This morning I stumbled on Marlen James Photography – boudoir diary. I want this woman’s job. She takes photographs of naked (or near naked) people. Seriously. That is her job and dammit I want it. Her most recent post is a tutorial of sorts – how to take a decent “boudoir pic” (<— Yes, that means NAKED or at least in some fine underthings) of yourself without Photoshopping. If it doesn’t come out well, she’s offering her services to Photoshop the pic yourself (if you’re brave enough to send it to her!) for $10 each, which could be the cheapest gift that you give to your lovah this year, and the most appreciated. If you’re in Canada, you might be able to get this chick to do the shoot for free.
Since this is a lot cheaper than a surround sound system, you can bet what I’ve got planned for my husband this year. For every gift-giving occasion. Father’s Day? Naked pictures of your wife. Easter? Naked pictures of your wife. 4th of July? Naked pictures of your wife. Winter Solstice? Naked pictures of your wife.
You get the idea.
Anyway, head on over and read her quick & easy tutorial. It’s simple, but she offers a few tips and, most importantly, shares some damn sexy photos of herself. So you’ve got two poses to emulate, too! Unfortunately what she doesn’t explain is how to set the timer and get yourself over to the bed to pose while practicing self-bondage… anyone got a tutorial for that?
I won’t Photoshop your pictures, but feel free to send them to me, too. Or better yet? Submit that shit anonymously or otherwise to Boob Emancipation. OMG. Please. Yes. Now. Why is your shirt still on?!
This week it is my turn to post on GTT. This topic is easy – just bitch it out! Come on over and join my bitchfest in the comments or link up your own post.
You will be four years old in June, and you say the funniest things. Your vocabulary is growing in leaps and bounds (hell, you know what leaps & bounds means!) and you surprise me, all the time. It’s little things. Today while we were going potty you put your hand on my knee while getting your Pull-Up on. You said to me, “I’m holding your knee to keep me steady!”
For some reason, that sentence crushed me. You’re not a baby anymore. You use words like steady in context, instead of just saying “so I don’t fall down.”
You are currently obsessed with dresses. Not all dresses. In fact, half the time the “dress”you want to wear is a tunic with leggings. Your favorite, though, is this shirt and pant combo that Nana gave you. It’s light purple with little white flowers all over it. The shirt has a ruffle on the bottom and it’s a little bit long. You call it your purple dress. You would wear this every day if you could. You completely freak out when we tell you it is dirty and needs to be washed.
Last night you were extra cranky. You missed your nap, and I didn’t catch your tired signals in time. Nothing made you happy! You wanted more tv, but I shut it off AND made you put on pajamas. OH THE INJUSTICE OF IT ALL. You pouted and balled up your little fists and said “Mommy, you made me mad because you turned the tv off. You made me mad because you put these ‘jamas on me. I’m grumpy.”
I told you that I was proud of you for using your words instead of having a temper tantrum, and then I played peekaboo and tickled you into a good mood again.
You are so independent, my beautiful girl. I long to hold you and cuddle you all the time but you just want to run and play. I cherish our moments. I love you.
If you happen to be planning a trip to NYC in August for the 10th Annual BlogHer conference, then you might be interested in this post. If you aren’t, then skip right over this and go read some of the people on my newly minted blogroll.
If you are interested, I would tell you that this year I have submitted a suggestion for a BlogHer Room of Your Own on the Geek Lab track. It’s called Intro to Geeking, and you can read all about at the BlogHer site, and also vote for it (click the “I would attend this session” link, and it’ll change to say “I won’t attend this session”, which is confusing, but since I’m such a good little geek you’ll be just fine because I explained it to you, which is exactly how the whole Room of Your Own session will work. So I’ve helped you and proved my point.)
Basically, the session aims to answer these questions: What the hell IS all this? Do I need it? Do I want it? What do I do with it once I have it?! But, you know, technology related. I’m not about to have “The Talk” with all of you. This isn’t a comedy session.
You can also check out the other sessions and vote for those, too! There is a great session I’ve got my eye on, from the likes of Boob Emancipation and Naked Jen – How Naked is Too Naked? Check it out and vote if you likey.
First of all, let me say that I love you. You’re sweet & kind & open-hearted, and you deserve so much happiness. You have a beautiful family, Crapshack or no, and I know that Bunny is the light of you & your husband’s lives.
Your blog is one of the first that I began reading. We commented back & forth, twittered together from time to time, and I began to think of you as a friend. When I read that you were trying to adopt a son, a brother to Bunny, from Ethiopia, my heart was so full of hope for you. But the process was stalling, and understandably you were nervous and anxious.
I met you at BlogHer. We wandered Chicago together, we chatted, we got a pedicure together! We ran in the rain, and we visited a tattoo parlor. We both thought about getting tattoos but chickened out. I had a lot of fun with you, hon. You were a highlight for me that weekend. Sitting at dinner with you and Issa (our virtual host today) at that Italian restaurant a couple of days later was wonderful. I learned a lot about you, and I liked it all. You are a wonderful mother. You’ve already written Lion a letter. You sit and play dinos with Bunny for hours. You love her artwork. You encourage her creativity and yes, you may stumble, but we all do. You’re human, and you’re approachable, and warm.
Now you’ll be a mother a second time over. You’ll have a son, which I hear means you’ll be a different kind of mother as well. In fact, you’re already a mother a second time over. You already have a son. Your son. Lion. I’ve only got girls, so I can’t give you any advice on boys. But I can give you a little hint about life with two kids.
It’s busy. You’ll be exhausted. At some point, it’ll seem like there is never a time when someone isn’t screaming, crying or whining. But it’s OK, because you will have wonderful moments when they play together & love each other, or they both tackle you with giggles and smiles and hugs and kisses. It will make up for all the difficulty, I promise. I think you already know that.
You’ll be frazzled, but just whip out your iPhone and tweet us! We’re here for you. I personally would be honored to share the experience with you.
I’m too far away to throw you a party. I can’t make you a mimosa or pour you a beer and raise a glass to you in celebration. What I can do is take a little time to write for you. Take a little part of my space and dedicate it to you, and to your happiness.
So here’s to you, and your husband, and Bunny, and Lion. Especially Lion. That beautiful little boy has a wonderful mother, and I know I’ll be praying that you will see him & take him home in just a few short weeks. March, maybe. That would be perfect – in like a lion, out like a lamb.
Oh, and the most important advice I can give you: stop now. Now, you have one parent for each kid. At three, you run out of hands and you become outnumbered. (haha)
I’m honestly not impressed with Valentine’s Day. I’ve told DaddyGeek not to get me anything this year, and I mean it. We show our love in a lot of other ways – we don’t need a random day in February to prove it. And even if we did? You can’t prove love with a box of chocolates, or a sentimental card written by someone at Hallmark on salary, or a stuffed teddy bear. You can’t even prove love with a grand gesture. I’ve seen grand gestures in my life. They mean nothing without all the tiny, daily gestures.
Anyone can plan a romantic weekend or a skywritten marriage proposal or a bed of roses. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could buy that shit at Amazon!
True love is not rolling your eyes when I ask you to get me a soda “If you’re getting up anytime soon!”, and true love is knowing that I really mean Please get me a soda now! True love is being willing to go sleep on the couch because your snoring is keeping me awake and between you and the baby, I’m not sleeping at all. True love is letting me take a nap on Saturday morning while you watch the kids, even as they scream and yell and cry and run. True love is putting up with my family. True love is taking my mood swings in stride. True love is supporting me and all my crazy endeavors, including starting a small business when I’m already working part time and our schedules are already packed. True love is making me tea in the morning, and picking out samples that you know I’ll love, just for me. True love is sharing your ice cream with me.
True love is sharing your life with me.
True love is raising our children with me.
I know my husband loves me. It’s in every move that he makes. Every gesture of every day, the little things and the big things. I don’t need a holiday to tell me that, or remind me of it.
Moon so bright, night so fine
Keep your heart here with mine
Life’s a dream we are dreaming
Race the moon, catch the wind
Ride the night to the end
Seize the day, stand up for the light
I want to spend my lifetime loving you
If that is all in life I ever do
Heroes rise, heroes fall
Rise again, win it all
In your heart, can’t you feel the glory?
Through our joy, through our pain
We can move worlds again
Take my hand, dance with me
I want to spend my lifetime loving you
If that is all in life I ever do
I will want nothing else to see me through
If I could spend my lifetime loving you
Though we know we will never come again
When there is love, life begins
Over and over again
Save the night, save the day
Save your love, come what may
Love is worth everything we pay
I want to spend my lifetime loving you
If that is all in life I ever do
I want to spend my lifetime loving you
If that is all in life I ever do
I will want nothing else to see me through
If I can spend my life time loving you
Today’s Girl Talk Thursday post is about being chicken. I wasn’t going to post at first.. but then I realized it’s a topic I should probably talk about. For myself.
I’m terrified of a lot of things, but most of all failure. I’m too scared to fail, and as a result, I’m often too scared to try. I’m too scared to try making something of my singing talent. I have said how many times I would post a singing vlog here? You haven’t seen one other than Renee’s birthday song. There’s a reason for that. It’s not really that I’m too busy, or can’t find time alone… I could, if I really wanted to. I could say to DaddyGeek “Hey, I need a few minutes alone. I’m headed to the bedroom. Watch the kids!” but I don’t.
I know I shouldn’t be. Failure isn’t such a bad thing, and I don’t want my kids to grow up feeling that failure is something that never, or never should, happen. I know I’ve had success – I was afraid to try web design, but now I have a veritable small business.
I daydream about trying out for American Idol. I know, I know, you’ve probably heard me scoff at the idea. But secretly I wonder if I could make it. But instead of hiring a vocal coach, making time for my voice, and planning to go next year to auditions, I haven’t done it.
There are choirs I could audition to join. I don’t. I make the excuse that I don’t have time, energy, etc. I say that my interests have changed, that I don’t want to focus my life around music anymore, that technology is my thing now. Technology IS my thing. But music.. music is in my soul.
I feel like I failed at being a music student. I never knew the things the other students knew.. I couldn’t tell you whether a classical piece was Bach or Beethoven by listening to it. I had trouble transposing 4 bars of music at a time. Hell, I had trouble transposing one. I couldn’t play piano very well. I never got any solos. I was failing music theory, despite my fierce love for composition, before I dropped out completely.
I sing like a maniac in the car if I’m alone. After 5 years of marraige, I’ve just gotten to the point when sometimes I can sing in front of him in the car. Sometimes.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know where this post is going. I don’t have an epiphany for you. I can’t promise to get a vlog of my singing up here anytime soon. I doubt I’ll be gunning to be the next YouTube singing wonder.
I believe that getting your bitch on is part of the human condition. That’s why I just couldn’t pass up this Girl Talk Thursday topic – Pet Peeves.
Here’s a short (ahem) list of mine:
Breathing Very Loudly: If you didn’t just participate in a foot race, I should not be able to hear you breathing from across the room. Stop it. Stop it now. I would rather see you passed out from lack of oxygen than hear you breathe like that even one. more. time.
Related: Breathing Very Loudly WHILE Eating: This is even worse than just Breathing Very Loudly. Unless you just hunted and killed your meal after nearly starving to death (without stopping to cook it, because that would have given you a chance to catch your damn breath), you need to stop. So unless you are Breathing Very Loudly While Eating With Blood Dripping Down Your Chin, it’s unacceptable.
Almost Putting Things Away: If you got up off your fat, lazy ass long enough to pick up your glass and walk it over to the kitchen, don’t you dare put that next to the sink on the counter. You either put it in the dishwasher, or IN the sink. If the sink is so full of dirty dishes that you cannot fit it into the sink, then guess what? IT’S TIME TO DO SOME FUCKING DISHES ASSWIPE.
Related: Almost Putting Away: groceries, toys, toiletries, laundry, papers to be filed, etc etc. {yes, I am totally guilty of most of this. And it pisses me off when I do it, I don’t need you doing it too, ok buddy?}
Yawning Without Covering Your Mouth: This is not your annual physical. I am not your doctor, nor your dentist, nor your prey. Cover your damn mouth when you yawn, I can see all the way to your tonsils and it’s just indecent!
Arguing About “Over” or “Under” re: Toilet Paper: Who the FUCK cares? Seriously? Is your life SO MUNDANE?! {not YOU, of course. I can understand why YOU care.}
Nicknames When You Don’t Know Me: Don’t nickname me. You don’t know me. And if you continue to call me whatever stupid nickname you’ve chose, you never will. Possibly because you’ll spend the rest of your days in a coma.
Wiggling Your Toes Within My Line of Vision While I Watch TV: Yes I know this one is a little insane. But if you are sitting on the couch next to me, and your legs are crossed such that your foot is next to me, please do not wiggle your toes. It’s all I can see and it’s driving me fucking batty.
Breathing On Me: When you breathe on me it makes my soul shrivel up into a tiny, wrinkly, crushed version of it’s former self, and that allows me to do horrible things to you. Don’t breathe on me.
Related: Breathing On Me While I Am Trying To Sleep: I cannot sleep if you are facing me and if I can feel your breath on my face. It will keep me awake. Please turn the other way, I like to lay facing this side.
Exemptions: Breathing On Me While I Am Trying To Sleep If I Gave Birth To You: You are adorable. Breathe where ever you want. But stop kicking me, you little fucker, or I’ll shove you off the bed.
Not Calling When You Said You Would: I understand, life gets in the way. But if I expect you to call and then you don’t, my mind goes bad places and I start to panic and consider calling hospitals and patrolling the dark alleys to find your rotting corpse. So call me when you say you will, OKAY?! ::crazy eyes::
Catty Behavior: Everyone hates high school for a reason. It sucked, everyone acted immature and petty, and you weren’t as cool as you wanted to be. Yes, I understand that the blogosphere brings up all those emotions that you repressed after you got to college because you wanted to be more adult. I don’t care. Repress them again, go to therapy, whatever. Just stop sniping at each other, ok? We’re all human, we all fuck up, we all have our own issues. We get attitudes, we make rude comments… Do Unto Others, y’all. Just be nice.
Touching My Eyebrows: Don’t touch my eyebrows. It’s a thing with me. And don’t touch YOUR eyebrows while I’m looking. That’s a thing with me, too.
——–
Runners up:judging my list of pet peeves, reading over my shoulder, not saying please and thank you, leaving your shopping cart in the middle of the grocery store which makes me wonder whether I can take it or whether you’ve left it there for a reason, leaving your shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot so I hit it when it’s dark and scratch my car, leaving your shopping cart in the parking lot in an open space which means that a) I can’t park there or b) I can’t pull through YOU WHORE, obvious twitter ads filling up my twitter stream all the time don’t you ever tweet ANYTHING else?, following me on twitter and then not accepting my follow back request because you are protected, MySpace just as a general rule, people who want to purchase something from me on Craigslist as a general rule, overuse of hashtags, using IM/Twitter speak in a real conversation (i.e. SAYING “lol”)
This post is exactly what you think it is. Brace yourselves.
Hubby is away until Thursday night. He’s in Florida until then. In fact ,as we speak, he is attending his Uncle Frank’s funeral. Not what we expected to be doing this week… apparently he had high blood pressure. No one knew, he hadn’t been treated for it. Please, folks – go for a yearly checkup with your doctor. Meanwhile, I’m single parenting it until he gets back.. but not really. Uncle J (who is not really an uncle, but DaddyGeek’s best friend from childhood, who moved here last year and who is also Geeklet’s Godfather) has been a huge help. I mean, above and beyond. Seriously. He shoveled a space for my car at the apartment complex. Just for us. He helps with the kids, he helps get Geeklet to sleep and puts up with the incessant questioning and requests by Cupcake. He cleaned my kitchen. He cleared the snow off of our second car, which we aren’t even using this week, just so we didn’t have to do it later. He takes the trash out. He’s been awesome. Last night my mother did a whole judgy-thing about why he was there helping… apparently I’m not allowed to have help? I don’t know. Whatever – he’s been awesome, she can keep her opinion to herself. Things could have been far less awesome this week. For example, I could have had to deal with my massive head cold, the girls’ massive head colds, plus Cupcake’s puking on Sunday night 4 hours after DaddyGeek’s plane took off all by myself. But I didn’t. Mother can judge away, but the kids are doing better for J being around.
Work. Work work work. There is a lot of it and I am barely keeping my eyes open after the kids go to sleep, so projects have been moving more slowly than I’d like. Thankfully I punched out a lot of work last night and today, so I’m nearly back on track. I don’t see it letting up this month at all. Oh, PS — did you know January is ALMOST OVER?!
I got a new planner. It’s a GTD planner, and I love it, and it’s helping me be organized, and I love love love it. Seriously. Love. It. I’m usually a digital gal but I truly enjoy literally penciling something in. Or, penning it in. I hate pencils. It’s a texture thing.
I am behind on blog reading, and I feel sorely out of the loop. It’s making me cranky. I have over 350 unread posts that I can’t get to. Also, my fishes, farm, deserted island, restaurant, cafe, zoo and pet on Facebook are feeling neglected. (lol)
Taxes soon. I do taxes for my whole family (incl. brother, mother, sister, us) and I am not looking forward to all. those. fucking. numbers. I hate numbers. Speaking of taxes, next years taxes are going to be all sorts of borked. Also I have to start setting aside money for estimated tax payments. Not fun, y’all!
I have about 4 posts planned in my head about songs that are meaningful to me, but I never get around to writing them.. I really should, because they are cluttering things up. Do you care about songs?
I’m pissed at Mother Nature for starting 2010 off with the Haiti Earthquake. I’m pissed there isn’t more I can do.
I finally decided I really do need to stop eating such disgusting food and do something about my weight, and my health, and my general fitness. I ate four donuts yesterday morning. FOUR. And another today, even though it was stale. Not good. So for lunch I had a Lean Pocket. It was hardly satisfying.. though could have been worse. I wanted to eat two. I ate one. Now if I can just keep that up, I can lose the baby weight, which is no longer baby weight, and is actually pastry weight, but saying pastry weight doesn’t sound as legit so baby weight it is.
Speaking of babies, I don’t have any anymore. I have two toddlers. Geeklet is 14mos now and is walking and running and climbing and doing things she shouldn’t do, and saying things like “ceiling” and “nana” and “daddy” and “yes” and she thinks it is funny, oh so funny, when you shake your head yes or no at her. She also loves: spinning, trying to eat lightbulbs, the TV clicker, anything that is electronic that she isn’t allowed to have, mashing the keyboard. Cupcake is 3.5 and is amazing. She’s getting ready to be rid of her bedtime bottle (no judging you whore) and we are so close to really getting somewhere with this potty training (again with the lack of judging!) and bedtimes have been better on a whole. She is saying adorable things, and her favorite joke right now is to substitute the word “underwear” anywhere in a sentence unexpectedly to make you laugh. She also loves jumping around, playing tag with herself, saying grown-up things like “You can say that again!” and “Oh brother!” and she knows how to work the DVD player. She also DM’d @chibijeebs for me the other day, which was oh so sweet of her. (lol)
Since I can’t get over to your blogs/twitter/whatever why don’t you tell me in the comments what’s up with you?
So, we’re mostly all bloggers here. Not all of you blog, I’m sure, but a good deal of you do, in fact, bloggity blog blog your little heart away. And that means you’ve probably played that game where you look at your Feedburner stats, and your various page rankings, and your visitor tally from your stats, and the number of average comments on each post, and grabbed a calculator and a calendar and your old grammar school math textbooks in a desperate attempt to figure out JUST HOW MANY PEOPLE are reading. Because it matters, even if it’s only a little. We want to know. We’re putting ourselves out here, we want to know!
So.
I’m totally joining in on Rude Cactus’ Delurking Day 2010 today and asking – if you read here, regularly or sporadically, just say Hi in the comments. If you want to say more, cool. If you are a person of few words, that’s fine too. And if you have a blog that is public? PuhLEASE tell me about it, mkay?
I'm MommyGeek - married to DaddyGeek, with two soon-to-be-geek daughters, Cupcake (3.5 years old) and Geeklet (15 months). This blog chronicles the life and times of our GeekFam, in addition to serving as an outlet for our other geeky and techie loves. It's all part of the iGeneration profile. Oh, sorry - is our Geek showing?
This post is exactly what you think it is. Brace yourselves.
If you want to say more, cool. If you are a person of few words, that’s fine too. And if you have a blog that is public? PuhLEASE tell me about it, mkay?
