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I started working on a post that I’m really excited about, but am running into a few technical difficulties. In the mean time, while I try to work everything out, I thought I’d share this special bit of wisdom that I often have to turn to. Francis definitely gets his awesome sense of timing from me. Hopefully he’ll pick up my spelling/grammar skills as well, if we’re lucky. The other day Chris grumbled something about this blog, really I would tell you what, except I only heard a grumble. That was all I needed for it to occur to me that I totally have not give Chris is due respect here and in a couple of places have been less than fair about his importance in my life. I promise not to get sentimental but basically without Chris there would be no Mangocrash. No Francis and no Beckett no crashes whatsoever.  Man in Black Leading up to Valentines Day this year Chris has completely shown his amazingness. Every time he’s had to go out and shovel I feel completely guilty. The guy is shoveling right now as I speak and I believe it’s about the ninth time this week. I’d beg him to stop except we need to be able to reach the recycling and trash cans! So as I consider taking a nice warm shower I’m frozen with guilt seeing Chris out the window with the shovel. Sometimes I even catch him laughing or mumbling something to himself. What could he be laughing about I think. And then I wonder if it’s a pitiful laugh with him thinking “how did my hardcore metal intense youth all get reduced to two boys and that woman?” “Where did the weekends go when I went to practice and had shows on Friday nights?” “Do I really like cooking for Batman every night?” Anyway it’s just that laugh that let’s you know he’s gone a little bit crazy from this whole domestic life situation, and yet he’s still so great at it. These is just one of the reasons life with Chris is great, there are innumerable others. So while some men are playing World of Warcraft for four days, while their lady trudges through the snow to get her car out and do some shopping, I’m not thinking of anyone in particular, Chris has shown total old fashion chivalry. Couldn’t we all use a little more of that? With any luck and if Chris can just hang in there a few more years, the boys won’t be little and wild forever, soon they will be big and wild, and hopefully they too will become wonderful men like their Poppy. And then you won’t have to shovel as hard and you can go back to playing drums and partying again. Until those days come as a gesture of gratitude I’m bidding on this…Vintage 1983 IRON MAIDEN T-SHIRT concert tour tee SMALL. The only thing worse than another blog is another photograph of snow, at this point.  what's worse than another blog? I’m posting this one, as I finally get ready to resume my darkroom class that has missed two weeks due to snow. I’m totally excited to be back in the world again and teaching a class, but I’m dreading all the snow images we’ll have to print over the next five weeks. What else is there to shoot though? The image above of my normally busy street is actually an RGB image although it could easily pass as black and white. All snow pix should be black and white in my opinion! We will have fun and enjoy a million black and white snow pix. bring it. Lately, I’ve been impressing myself with the things I’ve been finding in the trash. I’m not one to normally dumpster dive or even thrift shop that often, mainly because Chris is a little particular. If I were to ever infest the house with bed bugs or a strange odor (besides the one we already have), he would absolutely kill me. Also there aren’t too many great thrift stores near us, at least not like the kind we found in Savannah or that I’ve been to years ago in Highlands, NC. All that being said I’m always open to a good find and a few weeks ago I stumbled a piece of art that I’m still completely undecided about but couldn’t pass up. A painting of stripes was not something I could walk away from. Somewhere between my third trimester and Beckett’s arrival, came an obsession with stripes. It began to occur to me after I kept noticing one of us wearing stripes almost every day of the week. Finally the stars aligned one night and everyone of us was at the dinner table with either a striped sweater, shirt or onsie (Chris looks great in onsies). The place looked like a colorful prison. Now we had a painting to match the rug, blanket and every article of clothing.  Found Stripes Before the stripe obsession and the painting find, I gave myself an unoriginal photo assignment to shoot found objects around the neighborhood on my walks with Beck. The attempts were somewhat successful until the weather froze over and our walks became vegging out on the sofa.  Lost Today came a true treasure. On an early morning walk with Francis to check out all the snow left from the Blizzard of 2010 (as it has been named), we stumbled across an abandoned sled! I have been scouring the town for a sled with no luck, hardware stores, targets, everywhere I could think of, in the midst of shopping preparations. Sled has been at the top of the list, although in the past, I have always been resistant of buying more crap, especially something we would be lucky to use once every four years around here. This year, I found myself in must have, must have mode for a sled. This winter might possibly be a once in a life time childhood experience that Francis might actually remember as an adult. And without a sled? What kind of parents were we? He will question. So in total defeat I came home Friday afternoon after hitting the hardware store at 8:45, where they said they would be getting a new shipment of sleds, with no sled. The snow began to fall and I had to give up. Three days later and barely able to reach the end of the driveway, Francis and I ventured out to the playground. A destination I doubted we’d make, but actually wound up getting pretty close to. Almost a mile hike through the unshoveled streets and down a snowy path led us straight to a bright orange sherbet colored glow in the distance. A toy for sure, but a sled I was uncertain. We continued upon the blinding plastic object, secretly hoping an others unfortunate sledding experience, might be our total score. Once there we snatched it without looking back, knowing someone from their home was probably shaking their head. Now ours we have a few little areas to tape up and then hit the slopes. I continue to not think about the misadventure of the previous owner and hope it will be a better ride for Francy. More pix to come!  Score “It’s okay if everyday is not the same way” or “my head will explode” haven’t settled on a title yetSaturday was one of those days that I look forward to and dread simultaneously. All month I knew I had wrapped myself in a pinch with three important events all happening at the same time. And Francis’ Birthday party at the local Fire Station #5, being the most important, was accidentally scheduled during a major event I had to work at and both events just so happened to also conflict with my Saturday darkroom class that I just started teaching last week. These kinds of days happen to me occasionally and unwinding everything is always nerve racking. On top of everything, this was the first birthday party I had ever arranged. In the past Francis has always celebrated the day with his god brother and a couple other boys. This time we decided to go forward with the joint birthday the only smart decision followed by a series of fumbles. In order of importance. Fumble one. Combined we sent out forty invitations thinking that no one will show. Bad idea. Never send out forty invitations and think no one will show. This triggered a series of sequential issues. A domino effect. The other issues will all be irrelevant next year, because next year the invites will be e-invites to only five parents. Problem solved and still fun! This year planning preparations became a bit of a logistical mess when over half of the forty invited RSVP(ed) yes and not just yes but yes and don’t you remember we are a family of 11 and unless you just want us to drop our child off we will all need to attend. And faster than you know it we are planning for 40 x 11 and everything began to get scary! How would we prepare enough food? How many fire hats can we find for cheep? would the fire department enforce the fire code for room capacity? parkinggggg??? On top of the avalanche of attendees,somewhere in there the news kept saying “it’s going to snow”. All month I kept wrapping mind around how this would all shake down. Sub for my class, leave early from the event, order lots of food, ask the fire station about room capacity and on and on until Chris who had been sitting on the sidelines observing said…”we’re never doing this again.” and everyone else began to loose their hearing. The morning arrived in a rush of getting to work and watching the weather. Finally, as I was driving home from the morning event with 4+ inches of snow, I began listening to Galaxie 500. If you’ve never driven through a snow storm listening to Galaxie 500 alone in the car, it’s a must. At some point the song Another Day came on with the words “it’s okay if everyday is not the same way”. And it all stopped. I was feeling completely relieved hearing those words over and over in my mind. It would all be okay as long as I didn’t crash the car on the un-snowplowed roads, because driving in Florida never taught me how to drive in snow. Getting in the car I had decided to take off my coat thinking, “I’d rather be found without a coat”. Once Another Day came on all of these thoughts subsided and I felt alright. At this point, I should get to the exchange or non exchange about the weather. We were absolutely not canceling, after already planning and preparing for over forty people. Francis’ god parents had baked at least fifty cupcakes and a four layer cake. I had ordered food for around 100, there was no way snow was stopping us we never even mentioned it. At this point we knew we should have at least two balloons for everyone but now we expected to celebrate alone. When I walked in the door Chris said, “if there’s one more thing, my head is going to explode”. Exactly. And had I crashed the car that would have been the one more thing. Fortunately, about a third of the families invited braved the weather. The party was a go even with seven inches of snow. And when it was all over, I knew it had been worth every moment of borderline mental breakdown and the chance of Chris’ head exploding.  My little fireman.  Fire Station Tour  Yochana Today I’m so glad to be in recovery rest mode and that there was not one more thing to make anyone’s head explode. My only chore was to get a decent portrait of the boys to send to Brett Edenton for a commissioned painting. His work is amazing and you can see it on his website.In order to get Francis to cooperate I had to photograph him in his fire fighter outfit first. Since I wasn’t able to get a great shot with the two together Brett might be making a composite using a few pics. I have no idea how he is going to do this.  Fire Chief and Lunch Box Not the kind of trolls that you find under bridges in fairy tales, but those little plastic ones you spin between your hands to make their hair stand up. The motionless ones that just sit there and grin while their crazy hair stands up in a point. It’s the grin and the defenseless out stretched arms I’m feeling like right about now the red flaming hair would be a bonus. Up until about midnight last night I had been hanging in there, the third week of being up repeatedly throughout the night with fevers and Francis and then fevers and Beckett. It really wasn’t that bad until last night I turned into a troll. To say zombie would be a compliment. Although all are well again. We’ve completely lost our angelic schedule with Beckett going to bed around 7 pm. Up at 1 am for his Binky and change and not a peep again until somewhere around 7 am when I am getting him up! All of this lost in a little over 72 hours and 102 degrees. Now it’s binky sprints all night and then bottles and then changes. And then someone (I’m not naming names) wakes up all like what’s going on why is he crying? and I’m like well he didn’t realize that if he gave me a loaded diaper at 1 am I wouldn’t use the warm wipes. Even though the pediatrician assured me he doesn’t know what time it is. Anyway at this point I’m going to change subject so I don’t start competing with anyone about who gets up more throughout the night (even though they also have to go to work and take Francis to school and …). So is it just me or does the fact that Botax can now be considered a WMD a bit funny? even a little bit or is it just the lack of sleep. It’s funny right? Almost as funny as if Viagra were, but it’s not funny if it’s actually used just the idea that it is that dangerous. In these difficult days in Haiti I am so grateful that America can finally provide some help in the world. After the last disasters under the Bush regime I had begun to loose hope. Today it is easier than ever to contribute to a good cause (text 90999 and type Haiti or ask your local Whole Foods to make a contribution). Dr. Martin Luther King Day is my favorite holiday. Not only does it commemorate a great hero and does not demand buying anyone gifts. It also comes at the perfect time of the new year-two after trying to adjust to post holiday routine. Martin Luther Kind Day was also the first time Chris and I met. Seven years ago on the MLK holiday Chris and I met for lunch once we realized we were living near each other after having recently graduated from the same college. Neither of us ever would have thought that exactly three years later Francis would be born! Now we have three things to celebrate every MLK holiday—the man himself, Francis’ Birthday, and the lunch that changed everything. This year Francis turns four-unbelievable. Unfortunately he will have to make up being the birthday boy at school because he is sick.  Poor Birthday Boy Now that we are on the way to feeling better Francis will happily tell you that “Dr. Luther King said ‘I have a dream’ that black and white people will not fight”. I love Francis. And luckily his party isn’t until the 30th. Beckett still doesn’t know about Dr. Martin Luther King. He’s just figuring out who Francis is…  Cuddle Bear I love this picture because his eyes are open. Unlike the other boys in the house, Beckett likes to rest. I know he will probably wind up catching Francis cold and my good fortune of sleeping will end. Update: Beckett is sick as a dog. Going on night three of late nights and rectal thermometers. Up or not all night, my heart goes out to Haiti and the unbearable pain mothers have felt not being able to reach their babies. I am teaching an Intro to the Darkroom class beginning Saturday, Jan 23 until Feb 27. We will shot and process black and white film and make prints in the darkroom. Bring an i-pod and I’ll set up some speakers so we can enjoy tunes to print to. The shot below was made using a homemade pinhole camera. I can teach you how to make your own camera and shoot with it! fun fun. Register through the Glen Echo website. Francis’ teacher tells me yesterday that she believes Francis might be ambidextrous. I can hardly say ambidextrous much less spell ambidextrous. Totally excited by the news I call my dad. I am sure my Dad will agree that we can now positively declare Francis genius. Instead he says “so what. That just means he can do bad things with two hands”. Actually, that had been my initial thought after hearing the news, only better put by my dad. More often than not I am convinced my only role in Francis’ life is to try at all cost to keep him out of jail. He was expelled from his first preschool in less than two weeks. When the Buenos Amigos school threatened to expel him, I had two things to do, find another school and keep Francis out of jail!  The Nutcracker Everything happened so fast. He left school two weeks ago making scribbles on a page and calling it a word to the pencil grip in both hands. I can only contribute this to my wonderful writing lessons with him over break. Yeah right! That didn’t happen. Really I believe it has more to do with his birthday next week. He’s about to become four and oddly enough his major milestones seem to directly coincide with the earth’s solar orbit. As well as his patient (much more patient than myself) teachers! The latter being the most important component. If Francis turns out to actually be ambidextrous, I will always add, “he’s ambidextrous” to anything he ever does. Ambidextrous is a legacy. When someone is ambidextrous you always hear about it and I always equate that to genius. So if Francis does ever wind up in trouble you might or might not remember that but you will definitely remember that he’s ambidextrous. It will over shadow any F grade he may or may not receive. Not only will he have a label that is a million times better than all the labels I ever had in school, but my grandmother will only roll over in her grave half the number of times than she would have had he been a lefty. What is it about the greatest generation and left hands! One more thing to hold against Obama, I guess. Francis does seem to prefer his left, so no hope for a right hander, since it is so important? Now I have to contain my inner excitement that Francis will be able to pick his nose with both hands, so he doesn’t pick up on anything and refuse to use either hand! And for Beckett…we’re always at his beck and call. I’ve been working on this top ten calendar post for two months now. I don’t know why. It has been way more work than I expected and now I’m not even into calendars. A few months ago, I totally was and I went crazy buying them for everyone I know as gifts. This year has been a year of gift buying for me. I needed a project! So I became Mrs. Christmas and went Christmas nuts, with calendars being the main victims and little bows (I even got a baby’s first Christmas jumper) I swear maternity leave will make you do crazy things. I’m not sure where the calendar obsession came from, I didn’t even have an official 2009 calendar. Instead we used the upcoming year calendar from 2008. You know the 2 pt type printed on the back of the current year calendar. This one had like three years printed on it so not only could I not read it I couldn’t figure out if I was referencing the right year. We survived on the iphone. Who needs calendars and watches anymore? Something about 2010 makes me need a calendar or ten! It must be the incredible even and dividable numbers in 2010. the primness? It is so prime and it’s the beginning of a new decade. 2010 calendars have become my focus for Christmas consumerism. I wanted to post the top ten of top ten 2010 calendar lists here and here, but instead I tried to come up with my own. Only you know what happened? Within the two months of working on this some of my very favorites had sold out. Oh well, that isn’t stopping me. Postal Press  2010 Calendar 1canoe2  2010 Calendar Nikki McClure Start a tradition. She’s been making amazing calendars for the last few years that I know of (thanks to Christophile for the 2007 favorite gift!)  2010 Calendar “Dorogaya” Magnetic Calendar  Magnetic Calendar RedDoorStudio  2010 Calendar Caitlin Keegan  2010 Calendar Le Papier Studio  2010 Calendar
 2010 Calendar Stephanie Levy  Designer Chairs MissingQPress  2010 Calendar |
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