toeNja Fine Art Photography Sale!

My store is having a sale now until December 7. Photographs are already marked down, plus you'll get free shipping if you're in the US. Photography makes a great gift idea for nearly anyone in your life. Give one to your mom, your grandma, your aunt, or for your kids to hang at college.

http://toeNja.etsy.com

Futurama: Bender's Game review

Bender's Game is my favorite of the new series of Futurama movies that are direct to video. I laughed out loud many times while watching it. The parts where Leela (Katy Sagel) was shocked by her electric collar were hilarious. I liked the alternate universe half of the movie where everything was based on Dungeons and Dragons with a healthy dose of Lord of the Rings for that classic Matt Groening combination.

If you like Futurama, I think you should buy this DVD. It's one that I'm going to watch more than once.

Hi there, Everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving to my friends and family!

No Wonder I feel So Sad

I suddenly realized how long it's been since we lost our twins to early miscarriage. It really has been months. They should have been due in early January. We still have to bury the placenta under a rosebush next Spring.

I don't know if I'll ever look forward to being pregnant again. Sometimes DH and I entertain the idea of trying again in the next few years. But usually I just say I'm happy with the two we have. The worst part of the whole ordeal was finding out we'd lost the babies at the same ultrasound that we found out there were two sacs, and that they'd passed weeks earlier. The fact that I was so overjoyously happy with being pregnant again while unknowingly carrying my dead babies inside me for a month is just horrible. Horrible! Horrible! Horrible! They should have been around 10-11 weeks at the u/s and instead were only 6 weeks.

Oh and plus, I went to the gyno's about 2 weeks ago to get on the Nuvaring and the nurse there asked me how old my newborn was. I told her I didn't have one, and that my youngest child is two years. She was genuinely confused so I had to explain that we'd lost the pregancy. Gahhhh! Shouldn't they write that down in the freaking chart! I didn't want to have to say that outloud.

Sigh.

Milelong To-Do List

I have quite a bit I would like to get done today. Good thing it's not even 11 AM yet, and that I've nearly had my fill of being online. I need to mail a photo that Beadwire8 won in my contest. Go check out her shop, she has some really pretty jewelry. I also need to take my husband's leather coat to the seamstress to have the zipper fixed, need to finish writing up several play synopses, study for two very large exams--a cumulative chemistry and a sociology. I would like to finish up quite a bit of holiday shopping on Etsy.

What else? What else? You know there's gotta be something else. There always is. Well, as usual the house can stand to be cleaned. I should probably take a shower. Oh, and I was hoping I'd be able to swing by the college and take a photograph of the trees there. I'm not going to go into detail, but trust me when I say that if I can actually get a good photo (which will involve the tree, the sky, and a bird all cooperating) then I will put it in my store.

Soren

Hey, click this link to check out this portrait of a little toddler drawn by my super talented bestest friend, Rachel. Isn't the attention to detail incredible? She even drew the natural drape of the clothes on his body. She has more work in her gallery so check it out, too.

Firefly

You know how some people watch tv like they're detectives cracking a case? "A-ha!", they say, "that scene was completely wrong! That would never work in real life!" I'm generally not like that. I watch tv to be entertained, not to have to sit and think. I usually just accept everything at face value, sort of like how you accept green talking aliens in sci-fi novels at face value.

We were watching the "Trash" episode of Firefly last night. Now, I'll describe the scene and see if you can pick up on the glaring continuity goof.

Mal walked up to his old army buddy, Monty. He wants Mal to meet his wife, Bridget. He hollers for her, she walks up to them. The very second Mal and Bridget face, they pull a gun on each other. Monty says, "So, you guys have met?" Then the scene cuts to the opening credits. When it comes back a fight breaks out between Mal and Bridget. It ends by Monty, who is a pretty big guy, holding them each out at arms length so they can't get to each other. Monty asks what is going on, and Mal explains that Bridget had married him a half year earlier in a ruse to steal his ship. Bridget says, "You're a liar, Malcom Reynolds." Monty gives her a strange look and says, "Now I ain't never got t'tellin' ya his name." At that point, Bridget knows she's been caught in a lie.

Okay now, hold on, back up! Did you notice the part where Mal and Bridget obviously know each other pretty darned good? The part where they pulled guns on each other and Monty said "So, you guys have met?" Right, that part. It's already been established that they'd met before. Most people, not even criminals from the future like on Firefly, do not pull guns on their old friend's spouses without a reason. So it also makes sense that they would know each other's names. So why does Monty know Bridget is lying about being married to him when she calls Mal by his name? She never said that she did not know Mal, she was saying that he was lying about their being married. She called Mal by his name, but as we've already determined they had met before. So how do you explain Monty kicking his wife off his ship and leaving her stranded on a rocky planet with the same guy--Mal--who she had just tried to kill?

It just doesn't make any sense! Great series though, I love it.

Godzilla plays with blocks

So what do you do when you have one kid who wants to build and another kid who wants to destroy? Play Godzilla, of course! Toe started crying when his sister Ja knocked down his house. Then I suggested that he play the town builder, who builds towns just so little sister Godzilla can knock them over. Now he's having fun creating towering houses, she's having fun kicking them over, and their daddy gets to sit in the middle of it all.

Rejection is sad

Last year it was close to the holiday season, and the store had a fundraiser game made with about ten plastic jars. Each jar had a photo of a baby taped to it. The idea of the game was you voted for the cutest baby by putting some money in one of the jars. The money was going to a charitable cause in town.

I thought it was a cute idea until I took a really close look at the jars and realized that some of the jars had at least $50 in the bottom, and some of the jars only had a few cents. Then my heart just sank for those parents. Could you imagine, leaving a jar with your very loved little precious baby's photo, there to be judged by hundreds of strangers, and over and over again another baby is picked as being cuter than yours? If I had the money at the time I would have added enough to each jar to make them all nearly equal. I dropped what change I could spare into the jar with the least amount of money and made a wish deep in my heart that those mostly empty jars would get many generous donations before the end of the contest.

Another Treasury!

For the second day in a row, I checked my email to find that one of my photographs has been chosen for an Etsy treasury. Treasuries are handpicked by the people on Etsy so it's super cool to be featured on one. It means your peers like your work.

This time a very nice young lady picked "Attention" for treasury west. Here is a link to her treasury http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=33670 .

Here is "Attention", modeled by Jaimee Lou.

Attached Families part 1

One of the best things that happened to us while we were pregnant with our oldest child was checking out a few of Dr. William and Martha Sears baby books from the local library. Those books introduced us to the idea of attachment parenting. Since then we have added a second child to our family and have fully embraced the attachment parenting life style. It’s such a wonderful feeling to watch our kids run around the house with huge smiles on their faces, to see them play with each other, to watch them interact with people in public and to know that we’ve helped them grow into the friendly, smart, happy, and outgoing kids they are by meeting their needs, treating them like valued human beings, and respecting their minds and bodies.

In my opinion, attachment parenting should really be called attachment family because the general philosophy of attachment parenting is that every person in the family is treated with equal respect, their needs met, and their wants considered. This doesn’t mean that the kids rule the roost while the parents stand by wringing their hands afraid to discipline for fear of hurting their fragile spirits. What it means is that everyone has a voice in the family, and that parents are firm, yet kind and fair with their expectations of the kids.

Love, Love, Love

One of my fellow Estians, Rachel, picked my photo Love to be in her treasury. Rachel runs Paper Cakes by Rachel, which is a fun little shop filled with gorgous, hollow paper cakes that you can fill with treats for your guests to take home. They’re great for wedding showers and baby showers. Go check her out!
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5390373 Rachel’s shop.