Things to make you cheerful!

Hey!

It's 2012! And our good friend Mr. Bob is out of ICU, where he had been confined for 2 weeks with pneumonia. Our dear sister in law is expecting (but don't tell the kids! she wants to tell them), and I have mailed off a painting to be included in an invitational show (that means you have to get INVITED to participate)*. I'm feeling pretty cheerful about life.

I had a wisdom tooth pulled yesterday, and I am in love with my surgeon. It took him no time at all and I didn't feel a thing. I want to make him chicken pot pie and recommend his services to my friends. (See how I'm alternately an eighty year old and a twelve year old? I have no idea how Aaron puts up with it)

And I was talking to my little brother's cute girlfriend--we're in cahoots to relocate the lot of us to Connecticut--and she told me about the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. I spent lots of time perusing and squealing like a teenage girl. I told her about Katrina Cottages.

When I was younger I would spend hours drawing houses, complete with floor plans and gardening plans for the lots they sat on. Usually this would happen in math class--I didn't understand what was happening on the board, so I'd create a little world where everything made sense. Now I love looking at houses for sale, I love looking at floor plans. I'm a special kind of special, I know. When I visited Aunt Carmela (back in August) and we drove by Mama Amaro's house, I wanted to march up to the front door and tell the people to pack their stuff, because I was buying that house from them--thankfully Uncle Steve kept the car door locked or I'd've had some 'splainin to do when I came back home.

Part of my grand plans include building my own house one day. I just have to take the baby steps to get there.

*If you are in or around Natchitoches, Louisiana go see my painting!

goodbye, 2011!

Hello to all!

I hope everyone is ready to say GOODBYE to 2011. It was a year filled with much too much bad news and much too little good news. 2011 set the bar so low that it made 2010 look like the height of awesome. (2010 was the year I had pneumonia for 3 months). I am far to old to write to Santa, but not old enough to believe that writing down my wishes for the coming year is in any way silly or futile.

 2012, here is my wish list: I wish for my friends and family to be healthy. I wish for my children to remember you in smiles and friends made. I wish for the perseverance to face my goals head-on. I wish for peace in our heads and forgiveness in our hearts and kindness in our actions.
Thanking you in advance,

Kara M DeCarlo

(Go and write your wishes down, too! I believe life is better when we can move towards what we want, instead of running blindly from what we don't want)

Wishing all of you beautiful dreams and a joyous New Year!

Pensive in the face of the New Year

Yes, I completed all my holiday presents. I plan to totally cop out of wrapping them by putting them in brown paper bags & stapling the bags shut. My holly jolly ho-ho-ho spirit left about two days ago and I am just ready for this season of gifting to be over.
To make it through the next few days of holiday go-round, I will be needing a designated driver. Luckily, I have a husband who will gladly take on that role. Thanks babe!

I also have to submit my 2012 goals list to my lovely friend who has agreed to hold me accountable to all of them. She is a therapist by day, so I do not expect to be able to wiggle my way out of them.
Which means that I have to be realistic in my aspirations and not go overboard with planning.

This is proving more difficult than I imagined. As it turns out, I am the Queen of Unreachable Goals--probably the reasons for this would require immense amounts of therapy, but we all know that's not going to happen. So now I have to weigh each goal against the reasons for putting it on the list, and the probability of achieving said goal. Doesn't that sound like fun?!

Not to me either. So I have been working in fits & starts, but there are only 8 days left of 2011.

Blah.

Happy New Year.

In case you were feeling rushed..

Firstly! There is free shipping at my etsy shop with the coupon code JOY2U. Happy Holidays!

Secondly, I am not yet done with holiday presents, because I have decided to do a handmade holiday for the second year running. Which wouldn't be so overwhelming if I hadn't added some people to the list. So far I have made hot cocoa mix, marshmellows, book pins, flower brooches, and upcycled journals. I still have to make bracelets for a gaggle of teenage girls, and fleece camo hats for boys.

I am running out of time and energy...but mostly time.

So I hope you all are enjoying this time of year, however you celebrate it!

LONDON, BABY!

Flying out of Chicago, we headed west over Lake Michigan. Hi Chicago!
 I flew from Chicago to DC, where I met up with my Mom and we flew together to London.

The view from our floor of the hotel. We were on floor 12, so it was pretty spectacular. That castle-looking building is the Renaissance hotel at St. Pancras. On the other side of that is the King's Cross underground and railway station (King's Cross is where Harry Potter left for Hogwarts).

That low-lying red brick building is the British Library. They had a fabulous exhibit on Illuminated Manuscripts. Also, I saw the Magna Carta and a First Folio of Shakespeare's works.

And there was food! I especially enjoyed this little treat: a rosemary & chocolate macaroon, a raspberry & basil mousse, and a lavender & citrus sorbet.

And of course we had to go to Harrod's to see the Christmas decorations and ride the Egyptian escalator. We also popped into the Harry Potter shop.

That's the dome of St Paul's (Where the old lady feeds the birds in Mary Poppins) and that bit of water is the Thames River)

We went to the Globe Theatre & museum. That's me with Will--I am a HUGE Shakepeare dork. I went to Shakespeare summer camp when I was in high school. True story. The theatre season runs April to October and groundling tickets are only 5 pounds a person!

And we popped over to Baker Street to catch a glimpse of 221B (Where Sherlock Holmes "lived". There's also a Sherlock Holmes Museum next door, but I didn't see the need to pay to look at an exhibit of a fictional character).

And then we came home. We crammed a lot into 3 days. I loved the public transportation, the museums, the weather, and even the food.

London--you rock!

Shop not!

As I am all out of cash and rapidly approaching a fabulous long weekend in LONDON, where I will be carrying and fetching for my Mom (which is totally cool, because 1. She's my Mom and 2. it's LONDON), I am not participating in any of the retail craziness of this weekend.
Instead I will be working, bidding farewell to my last Thanksgiving guest, editing/posting photos and repurposing old clothes into new clothes.

As we approach December, I have tasked myself with getting things crossed off the neverending TO DO list and instilling an appropriate sense of holiday cheer in the kids.

It's Fall

Oh my, is it ever. A few weeks back we went to the pumpkin patch, where Adrian tried his hardest to bring home a pumpkin three times the size we suggested.

The onset of Fall means all kinds of wonderful things. Yellow leaves against blue skies, massive quantities of baked goods, Halloween, Thanksgiving, crisp air, apple cider, sweaters, rosy cheeks and the smell of fallen leaves when I walk through the woods.

We are hosting Thanksgiving this year, which has resulted in a flurry of home improvement projects. Not all of them will be finished before people arrive in SEVEN DAYS, but enough that I don't feel like the house is falling down around my head.

And, yes, Dad. I will post pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes. Eventually. When I don't have a kid standing on either side of me, demanding something.

Have a good weekend, y'all.
Enjoy the beauty before winter comes and chills your bones.

He's trying to do me in!

After this week I have decided two things.
1. Adrian should go into politics, because he is master of the spin.

2. I have to either join the french foreign legion or take up drinking.

Allow me to transcribe for you the two assignments that Adrian has brought home from school this week, exactly as they appear.

Assignment one:
One time I stole my sister's diperes and i got cought. I toled my mom I did it. And she spanked me. After that I never did it agen.

(Replace "one time" with "multiple times" and "stole" with "wore, urinated in, and then shoved in the back of my sister's closet")


Assignment two:
If I were a child in Heckedy Peg when the witch came in I wod stab her and take the gold.

(this little gem is complete with an ILLUSTRATION, wherein the child has a knife in the blood-red belly of the witch and is saying "this is esey")

So, yeah.
Parent/Teacher conferences are going to be awesome this year.

Do you think they'll let me bring a flask?

Bringing it all together

For many years I have resisted merging my home life and my art life, but it does appear that they are inseparable. After all they both require my two hands and one mind to tend them, and I try to maintain a balance between them--lately that balance has slipped. I have spent more physical time in my home life and more head time in my art life. I find myself planning artworks when I am cooking, cleaning, folding laundry, walking the kids to school--but the ideas only get a rough sketch in the sketchbook and then I am back to mundane housey stuff.
Part of the art time is maintaining my art blog and my Etsy shop--which until now I have mentioned only in passing. It is really difficult for me to maintain two blogs--it requires twice the wit and four times the editing. I am hoping that the new schedule I have set for myself will allow me more time to share the craziness that is our home life with you and time to share my art life over there. The other art time is at work, where the slow season has settled in and we are drawing and painting to keep our art muscles flexed.
As it stands, I may be completely obsessed with one thing over another--as the winter approaches there is a good chance that I will retreat into my art cave--so if you are looking for me here I may be over at the art blog: http://karapaints.blogspot.com/
Do drop in and say hi. It's pretty informal over there, as I usually have clay under my nails or paint on my nose.

Good morning!

Hello to all, old friends and new!

I seem to have acquired some new readers--hi there (yes, you and you)! And I DO read all of your comments, and thank you so much for responding. Don't think I am ignoring you, I am just sort of surprised that you are out there, reading MY thoughts.

When I started this blog, 7 years ago, I was grossly pregnant and living far away from both my family and my husband's. The intention was to keep from repeating the same stories over and over, as well as provide them with a steady stream of cute baby photos.

As time has marched on, I have had less and less free time so updates have become sparse. Right now my children are entertaining themselves by measuring things with a 16 foot tape measure and making monster noises.

We are gearing up for Halloween. The children have costumes (store bought, and totally cop-out I know), and I just discovered I no longer FIT in my costume. (I knew all that chocolate would catch up with me) So this week I am mixing & matching & sewing something new. The best part of making my own costume is that I can make alterations with safety pins and it doesn't matter because I won't be wearing it but once. I am not so much on hidden seams and perfection, which makes my Grandma sad because she is a seamstress of the First Order.

Now, a complete change of subject.

I decided that in this year of "more, better", I was going to be more expressive of my gratitude. To that end, I have started composing thank you letters to people who have inspired me. I don't expect letters in return, but I figured that they would never know that their actions have caused good things if nobody tells them.

Your mission for this week: Go out and tell somebody you appreciate them.

The oven repair guy cometh

On Thursday the oven repair man is coming to FIX MY OVEN. I am so excited I can barely sit still. Our oven ceased working in JUNE and we have managed to do without until now. But I am hosting Thanksgiving for 15 people and I don't think they would be amused by microwave dinners, even if I wrapped myself in foil and declared it "Thanksgiving From The Future". Aaron won't care so long as he gets his traditional Thanksgiving Burrito. (But that is a story for another time)

So, YES! Oven Repair Guy! I thought about drafting an open letter declaring my love for him, but then I realized it's not just oven repair guys. It's plumbers and mechanics and handymen everywhere.

I LOVE Men Who Can Fix Things.

Growing up, my Dad was fairly handy. As it turns out, his Dad was handy too (mechanic in WWII kind of handy). I always thought: one day, I'll be able to fix stuff like that.

As it turns out, I can handle basic repairs.(woo! go me!) I fixed a leaky sink, unclogged a bathtub, patched holes in walls, that sort of thing.
But anything requiring sheer muscle is beyond me. I am 5'3" on a good day and leverage only works so far.

Enter Men Who Can Fix Things! (They are like Superman, minus the muscles and wearing their underwear on the outside. And really, that should have been a clue that he was from another planet...or mentally unstable.) For a fee they can unstick the stuck, rewire the frazzled, and help me BAKE again.

By this time next week I expect to be up to my elbows in cookies, muffins, sweet and savory breads. I will make lasagna and calzones and roasted veg. I can stuff my face full of homemade deliciousness and it's all thanks to the OVEN REPAIR GUY.

Things you should know

Before having kids, consider the following:

It is very probable that you will be at the house of someone you greatly admire and one of your children will put a hole in their wall.

If you can survive deathly levels of embarrassment, then you are very nearly ready to procreate.

Sublimating my sorrow.

Today is a day of mixed emotions. I call these "mixed bag days".

On the one hand, I am glad to be home after a week-long, 2,000 mile road trip with the kids. I am glad to see our pets and our friends again. I am glad that Nature got the message and is behaving like Fall.

On the other hand, I am sad to once again be 700 miles away from family. I am sad to say good bye to dear friends of ours who are moving South in hopes of a more rural, easier life.

So to deal with the way I feel, I am cooking. I have made a large pot of red meat sauce with onions and garlic and carrots and bay and marjoram. Tomorrow, I will make gingerbread waffles and fill the house with the smells of fall. I will make Spanish Braised Spinach and White bean soup and fill our bellies with seasonal foods.

Until the children are in bed and I can get up to my elbows in paint and clay, I will be in the kitchen. Food and art are how I process, how I cope, and how I commemorate the joys and sorrows that make up our days.

The whirring hum

OF DOOM.

Our computer is slowly, but surely, dying.

Which means that instead of uploading pictures, I am backing up 3 years worth of files and photos.

The last time our computer died, I promised myself that next time I would stay on top of the backing up. It would totally happen every month.

Turns out, if I don't write stuff down I forget to do it.

So while I limp this little machine along, we will be posting picture-free for a while. Sorry 'bout that.

The kids are back in school and oh my silence! 2 hours every day where I can do nothing. I have been up to my eyeballs in Getting Shit Done, but I at some point I plan on doing some champion style butt-sitting.

Last week, I read 2 books, worked 4 days at the shop, cleaned out Adrian's room (2 bags of trash and 2 bags of donate-ables), cleaned out Fiona's room (1 bag of each), cleaned out the basement (2 bags of trash--dried out markers/used up pipe cleaners/tiny scraps of paper/broken toys), did my homework (taking an online class on surface design on fabric), and taught a class on making floral jewelry with polymer clay.

This week my mom is coming for a visit, I am working 3 days, and getting the kids ready for our crazy ass road trip. When we return home from our 10 days of travel we will have gone 1935 miles. I am planning games and activities and hoping I don't have to sit wedged in between the 2 of them in the back seat. Because we travel old school: no individual DVD players. No namby-pamby living room on wheels. My mother loves to tell the stories of her childhood family trips from Alabama to Wisconsin with 2 adults and 5 kids wedged into a station wagon with no A/C. I figure if Grandma could do it with 5 and no air I can do it with 2 and no DVD player.
Besides how else can they enjoy the change of the terrain if they never look out the window? How can we make up stories about travelling circuses and cloud farmers if they are tied up in a movie of someone else's making?

Pray for me, ok? If I survive there will be photos and epic posts.
We leave in 11 days.

the Earth moved

We in North America seem to be getting a bit of seismic activity these days. Yesterday's earthquake prompted my friend Kym to say: Be nice! We only have 15 months left!

But instead of looking forward, the earthquake had me looking backwards. I was thinking of the last time the East Coast shook and the phone lines were down and I couldn't get in touch with my parents*. That was September 11, 2001.

It was the events of September 11 that led me to reconnect with Aaron. We had fallen out of touch when we had both started dating people who were geographically closer. He was at school in New York and I was at school in Roanoke, VA. That's a distance of 500 miles, which is a long way to travel without a car and without money for trains/buses/airplanes.

It was our mutual friend who suggested that I send him an email because at that time he was stationed in Kuwait. A lengthy correspondence between us followed, along with visits once he returned stateside. I made the decision to get a job in the state where he was stationed so that we could be closer and see if this relationship was going to be forever or just for now. (Side note: my dad thought I was crazy, but still drove 1,230 miles in two days in a moving van to get me where I had to go) That was in October of 2002. This October will mark our 8th year as a married couple.

Maybe that's why I love hearing how married people met. Maybe that's why I see tragedy as a catalyst for change.


*My parents are fine, by the way. My dad got a half day off work and was pretty pleased.

Back from Bama

I came home.
I have to say that travel by oneself is a horse of a different color. On the way there, I kept having brief moments where I would frantically look for the children before remembering that they were at their grandparents house.
I got to visit with family, drive around the city, go to the Birmingham Museum of Art (twice), and sleep in EVERY SINGLE DAY. There was a lot of good food, a lot of good memories, and a lot of fun. It was hard to come home--I wanted to call Aaron and have him just pack the house & the kids up and move on down. Here are my cousin and my Aunt--this is the cousin that came to visit back in June.

This is my great grandmother's house (technically it's somebody else's house now). My Nana's brother built it for his mother. (His house is on one side and Nana's sister's house is on the other).

Kelsey took me to Orr Park in Montevallo to show me the trees that had been carved by a local artisan. They are all along the foot path: faces, dragons, unicorns, llamas, wizards. It was fun to scout them out.

This is Aunt Carmela, myself, and my other cousin Andrea. We were waiting on a table at Joe's Italian. The food was yummy and I loved that the propritors know Aunt Carmela because she eats there so frequently.

And on our way to the airport we made a stop by the Peanut Depot--where you can get 'em roasted or boiled.

That's the abbreviated version of my adventure. I thought I should fill you in before I got distracted and moved on to something else.

THREE MORE DAYS

Three more days until I am on a plane bound south for a solo long weekend. I am so excited I could spit.
Relax, I have a no spitting in the house rule. (add THAT to the long list of things I never thought I'd have to make rules about. It should go between putting peanut butter on the dog and testing your gag reflex)

The kids will be on Holiday at the in-laws (thanks, guys!) starting Thursday--or tomorrow's tomorrow as we have dubbed it. Adrian informed me that holiday at Nana and Papa's is "out of control" and that it has "changed a lot since the last time you went, Mom". It's always so funny to hear these little old man phrases come out of his scrawny 6 year old frame.

This afternoon Adrian was playing with his Star Wars Lego set, which provided Fiona ample opportunities to use my favorite mispronunciation OF ALL TIME. Are you familiar with C3PO? Do you recall his little blue and white beeping buddy? According to Fiona, this guy's name is:
R- TootyToot.
It gets me EVERY TIME.

But back to me! Because really, I can talk about me all day (if by all day you mean for 15 minutes).

I will be flying to Birmingham, AL to stay with Aunt Carmela (one of my favorite people of all time in the whole universe). While there I get to see my cousins Kelsey and Katherine (man, what is it with this family and names that start with K?). I imagine food and wine and sleeping in past sunrise.

And I am going to try very very hard not to think about how "out of control" the kids holiday could possibly be.

At last

It rained today. A beautiful drenching rain that lasted a good 45 minutes and dropped the temperature to a lovely, bearable 80 degrees.

If you live in the United States, you'll know about how hideously, unbearably hot the past week has been. We keep our air conditioning at 78 degrees and it has felt like an ice box.

When we turn the air on you can be assured of 2 things: the outdoor temps are above 90 degrees, and we have turned it on to keep the children's brains from cooking in their skulls. I don't know if it is just my children or if it is ALL children, but the heat makes them grumpy and genuinely unpleasant to be around.

My patience has been wearing thin as we are on week 7 of summer break, and I simply will not put up with the bickering that comes from bored children. I banish them to the back yard or to their rooms. It's either banishment for them or a cocktail for me...

I'm not opposed to cocktails, but I do believe getting soused at noon would hinder my ability to make it to work on time...or even at all, really.

I keep telling myself that absolutely I will hit my second wind of the summer and have the drive to take the kids places (like hiking in the forest preserve! or to the water park!). But my new routine has me staying in my pajamas until I shower for work...at 2 pm. I have lost my will to GET THINGS DONE (beyond the basic necessary housekeeping duties).

Yesterday we went to Toys R Us (to spend gift cards from Christmastime) and then to Trader Joe's. I felt like we had been to the moon and back. Tomorrow is the farmer's market. I LOVE the farmer's market, but we haven't been in weeks due to my new pajama habit.

Maybe the break in the weather will be the motivation for me...that and my FAILED squash.

I was all excited for the teeny tiny baby squash that were appearing in the vine in the garden. When I went to check them this morning, they were yellowed and shrivelled.

Dear Squash,

Due to the unsatisfactory nature of our relationship, I believe it is past high time we gave up the charade. In short, it is not me. It is you.

I quit you.

Thanks,

Kara

i'm a bit, what's the word?

forgetful!
I am forgetful. Or perhaps it's just that I have eschewed my list-making for the summer. Without lists I have discovered the sieve-like qualities of my own brain. Tell me all your secrets now, because I can guarantee them forgotten by next week.

(for those of you who just come for the photos, skip to the end)

So a few posts back I mentioned going for an MRI.
I did go for one, and I felt ridiculous laying on a table with my breasts in a hole. Then I got the results of my MRI: your cyst is benign! We don't know what's causing your symptoms. Here's our bill!

I personally feel like I shouldn't have to pay my bills until I get a proper diagnosis. "Sometimes that just happens" is not a diagnosis. Western medicine can be a little silly at times.

I have been out in the garden every morning, talking to the plants, begging the plants, PLEADING with them to produce food. The bush beans are awesome and happy to oblige. The strawberries are coming around to my charms. The squash remain resolute and will give me only blossoms.

I am counting down the days until my next big adventure. There are nine. The kids will be going to the in-laws for their annual summer holiday and I will be going to Birmingham to visit with my Aunt & cousin, and get Nana's house prepped for the estate sale. Do you know what this means?! Do you?! FIVE WHOLE DAYS of adult company. FIVE WHOLE DAYS without refereeing fights, reminding people to wash hands, and preparing balanced meals. I plan to subsist on beef jerky and red wine. Not really. But I could if I wanted to.

And now I have to get ready for work.

Adrian and Rhianna

Fiona with her birthday cake and princess dress.
That's pretty much what I look like every time I try to dress up.

So far behind...

Hello all!
We have returned from our trip to Washington DC to visit my parents (and brother and friends). One night at dinner Fiona turned to my dad and said: Papa D, you're a funny old goat. (I very nearly shot tabbouleh out of my nose)
As I left my camera sitting at home I do not have a single picture. Half depressing, half oh well.
We saw museums (LOVE LOVE LOVE The National Museum of The American Indian), fireworks, and splashed in the pool.
My mom and I dreamed up a farmy future in the wilds of Maryland with bees and chickens and sheep. (Somewhere in there I'll have time for tattooing, too)
I have brought the laid-back flow of vacation home with me, which is both good and bad.
It has resulted in bypassing trips for groceries for time spent in the garden* and laying around with iced tea for time spent making art.
I suppose I could start anew next week...it is Friday already, after all.

I hope that July is treating you well!

*there is a disturbing lack of insects of all kinds, from bees to lady bugs to butterflies. It makes me want to track down whomever is using pesticides and tell them to KNOCK IT OFF. I have resorted to pollinating my squash plants with a paintbrush.
Suburbia is quickly losing it's charm.