go ahead- make my day

White and Nerdy

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would the real april please stand up?

well, it is time. i have been avoiding the truth about myself for far too long. painful as it may be, it is time for me to admit that among all of my other negative traits, i am overweight. this truth has been nagging me for quite some time. each time i get dressed, i blame the snug fit on running the dryer too hot. i cant even call it "baby fat", since i am actually heavier than i was nine months pregnant- and my youngest "baby" is nearly five years old! i swear that my metabolism retired the day i turned 30. i have never tried dieting in earnest. i have made feeble attempts to starve myself into my favorite bikini, or to pedal away a few pounds. all to no avail. and the "aerobic" exercise my husband promises will melt away the pounds... well, i have seen evidence to the contrary in my ever expanding waistline. i did try an exercise routine at the gym, but since i am really a big sissy, i stuck to the treadmill and the exer-cycle. my butt just kept getting bigger! anyway, my brother in law started the atkins diet last year. it was great for him! i am not sure how much weight he lost, but i am pretty sure he lost a whole average size person. and he has been able to keep it off. when he told me that there was enough carbohydrates in one domestic beer to equal a loaf of bread- i mostly gave up my favorite microbrews. and it hasnt helped. i quit putting those delicious creamers in my coffee. apparently for no reason. i quit fixing scrumptious pasta dishes nearly every other night. also no improvement. well, i am going to try the atkins diet. my sister took pity on me and got me an atkins guide. i was soooo excited that i read the whole thing last night. i started the diet today. i doubt if i will be able to follow the menus very closely, because i must also continue to feed my family. but i will be able to follow the rules. i think the hardest part will be learning to eat three meals a day (and no more wine with dinner!). i am accustomed to occasionally having some toast with my coffee, a light lunch, and a big meal at dinner time. today went well. during the first 14 days, you are only allowed 20g carbs. no alcohol, no caffiene. well, i did have 2 large cups of coffee (less than half my usually daily coffee intake), i had an egg with cheese for breakfast, tuna salad for lunch, and ham with roasted green beans and carrots for dinner. all in all: 14.5 carbs. i also weighed and measured myself this morning, so that next week i will know if i am actually making progress. well, perhaps the svelte and confident april will find her way out of this. i will keep you apprised.

pity da foo

wow. i thought i was quite the pop culture trivia buff, untill i took mr. t's culture fool pop quiz! print magazine had great things to say about the comcastic! website, so i thought i would check it out. it is great fun. there are many clever and addicting games to play, a world's fastest mouse competition, a virtual puppet show that you create with a marionette, and the culture quiz. i did miserably on the quiz the first time (i scored 65, i believe there are 300 points possible)- so i tried again. my second score was worse! i have a pop i.q. of 59! i may have to give up my career and family and envelop myself in everything that is pop culture, so mr. t wont have to bust through my walls and berate me for my foolishness.

rise of man?

i can't pretend to be particularly clever, or eloquent. nor can i pretend to be enlightened. additionally, i don't want this blog to be about religion or politics. i don't want or need to use this forum for the purpose of demonstrating my beliefs, but this particular subject has been on my mind for a couple of days, and it might touch on those subjects (to some people's thinking). i have mentioned in previous blogs that i am i documentary junkie. i even like the ones i call "fake-umentaries". they are the ones rich with computer generated illustrations, maps, animations, scientific "footage", costumes, re-enactments, etc... you can spend an hour "walking with pre-historic beasts", or re-live the explosion of "krakatoa: volcano of destruction". i really love the graphics. i am fascinated by the animations that are so realistic, if i didn't know better- i might believe there are dinosaurs roaming the earth today. anyway, the other night, i watched "rise of man" with my family. i was dissapointed. there was much more speculation than actual information. in fact, on one spot, they presumed to know the details of the exact moment in pre-historic history that homo-erectus discovered emotion and spirituality. they even hinted that at that moment, homo-erectus invented god. well, i got to thinking about all the potential... if you were a corporate "fake-umentary" production company, you have the power to create and/or reinvent the reality that people accept and embrace. that line of thought led me to george orwell's "1984", and the ministry of truth. led by big brother, they actually rewrite history to accomodate and elevate the present. as i was composing this entry, i heard on the very early CBS morning news that the bush administration is removing official information that has been public knowledge for decades. that information will cease to exist. yeah, i thought so....

at the fair

wow. i hope i was a good kid when my parents took me to the fair. talk about overstimulation! it seems that no matter how many rides the kids go on, or how many games they play, or how many treats they have, it is never enough. we ended up leaving with two broken-hearted girls. one child devastated over a lost balloon, the other because we didn't go on all the rides, or play all the games. i suppose it is an improvement over last year (except to the wallet). now both the girls are big enough to go on the same rides. and last year gwynneth the daredevil was not tall enough to go on most of them, while timid rhiannon would try them and cry. this year i was content to sit and watch as the kids (including norman) went on the rides. i must be getting old. the girls had a blast on all the rides they went on, but as you can see from the photo- gwynneth is not all the daredevil she pretends to be, and rhiannon has abondoned her fears. surprise.

scandinavian festival

a few days ago, my family and i enjoyed the 46th annual scandinavian festival, a local event celebrating the food, culture, and crafts of denmark, sweden, norway and finland. this year was particularly enjoyable.

pfloose teethfp

"dear tooth fairy
the dentist took these teeth out.
i hope you like them.
they are my first.
love rhiannon."
i am phobic about the dentist. terrified. petrified. anxious. i procrastinate. i have been working very hard at overcoming my fears so that my children might not pick up the same ridiculous anxieties. i am very proud of the girls. about 6 months ago, we were all in for a cleaning, and rhiannon came running into the room where i was, shouting "i have a loose tooth!" i mumbled in response, due to the hygienists hands in my mouth: "fpyou arep ftoo wlittle for pfloose teethfp." The dentist came in and patted my shoulder. "sorry mom, she's growin up, that tooth is ready to come out soon." my baby is growing up. well, six months later, that tooth had not gotten any more loose. it did not come out by itself, nor did it's neighbor. so the adult teeth began coming in behind. i love our dentist. he even makes me feel comfortable in the chair. so when he said he wanted to give them a hand coming out, i thought- of course, and scheduled an extraction for rhiannon. for two weeks i stressed about it. rhiannon would ask questions about the procedure, and i did my best to make it sound easy. i was dying over it! i was going to put my baby through an extraction! when the day came, i hadn't slept. i was nervous. rhiannon was great. she actually seemed a bit excited. she was so brave. she didn't stress or cry or anything. i think she really didn't feel a thing. she was such a big girl about it. not a single tear. in the end, our first (and second) lost tooth memories will be a little different than most, and i doubt if i will get away with crying at the dentist again!

death cab for cutie

norman and i went to see death cab for cutie at the secret house vineyard on thursday night. i was a little bit sad because it took us so long to park we actually missed the entire first band, mates of state. from what i could hear through car engine noises, they sounded great. death cab for cutie is a seattle-area band that has actually been around a lot longer than i thought- nearly a decade! it was a perfect night for an outdoor show, not too hot, not too cool. nearly full moon, beautiful setting. great music with clever lyrics. actually, norman called it "magical"...

Design and Discovery

This week, I had the privledge of joining the Girl Scouts of the USA for an event. We were recently asked to come up with a fresh and new look for the Design and Discovery Destination Event. This is an annual event that partners the Fairplay chapter of the Girl Scouts with Intel, to promote non-traditional carreer paths for young women. The focus is on Engineering and Design paths.
I was not involved with groups like the Girl Scouts, Brownies, or Bluebirds when I was growing up, so it was great that the girls at the event welcomed me, and let me be a Girl Scout for a day. Well, summer camp has changed a lot since I was a kid. During free time, the girls wandered around in the surrounding trees, looking for a private corner that also had a cell phone signal, or they busied themselves with catching up on emails in the computer lab, chatting on myspace, or putting together powerpoint presentations.

We had a delicious meal and watched as the Girl Scouts presented the ideas they had developed on a foray into town that afternoon. They identified products with good and bad design, and considered how they might utilize or improve upon them. It was fascinating, and great to see young people considering these things.

identity crisis

thank you to everyone who helped me through my identity crisis (and put up with me in the meantime!) this is the new business card. it is a relief to be over this process, for now anyway. when the time comes to define myself, it is always very difficult to do. on a daily basis i work and play in my own way, according to a core set of values, beliefs, and aesthetic principles. when i was in college, my instructor said to me on many occasions that things always worked out the best for me when i followed my heart, regardless of what my peers (and sometimes "the rules") said. i try to keep that in mind, and work accordingly. so, when designing for myself, i am emotionally invested in every thumbnail, every composition, every success, and every failure. it is difficult to be objective when you are designing for yourself as well. i suspect that everyone sees things differently- so a persons own representation of themselves is not even going to be interpreted by their audience in the same way. i had come up with around 40 designs i just LOVED!, but were they right for me? the hardest part of all of this was finally having to let go of my favorite designs because they weren't. hopefully a client down the road can benefit from those great ideas. and next time, i will probably let someone else have the job of suffering through my identity crisis.

at least my morning coffee is the same...

i am not much of a morning person. o.k., it is more fair to say i am absolutely not a morning person. however, i do love my morning coffee, and the morning news. this is a deeply ingrained ritual i learned from my mother and my grandmother. when i was a very little girl, my mother and grandmother would sit at the table, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, and talking about the news, the weather, and kids. i loved the smell of the coffee and couldn't wait untill i was old enough to drink it. i wanted to sit around the table and visit. sometimes, my mom would fill a cup with warm milk and a little sugar, then a dash of coffee, and let my sister and i in on "talking about our kids". we had a lot of great times at that table. bread and butter sandwiches folded over. pretend restaraunt. secret fort. and board games. we often played board games. masterpiece, sorry, clue, and my favorite: monopoly. early this morning as i was sipping my coffee (i drink it black now that i am old enough) and watching the news (hopefully my grandmother is watching with me) i saw the new monopoly game on television. they've taken away the paper money, and replaced it with debit cards. the banker swipes cards in a little machine to complete transactions. the prices of things are higher. they took away the iconic shoe, car, and hat pieces, and replaced them with more modern things, like an airplane and a cell phone. worse, they replaced the "you've won $50.00 in a beauty pageant" community chest card with something about winning a reality t.v. show! i wonder if they have a starbucks yet...

to my post post-modern man

happy birthday to the greatest husband and father in the galaxy! i love you!

but why is the rum gone?

we abandoned the 100+ degree temperatures and thick air in the valley, and headed for the coast this weekend. great idea. it was a bit overcast, but the air was fresh and clean. we had a beautiful sunset on friday night, and the temperatures were dreamy compared to home.
i want to give a public "thank you" to the woman who helped my sister in what could have been an emergency situation. as my sister was driving, some crazy winged insect landed on her back and began stinging her. she managed to pull off the road, where fortunately there was another car stopped. the woman driving the other vehicle was knowledgeable in natural healing and trained in first aid. she took control of the situation, making us all feel a bit better (particularly my sister). she administered first aid and applied a handful of mud from a snake hole to my sister's back. the snake-hole mud pulled the stinger out as it dried. genius.
anyway, the woman who helped us said she was headed to the capitol to begin a walk across america, healing a nation in need (or something like that), and to watch for her on television. i am pretty sure she said they would be heading out in early august. so keep an eye out. i am going to.
well, my sis was o.k. after some benadryl, and we survived the rest of the trip with no further injuries.
while we were at the coast, we decided to take a tour of heaven at the "roguesonian cultural heritage interpretive center and beerquarium" (the rogue brewery). we missed the guided tour, but did wander beneath the brew kettles, and got our official rogue nation tattoos. later we dined at the rogue inn on the bayfront, and sampled many tasty beverages. i had the chipotle ale, very nice. i picked up a bottle of rogue rum, in true pirate spirit. if you are a fan of quality beers, you can learn more about the rogue nation at: www.rogue.com/nation/index.html.