Nadia's Photography

Nadia has a hobby of stealing my camera and taking pictures of random things around the house.  I don't mind her doing this, because I don't particularly like my camera.  I would have a reason to buy a new one if she breaks it, but she is actually pretty good with the camera.

She loves to take these pictures and I have hundreds of them.  I thought I would show some of her main themes.

One of her most common theme is "lack of heads/faces".  She doesn't believe in portraits and thinks the face is over done in art work.  She only shows bodies.  Maybe has something to do with the body art I allowed.

 

 

 

 

She has taken only 1 photo where the head can be seen. It was of a spider:

She has only taken one portrait.  There are hundreds of photos, yet only one portrait.  It was of the fish:

Another trade mark of her's is close-up photography:

 

 

 

 

 

Instead of bowls of fruit she prefers empty bowls or plates:

 

Her number one trademark by far is random images of the house:

There are about 60 photos of the ceiling fan.

 

 

 

 

 

I have about 20 photos of this door knob.

 

 

 

When to come clean

A few months ago I had a friend who gave birth to her fourth child.  Her husband travels a lot for work so I told her I would make her a home cooked meal one night.  I was having a really busy and hard day when the day came, and  I didn't have time to spend hours on a home cooked meal.  So I lied.

I went to Walmart and bought a family sized frozen chicken alfredo meal and a veggie and fruit for a side.  I cooked the meal, then put the meal in my own dish and passed it off as if I made the meal myself.  I know, I'm terrible.

The day after the meal she e-mail me, thanking me for the meal and casually asked for the recipe.  I ignored the request.  When she brought my dishes back, she went on and on about how good the meal was.  Her two-year-old asked her if they can have the meal every night she liked it so much.  At that point my friend asked me for the recipe.  I just sort of smiled and quickly changed the subject.

Now she has e-mailed me again, asking for the recipe.  She said she is trying to be better about making her kids healthy dinners and they really enjoyed the meal.  I don't consider any type of chicken alfredo healthy, but include the fact that it was a frozen dinner from Walmart and all health goes out the window.

Now I don't know what to do.  I'm seeing her Monday night and she has asked me to bring the recipe.  I have a really hard time telling her the truth.  Here is how I envision the conversation.

My friend:  Did you bring the recipe?

Me:  It is so easy you don't even need a recipe.  What you do first is get in your car.  Then you start driving in any direction.  It really doesn't matter which direction, because you will eventually see a Walmart.

My Friend:  Walmart?

Me:  Yes!  I figured you would have heard of the store, considering they are on almost every block in America.  All you have to do is go down the family size frozen food section.  It should be somewhere in that aisle.  Probably between the frozen lasagna and the frozen chicken pot pie.  Just pick that up and follow the instructions.  It is really easy.

I don't even want to see the look on her face after I tell her it was a frozen meal.  I'm actually considering Googling "chicken alfredo recipes" and finding one that even remotely looks like the frozen meal and giving it to her.  Then I will just be perpetuating the lie, and maybe it is time to finally come clean.

The adventures of Buddy

My dad offered me a dog named Buddy and I accepted. Not sure why, but there seemed to be good reasons at the time. I just can't remember them. Something about cold and death and Tobit (my dad's current dog) being mean or something. They acquired the dog because it was abandoned at their house. They have looked for the owner for many months with no luck. I have teased my mom that everyone in the county knows when you no longer want a dog, you take it to Ken. and the Carts. will take the dog. I can remember getting at least 3 dogs in my childhood from this method. There was Ice-cube, Patches, and Wayne (we always seemed to have at least 4 dogs at one time). Socks was also a temporary boarder whom we eventually found the original owner; who told my mom she could keep the dog if she wanted.  She didn't.

We first had an 8 hour drive with Buddy.  It went really well except for one rest area stop.  Bryan was trying to take both dogs at the same time with Nadia as his helper.  Nadia was handling Buddy who took off on her and the leash dropped out of her hand. Buddy does not recall.  Thus the chase was on between Buddy and me.  The closer I got the faster he ran away.  When I was finally able to step on the leash and stop him I turn around.  To my surprise about 6 strangers where standing in the parking lot watching me chase the dog.  I just sort of waved at them and went on my way.

Buddy is a cute little Dachshund dog and he is really great with my kids. Nadia is obsessed with him, and have taken up the job of training him.  She also learned something about male versus female.  The first time Buddy rolled over, Nadia took two steps back with her eyes really big and said, "Ma-Ma look at that!  What is it?"

I seriously forgot how much work new dogs entail. I have reminded myself in the last two days that I've had Wazee (my other dog) for about 8 years now. She knows the rules while I've only had Buddy for about 2 days.  I can remember Wazee doing everything that Buddy has done, so everything can be corrected with lots of time and patience.

Buddy has had a very busy two days. She got into Wazee's bed the first night. When Wazee found him she grabbed him by the neck and threw the dog at least 2 feet. I bought Buddy his own bed the next day. Which he has already chewed up.

Buddy is also not house broken. I've only had female dogs in the past.  Female dogs pee on the floor and it is really easy to find and see.  Male dogs pee ON things.  The wall, chair legs, door to go outside, etc.  Pooping is the same for both however, in the most hidden places of the house.  It is the smell that tips you off.

Buddy also likes to be on  things.  The bed, couch, my lap, the kid's couch.  Which actually was pretty cute.

Buddy likes to chew.  So far he has ruined two pillows, one bed I bought him, two books (one being a library book), and an elephant toy. He won't even smell the chew toys I bought him, let alone CHEW them.

Buddy was terrified of stairs at first, but now has mastered the concept.

I was excited for Wazee to have a friend, but she is not enjoying the company as much as I would have hoped.  Outside she is, but once inside it is a whole new world.  This is the closest I could get both of them together.

Arianna Shines

I spent so much time with Nadia when she was an only child. You can tell by her personality that at one time she was an only child. Now that I have two children I rarely spend alone time with either of them. This means that Arianna hardly ever gets one on one time with mom. You can also tell by her personality that she has siblings.

Nadia rarely takes a nap. The other day she was acting fussy so I made her take a nap. I went to check on her during her nap:

When I left she was in a bed and not the dog's mat. She also wasn't wearing her Elmo slippers. I guess sometime during the nap she thought the dog's mat looked more comfortable and her feet were cold.

During her nap I had some alone time with Arianna. She is a completely different child when Nadia isn't around. Older children can talk more, do more, and understand more so they tend to dominate the situation. Here she was the center of attention so she put on the charm.

I'm in my own universe

Tonight I volunteered at the library's book sale. I've been trying to increase my volunteering and it is actually hard to find things to volunteer for with my time schedule. This was a one time thing so it worked at really well. I was to be the cashier at the pre-sale, which means all the book dealers are there. They have had to call the police in the past. Picture movies that make fun of women at wedding dress sales and this is exactly like this, except with book dealers. One older women left because she was elbowed too many times. She was going to go back after the pre-sale.

They had a training session the night before for the cashiers. I was the only volunteer under the age of 50. The training wasn't as in-depth as I would have liked, but you can't train for every situation. I wish I had another night, because I think I would be so much better. I made a few mistakes, but what can I do. During the training the trainer made a comment about how the older volunteers may have a hard time with the equipment, but the younger ones will have a hard time making change (the cash register did not do change and I had to make change in my head). This is actually something I can do fairly well. There was this one time when I was earning money to go Rome with my church. We were selling t-shirts and I had to give change to this guy (lets call him B). After I gave him change, I realized he was hanging out at my table a lot looking a little concerned. I started to panic that I had gave him the wrong change. I quickly did the math again in my head and I realized I had gave him too much change. On the order of $60 too much change (it was a big sale). I didn't say anything to him, but I could see him struggling with it for a few more min. and then he took off. A few months later the man committed suicide. I'm totally not making this up. I always wondered if his guilt from stealing $60 from a church contributed, which in turn was my dumb, technological friendly, calculator needing mind self who also contributed. So now, I know the trick. I only had a problems when people would give me some change, but not the entire thing. For example if the charge as $6.14 and they gave me $6.25. This always stopped me for a second. I also found I gave more dimes than I needed to, instead of using quarters.

After we were done, I rushed out of there and never said good-bye to Mike (my cashier helper). Who I think I annoyed more than anything, because I'm actually a fast worker and he kept getting stern with me. Half way to my car I realized I just took off. I turned around to go find him and say good-bye which I did, but by then I was already rude and took off without saying good-bye. I do things like this all the time. Sometimes it will be hours before I realize I did something completely rude. I don't mean to be rude, I'm just really into my own little universe and it isn't until later when I reviewthe situation that it dawns on me that I forgot common manners. I was in a hurry to get home, because my husband had his Fantasy Football draft to get to and he was already going to be one hour late because of this. As soon as they said to cash out I was out the door (really I almost ran). Then I review and realized I was rude.

If I'm ever rude to you, I really don't intend to be rude. I think I'm just sort of rude, because I'm thinking in my head and not really in the here and now. I don't live in the moment.