Posts Tagged ‘the fam’

Being that this blog has only been back in action a few days, I hopped on the D-Listed  Blog Party 2010 to find some cool new blogs and perhaps get some new visits over here, as well. So, here’s an opportunity to get to know me a little bit better.

You can call me Chrysanthemum. I live in the woods with my husband, aka The Boy, my daughter Indigo, and our two dogs – a mutt named Logan, and a pug named Bobo. It’s a madhouse in these parts.

As you can see, this blog has been in existance for quite some time. If you dare, poke through the archives. You can read the story about my engagement, when we bought our first house or about the time I jumped off a Swiss Alp or even that day when Logan pooped on Bobo’s head. I’m looking forward to filling it up with more fun and random moments of this crazy life of mine.

I’m what I like to refer to as a corporate refugee. I spent 15 years in corporate America and made the switch to academia. I currently teach design, copywriting, and new media at a local university. It’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I get the best of both worlds… a steady paycheck, adult interaction, and lots of free time to spend with one of the coolest little girls I know.

I’m a cloth diapering mama. I’m proud to say that the only time Indy’s butt was in sposies was in the hospital. I’ll get into this in more detail later. I love that we’re saving money and helping the environment at the same time. Plus, I’m a sucker for a fluffy butt. I am, however, dreading the day she figures out how to undo the velcro. Now if only I knew how to retrofit these diapers for a pug…

I look forward to getting to know my fellow bloggers and anyone else who happens upon this site. So, please, leave a comment, add me to your reader, peruse old posts… whatever’s your pleasure. It’s good to be back!

So, what’s been so important to keep me from my blogging life these past couple of years? Well, you see, it went a little something like this…

It all started when two people fell in love:

Then there was this, aka baby Wicket:

That ended up with this… well, more like the second one:

Who quickly wrapped her daddy around her finger:

And grew into this (and continues to grow despite our begging her not to):

Meet Indigo Rose, the newest addition to our little clan. She’s a sweet, funny, loving, mischievous little beam of sunshine. You’ll be seeing a lot of her, I suspect.

Can you believe it? Our little Bobo is a year old today (ish, he was about 10 weeks old when we got him, so we counted backwards to the day).

He was little and really sick with kennel cough the day we picked him up:

Since then, he’s thrived and has even done some travelling:

Like Logan, he’s picked up some nicknames over the past year:

• The Bobo
• Beep Beep
• The Great Googly Moogly
• Smudge (for reasons I’d prefer not sharing, and yes, it’s exactly what you’re thinking)
• The Silver Fox
• Senor Poopin’ in the House (yes, what you’re thinking here, too)
• Little Brother (in contrast to Logan, his Big Brother)

Logan has even adjusted pretty well. He won’t cuddle with him, but doesn’t get as offended when Bobo walks over him, either. We can’t imagine our life without him, although we recall that it was really peaceful once upon a time. We admit it… we love the chaos that Bobo brings us.

Bless me interweb, for I have sinned. It’s been months since my last blog, Christmas to be specific.

The last few months have been out of control busy, even for my out of control, busy life. A rundown:

• I took the week between Christmas and New Years off to have some quality time with The Boy before the craziness geared up. That was the last time I saw any peace.
• All, I mean all of my clients decided that the first two weeks of 2008 were the best time to start approving projects. I delivered a bunch of projects, and travelled to Indianapolis for a client meeting.
• One word: thesis. Once I get this bad boy done, I’ll finally be done with my masters. More importantly, I’ll be able to cross one major thing off my list.
• I also have to finish up a paper for publication. So, essentially, I polish of a 40ish page paper and then immediately jump into another one to deliver by June. The upside is that I will be published in my field, which rocks.
• I’m teaching again this semester. Same as before, two sections of the same course. I’ve made some great enhancements to the class, which I’m really proud of. I love it, but it sure is time consuming!
• All of this work and stress has left me extremely burnt out, and with that burnout comes lack of motivation and less than ideal productivity. Something had to give, and in the short term, that has been Sasstastic.
• I’ve been fighting a miserable cold and lingering cough for the past month or so, a direct result of all this stress.
• This summer, I hope to have some time to dedicate to working on this site. I’ve disliked the new design pretty much since I launched it, so I really want to put together a much cooler site. Plus, I’ll be teaching a course next semester that deals more with internet technologies, so I need to brush up on my web/Dreamweaver skills. This site is the perfect playground for that.

I’ll do my best to keep up with my posting, but quite honestly, I may not see the light of day for the next couple of months. You’re all invited to my graduation come May, though!

Like we didn’t have enough to do this fall, we will be hosting Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year. We’ll have the fam over, a total of 14 people and as many as 4 dogs… a full house to say the least. We’re excited to have everyone over, but were concerned about where everyone was going to sit for dinner. We have a table that was generously given to us by The Danza’s before they moved into the city, but it’s not nearly big enough and also pretty wobbly with the leaves in place. What to do, what to do…

Enter our good friend Mike, who makes custom furniture and promised us a table as a wedding gift. We talked styles and he went out and got the materials for the job. The Boy and I generally let the experts drive a lot of the creative process in situations like this, because they’re the experts and usually come up with way cooler ideas than we ever could. We basically showed him a picture in a magazine that we liked, told him we’d like to bring the outside in, and cut him loose.

We went to visit him and the shop this weekend to check out the process, and were amazed by what we saw… speechless, actually He went out and bought a single slab of wood, essentially a cross-section of a tree. His design was inspired by a designer named George Nakashima, who was an amazing furniture designer and a generally interesting guy. My favorite quote that I read by him:

A tree is perhaps our most intimate contact with nature. Each tree, each part of each tree, has its own particular destiny, its own special yearning to be filled.

But I digress… we saw the nearly finished tabletop, and it is badass. It’ll be done for Thanksgiving (in truth, we were told to expect it “late Wednesday night”), and I can’t think of a better way to break it in than having a meal with our family. Did I mention that it’s about 9 feet long?

Check out the tabletop as it was on Saturday night. If you look closely, you can see Mike and even Bobo:

Thanks, Mike. You (of course)rock and we love you!!

Okay, Kat… you tagged me, so here goes!

1. Who eats more? The Boy
2. Who said “I love you” first? He did, although we had both been thinking it for a while.
3. Who is the morning person? The Boy. I could sleep until noon if I put my mind to it.
4. Who sings better? We’re both pretty horrid.
5. Who’s older? I’m two months older than him. We got married within that span of time, so our marriage license has me listed as a year older. He’ll never let me live that down.
6. Who’s smarter? We’re both pretty damn smart, if I do say so myself.
7. Whose temper is worse? The Boy is the least patient man on earth and I’m probably a bit too passive.
8. Who does the laundry? We both do… depends on who runs out of underwear first.
9. Who does the dishes? Both of us… we try to do the one cooks, the other cleans thing, but with our schedules, sometimes one of us sometimes has to cover it all.
10. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? He does, although Logan and I hog the bed.
11. Whose feet are bigger? His are, but they are damn supple. Mine, not so much.
12. Whose hair is longer? Mine, although he’s determined to have longer hair than me. Both or our hair is pretty long.
13. Who’s better with the computer? Me, but he learns more stuff every day.
14. Do you have pets? We’ve got two dogs.
15. Who pays the bills? The Boy runs the finances and does a spectacular job of it. We do a good job keeping one another in the loop when it comes to finances.
16. Who cooks dinner? The Boy is the cook of the family, but I’m doing more and more!
17. Who drives when you are together? He does… he gets carsick riding shotgun in the MINI.
18. Who pays when you go out to dinner? Doesn’t matter… the money all comes from the same place.
19. Who’s the most stubborn? Hmmm… he’s pretty stubborn, but so am I. But I think he’s more stubborn than me… yeah, definitely him and not me.
20. Who is the first one to admit when they’re wrong? We’re both surprisingly good at this.
21. Whose family do you see more? Mine… looong story.
22. Who named your pet? Logan came with me, and we both named Bobo together.
23. Who kissed who first? We kissed each other.
24. Who asked who out? Apparently he had been trying to get me to go out with him for three years, but I was oblivious. So, it was him.
25. What did you do on your first date? We walked Logan at the beach and went out for Thai. I, however, didn’t realize it was a date until the next time we went out. I told you I was oblivious! Another thing that he’ll never let me live down.
26. Who’s more sensitive? Me… I’m a big baby.
27. Who’s taller? He is.
28. Who has more friends? He’s got a huge crew of friends that he’s known since he was 14. It’s pretty amazing, really.
29. Who has more siblings? I’ve got two brothers and he’s got two half brothers… so I guess that makes it 2 to 1?
30. Who wears the pants in the relationship? We’ve each got a leg.

Okay, so I tag Krit and Christine!

Bobo’s obsession with everything his big brother Logan does has finally gone to a whole new level. Yes, Logan pooped on Bobo’s head because he was being nosey and wandered too close to the danger zone.

Needless to say, Bobo got a good scrubbing once we got inside.

Well, adjunct professor…

This fall I have been awarded the position of adjunct professor in the department where I earned my undergraduate degree. I will be teaching Photoshop, Illustrator, and other graphics applications to underclassmen. It’s a totally new thing for me, one I have never done before. I’m excited to embark on this new path.

In case you’re wondering… no, I am not leaving my current job. The teaching gig is just a part time thing. One thing is for sure. Between The Boy and I, our jobs, the classes we take, and the classes we teach, it will be a busy, busy fall.

Some day things will slow down, right? That’s the plan! All this effort is to help us accomplish our bigger picture goals for our life and family. I’m just going to do my best to enjoy the ride and try to stay sane.

In an effort to make Bobo be the most portable, well-socialized dog that we can, we’ve been bringing him out with us as much as possible. He still needs another set of shots, so he’s been seeing the world from up in our arms.

Last night was no different. We took him with us to my neice’s softball game. It was an unusual June night, cold and breezy. Poor Bobo was shivering, so I put him inside of my sweatshirt to stay warm. Within about 5 minutes, he fell fast asleep. Within 10 minutes, he was completely inside, snoring contentedly.

Luckily we were able to capture the moment: