the sickness.

the today show is the background noise to my mornings. i never really liked it until the last year, but it does a good job of giving me a bit of news, ridiculous pieces to keep me ranting and awake, and a nice solid chance to make fun of ann curry for her horrible fashion choices and her inability to do an interview with absolutely anybody. the way she touches people and the tone of her voice make me so uncomfortable. and, to be honest, i just assume matt lauer is the biggest prick off camera. my mom loves him and i just don't get it. i miss meredith. 

anywho, this morning their concert series pick is chris brown. okay, whatever. i wouldn't put him on my show, but what bothers me more is the droves of women, and their many young daughters, that are in the audience celebrating this guy and his shit ass music. i just want to grab them all by the shoulders and scream, "you know he beat the crap out of his girlfriend, right? and as women we shouldn't really scream and cheer for someone like that, right? RIGHT!?" taking abuse is a fracking sickness and we seem to allow it in our culture without even thinking twice. i have been abused and it is awful. i see people like chris brown getting off on the fame that he has and i wish him nothing but the worst in life. there is no repentance, there should be no fame after that. and, just so you know, the same goes for women abusers, too. don't even get me started on the fact that i heard there are men sending casey anthony money in prison. that is disgusting. 

and, by the way, chris brown has still been running all over the place slinging homophobic slurs and hatred on his douche bag tour of daily celebrity status. you may like a persons music, but we need to learn to turn on back on people that make bad life decisions. our nation needs to go to the betty ford clinic to figure out how to stop enabling celebrities. i am just so tired of it. 

chunk didn't sleep last night. no, that's not why i am pissy (i would have been anyway), but still - she is evil. she is crawling and cruising and getting into absolutely everything she can. i think that her brain is spinning in over drive trying to figure out how to walk and that is resulting in only stress inducing insanity moments for me. she is just so intense right now and she refuses to sleep. i have had 5 hours of sleep in 2 days and today is house cleaning day and i am starting to look at the walls of my home as if they are made from the worst things this world has to offer. like chris brown is pictured in every corner of my home. ugh. the sickness. 

on a positive note ge is still cute. and he is trying really hard to help me with chunk. i decided to start walking at night and i feel so much better. the last 2 nights the moon has been beautiful and full. wednesday i walked 4 and a half miles and listened to american gods by neil gaiman, last night i walked about 4 and a half miles again while listening to mumford and sons, kings of leon, and hanggai. there is a route that is a steady climb up a hill right by the golf course and i am enjoying the pain it is putting into my legs. i feel so much better getting out of the house again. i make dinner, do the dishes, and then push myself out the door. once i am in the cool of the night my ipod starts dripping sweet voices into my step and i propelled forward into a healthier and happier me. good things. 

i'm about to get list like up in here

first, with the teevee talk

• how awesome was house last night? i felt like the sick person story was a little draggy and ridiculous, but she paralleled house well and i absolutely love that actresses voice. i hope that it wasn't a hallucination, because that would be like the billionth time they have done that and i totally love the car into house scene. win. 
• i am still mourning the loss of how i met your mother for the season, but they went out with a good bang and i can spend my lame summer television months thinking that lily is happily pregnant. i told the husband as soon as it started that she was with alien life form. this season was a lot of sad so i was happy to see it end with so much happy. 
• i have never watched the biggest loser before, but i got hooked about half way through this season and i am loving it. i don't know what happens tonight, but i hope the best things happen to hannah. it really is amazing to watch  the transformations. 
• uhm, voice? yes? i love it and i got the husband hooked on it, too. i still think blake shelton is an absolute idiot for letting tyler robinson go, but i will move forward with the show trying to hold only a little grudge. the show really is the awesome and i am excited for it tonight. 
• and yes, glee. i love me some glee. i love me some over-the-top break outs into random song and ridiculous plot twists. you could judge me, but jesus said not to. so there. i am hoping they win nationals. i don't know if the writers will do that, but i would rather it not completely mimic the last season-ender. plus, if they lose nationals you know they will probably take it next year and the formula gets a bit boring. 
• how sucky is the end of good television!? i am super excited that we get so you think you can dance and next food network star soon. the closer is a huge summer time tee vee win for us, too. excuse me a minute while i go hug my television and tell it that i love it and i don't know how other people live without it. 

we had a really nice weekend with the paw-paw. there was mall time, park time, zoo time, play time, and a lot of food time. we had a bit of lemon with our scotch and water and we had a lot of good conversation. the weekend was so much fun that the husband and i actually felt like we got a bit of a vacation, too. i feel like such a parent because this weekend we bought our first season pass to a zoo, which is a big moment. turns out we have an adorable little zoo right by our house and ge really loved it. ge gets overwhelmed pretty easily and this is a perfect sized place for him to explore without getting stressed out. i look forward to getting to know the little animals at our zoo this summer. 

this weekend we get to see my sister and her family and they are going to take the little devils off of our hands for two hours so we can actually be grow-ups and go see the hangover two. i. are. excited!! i feel spoiled with all of this family time because my family is way cooler than yours. i mean, no offense, but i have to be biased. you would be biased, too.

maybe not, may

i wanted to be a diligent blogger this month, but i am just not feeling the every day right now. weekends are hard for me because i don't really want to be on the internet. yesterday we had craft morning, visited the local farm, made jalapeno burgers, and watched the social network (an awful movie! how people liked it was beyond us!) and there wasn't a minute in there that i felt like stepping away from that goodness to type. i want to suck up every minute i have on the weekends with my family.

plus, with family coming into town this week, and more family visit time at the end of this month; it's just not going to happen. so maybe not, may. maybe august. or maybe never. i am loving blogging and i don't want to burn myself out by forcing myself to write something every day. and with that, no more words today, just a picture that makes me mass schmappy.

and here it is

easter is an interesting holiday to me; being a person that is in no way religious i find the holiday itself a bit strange. i knew from the beginning that our home would not be a place where the easter bunny stopped by to visit, but as a child who loved her tootsie roll banks i knew we wanted to celebrate the day of chocolate bunnies and resurrection. okay, more chocolate bunnies and less fairytale.

i came up with the idea to send the kids on an in home treasure hunt while watching the easter egg hunting weather turn sour a few days leading up to the holiday. i had a basic idea of what i wanted ge to experience, but the idea unfolded after the presents were bought and the husband and i sat down with a pad of paper and newly bought markers. the husband suggested that we cover the home in misleading clues mixed in with the obvious. i suggested that we end the hunt in riddles to make the big presents a bit more thought provoking. ge brought the fun home when he figured out what we were doing and became so excited that we no longer cared that it was early morning. 

we did minimal candy and more practicality in gift form. games, cars, bottles, pacies, necessities, and the occasional emmie were purchased and hidden throughout our home. ge was given his easter basket with a star taped to the bottom and we tried to explain to him that he needed to find a star in the house that matched the one in his bucket. little man looked around and immediately started naming off the presents he could see, but couldn't quite grasp what we were asking of him. by the third clue he was in, and was off an running as soon as he found his next goal; be it letter, shape, or number. 

after the first few clues in he was led to a new basket, a pink basket, and his treasure hunt became his and chunk's treasure hunt, and he so enjoyed being the collector of all gifts. ge would find the clue, open the present, and tell chunk what he found. he was very good at placing the presents in the correct basket and was never jealous that chunk was part of this new game. i don't know if we have seen him so excited for a new adventure and that smart little brain of his was so happy to be so active and so intense in search. 

he loved that the letters of the alphabet went in order and would often pause to sing us the alphabet song. clues and eggs were left behind as he went in search of the next piece of paper that would lead him to the next treasure, and so on. we wondered how quickly he would catch on, if he would become bored, but he loved the rate that his basket filled with new treasures and the excitement of the educational aspect of this new easter tradition. he was always so happy to accomplish the next task, to figure out the clues and run throughout the house to pounce upon his hunting grasp. to say that we were proud of him throughout the hunt is an understatement. 

the riddles were a point of concern for his dad. was a three year old ready to grasp the concept of begging a question through rhymes? turns out, he was. he blurted out the answers to the riddles seconds after they were asked and those were his favorite moments of the entire hunt. chunk's book, a new bubble gun for ge, and uno moo were perfect gifts to round out a perfect morning. 

this is a new tradition in our home for easter. as the kids grow older the elements of the hunt can become more difficult. i look forward to ge always taking the lead in letting the little ones know how to get a treasure hunt done. by the time he was done searching for his treasures we had spent an hour of our easter morning in pure bliss and morning coffee and breakfast tasted even sweeter than thought possible. 

we finished off our easter day by taking a 3 hour tour of our area by way of the schuylkill trail. we made it to valley forge national park, where george washington housed the revolutionary troops, and the weather gave us a beautiful background for a wonderful family walk. there wasn't a moment in our entire day that wasn't full of laughter and smiles and i will always look back on our first tradition easter with fond memories. especially because warles joined us. 

entire photo goodness can be found here.

East coast winter

55 degrees in February is nothing to complain about.