full frontal nudity...

Mike: Hey babe, you should consider revamping your blog.

Me: Oh yeah?

Mike: Yeah... Call it: "Mommified Me: Full Frontal Nudity" I bet more guys would read it.

Me: Oh really?

Mike: I'll take a picture of you topless flipping off the camera.

Me: Yeah babe, that's my thing.

Mike: If you tell your friends I said that will they think I'm a whore pig?

Me: No honey, a pig whore.

Mike: They'll think that?

Me: No babe, they already know you're a pig... but you're my pig and I love you.

what can i say... it's an update...

Today I would like to cover updates on 3 former posts :

turning 30... day 1 of 40...

what's he building in there...

mirror mirror...

before I get into that I want to give you a little insight. I don't like quirky things. Quirky people yes... quirky things no. Today's post was almost cancelled out by one I would have called:

don't you f&%$#ng die on me you stupid motherf&*%ing laptop...

When I woke this morning I went to do what I do every morning... open up my lovely new laptop and check my mail while K attempts to drag herself out of bed (much like mommy she isn't a morning person). To my surprise when I opened it up the screen just sat there. blank. Blank. BLANK. it stayed that way. I poked at a few keys to wake it up. clicked the mouse button. Tapped the mouse pad thingy... nothing. hmmm.. not normal. not the way to start my Friday morning...

After rebooting twice the screen finally came back to life... so that is warning 1 for my computer... don't mess with me. you all read it... you heard the warning... it can't say I didn't warn it...

Onto our updates because I know all of you out there in Internet land are just chomping at the bit to hear what I have to say about things I have already said...

turning 30... day 1 of 40... I will be judging the joy and success of my birthday mostly on the happy day itself... it has been a rough 30 something days... I have been sick for at least 2 weeks of it having just wrapped up an amazingly awful flu/cold tag team that rendered me completely helpless... forcing me to cancel a night out complete with a babysitter for K, cancel the appointment for my coveted 30th birthday tattoo (and with our super busy schedule it will likely be April before I can make another appointment). When I wasn't sick, K and/ or Mike had the icky sicky to make up for it. Joy of joys no? I've learned not to say what I am looking forward to doing as it tends to jinx me and I get stuck at home miserable or tending to those in misery... but I am looking forward to some potential birthday fun... and to people not asking anymore if I am freaked out about turning 30...

what's he building in there... This blog covered two important subjects... 1) what the hell is my recluse neighbor doing with all those workmen... the answer? I have no clue. K suggested after listening to the tune one too many times that Tom Waits should ask his neighbor and I should ask mine... oh sweet simple child... I respect her right to be a recluse... because people scare me. It also looked at the lovely leak in the middle of my street... I haven't seen any signs of the water bureau in weeks. The paint markings on the street indicating pipes and leaks are fading... the leak is not... it slowly grows more persistent and we have several mucky pools in front of our house at all times... I only hope they get the problem fixed before the weather gets nicer, the mosquitoes come out and I have to start yelling at some one out of fear that someone I know could contract West Nile virus...

mirror mirror... finally the mommy panic blog of Wednesday... things here are looking good folks. What has become of my little spawn? Has her head started revolving? no... does she stand in front of the mirror croaking "red rum red rum"? Well... yes but only because Mike asked her to. She is fine. I am fine. The world is pretty fine. Yesterday I had a chance to talk at length with her teacher. I told her what's been going on and my concerns and she stared blankly at me for a few moments... asked a couple of questions and told me the only remarkable part of the whole writing the letter backwards is that K is writing that much by herself with no prompting... Basically, lots of kids write backwards at this age... but K's ahead of the curve for writing so much so well... She has not noticed any signs at all that K has a problem. she thinks my little one is doing quite well, but like a good teacher, Mrs J says she'll keep her eyes on it just in case. The bottom line though? K's smart.

On that happy note I will bid all of you out there in Internet land fair well. We have a busy weekend ahead of us... K and I will no doubt find something interesting to do while Mike heads off to lay down some funky tracks with his new band mates... or however I would say that without sounding like a dork...

seven years ago today...

seven years ago today...

it was a normal day. i went to work. i probably worked. answered some calls. filed some files. you know. work things. that part of my day I don't recall. I can recall a bit of what I was wearing. I know I was wearing tight slacks. I know I was wearing a long sleeved button front shirt... I must have been wearing boots. I always was. I may have been wearing a suit... I can't recall that bit.

seven years ago today...

It was a Wednesday not a Thursday... I recall that with certainty. After work I met up with probably my best friend. More like a brother really. Hey Dave, how are you... do you remember what you did seven years ago today? I don't recall if he came over to pick me up or if I met him downtown. I don't know if I was staying in SW or SE that night either... but I know we went to the Cobalt Lounge. I remember because even though the drinks were good and it was nice and dark I wanted to move on... it was too big and too loud even on a Wednesday evening at 6 o'clock...

seven years ago today...

We headed over to Jazz De Opus (back when it was Jazz De Opus... now it's a strip club). We took a seat at the bar where the lovely blond bartender tended to our every need. She made me the perfect drink. It was perfect because we had been friends for years and she knew exactly what to make me... and we went there more to hang out with her than to listen to the jazz or eat a big steak... though both of those things helped.

seven years ago today...

Dave called his good friend and asked him to come down and hang out with us. His good friend said no. He was at home eating broccoli and rice. He had a nice glass of wine and the news hour was on. No, we'll get together this weekend he told him I don't want to drive all the way into town.

seven years ago today...

Dave put me on the phone and I said If you don't come down he's not going to shut up and his very good friend said Okay to me. By the time I passed the phone back to Dave he'd hung up on him.

seven years ago today...

Mike walked into the bar where I was sitting with Dave. Pissed off from being coaxed out of his house on a Wednesday night to hang out in a jazz bar with Dave and some girl. But he came anyway. He walked in and he clapped Dave on the shoulder and he smiled and I knew I was in trouble.

making wine wine wine...

along with our many other strange and wondrous talents we make wine...

okay to be fair I taste the wine... impose my opinion on blending... make labels... choose seals... help bottle and and eventually label and seal the wines... while Mike makes the wine with our friends A&B.

but still... wine making. Hooray right?

we've put bottling on the back burner for a while now but last week we bottled our 2003 Evil Doll Syrah and today we finally pulled together the time to bottle our 2004 Diary Pinot...

After a full day of cleaning, sterilization, draining, drying, tasting, syphoning, bottling, corking and boxing it's done... and as I sit at the table with my family finishing up dinner watching my husband as he tries to coax K into show biz servitude by forcing her to learn "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow" I marvel that it's done...

The wine is good folks. The man can attest to that.

Oh, and K says she won't be joining the cast of Annie anytime soon. Way to stand up to the man little one...

come on everybody let's save some daylight...

"the United States has extended daylight saving time to comply with the Energy Policy Act of 2005. For the US, this means that DST begins on March 11, rather than April 1 and ends on November 4 rather than October 28. "

huh? what now? what? I have no idea. Mike sent me this in an e-mail last week... So we're gonna save some more daylight this way?

Let's start with the daylight, we're winning the war there. Daylight savings accomplished. What else can we save today? Oh the wales, save those... how about my sanity, is that even worth saving though? We can save our left overs, they'll still be good tomorrow... Let's save some money and some minutes on our calling plan too.

I'll be honest. I'm not a big fan of the whole time changeover thing. You know one of the few things more irritating to me than the day light saving time change is when that time change happens and I don't know about it and people all around look at me like an uneducated buffoon who didn't get the memo...

Luckily my mom gets that memo. They have her address. The send her that kind of information and thankfully she passes it on to me. And then most years I in turn tell Mike... and he looks at me like an alien who speaks in squeaks and clicks...

We know ahead of time this year and I still don't like it... When Mike found that info somewhere online and clued me in it was my turn to look at him like he spoke in squeaks and clicks... and pings...

valentine vertigo...

For Valentine's day my gift to you is the top 10 things I like on Valentine's day in no particular order:

1) Sleep late. Sleep long. Sleep hard. (This didn't happen today, I had to get up and take K to school... what kind of a world do I live in? oh the horror...)

2) Drink Cherry Coke. (I have also yet to do this. Why? My Cherry Coke stash is in the upstairs fridge. When I am desirous of one and too lazy to go get it myself I send my kid up to get it. But she isn't here. She is at school. Where I had to wake up early to take her. Having a party. She probably smuggled out a 6 pack of cherry coke to give to all her friends so they will be bouncing off the walls like lunatic valentine rockets by the time I pick her up...)

3) Eat Mediterranean food. (wouldn't you know I haven't done this either. Note to Mike: when I said take out I meant go get me everything i need to make those amazing pita dinners i love. When you think you have enough tzatziki get twice as much... then get me some extra cherry coke some sleeping pills and something pretty...)

4) To make my family happy. (only they can say if I have done this, though K and I have plans to make little heart shaped cakes and decorate the house all pretty. when all the work is done I'll throw on some fishnet stockings and a little black dress)

5) World Peace. (had to try man)

6) A puppy (though the one I want isn't ready to come home from the breeder yet, and even if it was I couldn't walk it cause It would pull me over... I don't think you do a lot of dog walking on boats)

7) Perfume. (I can be such a girl)

8) Hot sex. preferably with my husband. (Though I don't in any way reserve this activity for valentines day... i just thought I'd mention it)

9) To finish reading my book. (I read every night when I put K to bed. It is pretty much the only time I have for reading... any time I used to have for reading is taken up by writing this blog every single day then rereading it and laughing at how funny I think I am... I only have 20 pages left in my book and then I have 4 more books to read... I must finish reading my book!)

10) Flowers (like I said I am such a girl at times, but there is nothing like getting a big bunch of your favorite flower to make you feel like a goddess, providing they aren't apology flowers. I love flowers but there are pretty much only three times a year a married gal can expect to get flowers... Valentine's Day, Birthday, Anniversary... if you are a guy and for some reason reading my blog take this down. Yes flowers are cliche. Yes flowers are silly. But yes, women love getting flowers. Yes, they do, even if they say they don't)

happy Valentine's day... I hope I get everything I want... and I hope you're happy too...

valentine love... who knew...

"Is Valentines day next week?" he asked

wow I thought... wow... the man asked in advance, major credit

"Yep, it's Wednesday" I replied..

"And what are we doing?" but before I could answer he interrupted "because the last couple of years I've come home from work and you and K have had the house decorated and the table set and you've been all tarted up for me... that's nice"

Stunned. (but not that he noticed I was tarted up... I'm good at the tart thing...)

"yes, that's the plan, decorations and tartiness. You bring the food"

"sounds like a plan..."

So don't let the corporate high tech stress ball act fool you... he's all love. if you're us that is...

consumer whore cami... again...

So it's been a while since I went the consumer whore Cami route and screamed that I loved some technological hoo ha but here goes...

We spent the weekend shopping around for a new laptop (days 2& 3 of the 40 day celebration of the birth of me). Saturday found us at the tattoo parlor for a consult on my 30th birthday tattoo... then off to Pioneer Place mall to check out the Mac store. Oh so pretty mac books and pros... the love was almost too much, it was all we could do not to buy one on the spot... but we had more looking to do. We did a little shopping and then had a quick lunch at Alessandro's before we tried to head home... It was so nice out though that we decided to head over the the library and Vino (again)...

What does this have to do with consumer whore Cami? Nothing... But we did ask everyone we met along the way about Mac Books and Mac Book Pros...

This morning (Super Bowl Sunday woo hoo go team) we thought it would be a great time to go laptop shopping. Boy were we right... We got a great deal on a spankin new HP notebook complete with Vista... umm... did I say Vista? But we don't want Vista. We really don't. I don't need the trouble of a whole new operating system... re learning word... and junk... Mike was way down on the Vista. The original plan was to either buy a Mac Book or buy a Windows machine right before the Vista release and try to get a good deal... so how did I wind up with this pretty shiny happy nice new HP laptop with all sorts of doodads and goodies and Vista... and the new office...

And why oh why do I SOOOOO love the new OS & Office? First off they did a ton of things right that they should have done right before. There are a ton of cool new features... my favorites in Vista being the quick search right in the menu, being able to scroll through all my open windows and the gadgets. Yes I know that so many others have done it before and they should have done it earlier... but they've done it now and they've done it well. I haven't played with most of the new Office but Word is great. I kept hearing that you have to completely re-learn word but I think that's babble. The commands all seemed to work the same way and the only differences seemed... well great. I loved being able to view the fonts and font sizes without having to change a thing...

So yes, it's me consumer whore Cami here and happy to tell you that something rocks... perhaps someday I will tell you all how much something sucks... like oh, my moto razr...

i want i want i want...

I want something. I want something so bad it has completely preoccupied my thoughts for a week now... I've wanted this something for years... but the time was never right.

Some would argue that the time is not necessarily right at the moment either but I must have this little something... Okay, it won't always be so little.

A few of you may know what this something is. Am I crazy? No! I always had one growing up... often two.

Since I moved out on my own though this elusive "thing" has been out of the question. Why? You shouldn't keep it in an apartment. Our first house was too small. It's a lot of responsibility. The timing hasn't been right. K was too young.

Now things are different and I for one know the time is right. So how do I convince my dear sweet man, my life partner, the man, that he wants to bring this bundle of something fuzzy and cute that will eventually weigh about 75 pounds into our home and accept it as part of the family?

This isn't a big shocker to him. He knows I want it. I asked for it. I showed him pictures. (I never should have looked at pictures it sealed my fate). The question is how do I convince him this is right? I am open to suggestions but really I think he will have to decide on his own...

our house...

Spring isn't here but as the tiny clumps of snow that are left from last week melt away I'm all excited to get on the spring cleaning... that doesn't so much mean the actual cleaning part, more the organizing, moving around, making things work for us part.

Living in an old house things get dirty easily but I become easily distracted by the bigger projects that need to get done. Sometimes you have to get creative. It's strange to me to think how differently we live now from the 1920's. Who would think that the entire format of home building could change in 80 years.

We need so many rooms now that we didn't before. Looking at most of the houses in our community people only needed one tiny bathroom in the 1920's... that's just crazy right? We need a family room for our TV's, DVD's, stereos... we need an office for our computer, printer, scanner, charging stations, we need a kitchen big enough to cook a gourmet meal for 12, we need a quiet place to call our own... So we get creative, we move things, organize things, re purpose things until they work for us.

You see even with out the above mentioned monster kitchen this house is my home. Would I be happier with a kitchen 4 times the size I have (I swear it is really really tiny)... maybe.

But when we found our house it was a little bit of a miracle. We'd been looking in the neighborhood for about a year. Feeding our fantastic realtor, Chrissy, all sorts of information as we discovered it. The more houses we looked at the more we knew what we wanted but we just hadn't hit the right note yet... we kept looking and looking until one day she called to tell me she may have found the one. We weren't able to make it into town to check it out until that evening so she went to the house and walked through it on the phone with me. She told me it was the one, she knew it, she described to me all the little details she saw as she strolled through the house and over the phone I slowly fell in love with it. Mike having seen way too many houses and being a bit of a pessimist in general begrudgingly drove into Portland at 6pm knowing we were wasting our time but when we pulled up to the house we both stopped breathing a moment. He looked into the back seat at K and then at me and said "if it isn't falling apart inside we're buying it" I nodded.

About 3 months earlier while I was down the street getting my hair done Mike took K for a walk to a friends house. On their way they walked past this house. Our house. It badly needed a paint job , a new fence and landscaping. It looked like no one had loved it in a long time... but there it was with a for rent sign and Mike and K stared at it for a long moment and Mike said "It's too bad we can't buy that one"...

I heard about the house that day over lunch but I never laid eyes on it until the very moment at 6pm we sat in our car in front of it. By then we were in a rush. We already knew there was an offer being made, our only hope was that our agent had been able to stall the sellers agent long enough so she could present our offer at the same time.

We went inside and looked around. It smelled like old house, dogs, cigarettes and stale drink. The walls had paper peeling from them and large air bubbles beneath too many layers of paint and wallpaper. It was dirty, it was dark and it was a little sad. There were so many things that were just not right and each one made us love the house more. We wanted to make the house as beautiful as we imagined it had been...

Even as we walked through our house other potential buyers showed up. A few with their agents, one who was driving by trying to get a hold of their agent so she and her partner could get a better look and make an offer.
Sadly the sellers agent wasn't patient. She presented the 1st offer she got and didn't mention that there were more forthcoming.

We headed over to the real estate office any way hoping that if we put in a back up offer we may just get lucky. We weren't the only ones to do it but thankfully we were the first.

Obviously you know we got the house, I mean it is the one we are living in raising our child and cats in... our home.

It was 3 weeks before we heard another word on the matter. We'd looked at a couple of houses since but nothing compared to this one. We were on our way to set up K's 2nd birthday party when my cell phone rang. Chrissy said a few things, uttered a few words of caution then said "They want to know if you still want the house".

There was no discussion. Only yes, yes please let us know what we need to do. There were more bumps in the road along the way before we finally got the keys nearly 2 months later. From there our last 3 years in the house have been a string of do it our self projects, contractors, paint, spackle, furniture and dreams... We're not nearly done. Who knows if we ever will be or if we will slowly work on the house into our golden years...

The point? I know I had one... it may have changed somewhere in the writing...

I think the point has become that when a house is really a home it becomes a part of your family and you want to do everything you can to make sure it is the best home it can be...

Or that I need to clean my house so poor Mike doesn't go any more insane than he already is...

start at the beginning...and when you come to the end... stop

Really there is too much to start at the beginning or we will have to sit and listen to the story of the sunrise that gave me my name... so I will move on past the beginning of today's story, right through the highs and lows through the middle and on to the end(ish). Dependence on technology is where we have some how arrived... it is the end of today's story so it is where I will start...

Back only a handful of years we lead relatively simple lives... Hell when I was a kid I remember the only "technology" I'd use on a day to day basis was a light switch and my tape player (yes I am just old enough to have had a record player too... but it wasn't my main staple). We had TV as well and even the beginning of the home computer revolution.. but no one had lap tops, cell phones and palms. If you wanted to play a video game you went to the arcade with a bunch of quarters. That is just my handful of years ago... ask some one older and you will get a much more dark agey story of walking to school in the snow up hill both ways when they had no TV and no fire... I'm not going that far back.

Even for someone in my generation it is bizarre if you really take a look back at it....

So what brings me to this topic? Even though I myself am heavily technology reliant my dear sweet hubby is even worse... or better depending on your point of view. He keeps the big technology machine that is our life rolling on... who hooks up all the gadgets and doodads in our home? The man. Who fixes it if poor little me has lag time on the Internet? The man. Who hooks up all the wires and cables and stuff so we can do all the tech voodoo that we do? Why the man of course... but that is our family tech junk addiction... he has his own personal can't live without it tech stuff and at the top of the list.. his palm pilot.

Since the day I met him there have been only a few constants in his life.
1) he has a love hate relationship with Jeep
2) me (can't get rid of me, I like him)
3) he likes wine
4) his palm pilot

Now the others are not in any way consequential to my babble... but the palm pilot, it's not only where I am going but what fueled my wordy trip down the tech need road...

If I have heard him say this once, I've heard it 100 times "My life is in my palm pilot" (I am sure I have heard it 100 times if not more)... Well last night getting ready for his ultra short business trip (a one day no sleepover deal, fly in, meet, eat lunch, fly home... haven't we heard of the tech marvel known as video?) his "PP" started acting up... I don't know what it was doing, he was doing dishes, trying to listen to his pod cast and his sound blocking headphones had already died that night so I was blocking out the string of obscenities. I only know that once it started acting up it went down hill from there and was 2 hours of cursing and maintenance before he came up triumphant to tell me about his great battle and to show me that he downloaded my blog for the last week to read on the plane. All the while I was reading (from an actual book.. I like paper).. I missed some of it because I tend to tune out the grumbling bits.. but the gist was the "PP" basically needed to be reset... but now I think it is working. If I missed something he will be sure to call me with his cell phone on my cell phone as he is reading this on his "PP"

My point... what did we used to do?? Use an address book and talk to people? That is so archaic...