Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Link Fixage




What with motherhood taking all my attention it has been a long time since I worked on my comics. Last year when I created a comic for my friend Chris (pictured above) I included a link in the comic to a wikipedia article on "Odalism".

At the time wikipedia defined Odalism as: a movement based on pride in one's own ancient cultural and religious traditions, rather than adopting those of outside cultures.

During a routine "Hey how are you doing, how's the baby" email Chris let me know that the wikipedia link now redirects to some organization that is has been accused of neo fascism! This is not really what he was looking for in an autobiographical comic.

So I have pulled myself out of semi-exile from the comic creating business to fix my boo boo. Click on the picture of Chris above to see his comic. Click on the first panel of his comic to see the link to the previously bad link that has now been changed to a much more appealing destination...it makes more sense if you just start clicking.

Sorry Chris.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Grandparents, Graduation, Good Times

Tony and I went to DFW this weekend to visit Tony's folks and attend a friend's graduation ceremony at our Alma Mater, the University of Dallas.

Last time we visited Alice was a bit shy so Grandad Mike taught her to untie his shoes as an icebreaker. This was a big hit and Alice now checks Grandad's feet for laces at every opprotunity.
Shoes are their thing now.


We didn't have any recent pictures of Alice and Mike so we asked him to pose for these shots. Alice and Mike look so great and sweet together, and all I can think is "What is up with my hair?".



This weekend was also Tony's first real vacation (in a long time) with no other work activities going on in DFW.
So he took the chance to go hang out with his bf Erick. We met Erik and lovely Patty for lunch before the dudes went off to see "Star Wars" at the Inwood Theater with a whole bunch of friends. I hear tell that the Inwood has installed huge reclining chairs instead of stadium seats, and of course they have beer.
I took multiple shots of this little gathering where Alice, Patty, and Erick look just great, but Tony keeps pulling this crazy expression! I think he was nervous about relaxing with no work or baby duties pulling for his attention. I need to get him out on the town more often.


This is 8am at the Graduation pre-show donut and coffee roundup. Alice is looking upon a flock of adults in black robes.


This is what she was looking at:


Here is Alice in her official UD sweatshirt, bought for Alice at the university bookstore during the ceremony because her mother forgot to pack a coat and it was a bizarrely cold that morning.






Another great thing about this weekend was that our friends from Toronto Anna and Randy were in town to see her brother get his diploma. They have a three year old (Mira) and one year old (Olive) who Alice was delighted to see. The kids had a good time running around campus and trying out all of the swings donated to the school by the Alumni. We came upon Anna and Mira enjoying some alone time after the ceremony and promptly butted in to take pictures. Mira was very sleepy and kindly let Alice poke her in the face with inquisitive baby fingers.



We even got the chance to pop in and visit Tony's cousins Greg and Brenda whose youngest daughter Annie was celebrating her First Communion.

Anne looks so sweet here, and it seems that she is kneeling for some religious purpose, but in actuality she is using her cell phone to take a digital picture for a friend!

At the end of a long and lovely weekend Alice had the chance to play with Josef, her second cousin who is just a few months older.

As soon as Alice arrived Josef brought her his guitar and it did look like he was offering a place in his band. Knowing Alice, I think she would take percussion or perhaps vocals. She is particularly good at singing "DaDaDa". Most of their interactions involved trying to touch each other's heads.

We stayed a bit too late in Dallas and ended up back at the house around 9pm with a cranky baby. I went into the backyard to take care of watering our plants and Tony followed with Alice. We decided to improve Alice's mood by blowing bubbles for her, which worked like magic. I thought the bubbles looked interesting next to the huge pile of branches next to our porch.

Monday, May 11, 2009

As requested: The Blooper Reel

Tony and I made Grandmother videos for Mother's Day. Each one had a different plot and Alice shenanigans specific to the recipient, but they had one element in common:

Alice is a baby, and does not as yet speak English or understand directives such as: "Don't eat the flower!"


Thus the blooper reel of our (Grand) Mother's Day project was born.

1st (official) Mother's Day



We had a rough night and Alice woke at 7am so Mother's Day started out sleepy

My Hero Tony took the baby away from earshot for a good three hours and let me sleep blessedly uninterrupted.

Tony and the baby brought brunch and three dozen tulips home.

We did some chores together and ate chocolate cookies.

Dinner was out at a fine establishment that served organic local foodstuffs.

After a fine evening walk we had ice cream at a local family owned business that I'm sure Alice will love when she is older.

Thus ended a wonderful Mother's Day.

By the end of dinner both Tony and Alice were half asleep and I appreciate them toughing it out.


This video shows the lengths Daddy and Baby went to trying to keep their game faces on for Mommy.


Thanks guys, for a wonderful Mother's Day. Now we must start planning for Father's Day.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Tony vs Nature. Tony is the VICTOR!

Technically nature had already won in the battle for this tree which turned out to be stone cold dead when we bought the place (unbeknownst to us because it was still wintertime during our closing). The other big tree on our property is also dead and is going to be disassembled some future weekend.

This is Tony's second week of tree cutting. Our neighbor Charles came over and committed four hours in the heat to helping with his chainsaw. Tony used my Mom's chainsaw which is featured in the second pic.






With the tree in front of our house and this one Tony has made quite a pile of firewood. Not that we ever use our fireplace, but it is nice to have.


This was Alice's reaction to the tree:

Friday, May 8, 2009

Spring Cleaning

Tony and I are re-arranging the house and have moved ourselves (and Alice) upstairs. So now we are dividing up which clothes go on what floor, moving in dusty antiques from the garage for everyday use, and compiling all of our loose receipts. Things are messy but progressing towards better order.

That last task (the receipts) was one I did in front of Alice. I can't leave little pieces of paper hanging around for Alice to eat so I was simply tossing all those little slips of paper into a pink gift bag for later sorting.

I took this video the next day to capture her walking, and when I saw a piece of paper in the frame I readied myself to pry it out of her little paws before it was masticated into a sticky paste.

However, that is not what happened:

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Goodreads

My sister encouraged me to join "Goodreads" where you can list and rate the books you have read. As children we destroyed our retinas reading all night, long after our parents went to sleep. So this is a nice thing we can share.

These days I only imbibe audiobooks rather than the old fashioned paper version. Mostly because Audible.com gives away free books and audiobooks can be used in total darkness when a parent is trying to get a kid back in bed for the sixth time in a night.

I hate teething. But I loved this book:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie


My review


rating: 5 of 5 stars
Much of this book was familiar because I lived on "The Rez". Though even if this world was forign to me I would have thouroughly enjoyed the the bountiful grace and humor Mr. Alexie pulls out of his past.


View all my reviews.

Thanks for the tip Jesse!!
Blog Widget by LinkWithin