Our 22nd wedding anniversary is next Saturday. Yes, I was a child bride. haha No, but I was only 23, I think of that as pretty young now that I'm an old bag of 45. We were the first of our crowd of friends to take the plunge and we had the big church wedding and all. I only had one attendant, my cousin, who was pregnant at the time. I just saw her son that she was preggo with at the time a few weeks ago, he's been living in Toronto the past couple of years. He's a sweetie and such a grown up man of 21. Yikes, it makes me so sad because his mom was my bestest friend. I've written about her here before. We've become estranged for no apparent reason other than she met a guy and married him after 6 months of knowing him and decided I wasn't necessary in her life anymore. Yeah, I'm bitter and still really heartbroken over it all yet I can't bring myself to just pick up the phone and call her. What would I say anyway?

Ok, wait, this started out as a post about 1986. Here is a list of the top 20
songs from the year I got married:

1. "That's What Friends Are For".....Dionne & Friends
2. "Walk Like An Egyptian".....Bangles
3. "On My Own".....Patti Labelle & Michael McDonald
4. "The Way It Is".....Bruce Hornsby & The Range
5. "You Give Love A Bad Name".....Bon Jovi
6. "Greatest Love Of All".....Whitney Houston
7. "There'll Be Sad Songs".....Billy Ocean
8. "How Will I Know".....Whitney Houston
9. "Kyrie".....Mr. Mister
10. "Kiss".....Prince & The Revolution
11. "The Next Time I Fall".....Peter Cetera & Amy Grant
12. "Burning Heart".....Survivor
13. "Stuck With You".....Huey Lewis & The News
14. "When I Think Of You".....Janet Jackson
15. "Rock Me Amadeus".....Falco
16. "West End Girls".....Pet Shop Boys
17. "Sledgehammer".....Peter Gabriel
18. "Human".....Human League
19. "Sara".....Starship
20. "Higher Love".....Steve Winwood

I don't know about you, but in 1986 I was NOT listening to most of this crapola. Mr. Mister? Huey Lewis? Gross! Hell, we played 'Master and Servant' by Depeche Mode at our reception. I insisted on a DJ because I wasn't going to risk any wedding band breaking out into 'Proud Mary' or 'Celebration' at my wedding reception, thank you very much. We had to supply the DJ with our own records and he probably thought we were the biggest bratty music snobs he ever met, we probably were. I think we did let him play the Hokey Pokey and maybe the Chicken Dance? Luckily there was no Macarena back in the Stone Age so we didn't have to suffer through that one. We weren't that mean to our guests and we threw in some Glenn Miller and other big band stuff for the oldies.

I doubt we'll do anything too special, we didn't even do much for our 20th two years ago. I think we're going up north anyway, maybe we'll go out to dinner. Boy, do I sound like a killjoy or what?

A few things I'm liking very much post:

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Pretzel Bites. Oh my goodness, these are so so yummy and I can eat just a few and be satisfied. Plus, they are really cute. Yes, I said cute.

The Mentalist on CBS, Tuesday nights. Ok, it stars Simon Baker, who is quite good looking and charming and his character is troubled and flawed, brilliant, has a tragic past, he's very observant and is a former fake psychic, now a cop (or he works with cops, not sure of the specifics) he's trying to atone but his arrogance gets him into trouble. I've taken to watching CSI type shows to get my crime show fix and I just don't like them so when this show came along, I cheered. Yay, a detective show without the annoying CSI cliches. BTW, why are there so many damn CSI shows on tv?

New episodes of The Office starting tonight!

I'm still losing weight, slowly but surely and it is becoming more routine to choose the right things to eat and the right amount.
30 pounds down. I'm down to the weight I was when I got pregnant with Kai and passed a milestone I was aiming for. Yippee!

We found a place for Tess and Kai to play soccer and they both have great coaches.

All the kids are doing activities they enjoy and their schedules have worked out to enable them to do what they like without too much shuffling around for anyone. Thanks to my parents on a couple of days of the week too. I was worried someone would have to cancel something but we didn't have to resort to that so I'm happy.

Ok, that's all for now. Gotta go!

Why do I always end up making rabbits? What the heck is up with that? I need to expand my horizons and get out of this creative rut. The thing about him I like though is, I did not use a pattern and he is not flat, he is 3 dimensional. That's a first for me, so I'm kind of proud, even though he is only a bunny and he doesn't have legs. There are more pictures of him at my Flickr account if you care to see. It just took me 3 tries to spell "are", wow.

So another first for me happened this week and it is rather embarrassing to admit but I made every single meal that my family has eaten so far this week, that has never happened before. I know! I'm a stay at home parent, I should be cooking all the time, right? well, I don't! I didn't! I probably won't start doing it now but I think I can say with confidence I will cook the majority of our meals at home from now on. Yes, I should have been doing that all along. Dang, it sure does save a lot of money. Duh...
Boy, I come across really smart in this post today don't I? Oh, and I baked a ton too. I think I'm getting into a groove with this kids in school all day thing.

Look out, I'm feeling ranty today!

Never again pick Thursday to go out to coffee with your friends. Damn poetry night!

To my little boy, I love you to pieces but you could have let your sister put you to bed last night instead of making me come home early to do it because you were giving her troubles.

I'm already sick of going to the vet for the followup appointments for the rabbit's broken leg due to her own spaziness. Yes, we love her but $250 later and 3 trips to Ann Arbor with more to come and I'm over it.

Stop losing the internet connection, you stupid laptop!

Damn my rinky dink town for not having soccer this year because the field they usually use will be down for some kind of maintenance. Um, we have other fields in town for goodness sakes.

Also, what is up with not having any recreation opportunities for the kids of the city and not hiring another recreation director in a timely fashion when the good one left, you suck!

Oldest daughter, stop telling me I'm freaking out when I disagree with you in a calm fashion.

Other parents in the school parking lot, slow the hell down!!!

Ooh, spooky.
Here we are in the Delaware MIne on the self guided tour, like I said in an earlier post, Lydia was none too thrilled about going underground but she toughed it out for us. So we were about 100 feet underground on the first of 9 levels, the rest of the lower levels are now flooded so needless to say no one goes down there anymore. It was very cold and damp and dark, of course and every once in awhile, Kai would get all paranoid and grab us. Silly boy. It was a cool experience, I'm glad we did it.

I swear we are doing much more than viewing waterfalls and walking through cemeteries but a cemetery is what I have for you today. We were driving out of Copper Harbor yesterday on our way to Silver City and I saw this itty bitty sign that said 'Cliff Cemetery' so I turned off and we all trudged out of the car. This was not your ordinary cemetery location, there was no fence, no driveways leading you through the well manicured lawns. Instead, there was a small walking trail directly off the road leading into the woods. The overgrown, taken back by nature woods. We started walking on this tiny trail and did not see anything but trees and underbrush. Finally after about 200 feet, there was a broken gravestone laying on the side of the trail. Very sad, we kept going and saw the occasional gravestone off to the side almost buried beneath the weeds and wildflowers, then we got to what appears to have been the main section of the cemetery. They had wisely planted some kind of ground cover so the woods could not take over as they did on the outskirts of the cemetery. There were several gravestones standing and off to the side there were the ruins of what may have been a church. But we're not sure. I don't know what it is about old cemeteries that I find so intriguing, but I read the inscriptions and get very emotional. Anyway, I took these and I tried to convey the sense of peace among the wildness that was all around. The last photo gives you an idea of the size of the trail.

Yes, more waterfalls. Isn't it pretty? So we left Copper Harbor this morning after spending 3 nights in the area. We went to a gorgeous beach on Monday at the Tobacco River park. The river ended at Lake Superior so the kids could take a dip in the cold lake, then go in the warm river to warm up. It was ideal. Yesterday we went to the Delaware Mine, we went on a walking tour in the old mine. Lydia was very freaked out about going underground but it was only 1 level down 100 feet so she decided it was ok to go. We all thought it was so cool to walk around down there, but kind of creepy too. The highlight for Kai was Oreo the skunk who is a house pet of the mine caretaker.


This picture looks like fall, doesn't it? But actually the weather has been almost perfect. High 70s during the day and 50s at night.


The lake at Tobacco River park.



This is some remnants of an old building that was at the front of the park, we couldn't figure out what it was. I thought the brick looked so pretty against the background of the green trees.

Well, we made it to Baraga in one piece. I'm sitting here in the dark with Kai sleeping in his roll-a-way bed. David and Tess are downstairs swimming in the hotel pool and Lydia is hiding out in the bathroom reading a book. Well, it's the only place where she can leave the light on and she refused to go down to the lobby. Poor kid can't go swimming in her present condition. What a bummer and bad timing for her.

So we took a pretty leisurely drive getting up here, I like being able to stop wherever and whenever we want. We walked on a couple of trails and saw two waterfalls. The first one was Wagner Falls, you can see it in the picture. On the way back to the trailhead, Kai ran a little bit ahead of me and Lydia and he got out of my sight. I didn't think too much of it and when we got to the parking lot I figured he would be right there. He wasn't! David and Tess followed soon after and we started calling him. I figured he was hiding behind this big boulder he had found interesting when we first got there. No sign of him anywhere, David started yelling K's name in his extra loud daddy voice and still no Kaiser. I was really beginning to panic and then Tess said, "oh, he's here in the car!" and there he was, completely clueless. David had unlocked the car as we got closer to the lot and Kaiser just got right in to wait for us. As soon as I got into the car I burst into tears, I can't even describe the fear I felt in those few seconds when I didn't know where he was. I had even imagined him being in one of the two cars that had driven away right as I had walked up to the parking lot. Needless to say, the no running ahead rule is being strictly enforced once again. I was so angry at myself for letting him get that far ahead of me and not taking his safety into concern. So stupid!
Never again, I can assure you.

Laughing Whitefish Falls was gorgeous. David took all the pictures, he can be a camera hog and since he's more technically proficient than I am, I just let him take over.

Didn't I just write about how much I hate seeing myself in photos? Well, I like my new haircut more than I loathe pictures of myself so here ya go. My hair was way longer than I like so I went for the much shorter style with many choppy layers. I like it, I really do!

I'm supposed to be getting packed for our big trip to the Upper Peninsula, I am so excited. I love love love the UP, it is so beautiful and tranquil and wild and full of so many things to see and do. We're headed all the way up to Copper Harbor this time and then a few days in the Porcupine Mountains. I'm looking forward to hiking for waterfalls and visiting some of the mining ghost towns. Ah, the many photo opportunities that await! We're bringing the laptop so hopefully I can blog a few times while we're away, if not, I'll see you when we get back.

Back to the real world.
I have a tendency to stick my head in the sand when we're not at home. I get most of my news from NPR but the station up north mostly just plays classical and jazz. Unlike the Detroit station, which is pretty much all talk all the time. Or I read the local paper up north, the most serious issues they report on are the school millages and the condition of the lake. Which is serious business to their tourist driven economy but not as urgent to me as some of the things going on in the rest of the world.

So I come home and flick on the radio and am inundated by what is going on in the world and don't want to listen but I do anyway because I have to be informed, right? You know what I feel mostly? Scared, scared of what kind of havoc that idiot is going to wreak with his remaining months in office. I don't like this helpless feeling at all and I don't really like blogging about stuff like this. I suppose that's shallow but I like for this space to show a more upbeat version of myself. Anyone who knows me, knows that I can be kind of a downer at times and I don't like to show that side too often.

In the meantime, I turned off NPR for a few hours to listen to the local "Morning Show" radio people chat about Dancing with the Stars and gossip about Paul McCartney possibly getting married again. I'll go back to the serious stuff but I just needed a little break. Promise I'll be back to my regular chatty blogging next time though. Thank goodness for kids and photos and coffee with friends and upcoming vacations to talk about.

My dear friend and her family came to visit us at the cottage a couple of days ago. We haven't seen them since last summer. They moved to Texas last year and we miss them so much. We all had a great time, talking, playing, eating. A lot of the time I was trying to take pictures of their youngest. As you can see, I had to get rather sneaky with her. David took the two oldest kids on the sailboat, it was really windy that day but sunny. The other kiddos went out on the paddle boat. I warned them about how wavy it was and they ended up having to walk it back. Silly kids.

5 things I am hating right now.

1) Seeing myself in photos and thinking I look enormous even after losing 26 pounds. I still have such a long long way to go and that discourages me a ton.

2) The fact that my sweet little 5 year old is not being as cuddly and loving with me as he usually is. I miss my baby!

3) My damn eyes, which appear to be needing bifocals soon. UGH!

4) Gas prices that never stay the same for more than a day.

5) My hair! It's too long and dried out looking and thinning on the top. My hair is thinning!!! What is up with that? Hello, I am not that old yet. wah!

To end on a more positive note.
5 things I am loving right now.

1) Summer! My kids are all home, my husband doesn't have too work overtime as much and we spend so much time together.

2) My husband who spent all last week landscaping our front yard. For years, all that has been there are mounds of dirt and humongous weeds. Well, now there is slate and plants from our backyard like the hosta and the lilies and new ones like lavender, sage and coneflowers and a sweet Japanese Maple tree. The best thing about it? He did all this work last week while the kids and I were up north and didn't say a word about to me when he was with us last weekend, So we drove up Tuesday to what looks like a totally different house. To say it looked trashy before is an understatement. Now it looks lovely and well taken care of and I admit, I cried when I first saw it.

3) My adorable children. My oldest Lydia who is so brave and adventurous. She went on her hiking/backpacking trip in Pennsylvania without knowing anyone and had a great time. It was very rustic and they hiked a lot (17 miles one of the days), I'm so proud of her. My little girl Tess who has such a good heart and can love so much and isn't shy in showing it. Then there's my baby boy (I know, 5 is not a baby to most people) who is so hilarious and has such a sophisticated sense of humor. Sure, he can laugh at a good potty mouth joke with the best of 'em but he can also come up with these jokes that take a few steps of thinking instead of going straight for the obvious. Of course, my mind is blanking on examples right now.

4) My online photography class. Yes, I'm mentioning it again. It is informative, the community is supportive and the teacher is awesome.

5) Project Runway is back!! But can someone please tell "Suede" that taking about yourself in the third person does not make you cool. It makes you a douche. Jane thinks you are annoying, Suede. Jane liked your dress in the second challenge but thinks you need to tone it down. Jane has to go now. Jane is going to get slapped if she keeps this up.

We have been gone up north to my parent's cottage so much this summer and it will continue right until Labor Day, I'm sure Thank goodness for cafes with Wi-Fi and a 5 year old who will play the DS while I try to catch up for 30 minutes. It is not enough time. I love being up here but I get a little bit lonely for adult company after about a week or so but then we go home and I can't wait to come back. Crazy! My parents come and go and only stay a few days on the weekends. I don't get it, they're retired for cryin' out loud.

I'm taking an online class on how to use my digital DSLR and it has been eye opening and fun and educational and it's bringing back my love of photography which I am so happy about. It has also been a confidence booster which I really have needed.
So I leave you with a few photos of our summer so far.

BTW, Big girl just got back from camp. I missed her but we already seem to be back to bugging each other. She thinks I'm picking on her when I ask her not to spend the whole day laying on the couch reading. Is this a teenage thing I need to just roll with? I want her to do stuff with the rest of us.







I took the younger 2 to a petting zoo up here, they love the horses and the donkeys the best. Tess turned 10 a few weeks ago and all of a sudden she looks so tall!

Jeez, June is almost over and I barely made any posts.
We've had a busy few weeks. Two of my babies had graduations and they are all out of school. I love love having them all home for the summer. Even with the screaming and bickering. Oh, good news before I move on to the pictures. I lost my 10%! I am so proud of myself, I have a long way to go but losing 10% of my original weight is a big deal. Yay!


My big girl graduating from 8th grade, we have more set up shots of her with her friends but I really like this one for some reason. I have a high schooler!


Here is my happy preschool graduate, he got to keep his red hat. The little ceremony was so cute, his teachers had a whole party. We swam in the pool, then had pizza and dessert in one of the banquet rooms and they even had a photo show of all the past school year events. It was very sweet.





Last game for t-ball, look at those action shots.







One of middle girl for good measure, have I shown a picture of her since she got her hair cut short? It looks so cute, but I'm teasing because you can't see it too well in this photo. Take my word for it.

The littles have been attending acting workshops with the Downriver Youth Performing Arts Center for the past 6 weeks and their performances were tonight. Little guy was in a sweet show called the Wackadoo Zoo, he played one of two lions at the zoo who did not roar but said cock-a-doodle-doo, instead. All the children had lines and they sang cute little songs and even did a bit of dancing. Oh my gosh, it was so darn cute. I cried when I first saw my baby boy up on stage, he did so well and was one of the youngest kids in the show. There were a few moments of him wandering around in a daze but for the most part he paid attention and did his job.

Tess was in a different performance as her workshop group consists of older children, mostly girls ranging in age from about 9 to 16. I think there were 3 boys out of the group of about 25. The show was a mix of song and dance numbers with short skits in between. It was fun to watch and my girl put a lot of effort into her singing and dancing. I had my eyes glued on her, of course, and could see her concentrating very hard. Every once in awhile she would break into a huge grin, she looked absolutely beautiful and radiant. We went out for ice cream afterwards and I went and splurged on Jamocha Almond Fudge from Baskin Robbins, that was my dinner for the night.

The Man has to go into work tomorrow, I'm thinking I may take the kids to the Henry Ford Museum for new Chocolate exhibit that just opened. They are supposed to have free samples. Just what I need, right? Tess has also been begging to go to Silver Spoon, the local family restaurant, on Sunday because she wants to try their peanut butter soup and they only make it on the 1st of every month. Why does she know this? Her brother was completely grossed out by the idea of peanut butter soup, but this is the child who has about 10 approved foods on his menu at all times. But that's a whole other sad blog.

Oh good grief, it's almost 2am and I'm still awake, what the heck an I thinking?

Looky, looky! See the cool photo edge? I did that! This took me 30 minutes to do, no lie, but I figured it out without my husband sitting right next to me. Yes, I'm sure it is fundamental to all you Photoshop people out there, but for me, even with an online tutorial, it is a big deal to do this on my own. Now I know how to group layers and make an elemask. I'm way too excited about this. Ok, I'm off to make more edges. woo hoo!

edited to add: The term elemask was apparently named by the person who created the tutorial and is not a "real" PS term.

I'm starting to get frustrated with my weight loss, I gained .4 pounds at my last weigh in and I have just not been sticking to the program like I should. I'm not even going overboard but it seems like if I don't stick to the points precisely then I won't have a loss for the week. I'm beginning to think I won't reach my 10% goal by my birthday in July and I'm really annoyed with myself about that. It's just food, dammit! Why am I so caught up in what I'm going to eat? It should not matter that much. UGH!

Our weekend was fun, we almost ended up not going because my dad was having some health issues but he turned out to be fine and we went up on Saturday morning. The Man put the dock in the water and made a fire pit, but he didn't have time to put his Hobie in this time. Not sure when we'll be going back. We met up with our friends for some fishing at the river. I was dismayed by the huge of amount of mosquitos. If they are this bad already then I can only imagine how hideous they will be in the middle of the summer. Poor little boy got attacked all over his face and ears.

Middle girl and her daddy are going on a class field trip to Higgins Lake and Mackinac Island next week, she is so excited about it. I went on this same trip with oldest girl two years ago and it was really fun. I liked being able to hang out with her friends and teachers in a setting outside of school. This turned out to be quite a dull blog, I mostly wanted to vent about my lack of weight loss and frustration at being a slave to food.

Big Haircut


Here he is last week at the park, the picture is not that great but you can really see his huge amount of unruly hair.


I cut off a ton of his hair because it was getting so tangly and matted and the brushing sessions were getting out of hand. Anyway, here he is yesterday in the backyard. He likes his new look, he says his hair is "poofy" now. Not sure if that's good or bad in his mind.

I have been doing some digital scrapbooking the past few weeks, I really like it as I can put a page together here and there without having to clear off the work table, get out my photos, supplies and tools. Usually by the time I get all that set up, my window of opportunity is long gone. I came across these two pictures and wanted to go down memory lane.


I think he is about 2 and 1/2 here, he was so funny at that age. All bluster and craziness around us but very quiet and almost shy around people he didn't know well.



This one is from Christmas of 2002, the girls are are 8 and 4 here. These outfits crack me up, not the usual clothes I would dress them in but they could rarely wear similar outfits due to their age and size difference so I'll cut myself some slack for the sparkles. Oh the good 'ol days, back when the oldest would actually put her arm around her little sister. She'd rather chew glass now than be affectionate with her. They still play together and all but there is no hugging or anything anymore.

Oh yay! I managed to start and finish a Photoshop Elements tutorial and I think I understand what I did. This is a most important fact because most of the time I just do what it says and don't retain anything. This is mostly thanks to the help and knowledge of my wonderful husband who sat next to me and explained what was happening and why. He stuck with me through one
(ok, maybe two) outbursts of extreme frustration and was just an all around great help. The fact that he works on Photoshop for a
living and is a super genius at it doesn't hurt either.

We are getting set to go up north to my parent's cottage for the holiday weekend, I can't wait. We're supposed to meet some friends and their 3 kids at the dam, where the kids will hunt for crayfish and maybe fish and play in the river if it's above 45 degrees. You never know with northern Michigan. My friend and I recently connected again after a long time apart. We weren't out of touch for any particular reason, we're both just busy and she lives in Ann Arbor which is about a 45 minute drive. That's not very conducive to dropping in whenever and hanging out, it always has to be planned in advance to fit with our schedules.
Anyway, we had dinner at their house a couple of weeks ago and it was like we were never apart. I can talk about anything with her, she understands me and my weird sense of humor and annoying tendencies. The added bonuses are that our husbands are friends too and the kids all get along great. In fact, our two oldest have been friends since they were about 2 months old, that's over 13 years ago. Yikes!