live...from burton, ohio

brian always teases me when i make big proclamations about fashion and such while watching the news. high fashion in burton sometimes means you washed your truck. (and don’t get me wrong...i wouldn’t live anywhere else.) but can someone explain to me...stella mc cartney?

 

it’s like its a big joke. let’s see what i can make them wear this season.

what else is going on in burton? glad you asked.

we spend too much time at walmart. yes, walmart. remember...burton? it’s all we have. but how sweet is this gazebo with a built in bar?

we sometimes actually make dinner. so may activities mean lots of “dinners in a tray.” (meaning those plates with little compartments that olivia and sam still love)

we teach sammy how to tie a tie. he has his spring concert tonight. we are the world, indeed.

we love johnny with all our hearts. but sometime wonder if he is playing a joke on us too.

what

what it looks like in my bed most mornings

what sammy would look like if he were a zombie

what happened outside the eric church concert

what happened inside the eric church concert

what cinna should have been wearing

what my tree looked like

what geagua county has been up to this week

what bri said it looks like from his right eye.

what the fashionable young men are wearing to the doctors offices

what to do in the doctors office when you get bored

what summer does when daddy is in the bathroom

what makes me laugh

what makes me think olivia should be a photographer

truth in advertising

have you seen the new cleveland clinic spots?

you know, today? today is friday, today is the day, today, today, today.
and yes, i think about you, mr hudock, every time i see them. “today, is the day, get your t-shirts today.” :)

being in advertising, you’d think that i would be particularly jaded with it. but i want to believe. i believe oil of olay will help me with my under eye wrinkles and make me look younger in just 4 weeks. and i have been CRAVING egg mcmuffins lately. but the clinic? ehhh. i wasn’t very impressed. i guess expected something a bit more from them advertising-wise.

until...

friday afternoon at 4...i get a call from bri.
can i meet him downtown at the clinic for emergency eye surgery?
this moment being the first time i knew anything had been wrong. apparently, it had been bothering him for like 3 weeks. (2 of those weeks out of town) when he got back into town he made an appointment. (still didn’t tell me.) he called on monday and got in on friday. he said he thought it would be nothing...maybe he just needed some eye drops.

well, not nothing. a detached retina.

and at 4 on friday, when he said to meet him downtown for emergency surgery i had know idea what that was. so no, the kids weren’t scared, cause i couldn’t even tell them what was wrong. in’t know. got a call from his doctor at the clinic as i was driving down there. omar. wanted to call brian on his cell phone. (hahahahahahah!) wanted to know what time brian had left the eye doctors and wanted to start filling out his paperwork for him. i told him as much as i could...all the while feeling dumb that didn’t even know this had been going on. i wish bri was telling this part of the story...but i guess as soon as he got to cole...before he even checked in at the desk...omar and rishi (the surgeon) came out, got him and whisked him through various back doors, outside and such to the main building. it sounded as if it wasn’t until he was prepped and ready for surgery that someone realized he wasn’t in the system. when i got there...he still wasn’t. the concierge made 4 calls before she found him. brian said the whole thing was so surreal...he thought maybe someone was doing an intervention...or he was on punk’d. he went into surgery at 6:23. not even 4 hours from his appointment. couple of hours later, i get a call on my cell phone, not the pager. his nurse telling me he was ready to go home. this time, i was whisked thru back doors to his room surprising both bri and his doctors. we received instructions, left, and were home by 9:45. everyone we met that crazy afternoon couldn’t have been more awesome. from the concierge...who even with people standing behind me was determined to find my husband...to the nurses in the pacu who had held bri’s clothes behind the desk because he wasn’t officially admitted...to omar who saw us saturday morning in an empty eye center to make sure bri was ok. was this an emergency? well, omar said it fell between urgent and an emergency. and when it’s someone you love, well, you know the answer.

but i just wanted to say, this time? when it came to the clinic? i am pretty impressed.

work

some of the cute boys i get to hang out with at work. :)

photobombing the christmas tree

sorry for the long time between posts. it’ll probably happen again.
i blame pinterest.
new tree place this year. not quite as cute, but the trees were really nice.
if only we could have found a nice family with christmas sweaters to bomb.

sit back and watch my awesomness

sammerjam on the first day of fifth grade.
standing in a sea of new tennis shoes. all of the kids looked so cute and shiny and fresh.
sam and olivia were up at 5 this morning...ready to go. :)

summer vacation

almost over. they go back to school on thursday.
it just went so fast. i’ll really miss the lazy mornings.

and on a side note...sam is the only one that summer will sleep with like this.

getting my anthroplogie on

another blog that i’ve been inspired by lately...
inspired me to do this.
we’ve been meaning to do something to that wall for a long time. originally thinking decals.
this was made from cupcake liners and white dot stickers. when i started...i placed them a little too close together. but i think it still looks pretty.

(and believe it or not...pirates on the tv last night! yay!)

summer bread

um, literally.
this is my first loaf of bread from my new bread machine.
my neighbor got the machine at a garage sale for 5o cents...and she already had, 2 so she gave it me.
and it works! delicious ground pepper and goat cheese bread.
but, apparently summer thought so too.

full disclosure...i left it wrapped up on the counter. dumb.

walk

when you’d rather run.
don’t get me wrong...i love a good walk.
with my husband. with my kids. with my dog. by the beach.
but for exercise? i’d rather get it over with as soon as possible.
so i jog.
but i haven’t been able to lately because of all the surgeries.
today was one of my first days back at it.
so i thought i’d share one of the good things about walking.
going slow enough that you find all kinds of interesting things along the way.
(not to mention the random tall boys thrown in the woods along peckham.)

silver palette

i think they were the “joy of cooking” for my generation.
i learned how to..and to love cooking...by spending hours pouring over their recipes.
my books are now filled with grease stains, small food particles(yuck!), dog ears and random pieces of stuff used as bookmarks.
and i still pull out the new basics a lot...as i have a mental block about how to boil an egg.
anyway, driving home today and trying to figure out what to make for dinner...i mentally tallied up my assets. LOTS of tomatoes, basil, pasta and a hunk of brie left over from a party last weekend.
bing! the infamous tomato brie salad! well, with the pasta added to make it more of a meal. (also knowing that olivia will pick out most of the tomatoes)
i must have made that salad for every single summer party i went to back in the late 80’s. it still looks and smells as good as i remember.

dear sam

check out this blog, dear photograph.
i came across it last spring. so when our vacation came along, we had great intentions of doing a shot with an old photo of olivia and sam in front of the bloated condo complex that stands now where our beloved chickee hut used to be.
bastards.
but, we didnt.
but we did do this. and it does make me look at our old photos in a different way.

precocious

precocious |priˈkō sh əs|
adjective
(of a child) having developed certain abilities or proclivities at an earlier age than usual : she was a precocious, flamboyant girl

treasure

why is the rum always gone?

ah, vacation time. that’s why.
i will share pictures...just posted olivia’s on fb.
one of the best things about vacation for me is getting time to read.
i’ll leave the real book reviews for amy and joanna.
but thought i’d share real quick what i read.


state of wonder
by ann patchett

i’m practically a groupie. i downloaded this on the day it came out...but i saved reading it for the ride down. i think it’s time for me to reread bel canto. i compare all books to it...is it better than bel canto? not sure it is...but it was really, really good. and i did like it better than her last book, run. and like bel canto, it throws a bunch of random people in an odd and dark situation.


the german boy
by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel

a book that was at my dads’ place in naples.
he LOVED this book. there are a lot of similarities between wolfang’s childhood and my fathers.
i lead such a priveledged life.
honestly, i’m not that much of a history buff. so a lot of this was new to me. definitely gave me a greater understanding to my father and his values.


the hunger games
by suzanne collins

i must been underneath a rock or something. i first heard about this sitting in our dentists office reading an entertainment weekly. it sounds silly, but i was mesmerized by the image of katniss everdeen (as played by jennifer lawerence). so i researched the book.
so. much. fun.
yes, it smacks a bit of the twilight series. but much more intriguing. much darker. and in our crazy reality-series lives...really kind of scary. i just downloaded the second in the series, catching fire, this morning. can’t wait!


loving frank
by nancy horan

i think i first head about this one on npr...(probably the fabulous nancy pearl) always in the back of my head as one i wanted to read. my credit card had expired on my nook...so i went to the little used book store in treasure island and found this. it definitely challenged me. i think of myself as a pretty liberal person. but i couldn’t help questioning the choices of frank lloyd wright and his love, mamah borthwick cheney. a novel, but based on real life events. flew through this one. and couldn’t wait to get home and learn more about them and his work. i went to falling water years ago...but i need to go again now that i know more about why he did what he did.

i feel as if i’m missing one. but if i did, i guess it wasn’t as good as these!