Morning Hooping

We have a new tradition in our house.  Morning hooping in the kitchen.

My kitchen is the bane of my existance.  It’s that boyfriend who treats you like a princess but cheats on you every weekend; it’s the job that you love but doesn’t pay shit; it’s the margarita that is so delicious you (figuratively) can’t see straight but turns you into a blubbering drunk mess who (literally) can’t see straight and can’t find her shoes.

I adore it because it has tons of cabinit space, funky green counter tops, and because cooking makes me happy.  But it drives me completely insane because it’s the one and only space in the house I can’t stand not being clean and I have two kids and two  dogs(at least one of whom is almost certianly requesting food at any given moment) so it is never clean.

It’s the Romeo to my Juliet.  The love is real but like seven people are probably going to die before the story is over.

And now I’m rambling.

Anyway, one day the kitchen was already a hot mess when I woke up so instead of getting depressed I made my “summer of whimsy” project for the day officially telling the kitchen mess that I did. not. care. and that it could go fuck itself because I was having a first-thing-in-the-morning dance party with my little monsters instead of getting all twitchy looking at it.

Which turned into a hooping party for one.

And you know what?  The mess didn’t both me so much after that, and it was a lot easier to find the motivation to clean all the things when I’d had a blast in the space already.  Positive vibes and all that jazz.

So the morning hooping became a thing.  After we all get up I make them some breakfast then crank up the tunes, Verona giggles and Finn dances in his high chair, and I get my hooping on while they eat.  Morning hooping, making mornings and kitchen suck a little less, one rotation at a time.

Boob Art

Remember when I told you I would probably tell you everyday what I was doing on my summer of whimsy project?  Then I never did?  Haha!  You fell for it… thinking I would follow through on anything ever!  Bet you feel pretty stupid now, huh?

As it turns out most of them didn’t turn out to really be story or picture worthy… although they were still super fun and are making my life an awesome and whimsical place.

I have, among other things, engaged in several either delicious or tragic culinary experiments, taken several photography adventures, and made all the three prong outlets in my house into tiny faces.

Don’t pretend you don’t think these are faces every time you see them. We all do.

Fun fact: My house has very few three prong outlets… I didn’t realize until I did this.

Anyway, last night I came across Pricasso, an artist who paints all his work using his penis as the paint brush.  Of course I immediately sent the link to my friend Kristen on facebook who thought it was equally hilarious, one thing led to another (as it usually does with us), and this morning we got together… I contributed the lunch and activity for the kids, she brought a cheap babysitter, paint, and jello shots… and we got to making some boob art!

A few more afternoons of this and those tanlines will be gone.

Check out that blank canvas in front of us!  Not blank for long!

Art work drying on the porch.

Own those stretch marks Jenna!

And, our finished masterpieces.  I know I know, we’re awesome.

Photography Adventures

Project “Summer of Whimsy” Days 2 and 3

Downtown has awesome things to take pictures of, everywhere you look there’s some fabulous architecture, or funky cafe, street performers, a protest of some sort… you name it, it’s happening.  If I could I would take solo photography adventures down there every third day of my life.

It should be noted that we live all of 15 minutes away from downtown.  It’s not like going is a big damn deal in reality… only in my mind.

Tuesday I took the kids down for a photography adventure… which amounted to me taking about four shitty pictures, realizing the kids were bored as hell and I wasn’t getting anything good, before scrapping the whole plan because there were more fun ways we could be spending the day.

So I called a friend that lived close, we took all our kids to one of those frozen yogurt buffets, to the library, then let them run around in the shade outside the library where all the skater kids were doing cool tricks and the homeless people were napping… you know, urban culture and all that.

Not the adventure I had in mind, but fun for everyone anyway and that’s the point.

Wednesday nights I have small group at a coffee shop down there so yesterday I left early to try again, sans little monsters.  I knew of some funky street art I wanted to see if I could capture… I didn’t get as much as I wanted cause the lighting was weird, but here’s a few of the more decent ones.

Birds and Butterflies on Roosevelt

Wine and skulls at the coffee shop.

Dear Homemade Bread, Get in my mouth!

Project ‘Summer of Whimsy’ Day 1

Fact:  Bread with rosemary in it is one of my favorite foods of all time.  I could eat loaves of the stuff and still be smiling about it while I moaned in pain on the couch all night long as a result.

There is absolutely no excuse for us to not have rosemary bread in our house all the time.

So my awesome thing for today was Verona and I brought out our inner bakers.  With my favorite cook book for bread recipes in hand,…

…some fresh rosemary from my friend Dierdre’s garden,…

…my tiny, adorable, and oh so eager assistant…

…we got to baking!

And by “we” got to baking I mean I got to baking and Verona got to shoving raw bread dough in her mouth every time I turned my back, it turns out girlfriend really loves her some rosemary.

It turned out kind of weird shaped, and didn’t taste nearly as good as I thought it should but I have some ideas to try for next time.

It did make a fabulous panini though.  Fresh from the oven rosemary bread, pesto, veggies, and pepperjack.  Yum!

Project ‘Summer of Whimsy’

My official summer goal:

This summer I want to do something every single day that I really want to do.  (Inspiration credit to Tiff over at FreePlayLife.)  It doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t have to be a big huge deal, it just has to be something that I REALLY want to do.  If there’s nothing already happening that day that fits into that fits into that category… well damn it I’m going to find something.

I’ll also take picture of most of it for y’all.

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post.  Not even a little bit.  It’s also not special, just the Barns and Noble at Desert Ridge, but I took it last night and really like it without being able to explain why, so I’m sharing it.