saturday morning inspirations

excited for a day of halloween prepping. some pumpkin carving, some coloring, maybe some caramel apples if i can con my way into some and we will finish the evening off with a showing of, hocus pocus (my favorite halloween movie).

farewell october

this morning was the first morning where i really felt autumn in the air.  the air was brisk and filled my lungs, there was that smell in the air....not the typical "eww the trash stinks!" but fall was in the air.  today was one of the first days where the heat wasn't overwhelming.  it was enjoyable.  and i really wish i could have enjoyed it more than i was able to.  but hopefully the weekend proves to be nothing short of amazing.

but just as expected, the month flew by before i could enjoy it.  this was a month of a lot of ups and downs.

lows:

unfortunately there was no visit to the pumpkin patch this year.  iain opted out since he had gone to one with his school.  i guess he's at that age right now where he doesn't like to "repeat" things.  honestly, it bummed me out a little but i am hoping that the impending holiday season will give us some time to do some adventuring.  we also haven't had a chance to carve any pumpkins or make caramel apples.  we did a few halloween crafts and watched some halloween movies.  my once halloween enthusiast has disappeared.  hopefully its only temporary


the anniversary of mom's death....while it was sad, i made it through this year without any breakdowns.  i did a lot of remembering, especially of the good times.  i talked about her, i remembered her, i missed her, i talked to her even if she's not here, i like to think she can still hear me.

uncle kenny's memorial service.  i wasn't able to make it but i heard it was amazing.  it just breaks my heart that i couldn't be there for some of my family.

the great apartment flood and everything that went along with that. 


but like they always say, there's always a silver lining.  a few of the good things that happened this month:

R. was offered a position with the NNPS system and we are finally back on track to being a two income family.  this is huge for us and i couldn't be more excited.  its been tough living on just my income alone, but we somehow did it.  and now some of that stress will melt away and we can get back to our normal lives!

my moms anniversary really allowed me to finally let go of some of the emotional baggage i was still holding on to.  and i really feel like i can finally start healing and moving on.  i know now its okay to be sad and miss her, but i dont need to blame myself anymore.

i reconnected with some people from my past.  and said the things i needed to say to them and got some feedback.

the new apartment.  it took some pushing but i got my way in the end and i think we're all much happier in the new place. 

act your age....

whats the saying?

act your age, not your shoe size?

i think this could also work to remind people to dress their age, not their shoe size.  or stop shopping in the juniors section after a certain age or if you're going to do it, be smart about it.  obviously if you're approaching your 40's, you probably should not be wearing a miniskirt and your bubbies (yes, bubbies) should not be hanging out all over the place.

a friend of mine reminded me recently, "know your audience." meaning, if you want people to respect you, take you seriously and you want to make a good impression, you should be dressed to do so.  i honestly get real tired of hearing people use the excuse that they "look good for their age" and that allows them to still dress as if they're between the ages of 17 and 24.  you can look good for your age, dress appropriately and still feel sexy.  without looking 1. ridiculous 2. trashy and 3. idiotic.

this entire blog was sparked by a recent reviewing/updating of my employers dress-code policy.  not much changed in it from when i was hired, some updating and clarification on certain things pertaining to womens clothing choices (which stemmed from an overly hot & humid summer, which women showed far more skin than was necessary in the workplace).  i was pulled into my managers office, to specifically address my tattoos.  in the dress-code policy it states that tattoos should be covered in a way to "minimize" the visibility of the tattoo(s).  i was commended on keeping mine, specifically my chest piece, covered as much as possible on a regular basis.  but i was asked to wear my hair down to keep my neck tattoos concealed.  i wasn't in any way offended, more or less annoyed because i have really long/heavy/thick hair and sometimes it just feels better to pull it all up and out of my face.  i was also asked to keep my cardigans on at all times, even when i'm seated at my desk.  no problem again.

but this all made me think, how can my tattoos be so offensive that i need to keep them covered, when their are women walking around the company dressed like they just got done shopping at strippers 'r us?  honestly i am offended by some of their clothing options, but according to the policy, they are within policy standards.

please tell me when 4-5" black patent leather stilettos ala stripper shoes became work appropriate?


**another old post i've dug up and finally posted, enjoy! from october 2010.

saturday morning inspirations

can you tell where we're headed today on an adventure?

three years...

it doesn't seem like three years has passed, but october 19th has crept up on me again.  today marked the three year anniversary since the last time i spoke with my mom.  tomorrow will mark three years since my mother took her own life.  i've been told that it gets easier as time goes on, but i have yet to see the light at the end of that tunnel.  part of me is still angry and the other part of me still blames myself.  i constantly question my actions about that night when i spoke to her.  i should have known something wasn't right.  i should have stopped and listened.  i shouldn't have fought with her.  but most of all, i should have said i love you.  that part is what hurts the most.  i never got the chance until it was too late.

now i spend a lot of time thinking about the things she's missed or the things that she will miss.  she'll never see me walk down the aisle, she'll never meet R., she'll never be there for the birth of any future babies, she'll never see me walk across the stage to receive my bachelors degree, etc.

There's no need for tears
Cause there's no need to cry
The love that you leave
Will never be left behind
This pain in my head comes straight from my heart
No woman alive could touch who you were
There's no one could take your place
Your beauty will never fade
The seed that you sewn
Now reachs for the sky
The song that you leave
Will never beat at night
And after this song, her spirit lives on
Though your not around you'll never be gone

Cause no one can take your place
Your beauty will never fade
But I... I could have danced on the sun
But my world came undone
Yeah, I... I could have danced on the sun
But my world came undone

This pain in my head comes straight from my heart
No woman alive could touch who you were...

Laura by Flogging Molly 

RIP Kimmy Murphy

December 30th, 1964 - October 19th, 2007 

beautiful things

need a gift idea for the art lover in your life!?

i've said it once and i'll say it again, i've got some pretty amazing and talented friends.

they're writers, artists, professionals, creators, singers, dancers and i'm pretty sure a few are superheros. 

with the impending holiday season approaching us, i wanted to share some gift ideas with my readers.

so if you like art or want to buy someone in your life some truly amazing stuff, please check out:

Fortuna

from Pure Gold Paints:

I’m a perpetually 30-year-old painter living in Los Angeles specializing in watercolor and blood portraits of people and pets. I do other stuff too, but those are my passions. I love bringing out the essence that makes people who they are through a few brush strokes. It’s really effin’ cool!  I work in watercolor because it takes patience, and that is something I generally lack. It MUST be worked fast and then you have to stop, let it dry.. control yourself. It’s like a rad life lesson.

My blood art is reserved for people doing the things that make them human to me- bleeding. performing. being interesting. I usually paint people suspending or something similar. It’s a fitting medium for something so close to my heart. I find the act of causing myself to bleed to be extremely cathartic. It’s essential to my life.

Jean Harlow

I’ve been an artist from the time I could hold a crayon, being in creepy kid advanced art classes since elementary classes. I used to sit with rolls of paper and duplicate ancient Egyptian scrolls with my watercolors when I was about 8 or 9 with freakish accuracy. I started teaching myself to read hieroglyphics around that time as well, and wanted to be an Egyptologist by the time I was 10. It’s still a fascination for me today.

In high school, my Egyptian passion was replaced by magazine spreads for high fashion. I covered every wall in my room with torn out pages from Harper’s Bazaar, mesmerized by the faces of these women, their bodies, angles, shapes. And I drew them, constantly. I dreamed in the human form.

Carole Lombard

And now.. the love of the form, of documentation.. it’s all come together to create my current love- portraits. Of people, being themselves. Doing their thing. From a photo or two I can create a representation of who you are. I love doing that. It’s like magic.. summoning something ethereal from a page with a brush and some paint.

When I am not creating for others through custom commissions, I spend time doing paintings of my muse for my own pleasure. In my opinion, the human form has never been so beautiful as it is with him, and his passion for bleeding and performing only make it more appealing to paint him. Wow- that sounds creepy. ha!






so what are you waiting for? head on over and order some rad stuff!!!

settling in.

still getting settled into the new place.

but already, things have improved drastically.

i never realized how much my surroundings affect my mood until we moved.  being in our old apartment was depressing, it felt cramped and cold and small.  i felt confined and miserable.

now i'm in an apartment that feels light and airy, its bright and my mood has never been better.  i can even tell that our health has improved.  iain and i had severe breathing problems in the old place.  in fact, i think iain had a cold the entire time we were there.  and now? not so much as a sniffle or a sneeze.


things at work are good, my plate seems to be getting fuller but its nice.  the extra work definitely helps the day go by faster and hopefully my hard work pays off in the end.  or is at least not going unnoticed. 

a proper update will come in a few days. 

moving...on!

no saturday morning inspiration posts this week again, sorry kids!

as i mentioned in my previous post, our apartment flooded.  finally on wednesday management agreed to give me a new unit when i had finally had enough.  we still could not stay in our place and they weren't going to be able to fix the wall for another week.  thursday afternoon, we signed the lease to our new place and yesterday we started the moving process.

let me tell you, moving at the last minute when you've been in an apartment for nearly two years is not fun or easy!  while i sit here and look around, it still looks like nothing has been accomplished and it is getting on my nerves.

anyway, this is me, signing off probably until later tonight.

if you'd like to lend a hand and move a few boxes (they're not going far), i would sure appreciate it!  call/text me or message me on facebook.

there's no place like...home?

so i have an apartment.  which i have been unable to live in for going on four days now.

for most of last week, hampton roads saw nothing but rain.  for most of the week i felt as though i was walking on eggshells, because i live in a basement unit.  and we all know that apartments can almost always be counted on for one thing...poor plumbing.

we made it through most of the week with no issues and i thought i was in the clear.  friday's forecast showed no rain, warmer weather and a break from puddles.  so thursday night me and my partner in crime were lounged out in the living room, catching up on our dvr'd shows and chit-chatting.  suddenly R. jumped up from the couch, "do you hear that?" me: "hear what? i can't hear anything."

he ran around the couch and down the short distance to our bathroom and thats when the horror began.  their was sewage spewing out of the bathtub drain, covering the tub in this black/ink-like liquid and the toilet was just flowing all over my bathroom floor.  we quickly grabbed all the towels we had to create a barricade between the bathroom and the hallway (this did not work).  everything people had flushed was suddenly in my bathroom, hallway and kitchen.  i'm not going to get into how disgusting it was or how badly it smelled.  but it got to the point where we couldn't make it stop or scoop the water up quickly enough.  the maintenance guy i had called as soon as we saw the water finally showed up about 45 minutes after i initially called him.  he came with no tools, no shop-vac, nothing.  all he did was come in and say: "wow...thats bad!" and then returned outside to wait for a plumber to show up.

about an hour later, he (the maintenance guy) shows back up, knocking on my door and exclaims:  "so...good news! its not our fault or anything we did, its the city's. so you guys are gonna have to call the city of newport news and hopefully if enough people call tonight, they'll get someone out here earlier than in the morning.  so yeah, call the city and have a good night."

are you kidding me?!

at this point i am holding back tears.  my apartment is ruined, i have now lost all my towels and a good amount of clothing and you're not going to do anything to help me?

we quickly packed up a few things, grabbed iain out of bed and headed to R.'s mom's house.  showers were taken as quickly as possible, shoes were thrown away and the waiting game began.

friday morning we returned back to the apartment to see that nothing had been done yet.  anger had set in again.  and the smell made me nauseous.  friday was supposed to be a great day.  i had my workday already planned out, it was iain's birthday and we were gonna go out for a family dinner later on that evening.  however, i ended up having to call out of work because of the flooding which kind of turned the entire day into a nightmare, but i still tried to make the best of it.  after noting that the apartment was still a wreck, we returned to R.'s moms house and waited until the afternoon before we checked again.

at about 1pm, we returned to check on our place and they had been in the apartment.  from what we could see some of the carpet padding had been ripped up, water had been sucked out of the carpet and out of the bathroom.  but that was it.  the smell was horrifying.

obviously we couldn't stay there again, so we decided to spend one more evening with R's mom and saturday we would go get lots of cleaning supplies and deal with it ourselves.  we spent a good 4 hours cleaning yesterday and the smell would not go away.  there is extensive damage to our bathroom and in my opinion, that carpet needs to be replaced.  of course, our rental office is not open on the weekends (how convenient).  so tomorrow after my dental appointment, i am going to have to go speak with property managment and see what they're going to do.  at this point, they have two options.  they can replace the carpet, fix all the damage in the bathroom or they can move me into a new unit.

the apartment is unsanitary.  its as simple as that.  you cannot expect a couple with a child to continue living in a unit after something like that has happened.  renters have rights and i now know mine thanks to a friend, so i know exactly what i am entitled to.

i'll keep you all updated on the status of this problem.  i'm hoping i will be given some good news tomorrow. 

motherhood....the six year retrospect

in only a few hours, it will officially mark the sixth birthday of my son.  iain michael burst into the world at a whopping 6lbs 15oz, late into the evening of october 1st, 2004.

it was at that exact moment, when his little body exited mine that i really knew what love was.  it was also at that exact moment that i knew my life would never be the same.  for nine months i carried this child inside me.  and finally i could gaze into his eyes.

i remember those first few days being rough.  i didn't have a particularly hard labor, but it wasn't without its complications either.  my epidural never worked, i couldn't push hard enough, iain was flipping with every push, i had the hardest time dilating and i was threatened with an emergency c-section more than once.  we returned home to my aunt and uncles home in westminster, maryland on a sunday.  that following morning, i brought iain in for his first official checkup and the heartbreak set in.  iain developed jaundice pretty badly, so we were re-admitted to the pediatrics unit.  the entire first week of his life, he was strapped to a bed under UV lights.  i wasn't allowed to hold him or nurse him for a whole week.  instead i was set up in a bed next to him, where all i could do was watch.  there was nothing i could do except cry.

five days later, i was finally able to hold my son.  we returned home again and began our lives as mommy and baby.

the years following iain's birth have been a constant rollercoaster of emotions and learning.  before i became pregnant, i had very little experience with children.  i had spent most of my teenage years telling people how much i never wanted a child.  i'm not sure when that changed, i suspect somewhere between 20 and 21, haha.  i mean, i was 21 when i got pregnant. 

somedays i think back to when he was younger and wonder how i made it through all that alive, haha.  we haven't been without our trials and tribulations, but all in all nothing has ever been more rewarding then being this kids momma.  he really is the light of my life, my one true love.  and nothing will ever change that.

being a mom, scratch that.  being iain's mom has taught me a few things:

- my love is never ending, runs deep and is unconditional.  not a day goes by that i don't shower this little boy with love and adoration.  i am forever telling him how proud i am of him and how much i love him.

- i am a strong woman.  no matter how much someone tries to break me or tear me down, i dont let it happen.  i show them exactly what i am made of.

- i'm a good momma.

- a smile from him can make the worst day melt away.

- cleaning and laundry are a never ending task.  i have learned to accept this.

- his laugh is contagious.


so with that, to my son.

i love you more than you will ever know.  i cannot believe that you are officially a six year old.  you're a big boy and you remind me that everyday, you're not a baby anymore.  but someday, you'll realize that you'll always be my baby. 

I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, As long as I'm living my baby you'll be.

happy birthday iain michael

have a wonderful birthday!!!

mommy loves you
<3