Stuff Portrait Friday - Stepson Suggestions

No, I don't have a stepson. Duh. Kristine does and he's the one that picked this week's SPF assignments.

1. Something in your house that isn't where it should be.
2. Something you broke, but kept it.
3. Food that you have in your house that you never eat (or drink)

First of all, pretty much everything in my house is where it's supposed to be according to me. I must put everything in it's proper place. That's me. The exception is sometimes my husband's shoes, which frequently are left by the door instead of in his closet. Now here is something in an odd place, my dining room table diaper changing station:


I used to have this on top of my first floor clothes dryer at my old house but in this house the laundry is upstairs. I put this all away when guests come, of course. But I can't be carrying a 30 lb. kid up an extra long (due to 9 ft. ceilings) flight of stairs every time he poops. Which is a lot!

Next is the small ceramic mixing bowl, part of a set of three, that I managed to break but still kept. It holds liquid ( I think) depsite a sizable crack. I just like it and don't feel like pitching it just yet.


And finally the food and drinks we keep around but never eat.



I always have cereal in the house but never eat it. I keep thinking I will. Actually that box of Honey Bunches was bought for Mike's teenage cousins who stayed with us well over a year ago and didn't even touch it. The orzo pasta was bought for some fancy meal I saw in a cookbook and never made. The frozen soft pretzels on the right have been in the freezer so long they are petrified. The relish we don't eat but keep for cookouts. The flavored mayo and sweet and sour sauce seemed like good ideas at the time, but both taste disgusting. I pitched them after taking this photo. And the jar in the middle? Pickled leeks. G - R - O - S - S !!! My husband brought these home after he went wild leek picking in the woods with a buddy from Bumble-you-know-what, PA on a business trip. He loves these little onion things all soaked in vinegar and other nasty stuff. One taste will make your whole face pucker and your toes curl.

Also we have this big stash of Bacardi rum that we never ever drink, due to my travels to Puerto Rico for business with said distillery many times in my previous life. After every meeting with the people from Bacardi they would send me away with a two-pack box of rum. I really wanted some 151 but they won't let you take that home on the plane because of its high flashpoint.



Thanks for visiting! Leave a comment and tell me if you played too!

Tantrum Thursday - Day 2 of the Babysitter

This morning when I handed Nathan off to HDL and waved goodbye he started to give me a look like this:



It broke my little heart. I wondered if he had figured out that I wouldn't be back for four whole hours. But I know my angel, and he'll get over it in about five minutes. Hopefully she'll wear him out like she did Tuesday and he'll take an afternoon nap like he did Tuesday but refused to do yesterday, driving me completely insane. The worst is when his father is away on business like last night and he doesn't nap so I get no relief until bedtime. Actually that's a lie, I dropped him in the gym nursery where he played happily and I did some very relaxing Pilates till well past his usual bedtime.

Anyway he's another face during that same tantrum which I don't know what it was about. Maybe my trying to keep him from pulling over the trash can. Or pulling the floor lamp over onto his head. Or eating the dogfood. Something like that.

Way Back Wednesday - Fraternity Style

This week Mama Duck has chosen a fraternity/sorority/drinking theme for WBW and I am happy to play along. Would you believe I couldn't find a single picture of me drinking an alcoholic beverage? Probably because I was taking all the pictures. Anyway my first fraternal experience in college was my co-ed dorm floor, because I chose to live in a special floor exclusively for University Scholars, otherwise known as snobby geeks. There was a whole separate dorm building for these Scholars, but for some reason I ended up on the 5th floor of Beaver Hall (quit laughing). We were the only fully co-ed dorm on campus at that time and we were the renegade Scholars that did lots of cool things together, including party. Here's a picture of the girls at one of our formals. I'm on the far right, second row from the bottom. Sadly, I can't remember half of those girls' names.


Very shortly after starting school at Penn State I figured out that the place to be on Friday and Saturday nights was at the fraternity parties. My roomate and I ended up frequenting one such fraternity so often that we became something like little sisters. I was good friends with a guy that rushed said fraternity his freshman year and eventually became their chancellor. He was an all around BMOC (big man on campus) being a University Scholar like me, eventually becoming IFC president and a Lion Ambassador. Click on the links if you care what that is. Anyway he was hot too. That's him on the lower right in this picture:



In researching this post I Googled him and found some interesting info. More on him in another post. Anyway Tau Epsilon Phi had some awesome parties, including "hotel parties" where each brother served a different drink in his room, and lots of mixed drink parties, a rarity at frat houses. Funny story, there's a picture hanging in the house of the brothers from the 1970's that includes PA Senator Rick Santorum sporting a nice afro. One reason I campaigned for his election to the Senate in 1994 was that he was a TEP brother at PSU. More on him in a future post too.

Here's a picture of some of my TEP friends building our homecoming float. Our theme was Sesame Street and I stayed up all night one night "pomping". Pomping is sticking little squares of tissue paper (pomps) into chicken wire.



So that's my fraternity life at Penn State. I scoffed the sorority girls as snobby alcoholics that lived in dorms. At PSU sororities aren't allowed to have houses due to a city ordinance that defines any house with more than 5 unrelated women living there as a brothel. Well anyway, have a fun Way Back Wednesday!!

New Day Rising

Today was the first day of Nathan going to his new home daycare lady/baby-sitter's house. I hesitate to call her HDL because she really isn't running a daycare, she isn't licensed or anything. She just watches a few kids every morning. The older three, including her son, are in Kindergarten and she puts them on the bus every day at 1. They pretty much entertain themselves. She also is watching one other baby girl Nathan's age temporarily in the mornings. A friend of a friend recommended her. She's super nice and has a big gorgeous house not far away. She's raised four grown boys and has one 5 year old boy. I'm not sure the deal with that. And she's super duper cheap. I just have to bring the food, diapers, drinks, and leave Nathan's pack-n-play for a morning nap. So I figured I'd give her a try at least until Nathan learns to walk and gets into the super nice daycare center he's on the list for. I'm just taking him over to her Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

It was kinda weird this morning, getting up and out before even having breakfast. It was a little sad leaving him, but I knew he'd be fine and I needed to get more uninterrupted work done. Namely phone calls that are hard to do when he's around. My boss has said he is perfectly happy with what I've been doing, but I feel an obligation to put in at least my 20 hours a week no matter how much I accomplish. That's tough to do when the kiddo only sleeps an hour or two a day. It's so fun and yet so hard to watch my little baby grow up and move on to new phases in his little life.

When I picked him up at noon he didn't give me the big smile or start his little fussing he does when I pick him up from the gym nursery. He just reached a little for me and I gladly held him. He looked so tired and didn't say a word. HDL said he was an angel, and she claims he napped from 10-11 but I have my doubts it was really that long, if at all. My guess is he just played quietly for most of that time, because he has been very tired but happy and sweet all afternoon. I got more work done in those four hours than I've done in weeks. It was kinda weird with the house being so quiet and my not having to tiptoe around not flush the toilet while the kid naps. I didn't even have to scold the dog for barking. I didn't jump when the phone rang. I didn't even blog...much. And I felt so free the rest of the afternoon to play with Nathan and just enjoy him, not worrying about work. Now he's napping and I can work AND blog without guilt! To top it all off, it's the most beautiful fall day here, blue sky, 78 degrees and a nice breeze.

Adventures in Yoga

As I have mentioned before, this summer my family joined the local YMCA and ever since I have been on a fitness craze. I started by going to the gym every morning, doing about 15 minutes of weight lifting and then 30 minutes of cardio, mixing it up on the treadmill, the eliptical, the rowing machine, recumbant bike, and arc trainers. That was great and after a couple months I have seen good results, dropping three pants sizes but almost no pounds. My trainer keeps telling me to toss the scale because I'm building muscle and muscle weighs fives times as much as fat, yada, yada. I did get serious about watching what I ate for a couple weeks but I admit I have slacked off a bit and have started to indulge my sugar and french fries addictions again. It's gotta stop, I know. Anyway a few weeks ago a new fall session of exercise classes started at the Y and I got really ambitious and signed up for yoga on Monday mornings, Pilates on Wednesday nights, and an aerobics type class Saturday mornings. Yoga is the most fun, and very challenging. The first week she tried to get us to do the Crow Pose that looks like this:

Most of the ladies in the class managed to get up off their feet for at least a few seconds after several tries...except me. I went home and practiced and practiced and I still can't do it! ARGH!

Pilates class is not too bad. Most exercises are very doable for me, except the ones that work the outer thighs and hip flexors. I get nasty cramps doing those.

The first week of my cardio class was nice, with some good low impact aerobics and intervals with resistance tubes, followed by some ab work. This week, on the other hand, was sheer torture. It was very high impact cardio for over 30 minutes, then mat work and weight lifting. I could barely keep up. A million jumping jacks, running laps, and jumping rope, and squats and lunges galore. At one point I seriously thought I was gonna pass out so I had to take a break. Yesterday I could barely move and still today my thighs are super tight.

Anyway I missed last week's yoga class because I was really sick, and this morning I felt totally inept again. She taught us the Chaturanga Dandasana (Four-Limbed Staff Pose) and tried to get us to hold our bellies in tight and use our pelvic floor muscles. This was nigh impossible for me. Maybe it's from having a baby by C-section, or maybe it's just that I'm psyching myself out. It looks like this.


Looks easy enough, right? WRONG! Well I must practice, practice, practice! And quit eating candy corn and french fries.

P.S. Congrats to ieatcrayonz, who has lost 30 lbs in the past few months!

Overcome by the cuteness

9-23i
Originally uploaded by Pooqueen.

Yesterday I went to a giant kids consignment sale that I saw advertised on a flyer called the Smart Moms Sale. They are super smart, let me tell you. They have a really nice website at http://www.smartmomssale.com, and they rent out a firehall twice a year to hold these gigantic sales. The gets moms to consign clothes and to volunteer a couple hours to work the sale and these moms get to shop before the public on Friday night. Now, I've been shopping for fall and winter for Nathan for the past couple months, plus he got lots of nice clothes for his birthday, so the kid is in no need of clothes. But I couldn't resist! Who can pass up hardly used adorable outfits for only a couple bucks each? And the SHOES! I've been so frustrated that kids shoes are so expensive but I found several nice pair for really cheap. They had everything there, a billion strollers, clothes galore, carseats, cribs, you name it. Nathan's closet is busting at the seams from his fall and winter wardrobe that we haven't even started wearing yet because it's still shorts weather. All his shorts are too small! Just wait till you see all the pictures to come of my little fashion plate. Oh I'd be so much worse if I had a girl!

Stuff Portrait Friday

I have no idea what theme this is. Kristine borrowed some SPF ideas from other SPF players this week, so we have 1. The thing that looked perfect in the store but was awful when you got it home 2. Your phone 3. Your camera. Easy enough.

I don't often have that problem of not liking things I bought. I try things on in the store and if I don't like them later I get rid of them. I found one possible exception. I bought this handbag on our honeymoon in the Bahamas at one of the little straw market stands. I thought it was cute and of course it is handmade by the locals. But I have never ever actually used it. It doesn't seem to go with anything. That sunflower looks a bit garish. But I can't get rid of it.



Now here's a picture of my cell phone, my life line, my connection to my business world and my friends and, well, anybody. It is my main business line. I just recently figured out how to email pictures with it. Hence the sleeping baby picture in the previous post. I never let Nathan touch it but I thought this would be a better picture than just a boring old phone.



In an ideal world this would be a picture of Nathan having a babble conversation with his great-grandparents. In the real world he is just trying to eat the phone.



And finally, my camera. It's an Olympus Camedia C-3020 which was a fantastic camera when we bought it many many years ago. Now I just think it sucks because I want a Nikon D-70 so I can capture Nathan's giggles before he moves.

What happened to the 3 hour naps?

A friend once told me that when her toddler switched from two naps a day to only one nap right after lunch, that nap got longer. She claimed he usually slept 2 to 3 hours. Today I decided to try moving Nathan to an after lunch nap, mostly because I wanted to go shopping with a friend and have lunch at the mall. Most mornings he starts yawning around 9:30 and is really ready for a nap by 10:30. Today I kept him up at the mall till 1:00, and he was sleepy but great. I figured he'd pass out in the car, but I managed to keep him awake until the block before our house. He was out cold when I carried him to his crib but when I put him down he woke up a bit. I left figuring he'd drift back off to dream land. He instead decided it was playtime. He stood up and I could hear him giggling and playing. Then he sat down and cried a little. When I checked on him I saw he had thrown all his stuffed animals out of the crib. It took him over half an hour to fall asleep. I got to work and barely got two phone calls in when he woke up again after just over an hour, hysterical. What happened to a nice LONG nap? He shouldn't have been too hungry, but he was screaming for a bottle. Oh well, that was enough work for today anyhow. Need a taste of Nathan cuteness? Here's another flickr show.

Way Back Wednesday

Last week playing Way Back Wednesday was lots of fun, so I'm going to play again this week even though this topic is a little embaressing. Mama Duck over at The Kept Woman wants us to make up for last week's fashion mistakes by posting pics when we felt especially sexy. Mom and anybody else who actually knows me, you can stop reading now.

I certainly wasn't very sexy in high school, so we have to skip ahead to college. This first very stupid picture was taken by then boyfriend, Mike, at his house before we went to cruise around Arts Fest at Penn State for the day. It was a beautiful sunny summer day in Happy Valley. It's not the dress, but what's not on underneath it. Well that's enough about THAT!



Skip ahead to Mike's and my honeymoon in the Bahamas. You have to be sexy on your honeymoon right? Ok here's me in a little black number right before we went out to dinner. I think I was too old for this dress by this time.



Then there was another exotic vacation with Mike to the Mexican Riviera to a luxurious resort with a private beach which got pretty dark and deserted at night. Ok that's enough about THAT. Thanks for visiting!

Cruisin' for a Bruisin'

Cruisin
Originally uploaded by Pooqueen.

Nathan now thinks it's the most fun to pull up on anything and cruise around a bit. Here he is visiting me while I work at my desk. His favorite place to cruise is of course, his crib. As soon as I lay him down to sleep he pops right up and laughs at me. No afternoon nap yesterday. Early morning this morning.

Overheard on the Baby Monitor

Nathan: "babababababobobabababob"

Mike: "Who's Bob?"

Nathan: "I'm Bob!!"

You Say It's Your Birthday

Yesterday was the big birthday bash for Nathan, who turned one year old. I stressed about it all week and cleaned and cooked and planned and shopped. I invited 50 people and 14 showed up, plus 5 kids. Most of the people didn't actually know each other, so I was nervous about that, but it seemed to work out fine since most of my friends are pretty gregarious like me. We had tons of food and cake and Nathan got loads of presents. We inflated 30 helium balloons which put Nathan in instant bliss. He didn't eat much of his cupcake, but he made a mess of it just the same. Thank goodness for my mom and mother-in-law who helped cook and cleanup. Now I can relax for awhile. Unfortunately I seem to have caught a nasty cold and my nose turned into a faucet right in the middle of the party. It was fun but I don't think I'll be having any more parties for quite some time.

Movie Review Time

Earlier this week I rented three newish DVD's and I have been meaning to tell you all about them. Here goes.

Crash: This movie is incredible, but not for everybody. Don't rent it if you're looking for lighthearted entertainment. Don't rent it if you're looking for an action movie. Rent it if you want to have your heart torn from your body, cry your eyes out, and generally have a lot of emotion evoked. Not good emotion. It's about racism in it's most ugly forms, all kinds about all races. The thing I DON'T like is that it basically gives the message that EVERYONE is racist in some way, but there is probably an underlying reason for it. It both perpetuates stereotypes and works to trash them at the same time. Everyone is not a racist. I refuse to accept that. But I liked the movie A LOT just the same. Makes you think.

Monster-In-Law: Don't ask me why I rented this, I hate Jane Fonda and I don't really love J-Lo either. I love chick flicks, but this isn't even a real chick flick. Hottie McHotster Michael Vartan barely gets a voice in this movie. Parts were pretty funny, but the happy ending wrapped up much to quickly in the end.

Finding Neverland: WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG TO RENT THIS!! Fabulous movie. It didn't look that great to me because it's sort of a biography of an author who I really don't care about. The play, Peter Pan, is not bad but was never my favorite. Well this movie has suddenly made me long to take my kid to see Peter Pan on stage. Johnny Depp is wonderful and Kate Winslet is lovely. The children are absolutely adorable. I bawled my eyes out. That's a sign of a good movie. Rent this one NOW.

Stuff Portrait Friday - Randomness

Once again the week zipped by and I almost forgot it was time for SPF, brought to us as always by Kristine. This week we had to show our kitchen, our handwriting, and something random. My kitchen is brand new since Christmas and seeing these pictures I realize I need to do some stenciling or add some curtains or something to give it more color. Booooring.


Anyway, here's a sample of my normal handwriting from my family activities calender. Pretty messy.



I thought long and hard about what random thing to show you today. I don't like too much freedom, I like assignments! Anyway, this is a picture I took of some adorable penguins in the wild in South Africa. There were thousands of them in a colony on the beach, south of Capetown. Penguins are my favorite animal and this was so exciting to me. Aren't they so cute? South Africa was the best trip of my life.

Shout-out to the Natester!

Nathan Charles is ONE YEAR OLD today! Happy Birthday baby! I started to write one of those long sappy letters to him on the event of his turning one, but it got too long and I got all teary and I hadn't even gotten past the first week of life and it was two pages long. Maybe I'll try again later.

I can't believe it's been a year, but then I certainly can because I don't remember life before him. Well, yes I do, I long for it sometimes, but what I mean is, he just fits in our little family like he always belonged there. I got the feeling the other day that our little family isn't quite complete yet, like someone's missing, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna go get pregnant or anything. I've got enough on my hands right now.

The little Muncher (short for Munchkin) decided this week to start crawling on his knees and to pull up on everything. He is so proud of himself that he gets this great big grin on his face that is just a joy to see. He is still threatening to drop his second nap of the day but with much cojoling, removing of the Ocean Wonders Aquarium, and turning on of the washing machine outside his room today he is now resting peacefully.

The big party on Saturday is turning out to be a little party with big food and decorations. I can't believe how many people aren't coming! I invited over 50 and I'm only gonna have 15 if I'm lucky. And half of those are immediate family so they HAVE to come. It makes me feel like a loser with no friends. Well at least the people who DO come will have TONS to eat! I'll be sure to share pictures. Nathan a year ago and today.

But I Don't Want To Nap!

9-9b
Originally uploaded by Pooqueen.

Notice the big drool spot all over his shirt. He must be cutting some teeth but I'm not sure where because he won't let me stick my finger in his mouth to check. He had a couple of very cranky days last week but he seems to be pretty happy now. Except when it comes time for his afternoon nap. Usually he naps like clockwork, for just over an hour at 10:30 in the morning and then again for an hour at 3:30. The past two days he has refused to go to sleep for his second nap. He cries and cries until I give up and get him out to play. He doesn't seem too much worse for the wear in the evenings but it makes it pretty hard for me to get any work done. UGH! I thought babies weren't supposed to go to one nap till they are 15 or 18 months!

Way Back Wednesday - Bad Fashion

I haven't been blogging too much lately because I have gotten a little bored with it and didn't have that much to write about. Well, stuff that wasn't too personal that I could write about. Anyway to try to get back into it, I am playing WBW this week, brought to us by The Kept Woman. This week our assignment was to show some of our past really bad fashion choices. I had to dig deep for this one, because I stay pretty up on things and I don't think my choices are ever really bad. The first one I found was classic ugly 80's, but keep in mind I'm like, 13 in this picture. My mom probably bought the dress for me, but I'm sure I had a hand in picking it. Maybe not, maybe it was all her idea. Anyway, I was the same height I am now, 5'6", and I had a rockin' figure back then.

In my private high school we had to wear dresses to chapel every Friday and I was in love with all things Laura Ashley. These next two dresses are both Laura Ashley, but man are they ugly. And these pics are both from college. I can't believe I bought these.

And this last one is from college as well. I don't know what I was thinking. Thankfully this was my freshman year, before I met Mike. That's all folks!

Little People Torture Device

Busy Ball Bopper
Originally uploaded by Pooqueen.

Nathan's newest toy, the Busy Ball Bopper, is the source of many minutes of self-amusement. Nathan has mastered turning it on himself, crawling around to gather up the balls that fly everywhere, and putting them back in the bopper. The only problem is that he will put anything that fits in the hole in the bopper. That includes Fisher Price school bus little people. The fit quite nicely, but unfortunately they don't come flying out like the balls to.

SPF - We Are Penn State!

The week zipped by so fast I almost forgot about Stuff Portrait Friday. Today we have scenes from our favorite sports team. 1. Sports paraphenalia 2. Your fav player 3. You at a tailgate/sports party (or your kid in a jersey)

Mike and I both graduated from The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) so we are both rabid Nittany Lion football fans. In the years we were in college, the team was awesome, even going undefeated and sharing the national championship in 1994. Lots of people from that team went to the NFL, including Kerry Collins, Kijana Carter, my fav Kyle Brady, and many others. In 1995 I got to know Bobby Engram (currently a Seattle Seahawk) when he taught my ballroom dance class. The man has a very strong lead when you are in his arms, let me tell you! Then I had a public speaking class project with Curtis Enis (currently with the Cleveland Browns) and got to know him pretty well. For being such a stellar athlete he sure was lazy. Anywho, it's much harder to keep track of the players now that I'm out of school, but my favorite recent Nittany Lion is Adam Teliaferro, a freshman phenom in 2000 who had a major spinal cord injury on the field against Ohio State and was thought would never walk again. I remember the silence in the stadium as we all watched him, unable to move. I remember seeing coach Joe Paterno cry at his press conference that week. But Adam had a positive spirit and drive that would humble anyone. He left the hospital after three months and would walk on his own soon after. Though he never played football again, he went on to graduate and go to law school. His smile has uplifted Happy Valley many times. He set up a foundation to help with spinal cord injuries. He's a wonderful role model. Here he is leaving the hospital, and then leading the team onto the field the next year:

Ok, now for my Penn State paraphenalia. I know this isn't all of it, but it's all I could think of. My favorite is the painting of Old Main on campus, done by my favorite artist, Rick Bollinger. Rick is a famous local artist who's family we got to know because his kids went to my Christian school and his daughter my age went to Penn State as well.

I didn't have any pictures of myself at a tailgate or party because I'm always the one taking the pictures. But here is one from a Penn State tailgate.

The Ties that Bind Us

It's so nice that parenthood can so quickly become a unifier of people with wide ranging beliefs, political ideas, religions, and cultures. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but in the process of getting sued last year I made a really good friend in one of my lawyers, Rachel. She is almost the complete antithesis of me; she's about 15 years older than I, she's a lawyer, she's Jewish, she's a divorced single mom, and she's super liberal. She hates Bush with a passion. She talks a mile a minute and she's hilarious. But she and I bonded instantly over Nathan's birth. I was due any day when I got served and had to quickly hire her firm, and she made sure I was as comfortable as I could be with our schedules for meetings and depositions, etc. I brought Nathan along to her office and she fell in love with him. We talked about breastfeeding and sleeping and poopy diapers in between discussions about how much my former company sucks and why they were making my life hell. We talked about how she took six years off from her career to raise her daughter, and now she works part-time, from 10-2 every day. I was amazed that she was able to do that in such a big successful law firm. I realized that she stayed up many late nights going through all the paperwork for our suit. She showed me that she shared similar values with me, that her daughter came first in her life.

Why is this surprising to me? Because in my experience when people on opposite sides of the political fence try to talk about their ideas, the conversation breaks down rather quickly. My husband keeps a blog devoted to politics, and he tries to comment on blogs kept by conservatives like him and liberals as well. He claims that he can't have an intelligent argument with liberals, because they always resort back to "Bush lied, kids died."

My sister, a political lobbyist for an ultra-conservative family values non-profit, showed me one of the hate mails she received that somewhat confirms my husband's point. Names have been removed to protect those involved. See below:

V:
Your recent quote in the Washington Post has me confused.

"Despite the rhetoric from some, embryonic stem cell research has brought no cures or treatments for anyone," said V, executive director of the F, a socially conservative group. "Taxpayers should not be forced to fund something that is not only ethically questionable, but has also failed to live up to the much-hyped promise."
Sounds to me like Bush IIs Triumvirate of Treason (Cheney, Rice & Rumsfield) talking about Iraq before the figment of WMD.

He's comparing embryonic stem cell research to the war in Iraq. What does one have to do with the other? Eh...anyway she gets tons of hate mail everyday. It's because she's in the press every day standing up for her causes. She opens herself up to it. I could never do her job. So it will be fun when my lawyer friend Rachel gets to meet my sister at Nate's birthday party next week. Hopefully my sister will see in Rachel exactly what I do.

Please Make the Ugliness Stop!

I am so sick and tired of all the political mudslinging going on since the Katrina disaster. It was bad enough before that, but the slow relief response has made it a thousand times worse. I am usually a bit of a political junkie, following the news closely and listening to the various pundits and talking heads. But right now I can't stand it. I just read an op-ed from the typically bitter Maureen Dowd that a friend emailed me and it has pushed me over the edge. I wish people would just shut up and get to work helping out. Stop playing the blame-game and rushing to form your little congressional investigations and get your ass to ground zero. Put your money where you mouth is. You'd better believe I will. I'd like to see more political leaders in waders looking for victims or in jeans handing out food.

New Orleans was a great town that I have visited many times in recent years. It was the home of the best food anywhere, hands down. You can't find a bad meal there. But it was pretty screwed up. The atmosphere of indulgence and depravity permeated the town. I admit that I enjoyed that a little too much. And it didn't take much to learn about the horrible corruption of the local government and the extreme poverty and lack of education. I'm sure it will never be the same, but I have some hope that it may be a better place than it was.

Labor Day Weekend at the Riverlot

I may have mentioned before that my inlaws live in upstate Pa and they have a little camping spot they own along the Susquehanna River where they spend every weekend all summer long. We drove up Friday and spent the whole long weekend there, going back to their house at night to sleep because there just isn't quite enough room for four adults and the baby in the camper. Well, there's room but we all sleep better at the house. The camper is great for baby naps though. They have a pavilion with picnic tables and refridgerators and the bathroom is in a shed. There are docks for swimming and boating and fishing, and ample space for all four campers and cars and room to run. It's mostly just relaxing playing cards and eating and just sitting around talking to extended family. Nathan had a blast crawling around in the dirt and being entertained by everyone.

Here's a slideshow of the best pictures out of the million that I took. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pooqueen/sets/893031/show/

Stuff Portrait Friday

Today SPF is being brought to us by Renee, instead of Kristine who is off partying with her blog friends. Renee asked us to show our favorite alcoholic beverage, our dishes, and our the junk in our trunks. (No, not our butts, our actual trunks.) Picking a fav drink is hard for me, because there are so many great ones. I love me a good Cosmopolitan when I'm out with the girls. But mostly I love great wine. I had a friend who I used to travel on business with who introduced me to truly great wine, of the $250 a bottle variety. He was on an expense account. I dined with him whenever possible. Touring winerys in Sonoma was fun, but touring them in South Africa was one of the most fun days of my life. Then wine was so good and so cheap there than my traveling companion and I would often polish off two or three bottles over the course of the day. Here's our current supply, all from local winery, Calvaresi.

My trunk is really boring, with nothing but my CD disc changer and both of my strollers. Often there are bags and bags from my shopping trips, but I bring those in pretty quick to try on all my new clothes.

I have lots and lots of dishes. I have everyday dishes, I have the china I registered for at my wedding, I have a set of china from Mike's great-grandmother, and I have Christmas dishes. My every day dishes are April by Pfaltzgraff. My kitchen is everything April.

My fine china that I registered for is Royal Doulton, my crystal is Lenox, and my sterling silver is from Towle. I don't use this stuff that much because it has to be washed by hand. I use the wine glasses a lot though!

Tantrum Thursday

The past couple of days the child has been giving me major fits every once in awhile. This was taken yesterday when I wouldn't let him play with the camera lens cap. I relented and let him play with it for a few minutes. This morning he had a complete breakdown at breakfast and refused to eat anything at all. I thought about not taking him to the gym, but I was so frustrated it seemed like a better idea than me dealing with him all morning. When I picked him up he was crying a little and the girl said he was mostly fine but he scarfed down ALL the snacks I packed...every last veggie puff and wagon wheel. I wasn't surprised.