I think summer is here. No more cold spells. Which I love. Even though the heat out here in the desert can be quite oppressive when it gets up in the hundreds for days on end, there’s something that harkens back to my childhood when I wake up in the morning and tip toe outside and it already feels warm at six in the morning. I was raised here in the desert and deep inside I’ll always be a desert rat.

That’s not saying I’m not anxious to get back to the beach. I AM. I think about it almost every minute. I just want to know where I’m going to live already. I hope to nail down an apartment situation this weekend. Work has been picking up so I really hope I can afford to get into a complex with a pool. How cool would that be? Bug could learn how to swim…I dream of nice white walls and light flooding in the windows so I can take photos without having to constantly dodge the redneckedness of my mobile home.

I feel bad saying that. I love this old mobile home. I’m going to be sad to leave it. But I won’t be sad to leave my crazy neighbors. Nosiree.

I’m going to miss my mom and all the kid-watching she does. We’re just going to have to make sure I find an apartment with room for an air mattress because she’s going to come visit us as often as I can talk her into it.

Speaking of… I found an apartment a few weeks ago in my price range. It was pathetically small. It was the size of my living room with no other rooms attached to it outside of a closet with a toilet in it and a shower in another closet. This is how studios normally are but this one was just super small and sad. It didn’t even have room for a refrigerator. I could have a mini fridge and that’s it. I could probably fit a bed, a table and maybe an expedit bookshelf and that would be it and it wouldn’t be very brenshui.

I seriously considered it though because it was cheap. I like the idea of minimalistic living, having only what you absolutely need and nothing extra… I could just pretend I was living in Paris like Linguini in Ratatouille. I could even hang a bike over my door…but then I thought about all these crafting posts I do and all the art supplies I keep on hand. Where would I keep them? I can’t really afford to go out and buy supplies every time I have a project. So I let that apartment go.

I think I’ve talked about Bug’s anxiety about school before. It was really bad a week ago. So bad that I started looking up things on the internet and ended up buying a workbook for her to go through. We’ve only read two chapters but she’s been super keen to color in it. She loves it. Toby thinks it’s all hogwash but I’m inclined to think it’s good because we went from three to four freak-out tear-fests a morning to maybe one or two now and somedays none. I just worry about her so much. She probably gets her tendency to over-worry about things from me. I just don’t want her to suffer from anxiety for the rest of her life. So hopefully with this workbook and another book I’m reading we’ll have some tools to deal with her fears.

I sent my 40th Birthday Camp Midlife Crisis invitations out last week. I feel like a crazy stupid fool planning a big party right in the middle of summer when I have so many work projects going on AND a move. I don’t know how I’m going to pull it off, not to mention the world is supposed to end or at least burn into some kind of terrible financial depression…but I figure it’s now or never. This is my journey and I’m a mover and a shaker. I have to make things happen if I want them to happen. I can’t sit around waiting for life to line up for me. This all makes me think of my year’s goal list. Can I really make it to New York this year and possibly hire an agent? I guess they say if your goals don’t scare you then they aren’t high enough. Well, my goals definitely scare me.

Sometimes I get mad at myself for not accomplishing all these things that I want to do when I was younger and hipper and more photogenic. But then I remember my little one and I realize that everything is happening in this order for a reason. I might not build an empire or star in crafting videos on the local news station or release coffee table books with pretty origami paper inserts or have drinks with celebrities… but I do have a daughter and she is perfect. She slows me down for a reason. I just have to stop fighting against it and savor it.

I need to savor everything in this crazy life. Because it won’t last forever.

We’ve been swimming at my Grandma’s house once a week. Bug still does not know how to swim and it’s a bit nerve-wracking. She’s close. She just has to get over her fear of getting water up her nose and in her ears. I can’t say I blame her. I still swim the breast stroke above water myself because I hate it too. So this summer we have goals: learn to swim, learn to ride a bike and learn to tie her shoes. I think we can do it. Especially if I get around to getting her bike tires pumped up. (Bad Mom!)

Bug’s kindergarten held a Mother’s Day Tea last week. It was darling. They made us paper-plate hats and I have to say with pride that mine was by far the most stylish. Don’t I look fancy in it? She wanted to know why I didn’t wear it to church on Sunday. I told her I wanted to keep it nice to hang on the wall and thankfully she bought that. It’s hanging in the bathroom making the bathroom look fancy.

These kid art projects make my heart swell up until it feels like it might burst and then I can’t figure out what to do with them. I hate to throw them away because there is just so much love involved but I don’t know if my threshold for clutter can take much more. Sigh. It’s just too much. So I keep them around and go on day-dreaming about that nice white apartment…

We went to Knott’s Berry Farm this last Saturday. It was a blast. I can’t tell you about it yet because I’m due to write a sponsored post this coming Monday. But I’ll have lots and lots of photos and funny stories to share.

Ah, Mother’s Day. I wore my favorite green striped dress. How come I can’t find a link to who gave it to me. Where are you Texas Leah? That was you, right? Blarg.

Anyway, it was a nice Mother’s Day. I spent it with my mom and my grandma eating a big lunch.

Other random shots from around town…

We have a pink plastic flamingo in our backyard now. That officially makes us classy, right? I’m planning on moving him to the beach with us, stuck in some pot of a cactus to remind us of the desert. He’ll make me stand out when I’m living in cookie-cutter apartment land with only a balcony to call a yard.

Strawberry leaf hula skirt girl.

It’s officially iced coffee season I’m pleased to announce.

So go get your teeny weenie bikini on and enjoy one in the kiddie pool! That’s what I say.

And that concludes my instagrammia update.

* * *

Did Instagram kill the blog star? I don’t know. I don’t use my water-proof purse camera anymore now that I have a handy dandy iphone and that’s kind of sad. But I do love the instant gratification of sharing images right when they happen. I don’t blog as much but I don’t think that’s Instagram’s fault. I think life is just busier/crazier.

I do have some questions for you, dear readers who have stuck by me through the years. I’m dreaming up a new design for this site that probably won’t happen until the tenth of never but we can dream…. I’m going to kick most of my ads to the curb. I’m sick of them and they don’t pay enough. Do you have any special requests? You have kept me afloat all these years with your comments and business connections, it’s probably about time that I asked for some customer feedback.

More blogging? More craft posts? Less ads? Do sponsored posts drive you crazy? More and more of them want to be on my main blog page and not on my review blog which I have mixed feelings about. I hate being a sell-out and I don’t want to force anything on the readers who have been so loyal to me, but at the same time reviews pay the bills and I think I bring more to the table than the average reviewer. So tell me what you think. What would you like to see more of? I’m not going to make any promises. Promises seem to be the kiss of death for me but it would be fun to tumble around your suggestions in my rock-polisher of a brain.

Well, I’m here to rescue you. I’m not a professional photographer or anything, but I’ve been taking pictures of kids for years. Here are my top ten tips for making photo sessions fun for kids.

1. Make an idiot of yourself. Kids love fart jokes. If you can let one rip or pretend to, you’ll get that smile you wanted and their grandmother will never know. She’ll just think your kids are delightfully charming and happy all the time. When the fart jokes get old (although they never do), move on to something even more stupid. Tell them their dad wears diapers and sucks his thumb. It’ll be a laugh-fest. Just make sure you have your finger on that shutter button and snap away.

2. Shoot shoot shoot. Shoot a hundred pictures. You’ll get at least one good one.

3. Get in the thick of the action. Get close. Shoot at weird angles. If they’re in the water, get yourself a waterproof camera and dive in. If they’re at the park, go down the slide with them. Cameras are expensive, but they’re meant to be used. They don’t get nice pictures sitting safely in your camera bag or on top of the refrigerator. Get close to your kids and play with them. Invest in a nice strap and always have your camera handy at your hip. Make sure you’ve got your settings ready at all times, because you never know when you might get that million dollar shot. Also, if you have your camera on you all the time, your kids will get used to it. Before you know it they’ll be yelling at you to take their picture instead of running away from you when you pull it out.

4. Break the rules. Shoot into the sun. Shoot upside down. Shoot through your knees. Tilt the horizon. It’s okay. Just because some teacher in your Photography 101 class told you to use the three-quarters rule when you frame a photo doesn’t mean you have to. Those rules are made for people who have hours and hours to compose a shot. You don’t. You have a kid who’s active, so shoot away before you lose your shot.

5. Go ahead and photograph them when they are being bad. If it’s a family portrait session and they’re picking their nose, take that shot, too. Capture that moment when they kick their feet up in the air on stage and show off their panties. These are moments that make the best stories and you are going to want to remember them — even if at the time you want to crawl under your chair and pretend they aren’t your kids. These are the photos that will have you laughing into old age. Treasure them.

6. Make them chase you. Sometimes when my daughter has had it up to here with posing for photos, I tell her to try and catch me. I run backwards shooting her the whole time. Sure, it takes some coordination not to run into people behind me, but I get the best shots and it gets the wiggles out so she’s more inclined to be still in other photos.

7. Keep an eye out for great locations. An old brick wall with pretty peeling paint, a funny structure to climb on, a pretty park … I keep a running list in my brain of great places to take photos and when we need to mix it up, we take a little ride in the car. Sometimes a new location is the best antidote for those rolling eyeballs when you announce it’s picture time again.

8. Take advantage of that self-timer and jump into your own shot. Kids get tired of being the only subject. Get in there with them. Make a fool of yourself. It provides great comic relief. Then let them view the photos on the back of your camera so they can see what works and what doesn’t work. You’ll be surprised how quickly they can get the hang of not looking stupid. Some cameras even let you flip the view-finder around so kids can see themselves while they pose. Take advantage of that natural vanity and use it in your favor.

9. Bring unexpected props. A pink parasol, a giant cheesehead hat, funky glasses, a mustache or a giant lollipop … sometimes throwing something unexpected into the mix can really make it fun. They never know what you are going to do and that takes away the boredom factor. Let them wear something you never let them wear. A snorkel with mittens — why not? Chances are they’ll abandon the silly props in half of your photos, and you’ll get that shot you really wanted anyway. Bringing a sense of playfulness to the session will make it last ten times longer, and you won’t have to bribe them with candy.

10. Let them be them. If they’re having an off day and they really don’t want their photo taken, let them be. If you respect their limits they’ll probably come back later when they’re feeling better and ham it up better than ever. Kids really do want to make you happy. Make a big deal out of how great the photos turn out when they do and when they don’t, shrug it off. Everybody has off days.

Need a last minute Mother’s Day gift? I’ve got two magnet crafts for you at Alpha+Mom. This one is made out of a frappuccino lid which should be an excellent excuse for you to make a trip to Starbucks for their frappy happy hour. Unfortunately they are NOT a sponsor. I wish they would sponsor me.

While we were making fun magnets for mother’s day I spray painted some alphabet magnets as a photo prop (as seen above in a handy instagram photo). I think they turned out the best. So if you’re not afraid of can of spray paint, you might want to give mom some pretty pink glittery letter magnets!

I also have two bunny books out now! Time for Bed, Bunny! and

Time to Get Ready, Bunny!

Time to Get Ready, Bunny! has been out for a while. I’m working on Time to Eat, Bunny! but that one is still in my head.

And that’s all my news for now! Hopefully I’ll have more news soon. I’ve got lots of projects in the works and of course tails of catastrophes that go along with them.

Bug and I visited the Carlsbad Ranunculus Fields a couple of weeks ago. It’s funny because there is nothing new to see at the fields from year to year. They pretty much look the same but I feel compelled to shell out the eleven dollars anyway because I love them so much. It’s tradition!

The tractor ride with the recorded voices,

The rows and rows in multicolors,

Purple…

Orange…

Every year we discuss which color is our favorite. This year we decided it was red.

Pretty pretty red.

With orange at a close second.

This year they have little walkways into the flowers so you can take photos that look like you are in the thick of the flowers even though you really aren’t. As usual you are not allowed to pick any which is so frustrating but understandable of course.

I would be deliriously happy if they let you pick your own flowers. Can you imagine? I would come home with armloads!

But one thing I thought about as we traveled over the old familiar grounds was how these flowers are appreciated the world over. There were so many tourists from Japan. It gave me a new appreciation of this amazing many petaled flower. How nice is it that I only have to drive an hour and a half to see such a wonder while others fly half way around the world!

Another thing different about this year was the sweet pea maze. Not how difficult it was. No, that was pretty much the same.

What changed was how Bug wasted me getting through it this time. It seems like yesterday we couldn’t even go in because she was afraid of it.

We also had strawberry shortcake this time which we’ve never had there before. It was delicious. Such sweet sweet berries! They were totally worth the five bucks we paid for them.

Until next year pretty flower fields!

Mwa!

She forgot to put her tooth under her pillow so I wrote a little note in my “tooth fairy writing” (aka really small chicken scratch that only I can do with my super nifty tokyo pen shop pens) that said, “Did you forget something.”

When she found the note she looked at it for several minutes and said, Mom, this looks like writing in your pen. So I rattled on about how the tooth fairy probably borrowed my pen just like Santa Claus borrows our wrapping paper. She wasn’t buying it. Just like she doesn’t buy the Easter Bunny or Santa anymore. What have I done to this child?

I tried really hard to let her believe in all the magical things of childhood for as long as I could but she’s just too dang smart.

Toothless Monkey Smart.

A while back Bug was invited to an “Under the Sea” birthday party. We love anything “Under the Sea”, as you know, so this party was right up our alley. And you can imagine our delight when the take-home party favor was a real live goldfish in a little glass bowl. Bug was over the moon and named her little fish Nemo right off the bat.

I was surprised when Nemo lived through the night and into the next week. His bowl was super small though so I borrowed an old beta tank my mom had. I’d had it before and managed to keep guppies alive in it for months before a power outage turned off my desk light and they died from getting too cold. It was small but I wasn’t quite ready to shell out the dough for a big aquarium. I’ve had a goldfish or two in my life so I know how these things go.

Amazingly, Nemo kept staying alive so we decided to double our fun with a trip to Petsmart. Twelve dollars later we had a small plastic plant, a really cool under-water bridge and a friend for Nemo named, Orangina.

Then things started to go bad. Orangina and Nemo might have gotten fed a little too much to eat even though I had repeatedly warned Bug about over-feeding fish. But Nemo and Orangina were very hungry, mom! she informed me as I surveyed Nemo and Orangina’s foggy tank. I thought I’d kept an eye on Bug’s feeding schedule but maybe I should have kept the food out of reach altogether. Orangina started swimming sideways and by the next morning she was dead.

We had a funeral in the backyard and buried Orangina by the rose bushes with a big sling-shot looking stick for her gravestone. It was all very sad.

I knew we had to step it up a notch if we were going to keep Nemo around. So we took a dreaded trip to Walmart and bought one of those all-inclusive 10-gallon aquariums kits that comes with a filter, a water treatment packet, a tiny packet of food, a light etc etc…We bought some rocks and some more food and before I knew it, I’d spent over $50 on a party favor fish that we got for free at a birthday party.

But Nemo was a great friend for Bug by now. She checked on him religiously. I remember doing the same thing when I was a kid. In fact, my mom still has a great big 80-gallon aquarium that she’s kept the same school of happy fish in for years.

Even though we had a new tank with nice clean treated water and Nemo seemed to really like it, after a few days he started swimming sideways too. We prepared ourselves mentally and sure enough he finally gave up the ghost a day later. There was another funeral in the backyard by the roses.

Thankfully, my brother showed up in town about this time and he’s kept fish for years so he took us back to Petco to do it right. We got our water tested and got a long lecture from the official fish expert on Nitrates and Nitrites and how bad our city water out of the tap really is. I did not know! So we started over with new treated water. We let that water sit for a week (which was great for anticipation and appreciation—I highly recommend it) and then went back to Petco a week later for some new fish.

We got six guppies and one African Dwarf Frog. We were very excited about the African Dwarf Frog. Unfortunately, he burried himself under the plastic plant and bridge and we haven’t seen him since. I can find him if I move things around but I have no idea if he’s eating. I have to put my hand all the way in the tank to give him food under his bridge because if I let it drop from the top the guppies eat it faster than you can blink. Those suckers like to eat! And even when I put it under the bridge they go after that. So I’m really worried about Mr. Frog aka Jumpy.

A few days later two of the guppies died. It’s been two weeks now and the remaining four are still alive. Mr. Frog seems to be alive too but I haven’t seen much of him. Anyone know anything about African Dwarf frogs? Please don’t tell me that he should have his own tank because I don’t think I can handle another aquarium at this point.

But the story doesn’t stop there of course. Oh no. Toby got wind of Bug’s new hobby and he decided he’d show her a really good time and take her to some kind of super ultra deluxe pet fair they were having at the local fairgrounds. I have no idea what happened but somehow Bug came home with a blue beta that she “won.” His name is Ocean.

He’s very beautiful but I didn’t want a Beta. I’m in over my head with the fish in this house. As it is I have to change water every three weeks and all this hulabaloo about additives and nitrates and nitrites has me a little stressed out. I have a hard enough time keeping cat boxes clean and a dog who doesn’t like to go outside let out at regular intervals. Don’t get me wrong, part of me is just as over the moon about our menagerie as Bug is but the other part is very tired. So we have a Beta.

And the cats like him very much.

So he lives up high in the china cabinet with all my party glasses. It’s very swanky up there.

So how does all that add up to six thousand dollars you ask? Well, it doesn’t quite but what I’m trying to say is that a goldfish is the gateway drug to a very expensive hobby. Last weekend Toby took us on a family outing to a tropical fish store in Huntington Beach. What a fun family outing you say? Hah!

It was. This store is a wonderland of fish and all things fishy. Don’t want to pay admission to the fancy dancy aquarium? No problem, just hit up the local tropical fish store. We spent hours and hours there. Mostly because Toby got sucked in but also because it was fun.

There were crabs,

and turtles and giant koi…

Fish with stripes that went this way,

and fish with stripes that with that way.

Fish right out of the movie Nemo…

Aquatic frogs,

And tiny miniature puffer fish! I want these ones really bad. They are so cute. I don’t know if they puff up or not though.

There were eels.

And starfish!

Seahorses…

Anemones…

And lion fish!

And of course lots of friendly guppies.

You know what Bubba thinks? He thinks we’re not going home without buying some fish…

LINE AND SINKER!!!

Guess who has Daddy wrapped around her little finger and now has an 80-gallon tank filled with real plants in her very own bedroom at Daddy’s house?

Toby is a total sucker.

He didn’t spend six grand. He didn’t even spend six hundred I don’t think but while we were in the store we ran into some tropical fish people and they said having fish as a hobby was pretty much like having a boat—you just throw money into the water. Of course I should probably qualify my teasing by saying that Toby has kept fish before and this hobby is near and dear to his heart. In fact, back when Bug was probably two or three I wanted to get her a fish and he cautioned me not to because he knew that someday this would be something very special they did together.

So I guess today is that day. This coming weekend they are picking out the fish that will go into the giant bedroom tank. I’m sure it’s the beginning of a very big and very expensive adventure. I’m just glad it’s at his house!

I have some bad news. I can’t blog about the big photo shoot Bug and I were involved in for a couple of weeks. The good news is I have other things to share with you!

I have some mini piñatas over at Alpha+Mom for Cinco de Mayo. This was one of those projects that took me around and around the craftastrophe mountain before I nailed it down. Craft testing can be exhausting. I really wanted to make miniature paper-mache piñatas but everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

Ask me about the wind tunnel that is my carport where I do all my crafting photography sometime. I’ll regale you with stories of failure for hours. Good times, I tell you. It’s great for blowing little pieces of newspaper all around every which way. Maybe I could teach weather to fifth graders.

Balloons popped, masking tape was flung in exasperation, foam core backing toppled into flour paste, kittens got in the thick of it. And then it was cloudy and rainy for hours making my white balance either bluer than the arctic or hotter than the tropics because I don’t quite have the hang of setting it right. Anyway, it was exasperating.

Good thing the final product turned out super cute.

It’s funny, I was so tired of futzing with this silly craft that I expected it to be completely un-kid-friendly and a flop. It was the eleventh hour before my deadline and I was covered in tissue and glue and everything was stuck to everything. It was just a mess. But the crafts must go on so I can pay my bills so I set everything up again and made sure I had all my pieces and parts prepped properly. Then I let Bug take a stab at it. She’s my official quality-control beta-tester go-to girl. She also is a bit more zen about crafting than I am.

She had no trouble with it at all. I didn’t even have to explain anything or clean up anything. She just glued her tissue fringe to her paper hat lickety-split and it was done. So if you think this craft might be too fussy for you, think again. I already tackled all the fussiness. It’s handled. In my carport with little pieces of newspaper stuck all over me like a tarred and feathered idiot.

Even Pedro is suspicious.

I have so much to share with you but unfortunately I’ve got about a thousand deadlines so I can’t really catch up. I just wanted to say hi and stay tuned! Bug and I were involved in a big photo shoot yesterday and it was super super deduper fun. So I’ll be back as soon as I can with a ton of photos from that.