8 posts tagged “blogging”

So I've been MIA for a long, long time! I know, I know, I promised I was back and was I?  No! I promised witty, sparkling content. Did I deliver? No! I promised to talk about more than crafting. Have I? No!

But I'm here to tell you, I'm back. And for those of you that actually still occasionally check to see if I'm alive, I offer you....

FREE DUNKIN' DONUTS COFFEE!

Go there, sign up, put up a nice and easy spam-free email address. (Might I suggest Pookmail?) Get coffee. Mmmmm. Coffee!

I'll be back after going through another stack of papers! This is what I get for panicking and throwing all the contents that were previously strewn on the floor of my old studio into boxes and labeling them "miscellaneous"!

Dear Blog,
    Please know that I love and miss you very much. I miss our mutual friends. I miss doing stuff. I really, really effing hate moving!

    Please know too, that just as soon as I'm out of move purgatory, I'll be back with lots of sparkling stuff. And no, it won't all be crafting either!

    Hang in there, my love, I'll be back soon!

Ever so tenderly and faithfully yours,
Lulubird

Okay, so I've been tagged again. This time by the lovely Rachael to blog about my top ten favorite things about summer. Since summer's quickly passing, I thought I'd better hurry up and do this before it's over!

But I have to admit. I'm not much a summer fan. Gasp! Yes, folks! It's true. As I've often said before, although I'm bred to live in the tropics, I'm not really much of a tropical gal. I don't like heat. I don't like sweat. I don't like sand or getting dirty. So how to blog about summer things? Well, I think I could do top 5 things I love about summer and top 5 things I hate about summer...not necessarily in that order! That adds up to ten!

Drumroll please.........

Love #1: Sunshine, and lots of it! I love sunshine and totally get SAD when I go more than a couple of days without sunshine.

Hate #1: Sunshine, and lots of it! I tend to get splitting headaches and feel quite dizzy when it's too bright outside. Thank goodness I finally got off my butt and ordered contacts so that I could go back to wearing my sunglasses outside.

Love #2: The Heat. I like that I'm no longer subjected to Midwestern cold spells where the only way I can warm up is if I take a hot shower and then put on long socks and fleece pjs afterwards. Summer is so fleeting, we really only get 2.25 decent months of it a year.

Hate #2: The Heat. I hate being hot. I hate sweating. I really, really, really hate humidity. And let's face it folks. Midwest in summertime...it's humid, baby!

Love #3: Wearing sundresses and skirts and fun sandals. Nothing more fun than skipping around town looking all cute and summery. And wedge sandals make everyone's legs look long and lean!

Hate #3: Having aforementioned clothing stick to your body due to unbearable Hate #2.

Love #4: The long, long, summer days. I love that we have long summer days. So much to do, but so much more time to do it in! It's great!

Hate #4: The long, long, long summer days. Do you know how hard it is to make children go to bed when it's still light outside? I always hear, "But it's still wake-up time!" and have to fight tooth and nail to get those little mongrels into bed at a decent hour. Also, having both kids home leads to much bickering and fighting, which makes me want them to go to bed even earlier. Alas, no such luck.

I'm going to flip this last one around.

Hate #5: Summer in the city. I think the dirt, heat and humidity brings out all the crazies. They're hot, they're humid, they don't have central air (wait, come to think of it, neither do I!) Crazy people driving, smog, Ozone Action Days, much dust and grit from opened windows, crowded, crowded, crowded everywhere! Tourists! Underfoot! Everywhere!

but.....

Love #5: Summer in the city. There's so much to see, so much to do, so many places to go. So much good food. (The Taste is way better than it used to be, but the crowds are still horrific! but you can eat outside at many restaurants, unless it's super hot and humid.) Lake Michigan is gorgeous. Ravinia is just delightful! The park district is hopping. Music fills the air. Street festivals everywhere, all around! Farmer's Markets! Movies in the park! And despite all the dirt, sweat, bickering and sunshine, I still love it. It's wonderful! Until August. Then I hate it and begin wishing for winter again!

So now, it's time for the tagging...let me see...well, if you want to play along, then consider yourself tagged!

Okay, so Rachael busted me with the not-blogging-latelyness-because-I'm-avoiding-the-100th-post-blogiversery. But, luckily, I have found a way to circumvent the 100th-blog-post-woo!hoo!-let's-celebrate issue by deciding that the posts that I imported from myspace do not count. Therefore, I think that frees up a few more posts before I have to decide what to do. I'm thinking maybe a little contest or give-away, I'm not sure which yet.

So where have I been? Well, after coming out of the closet with the blogging about your children vs. protecting your children debate, I've been thinking an awful lot. I think I'm going to have to limit my posts with pictures of my children to be neighborhood only. That means those family and friends unwilling to register are just going to have to miss out on posts with pictures of my kids. Which is the only reason they read look at the pictures on my blog.

I've been a crafting fool. And a home-searching fool. And a drive-my-kids-and-MIL-all-over-creation fool. Mainly, I've been living out of my car, either looking for a new place to live that fits all my criteria while graduating my little preschooler, end of school-year parties and extravaganzas and toting kidlets to what feels like 80,000 violin recitals/concerts and camp and MILs to doctors appointments.

I'll post with pics and details later. Meanwhile, must catch up on y'all's blogs because, my friends, I am very, very, very behind!

Tagged to the power of two by Quornflour and Raven!

Here are the rules:

• Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

****************
Here's more than you wanted to know about me:

1.    I absolutely, positively cannot stand the smell or taste of cherries. Mainly, the artificial scent and taste of cherries. Really, when you have a bowl of cherries, is there a scent that wafts out at you? No. I love the taste of real cherries, but fake stuff, like lip gloss, lotions, bubble gum...gag! Bleck! No thanks!

2.    When I was a freshman in college, I got a really, really, really bad cut on my leg while shaving with a disposable razor. (yes, 21 stitches bad, you don't want to know!) After that, I would jokingly claim that I got it in a bar fight where I was kicking a knife out of the other girl's hand. Of course, being 5'3 and about as intimidating as a bowl of pudding, no one would believe me. Then, when I would tell them the truth, they still didn't believe me. Now, it's faded and people don't ask.

3.    I look young for my age. My husband is the consummate liar about his age, because he looks really young for his age. So I took my cue from him and began lying about my age when I was 23. I kept telling people that I was 23 for 10 years. Then I realized, hmmm, maybe I don't look 23 anymore. Better to say that I look 33 and let people say "wow, you don't look 33" rather than "omg! she looks awfully old and hard to be 23!" So I did. BTW, I'm 35 now and I think I'm finally okay with it. I think. I've outted myself now, so I better be!

4.    I am a classically trained pianist. Can I say that? I've been playing since I was 5. I am by no means a concert pianist, even with a really ginormous stretch of the imagination, but I can only play classical music. And hymns, although those are definitely not my favorite to play. But once, I tried to play Journey's Open Arms, and my room-mate from high school burst into laughter and said it sounded like a waltz. Hmph. Well, Open Arms does kind of sound like a waltz, if you can't play anything but classical music.

5.    Although I was a reluctant first-time mother, (I had just quit my full-time job to go back to school full-time for interior design) I now fully embrace motherhood and absolutely love it! But I have to say, I do not let motherhood define who I am, and do not like it when other mothers do the same. You know the ones. They have nothing to talk about but their children, nothing personal about themselves, their dreams, wishes, hopes, outside interests. Instead, they live vicariously through their children. Come on peeps! Once upon a time, you didn't have kids! You are still the same, interesting, exciting person! Let me see her! I want to get to know her.

6.   I'm Filipino, but I can't understand or speak my ethnically native language. I know only a little bit of some of the folk dances, I can only make one dish, (adobo) but not very well, and I can't french braid hair, dammit! I guess I'm a really lame Filipino. But man, I can make Korean food, read, understand and speak loads more Korean than Tagalog (or Visayan or Ilocano, other dialects from the Philippines). My husband is Korean and my MIL lives with us, so I guess now I'm some sort of surrogate Korean.

7.   At this moment, I'm not only the proud mum to two funny little girls, but I also am the primary caretaker for my wonderful mother-in-law, who suffers from Alzheimer's Disease. It is a horrible thing, to see someone go through this disease. She is in the middle stages, so it's not too bad. But there are moments, like yesterday, when she struggled to remember how to sign her name, that make me want to cry. This courageous, beautiful woman, who had practically a photographic memory, graduated college as one of the top in her country, and raised 4 children (3! boys and 1 girl) in a foreign country alone, should have to go through this indignity is beyond words. She is so kind, and thoughtful. Any frustrations and difficulties I might have as a result of taking care of her, are moot because of that.

8.   I have a soft spot for the color pink. But my subjective timbre* is yellow! Go figure!

So now, I must tag my fellow bloggers and the winners are, drumroll please!

Rachael
Mim
Michelle
Ms Genevieve
Lindsey
Jane
Simone, and
Phisch

Go! Go! Go!
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*subjective timbre, as described by Johannes Itten, is essentially the colors that you incline towards, and is significant of a person's inner being. Check out his wonderful book The Elements of Color as it's a terrific primer on color theory. I used it in all three of my color theory classes.

not really, just the grand voxer who decided to put me on "this is good." Yay, me!

Hmm, this was interesting. Don't know if I agree with all the answers, but still. You basically pick photos in response to questions and it spews out this cute little visual journal of your supposed visual DNA. Cribbed from Madtwinsis who in turn stole it from Madeline. I so love the blogging world and the clickable journey it takes you on!

Let me go on the record by saying that I hate moving. I really do. Lest you be fooled by the fact that we have moved 9 times over the last 13 years, I despise looking for places and packing and moving and all that it entails.

I lived in the same house my entire life until I went away to school. My parents STILL live in that same house and I often go to visit them and stay in my old room. I like the idea of staying in one place, after all, that's why we came back to Chicago after one dismal year in San Diego. And yes, people, it is possible to not like San Diego. I like it to visit, but to live? No, thank you. I missed the diversity, the food, the people, the good old-fashioned midwestern manners, I could go on and on, but I won't. My running joke is that almost all the girls I met/saw there were blond and had fake bosoms...and that was just the Asian girls. Don't get me wrong, I did meet some great folks and there are some really beautiful places out there, but I am Hoosier at heart. I may not ever want to live in Indiana again, but you know what they say..."You can take the girl out of the Midwest, but you can't take the Midwest out of the girl!"

So after living in the same place for the past three years I find that once again, I must move. My landlord, a retired CFD fire chief, has decided that he and his wife are ready to fully convert to the snowbird lifestyle. When we first moved in to this apartment, it was supposed to be only temporarily, until we found a place to buy. But I was in the middle of finishing my degree, the location was great and the apartment (aside from the horrific dining room floor and the lack of dishwasher) is pretty much perfect for us. Not to mention that true to form, I had just finished picking out my colors and had finally gotten the Iceman to paint almost all the walls.

We have been half-heartedly looking at places for the past three years, sometimes more intensely than others. Our poor realtor, I think, had given up on us as we could just never find the place we wanted. Well, now we have no choice. So we begin our search anew. And that's why I have not been blogging as much. Oh, and the sweater, but more on that later.