Multi-Tasking (006/365)

TIME: 3:20 PM
PLACE: Living room
SUBJECT: Jack

He’s guarding the bottle of change and sucking up all the hot air at the same time.

Salt Lamp (031/365)

TIME: 8:32 PM
PLACE: Living room
SUBJECT: Salt Lamp

DramaQueen brought this home with her.

It’s suppose to boost blood flow, improve sleep, increase levels of serotonin in the brain, and calm allergy or asthma symptoms by releasing negative salt ions when heated.

I’m a bit dubious about those claims, but I must admit, it does look nice.

Holidays Are Done (004/365)

TIME: 9:15 PM
PLACE: Living Room
SUBJECT:  Corner

It is always amazing to me how the whole feeling of the living room changes after I take down the Christmas tree.. 

Calmer.

Cleaner.

For a little while at least.

Caturday (201/365)

TIME: 1:47 PM
PLACE:  The living room
SUBJECT:  Jack

Just relaxing and hanging this weekend.

Umbrella Fort (183/365)

TIME:  10:19 PM
PLACE:  Living room
SUBJECT:  StellaDella

SD constructed an umbrella fort in front of the TV in the living room.  She informed me that her plan is to spend the night sleeping under it.  She looks well prepared.

Needle Avalanche (002/366)

“Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! / Beware the awful avalanche!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American, 19th century Poet, 1807-1882)

TIME:  12:40 PM
PLACE:  Living room
SUBJECT:  Artificial tree “needles”

Whoever said that artificial trees don’t shed was a liar.

A Lion, A Cat & A TV (343/365)

“I want to be a lion
Everybody wants to pass as cats
We all want to be big big stars, but we got different reasons for that”

Counting Crows. "Mr. Jones." August and Everything After. By Adam Duritz and David Bryson. Geffen Records, 1993.

TIME:  10:06 PM
PLACE:  Living room
SUBJECT:  Jack & MGM Lion

MonkeyBoy was just starting to watch a move on his Xbox (James Bond-Tomorrow Never Dies) when Jack decided he needed to lay right in front of the TV.  The MGM lion can’t believe that another cat is usurping his limelight.

TV Togetherness (208/365)

“Let us all bask in television's warm glowing warming glow.”

Homer Simpson, The Simpsons, Treehouse of Horror V-“The Shinning”, Dan Castellaneta, perf. (American Actor and Writer, b.1958)

TIME:  9:28 PM
PLACE:  Living room
SUBJECT:  StellaDella & Oreo watching TV

I believe that they were watching Johnny Test on the Cartoon Network.  That thing that SD is holding across her mouth?  An empty paper towel roll.  The excitement never ceases around here.

Limber (178/365)

“The man is loose, he's limber, and he's ready for action.” ~ Roz Focker

Meet The Fockers. 2004. Universal Pictures. DVD.

TIME:  10:08 PM
PLACE:  Living room
SUBJECT:  Jack

I had my first physical therapy on my wrist this afternoon.  There is a lot of work ahead of me in the next 8 weeks.  I am most definitely not anywhere near as limber as Mr. Jack is – what a showoff.

Exhausted (065/365)

“I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.”

Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Historian and Essayist, leading figure in the Victorian era. 1795-1881)

TIME:  8:09 PM
PLACE:  Living room couch
SUBJECT:  StellaDella

We arrived back home from camp around noon; StellaDella had a bath around 2pm; fell asleep soon thereafter on her bed; woke up around 4pm; got dressed; came downstairs, laid down on the couch and proceeded to go to back to sleep.  She slept through dinner and is still out.  I guess camping did wear her out after all.

Christmas Morning 2010 (359/360)

“The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree:  the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.”

William E. ("Bill") Vaughan, aka Burton Hillis (American columnist and author, 1915–1977)

TIME:  7:37 AM
PLACE:  Living room
SUBJECT:  StellaDella, DramaQueen & MonkeyBoy

Before the present unwrapping carnage occurred, I managed to get the three kids posed in front of the tree with their new Pillow Pets - It’s a Pillow.  It’s a Pet.  It’s a Pillow Pet! – Vendetta the Unicorn, Slick the Penguin and Po the Panda.  HH made breakfast, lunch *and* dinner (my dad came over and ate supper with us) – gotta love that.  Me, I spent the majority of my day setting up and troubleshooting new electronic devices (cell phone, Mp3 player, Xbox Kinect and Nook for the kids and a new Garmin for HH and myself).  Other than that, it was another lazy Christmas Day spent at home.  Merry Christmas!

Project Runway (325/365)

“Fashion can be bought.  Style one must possess.”

Edna Woolman Chase (American, editor in chief of Vogue magazine from 1914-1952, 1877-1957)

TIME:  4:34 PM
PLACE:  Living room
SUBJECT:  StellaDella’s fashion design

Late this afternoon, SD decided that she NEEDED to craft something.  So she grabbed a paper grocery bag and asked me to cut off the bottom, cut 2 holes in the sides for her arms and turn it inside out to hide the printing on it.  She then drew a design on the front and cut fringes - or as she calls them “crumbles” - on the bottom.  She then modeled her creation for me.  I think she has a future in the fashion design industry.

Summer Candles (188/365)

 
“Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it onto future generations.”

George Bernard Shaw (Irish literary Critic, Playwright and Essayist. 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature, 1856-1950)

TIME:  9:47 PM
PLACE:  Living room
SUBJECT:  Candle decoration

I have a round glass tray that I use for seasonal candle displays.  In the summer I use this blue mosaic holder, rocks and shells along with other candles for a summer beach theme.  I lit them tonight because there was a strong wet dog odor in my house ~ not my favorite smell.   We had summer showers late this afternoon and early evening and Oreo got soaked when she went outside to do her business.  Poor doggie, I know she can’t help that she stinks.

Insulators (181/365)

 
Col. Milt: [gesturing towards a pile of books] You read them all?
Bennett Marco: Yeah, they also make great insulation against an enemy attack! But the, uh, truth of the matter is that I'm just interested, you know, in, uh, Principles of Modern Banking and, History of Piracy. [picking up books]  Paintings of Orozco. Modern French Theater. The... Jurisprudential Factor of Mafia Administration. Diseases of Horses and novels of Joyce Cary and... Ethnic Choices of the Arabs. Things like that.

The Manchurian Candidate. Perf. Douglas Henderson and Frank Sinatra. 1962. United Artists.

TIME:  7:49 PM
PLACE:  Living room
SUBJECT: Glass insulators

I picked these glass insulators up at a yard sale last weekend.  These particular ones are fairly common ~ I only paid $1 apiece for them.  I thought that they would look nice sitting next to a window, especially when the sun hits them.

Copper Glow (077/365)

“In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.”

Aaron Rose (American, director, producer, writer, independent curator, artist, b1969)

TIME:  6:09 PM
PLACE:  Living room
SUBJECT:  StellaDella

Today was an ordinary day.  HandsomeHusband went to work, the kids went to school, I went to work, everyone came home, SD, DQ and I went to buy new shoes for SD and DQ, we ate dinner and afterwards the kids watched “The Simpsons.”  Unexciting.  I found something beautiful to photograph though.  SD was sitting on the couch watching the show and paging through MonkeyBoy’s book, “The Encyclopedia of Immaturity, Volume 2," when the sun streamed through the front window, illuminating her hair.  I love how it glows in the early evening light.  Ever since she was born, whenever we have gone out with her, people have stopped us and told us that they love her red hair.  If I had a dollar for each time that has happened, I would be a very rich woman.

Inverted (014/365)

“Much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul.”

Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Moby-Dick (1851), ch. 80.

TIME:  7:23 PM
PLACE:  The living room
SUBJECT: HH on Inversion Table

HandsomeHusband has a bad back.  And lately, it has been causing him some major discomfort.  He visited the chiropractor for an adjustment tonight, then before he went to bed, he stretched out on the inversion table to help decompress his spine.  I feel so bad for him – I wish there was a way I could eliminate his pain for good.

Catapult (011/365)

 
“If you lived in the Dark Ages, and you were a catapult operator, I bet the most common question people would ask is, 'Can't you make it shoot farther?' No. I'm sorry. That's as far as it shoots.”

Jack Handey. *Deeper Thoughts*. New York. Hyperion. 1993.

TIME:  6:29 PM
PLACE:  Living room
SUBJECT:  Catapult

The Webelos (all two of them!) are continuing to work on the Engineering Pin requirements.  Today, we built a catapult using large tongue depressors, a rubber band and plastic spoon.  Then they flung pompoms to see who could get the most into a plastic container.  The directions that were provided by in the Leader’s Handbook weren’t the clearest to follow.  I should have made a prototype to work out all the bugs before the meeting, but I completely forgot that we even HAD a meeting until this morning.  Luckily, I had most of the materials, and with a quick trip to Home Depot before work, I was able to procure what I was missing.  Crisis averted.

Merry Christmas! (359/365)

 
“There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.”

Bombeck, Erma. I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression. New York. Doubleday & Co. 1973.

TIME:  7:48 AM
PLACE:  The living room
SUBJECT:  Christmas tree
(photo taken by HH)

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!  Here at the Sujomi household, we opened presents, HH made a tasty breakfast (and cleaned up!), Grandpa came by to see what Santa brought the kids and we spent the rest of the day playing with new toys and just being lazy.  A perfect Christmas day in my opinion.  Tomorrow, DQ and I are leaving the house “bright and squirrely” to meet my sister, sister-in-law and niece and hit the after Christmas sales.  DQ will be armed with her new phone in case we are separated by the masses.  She can’t wait.

Oh Christmas Tree (333/365)

 
Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. 

Norman Vincent Peale (American, Protestant preacher, author and a progenitor of the theory of "positive thinking", 1898–1993)

TIME:  11:05 PM
PLACE:  The living room
SUBJECT:  Christmas tree lights

Well, I actually DID start decorating for Christmas today.  I was able to get the tree set up at least.  Only the lights are on it for now though.  Ornaments will have to wait until tomorrow.  I have an artificial tree and I put the lights on “old school” – wrapping them from trunk to the tip of each individual branch.  Yes, it is a pain in the rear, but I like a lot of lights on my tree.  I could purchase a pre-lit tree but they just don’t have enough lights on them for me.  Plus I can’t see shelling out money for a new tree when the one I have is still in excellent shape.  I’m cheap frugal that way. 

Do you like this shot?  I used the “fireworks” setting on my camera and moved it in a circular motion while pressing the shutter to take this photo.

Pup Tent (326/365)

And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. "The Day is Done." l. 41-44.  Yale Book of American Verse; ed. by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1912.

TIME:  8:26 PM
PLACE:  The living room
SUBJECT:  Tent & Oreo 

I attempted to clean and organize the dining room and living room today in anticipation of Christmas decorating this coming weekend.  This year, I decided I will begin decorating the day after Thanksgiving instead of putting it off until the week before Christmas.  My holiday spirit has been gone for the past seven years or so and I would like to get it back…for both the kid’s sake & mine.  While hiding putting some things away in the window seat, I found this play tent that my mom had bought for MB when he was about 3 or 4 years old.  I decided to set it up and SD loves it.  She immediately wanted to have a sleep over in it and attempted to camp out in the living room last night.  She ended up crawling into my bed about 3am.  I’ll keep it up until Friday, then it’s decoration time!