cut the pieces. After her oral report, we’re going to (haha. How long before it actually happens?) put a back on it and turn it into a little blanket.

So, today I used the leftover red cotton to sew a trial-run liner

before cutting into the crushed gold velvet (hee hee) I intend to line it with.

The trial liner is pretty good. A little big. But I feel confident.

Last week was a doozy for Nate. He was hardly home. But, I knew it was coming, so I made plans to keep my birthday fun.

In the morning, before Nate went to work, I opened some very nice gifts. Guitar pedals, a recording mic, cables and stuff.

The boys and I met Nate for lunch at Fatburger. (I should have taken pictures).

I went to the store and bought a lemon cake mix so that when the girls came home from school, they could make my birthday cake. They were very excited. (I should have taken pictures). And they did a great job, except for adding 1/4 cup of water instead of 1 1/4 cups of water. But we fixed that before it went into the oven.

They made a simple dinner for themselves so I didn’t have to cook.

They sang to me. Liv took pictures of that part.

And I took a picture of them.

I got them in bed promptly at 8, and some girlfriends came over to eat indian take-out and watch Jab We Met, one of my favorite Bollywood movies. Then we stayed up talking ’til 1am.

Which meant I was half dead all of Friday. But it was a good time. And they brought me chocolate and flowers.

Yay! And I’m now half-way to 70! That’s so weird.

Yup. Sick again. So lame. I think the “sick” part is passing, now I’m just stuck with the residual sinus infection. I don’t think I ever get sick when I’m not landed with a sinus infection.

I’m on week 5 or 6 of exercising 3x a week and here I am sick. Again. Always happens.

Bah!

Moving on…

Aside from dad buying that incredible Gretsch for me, he also gave me some $$$ to go towards copyrighting music and buying other music related stuff I might need. (I think he’s more excited about my songwriting than I am). So I bought a secure stand that holds all the guitars in the house and keeps them both accessible and snapped-in-safe. A HUGE load of worry off my mind now. As I’d watch the kids run ’round and ’round the house, I’d wince, waiting for a little foot to get caught in a strap and send a guitar flying. So, this is great!

I also bought a pedal board online that is in transit now, I should get it tomorrow. Hee hee. Nate and I have spent quite a bit of time (Nate really took lead on this) watching guitar pedal reviews online to see what in the world kind of pedals we might want. These guys have the BEST reviews. It’s been fun.

So, I’m most likely getting a pedal or two and cables for my birthday on Thursday. And that’s good, because my brother is totally making fun of me for buying a fancy pedal board for the two pedals I currently own, a tuning pedal and a looper.

I don’t know why, but I can talk and talk about knitting stuff on the blog without feeling like I’m boring everyone to death, but talking music gear just feels so… one sided. Like, I’m the only person who cares.

Maybe it’s the lack of pictures?

But as I said before, I love posting. I totally miss it. I just don’t feel very interesting. Maybe I should figure out how to post sound bites?

Olivia and Veronica are in track. They had their second meet this week. Liv took first in the 440 with a very strong lead.

Here’s a groovy picture of her in the high jump.

She also took 3rd in the relay.

Veronica’s team took first in the relay, which is funny because I don’t think any of them are particularly fast. They must be really good at the handoff.

She also did the 440 and ball throw. It was a gorgeous afternoon and we all enjoyed being outside.

I periodically look out at the pond, even though we checked quite thoroughly for life back when Khan was rescued and found none. That was two months ago. Today, there was a spot of sun hitting the deep end and I saw what looked like a black fish sunning himself just under the surface.

I freaked.

So I grabbed a bucket and ran down the stairs to the lower deck. He was still there, but by the time I could grab the net, he’d vanished. Stinker. I’m amazed that he’s lived this long, and somewhat horrified at the conditions in which he’s spent the last 2+ months. We had to drain the pond to find him. And he’s not black.

We spent about 2 hours acclimating him to clean water, and he’s in with Khan now. Khan was totally freaked for the first few minutes, now they seem inseparable, which is really cute. I guess I’m going to need to get a bigger tank sooner than I intended. Probably a 20 gallon.

The new guy has yet to realize that Nate’s bubble-action treasure chest isn’t going to eat him.

Khan was 3 inches when we found him. He’s 4 inches now. Chocolate-boy here is 5 inches, and quite bashed up. He’s got some ugly scars on one side. Hopefully, they’ll heal. I put salt in the aquarium to help with that. It seemed to work well on Khan’s sores.

It’s late. Nate’s still at work, the kids are in bed, so I had a little too much fun taking pictures of the new roommates for you.

I thought these were great, but then I thought why not see what kind of pictures I’d get with Carol’s fancy-schmancy camera and 100mm lens (that I still have. Want it back yet, Carol?). And yeah. What a difference.

I love that tiki!

No, I’m not taking my goldfish too seriously, I’m having fun with cameras. And yes, I did take pictures of his good side, but they were all blurry. To avoid obnoxious reflections in the glass, I had to turn off all but the three lights hanging directly above the aquarium, so it was really quite dark in my kitchen and fish move a lot.

(added sometime later)

Wait, wait, here’s one!

And I’m totally putting the camera away and going to bed now.

I like to write blog posts, I really do. I just haven’t been able to thing of anything to talk about. It’s pretty weird. So, I might babble on a bit to see if anything comes.

Max just went through a massive eating/growing spurt. I think he’s tapering off. He does this, where he’ll go quite awhile not being very hungry, then a couple weeks of constantly eating. It does crazy things to my milk supply. I feel like once I catch up to his increased demand, he’s done.

And that’s interesting conversation, eh?

Let’s see, what else. Most of this year I’ve been great at planning a menu, going grocery shopping once a week, staying within a very conservative budget… It’s a-typical for me, being that organized, and it’s been kind of fun. Last week, and possibly the week before, I don’t remember, that all collapsed. We’ve eaten out more than we should and I got sick of it quicker than I thought I would. So this week we’re back on. Last night, I made turkey meatballs with gravy, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce (a family favorite). Today, I cooked a chuck roast in the crock pot with a jar of BBQ sauce, shredded it, and am now letting the liquids reduce and thicken a bit with the lid off. We’ll eat it over rolls for some messy BBQ sandwiches. It kind of tastes like brisket, actually. I’m currently boiling cobs of corn.

Should we start talking about the weather next? 🙂

Seriously, I want to write, I just feel boring. Hopefully, this will be that boring post that gets me out of the funk. Well, it’d be nice anyway.

Max is almost crawling still. He rolls around a lot and scoots. Clark wakes up every morning and greets me with a quiet hug. Very cute. I didn’t know he was up this morning, so he freaked me out with a leg hug while I was standing at the counter in the kitchen.

We finally took Clark’s birthday money from the Grandmas and went to the toy store last week. I swear I can add, but somehow I totally miscalculated and was shocked at the checkout. The kid scored. However we bought a $20 set of Buzz Lightyear walkie-talkies, and they sucked. If you get far enough away from each other to use them, all you hear is fuzz. While returning those today, I dropped Max’s blanket in the parking lot without realizing it. (How did I turn in to someone that does that??). I panicked when we got home from our errands and I went looking for it to swaddle him for his nap. Fortunately, we hadn’t gone too many places so I was able to track it down and some kind soul turned it in. It’s a much admired blanket (Brandi). Someone could easily have made off with it.

That’s it for me today. Max is trying to type and the corn is going to beep at me soon.

Don’t give up on me. I’ll be back.

I have 8 songs submitted for copyright. Four of them are in to my brother so he can add instrumentation with his friends. I’m trying to finish the scratch tracks, learn how to play electric guitar, experiment with tone, and use pedals. I’m exercising three times a week. I’m trying to keep up with the house (sort of) and everybody’s needs.

I’m hungry.

And really tired.

Last night, I held Max and took pictures of the kids dancing to Hindi music. The house was a wreck (it’s better now) but I took pictures anyway.

Well, besides thank you-thank you-thank you-thank you-thank you-thank you-thank you-thank you-thank you-thank you!

On Saturday, my dad and his wife Jessica came over and surprised me with the electric guitar of my dreams.

Like, my dreams.

As in, there isn’t another guitar on the planet I want more than this one. (I already have the acoustic guitar of my dreams). This guitar wasn’t even on my list, but that didn’t keep me from drooling over it. It seemed so beyond reach. We’d been talking about different guitars and I asked if he’d seen this one. He asked what I liked about it and then that email thread died out. What I didn’t know is that he was calling all over Seattle, and then the country trying to find one that he could get in town by this weekend before our scheduled visit and his trip to Jamaica. He ended up finding one in San Diego and talking the music shop owner into having it flown in. It apparently took some convincing from my dad to get it done.

He’s nuts!

So, here’s my Gretsch Duo Jet.

In my house.

I’ve played it. It feels amazing. It sounds amazing. Like really, really amazing. (George Harrison played one of these). I’m so excited, I still have butterflies in my stomach.

Because I didn’t have an amplifier of my own, (I’ve been borrowing one that I don’t really like from my brother), Nate went out and bought an early Mother’s Day present.

So here’s my Marshall half stack.

I love it.

I’m kind of in a daze still.

Thank you-thank you-thank you-thank you, dad!

And thank you-thank you-thank you, Nate!

What a weekend!