I feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder.
I just spent the last half an hour with wooden clothespins hanging from my mouth and 50 pounds of wet laundry at my feet. For the first time in my life I have hung my laundry from a clothesline to dry.
Over the years I’ve spent countless hours and quarters at the laundry mat. More than once I’ve forgotten about the load I started in the small two machine laundry rooms in apartments I’ve lived in. And more than once I’ve had to put more quarters in those machines because my stuff didn’t get dry the first time through.
When we bought our house nearly six years ago, JQ and I were so excited to be able to do laundry in our own house. It didn’t matter if we didn’t have quarters. It was okay if the load of towels sat in the dryer overnight. The washer and dryer was ours. In our own home. We didn’t have to share it with anybody else if we didn’t want to.
It was wonderful.
This week in a cruel twist of fate our dryer broke. Part of the plastic edging that forms a seal around the drum popped away from the edge awhile back. Every time I put a load of laundry in the dryer I would struggle to pop that piece back in place only to find it popped back away from the edge by the time the load was finished. Sometimes I would find a washcloth dangling in front of the opening, wedged in between the drum and the popped out plastic edge.
Earlier this week the entire plastic edge fell out. It was broken in a few spots and would not go back in place. The light bulb in the dryer broke off with it.
When I tried to dry a load of towels last night the dryer stopped in the middle of the cycle three separate times. Each time there was the corner of a towel caught between the drum and the outside wall of the dryer casing. After the third time I took all of the damp towels and hung them from an old tattered clothesline that has been hanging in our basement since long before we bought the house.
This afternoon JQ hung a new shiny white clothesline in our backyard. One by one I hung the freshly laundered clothes from that new line. Even though it stretched at least ten feet across the lawn it wasn’t long enough to hang the entire load up. So I took down the towels from the basement line and hung more clothes on that one.
I still had wet clothes in the basket so in a last ditch effort I tossed underwear, socks and some tee shirts into the dryer in hopes that they might get dry without anything getting caught between the drum and the outside casing. Nothing got caught. Instead the dryer just completely stopped working. Now I have two clotheslines full of damp laundry hanging to dry and a bunch of undies and stuff sitting damp in a non-functional dryer.
Unlike Laura Ingalls Wilder I also have a credit card. I’m going to need it to buy a new dryer because hanging all that laundry on the line is going to suck come wintertime.
It’s Sunday.
I’m sleepy.
My to-do list is a mile long and refuses to do itself.
Let’s recap the week shall we?
We are still recovering from the robbery. Which basically means I’m still really paranoid once the sun sets but it’s getting better. My Quilled Q was accepted into the Hand Lettered show I entered. I’m super excited about that but still need to finish framing the piece—it’s on my to-do list. Over at the Curvy Girl Guide I’m sharing my must have kitchen gadgets. Seriously, I love these things.
Over at Babble.com I’m talking about failing my glucose test, looking at ridiculously cute retro-style onesies from Etsy, reminiscing about becoming a mother, thinking about names and worrying about my sex life.
Is it any wonder I’m tired?
I needed a picture for my We Can Have Sex—But Will We? post over at Babble (which contains totally exciting news) and this is the one I chose. It is a picture we took on February 12, 2007 when I was just about 35 weeks pregnant with G-tot.
It is one of my all time favorite pregnancy photos. The look on JQ’s face pretty much sums up exactly how we were feeling about becoming new parents in just over a month at that point. Sort of a “holy crap this is really happening” feeling.
Four years later and I still think becoming parents was one of the most remarkable things we have ever done.
I have this heavy weight sitting in the pit of my stomach right now. I am dumbfounded. Shocked. Pissed off.
I am disgusted with certain members of the human race.
Late Friday night—sometime after one a.m. (so technically early Saturday morning)—we were robbed. My husband’s livelihood was stolen right just yards from where we slept. Thousands of dollars worth of equipment. His entire PA system. Vintage items that cannot be replaced. Pedals, tuners, cables. The list goes on and on.
I am fucking outraged.
So much so that I’m having difficulty putting it into words.
Dear Thieving Bastards,
How dare you steal from us. Your utter disregard for the way society should function has totally fucked us. What you stole from us wasn’t just a little bit of equipment from a guy who likes to play music. What you stole from us was a man’s bread and butter. The way he provides for his family. You stole food from my child’s mouth. I hope you pay dearly for this.
We are far from well-off. As a matter of fact my family are probably some of the poorest people in my circle of friends. I’m not complaining, just stating a fact. A silver platter is not something we were ever handed. A strong work ethic and a respect for others? Those are things we believe in. Things you obviously have no concept of. We work really hard for everything we have and that equipment was no exception. Thanks to you, my husband had to give up a show on Saturday. He could not go make money to provide for his family because you stole all the stuff that he needs to make that money.
And now we have to figure out a way to replace all that stuff. And once we do we will be digging ourselves out of the hole that your selfish asshole act has put us into.
I hate you for that.
Your lack of respect for other people’s shit makes me sick. Just thinking about what you have done to us makes me want to vomit. And the worst part is you will probably get away with it. I hope I’m wrong.
I hope you rot.
And so here we are. Picking up the pieces of our broken dreams. Wondering how we will replace what has been taken from us. Wondering how we will do it quickly so my husband can play again. Wondering how long it will take us to get back to where we were Friday afternoon—just making it but not defeated.
The insurance company has told us we are not covered in this situation so there’s that. We are fucked.
***Some of you have asked if you could donate a little money to help us buy new equipment. My husband’s pride is keeping him from saying yes. We have a really difficult time accepting money that we don’t feel like we have earned (see work ethic note above). However, I understand that some of you really want to do this and believe in the pay it forward method of living. You are the people that bring tears to my eyes.
It is this sort of kindness that makes me—with much hesitation—put that little button below on this post. Feel free to ignore it but for those you that expressed an interest…all I can say is Thank You. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have no idea what your desire to help means to us. Seriously. I have shed more tears over your offer than I have over our loss. YOU are what keeps me having faith in humanity.
June 16.2011
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PhotographsThere are a couple of trucks around Toledo, Ohio that are covered with stuff. Lots of toys, dolls, and other bits of seemingly random ephemera that makes you stop and wonder just exactly what it’s all about. I spoke with a gentleman a few months ago that owns one of these trucks—along with a massive collection of Tonka trucks—and I think for him it is somewhat of a tribute to childhood. The kind of stuff that when you stop for a closer look you think, “Hey, I had one of those once.”
We see something new every time we check them out.
That yellow guy is a Snailien. I wonder how many people remember them from the early '90s?
Woody. Lisa. Flounder.
It works.
But at the same time there is something rather eerie about the missing limbs, dust covered, worn down dolls that are adhered to the sides of these vehicles.
Squeezebox. Yellow. Rocks.
Blue Eyes & Pupil Free
Choked Up
See what I mean?
June 10.2011
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Arts,
Me Me MeThe Toledo Chapter of AIGA—my local chapter—is hosting an awesome exhibition next month at the gallery of one of my favorite design firms in the area, Madhouse. The show revolves around typography that has been strictly created by hand. No computers. Only traditional photography. Any medium as long as it was created off the computer. You get the the idea.
The call for submissions ends today and in my go to fashion I sent my submissions in last night. I submitted two pieces and I’m crossing my fingers that if not both, at least the one I’m going to share with you today gets picked. I put a ridiculous amount of hours into creating this bad boy and I’d really love for it to be hanging in the show next month.
I call it Quilled Q.
It was created from 164 hand quilled pieces of paper that each started out as a 1 inch x 8.5 inch strip. Quilling is a process in which paper is rolled around a quill (traditionally) to form a spiral. I don’t have an actual quill so I used an 8-D Casing nail. Close enough, right?
Once I rolled all of the quills—or rather once I had a decent amount of pieces rolled I started assembling the Q.
And then I rolled more. And more. Until it took the shape I was looking for.
The final piece measures 18 x 24 inches and I’m super pleased with the way it turned out. It still needs to be put in its frame, but one thing at a time, you know?
What do you think?
I could get used to this.
It’s don’t care that I couldn’t swim a single lap in that pool.
He loves it and that is all that really matters to me.
June 6.2011
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Food Love,
RecipesBacon? Good.
Cream cheese? Good.
Fresh jalapeños? Good.
Put them all together and you get a treat for your taste buds that will have you shoving these babies in your mouth as fast as you can chew. I’m not kidding. My husband and I devoured 24 of these tongue-tantalizing morsels last night and are both seriously considering making them again for dinner tonight. We cannot get enough of them.
Almost as good as they taste is how easy they really are to make. Three ingredients. A small amount of prep work. One awesome appetizer that you will love making for yourself or for a crowd.
Obviously eating them was much more important than taking a decent photograph.
Bacon Wrapped Cream Cheese Stuffed Jalapeños
Ingredients:
Fresh jalapeños*
1 block of cream cheese
1 pound of bacon
*Each pepper will make two appetizers. I usually grab 10–12 whole peppers for my and my husband’s voracious appetite. Twelve to twenty—depending on the size—will accommodate the other ingredients no problem.
Directions:
Cut the top off each pepper and then cut the pepper in half lengthwise and remove seeds.
Spread cream cheese in each pepper half.
Wrap with 1/2 to 1 whole slice of bacon (depending on how large the pepper is).
Bake in oven on a rimmed cookie sheet at 425°–450° for 20–25 minutes or until bacon is cooked and crisp.
I recommend draining briefly on paper towels to remove a bit of the excess grease from the bacon. Serve warm and enjoy the tasty goodness!
June 3.2011
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Photographs
Chicago’s Navy Pier constructed out of LEGOs.
The lighting would change to simulate time from dusk until dawn. I happened to capture this one at dusk.
May 31.2011
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UncategorizedI’m not sure that sultry is considered a legitimate weather term but we are definitely there today.
