Monday, July 30, 2012

Manicure Monday, part 1

A while ago I said I was going to start posting nails weekly, I think I said I'd do it on Fridays. But quite soon after that, I had a serious nail break issue which made me cut all my nails down to super stubby...

anyway, I decided that I'm going to do Manicure Mondays instead! This manicure was done probably a month ago, before I broke my nail.

See look! Pretty! I impress myself sometimes :)

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Phone-y

I was planning on having a really relaxing week with Buddy this week. But instead, we ended up going out and doing things like every day! We had friends over, rode horses, went swimming, went to concerts, participated in artwork...

But of course, I have no pictures. So please accept my apology for that, and as a peace offering I give you: crappy pictures I took on my phone in the last few months!

How I found Buddy sleeping a few nights ago.


Buddy taking good care of "his" horse, Dolly

Painting a door at the 400 block!

Riding Dolly

More riding Dolly, that's my friend Amber who is helping him :)

Buddy loves his uncle.

And his grandpa.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Hangman.

So, my friend Molly taught Buddy how to play hangman recently. Which was great! He loves playing it, and I think it's good for his writing, spelling, and reading. Except:

He's too unsure about how to spell words, so he only ever picks 'mom', 'dad', 'shiloh'... words like that. And it gets boring quick, and he gets frustrated.

So I, being awesome, made him cheat cards!

First I found a list of kindergarten spelling words, and wrote a bunch of them in highlighter on index cards.


Buddy's job was to write over the highlighter with pen, so he could practice writing and spelling himself. 


examples of the cards, and the difficulty of the words.


This is our awesome hangman set, we found it at Target and it's so much fun! Also, Buddy was in a silly mood. As you can tell by the face.


The cards worked great! He can now draw lines for the letters, and he can look back at the word card to figure out if the letters I guess are in the word or not. These are such a big help, it made this game way more fun!

Friday, July 20, 2012

Up, Up, and Away!


As I've mentioned, I looooove Pinterest! And so when I saw this super awesome jet pack, I obviously wanted to make it for Buddy immediately.

Of course, as with all spur of the moment crafts, I didn't have ANY of the right supplies, so we improvised!
We used:
1 cereal box
2 toilet paper tubes
red and yellow tissue paper
aluminum foil
shoelaces (not shown)
and bottle tops.

So first we covered the cereal box with aluminum foil, and punched holes in the box to string the shoelace "straps" through.

Next we "foiled" the toilet paper tubes, made tissue paper "flames", and taped them onto the bottom of the box.


You could just leave it like this, but Buddy wanted buttons on his jet pack, which is where the bottle caps came in. Luckily I save stuff like that all the time, so we had enough for his design!


Anyway, this probably took us 1/2 an hour, and has provided tons of fun since! Did you know that jet packs are excellent tools to break out of jail? Especially if the mean Mommy Sheriff is keeping you there for no good reason, just twist a knob and BLAST OFF!



Sunday, July 15, 2012

As Usual.

Just as things normally go, I've been doing better for a few months which means that now I'm feeling a little weird. And by a little, I mean I haven't been able to be as present for my friends, and I've been downright toxic to my family.

I saw this coming a few weeks ago. Luckily I have an appointment with my doctor on Tuesday. I wish in the meantime I hadn't managed to go off the deep end with the people who will always put up with me.

This weekend I went Up North and the main cabin was full. So we stayed with my grandparents. Which meant I sort of slept on a couch, and sort of slept on a pull out cot. As we all know, I need structure in my life to deal with my anxiety. And I need a "safe place" to retreat if things are overwhelming to me. A cot in the middle of the room is not safe. It was just a bad plan, and had I realized what the actual situation was going to be I might not have gone Up North at all.

For some reason I thought my brother, all his friends, and my dad were all sleeping in tents. Turned out that was way wrong. So I had to somehow factor other people into my sleeping situation.

I feel so dumb blaming things on mental illness. How do you tell your family "well, I haven't slept in a few days (which is normal) and it's that time of the month (obviously also normal), but also I'm more mentally ill than normal. So much so that I already called my doctor 2 weeks ago, and have been talking to my therapist about more medication options."

You guys. I was horrible this weekend. My brother and I have our issues, but I was just over the top. I mean, he wasn't perfect either, but I took things to a crazy (literally) extreme.

I'll post pictures of the "ideal" vacation sometime this week. Because even though I was nutty, I did manage to have some fun. But seriously, I'm really glad to talk to my doctor again this week. Because I'm really tired of not being able to deal with life.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Anxiety Update, Part 1 Million

I've been doing so much better. I'm doing pretty well in school, I'm working hard, I pick up the house when my kiddo is around...

Does anyone else have serious lethargy when they are on their own? I have a hard time getting dressed, eating meals, doing dishes, etc. I've been working this summer, but only for between 4 and 7 hrs a day. I don't know what I'll do for the rest of the summer. I just want to crawl in my bed for the next month or 2.

I think this is depression again. I hate that I have both anxiety and depression. Because I can definitely feel the anxiety, as usual. I worry about all the things I normally do, I want to hide like always... but now I'm also feeling depressed again. I thought I had conquered that demon. But of course not. Damn.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Up North!

You guys all know I love my cottage. Like, seriously, would stay up there all summer if possible. Well, the last two weekends I've gotten to live that dream!

Last weekend my Buddy was hanging with his dad, so I went up with 2 of my girl friends which was AMAZING. I don't often get a chance to hang out without worry in a place that I love with people that I love, so it was seriously great! We played on the lake a whole bunch (and got stuck a few times in different boats), drank some lovely girly drinks, giggled until my sides hurt, cooked delicious food for every meal... of course the batteries on my camera died as soon as we got up north, so I have no pictures of this event, but trust me it was lovely!!!

And then this weekend, for a completely different experience, I took Buddy up. I had an appointment with my anxiety counselor on Friday morning, but Buddy, my dad, and I all left shortly after my session. We got up north to find out that some cousins were still up, so Buddy got to play with a cousin that he sees all the time (L), and one that lives far away but we wish we could visit more (E)!

My dad was suffering from having some serious oral surgery, so our day was very relaxing. We went for a pontoon ride and just relaxed :) 


In the morning we all felt rested, So Bud and I got in the lake and played around for a while! Of course, since I'm the photographer of the family, there aren't any pictures of us playing "Island War" (each person takes a tube, gets a squirt cannon and ATTACKS!!!!) or of us surfing the waves, but use your imagination because it was so much fun!

It's nice for me to get the chance to goof off with Buddy. This is sort of a failing of mine, that when we're home together I tend to think of all the things that I need to get accomplished and sometimes I neglect basic playtime with my son. But I hope this weekend made up for it!

Anyway, I will stop being so wordy and just let the pictures speak:
Buddy learned how to kayak...

...with Grandpa's help of course!

Buddy and E (and both our families) went on a tour of a mine!

Buddy thought the machinery was really cool!

Mama thought the mine was cool!

Anyway, we basically had an amazing time and I loved every second! Can't wait to go back up in 2 weeks!