I'm moving!

I'm moving out!  

 

No, not literally, figuratively.  I have outgrown my "blog house" here at Blogger.  Nothing against it - I've really enjoyed my little starter home - but now that my circle of friends is getting bigger, I need a bigger place for entertaining them.

 

So, I'm moving to Word Press.  

 

Part of what precipitated the move is the writing contest I entered, but another part is the ease of use and how good looking their themes are.  What can I say, I like pretty homes with big, inviting front porches.

 

I'm still moving and unpacking boxes over at my new place, but visitors are always welcome.  Please feel free to come by and sit on the porch.  I'll have rockers and some sweet iced tea for you.  

 

Just don't mind the mess. 

 

http://butterfliesinmyhand.wordpress.com/

  

 

Outsmarted again

Yes, I have been outsmarted.  Not by my husband, although he is quite intelligent.  Not by my clever six-year old daughter.  Nor by my three year old son.  No.  This time, I have been outsmarted by me.

 

"Huh?"  You ask.  Yes, I know.  Sounds odd, doesn't it.  But it's true.  Here's the story.

 

Several months ago - almost a year in fact - I started looking at other outlets for my blog.  Blogger works, and is sufficient, but I was really liking the appearance of some of the blogs I follow regularly and thought I'd try Word Press.  I went as far as setting up an ID and claiming the "Butterflies in my hand" name on Word Press.  Then I made a fateful decision.

 

I decided that instead of trying to move everything over, since I'm not that computer/blogging savvy, I would just stay where I was.  

 

Well, since I entered into the writing contest over at Collective Inkwell, I decided I would try and access my Word Press account in case I won the contest.  Yes, I am forever hopeful that I'll win things I enter, even when I know I probably won't.

 

It's been too long and I was apparently too clever with my ID and pas sword.  How do I know this?  Because I have two - yes, TWO - accounts with Word Press.  One, I can access.  It uses the same email as my blogger blog.  The other, I cannot access because I can't remember the email address I created specifically for that place.  And to make things even better, the "butterflies in my hand" domain is under that ever-so-cleverly-hidden email address.

 

Yes, I am outsmarted again.  And it's no fun.  So if any of you out there knows how I can access the memory in my head of the address I was using for Word Press (surely SOMEONE out there can get me to Fringe's lab in that basement at Harvard) I would greatly appreciate it.  Otherwise I might be stuck on Blogger forever.  Even if I do happen to win that writing contest.

 

 *  * * * * *

Just as an update, I have figured out what happened and which account I need to use.  I'm hoping the powers that be over at Word Press can help me merge these two accounts or something.  

 

Oh, and thanks for laughing with me on this.  All I needed to do was sign in under that other account.  I didn't need to try and figure out the email address through yahoo.  Again, outsmarted by myself.  I didn't think of just trying to sign in until a few minutes ago.  

  

 

 

Collective Inkwell - creative fiction contest

This is the first paragraph of a short story I wrote for a creative writing contest featured over at Creative Inkwell.  I hope you enjoy...  The rest of the story can be found in the comments section of here.  

Well, this is odd, he thought to himself.  It was as if he was watching himself from behind, like a witness, not a participant.  Everything seemed to revolve slowly around him; taxis and busses crawled by, pedestrians were mime artists moving through Jello, even the birds flew at half-speed.

Easter weekend, part 1

Can you believe that it's almost the end of April?  May is just around the corner.  This hasn't been a banner month for me posting anything, but as any of you with children may know, the end of the school year keeps people busy.  Projects and parties and stuff.

 

But that's not all.  There's also another - yes, another - consignment sale I'm participating in.  Thankfully, this is the last one.  All of the things that don't get sold this time around will be donated, so none of it is coming back to me.  Two good things, really.  Of course,  I feel like all I've done in the last four weeks is dig out old toys and clothes and tag them.  But in the middle of those four weeks was Easter.

 

This year, Monkey had a four day weekend for Easter.  And I found out back in December,  I think it was, that The Dead were going to be touring again and their first show (April 12th - Easter) was going to be in a city about 20 minutes from where my dad lives.  The planets were aligning just right for me to make a long weekend trip, both for me and for the grandparents.  And that's not all.

 

Back when I was a child, my dad took me to the Easter Sunrise service at Old Salem.  It's the longest running service in America (this year marked 273).  I don't remember much about it from when I was a child, but it's been on my heart for a couple of years now to try and go back.  Again, the opportunity of this year's four day weekend and my plan to go to the concert gave me a chance to go back to the service, as an adult.

 

I'm choosing not to go into any great detail, but suffice it to say it was moving.  We started out in front of the old Moravian church, then walked a few blocks to the cemetery called God's Acre, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon.  It's a very traditional service, having not changed much in the last 200 years.  Although it's much more crowded now and I did see a news camera there.

 

The service threatened to lose something for me when I saw the news there filming the walk to God's Acre, but I tried not to pay attention.  The sacredness of something seems lost when it's filmed for the local 6:00 news.  But as I stood on top of the hill, watched the sun rise and listened to the brass bands play rounds of old hymns, I found the sacredness.

 

Then I went home, warmed up (it was really cold that early in the morning!!) and went back to sleep while my dad and his wife took the kids to their Easter service.  A girl needs her sleep before going to a concert!

 

This is the first post in what will probably be a series of three or four about Easter weekend.  I have photos from our Easter egg hunt from that afternoon and a bunch from the concert.  I know the weekend is fast approaching so I may not get the next post until Monday, but I will soon, promise.

 

Oh, and my story for the writing contest is done.  I think.  I'll be posting part of that here in the next few days as well.  

 

Hope to see you back soon!

 

Alive and kickin'

I'm still here.  It's been an incredibly busy couple of weeks and it's not over yet.  I just thought I'd pop in to let those readers that haven't abandoned me know I'm still alive and well.  

 

I do have plenty of things to update on later:  The Dead Show, Easter, the kids, homeschool updates and a writing contest I'm entering.

 

I hope you'll still stick around for me, or at least come back when I post again.  And for those of you who write blogs that I normally visit, I promise, I'll be back.  I haven't had time to read, either, so I hope you'll forgive me.

 

Here's to a peaceful few weeks - and soon!

 

Catching up

Yes, I know it's been quite a while since I posted something.  However, I've been a bit busy.  The kids and I went out of town for Easter while Trey's work sent him to Hawaii (tough bit, that one).  Sunday night, I went to the opening show for The Dead's summer tour.  It was awesome!!  And this week I'm getting ready for a baby shower for two of my friends that will have about 30 friends coming to my home.

 

Yeah, it's a busy few days.   

 

I took lots of pictures and have lots of stories to share about the Dead show to post on my blog, and I promise, I'll get to it, but really, I have other things I have to get done around the house, first.  

 

I hope you'll come back!

 

What would you do?

Technology is great.  That is, until it craps out on you, then it's not so great anymore.  We have an old computer and by old, I mean it's not quite four years old.  It started having issues this weekend and Trey and Apple Support spent some quality time together on the phone Saturday afternoon to try and fix it.  By the time he got off the phone, it was looking like all was good and back to normal.

 

Not so much.

 

I'm not sure, but I think he managed to back up at least the pictures and music while the computer was functioning properly, which is good.  Trey loves music and I'm a bit of a shutterbug.  I love to take pictures and one picture just won't do.  He collects music like nobody's business.  Let's put it this way:  We have just over 7000 pictures that have been taken starting around Monkey's first year and I couldn't even begin to count the number of songs we have.  Yes, we have a problem.

 

Hi, my name is Kool Aid and I like to take pictures.

 

Now, I know that pictures aren't supposed to replace the memories, but it's fun!  It's something I enjoy and the family loves it when I remember to send them pictures that I've taken.  I can't imagine losing all those pictures.  

 

So, for those of you who take digital pictures, what do you do to back them up?  Do you use an external hard drive?  Do you also back them up at an internet site?  Do you just burn them to a CD or DVD?  Or all of the above, making back-ups of your back-ups?

 

If nothing else, this may be an excuse to get a new computer...

 

 

 

Quote of the day

I don't care if there is hot lava on the floor, don't climb on the train table.

 

 

(As Trey pointed out, only a mother would say something like that.)

 

 

Locks of Love

Yesterday was a big day for Monkey.

  

Last year, Monkey decided she wanted to give her hair to Locks of Love.  Locks of Love is a non-profit organization that provides hair pieces to children suffering from long term medical hair loss.   Her hair was already long, but she wanted to make sure that when she cut her hair, it wouldn't be "super-short,"  so we've been letting it grow on it's own for about 6 months or so.

 

We decided that spring would be the perfect time to cut her hair because then it would be short for summer.  She's been very excited about the whole process and telling people she was going to give her hair away to Locks of Love.  We've even wondered about the child that might get her hair.

 

She has been asking me for weeks starting at the end of February, "When are we going to get my hair cut?"  Soon, just a few weeks away.  Then this week she was ready.  And on April Fool's day, too!  So we went to my hairdresser yesterday afternoon after school.  Luckily, I still had a few minutes from picking her up because I had forgotten my camera.  This was something I had to document for myself and family, so I rushed home, grabbed it,  then went to the salon.

 

 

First, her hair had to be measured.  A minimum of 10" is required to donate and she had just enough.

 

 

 

Then her hair is braided and secured on both ends.

 

 

 

The cutting began.  Yes, this tore at my heart just a little because Monkey had beautiful, long, free-spirit hair and I loved it.  But I'm very proud of her for doing this.

 

 

 

Her pretty braid, ready to be sent to Locks of Love.

 

 

And her final "new 'do!"  No more free-spirit hair, just spunky six-year-old hair, and it totally suits her.

 

Oh, and while I was cleaning the junk out of my car yesterday afternoon (again!), Monkey was practicing on her bike and she started, rode and stopped all on her own, three times, I think.

 

Yes, yesterday was a big day for us.

 

 

Nightmares

Monkey woke me up last night when she had a nightmare.  It was, I dunno, around 2 am.  When I heard her feet shuffling in (and felt the cat scatter away from her sleeping spot) I figured it was Little Man, but no, it was Monkey.  She asked if I'd get into bed with her and since it's been a long time since she'd asked, I said OK.  But just for a little while.  My kidneys tend to get bruised when we actually sleep in the same bed.  I'm still recovering from our week of visiting family.

 

Anyway, it got me to thinking.  What do children have nightmares about?  Not enough cake at the birthday party so they don't get a slice?  A bully at school?  I never ask Monkey what her nightmares are because I don't want them to linger in her mind any more than they already do.  And remembering dreams is so difficult anyway.

 

But, still, I wonder.

 

She's in a stable home, she has loving parents, clothes, food, toys out the wazoo, a pesky brother.  From my perspective, anyway, her life seems pretty good, so what would she have to be afraid of?  I'm not naive enough to think that all children are this lucky.  I'm know that there are children all over this world that have legitimate nightmares and may possibly be living those nightmares out.  That is terrible and a whole other topic.  It's not my intent to travel down that road first thing this morning. 

 

I remember having nightmares as a kid.  I had a recurring one that was, in hindsight more strange than scary, and had to do with being stuck on the furniture because the floor was hot lava with some big monster chasing me and I had to jump from couch to chair to steamer trunk to get away.  Yes, I was a creative child.

 

Monkey is a creative child, too.  So what does her vivid imagination create for her at night that scares her?  I don't know, but I'm glad she still comes to get me.