I promise. This will be the last time. Please update your linky-links and feed readers* to www.artyfuss.com. I got myself new hosting for my birthday, so now I’m working the design. It’s getting there. I’m still trying to tweak the theme to match the colors to my satisfaction, and I might end up going with a whole different theme once I take the time to really redesign my header banner, but until then, I’m excited with what I’ve been able to figure out with the other WordPress so far.

So, this page will be up for a bit, but the whole blog has already moved to the new spot, so look for new posts at artyfuss from here on out. Thanks for visiting, and I’ll see you over there!

*If you don’t know what a feed reader is (Mom), it’s nothing you need to worry about.

I said to my manager the other day, as I mentioned today, that now I’m officially in my thirties. Being thirty-one marks that milestone. When I was thirty, I was just thirty. A nice round number, on the cusp of the thirties, not quite in them. But now, thirty-one, here I am. In there. And it doesn’t feel much different from thirty. Or twenty-nine.

This year has not been an easy one. But then again, are they ever? And in spite of this, I always find myself looking forward to the next one. And the one after that. Ever the optimist.

More than ever, this year I want presence more than presents. I want to see our lives begin to become more than what they have been. I want to make thirty-one the best year yet. Especially because it gets harder to live in the past the further you get from it. I have my memories, my sentimental side, but this year has seen me shed some of my extra baggage in favor of the present moment, a simpler and more fulfilling future.

I don’t know that I’ll do resolutions for the new year, and I don’t have much stuff cluttering up my Christmas list. All I really want is to keep making happy memories with my family and friends.

So tonight, burgers with my boys. And Thursday, setting up for Santa’s first visit to our house. Friday morning, a happy holiday together.  Come January, another trip to Wisconsin. Come April, a big family bash in Florida. Beyond that, who knows. But it’s a start. And it’s exciting.

Okay, so we’re only supposed to get up to 24 inches, but it might as well be over ten feet. Virginia is not prepared for such weather. Not in the least. I left work and did a little shopping yesterday evening between 4 and 5pm, and you would have thought we standing on the edge of the world. Everyone was ready to push anyone over if it meant saving themselves.

I am always amazed when I stop near the doors of a store in a shopping center parking lot to let someone WALK in front of my car, and the driver behind me lays on the horn. I suppose I am even more surprised when that happens on days we’re not all anticipating the apocalypse. Which it has.

So this morning I made the mistake of opening up the curtain for M to peer out at the snow falling and the landscape already buried in white. He immediately demanded to go walk in the snow. We hadn’t eaten breakfast or gotten dressed yet. So, amazingly enough, when I explained (a few times) that we needed to complete those two activities before venturing out in the snow, he calmed down, and we totally avoided what could have been a tantrum of monstrous proportion. And then, after breakfast, we got dressed and played in the snow. We ran around, jumped, dug and threw snow. It was cold, windy, and the snow kept falling.

The government has declared a state of emergency. The snow is still falling. James left himself an hour to drive to work and was the only store within 15 miles to open on time. I haven’t heard anything about how businesses are operating, how the roads are, how long it might take for James to get home, or how long it might take me to drive to work tomorrow.

I’m sleepy, watching Saturday afternoon movies while M naps the afternoon away. Maybe we’ll bake some cookies. Draw, run or dance around. I could think of worse ways to spend a day.

A couple of days ago, I got a book in the mail. It’s new and shiny, hot off the presses. It has my name in it. And a photograph I took. It’s a book about feelings. A book that came from an extremely creative use of the Internet.

When I was originally approached to release my image and a few words for use in this book, I had never heard of the website. We Feel Fine. So I clicked the link so I could see exactly what this thing was that I had unknowingly become a part of. And what I found was more than worthy.

I am not a programmer, but I have always been an artist. When the Internet came around, became a household word, I think that somewhere in the back of my mind, I always wanted to see it work as a creative medium. You know, for more than porn. For me, it evolved simply into page design and blogging. Because I don’t speak code. At least not fluently. And in order to create something beautiful in a certain language, it’s best to know it well.

This website, and now the book, appeal so much to the artist in me. But beyond that, they speak to my humanity, as most artists aspire to do. They pull something real from life, from a lot of lives, something that connects you to millions of other people who are feeling something today, too.

I feel so proud to be a part of this book. Even if no one recognizes my photo or sees my name. I’m fortunate that those web crawlers found this blog and me. And though I have barely even begun to look through its pages, I am already thrilled with it and excited to spend some time reading through it over the next several weeks.

I read My Sister’s Keeper on a trip to Wisconsin. Because I’d finished the book I’d brought with me, and Mom had borrowed it from a friend. So it was there. So I read it. And couldn’t stop.

So I got my hands on every other Jodi Picoult book I could find. And there’s a lot. Thank goodness. I’ve been looking for another author with a long list of credits. I’ve gone through Anita Shreve, Margaret Atwood, and here and there found some authors I wish would write more. The problem with Picoult, though, is I start a book and I can’t tear myself away from it until I finish.

It must have something to do with how she writes her characters, because even though they themselves, the plots and settings are all very similar in her books, somehow they always draw me in deep from the very first few pages. There’s usually some sort of tragedy. A family at the center of the drama, and the story is told from multiple angles, often from a couple of characters involved in the legal process, lawyers, prosecutors, judges, detectives, etc.

Despite that sometimes it feels like I’ve read the book before, the details are unique enough that I can’t help fully engaging. Again. I could never write like that. Even when I tried my hand at fiction. I read more to find out what happens, and I can’t put my finger on what it is, exactly, that makes me want to know.

So I’m reading The Tenth Circle now. And it makes me want to go back and read Dante. But at the same time, I’ve only had the book in my house for a few days and I’m already almost through it. I don’t know how she does it, but I’ve got two more titles waiting for me at the library for when I’m done with this one. Though I’d better try to make them last a little bit, at least, since new books are never written fast enough for fans who are anxiously waiting read them. It’s nice to know there’s an author who won’t disappoint when I can’t find another book out there to do what hers do.

I can’t believe that it’s December already. My kid’s getting bigger and more articulate every day. A bunch of friends have birthed the babies they’ve been incubating all year. My Christmas cards are here and waiting for envelopes to be addressed. I know what Santa is bringing for the wee one. And I’m already thinking of my resolutions for 2010.

Listen. I love Christmas music. I was one of the few people at my store who was thrilled to come in to work after Thanksgiving to sing along to the too familiar songs. My one complaint about the store playlist is the total lack of any of the actual Christ-mas tunes. No “O Come All Ye Faithful,” (not even in Latin), no “Silent Night,” no “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” just a whole lot of “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Winter Wonderland,” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Not that the “winter holiday” songs are any less fun or enjoyable to me, but the absence of the others are palpable. Especially when I get into my car after work and turn on my own holiday playlist on the iPod.

I understand that people who don’t believe in God or Jesus often celebrate Christmas. It did start as a Pagan holiday, after all. And that’s cool. But why are we so worried about offending the atheists during Christmas time? Why does the White House want to put up a “Holiday Tree” instead of a Christmas Tree? There’s nothing wrong with keeping Christ in Christmas. Even if you don’t believe he was your savior, you’ve got to admit he was a pretty nice guy who gave us a pretty good example of how to treat one another. What’s so wrong with give him some props in late December?

This exclusion along with my general ambivalence to our society’s overconsumption of crap we don’t need is contributing a lot to my recent feelings of malaise around the festive season. I always get a little down. A little distant, displaced, lost and sad. But I used to at least be able to get behind the carols and the fuss of the rest of the season.

I’m looking forward to putting up a full-sized tree in our place this year. I don’t know where we’re going to put it, but we’re actually going to do a little bit more for decorating this year. Maybe this weekend. Maybe that will make me feel better.

Now that the plumbers are here, and the issue is being resolves, I feel like I can write it out.

So Friday, water flowed up from nowhere into our kitchen sink. It filled up and up, and I bailed it out into the shower. I hadn’t been running any water. No dishwasher, laundry, shower, nothing. So. There went any plans of finishing the post-holiday cleanup.

We managed alright, with my husband fixing our own leaky pipe on his own on Saturday afternoon. I did some of the dishes on Saturday night. Sunday, both upstairs neighbors turned on their dishwashers at the same time. This was bad. Water up the sink, James freaking out.

Obviously, this was a clog in a shared pipe. James asked our neighbors to refrain from using the dishwasher yesterday, promising that we would be taking care of it as soon as possible on Monday morning. Today.

I called our property management company first thing. Our own property manager wasn’t there, so I left a message. I didn’t hear back for an hour and a half, so I called again to see if I could go ahead and do anything to get a plumber out here. The customer service rep told me he’d email our manager again to have her call me back. She didn’t. My husband called a couple hours later from work on his lunch break. He got the customer service supervisor to go ahead and give us the okay to call the plumber that the company uses for our building. I called, and within an hour, the plumbers were here.

I’m grateful for our neighbors, who were very understanding about the whole thing, and I’m looking forward to letting them know that they’ll be able to run their dishwashers again today. I’m grateful that I don’t have to pay for this drain snaking.

I am not, however, very pleased with our condo management situation. Especially since they’re raising our fees quite significantly for the coming year. Because I am already paying too much, especially since on the rare occasion that I need to make use of their services, I get a whole bucket full of nothing.

I’ve been drafting a letter in my head all morning, as I sat waiting for something to happen. Some news or information to be provided. I doubt that anything will change as a result, but I feel like I have to speak up. Because this is just unacceptable.

Well, off to do some dishes, and leave some notes for the neighbors. Huzzah!

For Christmas last year, M got his own digital camera. The age recommendation for the thing was 3 years, but we figured that we’d be able to take a couple of shots and then he’d enjoy looking through the photos on the LCD screen. It didn’t really work out that way once he found out that the button on the front made a bright flash (that you can’t turn off) and that other button on the back made a fun sound as it deleted each picture.

He was a little young. So we put it away every once in awhile. We replaced the batteries fairly often, and eventually, he learned more about how to hold it and how a camera actually works.

I hadn’t really been paying much attention to what was on the camera, but on Thanksgiving, he took several shots of me, and when I took a look to check them out, I thought that I looked pretty good in them, so I wanted to make sure they got saved. And when I started really looking through my kid’s photo set, I have to admit that I was pretty impressed. I really love this one of James, taken during a diaper change, apparently.

Something about the lower resolution of the kiddie camera and the way that he has framed the shots really excites the artist in me. I love that my kid loves to color. I love how he loves his camera. And even though a lot of these shots are accidentally awesome, I hope that I can teach him how to trust his eye to this sort of thing, to be as excited about the resulting photo as he is about pushing that flash button.

This is a difficult post for me to write due to the fact that I like my job in general and wouldn’t want to do or say anything to jeopardize it.

The thing is, the more I try to simplify my home life and reduce my own personal spending, the less enthusiastic I become about working retail.

In general, any place that sells things wants to convince you that you need their stuff. Can’t live without it, or at least can’t live your ideal life without it. The stuff that’s produced in the name of babies happens to be really convincing this way.

Babies are small and cute. They need cute accessories because we have become a society obsessed with accessories. What we have defines us. I have let my stuff define me at times. It’s the way of the world in which we live. But do I really need any of it? What do I really need? What does a newborn infant really need?

I need a roof over my head. I need clothes on my back. I need food in my belly. What does my baby need? He needs a roof over his head. He needs clothes on his back. He needs food in his belly. He needs his mother’s arms. He needs love. He needs guidance. He needs family.

The other stuff… is just stuff. It’s extra. It’s a sign that we are blessed. I think that a lot of the time, we forget this. We forget that the other stuff is gravy. We get too wrapped up in acquiring more stuff. Better stuff. Stuff to replace the broken, worn out, out-of-style stuff.

I try to do right by my customers. I know it makes them trust me a little bit more when I tell them that they don’t really need a sleep positioner, a wipes warmer, a battery-operated nasal aspirator. That way when I share my opinions about bottle brands or video monitors, they tend to listen and appreciate the insight. I like to take some of the pressure off the expectant parents walking through my aisles with their eyes wide, looking a little intimidated by the sea of brightly colored plastic that confronts them.

I do my homework. I have some experience with a lot of the products I sell. I share what I know with other people, and I hope it makes a difference. Yes, I like that my company remains in business, that we’re growing as the rest of the retail world makes cuts, that I have a job that doesn’t drive me totally insane. I guess the point I’m trying to make with all this is just that I’m having some mixed emotions about my current circumstances. The words are starting to stick a little in my throat when they used to come out so easily. Back when I started getting the hang of this position, I had all the answers. Maybe I still do. I’m just not sure anymore that my customers are asking the right questions. Which is totally not their fault. And it’s totally not my place to change the game. At least not from here.

All I can do is do right by myself and my family. I can make choices that reflect my values in life. I can get rid of stuff. Not buy so much new stuff. I can explain why people might want certain stuff compared with certain other stuff. I can guide. I can lead. I can answer the questions asked of me. I can do my job. I can do it all at once. I will have to.

It was sunny this afternoon, but the wind was fierce and chilly. We’ve been hanging around the house for most of the week due to scheduling and perhaps a lingering paranoia about M’s fever over the weekend. So I felt the need to take us out of the house for a little while. Turned out to be very little. Because it was colder than I expected.

But I took him to the library park, hoping against hope that maybe the library itself would also be open so we could hang out inside for a little bit. It wasn’t, so we went over to the playground and I gave us ten minutes to play. Fifteen if I could last.

I’ve become soft in this southern state. Wisconsin winters have abandoned my bones. I feel the chill here just like any other Virginian. Though maybe we’re talking 40 degrees. Nothing close to winter yet. My goal is not to shy away from the brisk air this year. To take the kid out and embrace the rosy cheeks and runny noses that come along with it.

So we played outside at the library park. And to keep the blood circulating, we ran. And it was much more fun than the dizzy circles we’ve been making around the ottoman in the house. He chased me and I ran faster. He ran faster and I chased him back. We ran up the steps and followed each other down the slide. We ran back to the car when we were tired and cold enough.

I’d rather remember the running and playing outside today than the part that came after when we came home, and the sink filled up with water for no reason. So that’s what I’m going to do.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I had a great day with my pumpkin cake. And my family. I hope you did, too.

I’ve been a pack rat. Objects have value beyond dollars and cents to me. My books have accumulated with deliberate attention and traveled with me hundreds of miles. They are like old friends. But the relationships have changed, and I feel like I’m clinging too tightly to the past.

So I’ve decided to say goodbye to many. For real. Finding a way to sell them off one by one or all at once. To give away the rest or trade them for other things more applicable to my present, my future. This will most likely be a very difficult parting, or set of partings.

I love my books. I love having lots of books. I love the fact that my bookshelves narrate just by titles on spines a significant story of my life. But I’ve come to accept that these are just objects. I might only pare down my collection by half, but I think that a lot of these books as possessions are weighing me down. I know I won’t be able to let them all go, but I am in one of those moods where I think I’ll be able to significantly lighten my load and not regret it later. Perhaps I’ll even feel better.

So let us begin this process and hope it goes well.

Dear Michael,

I had a feeling I might pause to acknowledge your twenty-fifth month because of the whole daily blogging thing, so here we are. Another month gone by. I haven’t pulled any photos off the camera lately, so you’ll just have to bear with me. And I don’t have a long drawn out letter to you today. But I wanted to mention just a few things.

You are becoming more and more articulate. You string words together that make sense. You often direct us with simple commands, “Mommy run,” “Daddy get,” “Mommy up,” “Michael ride,” “Daddy catch,” and so on. The “run” command is hilarious. Because then we have to run. And when we run, we circle the ottoman in the living room until you are laughing so hard you run into something or just fall down. Sure, I get tired and dizzy, but I can’t help chasing you when you ask me to run. It makes you so happy. Which makes me happy, too.

Some words you still don’t quite get. And I think I’ll really miss the mispronunciations when they’re gone. You still call the potty “poppy,” sleep comes out as “peeps,” and the best one is how you’ve reinterpreted “peek-a-boo” as “poo-kee.” You came up with this yesterday while we were on the phone with Grandma D. You hadn’t been in the best of moods, so I snuggled with you in our Ergo, and we ended up playing peek-a-boo with the sleeping hood. It cracked you up big time. Later, you tried to put the Ergo on yourself. It didn’t quite work, but I find it very touching that you still like to be worn close to your mama.

I’m looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with you and your daddy on Thursday. I’m sure you still don’t quite understand what holidays really are, but I know you’ll be happy to have your parents around to play with you and a lot of yummy food. Let’s try to keep it off the floor, though, okay?

Love,
Daddy? — No!
Mommy

I consider it a huge blessing that I haven’t had to deal with any sort of serious illness in my child’s life so far. So when his temperature was high enough that an incomplete underarm reading was still climbing higher when he squirmed away around 102.9, I still considered myself really lucky.

Other than the heat radiating off his entire body, his breathing was short and quick but there were no other signs of illness. So I didn’t really know what to do except watch him, try to help him sleep, and see what James had to say when he got home. Together we came up with the brilliant solution of actually attempting to take his temperature (gee, I guess I should have thought of that one–am I disqualified from Mother of the Year now?), and giving him a dose of Motrin to bring it down.

In the morning, he was still warm. This was Sunday. He got another dose of medicine, was kind of cranky and though he ate his whole banana, he left about half the bowl of oatmeal. So James let him hang out all day in his pajamas and kept himself on the lookout for any changes. I brought a new ear/forehead thermometer home from work, and after the morning dose of Motrin wore off, we let him be so we could see the real numbers. Before bed, he was up around 103 again, so we gave him the Motrin with the hope it would help him get some much needed rest. He woke up several times, the first of which found him drenched in sweat but with a cool head. This morning, long after the ibuprofen wore off, his temp hung out steadily between 96 and 97 degrees.

He seems fine. But with the flu season all around, we were understandably concerned. I called the advice nurse this morning, just to discuss the last couple of days, and she agreed that he probably kicked whatever he had pretty quickly, but if the fever spikes again or he shows any other crazy symptoms, not to hesitate bringing him to see the doctor.

So, I’m feeling even more grateful today that this little brush with illness has subsided, though I’m still keeping my eyes open in hopes that we’re not dealing with anything more difficult still to come. As they say, I’m cautiously optimistic. I should have known that spending $25 on a new thermometer would mean we wouldn’t have much further need for it. At least for the time being. Though I am glad we have the thing for any future temperature taking needs.

One reason that I have continued to participate in NaBloPoMo, despite it’s challenges, is because I often get inspired. I am working on several creative projects at the moment, but I’ve been considering adding another blog overhaul to the list.

The main glitch in the plan so far is the cost. Because I want to move from the free WordPress.com blog over to my own hosting account, and that takes an investment. And we all know how my financial situation is not ideal at the moment. So this whole move/redesign probably won’t happen until there’s something extra that comes my way–a freelance job, a birthday card, a lottery win– but fortunately, a year of hosting doesn’t cost a whole lot, relatively speaking.

But to make up for the investment in hosting, a redesign and a move to my own server will provide me with the opportunity to include a bit of advertising. I used to have some of that stuff when I was over at Blogger, but I simplified when I moved to WordPress. And in the process of wracking my brain to figure out how to bring in any additional income to my household, no matter how miniscule the amount, monetizing the blog seemed like a logical step to take.

So I’m going to investigate different layout options that will have a decent chance of making me a little extra money without distracting or overshadowing my writing, and I hope it turns out nice. Of course, I won’t go live with a new design until it meets my own very high standards, so I should think it will be nice when it finally happens.

Like I mentioned, I have more than a few things going on in my life, so this will be a work in progress. But perhaps by the new year, Artyfuss will have a new face. Stay tuned.